December Wrap Up

A new line of fabric came out (that was boyish) that I couldn't wait to use, so I made up a crib quilt! There is an overabundance of girl fabrics, and not too many specific to boys, so now that we're expecting a boy, I've had to readjust my brain to seeing boy stuff as cute too! This is one of my fave's and so quick & easy!

Emalyn has started dressing up and playing with the older girls. She's still more of an independent player, but on occasion joins in next to them :) After Halloween hit, she's totally gotten into dressing up, more than just shoes!

Isa had her first orchestra concert at Donaldson, and did a great job playing the cello! The next week at Danny's family's Christmas devotional, Isa & Bren played "Jingle Bells" together while Gabriela sang. It turned out great! Then, while Danny's aunt was playing a Christmas song on the piano, Gabs decided she wanted to "help" her. Thank goodness Melissa is a pro and it didn't even phase her!

Christmas Eve was spent at Danny's family and the kids got to open their presents from them, as well as play with Melanie & Pete's new toy, the Wii!!

Christmas Day was spent with my family, and it was fun to have a huge houseful of people around! Almost everyone was there [7/8 of my siblings with their families] and made for a long, but fun morning opening presents! My parents got the Wii too, so the kids were in heaven, occupied all day again :)

Right after Christmas, we surprised the kids with a trip up to Flagstaff, AZ to play in the snow and take a ride on the Polar Express!! It was done up just like the movie, it was so cute! We got tickets to the train, waited anxiously, boarded and found our seats, and then they read the Polar Express book while they served hot chocolate and cookies {and yes, they sang the song, Hot Chocolate!}. They all dressed their parts, and ALL of the kids on the train wore pajamas (some adults too). We got to Santa's Village, all lit up with lights, and then Santa boarded the train and passed out presents to all the kids - they each got a silver bell! On the way back to the station we sang Christmas carols/songs and the kids rang their bells all the way home. It turned out to be such a fun night, and even my mom & teenage sisters loved it!

More pies & stuff

I'm a little slow with posting, but here are the other 2 weeks of pies, apple & pumpkin. The apple turned out great and I loved my crust! We had a church activity a month ago on making your own crusts and my first came out ok, but this was substantially better! I added crumbly topping, but put it on too soon, so it turned into almost one solid piece :) but still quite tasty! Lissa & I each made a pumpkin and they turned out great, except we used pre-made crusts and they got a little crispy (didn't care enough to put foil around the edges). Everything was edible and we had fun eating it all BEFORE Thanksgiving.

This was just a cute picture of Gabriela. She asked me what it said, and I told her it described her! She was pretty excited.

Lastly, here are my most recent accomplishments. A quilt that I started in July, but haven't finished until now because I couldn't decide what I wanted on the back. In the end I just went with simple and it turned out pretty cute! [Background story: Emalyn LOVES the book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" by Eric Carle, and we read it for months before every nap & bedtime, so when I saw this fabric I knew I had to make her one! I couldn't find a quilt pattern that I liked, so I sketched one out myself, measured and remeasured, and then did it myself. I'm pretty proud of this one! (go ahead and click on the picture to see it larger)] Then for Christmas, Danny bought this cute owl pattern for me, but I couldn't wait til then, so I made a couple :)

Painting

I do not like to let my kids paint, and this is why. I can't remember the last time I let any of them paint, so I decided to go ahead and try [my friend just let her kids do it, so i thought i'd do it too]. I quickly decided this is a "grandma's house" activity only :) I have a rainbow colored slide outside, freshly painted shoes that look "so much prettier", and a new painting shirt (i know, that one was my fault, i should have put an apron on). My poor art box is not going to be getting much use...

Little Monkeys

Gabriela loves to climb our tree, and Emalyn is more cautious. She wants up, but doesn't want to climb :) This was the first time I was able to put Ema's hair in pigtails, and it makes her look so much older! Her blue eyes, are not as blue anymore, they've settled on a more grey-blue, with some flecks of brown. I still think they are just as gorgeous [go ahead and click on the photo to enlarge].

Pie Month

I recently learned how to make homemade pie crusts and thought I'd give it a whirl. I have never done this in my life before (making a whole pie from scratch), and it was quite evident throughout the whole process. But, in the end, it was edible, and that's what's important, right?? I figured with the holidays coming, I'd try out a couple and see if they are worthy to grace the Thanksgiving table in a few weeks. My goal is to try one each Sunday until then. We'll see how it goes...

Announcement

So here is the official announcement...I'm pregnant! Our family has known for quite some time (since I was 4 weeks-with 5 sisters I have to tell someone besides Danny), but we wanted to wait until after the first trimester to make the official announcement. Mostly because I was playing soccer and didn't want them to kick me off the team :) Then it was only a few more weeks until the Ultrasound, so here are the pictures...

