Another update on the wine cork trees?

Earlier I decided to try and paint one of my trees to see if I liked it.  The original pin had them painted and decorated but I wasn't sure I wanted to do that.  Well then someone on Freecycle gave me 200 plastic white wine corks--ie not stained red of any type.  ;)  My first step was to try and make a tree stick together with all plastic corks--I wasn't even sure it would work.  It did stay together and today I painted a few of the corks---I really like the original wine stained look better.  It looks more authentic.  Hopefully I can get more red wine stained corks so I can make more trees!

UPDATE on my wine cork Christmas trees

Since I failed at sawing branches to make the stumps I was able to find something suitable at Michaels.  It finishes them off nicely.  I saw some tiny presents there too (they are actually small ornaments) and I think I will get some to place under the tree when I put them out for Christmas.

Two of the small trees and two of the large trees on their stands

One of the small trees up close

Who did he learn these moves from????

At football last week they had a dance off---and this was Travis' turn.  I have no clue where he learned this....

Some GREAT football pictures

I started a Shutterfly team sharing site for Travis' football team back in August.  I did this for a few reasons--sharing information, schedules, contact info--but mainly so people could share pictures!  One of the moms has a great camera and has been religiously posting pictures on the site.  Here are a few of Travis that I have downloaded--he is #71.

!st game run on

Kick off

Travis is in the upper left hand corner blocking

His pants for the 1st game were falling down the whole time

Hugging a kid from the other team at the top--lol

Blocking in the middle

Travis has the ball!

He still has the ball!

Coach telling Travis that he had a good play

Wine cork Christmas trees

Last year sometime I found this great idea on Pinterest.  (shocking I know)  At the time I had a very small wine cork collection but the other day I decided to see how many I had.  After counting them I found that I had 40 corks---enough to make 2 of these Christmas trees.  Well that's a start.  So I started the project.  The site shows you how to place them but it's really very easy.  4 on the bottom stuck together with hot glue like a raft, then 5 on top of that, then 4, then 3, then 2 and then 1!  Seriously I was able to glue together two trees in about 20 minutes.  Remember to disperse your red wine stained ones so it gives the illusion of ornaments.  The original pin says to paint some of the ends and decorate it but I think I like it like it is.  This is how they looked before the final stump and star were glued on.

I spent a good amount of time sawing pieces of wood to make the tree stumps.......well clearly I can't saw things even remotely straight.  All 4 pieces were lopsided.  :(  I will try to find something similar at Michael's. But here are the trees with the silver glitter stars that I found today.

Here are the three trees I just made this afternoon--a few people saw my post on freecycle (needing wine corks for a craft).  They look even better than the original 2 trees and I have enough corks to make 3 more---for a total of 8 trees!

Brody actually took a nap today so instead of taking a shower or folding laundry I decided to make an even BIGGER wine cork Christmas tree!  Here is it with the 3 small trees for comparison.  Now I can make one more small tree with corks leftover or try to get more corks.....oh freecycle........

Brody spells cat

In this video you will see Brody spelling the word "cat" and meowing.  :)  He loves to spell with these flash cards.  In the beginning of the video he says "cheese" because he thinks I am taking his picture.  lol

Travis had a hat trick but his team lost :(

This season Travis is on the "gray" team and they have decided to be called the "Wolves".  For the 1st game of the season they played the black team.  Travis scored 3 goals but his team ended up losing 20-14.  :(  Since they were on the side of the ice facing us it was very hard to keep track of where Travis was on the ice--he is #30 and one of biggest kids on the team (if not the biggest).  I hope to get a picture of him close up in his gear at the next game but who knows if I will remember......lol.

In this picture Travis is playing defense on the right

Cougars 25 --Aztecs 12

Somehow I am very behind and I am just getting around to last Saturday's football game.    The team traveled to Purcellville to play the Purcellville Aztecs.  Before the game we knew they were a tough team and were 2-0.  The game started out AWESOME for the Cougars--went up 12-0 almost instantaneously.  Then they threw a long pass which the kid caught to make it 12-6.  A few minutes later they scored again and it was 12-12.  Wait.....what?  A few quarters, a few fumbles and interceptions later and the Cougars won the game 25-12 and are now 2-1!  I didn't get that many pictures since their stands were super low and hard to really see anything......

Travis was one of the team captains--this is the coin toss:

The team lining up getting ready to go on the field

Grammy and Brody

Team huddle

Travis on a break ;)

A play--too bad Travis is lined up on the other side

25

That's how many Christmas ornaments I got done this week. I need to buy some beer for Evan this week so I can make more!  lol   In case you forgot I got the ideas from Pinterest.  ;)  You can find the original site for the snowman ornaments here.  The scrabble ornaments were also found on Pinterest but they were being sold/linked through Etsy for $7.50 each!  These are both super easy to make!

All lined up and ready to be stored until Christmas!

Ready for their close ups!

