Testing

I am trying to blog from my phone. We shall see how this goes. It will be really handy on my trip to NY.
So here is a video of William sleeping in the car and getting
kicked in the face by Joseph. That kid will sleep through anything.

And this picture is from minutes before when William made a face in his apple.



I hope this works.
- Posted by deb on the go.

Sam is 1

My little nephew Sam lives with us (along with his mom and dad) and is kinda like a brother to my kids. We are going to miss his little self so much when they move to Nebraska in August. He just turned one and a while back it was overcast outside we grabbed a couple of props and took him outside to get some pictures of him.

He was cracking us up. Such a cute fun little guy.

He ended with taking some steps to him mama, Ashley. He is now walking all over the place and it is so cute with his little legs. I just want to squeeze him!

Tomorrow I will post about his birthday party/Marks graduations party/ their family going away party. It was a lot of fun.

Moving up

Today is Williams first last day of school. On Tuesday he had a little graduation program. Afterwards Russ said he is worried about when he starts having bigger achievements cause he had a hard time keeping control of his emotions and it is just kindergarten graduation.

This picture makes me laugh because this girl just put her arm around William as soon as she saw our camera.  At first he just stood there looking embarrassed and not quite sure what to do, but then he put his arm around her too. That is how he is, a friend to everyone.

In come the grads in their hats.

I love how they are all trying not to smile too big.

They sang us some songs. Below they are singing Baby Beluga.

And Skinna marinky dinky dink, skinna marinky doo...

(he is pointing to me, by the way)

So dang happy.

The kids all loved the cake (who someone bumped with their purse) with all their pictures on it. Nothing better than eating your own face.

Grandma and Grandpa came too.

His graduation cap cupcake that he gave to Gracie.

And she loved licking the icing off of.

William and his teachers. We love them a lot. They have done such a good job to teach William so much. A lot of the kids moving on to 1st grade have been there more than one year, but William picked up of stuff pretty quick. Seems like just yesterday I dropped him off for his first day.

A little help

William has started cleaning the bathroom. I decided to teach him the montessori way (or at least the way I think they teach things at his school). I started by giving him a lesson where he watched me do something, I told him why we do it, and then he got to try it. 

Gradually he has gotten to the point where he doe sit all on his own. I did notice there are a few things I need to remind him of, but for the most part he does a really great job and it is nice to have some help.

Gracie really wanted to help so I asked her to wash off Joseph's high chair (we use vinegar water to clean with so I don't have to worry about anything).

She did such a good job without any help. And believe me that high chair was dirty. It makes me happy to see the kids learning to work and it is nice for them to have the sense of accomplishment after a job well done.

I can't wait until they learn more.

not complaining

I woke up the other morning to find this...

Gracie asleep on my bathroom/bedroom floor.

Funny girl. Joseph is starting to sleep better at night and now the other two are waking up more. Figures. Such is the life of a Mama.

Sometimes I want to say, "yeah this is what I chose and yes, it is what I want, but I just want to sleep through the night!!! But I can't cause I remember that is not how it works. In everything in life you take the good with the bad, that tiring with the energizing, the joy with the sadness and in the end we are left with one big beautiful experience.

Sometimes

I get nervous when I walk through the house holding this little guy cause I can not stop looking at his cute little face! I am afraid I am going to run into a wall, or a corner, or something.

Don't these pictures make him look like the biggest baby ever? Maybe it is not just the pictures.

Done and done

So, the project I was working on this weekend was this baby quilt.

Russ' bff Scott and his lovely wife Lynette are going to have their first baby. A little girl. Her shower was Saturday and on Thursday I thought I should probably get her something. Then  I realized that since she herself is a talented Etsy artist, she would most likely have a favorites page where I could browse her favorite handmade things. There I found a lot of items featuring clouds and the colors red and aqua. This quilt is what I came up with. I was able to finish it on Friday. Then Saturday (the morning of the shower) I decided I really wanted to make something to go with it. So I made this wall hanging.

Then I packed them all up in an old travel case and was off to the shower.

The shower was adorable, I mean look at the house it was hosted in. No, it is not a doll house, it is a real house!

I got nervous (like I always do) that she would not like it and that I should just stick to the gift registry. I just really like giving handmade gifts. But I am so glad I made it because she loves it. I am glad I was able to make  something that was what she wanted, cause it is not the kind of thing you could find in the stores.

And now, a quick description of how I made this little quilt.

I drew a cloud on the wrong side of the white fabric (I used the same fabric that I would be putting the clouds on)

Then lay it on the right side of the fabric you want the clouds to be. (Right sides together) Pin it.

