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.

dinner conversation

Josi- who is Christopher Robinson?

Me- He's from Winnie the Pooh.

Josi- no, the one who lives by us.

Me- you mean, Cooper Robinson?

Josi- no, Cooper's mom

Me- Oh, sister Robinson

Josi- Oh yeah.

Josi's Birthday

Since Josi's birthday was on Sunday, we had her birthday dinner on Monday. We would have done it on Saturday, but Ben was out at PIR for the NASCAR race 'til 11 that night, working. Her choice was Sushi again (that is what she chose last year). We tried a new place called Li's Bowl. The prices were really good, ie. 16 piece California roll for $5 and 8 piece Gyoza (potstickers) for $4. It tasted pretty good too!

those are chopsticks in her left hand. She insists on using them when she eats sushi.

They have this tank set up in there with a huge cichlid. It would follow the kids back and forth across the tank and they had a blast with it. The lady behind the counter laughed when Hyrum "kissed" the fish.

Afterward, we went home and had birthday cake. I attempted an icecream cake again and have decided it just isn't my thing. It melted way too fast while I was trying to frost it. And the frosting wouldn't stick to the icecream on the edges.

I did decide to try making frosting roses, which I haven't done since I was in high school. They turned out pretty well. Some of them aren't as good because the frosting kept getting too warm in the bag in my hand and the petals would kinda melt together.

I was going to put the roses all around the base to hide the ugly sides, but my hands got too tired so I just put them on the worst side. Overall, I am pretty happy with how it turned out. And Josi was just thrilled with it.

Who knew it was so hard to eat a chocolate covered pretzel!

'nuff said.

I made another doll dress for a friend.

with little panties underneath.

Hope you like it Amberly!

I am so Grateful...

for a the good moments with my children. Just tonight, after dinner. I let the kids have a cookie for dessert. Hyrum, as always, takes forever to eat his food. So he and I were sitting in the kitchen while he slowly ate his cookie. I wasn't totally paying attention to him, because I was watching a tv show (Castle) on my computer. After a little while a started walking around the table, looking on each chair and asks "Where's my cookie?" I said, I think you ate it all. He replied, "I tink I hide it". I said, "Well, then, maybe you shouldn't hide your cookies because you loose them." He then gets a big, knowing grin on his face and shouts, "Maybe you eat it!", thrusting his little index finger at me. I couldn't help but laugh out loud. I just had to give him a big hug. Rest assured, we found his cookie. I remembered that he had set it on the counter to get a drink.
It's a good thing they are so darn cute from time to time or I simply couldn't handle the times they are such stinkers!

The Fort

We are part of a "babysitting co-op" with a couple of other families in our ward. We each take turns watching each others kids on Saturdays from 5-9ish so that we can have date nights without having to pay a babysitter. More to the point, without having to find a babysitter. There aren't a lot of young adults in our ward. Anyway, this last Saturday was our turn. We had 8 kids under the age of 8, including our own. For the last hour and a half we put a movie in to try and encourage the kids to settle down and even fall asleep. This time Ben thought we should make a fort for the kids. It was the best idea. The kids were so excited to build it and were shouting and screaming after the announcement.


We pushed the couches together parallel to each other with the Love Sac in the middle and used two of our barstools and the tv as supports. We put a couple of seats on the "porch" too.

The view from the front door.

Some of the kiddos, totally engrossed in Curious George.

The rest of the kiddos. And the fan which was used to keep them all cool, since the roof blocked the ceiling fan. :) That was one of the kids' idea.

Little Transporter

While I have been busy with my little project this last week, Ben has been busy with his own. We made a video of Josi when she was about Hyrum's age. I wanted to put it on here, but I haven't found the disc we saved it on. Ben thought it was time to do one with Hyrum. This one didn't turn out as well as we hoped it would. We need to work on the green screen thing. But, here it is anyway. We hope you enjoy!

A few More Outfits

Okay, so I am at the end of my doll clothes Christmas project. I finished that last few things I wanted to make for Josi, with the exception of a diaper bag, which I haven't completely decided I want to make yet. So, anyway...

This is the dress I made. It was really a pain because the fabric frays really easy. I am a little scared that, even though I serged all of the edges, it is going to fall apart with a little rugrat tugging it on and off of the doll. We'll see.

Josi had a Christmas dress made out of this 2 years ago. And the sheer stuff on top I got as a remnant. I am going to make Josi a dress this year with it and it was wide enough, that I used the opposite edge for this. Believe it or not, this is the plainer of the edges.

A few of the details. I made a headband for it and I sewed little buttons on the cuffs to look like they button shut. You can't really see them in the picture I think.

Jammies for the girl baby. Josi had jammies just like these once.

This outfit I made for a friend.

I sewed little buttons on that I found on clearance at Hobby Lobby! The shirt actually snaps up though. Easier for little fingers. I will do the same with the blue shirt I made.

Cargo pockets. They snap shut too.

And the pies de resistance....

Little briefs! So cute.

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!