Projects

One of the reasons I haven't blogged much is because my time lately has been taken up by projects. I have been busy with several projects. I will share a couple of my recent completed ones.

Jonathan and Stacy got an idea to build a frame for the girls playhouse as a Christmas present. Originally we were thinking about using fabric to cover the frame, but it just didn't play out well in my head. After a few days of thought and looking at all the left over boxes from Christmas, I came up with an idea for the roof. Just use cut up cardboard and glue cut up strips of sturdy felt for shingles. That brought me here:
Then I didn't know what to do about the sides. On a trip to the hobby store for more felt, I spotted some foam boards and the light in my head came on again! I can zip strip these to the frame for walls! As this was not a foreseen idea, I didn't measure the sides and just picked up as many foam boards as I would think I would need. When I got to the cash register, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that these foam boards were discontinued and shouldn't have been on the floor to sell, but it was their store policy to give them to me for free since I had already selected them! Let me tell you, I walked out of that store with 16 free foam boards! I felt like I was being watched every step of the way to my car and I kept on waiting for someone to chase after me and tell me to return them! I later learned at another store they cost around $6/board. I feel sort of like a thief, but legal. It turns out, I only needed eight to complete the sides.

Next, I had to figure out what to do about the door and what to cover the triangle area above the door. I let my mind stew over this for a few days. I was in walmart for something else and I thought of looking at the kitchen curtains. I thought they would be the perfect length. It turns out I was right and at $7 they were the perfect price. I also bought a matching valence in hopes that it would drape nicely around the top to fill in that triangle area.
So, this is where I was now:

Now for embellishing the design! I used green card stock to cut out grass and stickers to make flowers, butterflies, and lady bugs.

We even used the cut out squares from the windows to make stars for the inside ceiling.

Here is the final playhouse.

Project #2:
Pinterest idea
Brooke's valentine card
I got this idea off of pinterest. I like the illusion of her holding the sucker. This was hard to get the picture right (it is hard to get an almost 3 yr old to position her hand just right), but once I did it was a very easy project.

Heather 15 months

Heather is so active and wants to do everything like her big sister. Not limited, but including going potty (which she has coincidentally done 2 times), pushing around the step stool and climbing up to 'help' mommy, dancing, playing chase, and coloring. She still loves to laugh and act silly. I love her happy personality. She is trying to learn to dance by spinning around and kicks up one leg, and it is so cute to watch.

Heather loves to flip through books and read. She loves animals and anytime she sees them she gets so excited! She is not afraid of any animal, so I will have to keep an eye on her. She loves to take off her shoes, socks, and any hair accessories. She is trying to use her fork and spoon. She can drink out of a cup with no lid (minimal spillage with supervision). She loves to antagonize her big sister! Anytime she catches wind of something Brooke wants, she will try to steal it and run away as fast as she can giggling the whole time. She loves to play peek a boo.

Heather is learning a lot of words. In addition to mommy, daddy, dog, rain, she can now say, cat, bath, cheese, boo, and sis (for Brooke). She can roar like a lion, baa baa like a sheep, woof like a dog, meow like a cat, and moo like a cow.

Heather has been having a series of on/off diaper rashes for the last 4 months. The last major one was right before Christmas and it was so horrible it lasted for 2 weeks with bleeding blisters and required 3 visits to the doctor. I have been trying to figure out what was causing these rashes and had eliminated several foods, changed brands of wipes and diapers (even went with organic no chlorine plain diapers). None of these things worked. After our first visit (over the Christmas Holidays) to the doctor for this, he had us change her to lactaid milk and decrease the amount of lactose she was getting. After 3 days, I saw no improvement and the silvadene (burn cream) didn't seem to be helping. So, he gave us a compounded diaper cream and also suggested trying a gluten free diet. I headed to Drug Emporium to stock up on gluten free foods. Finally, her rash got better. After being on the GF diet for two weeks, I reintroduced gluten. No rash. Great, it wasn't gluten causing her diaper rashes. So, next on my list was to reintroduce lactose. Well, the nursery workers at church this past Sunday did that for me, not on purpose. Sunday night she had another horrendous diaper rash! So sad she has another rash, but at least we figured out what was causing these horrendous diaper rashes!

Heather weighs 19lbs, is wearing 18 month clothes, size 5 shoe, and size 3 diaper. She also has 6 teeth, her two front top and bottom and two of her top molars.

2011 Brooke Christmas Program

This year Brooke performed in her school Christmas program. She is on the second row toward the right in a red shirt with striped pants! I was very impressed with her. She knew her songs and practiced them for two weeks. She is the only one in her class that sang both songs despite multiple distractions! This momma is so proud of her "Big" girl!

Updates

I'm sorry it's been so long since my last post. We have been extremely blessed and busy this Christmas season! I'm going to tell about our last few weeks through pictures!


The first weekend in December we went to Santa Breakfast with Jill, her kids, and Stacy, Nonga, and Jason.