Sew all around the pencil line.

Cut around the edges.

Cut an x in the back fabric.

Clip in the indentions? I don't know how to write that, just do what I did in the picture.

Then flip them right side out and press.

Then I laid all the clouds out on the fabric and decided how I liked them best and pinned them on. Then I sewed all around each one with a zig-zag stitch on my machine.

Then you could quilt and bind it however you want (so many tutorials of that on the world wide web).

Happy sewing!

she stole my kiss

Gracie calls thimbles "kisses". You know, like on Hook.

She is always taking them from the top drawer of my sewing desk and stashing them in various places.
Today I am sewing. Hand stitching to be exact and I need my thimble, but can't find it. So to save my finger nail I came up with this:

Folded paper towel under a band aid. For now it is working. 

Something I am learning about myself it that if I was to get a project done I need a deadline, and I work best if the deadline is soon. So I guess you could say I am a procrastinator. But man I go fast when I need to (and really want to).

I love what I am working on, hopefully I will remember to take a picture of it when it is finished so I can share. It has been fun to sew and even better because Joseph is feeling better. He has been grumpy the past few days (from teething, I think). 

Anyway, Happy weekend.

the view from my couch

Just been playing around with my new phone, that is when I can steal it back from my kids.

found table cloth, that maybe I will turn into curtains???

found another suitcase, I just love the black piping 

Williams everyday foot wear

How to get great family pictures

I really love my family pictures, a lot.

I wanted to take a minute to talk about what I loved about doing pictures this way and some things I think will help you get some great family pictures.

First find a photographer you like. There are a lot of really good ones out there so just make sure you have seen pictures and that you like what they do. I like using Mimi because she takes great pictures, she offers video (which I love, love, love), and she gives you a CD with the pictures and the rights to them. I understand completely why some photographers don't do this, but I like having the CD and not having to pay a lot extra for it.

Once you have picked the photographer you like, you need to figure out the location you would like to have. We chose a traveling carnival for all the fun colors and lights. To keep cost down I brought my own cotton candy and was going to get balloons, but ran out of time (wouldn't that have been cute?).

Having it at a fun place like this made it so easy to get genuine smiles from the kids. I made sure that they understood that we were going to take family pictures so they would have to listen to us and do what we asked and they could ride the rides.

 We had no problems getting them to do what we asked.

And look how happy they are! They are having the time of their lives.

They had such a good time. It was more expensive to have to pay for all the rides, but just combine a fun family activity you would have done anyway with family pictures. Disneyland anyone? That is Mimi's dream, to take people's pictures at Disneyland.

I have been thinking of other places that might be fun:

* goofy golfing - my kids might be too young for this but older kids, tweens, and teenagers could have fun with this.

* a museum with planes, trains, or cars. Especially if you can get on/in them.

* Fun in nature - falling leaves, snow, the beach (but skip the cuffed khaki's and navy polo's)

*if you are going to have a fun family vacation have your pictures taken while you are there. Rather than asking a stranger to snap a shot of your family as you gather in a group and someone walks in front of the camera, have a photographer follow you around with a camera and catch your excitement. 

And then there is my favorite idea yet, that I can't wait to try - bring a whooppy cushion or a fart machine. I don't know about your family, but this would make my kids laugh and smile for sure.

Next was picking what we would wear. I knew I wanted lots of colors and not really matching and went from there. I like to lay all the cloths on my bed together to make sure they look okay together. I was really happy that I did not have to buy anything. What I originally thought I would wear didn't look right when I laid them all together so I decided to try it on and take a picture in it. I suggest doing this because...

This was what I was going to wear. A pink seersucker dress with the sweater I made (kind of). But when I looked at the pictures I knew it was not right for the look I wanted.

So I tried on another dress that I love.

But it was not right because I felt like it was too much of one color and the sleeves were too long to just throw a cardigan on with it.

So I rummaged through my closet and found a skirt that I have only ever wore once or twice and thought it was a nice color. I decided to pair it with a favorite cardigan and thought it looked nice.

Then I thought maybe my favorite yellow shirt would work. 

And it did. I really liked it, but I really liked the red too. So I threw the cardigan on and found what I really wanted. 

So while I felt like a dork when Russ came home to find me taking pictures of myself with the self timer I was so glad I did it cause I ended up with an outfit that I really liked and I would have never come up with it in my head.

Once you know all these things set the date, show up on time, have fun with the people you love the most, and you should have great pictures.