Gifts finished just in time

So I started these stockings in December of 2013 as Chloe was just an infant.  I didn't finish them then, and we used random stockings that year.  Then 2014 came and went and we used unfinished stockings.  That brings us up to Christmas Eve 2015 I decide it's time to actually finish them.  I went to my mom's house as she's making Christmas Eve dinner (not the best time I know) and beg for help.   She, being the amazing, wonderful, loving person that she is, finished the machine sewing of the cuffs so all I had to do was the hand sewing while they were inside out and then they were done.  Whew!  Next year we'll have one more to add to the mix, but if I wait until the last second it might not get done for a few years :)

 Another project I worked on and finished are these cute aprons for the kids.  I had planned on making two for each of them and have the fabric to do so, but ran out of time and decided one was plenty for now.  They're both reversible, which I love.  I didn't follow a pattern, I halfway used a child's apron from my childhood and one from Home Depot to get the rough idea.  They are in no way perfect, but the kids love them so that's what matters.

I also finished tying knots in a truck blanket for Connor's bed.  I just need to sew the sides and that will be done and I can start working on a blanket for Chloe's big girl bed.

I have Peter home for the week, so we're tackling some of the bigger projects on our to do list.  Mainly turning our pink crafty room into Chloe's new room.   Buying closet organizers and installing in Chloe's new closet and ordering a mattress and box spring for her big girl bed that my mom is sanding and repainting from my childhood.

I have been in a real nesting mood lately as I've cleaned and organized the shelves in the play room closet and have been organizing clothes bins.  I organized my closet and found missing gifts for Peter's dad, father's day gifts we made last year for my dad and Peter, two new church outfits for Connor and some gifts for Peter's brothers.  I either need to stop buying gifts months in advance, or stop hiding them in my closet as I forget about them.  Then on the other hand part of our closet will hold our craft supplies now, so perhaps it'll be harder to hide/lose items now.

October and November

So I'm a little behind in updating the blog...

Here's October:

 Showing off our cute jammies.  Connor and Chloe received these same jammies last year from Abbie, but they were too small for this year, so Mommy found them on sale at Carters and bought some more.  The kids were excited to wear them.

 We went to this fun pumpkin patch.  This is a goat maze.

 The kids each got to ride a pony.

 And pick out their own pumpkin

 Connor also went to a pumpkin patch with his class for a field trip.  Mommy got to go along too.

 Connor was proud of his white pumpkin.

 We also went to a Halloween carnival at school.  Connor wanted to be a garbage man for Halloween.  I don't know what garbage men wear, so we gave him a construction hat, vest and a garbage bag and he was happy.

In November:
Connor's school had their annual Walk-a-thon.  Connor enjoyed running all of his laps.

 I think this was the cool down lap

 For Thanksgiving we drove to Utah this year.  We stayed with Emily and Drew again and their two cute kiddos Colby and Abby.  The kids had a blast playing together and Connor keeps asking when are we going to go back to Colby's house.  While there, we were invited to an ice cream party, but then it started to snow.

About an hour or two after the snow started, the front yard looked like this:

Connor was so excited, we went outside and watched the snow fall.  Connor exclaims, "I've never seen snow fall from the sky before."  He's only seen snow already on the ground or manmade snow, so this was pretty exciting.  We skipped out on going to the ice cream party and made snowmen instead.  Emily had kept all of her kids' snow gear, so she was able to find something to fit Connor and Chloe so they could go play in the snow.  We did not pack any snow gear as it has never snowed in the years that we have visited for Thanksgiving.  We were happy to have warm snow gear to borrow for the kids.

After building some pretty cool snowmen, the kids eventually came inside and we all had hot chocolate and then got ready for bed.

On one of the days we went to the Museum of Natural Curiosity with Emily and her kids, and Amy and her kids.  The kids had a blast and didn't want to go home.  On another day we went to the Treehouse were Connor built this cool arch.  We took Colby with us and the boys wandered around for quite some time picking out their favorite places to be.  Colby played in a school house for a long time.  Connor played in a diner and with these blocks.  Chloe went everywhere!  She finally held still playing with a grocery area with foods, in the diner and in this block area were Legos she enjoyed building.

Look who made two arches with Daddy's help...they were pretty tall.

The kids also did a cute craft-they made a pilgrim and Indian.  Connor brought his home and then promptly wrapped them up.  He said they were my Christmas present.

Chloe loved the dinosaur exhibit.  She had to ride them.

I think this was at the Museum of Natural Curiosity.  Chloe loved the climbing areas.

