Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts

Saturday, January 01, 2011

A new decade, a new year, an old blog.

Well hello again, it's been a while.

I'd really like to get back into blogging and this will be my first attempt to get back into it. Hopefully there will be more to come.

My husband had to work so we spent Christmas at home. It was nice being able to wake up and let the kids run downstairs to see what 'Santa' brought them. Their little hearts were just filled with excitement, my oldest even started talking to herself at one point, holding her chest, telling herself to calm down. *squee* That's the moment that parents wait for at Christmas time.

Santa was good to them too. They were very specific this year. They asked for Purple Unicorn Pillowpets, A Baby Alive Feeding Baby, and a Doctor Set. Santa can live up to those expectations!



If you really want to see excited though, we'd need to look back to a few days prior. We took our annual trip to the 'North Pole'. For some reason the girls got it in their head that the local Lightfest is the North Pole. We probably put that in their heads being silly at some point, but they believe it and it always seems to work in our favor. The drive isn't that far but we usually go late at night so it's dark and they don't know where we're going. The line is long so they typically fall asleep until just before we enter the gates, and you drive through all of the lights to the end where Santa is. They get to go in and talk to Santa in their PJ's, get a pic and drop of their letters in the mailbox. It's good family fun, but back to my original point - this is what excited looks like according to my 4.5 year old:



Don't you wish you were 4 again?
Or maybe you want to be a 3 year old mommy?

Yes, that's right. My baby just turned 3 on New Year's Eve. I can honestly say that I have no idea what happened to the last three years. It feels like I was holding this sweet little baby in my arms yesterday and now all of a sudden I have a preschooler. The sweetest, smartest preschooler that I know. She amazes me each and every day. She came home the first week of school and signed the letter 'B' and said she wanted to take Barney as her letter B item for show and tell. All throughout the Holiday Season she's had us in good spirits with her constant caroling, and best of all she smothers me regularly with her awesome hugs!

We're in Pennsylvania visiting family for the New Year so we celebrated her birthday with cupcakes and ice cream and we'll do it all over again once we're back in Michigan. She's cute, so we let her slide like that.. having two birthdays.

Speaking of Pennsylvania, we're having a great time. We don't get to visit nearly as often as I'd like but when we're here the girls have a blast. Sure they eat too much sugar, stay up to late, don't get enough sleep and they're cranky... But they get to see their grandma and pappy, their grandma sassy and all of their cousins, aunts, uncles, etc... That's the one thing about living so far away that gets me, they don't get to see their family - I don't get to see my family.

Pretty soon though it'll be back to Michigan, back to work, back to school, back to the realities of life. 2010 brought sickness, heartache, family drama, a financial crisis, difficult jobs, too much stress, too much mess and I'm glad that we're putting that all behind us.

2011 is a fresh start and I'm looking forward to it. After all a few good things did come out of 2010 that will pave our path in 2011 like the Church and Church family that we've become a part of. It has been our saving grace, literally. We were both saved and baptized at CrossPointe in 2010, and we're definitely looking forward to the exciting things to come at CrossPointe in 2011. We also found an amazing school that the girls are going to. N is in the Preschool 3's and K is in the Pre-K class and they love it! We couldn't have found a better school!

So goodbye 2010, Hello 2011 - I'm looking forward to the adventure that lies ahead!

Happy New Year everyone!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Busy, Busy - when I get the time!

I'm working on Christmas Presents at the moment - it's sneaking up on us pretty fast!




Shhh.. Don't tell Hugga!


I think she'll like it, at least I hope she does! I made it using the tutorial from Chocolate on my Cranium. It was really, really easy. I see more of these in my future, I can think of a few kids that would love to have these. Plus Hugga needs one for her markers too ;)






I didn't forget about Taters - I made her a snuggly blanket. I used JoAnns snuggle fleece that was on sale a few weeks back and bound it with some satin blanket binding that my good friend Trudi passed along to me. It's silky & soft - what baby doesn't love that? If I make a blanket like this again there are a few things I'd do differently - I'd definitely zig zag from the start. I started out straight stitching all the way around until I hit a corner and while I thought I was catching both sides, in some places I wasn't so I went back afterwards and zig zagged it and it's great now.
Straight-stitching was a waste of time for me.


This is a surprise ;) Don't want the receiver to accidentally figure out what they're getting!

I also made some babylegs from some socks I found on clearance at Target! I tried a small cuff and a large cuff - one for Hugga & one for Taters, they both work really well!


Friday, October 10, 2008

Mental note for the future - cutting out 18 diapers and two pairs of fleece pants all in a row - hurts your back!


That being said I love making diapers in an assembly line. It just feels more rewarding to get a whole pile of diapers done all at once.


Want a sneak preview?






18 Size Medium "Huggataters"


12 for a Custom Order for a special someone ;)


6 for Taters




I also made a pair of Steelers Fleece pants for Taters and a pair for my cousin's baby due to arrive here any day now :) I hope my cousin likes them - who am I kidding though. I know she'll like them. We bleed black & gold! I should have picked up more of this fleece so I could make a pair for Hugga but I just didn't have enough - I made her Halloween dress last week though so in all fairness it was Taters turn!

I'm starting my Christmas list as well. I have a few projects that I would like to get done that I think my girls will really like.

I also have an idea to make a bag with some small gifts inside for Nick's family. They decided that we're not going to exchange gifts this year because of finances but we're still getting together as usual for dinner and we're still going to draw names and exchange gifts for the kids. Well, this year it's at my house and I think I want to surprise everyone with a little something. It might not be much because he has 6 aunts & uncles and they have kids & their kids have kids.. but I figured it would be a nice surprise if I could come up with something. Christmas isn't about giving extravagant gifts, or spending a ton of money. It's not even about gifts at all, but it's nice to know that someone thought of you and what's more thoughtful than a homemade/handmade gift specifically for you.