My green front door

 So about two years ago we bought a lot right next door to the home we were renting with plans to build a new home.  About six months later we actually got moving and started construction on our lot.  It was BEYOND overwhelming...mostly because I really didn't know what I wanted and there were so many choices.

Although I was really in over my head, there were a few things that I knew I wanted...basically a white kitchen with blue subway tile, a dark navy blue exterior on the house, and a bright, fun door!  My husband was with me on everything...except for that bright fun door ;)  It took some serious compromising to avoid another plain white door, but I finally got him to give!  (Just in case your are wondering, I had to give in to the ridiculously big shower he wanted that I thought was a total waste of space.  Now I absolutely love it so it actually worked out all right for me ;)

I remember posting the paint swatch I wanted to use on FB and asking all my friends what they thought.  Everyone seemed to love it, and really...I had already make up my mind and was just looking for some positive reinforcement ;)  For YEARS now I have been loving the blue and green combo, so I figured a funky lime-y, apple-y green would be a great compliment to my dark blue exterior.

Honestly, it turned out even better than I imagined!  I love how it brightens up my entryway and shows off a little bit of our family's crazy personality too.

I have also loved how easy it has been to decorate for the different seasons.  I just threw this wreath together a few nights ago with some hydrangeas, floral sprays, and ribbon from Hobby Lobby.  It took under 10 minutes to glue everything together and I love the finished product. 

According to Pinterest a green front door evokes feelings of peace, health and growth.  These are ALL feelings we strive for in our crazy, loud, and exciting family of 7...especially the peace part ;)

So what do you think about the painted front door trend?  Do you have a fun front door, or do you prefer something a little more classic?  Thanks for checking us out today and have a lovely Wednesday!

Cinco de Mayo crafts {Homemade Maracas and Eye of God Craft}

Happy Cinco de Mayo!  I know its last minute, but thats how we roll around here ;)  Today we are sharing two really fun and simple crafts your kids will love...young and old!

First up are these adorable Pinterest-inspired Homemade Maracas!  I saw a pin HERE and knew these needed to be a part of our celebration.

These maracas are easy, the kids can do them mostly by themselves, and they will love playing with them all day long. To get started you need some plastic spoons, plastic eggs, rice, and washi tape.

All you do is fill up your eggs with rice, and then place two spoons around your egg.

Then use your washi tape to secure your egg and you are ready for the best part...

To SHAKE IT!!

 

(And yes, this is how we roll.  Dirty shirt, no pants and a crumb-covered floor ;) 

The next craft we did was creating Eye of God's.  My older girls really loved these, in fact they spent an hour making them with their friends last night...after they had worked on them for an hour after school :)

All you need for this craft is popsicle sticks, tape or glue and yarn...easy-peasy!  To make them as colorful as possible I used multi-colored yarn and colored popsicle sticks. 

To show my kids how to wrap the yarn around your sticks to make this cool design we watched THIS tutorial, they explained it all beautifully.

I hope these gave you some fun, last-minute ideas and ways to enjoy your little ones today!  Thanks so much for checking out Blue Skies Ahead!

Salty AND Sweet Cinco de Mayo Snacks!

Happy Monday everyone!  We had quite the eventful weekend.  Let me just say it involved a two-year old plugging the tub and leaving it running for HOURS, and a disaster clean up crew ;)  Even though there is lots of damage, I am so incredibly grateful no one was hurt...and that we have homeowners insurance ;)

On a happier note, today we are sharing some tasty Cinco de Mayo snacks you can easily whip up to satisfy your sweet tooth OR you craving for something salty!

First up we have our Salty Cinco de Mayo snack.  All we did for this bad boy was layer salsa, sour cream, and avocado in a clear cup with some tortilla chips on the side.  Its a fun chance to teach your kids about the Mexican flag, and the perfect after school snack.

I would choose a salty snack EVERY single time over sweet...but I can't say the same for my kids ;)  The sweet version of our snack is just sliced strawberries, then a layer of whipped cream, topped off with a layer of halved green grapes.

