Catching Up

So, I haven't been blogging much lately. It is hard to though, because all of my time has been spent on Christmas presents. I can't post anything on my latest projects until after Christmas. They have been some fun ones though.
We have gotten most of our Christmas decorations up and lights on the house. Hope to get more lights on clearance after Christmas. The kids are so excited. It is gonna be wierd this year. This will be our first year having Christmas with just us. We traded Christmas with my family this year for Thanksgiving, because all of my siblings were able to go to my parents in Washington. We made the 20 hour drive without stopping overnight! It was so nice to be all together. It is the first time that we have all been together, I guess since Ben and I got married seven years ago. Usually somebody is missing (generally my hubby). The kids and I met two new additions to our family (one on my side and one on Ben's). We were able to get family pictures and just have a lot of fun, maybe too much at times (Lysha are you still working on your musical about putting a puzzle together?)
Hope to get our Christmas card done soon. The weather hasn't cooperated much and then Ben has had to work late a lot; so it's dark by the time he gets home. It may end up being a New Year's Card.
It has finally cooled off here and it feels like autumn now. We have had rain a few days and I am so happy to be wearing long pants and warm clothes. I love to be bundled up. I love jackets and sweaters and hoodies.
MERRY CHRISTMAS! Hope you are all enjoying this holiday season.

Halloween 2009

For Halloween this year we decided to all follow a theme. Josi made the first choice. She wanted to be Harley Quinn from Lego Batman for Wii. From there Ben decided to be the Joker. At first Hyrum and I were going to be Spiderman and Mary Jane Watson, but later changed to Batman and Poison Ivy for a few reasons. After Ben decided to be the Joker, he started watching clips of the Dark Knight so he could act like Joker. Hyrum would wrap his blankie around his neck and act like batman. Beside that, I decided that it would be easier to make a Batman costume than a Spiderman one. Thirdly, Mary Jane Watson was a little boring. No real costume, just regular street clothes with red hair.

Joker

Why so Serious?!?

Poison Ivy

Harley Quinn

The Whole Gang

We didn't get a good one of just Hyrum.

Friday night we went to your ward Halloween party. The kids got to do a little trunk-or-treating. Saturday, Ben wore his costume to work and got some good reactions out of his drivers. Then we invited ourselves over to Bryan and Karin's to spend the evening with them and so the kids could go trick-or-treating in a better neighborhood. Most of our neighborhood didn't pass out candy last year. It was a little disappointing. Bryan took lots of pictures, so he probably got some really good ones. I hope they share :) Thanks Clarks for letting us crash your evening. We love spending time with you!

Happy Mother's Day to me

After bringing the furniture home, Ben took the kids out and left me home. He said he wanted to have a little personal time with them. Made sense, summer is coming on fast and won't see them much for a few months. I was happy to have a little time to myself and I took the time to blog and work on my dad's website a little and watch one of my favorite movies, Pride and Prejudice. Not the condensed version with Kiera Knightly, but the A&E version that is 6 VHS tapes long (I am watching tape 6 now). I am going to have to get it on DVD now though, because tape 3 wouldn't play at all and 2 of the others were not working properly either. Kids!
Well, Ben just got home and the kids lugged in a package, grinning ear to ear, exclaiming Happy Mother's Day and Happy dirfday Muders (Hyrum).




Ben had taken the kids shopping for me. He gets sweeter every year. Hyrum picked out the card and Josi picked out the Hannah Montana wrapping paper.
I asked if I was supposed to open it now or wait til tomorrow. He said I might want to open it now, but I could wait til tomorrow if I wanted.







So I opened it now. Inside was ....




the fabric for my curtains in the front room! And a new feather pillow for the bed. (Mine was a hand-me-down from my mom when I was in junior high and barely resembles a pillow anymore, but I totally love.)





I didn't want Ben to feel bad, but it was the wrong color. It was red, instead of the burgandy I had picked out. I finally got brave enough to tell him, and he said that the lady at the store said they had two of them, but one of them was out.
Of course, it was my burgandy one. Ben, typical male that he is, couldn't tell the difference and got me the red.





It is still beautiful and looks great in the room. It matches the few other decorative things I have in there, like the candles on the table. We hung it up on the blinds to see how we liked it. Ben says he likes it better, and it is growing on me.










Here is a close-up of the fabrics.




I guess next week I will be making curtains, festoons and sheers. I can see now that I am going to have to line the fabric. It looks striped where the sun shines through it. I still have to pick out the rods for them though. I am not sure of the style I want yet though.


Hyrum's own personal gift to me, just in time for Mother's Day, is that he is all daytime potty trained. He still has to wear a diaper at night, but he hasn't had an accident during the day for nearly a week. And he goes when he gets up in the morning. I am so happy I don't have to buy diapers any more. At least not for a while. (Nothing implied!) Thanks Mom and Karin for the cold bath trick.

Easter

I finally took the time to get the easter pictures off of Ben's phone. We took them at the church on our way in. We (of course) were late and didn't have our regular camera, but I wanted to get some pictures while they still looked fresh. I am glad we did, because after church Josi's curls had relaxed some and Hyrum's hair was all fuzzy. I made Josi's dress and Hyrum's tie. It was so fun to make. I even hand mad all of the pink edging, bias tape and piping for the dress and dyed the lace under the skirt to match. It surprised even me at how well it turned out. It is my second favorite that I have made.

They do love each other sometimes!

The best part about this dress is that Josi loves it. All of the others I have made her, she was either too young to care or she hated wearing because she said it was itchy. I think because all of the seams were unfinished. This dress I finally had a serger to finish the edges. Thank you mommy and, ultimately, daddy for giving my mom a new serger for Christmas that made it so my mom had 1 serger too many!

What a handsome little dude! I was going to make him a bow tie at first, but I thought it would be fun to try a necktie. I just took apart a clip-on that he had and use it as a pattern, then put it back together. Instead of this one being a clip on, it has a strip that goes through the tie and clips in the back. It made it look more like a regular tie.

It was so sunny they couldn't open their eyes, but they just look so cute!