Santa Baby

My little Santa boy in his Snowman PJ’s on Christmas morning. He is just so much fun!

David turned 18 months on Christmas Eve. He’s now 32” tall & 23 lbs. I was surprised by the weight, as I expected him to be a little heavier. But the doctor says he’s actually gone back up on his growth curve & is doing great! She was impressed by his speech development as well. I guess all that talking to myself when he was little helped. He picks up so many new words every day, it is amazing! He also loves climbing up on every chair to get a better look at things. David is always on the move: scooting the stools around the kitchen, dancing to the TV or radio, pushing his plush Elmo around in his little truck & just running up & down the hall trying to get away from tickling fingers.

Happy Christmas

I've been away from the computer for the past few weeks for many reasons: baking loads of cookies (I am swearing off cookies for January!!), sewing (just a little - Ashley & I made holiday aprons), wrapping gifts & just relaxing. Christmas eve, I hosted dinner for my Nana, sister & Mom. It was a nice dinner & a normal holiday with my family whom I love. David was too riled up that evening to pay much attention as Jamin read from Luke. We want to continue that Christmas Eve tradition of reading the story of Christ's birth. We will work harder on reading the scriptures from our Advent calendar next year too! I did a few homemade gifts this year that ended up taking a lot more time than I expected. It's okay, because they turned out great - but I'm making a plan to get ahead on Christmas gifts this year. I'm already scoping out Target's toy clearance coming up in January.
It was fun playing the part of Santa Claus along with Jamin as we brought the presents out from hiding & set them up beneath our Christmas tree. It was just the three of us on Christmas morning, in our PJ's, opening gifts & having fun together. David slept in his little Santa hat that my Dad & Lisa gave him. I peeked in his room after he was asleep & just wished I could take a picture, it was so stinkin' cute. He definitely got the idea of ripping open the wrapping paper & there were little shreds everywhere! Here's the video I promised my Dad I would post: David is opening his gift from Grandpa George & Lisa. It's a cute bath toy with some sea creatures, including a clown fish. David says fish & knows what one is, but his preference is just to call them all Nemo.

Oh Little Town of Bethlehem

David playing with a Nativity set in the children's room at the Festival of Nativities. Just a sweet image I captured on my iphone that makes me smile.

Musical Heart

David loves music. More than that, he loves dancing to music. If there's no music, he'll start singing. I LOVE that about him! There always seems to be a song in his heart.
I mixed up the times for story time at the library, so we missed it last Friday. But they still had their kid music softly playing when we arrived. David climbed up on the closest chair & bounced his head to the tunes. It was adorable.

Baking with the Toddler

This is my third post today, but I just couldn't resist... These pictures are too cute to keep to myself!
David & I mixed up a batch of gingerbread dough today. Oh it was quite the adventure! He likes to be involved in whatever I'm doing in the kitchen, so I often sit him on the counter while I'm preparing food. He's wearing one of the chef hats I sewed for Jamin & my Halloween costumes. He loves hats these days.
He helped me stir ingredients, getting plenty of sugar & flour & spices all over himself & the floor. Lots of spilling happened also when he helped add ingredients to the Kitchen Aid (while it was off, of course) It was good practice for his eye-hand coordination. It was also fun saying new words. He adds a Y to the beginning of 'eggs', saying "yeggs".

Side Note: A few days ago, we talked about knees, elbows, fingers & other different body parts. It's amazing how fast kids pick up new words! We talk about everything around us & what we're doing. My favorite word that he says right now is "shoes". He speaks very clearly & it's just cute hearing words come out in his little toddler voice.

David helped me clean up by licking the spatula. Afterward, he took a wipe & started wiping down my Kitchen Aid. How cute is that? It was a lot of fun for both of us! I'm looking forward to continuing our new tradition of baking together, especially during the holidays.

Authentic

Now that my brother has received his birthday present, I can finally share a project that I've been working on... his quilt!

