Meeting Lila

Bean and Lily have lots of cousins on their dad's side (thirteen of them to be exact). Most of their cousins are within a four hour driving radius, but they do have two cousins that live over near the west coast. Lila is currently the youngest of the cousins and she lives in Utah, so while her dad was in Turkey for business she and her mom came to visit Grandma Sharon and Grandad (we drove up to Washington, IL for the visit).


Abram and Jen (my brother and sis-in-law) along with Alex and Gretchen (more siblings in-law) came for the visit as well. My parents-in-law's house was pretty full for the weekend. Bean adores his uncles so he had a lot of fun playing out in the snow with them. Ironically Lily would not be held by any of her uncles except Alex.

Where is all the snow??

I was so sad that we did not get snow for Christmas this year. The first snow that we received in the St Louis area wasn't until today. So here are pictures of Lily experiencing her first snow.


Bean loves snow!! He wanted to stay out side all day, but it was too windy to let him do that.

Twin Quilt

My mom when I was in middle school helped me make a lap quilt, and from there I have made many more lap quilts and baby blankets. SO, I have decided that unless a friend is having a baby I am no longer making small sized quilts. At the end of December I finished my first twin sized quilt.

Here it is:



The pattern is really simple. Each square is 4 1/4 by 10 inches and is nineteen rows wide. I got the pattern and fabric from Connecting Threads (http://www.connectingthreads.com/Quilting.cfm) Since making this quilt was so easy I'll probably make it again and again.

Breakfast of Champions

We love to have breakfast for dinner because there will be leftovers for the next morning. I caught Dam eating pancakes with the kids on the coach this morning.

Christmas Card

Bright Colored Lights Christmas Card

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So Odd

Normally I am the person in our family to get sick a lot during the winter (last year had five sinus infections). So far this winter Dam and the kids have been the sickos. Right now the three of them have a cold. Every time Bean sneezes he has to say, "I'm sick", even though he is the least sick of the three. Odd to be on the non sick side of the fence this time.

New Years Resolution

My New Years resolution this year is to be better at posting. I love that my sis-in-law works on a 365 day a year intranet journal for all to see. Hopefully I can do that is well.

I wanted to capture a picture of the kids for our holiday card. The picture above was the best that I could get. Hard enough to get Bean to look at the camera, now I've got to get Lily's attention as well.

Merry Christmas

Here are some pictures of our Christmas Day:

Lily enjoyed just playing with the wrapping paper, but she also enjoyed the blocks that she got from Grandma Marsha and Papa.


Bean had been bugging me for weeks about when Santa was going to come and bring him Thomas (Bean is a big fan of Thomas the Train).
So, when he found Thomas under the tree Christmas morning he was very excited.

Christmas 2011

I was so excited this year for Christmas because it was Lily's first and Bean now knows about Santa (and we're working recognizing baby Jesus).


We had an awesome morning except for the fact that Adam lost our only set of keys to the car (I lost mine a few months back). Eventually the keys were found in my boots by the front door. I love kids and their ability to hide things that I need the most: measuring cups, Dam's sunglasses and most of my chap sticks, to name a few.

Christmas cookies

Best thing in the world: Aldi and their seasonal frosting and cookie decorations. Hands down they have the best when it comes to a grocery store.


Bean's method of decorating his cookies is to frost, add sprinkles and then eat the cookie.