Jason trying to give Heather a big kiss.


Waiting to sit on Santa's lap!




After eating breakfast with Santa we headed to Danville Farms in Kilgore. We always like to get a real tree and this is our second year to get one from Danville Farms. The room we display our tree has no other furniture except a digital piano. It is a huge room with 14 ft ceilings. So, our tree needs to be substantial to take up space and look nice. Danville Farms had a lot of trees but around the 7 ft range. Anything larger was sparse except if you wanted a precut NC spruce tree, which is what we decided to get.

The hay ride around the tree farm.

Trying to find that perfect tree. Although pretty, notice how Ryan is taller than most of the trees.


Heather had fun playing with the tree bailing wire while Brooke and daddy decorate the tree.

I tried and tried to get a picture of both girls smiling at the same time! Those with kids understand this difficult task and this was the best picture I got!



This is my new pinterest project for this Christmas season. For those that have seen my house, I have no lack of wall space to hang a card holder, but I think that with out anything else on the walls it looks a little odd to just have a card holder out in a vast space of white wall. I know I really need to work on decorating and hopefully next year I will be able to focus on that. So, for now I took a piece of ribbon, fastened it around my cabinet doors, spray painted clothes pins with green glitter and hung my pretty cards.


The girls having fun pushing their cousin Jason around in the wagon!


I have been infected with the crafty bug and I can't seem to find a cure except making and baking projects. It started with homemade hand scrub and lotion for teacher's gifts and progressed to rudolph cake balls for Brooke's present to her classmates and snowman cupcakes for her class party, Christmas popcorn gifts for the auxiliary teachers, to now I'm making some homemade vanilla extract for some friends as gifts!


Rudolph cake balls ~ another pinterest idea....dangerous site for those infected with the crafty bug!



Brooke at her party excited to eat 2 cupcakes!

The snowmen cupcakes. I'm glad they made the trip from home to the party!

Stacy wrapped this box and put a cute bow on it to take some pictures of Jason. She thought I might like to use it for my girls before she threw it away so she brought it over and we tried to get some pictures these are the two best.



Brooke was being a stinker and kept on wanting to turn around backwards so I had to act fast when she did face the front to capture a picture.
The next night the girls had more fun unwrapping the box and destroying their playroom with paper strewn all over the place.


I loved hearing the giggles as I washed the dishes! Here are the girls playing in the once wrapped box!



The other day my mom and I took the girls to the mall to sit in Santa's lap. I wanted to take a few pictures of the girls in their pretty Christmas dresses before we left. They were both in such a sweet mood and loving on each other. It makes my heart melt when they act this way! I know they will be best friends for life!


We have adopted an "elf on the shelf" this year. Brooke named him Sparkly and he has been spotted all over our house. Amongst the usual suspect spots (i.e. mantle, Christmas tree, gifts, light fixtures...), he has been performing tyrolean traverses, climbing the brick wall, making art, and eating our ginger bread house!

It has been fun coming up with new places for him to hide each night and Brooke loves to look for him in the morning.

We wish everyone a joyous holidays and pray that you all get to spend it with people that mean the most to you! I want to wish you and your families a Merry Christmas!

LOL!

Some days my kids just make me laugh so hard that my abs hurt. Today was one of those days and here a couple of videos that captured the moment. First, Brooke made a pirate hat at school and when asked what a pirate says this is how she responded!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9koxB8ugGE

Next, Heather has a time trying to sit on the big girl potty! She wants so bad to be a "big" girl and its hilarious!
What's even more funny is that before bath she did the same thing and actually peed in the potty for the first time!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY6WXbp6rYs

Enjoy! ~ I'm still laughing!

iPhone Pictures

What? Two posts in one week! I'm on the ball or maybe it's just that my husband has been having insane calls and I can do stuff like this after the girls go to bed.

Well here are several pictures of my life captured from my iphone....

Halloween! Ellis Pottery had their 1st annual pumpkin glow and we went along with Nonga, Stacy, Jason, and Big Mama. It was a really cute event. This was the best picture I got of the kids. Jason looks so cute in his monster costume!

The girls had a halloween party at their MDO. Brooke, of course, was Minnie Mouse and Heather was a little angel.

At school, they invite the parents to walk with their children during the Halloween parade and then celebrate by watching your child and their classmates eat cute cupcakes that I'm sure some creative artsy mother spent hours making. I better get to creating because I think I signed up for sweets for the Christmas party! Anyway, Brooke wanted to show me her favorite hat to wear at school. I thought this was a hilarious picture. I love to go her parties and get a glimpse of what she does all day.

Sweet sister hug!

One of our neighbors hosted a Halloween party and hayride for the kids. It was great and I hope they continue this every year. Here is a picture of our family on the hayride. Notice the minnie ears and Heather's bow are no longer in their hair. I try to put bows and barrettes in my girls hair, but they want nothing to do with them. I am still hoping this is just a phase and eventually they will like their hair done!