The kids gobbled this right up along with their breakfast this morning, it would make a great side dish or dessert for your Cinco de Mayo celebrations tomorrow too :)

Does your family celebrate Cinco de Mayo?  If so, I would LOVE to hear your favorite traditions!  Have a great day!

Cinco de Mayo Tissue Paper Craft

So here we are again!  After a 4 month blogging hiatus I really thought we had put this whole blogging thing on the shelf, but then my kiddos changed my mind.  The other night we were looking for a recipe on the blog and we ended up spending over an hour pouring over past posts and remembering SO many fun things we have done together.  I realized what a blessing this blog has been, even if for NO other reason than I have preserved some wonderful memories I have had the chance to share with my kids.  

So there you have it!  I hope to be able to share with you just a tidbit of our lives, things we do that add a little bit of joy or laughter into the sometimes mundane world of a stay-at-home-mom.  There are good days, and there are bad days...but this blog is dedicated to focusing on the good, even with its imperfections and challenges!

Next week we are going to be doing a few simple things to celebrate and learn about Cinco de Mayo, so I thought today would be the perfect opportunity to make a craft we could display while we do all our activities, a Cinco de Mayo Tissue Paper Craft!

This craft was great fun for the kids, and took about 5 minutes of prep from me :)  All you need to make your own are a bunch of different colored tissue paper, some glue, and a 5 template cut out.

I just googled printable 5 template and then printed and cut them out for my kids.   

Once you have your supplies ready to go, let your kids go CRAZY ripping their tissue paper into pieces...my kids enjoyed this part.  Especially my kindergartner...what is it about ripping up papers and 6 year old boys?!  At least this time it wasn't one of my 9 year olds song lyrics or 7 year olds drawings.  Yeah, it happens a lot at this house ;) 

Once you have a good pile of tissue paper, you just spread glue around your 5 and squash those tissue paper slips down until your 5 is FULL of tissue paper. 

Did I mention this was a messy craft?  Well...it is :)  Luckily my kids still think sweeping is a novelty and something quite fun to do.

The kids loved the finished product and said they looked like number pinatas.  I thought after how cute it would be do some in the colors of the Mexican flag, we may have to make a few more later ;)  We hung them up in our family study and can't wait to enjoy them as we continue with Cinco de Mayo fun into next week!

Thank you so much for stopping by.  I have had so many wonderful comments, followers and friends over the years of blogging, it has truly been a wonderful experience for me.  I love sharing and learning from others as we navigate this crazy and wonderful stage of life...have a wonderful weekend friends!

January's Service Project: Mini-craft Bags for Children's Hospital {Serving with young children}

 

 

 

 

Today we wanted to share with you a really fun service project that we put together last night!  It is always kind of hard to find something that our whole family can participate in, and also something that the kids can really get passionate about...this service project was fun, simple and the kids loved every minute of it.

 

A while back one of our sweet nephews had an accident and ended up at Primary Children's Hospital.  It was pretty scary for a while, and we were just in awe of the amazing people that took care of him.  When we went to visit we were able to go to this amazing craft/playroom they have for patients and visitors.  Aside from all the really cool, fun toys they had an amazing arts and crafts area.  My kids are STILL talking about the silly putty they made there :)  I was really touched and asked the volunteer there if they accepted donations.  She told me the majority of what they are able to provide comes from donations, and I have been thinking about that ever since! 

 

I finally decided to get my bum in gear, so for our Family Home Evening last night we put together these simple, mini-craft bags to donate to the children's hospital.

 

 

The fun thing about this service project was the kids got to make all the crafts and then assemble all the different pieces in bags.  After that I made instructions that we printed out and stapled to each bag.  We made about 10 bags of each of the 3 crafts, and we were able to stay under $15, also using supplies we had on hand, for the entire project!

 

 

 

These are most of the supplies we used to make our 3 fun crafts!