Cutest turtle ever

About a week ago Brody decided he wanted to start wearing his back pack to the bus stop.  It's HUGE on him and makes him look like a turtle.  Lucky for him it makes him the cutest turtle ever.  :)

What Brody does......

during pre-game warm ups.  We have to be at the field 75 minutes before the games so the kids can warm up.  Normally this means we take two cars and one person brings Travis to the field and the other brings Brody closer to the actual game time.  This past weekend however the game was out in Purcellville which is about 45 minutes away from our house so we all took one car.  In the very beginning of the warm ups one of the coaches asked me to find a place to charge up the video camera that they use for game footage/review.  we have an inverter in our car so off Brody and I went.  This is how he passed the 45 minutes waiting to charge up the camera.  ;)

He found some "munchkins" in the front seat and helped himself

Nom nom nom

Then he watched a little YouTube in Travis' seat.  He would grim at me and say "Travis' seat".  :)

"I fall down"

Very cute videos of Brody falling down on purpose over and over again.  I love to hear him talk.  :)

Brody and Miss Laura

Brody has speech therapy built into his week at school---he's supposed to get one hour a week and it's broken up into 20 minute sessions three days of his week.  Each Thursday I have gotten a picture of Brody during speech therapy and a note from the therapist.  Getting these pictures and notes enforces how much these people love their jobs.  I love seeing him in the school environment--he has transitioned to school so much better than I ever thought he would!

A splash of color

As I mentioned earlier in the week I was looking to add some color to the kitchen to tie in the turkey plates that were my great-great grandmothers (and they were hanging in my grandmothers kitchen until she died this past spring).  I was having a tough time--nothing at Bed Bath and Beyond, Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn, Chefscatalog.com, Amazon.....well you get the idea.  Nothing was even close to the right color.

Then I stumbled upon some pieces on Amazon from Le Creuset that looked like the RIGHT color!  The only problem was no one had anything other than the utensil crock.  :(  So on a whim yesterday I called the outlet in Leesburg and found that they had the color--the regular stores weren't carrying it anymore and a lot of the pieces were 40% off!  PLUS they had canisters---WOOHOO!  I picked them up today after Brody got off the bus and I love them---the color is perfect--like it was made for those plates.  It's a great splash of color. :)

Old kitchen canisters for flour and sugar--plain white

New blue canisters and utensil holder=splash of color and ties in the plates

A close up-there was a larger one too but I wasn't sure what I would store in it!  Bread?  lol

Close up--I am thinking of getting rid of that spice rack

A close up of the turkey plates!  I have 6 in total--two on the side of each cabinet over the sink and two up above the sink

Bruiser

Travis had a GREAT game on Saturday.  He helped his team to a 26-6 victory over the Chargers from Purcellville.  Towards the end of the game he had a collision with um.....4 other kids?  And here are the remnants of that collision.  He was very proud--called it "the mark of a real football player".  As long as a bruise is the worst injury I see all season--I will be happy.  :)

About 2 hours after it happened--getting dressed for hockey--his elbow pads went right around it

Yesterday before football practice-making some type of crazy game face  ;)

What a difference......

We've lived in this house for 10 years and I have pretty much always hated the white cabinets.  I prefer darker ones but mostly because the white ones SHOW EVERYTHING!  Since I couldn't easily and inexpensively change the color of the cabinets I decided to change the color of the hardware.  Last year my parents had their kitchen remodeled and came across the spare knobs from their old cabinets (that they had put on not long before the renovation).  They gave me these extra ones forever ago and I hadn't thought about trying them until now.......

Old and new

Old and new from far away

All new

I had to buy 46 of them but thankfully Lowes stilled carried the color etc.  I have since gotten a paper towel holder that is about the same color and changed the pantry door knob to the same color as well.  Next up are a new utensil holder (that should arrive tomorrow) to pull in the blue from the turkey plates on the wall and hopefully some new flour and sugar containers in the same blue to replace the white ones that are next to the bananas on the counter.

Brody is an Oompa Loompa

We now practice in the outfield of a baseball field.....which means Brody plays in the dirt almost the whole time.  Yesterday he was seriously ORANGE from all of the dirt.  He thought it was hilarious to run and then fall on purpose and say "fell down".  I didn't find it as funny since that meant he needed a bath when we got home.  :)

Cougars vs Dolphins

Saturday was Travis' 1st game of the season.  Unfortunately the Cougars lost 12-0 but the kids all seemed to  have a good time playing!  Not too many pictures since my camera isn't good enough to get pics from super far away.....and every time I thought to make a video Travis was on the opposite side of the field!  lol

Huddle up!  (Travis is #71)

National Anthem

This is what Brody did about 90% of the time---up and down

Happy boy

Getting fired up

On the move

Kick off

Annabelle is taking Brody somewhere.....

Evan, Travis and Grampa after the game

Look what I did today!

Someone asked me the other day if Brody got a daily progress report from school.  I said no because last week we didn't get anything.....well today we got one!  I learned that he ate his snack and most of his lunch and that he was the music helper today.  ;)  I said to him "Brody were you the music helper today?" and he got a huge smile on his face and said "music helper" in his Brody language.

I think this preschool program is already doing wonders for him!  He probably would be doing well in a traditional preschool as well but this way he is getting a longer school day and more days than a traditional 2 year old program.  Plus they do his speech therapy there which is a huge bonus.  He seems to really love it and is already talking more so I call it a WIN!