 On one of the days we went and visited Uncle Blaine's cows.  I believe the two on the left are Blaine's cows and the two on the right are uncle Brent's cows.  The smallest calf was born in early November and the momma was very protective.  Blaine was out feeding the cows so they let Peter and the kids watch relatively close. 

 For Thanksgiving we always rent a church gym and get together potluck style with all the families.  This year we were in charge of bringing fruit.  We made two cute turkey fruit platters and a fruit salad.  We found out that cantaloupe, honeydew and watermelon are not to be bought in November here.  The watermelon and cantaloupe went straight into the trash.  The honeydew didn't have much taste, but it wasn't bad, so we kept it.

 On the day after Thanksgiving we went to another church and had a big Oktoberfest party.  Connor and Chloe got in on the dancing.

 Connor even tried his hand at hammering a nail into a piece of wood.

We had a great time as we always do, but after a week of hanging out with family it was time to go home.

Connor and Chloe are getting a little sister

Well most of you who read this already know we have another little bun in the oven.  But for those who don't live near here or talk to us often...Today we found out we're having another girl.  Everything in the baby looks good, but I have to get a more detailed ultrasound done soon to check on something in the uterus...though I've been told not to worry about it yet, it probably isn't a big deal (gosh that was so comforting). 

I was pretty sure this one was going to be a girl.  This pregnancy has so far been identical to Chloe's...Perfect!  I haven't been sick much (puked twice).  I was tested at 12 weeks for the 1 hour glucose test (lucky me I get to do it super early and more often since I had gestational diabetes with Connor).  I have never passed the 1 hour test before, and I passed it!  I was shocked!  I go back in between 24 and 28 weeks to test again, which puts me before Thanksgiving...arg! 

Baby girl is due February 16, 2016

The Best Birthday

The original birthday dinner plan was to go out to eat at Souplantation, which happens to be my favorite place and I knew we could find something that everyone would eat there.  However, when we got home, Connor started setting the kids' picnic table with one of his blankets, plates, forks and cups.  He said he wanted to make me birthday dinner.  I thought that sounded great.  So Connor made Eggo waffles, scrambled eggs (with daddy), and got out a can of fruit cocktail.  Then he made some lemonade.  Daddy pulled up some bigger chairs as we didn't exactly fit in the little table and we had a great picnic and watched the sunset.  It seriously couldn't get any better than that.

After dinner Daddy and the kids made cherry chocolate cupcakes.   They were delicious!

Everyone sang happy birthday...except Chloe, she was a bit delayed...or else she wanted to do a solo act.

My Quiet Book is finally done!

For the time being...the quiet book that I've been working on forever is relatively done.  My sewing machine had a hard time going over the thickness of the felt and the backing and sometimes 3-4 layers of felt, so some of these I cheated and hot glued together. 
The complete pages so far are:
*Mailbox that opens with a snap and contains mail, also the flag moves up and down.
*Clock with moveable hands and velcroed numbers.
* Pizza with toppings (toppings are stored between the crust and the cheese).
*Mr and Mrs. Potato Head and the bucket of parts.
*Ice cream cone (big blue pocket on front to hold parts).
*Head with hair to braid, put clips in, etc.  Ribbon holds clips when not in the hair.
*Dump truck that holds boulders and really dumps.
*Shoe tying
*Garbage truck-the back opens, the cans open and are velcroed on.  Inside each can contains trash for the truck.  Black-trash, Blue-paper, bottle, and Green-grass and a branch with leaves.  This was my favorite one to make and I know it's going to get a lot of use from a little boy who is still fascinated with garbage trucks.

In the works but currently on the back burner are:
*tic tac toe
*barn with animals
*street scene with cars/buses
*page with zippers, buttons, buckles, etc.
I also need to figure out how I'm going to connect them together.  I tried sewing buttonholes but the fabric was too thick and the thread kept on jamming...so frustrating!

 I got several of these ideas online and then used my cricut and several cartridges to make templates and then cut out the felt.

I got the dump truck pattern from this site:
http://www.imagineourlife.com/2012/01/03/dump-truck-quiet-book-page/

Chloe turned 2

Chloe turned two last week.  We had her favorite for dinner-spaghetti

She also enjoyed a cake with blue frosting and fish sprinkles.

 She got some new kitchen utensils, clothes, purses and shoes.

We thought it was funny when Chloe was playing around with all of Connor's Lego sets...

 Connor was playing around with Chloe's purses.  We'll call that sharing :)

 Earlier this week we went to the park and had a great time.

Some fun things Chloe can say/do:

Can make the sound of just about any animal

Puts shoes on by herself...especially loves everyone else's shoes

Enjoys dressing herself...often walks around with someone's socks on her feet and random items on her head.

