First Week

This week had a lot of first for Kayla.  First week of private Kindergarten at KinderCare.  Kayla misses the cut off for public school by 18 days. She has already done 2 years of preschool and I don't want her to stop learning. We will still enroll her in Kindergarten next in the public school. 

 

She loves her teacher, Mrs. Thomas.  We do homework every night and she is doing so good.  Kayla always has something exciting to tell me about her day.

Kayla started dance this week!  I'm so excited and she seemed to really like it.  It's a Jazz/Ballet class and one day a week.  It's a tiny studio with great values.

 

On a side note we got a new kitty this week!  We named him Shadow and he is so sweet.  He hardly ever makes a noise and he is very mellow.  He lets the kids tote him around and doesn't even try to bite them.  My big cat Jade is so afraid of him!  It's so funny to watch the tiny kitten chase the big fat cat around the house. 

 

Update on Kayla

 

Kayla my Kayla is getting so big!  She is turning 5 next month and she is so excited(except for the shots she's getting).  She misses the cut off for school by 18 days and it's so sad because she is so ready.  She will be starting private Kindergarten at my work soon and she is excited.  She loves to have tea parties and gets excited when the cat wants to join her.  Anything girly this girl loves!

 

She loves to do art!  Anything to do with art but if she can it would be painting.  She also loves her brother and loves to boss him around.  He deals with it most of the time.  She also loves star wars and power rangers.  Maybe it's all the boys she hangs out with but she does love them.

 

She is obsessed with making forts!  There is almost always some form of a fort in my house.

I decided to ask Kayla some questions for this so here are her answers.

What's your favorite color?  Pink

What's your favorite food?  Daddy's Mac and Cheese

What do you want to be when you grow up?  A Princess or a Mermaid Princess

What's your favorite toy?  My baby brother(giggling)  my baby doll

What's your favorite thing to do?  I like playing with my brother

What's your favorite ride?  Star Tours

What's your favorite princess?  Ariel

Oh I love this girl!

Update on Carter

  

Carter will be turning Two in November and I can't believe how big he is getting.  He is really taking off with his speak and it's so fun to hear him talk.   He is all boy.... always getting dirty and if it has wheels he's there.  He really wants to do things by himself now.  He is always trying to put his shoes on and his shirt.  It's so fun to watch.

 He is such a tease!  He loves to offer you something then take it away when you reach for it.  Sadly his favorite word right now is no... but he says so many cute things.  He will hide and say "Where'd it go?" and spring out and say "There he is!"  I love this boy so much!

 

He got to join in on a birthday party at a karate place and he loved it.  I've never seen him so excited and so focused.  Too bad he has to wait until he is 4.

 

 He is such a little brother and loves to frustrate his sister.  But they really do get along very well and love to play with each other.  Recently we got rid of the binkie!  YEAH!  We cut the end of it off and told him it was broken and we have been 2 weeks without it.

Hi there

Blogging has been hard for me lately.  Currently it has been last on my to do list and I haven't had the drive to do it.  I am going to start up again and hopefully get back to keeping it up.  The real reason for not wanting to blog is I have depression and it effects me emotionally, physically and mentally.  Recently it has gotten worse and I have had to up my medication.  It's hard to feel like your not enough and to never have the energy to do anything.  I'm very thankful for my family and their support to get through it.  I am feeling much, MUCH better now a days.  I really just wanted to write this to say I'm still here and if you have depression I feel for you. 

Something simple!

I had to share.  I love this project I just did and it didn't cost me a cent!
So it's canvas that was given to me, scrapbook paper I had, buttons that my mother-in-law let me have and mod podge which I always have.

Isn't it cute!  I just love when something so simple looks so good!

House

So the day after Christmas we were busy!  We moved!  Yes we know we are crazy.  Here's the story.  We are buying my mother-in-laws home from her.  There is an upstairs apartment that she is living in and she wanted to renovate it before we all moved.  Well dealing with contractors made the move get pushed back several times so the soonest we could move was after Christmas.  So we moved After Christmas.  We are still in the process of actually purchasing the home but it will hopefully be final the end of this month.  But we are good and moved in and my house was clean today so I took some pictures to show you and give you a tour of our house.

So as you pull in the driveway the house is on the right it has a very unique history that I will do a separate post for but as you can see it's not a cookie cutter house.  The upper part of the house is my mother-in-laws apartment and we live on the main level and have the basement also.  There is a 3 car carport with 3 storage units.  We do not lack in storage area.

Across the gaint driveway (trust me it's a lot to shovel) you go down some steps to a large yard.  My kids love running around down there

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So back inside the house.  You walk into the main entrance you see in the picture and you are in the kitchen on your right.  It's a good size kitchen and I love it!  We just got a new stove and microwave.

  

Then as you go through the kitchen you come to the dining room and computer room.  It's on giant room but it's easy to divide it.  Look to the left you have the dining room.

 

Look to the right and you have computer room.

 

Also the master bedroom is in this half of the house at this point.  It's a big room and it has it's own bathroom!  The closet is also big so I love our room!  This shot is when you walk in our room. 

 

Then as you walk in to the left you see the bathroom.

 

Okay so going back thru the kitchen you come to 3 little stairs that lower you into the living room.  It's big and fun and plenty of room for everything.  This is coming down into the living room from the kitchen.

 

This is the other end and the other door into the house.

