We love having visitors!

Last week my friend, Karen, called from Montana where she was visiting another friend and said she wanted to come see me! So we met half way and I brought her home with me! I was a little nervous about driving 4 hours by myself (with the boys), but we made it!

Karen and her little girl (we’ll call her…Swarley) were her for almost a week. We hung out at home, went shopping, played games, ate lots of food, and she tagged along with me to Super Saturday and I took her on her first trip to Ikea. I love Ikea.

It was so fun having people visit, especially one of my best friends! Here are some pictures of our adventures with Karen and Swarley, I didn’t take as many pictures as I thought. (can you name the tv show Swarley comes from, if so I’ll be impressed!)

My boys would rather sleep than shop, at least they were quiet!

Hee Haw Farm – so fun!

     Jack loved the dessert at the Chinese buffet. If only he’d eat every meal like he eats dessert, maybe he’d fatten up! :)

Swarley, doin’ her thing

Halloween Preview

So we’re too excited to wait until Halloween is over to show off Avery’s costume. Jack is going to wear the costume Avery wore a couple years ago, he’ll be Darth Vader. We, or I should say Andy, decided that we’d keep with the Star Wars theme. Surprise? Not so much.

We saw a cute Yoda costume we though about getting for Avery but when I saw it in the store it was so cheap feeling. So I bit the bullet and made a Jedi Robe and the tunic thingy to go under it. I need to make a Yoda hat still, but we just think he looks adorable in his costume. And it feels good to make something from a chunk of fabric. I love sewing.

Now Andy wants one. Sorry Babe, not this year! :)

Thursday fun

The other day we found a doll stroller at DI and picked it up for Avery. He has some little baby dolls he loves, as soon as we got home with it he started running around the house with it. He loves it. Thursday afternoon we went on a walk, Avery was so excited to take his stroller.  We walked to a park a few blocks away, Avery was so cute telling Andy to hold onto the stroller when we crossed the street and making sure that his doll didn’t fall out.

Then Thursday evening we dropped the boys off to hang out with Heather and the girls while we went to a Blazers/Jazz pre-season game. We even wore our matching Blazers shirts, we’re awesome like that. Blazers lost, but it was still fun to get out and do something different without the boys. Even though I missed them the whole time we were gone.  

Next post…sewing and star wars. You won’t want to miss it.

Recent projects and rambling

Crafting, sewing, scrapbooking…they are my therapy. These things help me relax. This post was almost relaxing to write. I love crafting.

So, sometimes I feel like I get stuck in a rut, as far as my daily routine. I make food, I change diapers, I clean up after kids, I make more food, occasionally I do some out of the ordinary house work. You know when I’m feeling crazy! :)

This week I participated in a blog challenge on Somewhat Simple. Last month I did some of the stuff for her craft challenge. This month is all about beautifying your home.

So thank you, Stephanie at Somewhat Simple, for giving me something to get me out of my rut! :)

This week I did some decluttering, deep cleaning and decorating. And it feels good! I reorganized my pantry and cleaned it up, it’s so much easier to see everything we have now. I washed our walls. How often do you wash Kitchen walls? Whatever you do, I probably do less. Promise. We’ve lived here for 3 years and I have never washed walls. Maybe some wiping food off a little, but nothing serious.

The decorating was my favorite. I Mod Podged paper onto a metal star and hung it on the wall. And then I bought some 50 cent frames at DI, painted them and used some of the paper from the star and hung them on a funny little ceiling stair. It’s amazing how much those two little things make a difference in our kitchen. It also made me remember how much I love my red kitchen!

I’m looking forward to finding out what next weeks challenge is! It really is nice to have something out of the norm. to do.

Also, here’s the latest ghetto craft I’ve made. :) I’m good at ghetto crafts.

Silhouettes

I’ve seen silhouette projects on other peoples blogs, and finally decided to try it out. I don’t have any fancy photo editing software so I just took pictures of the boys profiles and printed them in a coloring book setting.

I think they turned out pretty cute. Now they are prominently displayed on out entertainment center. Andy keeps saying how surprised he is that they really look like the boys.

~Jack~

~ Avery~

Also, I got a new sewing machine this week. Probably really only exciting to me, it’s not super high end but it fit perfectly in my budget and it’s about a hundred times better than my old one! :) I got a Singer Confidence. I haven’t done much with it, just testing things out, but I’m excited to really use it. Very soon, hopefully!

More awesome hats!

Aren’t these hats adorable?!

My sister, the talent behind Forever and a Day, made them for my boys. They’re so cute! Jack was less than thrilled to wear his for longer than a couple minutes. Once I get it fastened on though, he won’t be able to get it off! :)

Last year she made the boys these hats, which I LOVE and I’m glad they still fit them this year!