Loves hats

Loves doggies...chases them at the park...pets them and then walks away

Loves noodles, lunch meat, berries in general, bread, popcorn, crackers, will ask for cookies-cocos, but rarely eats them.

Wants to sit on the potty...for 5 seconds, drop paper and flush

She likes doing "pop up"= cooking in the toaster and watching it jump up when it's done

She likes being wherever Connor is...much to his dismay...she's already started the art of wrestling, which he does not like.  

Loves puzzles, cars, trucks, BUSES, trains-"woo woo ch ch ch"

Likes telephones-"huh-wo?"

Loves to dig in the dirt, get muddy, make a royal mess, but when she spills water/juice on her shirt she wants to be cleaned up right away-"mess, wet"-while tugging at shirt

No fear or anything, which makes mom and dad fear everything

Yellowstone

July 5th around 6:30am we set off for Yellowstone.  It was our family and my dad.  We drove to Drew and Emily's house getting in around 10pm.  The kids enjoyed playing with each other until about midnight and then we pulled out our sleeping bags and had a sleepover on their family room floor.  Abby-3 and Colby-5 joined us in their sleeping bags too.

July 6th, Monday morning we visit a little bit and then set off for Yellowstone around 10am.  We arrived in the evening, set up our tent, built a campfire and had dinner, some dessert and then went to bed.  That night there was a huge lightening and thunder rain storm.  The kids slept right through it, though it was bright and very loud.

July 7th, Tuesday morning we got up, showered (Oh yes, the campsites had the most wonderful showers ever!)  Then we took down our tent and supplies to head to the next campsite.  On our way we stopped and looked at bison

 They were a little too close for comfort for me.  But Peter insisted on a picture.

 We looked at this waterfall from a couple different angles on different days.

 It was beautiful

 Then we saw a mother bear and a cub playing in the grass.

 Whenever bears were spotted the traffic would back up and there would be several rangers nearby either directing traffic or people.
July 7-9 we stayed at one campsite and went and saw a lot of animals, geysers, mudpots, etcs.  We paid to stay through the 10th, but it was cold and rainy and I was done with camping, so we left a day early to head back to Utah.

A bunch of female elk snoozed on this big grassy area.

 You can add snake to list of animals we saw...he's well camouflaged in the middle of the picture below.

 Bison walking down the middle of the road...actually leading traffic.  This was an interesting sight to see.  My picture of it passing us was super blurry.

 More elk- this one was nursing a baby at one point.

 Old Faithful erupts

 After watching Old Faithful we walked along a trail to see more geysers.   This one was bubbling.

 This was called the Grand Geyser (I think). It was awesome.  We walked along a path and saw a bunch of people sitting around this one.  We asked what they were all there for and they said it was supposed to erupt at between 10:30 and 11:30 and it hadn't gone off yet.  We were told it was way more impressive than Old Faithful.  We sat down, enjoyed a little snack and waited too.  Then Connor announced he had to go Potty.  Peter took him further along the trail, while Chloe, Grandpa and I waited for the Grand.  At around 1:20ish it erupted and it definitely was Grand!  Water and steam went 150-200 feet in the air consistently for about 10 minutes. 

 Then we continued on the path to see the Morning Glory Pool.

 Grotto Geyser-Above, Midway Geyser-Below

 Grand Prismatic Spring

 Fishing Cone Geyser

Abyss Pool

 Paint Pots

 Herds of Bison everywhere....and crossing the road

 The Dragon's Mouth

 Mud Volcano

 Bison were everywhere!

 A mother bear and her two cubs devour a carcass.

 Male elk

 A pretty waterfall

 Mommy and kiddos

 Connor

We had a great time.  All in all we saw 5 black bears, 2 grizzly bears, a snake, a lot of elk and bison.  We also saw an osprey nest.  We went back to Utah on Friday night.  Saturday morning Peter, Grandpa, the kids, Drew and his kids and Peter's Grandpa went to the Air Force Base and looked at airplanes.  Janet, Emily and I went to Connie's house and made cards, then we went shopping at Gymboree and got some cute clothes for kids.  The kids played on a slip and slide and a pool until they were sufficiently cold.  Then Emily and the kids had a birthday party to go to.  We went out to dinner at Toucanos, then explored the mall.  We went to Build A Bear-Connor built a Minion and Chloe built a monkey.

Sunday morning we said our goodbyes and headed home.  We arrived home Monday morning at 12:30am.

We had a great trip, but we're glad to be back at home where it's nice and warm.