 

For our Beaded Hearts we just used red and white pipe cleaners with white, red, and clear pony beads.  Print out the above instruction sheet and you are good to go!

 

 

 Our heart chain craft was really simple as well, all you need for this one is strips of red, white, and pink construction paper and a stapler :)

 

 

Finally, my kids favorite, were the Love Bugs we made :)  I find the inspiration for these HERE, and I think they are just adorable!  For these you need clothespins, poms in pink and red, googly eyes, and pipe cleaners. 

 

Now we have our craft bags ready to go and we will be delivering them to Primary Children's tomorrow night!  If you are interested in doing something for Primary's too feel free to check out the information HERE...there are some great ideas and things that CANNOT be donated as well.

 

Thank you so much for stopping by today...and please share!  What are some of your favorite service ideas for families with young kids??

Johnson Family Theme 2015!

Hello, hello!  I am so happy to finally be getting another blog post up :)  It seems like no matter how good my intentions are, I just cannot seem to find the time to sit down for a few minutes and compose a few scattered thoughts into a blog post.  However, as soon as I do, I remember how much I enjoy this little place of mine to share a few rambling thoughts and pieces of our lives. 

Today I wanted to share with you what we have chosen to be our Johnson Family Theme of 2015!  (Doesn't that have a nice ring to it?;)

Deciding on a theme turned out to be a really cool experience for my husband and I.  I mentioned that I wanted to pick a theme, and asked him to think and pray about what he thought our family needed this year.  I told him I would do the same, and we went on our separate ways for the day.  That night, before bed, I asked him if he had any ideas that he felt strongly about.  He said that one thing kept coming back to him, that we needed to teach our kids more about SERVICE, and the hymn Because I Have Been Given Much.  The interesting thing was, I had been having similar thoughts, about service but also about different types of giving as well.  I kept having a scripture come to me, where King Lamoni's Father is praying to Heavenly Father in the Book of Mormon and he says "I would give away my sins to know Thee".  From our two thoughts and the guidance of the Spirit we came up with our theme:

 

I just LOVE this theme!  In the short week that we have shared this with our kids we have already seen some great things and small blessing every single day.

 

We introduced our theme on Monday night for Family Home Evening, and did a fun activity to go along with it. 

 

I decided we needed simple ways to help the kids serve in little ways every, single day.  To help them get in that habit, we created a Simple Service Jar! 

 

 

 

All we did was tape this printable around a mason jar and fill it will slips of paper.  On every slip we wrote small, simple acts of service we can do for one another.  They were anything from giving 3 compliments that day to helping mom with the baby while she makes dinner.  Shoveling a neighbors driveway to writing letters to missionaries from our family and ward.  The whole point of this jar to help the kids see that serving can become a way of life, that a little bit of effort on our part can greatly bless the lives of others. 

 

 

I am happy to say we have already pulled 4 or 5 papers out of our service jar when the kids are bored or grumpy, and it really is amazing how doing something kind for someone else can change the attitude and spirit in our home! 

 

Going along with our theme of Giving this year we will be doing monthly service projects and as many other things as I can possibly think of.  Hopefully I will be on top of it enough to share some of those things here ;)  Thank you so much for stopping by and please share: do you do a family theme in your home?  If so...what is your family theme for 2015?!

Primary Balloon Birthday Gifts

 
Happy Monday everyone!  I am still lucky enough to get to serve in our wards Primary as chorister, and we did something new for birthdays I thought I would share today!  These turned out so cute, and when we did them for the first time yesterday the kids seemed to really love them.

I actually saw this cute idea HERE, but I made my own balloon printables to include lyrics from our favorite Primary birthday song.  Once I had my balloons printed and cut out I just taped them to the top of a silly straw and they were ready to go!

 

I just went to my local dollar store and was able to get a six pack of silly straws for $1, not too shabby!  In our ward we also have the kids show their balloon to the bishop after church and he gives them a treat as well. 

 

Feel free to right-click, copy and print away with these balloons and make some Primary Balloon Birthday Gifts of your own! :)