If you like these, check out her website. She has some awesome stuff available, AND she’s offering free shipping from now until Thanksgiving, awesome!

Boy Stuff

The other day Andy found the light sabers stashed somewhere and handed them over to the boys. It’s pretty dangerous when they both have one, but they sure are cute.

And I think for Andy it’s like living in a dream, to see his boys fighting with light sabers. He often comments that he’s living vicariously through our boys. They all love it though.

So, here are our little…Jedi's in training?? Apprentices? I don’t know the right term, which is probably a little disappointing to Andy. Sorry babe! : )

Also, here’s a picture of Avery wearing a mask I made him. He’d been wanting one so when I got my new sewing machine the other day (YAY!!!) it was the first thing I made, it’s pretty ghetto (okay, really ghetto) but he loves it. It’s just made out of cheapo felt so it keeps stretching and getting all misshapen. He wore it when we went to Walmart the other day and insisted that I was batman and he was “Robin the boy wonder”. He’s pretty hilarious.

Random happenings

The other day as part of "School" for Avery we did a little crafting. We made pumpkins and ghosts. Avery drew a pumpkin and I cut it out for him, then he drew a jack-o-lantern face on it.

The ghost's are made from tracing our feet and cutting them out, then Avery drew faces on them. he's pretty good at drawing faces and we think that makes him pretty awesome!

On Thursday we drove up the canyon to go on a nice fall walk. It wasn't too chilly in town but I always forget how much cooler it is in the Canyon. It was pretty chilly. It was the first time we've really let Jack walk on his own, it was pretty cute watching the boys run around together.

Avery stepped in the water, so we left after that so his feet wouldn't freeze. In the van on the way home I looked back and Avery had his foot up by his face and his wet pant leg in his mouth. I told him to stop because that's gross and then asked him why he was doing that. His response made me laugh! He said "I'm just thirsty Mom, I needed a drink" What?! Leave it to Avery to come up with something like that!

     
Yesterday Avery was sent to his room (probably for torturing his brother), when he was allowed out he was wearing his overalls backwards over the jeans he was already wearing. He loves his overalls and begs to wear them everyday. It was pretty funny though.

Last night during the Priesthood Session of General Conference the boys and I went to the mall to do some coat shopping for me. I looked in every store at the mall and a few the others the night before and I can’t find a coat (the style I want) that fits me. the one I have now I bought when I was pregnant with Avery, it’s not a maternity coat, but it’s too loose now. But who knew coat shopping could be so crappy!?

I can find them that fit my body, but the arms are too short, then if the arms are just right the coat is too big! Seriously, why can’t I just find one?! I may just end up having to settle for something I don’t love, as long as everything fits! I know I have long arms, but I didn’t think they were that long! Anyway….

Here’s a picture of jack, because he’s cute even when he’s chewing and his mouth is full of food.

He's so big... but really he's not....

So, Kizzie and I talk all the time about how big Avery is getting. Here is some of the evidence:

1. He uses the toilet, and tells us when he needs to go... even if we're at the store.

2. He loves big boy (and awesome) things like Spiderman, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Batman, and Robin the Boy Wonder (yes, he actually calls him that).

3. He gives fist-bumps followed by mini-hand-explosions (if you know what I mean).

4. He says and does things that we just don't expect a 3 year-old to say and do.

5. He just looks so huge!

Because of all of these things, and many others, I think we often over-estimate his age, and probably set expectations that may be too high. We always have to remind ourselves of how little and young he still is... and if we don't remember, we watch him and are reminded....
Here are a couple things we've noticed recently:

1) He loves kid music, and asks for it by name when we drive - such as Veggietales music, primary songs, and other kid songs like "Little Bunny Fufu" and things like that.

2) Yesterday, when we were walking around Target, he stopped for a while to play with a Fisher Price Little People "Animal Village" that had little animals driving cars and whatnot. He was pretty excited about it. He also found a Baby Einstein book that played music, so he kept pushing the buttons to play the music.

3) Last night, I was awakened at about 1:00 AM to him screaming by his door. I got up (amazingly quickly, I might add) to see what was wrong. I brought him out into the hall, as to not disturb Jackson, and he was shaking a ton and crying so hard that he couldn't get any words out. I held him for a while until he could calm down and he eventually told me that he had a bad dream and there was a crab trying to get him. He was very happy when I grabbed his Lightning McQueen sleeping bag and allowed him to sleep next to the bed.

I guess sometimes we are probably just in too big of a rush for him to grow up, so we just need to slow down. We love having him little still and are not ready for him to get big.