I can't believe I just completed my first quilt! I'm officially a quilter now! I was a tiny bit sad to see it go, I fell in love with the fabrics right away & even more as they came together in the quilt. From the selection of fabric (picked out especially for him) to his hands, it took less than a month. Let's hope I can continue that kind of progress. The fabric is from a line called Authentic by Sweetwater for Moda. I started with charm squares (5" pre-cut squares - how awesome is that!) & sewed the top in a tossed nine patch pattern. I forgot to measure it before I mailed it, but the size is in between a twin & a full. Great for a tall guy like Aaron to cozy up with on the couch.
I really enjoyed creating this for him. I can't wait to start on the next quilt! There are several patterns I'm very excited about sewing up, so stay tuned! :)

Christmas cuteness

Here's David last week as I was helping to set up for our Relief Society Christmas party. We had a little living room scene, complete with Christmas tree & some toys. David couldn't resist this rocking horse & I couldn't resist his smile as he played.

Happy Birthday to my big brother, Aaron! Sending lots of love & hugs your way! :D

Advent Calendar

I mostly worked on this project in October. On December 1st, I applied the title & ribbon & hung our new Advent calendar on the wall. I saw this idea online last year (in various forms) & was really inspired to create one for our family this year. This one is made from a cookie sheet, spray painted & covered in scrap book paper. The countdown is made from scrap book paper-covered match boxes that have magnets glued on the back.
Growing up, I remember each of us three kids getting our own little advent calendar. We'd open the little paper window & get a chocolate each day. I don't think we even made it to Christmas eve before we cheated & ate all the chocolates.
I really wanted to carry on the tradition, but in a different way. With the idea of keeping the true spirit of Christmas constantly in our hearts this season, I found a scripture-based advent calendar online. It comes from the Dec. 2000 Friend magazine. (The Friend is the magazine our church publishes that's geared toward primary aged children) Each night, we've been reading a scripture which talks about a principle that Jesus taught & then discussing ways that we have or can include the principle in our daily life. It's geared toward kids a little older than David, but it gets us talking & reading the scriptures out loud with David.
I'm having a lot of fun with our Advent tradition & hope that it continues to grow & become something special to David as he experiences the Christmas season.

(sorry for fuzzy pictures... they're from my iPhone) I've gotten really lazy & my regular digital camera is rarely at arms reach. I'll work on it, now that I'm realizing that iPhone pics look better on the small screen :)

Chilly December

This December has been quite a chilly one! We've had some single digit lows overnight & the daytime has been barely above freezing for a week. There was a promise of some snow last night, but apparently the snowflakes were shy. I'm a little sad.. I was really hoping to enjoy some snow! But apparently, we're in for a warmer week full of rain. Alright, now I'm sounding like an old lady talking about nothing but the weather... so let me catch you up on our happenings:
We set up our tree the first weekend in December. David especially enjoyed turning the Christmas tree box into a sled. Unfortunately, all of my photos turned out fuzzy. Earlier this week, we decided to adorn our tree with candy canes. The trouble is, David has already enjoyed his first candy cane & knew they were yummy. So the next morning, he kept running from me with two or three candy canes grasped in his sticky little fingers. There are now candy canes only on the top third of the tree. Otherwise, he has mostly left the tree alone. He points & talks about it being pretty, but has minded the directions to not touch (most of the time). In his eyes, it must be so irresistible with the pretty colored balls, glittery ornaments & the lights. Several of our ornaments are actually bells, & he loves to jingle them. When I hear a bell ring, I am usually in the kitchen & come into the living room to discover him trying to put a bell back on the tree while saying, "uh oh." See, he knows better. David's usual response is "uh oh" when we find him doing something he's not supposed to.
We've been very busy these past few weeks. As Christmas is getting closer, however, our schedule is not as packed & I am grateful for that. We also took some time the first week in December to attend the Festival of Nativities. It's a beautiful event where hundreds of Nativity sets from around the world are on display. There's musical performances & also a few kids rooms, where kiddos can dress up & do crafts. It's a major production that our church puts on every year & I'm grateful for all the hard work that goes into it. It sets the mood for the season, I think. There was the Relief Society Christmas party, Also, the sewing machine was set up for about two weeks while I was working on several projects. (I'll share a post about my sewing projects soon.. I've got pictures & I'm very excited to share my adventures!).
I was recently invited by some gals at church to participate in a play group. We each have just one kid & we rotate hosting a play date once a week. It's mostly a mom date, and that's so awesome! It's wonderful to finally get to know some people at church & make friends. We even have a dinner get-together planned this week so that our husbands can get better acquainted too, which is wonderful for Jamin. :)
Our Christmas shopping is just about done. I had a girls night gift wrapping party on Friday night & that got me all done with wrapping them too! Now they're all tucked away, hidden from the curious toddler.
This week, I am looking forward to baking some cookies, catching a holiday special or two with the kiddo & finishing up a scrapbook project for Christmas.
I've been a photo slacker lately. I've taken a few photos with my iphone that I'll try to get updated here soon.

