Since You've Been Gone...

Great news! Justin comes home today after being gone traveling for work for almost 3 weeks! Woo-hoo! We are so excited to have daddy home! 

Nighttime can get pretty lonely around here when he is gone so I usually keep myself busy with doing lots of projects and crafts that I normally wouldn't do if he were here. Pintrest has proven to be successful in always finding me some projects to do!

I just bought a laminator from Costsco and to put it lightly, I'm pretty much obsessed with it. Love my laminator! If you don't have one, go to Costco right now and buy the amazingly rated Purple Cows Hot/Cold Laminator for $14 and that includes 100 laminating sheets. I know, amazing right?! You won't regret it.

I've been finding all sorts of things to use my laminator for and here are just a few:

I don't know about y'all but when 5:00pm rolls around at our house, tension levels rise, patience wanes, and a certain older child spends most of his time in time out for torturing a certain second child. I call it the bewitching hour. Surely I'm not the only mom out there that goes through this while trying to make a reasonably healthy dinner for my family?? Solution? You bet. I found these amazing Dinner Activity Doodle Mats for free! I printed them out, laminated them of course and watched my children be entertained while I cooked dinner in peace. 

Sorry I didn't take the time to clean them off but they get good use.

You can find the link  here 

 But wait! There's more! If they get tired of the above mentioned activity, I just bust out these awesome lacing cards I printed out for free and the entertainment continues! Here are just a few of the cards I printed out...

I honestly have no idea where I found all these but if you google "free printable lacing cards" a whole bunch will show up and you can pick and choose. I saw the whole set of number cards from Naptime Crafts and she was so nice to send me her template. 

I also found these awesome playdough mats on Pintrest. Again, all free printables. I love people that do all the work for me :)

 And it keeps these cute little hands busy for quite some time!

Another project I did was I made a Matching Game using free Mickey Mouse paint chips from Home Depot. Ethan loves playing this game, and he is really good at it. He may or may not have even beaten me a few times...and I'm too competitive to let him win :) I don't have a picture but I found the idea from here. Free project. Can't get much better than that!

 I also spent forever doing a million Family Home Evenings packets. Awhile back in our ward a group of ladies got together to put together packets for family night. They are awesome packets complete with lessons, games, recipes for snacks, etc. They are all very creative and well thought out! Some of the titles include: Follow the Prophet, Follow in His Footsteps, Noah's Ark, The Atonement and Charity. So I borrowed some from my neighbor who was part of the group and made some using her packets. It really did take forever but I counted it as one of my Personal Progress projects and now we have cute, fun, meaningful FHE lessons all ready to go!

Because I have also been on an organization kick, I bought this tub at Wal-Mart for $4 that hold all these projects that are organized in these bradded pouches. I keep them in a cupboard in my kitchen for easy access.

I've also made a Yoga Bag for my newly bought yoga mat! No more ghetto towel for Ab time! I used the Amy Butler Pattern and since this was my first pattern to follow it pretty much took me about 10 times longer than it should have to finish. 

But despite the long learning process (everyone has to learn right?!), I'm pretty proud of myself for how it turned out! There are even super cute pockets around the bag to hold cell phone, keys, etc. Super convenient!!

Well, I think that's all the projects for now! I hope you found some good ideas!