Happy Birthday, Jax!

Tomorrow is my nephew's birthday. He will be two. I was trying to decide what to make him for his birthday and I thought what two year old doesn't like matchbox cars? So, I decided to make him a car mat. I got into my felt stash and went to work. I made him a little neighborhood where I hand stitched the names of his cousins on each house. I made one of these car mats before for a good friend's son, but hand stitched everything. This time I used my sewing machine to put everything together once I had it cut out. It was so nice to have the sewing time cut by hours :). I took the girls to Jaxon's birthday party today. They made new friends at Build-a-Bear and had a blast hanging out with their cousins.

Jax's neighborhood.
He can park the cars in each house b/c I left one side open on each house.

It folds up nicely so he can take it with him.

The birthday boy! :)

Cousins and cupcakes

Rose just likes the icing

Janessa

We Survived!

After a crazy week with lots of preparation and stress on my part, we made it through our first day of school. It was a big deal this year because now all the Jannarone girls are at the same school. I love it! Overall, it was a great day. I wanted to share some of the fun stuff I made this week and I couldn't resist adding some pictures of the two most adorable Bobcats at our school! :)

Every year I try to make something new for my students to use to mark their spot at Circle Time. This year I continued on with my current felt obsession and used some school fabric I had in my stash to make these super cute mats. I sewed vinyl on top the finished product to protect it so it will last.

We got a great deal on the girls' backpacks this year. Office Depot had a deal where you spent $20 and got a free backpack. They were a little plain so I had the girls choose a fabric they liked from my stash and added a little something. I think they are so cute! 

Can't believe my baby is all grown up!

Can't believe I have a kindergartner! She was so excited this morning.

Ready for school- from our cute little heads to our Twinkle Toes! :)

Janessa

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go!

I wish I could say I was just singing the lyrics to a song in one of my favorite Disney movies, however, that's not the case this week. I am back to work! Don't get me wrong, I love what I do, but I'm already missing cuddle times in the mornings and staying in our PJ's until 10:00 am. I guess we'll just have to make sure we make that a Saturday tradition :) In honor of going back to school I thought I'd share one of my favorite projects from this summer. My parents both work for the school system too. My mom teaches PE so for her birthday I made her a clipboard. I bought a wooden clipboard from Office Depot, got out my acrylic paints and went to work. I was so excited how easy it was, and I was very pleased with the outcome. I planning to make one for myself too, but probably a different design.

Go Steelers!



Janessa

Time Flies!

Tomorrow marks the last official day of my summer vacation. I have to report back to work on Monday morning. Fortunately, God has blessed with with a job I absolutely love so I don't dread going back to work too much. However, I cherish the time I get to spend at home with my girls. I have had a great time with them this summer. They have one more week so our countdown will continue through next week. They are very excited every morning (usually earlier than I would prefer) to go and pull a loop off our chain to see what our adventure of the day will be. We've been busy this week. Don't worry! I took lots of pictures to share :)

Tuesday was "Do a craft project" day in our countdown. The teacher in me always likes to include literacy in most of our crafts so we read an all time favorite book of ours Messy Meals by Betsy Franco. We've read it so many times it is literally held together with Scotch tape. The girls love it! They decided to make paper pizzas after we read, and Belle had paper meatballs between her toes just like the girl in the story.

Wednesday gave us a lesson in flexibility and creativity. We were supposed to watch a movie at the theater, but when it was time to leave there was a major thunderstorm complete with super scary lightening, so we decided to watch Beauty and the Beast, pop some popcorn,turn out all the lights and enjoy a movie at home.

We did venture out after the storm to Michael's. Not much can keep me out of that store :). We found some Do-a-Dots markers and the girls had fun practicing making the letters in their names with the dots. I love how much you can do with those delightful little markers!