Halloween in December

Better late than never, right?
Here are a few very late Halloween photos that I meant to post forever ago...

David is often right on my heels as soon as I open up our pantry. It's an exciting place to explore with toys that he doesn't get to play with all the time. Like cans of beans. I was gathering chili ingredients for our Halloween party & pulled all the canned beans off the shelf. David quickly turned them into a game & started stacking them on top of each other. Once he couldn't reach any more, he started handing me the cans to continue his tower of beans. Then he knocked it over & started again. He does this occasionally with his huge Legos, but cans of beans are more dangerous, thus more fun.

Here are the amazingly delicious caramel apples we made for the party. I am so glad that my dear friends Richelle & Ashley sacrificed of themselves earlier in the week to test the new recipe. The caramel was made from scratch... it was awesome! Definitely a tradition in the making!

Speaking of Ashley... Here she is with her hubby, Kevin, on Halloween. Sadly, Jamin & I didn't get a picture of us in our Salt & Pepper costumes. They were simple tunics that I sewed (with chef hats), & they were pretty cute)

Here's a super cute snapshot (taken on my iPhone, that's why it's fuzzy) of David on Halloween when we were on our way to trick or treat at Grandma & Grandpa's. I looked in the back seat & David was sitting there, looking like a little gentleman.. ahem.. gentle-lion, with his hands folded in his lap.Just the day before, we got him to roar when we asked what sound the lion makes. It's stinkin' cute... of course. ;)

December is upon us!

Well, I've had my hands full of so many projects that I have had a tough time sitting down to the computer to update our blog! I actually barely took any photos in November (gasp!) I did, however, snap this adorable shot of David on Sunday with my iphone. Jamin & I joked that David looked like a little mobster in his cute pin-striped church outfit... hehe
Here, he got himself up onto the piano bench @ Grandma & Grandpa's on Sunday. (He now says Papa for Grandpa Jack.. Grandma is still a mouthful, though, I guess) David is finding much joy these days in climbing up onto chairs & declaring himself King of the Mountain (in his own language) ;D This had more to do with his adoration of music. He was pounding the keys & bopping around to the music he was making. My little boy is such a happy little person! I love it!
I'll work on updating better this month as we enjoy the holiday season. We spent some time this evening putting up & decorating our Christmas tree. It is very much a temptation for David, however, with all the shiny balls. We'll see how that goes. I love having our tree up & decorated. It is peaceful & happy & comforting to see it all decorated & shining brightly.

