Snow Days

Arya's Birthday

 Arya turned 4 on the 15th of this month.  I know we all say this, but I really can't believe how fast time has flown by!  It snowed four years ago when she was born; not a lot, but enough to make the world beautiful.  This year, Heavenly Father gave her the gift of snow and LOTS of it! 
Since her birthday landed on a Sunday, we divided the celebration in half .  We went swimming on Saturday and took her to the dollar store to get her 5 things + birthday balloon (our birthday tradition), and had some Pizza that night.  Church was cancelled on Sunday due to snow, so we ended up having lots of fun playing in it, followed by her favorite dinner - Chicken Penne Pesto, and cake.  It was a fabulous birthday weekend.

Coming down our home-made sled run.  More pictures to come!

 Arya wanted a Cinderella Cake, so I tried.  I wanted to play with Marzipan this time to see how that would work.  It's a bit expensive, but it worked well!  I could've rolled it better and done it better, but I was tired from playing in the snow and layering the cake (yes the cake was layered too with fruit & frosting), and making dinner, etc. But at least I know that I can do it and do it nice if I had the time/patience.  Too bad the girls thought it tasted funny and didn't like it, but Luke and I enjoyed it!

Happy Birthday Arya!

Diaper Trike

I saw the idea on Pinterest maybe a month or two ago and thought it was such a cute idea.  A few weeks ago a friend had a baby shower for a boy so I just had to do this!  The pin on pinterest just links you to amazon.com - not very helpful.  However, this was not too difficult to make at all.  I rolled up the diapers with a tube in the middle (ribbon holder, paper towel tubs, wrapping paper tubes, whatever handy), then used a rubber band to go around it all.  I then used the ribbon to hide the rubber band.  Next, I used receiving blankets and had the blanket go through the middle of the two back tires and looped it around some diapers in the front tire. I wrapped a hanger wire in a receiving blanket for the front tire/handles, looped it through the middle tube of the front tire;  Stuck the bib and sippy cup on top, used a ribbon to secure the wires together and stuck the socks on the ends.  Sorry, I'm not one to do tutorials and I just kind-of figured this out by looking at a picture.  I'm sure there's a better explanation out there on how to do this.  It was a hit!  Very fun idea so thank you pinterest!

Michael's First Haircut

 As you can see from the Christmas photos, Michael was in need of a hair cut.  I cut Luke's hair on a fairly regular basis, but I had no idea how to cut Michael's hair.  Over the holidays, a friend of Luke's - Thomas, and his two boys stayed with us for 3 days.  I actually met Thomas first at the Seattle Institute of Religion while Luke was on his mission.  It was fun to be later introduced to Thomas by Luke as one of Luke's close friends growing up.  Having 2 boys in his family, Thomas mentioned that he could cut Michael's hair and show me how to do it while he was at our house.  I jumped at the offer.  Turned out to be a fairly simple process with clippers and some Gerber Graduate Puffs.  I think we used #8, 5, and 3 to give him a nice fade.  I love his silly face in the first picture.  We decided that maybe the clippers were tickling his head.  He was so funny.

Luke gave it a try at the end and finished up.  Following that, Luke cut his own hair.  The first time he did that was in Utah and that didn't end well.  However, this time he actually did a good job!  I should've taken a picture of him, but by the time I was done bathing the kids he had finished.  I'm also realizing that I never got a "finished" shot of Michael.  Oh well, I'll be taking pictures soon when we celebrate Arya's birthday this weekend.  I'll post pictures of Michael's new do then. :o)

Christmas Morning

Luke's family has a Christmas Pajamas tradition.  From the year I was engaged to Luke I received Christmas jammies from his parents.  Can you imagine making 20+ jammies every year?! Three years ago Mom decided that those who are married needed to take care of their own Christmas jammies - smart lady. :o) 

For Christmas 2011 the theme was Reindeer.  Can I just say that I'm uber proud of myself?  The pants are made out of fleece, and I will never go back to flannel.  LOVE fleece!  The shirts I did a combination of things: the Reindeer face was made out of felt; the names were done with fabric paint and the freezer paper stencil method.  Method can be found at: http://www.makeit-loveit.com/.  I was cursing myself while cutting these tiny curly letters out with an exacto knife, but they turned out SO WELL!  We had Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen and Rudolph - and no, I'm not planning on having enough kids to have the other 4 reindeer. 

 Arya was really excited when they received a note from Santa next to the empty plate of cookies.

 Candy canes from Santa in our stockings! This picture shows one of the reasons why I married this man - he's so entertaining!

Arya really liked the bracelet from Ama. :)

 Michael got a fun little rider and the girls really enjoy pushing him around the house.  Yes, I know, I agree, the snot on Michael's face is disgusting.

Santa knew that Michael really likes Gerber's Graduate Puffs. This kid downed a whole container within 4 hours of receiving it. 

And look what Santa brought me!!!  I saw these on Black Friday and LOVED them.  However, Shopko only had 1 box left at the store (Dishes for only 4 ppl) and they were all sold out online.  I then told myself that I didn't need them even though many of our inexpensive dinnerware are chipped and on their way out.  I must've been a good girl this year! :o)  These are OVEN SAFE!!!!!!!  Merry Christmas to me!

 PS. If anyone is curious, these are called Soho Dinnerware and they can be found at Walmart for cheaper than Shopko's Black Friday deal. :o)