We're pretty excited to finish up with another boy. I knew that this one was a boy, and it was nice to have it confirmed {although I didn't share that with the kids so that they didn't get their hopes up; Danny made that mistake with Gabriela :)} Emalyn shouted it out in the Ultrasound room just as we were getting started. The tech was showing the kids the brain and the heartbeat, and Ema shouted "boy! boy! boy! boy!", totally out of the blue, while pointing to the tech's hand holding the transducer on my belly. I thought she was calling the tech a boy (which she didn't look like at all), until I saw where she was pointing. About 5 minutes later it was confirmed and the tech was impressed with our intuitive 21 month old :)

I'm currently 19 weeks, 4 days, and I am due April 1st. The sonogram measured the baby a few days ahead, which would put me due at the end of March, but I won't get my hopes up :) He was VERY active, which made it difficult to get good measurements, but he slowed down a little at the end. He was pretty shy as well and kept burying his face in the placenta and wouldn't let us see his face (thank goodness he wasn't shy about showing off his bladder and boy parts). We managed to get a profile shot right at the last minute after laying on my right side, then my left, then my back again, then my right again...Bottom line, he looks as healthy as can be and we're so grateful.

Halloween

The kids had a fun Halloween and scored (too much IMO) on the candy. Brendan was a Lich (see wikipedia for those of you who are not well versed in D&D), Isa was Bo Peep risen from the dead (apparently you can't be something cute on Halloween), Gabriela was a witch, and Ema was Batgirl. [You'll want to click on the picture to see the details better, especially Isa's face]

We started of the night at my parent's house with full-sized candy bars, then on to our church trunk-or-treat. They had a little carnival going and the kids had a blast. The adults got a special treat {homemade caramel apples} and they were SO GOOD! Much better than candy :) Then we finished the night off w/a stop at Danny's parent's house, and soon after the younger 2 were fast asleep! Such hard work looking cute for candy.

Gabriela turns 4

Four years ago, Brendan and Isa were in school all day, and I was bored at home for 8 long weeks counting down the days until Gabriela was due! She was a super-awesome baby, who allowed me to still volunteer a couple days a week the rest of Isa's Kindergarten year (she went right along to every field trip and activity quite comfy in a sling). She became the class mascot, and her first belly laugh was in class one day while Mr. Barnhill was having "rug time" w/the kids. So cute!

Gabriela has developed into a very spirited, fiery, little girl, who doesn't seem to have an "off" button {we joke she's got adhd on crack} She has challenged me in every way possible (check out my early blogs), but I love her and am so grateful that she's a part of our family. Her dimples continue to work magic on anyone :)
She kept telling everyone that she wouldn't be 4 until her party, even though we explained that technically she already was 4 based on the time she was born (way over her head apparently).

Emalyn enjoyed her cupcake very much :)

Even though we didn't get a picture of everyone, we were able to celebrate her birthday with all of her aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. We're so grateful to have almost all of our family close by (she got to see her far away family through skype, so it was a great night). What a beautiful girl!

Potatoes

The other night at the dinner table, Emalyn kept asking for more potatoes. I was quite impressed because she usually doesn't like them. I don't know how 5 people at the table managed to miss this, but instead of eating the potatoes, Ema was using them as earplugs. Nice. [You can see in the last photo the potatoes sticking out of both ears, yum-o!]

September

This is all I have of September, and Danny took the pictures. I've never gone so long without taking pictures! It must have been a pretty boring month :) Danny took the kids on a ward campout to Mt. Lemmon and they had a blast! {Emalyn & I wimped out and had a slumber party with my sisters at their house}

October is always a busy month with tons of birthdays and the holidays coming up, so I should be back at the end of the month with more fun pictures...

August

The first week in August brought the start of a new school year for us, and a bit of change. Isa started 4th grade and loves it! She has the same 4th grade teacher that I had (Ms. Leonardo) and we both love her!! It was so weird for me to sit in the same classroom w/the same teacher (22 years later) on back to school night!

The other change was Brendan entering middle school, 6th grade. Since we're not at all impressed w/the middle schools around here, we started looking into charter schools. The more research we did, the more we realized we just didn't feel right about anything, until we thought about homeschooling. I was pretty intimidated with the thought of it (I have several friends in NC that did it and developed their own curriculum), but it still seemed overwhelming. I had several people in the community tell me about AZ online virtual academy, which is basically an online charter school. We looked into it and decided to do it. We love it! Brendan has a teacher, a curriculum already set up day-to-day, books & workbooks for each subject, & tons of supplies for science experiments and art projects throughout the year! It was so great to have everything done for me, and he's doing great. He's very disciplined and plowing through really well. I'm so proud of him! He doesn't like pictures of him so much anymore, so I don't have one of him to put on here. I'll sneak one soon...