A Special Treat

David's friend, Eli, was given box seat tickets to Disney on Ice for his second birthday & we were invited to join Eli & a bunch of other friends for the show. (This picture is Joy & Eli) Let me just say that suites at the Rose Garden are awesome!! This is totally the way to go when you've got wiggly little ones! There's a private bathroom for the suite & then a bar with sodas & popcorn. Did I mention the huge screen TV? It wasn't on for the Disney on Ice show (well there was some random football game, but it was silenced), but Jamin was imagining being up there for a Blazers game. Then, facing the court/stage, there's a long bar w/ stools where you can sit & munch & there's also 2 rows of seats with a short wall in front. The seats were stepped so that sitting behind my tall friends Matt & Joy, I was able to completely see everything still.I have a happy place in my heart for Disney on Ice. I went with my dad when I was around 8 years old & then he surprised me for my 19th birthday & took me to see it again. Very fun! As much as David loves music (he dances whenever he hears a beat & he's always singing! - love that!) , I knew he would really enjoy the show. We were right! He danced & pointed & wiggled & waved his hands around & talked all about the neat things he was seeing & the fun music he was hearing. When he was tired of sitting in our lap in the back row, he moved down a row to stand at the front of the balcony (it was a short concrete wall that went up to his chin) It was great! The show was called Worlds of Fantasy & featured musical scenes from Cars, Lion King, Little Mermaid & Tinkerbell. We had a lot of fun & are so thankful to Matt, Joy & Eli for inviting us to share the experience!!

Jack-o-Lanterns

I love these PJs! The bones glow in the dark!We had a lot of fun picking out our pumpkins this year & had even more fun carving them into Jack-o-Lanterns. Jamin had a theme from the beginning & I must say, he executed his plan quite well - his pumpkins were fantastic! David's pumpkin was created using Mr. Potato Head parts (they are bigger & meant for pumpkins) - totally cute! We're working on getting him to say pumpkin correctly. He keeps exclaiming, "Munkin!", when he sees them. But occasionally, I'll get a "Punkin" out of him. My son can say "poop" (thanks to his daddy), but he won't say "pumpkin" .. who knows.Yes, that is the DeathStar! Jamin worked hard on that oneOur friend, Richelle took this last photo on Halloween. The happy face pumpkin is Ashley's.

A Festive Birthday Party

The Saturday before Halloween, we joined up with a bunch of friends to celebrate the 2nd birthdays of two of David's friends, Eli & Rennick. They had a costume themed carnival for their birthday & it was a hit with the kids! David dressed as a lion this year.. it was stinkin' cute! (but he wasn't too interested in keeping the hood on) The outfit was pretty toasty, so he basically wore just a diaper underneath & we changed him out as soon as he let us know he was done with it. I didn't get any good pictures of the church gym, where the party was held, but it was all decked out & super cute! David mostly wandered around watching the other kids. He was very interested in the spider rings that came on our cupcakes too. :)

October was a busy month!

So I was really hoping to keep on top of the blogging in October, but that didn't really happen. So I'll be taking a few posts to share the last half of our month... it was BUSY! But we had a lot of fun!On October 20th, our church play group got together at someone's home to have fun outside & pick out lil pumpkins. There were a lot of little ones! There were a few mom's faces I recognized from church & it gave me the chance to try to get to know some people better. I'm bad with names, so it will take me a while. But I enjoyed the opportunity to enjoy the fall weather & let David run around with others his age. We invited Ashley & Tyson to come along & they seemed to enjoy it too.

Working the Albertsons Deals!

Last night, I made a quick trip to Albertsons to take advantage of a promo sale they had going on. It sure was a good trip I made! Here are the details:

10 boxes cereal (those Cheerios are the big boxes)
4 chickens (approx 3.6lbs each)
1/2 gallon Breyers ice cream
3 steamer bags frozen peas (forgot to snag em back out of the freezer for the picture!)

Total out of pocket expense: $21.12
According to the receipts, I saved $65.79 - that's over 75% savings!
(from the ridiculously inflated full retail price at Albertsons... but still!)

I did this in 2 transactions:
First, I purchased the cereal & frozen peas to get the General Mills promo (purchase $25 of participating products & get $10 off your next purchase). I had a coupon for each item I purchased & used 3 doublers (so 3 of my $1 off coupons were doubled to $2 off!). That made the first purchase a total of $17.56 out of pocket.
Then I purchased the chickens & ice cream & used my $10 coupon. (I had another coupon & doubler for the ice cream, which was on sale - & the chickens were only 68 cents/lb!) It was cool to only pay 3.56 for 4 chickens & a half gallon of ice cream. :D

