Christmas 2010

The kids had a great time opening all their presents. With some family farther away I wish I could have taken better pictures to capture their joy as they opened the presents from you. Everything was a big hit! I hope everyone got their snowflake thank-you notes.

I wish all this snow we have would melt away but maybe that makes okay to still post Christmas pictures.

Feel the Love

This is the pillow formerly known as a dishtowel.

I had most of the supplies already for this cute heart made out of buttons.

I am way behind on my posts. I know Thanksgiving and Christmas are somewhere in my camera. Until then, let's start with the holiday of love and friendship. I needed some Valentine's Day decorations so I found a cute striped dishtowel at the thrift store and then another project I found on-line that was easy and fun.

Handy Hubby

Gordon has been really earning his keep around here lately! I thought I would brag a little for him since he is not the bragging type. He successfully changed the spark plugs on the car, unplugged a major pipe coming from the bathtub, spackeling here and there, paint touch-ups , hanging a drapery rod, and lastly he installed a new kitchen faucet. I can tell he loves to learn how to do new things and save money in the process. Jacob likes to help right along side him too. He has his own set of toy tools but he has been found with the real stuff once or twice. YIKES!

The bathroom drain works so well now that Jacob is scared when the water goes out be. It makes a very loud gurgling sound which is music to our ears, but to him it means fast water going out and trying to take him with it.

Elf on a Shelf

We have a new Christmas addition to our house this year. Hanna Downs gave the kids a Christopher Pop-In-Kins. He is a fun, flexible, elf that hides every morning in a new spot. Apparently Christopher's job is to report back to Santa before Christmas Eve to let him know how the kids in our house behaved this year. It is a really cute story and the kids love being the first in the morning to find him. One time Christopher stayed in the same spot to trick them otherwise he remembers to move to a new hiding place. In our small house he is running out of places up high to hide. He has to be up high so the kids don't touch him or he loses his magic.

We are looking forward to a little snow and Gordon has Thursday and Friday off so we are going to make it fun!

Halloween 2010

Lots of Halloween fun this year! Anna, a.k.a. "Lucy" the Dalmation. Megan, a.k.a. "Fluffy" the Poodle.

After the girls chose their costumes it was only natural that Jacob should chase them. Jacob, a.k.a. "The dog catcher" with a net to capture them.

We have way too much candy but we had a lot of fun getting it. We visited Gordon's work, the church had a Trunk or Treat, and then we visited our neighbors on Halloween.

Books (note the other three posts)

My husband has a memory book from when he was a child and it is called, "My First Eight Years, a Record of the LDS Child". It is a great book that includes the usual pages to record milestones and important dates. But it also includes pages for important Latter-Day Saint milestones like baptism and Primary. I wanted to recreate something like it for my own children since they don't make books like that anymore. Thanks to the help of my friend, Carrie, I finally finished them and now I just need to fill in the important stuff. I am so happy with them. Carrie is brilliant at the computer and creating things like that so I definitely couldn't have done it without her. Three cheers for Carrie!! I gave up on scrapbooking some time ago so Anna is the only one with a scrapbook of the first year of her life. I hope this a simpler way to record all the important stuff and I won't get so far behind.

There is a page for geneology.

There is also a page to record who was the prophet at the time of their birth along with the counselors and Quorum of the Twelve. I love it and hope to be a little better at recording important things in the lives of my children.

A re-do

I was able to check off a couple things from my to-do list this past week. I bought a couple of chairs off of Craigslist for $10 each. They add a few more seats in our already small living room. I did not like the outdated fabric so I decided to give slipcovers a try. With my sewing skills and a few books I thought I could figure it out. I finished them but not without a few curses of frustration along the way. I took out many of the seams out at least twice too. I cut off the original skirt of the chair and then painted the legs black. I am just glad to check them off the to-do list, they were definitely a challenge.