 

So off to the left is the kids rooms and bathroom.  There is a little small hallway that leads down to Kayla's room and the bathroom.  Carter's is the first one you come to.

 

Kayla has a big room and it use to be Graydon's when he was growing up.  She has been asking almost every day if we can paint her room but for now I added some butterflies to make it more girlie.

 

Well that's my house!  There is a basement that has a pretty big room and storage and laundry room.  Nothing worth taking pictures.  It's unique, it's the perfect size for our family and I love the ward and city.

Christmas

Christmas was wonderful this year and a little stressful.  We moved the day after Christmas but there will be a post on that coming up.  So we found this amazing doll house for Kayla at Costco like 3 months before for a steal of a deal.  Santa's helpers aka me and Graydon had to put it together Christmas Eve.

 

  It took us until 1am to get it put together.  Here is Graydon showing just how big this thing is!  Christmas morning was awesome!  Both kids were super excited to see that Santa had come.  Kayla was very happy that Santa had left one cookie for her to eat.

Kayla was thrilled with her new doll house!  She just couldn't believe it was so big! 

Carter loved his basketball hoop game.  He just played with it forever!  I'm so glad Santa did so well this year.

The damage of the morning.  We were spoiled this year.  See that box in the bottom corner.  Yep I got a beautiful KitchenAid Mixer!  I love it!  I definitely felt very spoiled getting it!

We spent the rest of the day going from family to family loving to see everyone and enjoy the holiday together.  It really was a great Christmas and Kayla even told us to wish Jesus a happy birthday so I feel like we got some of the true meaning across this year.

First Snow

This was Carter's first encounter with snow and he enjoyed it.  Kayla was completely excited to play with snow and had been waiting for it to snow for weeks.

Snow angels anyone?

 

A little timid at first.  Not sure what to think.

 

Mom it's cold!  I don't know what to do!

 

Trying to make a snowball to throw at me.

 

And then he face planted in the snow and he was done.  He couldn't quite walk in the snow so crawling was it.

Hi!

Yes we are alive and yes we didn't fall off the face of the earth.  Life has just been super busy.  Christmas, moving the day after Christmas, work and well life.  I will be filling in the blanks with post this week but I thought I would say hi!  So look forward to some fun filled posts.

My hobby

So I have taken up a hobby and thought I would share.  I love to make wreaths!  I am always looking for a new type of wreath to make.  These are a few of the wreaths I have made.  I didn't take pictures of a couple of the ones I made for others but I wish I would have.  I love it when someone comments one my wreath or asks me how to make them.  It's very relaxing and entertaining to me to make them.  I of course got the ideas for the wreaths from other sources so I have put a  link under the wreaths if you want to know how to make them.

So this one is my snowflake and candy cane wreaths.  They are tutu wreaths and super easy to make.  I love how fun they are.  I ended up giving these both to someone so I need to make one for my self again.

http://www.ourbestbites.com/2011/10/how-to-make-a-tulle-wreath-halloween-edition/

 

This one is actually made using paper flowers.  I made a couple more of these wreaths but didn't take pictures before giving them to people.  They take longer to make since the paper flowers are a bit of a process to make but so worth it.  I have learned how to make a new paper flower and can't wait to use it on a wreath.

http://mmscrapshoppe.blogspot.com/2010/05/ceramic-paper-roses.html

 

This is a ribbon wreath.  Again super easy and time consuming.  But it was way fun to make.  I ended up making another one of different ribbon but again didn't take a picture.  This one you just cut ribbon in the length you want it and then tie it to a wire wreath base.  That's it you decide the spacing and length and just go to town with the ribbon.  Someone told me about this wreath so I don't have any link for it.

 

This is my newest wreath, a yarn wreath.  I saw one on pinterest and knew I had to try it.  I loved the way it turned out and I look forward to making different colors of these types and adding different types of embellishments. 

http://mmscrapshoppe.blogspot.com/2010/03/yarn-wreath-with-mini-tutorial.html

I love making wreaths but I can't keep making wreaths for myself or I might never be able to use all of them so if you ever want one let me know I would be happy to make one for you.

Carving Pumpkins

 

So this was Carter's first time carving pumpkins and we didn't know how he would do with it.  He loved it.  Kept trying to eat the pumpkin but he enjoyed himself.  We did a simple pumpkin for him and it was just perfect.

 

Kayla is pro now and she was excited to scrap out the pumpkin guts.  I couldn't get her to look at the camera so here's the top of her head.

 

She also helped by pulling out the piece after they were cut.  Side note we had some, let's say issues with Kayla's pumpkin so if you turned it around it had a big gaping hole in the back of the head.  So her pumpkin ended up being a grumpy pumpkin.

  

Graydon made a fancy pumpkin as always.  He really enjoys taking the time to carve details into the pumpkins.  So here are our pumpkins for 2011

Carter is One!!

Okay so I'm super late putting this up but life is busy and he is napping so I'm doing it now.
I can't believe Carter is One already!  His birthday was on a Wednesday so we said happy birthday gave him some chocolate milk and sang.  Then the real celebrations were on Saturday and Sunday.

 

Saturday we had a party for Carter at our place with Graydon's side of the family.  They all came and Carter loved the attention.   We opened presents first so that he wasn't so messy. He thought it was fun but was done with getting clothes.  We got him this Dinosaur popper toy and he was really excited for that.