Chillin' on a Sunday Afternoon

David had a hard time going down for his nap on Sunday, so we let him run off some of his energy before trying again. He & Daddy had some adventures in the backyard & they captured a frog. It was fun watching David examine the frog up close. I love the curiosity of little kids. They find such wonder in the world around them. One of David's fascinations lately is with balloons. He exclaims, "balloon!" everytime we see one & points excitedly. Jamin gave in to his adorable demonstrations on Saturday afternoon & bought him a Halloween balloon when we were at Fred Meyer. He has had fun trailing it around with him while playing & bouncing the string around. I love how such a simple thing brings such joy to him! Just happy times with our little man :D

BiZi Farms

We enjoyed a beautiful Saturday afternoon at a local pumpkin patch, picking out our Jack-o-Lanterns. It was perfect Fall weather, with a slight breeze chilling the air, but the sunshine warming us. The hayride down to the patch was a little dusty, but that's because we were sitting directly behind the tractor. There were pumpkins everywhere! David had a blast wandering around the pumpkin patch trying to pick up the little ones. He did a lot of pointing & exclaiming, it was pretty funny! It was fun sorting through all the squash, trying to find the perfect shaped pumpkins for the designs we wanted to carve. The toughest part for Jamin & I was limiting the number of pumpkins we picked out... we came home with more than a few. For now, they're speckling our front porch with a festive orange. But in a few short weeks, we'll carve them up & have them glowing on Halloween night. David's pumpkin won't be carved though.. we have other plans. Thanks to his Grandma Jeri's collection, David has a little love affair with Mr. Potato Head & all his friends. So I couldn't resist when I saw a kit to turn a a pumpkin into Mr. Pumpkin Head with a Pirate costume! Ca-ute!!

After we loaded our pumpkins into the car, we headed back to wander in the corn maze till dark. It was a fun family day on Saturday!

Happy Fall!

Earlier this week, I took the opportunity to snap a few pictures of David. He's such a fun kid these days! He's talking more (we're working hard on please & thank you) & he's ever so curious about the world around him. It's so much fun being Mom to this awesome little guy!
I am loving this great Fall weather! It's been cooler, but we've still had some sunshine brightening our days. More rain is coming, and that's ok. As much as I love Summer, I really love the changing seasons. I love the hunkering down & making plans for the busy winter. It's when my crafting bug really gets biting, I've already had a few craft days with friends with several more planned. I'll have to take pictures of the scrapbook pages I've been working on & share them here! I'm so lucky to have a room where I can spread out my stuff & play while David is napping & then shut the door on my mess & keep little hands safe (& my projects safe from little hands). Jamin has been wonderfully patient with me on those days when I haul stuff down to the kitchen table & play. I do try to have a clean kitchen table a few days a week for him. ;)
Speaking of Jamin, we are VERY excited that his work schedule has changed & he'll have more quality time at home! YAY! He'll continue lead duties, but he's been assigned to another team, where his leadership skills will continue to shine. I have an awesome, hard-working husband & his managers know it. So with the new team, his schedule moves from 9:30-6 Mon-Fri to 4 ten hour shifts on Mon, Tues, Wed & Fri. The sweetest deal is that Monday is a holiday, & he also took Tuesday off... so his first week on the new schedule, he'll only work 2 days! We'll be fitting in a lot of fun family time this extended weekend, that's for sure!

Happy Birthday to you... you live in a Zoo

Last Friday, was David's buddy, Tyson's 2nd birthday. Ashley invited David & I along for a trip to the zoo. We were very happy when the boys were very patient & well-behaved for the fun, albeit long day. We were sad that Jamin had to work while David took his first trip to the zoo.. but I think we'll be going back soon! David & Tyson had the treat of watching the elephants get their morning bath. We saw all the elephants, including the little 1 yr old baby, who weighed in at over 1300 lbs that morning. We loved seeing the new cat exhibit, where there was only a pane of glass between us & the cheetahs. It was really neat to be so up close. The only sad part is that David & Tyson were both quite camera shy. Why don't they understand my scrapbooking duty? :) The fun day was ended with a trip on the zoo train & then a nice long nap for two busy little boys.