Today was an exciting day. It was haircut day for all the girls in our house. Belle has been talking about this for weeks. Rose is not too keen on getting her hair cut, but bravely informed Miss Jeanne today that she would NOT cry. I adore my hairdresser! She is great with the girls. For fun, we decided to do before and after shots:

Gotta love it when you ask a 3 year old to smile and this is what you get!

Belle got ahold of the camera and snuck some shots.

She was so into having her picture taken today.

It doesn't look much different here,
but there was about three inches of curls left on the floor.
She was so happy her hair is short just like Aunt Bird's.

Not much difference in mine except those grays that were peeking through my part are now just a bad memory.

Sorry for such a long post, but like a said- we've been busy! :)

Janessa

The Countdown Continues

Silly Rose had a turn to pull off loop 16 which sent us to the park.

My little cowgirl.

I think this is what Tyra Banks calls FIERCE :)



Day 15: Swimming! Belle loves swimming at Mimi's house.
 Especially because it's the only place I let her wear her boo-kini as she calls it :)



Bird is teaching Belle how to dive into the deep end.
She hasn't quite got the hang of it and usually ends up in a somewhat graceful belly flop.

Rose prefers to make sure everyone gets wet, whether they are in the pool or not :)

As you can see, we are having a great time with the Countdown. It's actually been more fun than I expected. We may have to make a tradition out of this one! :)

Janessa

Just A Little Bit of Character

The school I work at was named a National School of Character a few years ago. We focus a lot on encouraging our students to recognize and practice having good character. We do this in a variety of ways, one being our character word of the month. Each month has an assigned word that we focus on. The word for August is RESPECT. I'm a jeans and t-shirt gal to the core, especially since I teach pre-k and end up sitting on the floor most of the day. So... I decided this year I'm going to incorporate our character word of the month into my wardrobe. I'm making a new shirt for each month. I'm also a cheese ball so I guarantee the days I wear this shirt my class will be rocking out to "R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me!"

We're the Bobcats so I have to add the PAW, of course! :)

 Today was Day 17 on our Countdown to School. Belle was super excited to pull off the first loop which read "Go out to breakfast". Cracker Barrel was calling our name so we enjoyed a delicious breakfast. As an added bonus, it's Saturday so Daddy got to come along too.Can't wait to see what Day 16 will bring! :)

The Countdown Begins

My sweet Belle starts kindergarten in a few short weeks (17 days to be exact). She is so excited! She has been in a pre-k program at our school and was ready to start kindergarten the day after her Moving Up ceremony. She has been asking just about everyday this summer, "Mommy, do I get to go to kindergarten tomorrow?" This is an exciting time for Rose too because she will start in the pre-k program at our school. So... I decided to make a countdown. I got together some scrapbook paper, some safety scissors for the girls, a marker for me and some tape. The girls cut strips from the scrapbook paper and we wrote fun activities on each strip. Then they helped me tape the strips together to make a paper chain. Each day we will take a loop off the chain and do the activity described. We hung it up in their room. They are both super excited about it! I, on the other hand, am feeling a little depressed that in just 17 short days my baby will be a real live kindergartner. Prayers are appreciated! :)

Shirt Re-do

I've had this shirt hanging in my closet for the longest time that I never wear anymore. I looked at it a few months ago and thought... hmmm... I think that would make a cute purse. So last night I finally got out my sewing machine and scissors and went to work. Now, I am one of those people who mostly sews by trial and error (sometimes more error than I'd like to admit). I cut and sewed and then cut and re-sewed, took out some stitches and fixed a little here and a little there and FINALLY came up with what I think is a pretty cute purse.

I started with this...

...and ended up with this

I even wore black today so I could carry it today :)

This is what it looks like on the inside. I found a bright red fabric in my stash that gave it that needed pop of color for the inside. Then I used some of the scraps from the shirt to make a pocket.

I was pretty pleased with the final product. I got so excited I dragged my sister to the thrift store today looking for shirts with interesting prints to make purses out of. I bought a few so I should have some more fun projects to share soon! :)

Janessa