Isa and Gabriela got their haircut at the salon in preparation for the new school year, and Gabriela had a blast being a "big girl".

With everyone back into a routine, I'm able to pick up more sewing/quilting time again. I wanted to make Cajsa a baby gift, but couldn't ever settle on what to make. After I saw this pattern for a baby ring stacker, I knew this was it! It turned out really cute and Adison enjoys it now.

I stole this picture from her blog :)

My parents went up to Utah and brought back down tons of tomoatoes & cucumbers from Cajsa & Brad's garden. They were SO good! They also brought with them a HUGE zuchinni from one of Cajsa's neighbor's garden. We made 4 batches of zuchinni bread and had fun experimenting with different add-ins (chocolate chips & pecans).

With the camera flash these loaves look a little flourescent orange, weird. They weren't. They were so good we ate all 4 batches within a week (the plan was to make them all at my parents house so that they could eat most of it :) It worked)!

Trouble with a capital "T"

Emalyn's hit that age where I can't take my eyes off of her for too long, or else. Here's a couple of things she's been into lately...

She loves to get into the pantry and empty out the contents of the powdered sugar, regular sugar, and brown sugar on a pretty routine basis.

She has discovered how to text...nothing more to say.

And, she loves all things water. Loves to swim, loves to play with water in her play kitchen, but most of all loves to climb in the bath or shower dry or wet. All the time. This time she heard Gabriela taking a bath and ran right in to see. A couple minutes later she was squealing with delight and when I checked, she had climbed in and was having a grand old time, soaked pajamas and all.

Rainy days

We love monsoons. We didn't get too many this year, but when we did, we made sure we played as long as we could in the wind & the rain. We'd turn out the lights and watch the sky light up with a spider web of streaks of lightning, followed almost instantly with thunder that made the girls "oooh & ahhh" every time :)

13 years

Our Engagement
Our Wedding Day
08-24-96

13 years later!
(a little less hair, and few more wrinkles)
So much to be grateful for!!
4 beautiful, healthy, intelligent children,
&
A wonderful husband/best friend that I'm so blessed to be married to for all eternity.

Birdie Quilt

When Melanie and I went to Quilt Market, we saw this cute Birdie Quilt pattern and KNEW we had to whip one up! She was getting a new line of fabric in that we knew would go great with this one! So, I decided to try my hand at applique and give it a whirl. Oh man was it time consuming!! I LOVE the way this quilt turned out, it's definitely a favorite, but I don't know that I could ever make it again!
step 1. build a block

step 2. assemble all the blocks

step 3. sew all the blocks together

step 4. make a quilt sandwich & pin

step 5. quilt it, then bind it

step 6. hang it on a clothes line for cute pictures

step 7. make another quilt with the scraps!

This is a baby sized quilt and I love, love, love it!

It went much quicker this time around with only 1 block to applique!

Emalyn approves and loves the quilt :)

One of my favorite pictures!! Cute quilt, cute baby, cute cloth diaper I made.

July

We went out with the Price's to watch the firework show a couple miles from our house! I was so excited that we didn't have to travel far away to see them this year, mostly because it was past Emalyn's bedtime and she was a bear :) The show was great, but we missed setting off our own fireworks like we did in NC. [That was an awesome show 2 years ago Matt!] Gabriela loved it, and Emalyn was trying to figure it all out. She kept saying "boom!".

One day when we were making our bed, we found a little handprint left behind. I have no idea what it was that Emalyn used for her artwork, but luckily it washed out just fine. I love little handprints :)

Emalyn LOVES baths and showers, so when she heard one being started, she dashed in before anyone else could and came out all wet!

Emalyn has become a little more brave lately trying new things, so while I stepped out to get more water for the plants, she decided to take it on.
Yesterday was Ema's 18 month checkup and she only got 1 shot. I didn't worry about motrin or anything because I figured it was just one. I was wrong. She has been the most sensitive with teeth and shots by far out of my kids, so really I should have known. Poor Ema woke up 4-5 times last night crying. She would just lay there and call for me, so I knew she just wasn't feeling well. We cuddled each time til she fell asleep and at one point she laid next to Danny in bed. The bandaid was off after only an hour after the shot, but she keeps telling everyone that will listen, "owwww-weeeee" and point to her leg :)

Yesterday we went to a local toy store that has a summer reading program and the prize Gabriela picked out was tatoos (sadly their selection was too old or too young for her so this is all she liked). We got home and she couldn't wait to share with Emalyn.

Ema was pretty excited, although the personal boudaries came in to play once again. When we asked where the butterflies were, she calmed down :)