I heard through the grapevine that Pump it Up was closing. I decided to look at their website and they were in fact closing. And it just so happened the day I looked was also their last pop in playtime. So, I packed up the girls and we headed out. Heather learned to climb the ladder to the slide all by herself. The owner told me that they are relocating, but don't have a building yet. He said that Pump it up has changed their layout and is no longer using their current set up. I hope they find a place soon because it was a great place to take the girls when it was too cold or rainy outside.


Last weekend Uncle Nonga, Aunt Stacy, and Jason came over. Stacy practiced making her cake for Jason's birthday and then we all had dinner. After dinner Nonga had fun entertaining the girls.

Where's Nonga? Hiding away where nobody sees...

Then the girls wanted to try!

A few weeks ago, I set up our portable hammock on the back porch. One cooler day the girls discovered it and wanted to give it a try. Can you tell who was thrilled about it and which one did care so much for it?

One evening a couple of weeks ago, our Sunday school had a fall party. Here is a picture of Brooke and her friend Samantha eating dinner. It was a little chilly that night so we stayed mostly inside, but did venture out for the hay ride. Brooke is loving all of these hay rides.


Here is a sweet picture of Daddy reading to his girls before bedtime! I love it!

Notice Brooke's bed is converted to a toddler bed! I also have both girls finally sleeping in the same room at night. So far, they have been doing great. Tonight was by far the worst night Brooke had with getting out of bed. She was just too wound up and in the future I may just keep her up a little longer when she is acting that way. But at least it didn't bother Heather and she still went to sleep relatively peaceful.

This past weekend we went to Samantha's birthday party at Chuck E Cheese's. This was the first time for me and the girls to go to a Chuck E Cheese. Brooke loved it and wanted to play everything even though she is still too small for most stuff. She loved the Barney ride, air hockey, and photo booths.

She is on the clock ride where the kids sit in this seat and it swings in a half circle slowly back and forth. I thought Brooke would have liked it more, but she wasn't too sure of it.


Here is the girls 30 seconds after getting in the car after the party! Chuck E Cheese wore them out!

And after nap time they were playing outside and Heather was having fun on the four wheeler when Brooke wanted to join the fun.



Whoa! Wild Hair!

Today Ryan was post call, but still worked from 7am until 9pm. So, in addition to going to church, I decided to get some projects done around the house. One being to change light bulbs that I have been meaning to change for months. Give Sam a bath and his flea and heartworm medicine. Clean a bunch of foam tiles that I used underneath the inflatable pool on the back porch. Assemble a storage box for the back porch. Do 4 loads of laundry. Finish Heather's 1 year picture frame. I was a busy lady today, but I feel like I accomplished something. And I still squeezed in a blog update while I was updating my phone to the new software.

Both girls wanted to help me assemble a utility storage box for our back porch.


I finally finished Heather's 1 year picture frame.

Heather 13 months

Sorry, it seems I've been checked out of blogging lately. I have several projects that I have been working on lately and Pinterest is addicting!

Heather is 13 months. Where does the time go? She is following Brooke all over the house and trying to mimic exactly what she does. She wants to be a "big" girl so bad. She loves to color, sort blocks, fill up containers and dump them out, put all the rings in the bath on her arms like bracelets, pick up balls bigger than her (basketball) and walk around even though she can't see where she is going, she loves to pull Sam's tail and make him spin around to see who is messing with him, the list goes on and on. That is all that comes to the top of my head for now. Heather is definitely my silly girl and loves to extract a laugh from you!

She is babbling all the time and sometimes she will repeat exactly what you said, but I know she doesn't understand the words and can't duplicate them. She knows the words mama (finally!), dada, dog, cat, bath, go. She can sign for all done, more (which also is the same as eat for her), and bath. She can moo like a cow when she sees a cow. We have been working on identifying eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Most of the time she will point correctly to her ears.

Heather is eating well these days! I was just comparing the 1 year pics and the 13 month pics and I think her face is noticeably rounder. I think she was going through a growth spurt a few weeks ago and during the spell I couldn't feed her enough food! She has discovered CANDY and loves it! She knows that most of the time Brooke gets a piece of candy after going potty and Heather is also waiting for her treat after I give Brooke one. I can't help but give that sweet innocent face a treat! :) She also loves yogurt melts and baby cheetoes! She does well eating most fruits and some vegetables (corn, carrots, squash, sweet potatoes). She is fully weaned now and drinks whole milk all the time.

She sleeps continuously through the night. Bedtime around 7:30 and sleeps until 7am. Naps around 12 until 2. She is wearing 12 month clothes, size 4 shoe, and size 3 diaper. At her 1 year check up she weighed 18lbs and was 29 3/4" long.



Here is my helper playing peek-a-boo with Heather.

Of course, Brooke wanted her picture too! I think Brooke looks so much older in this picture and she is losing her baby features! She isn't my little baby anymore (sniff, sniff). I still love her dimples!