Winter

Winter is upon us...IT'S FREEZING HERE! The high has been 38 degrees, but then the wind has also been between 20 and 45 mph so it feels like it's in the low 20's. It's ridiculous! I made Ruth some booties to help keep her warm because she won't keep socks on for the life of me. I found the idea of how to make them HERE, but then turned them inside out so that the seams were on the inside. I also added elastic and folded the top over so that hopefully she'll keep them on her feet. It was super easy and only took about an hour to cut and sew. I used two layers of pink and white striped flannel for each side of the bootie so that they'll be extra warm, and then two layers of pink flannel for the sole. They don't look super cute in the picture but are cute on her tootsies.

Cute Story Baby

This morning when I went in to get Ruth up, she was standing up in her crib as usual. I reached my arms towards her to pick her up and she started to lift her arms to reach me...then suddenly she looked down into the crib and dove back down. At first I thought this was very strange, she's usually so excited to get up and eat and play. But as she re-emerged I understood, she had to go back for her Homba! She couldn't just leave the little guy in the crib, by himself! Once she'd snagged her buddy she happily jumped back up and was ready for the day. This girl is so cute, the things she does just cracks me up! Above is a picture with her buddy the baby fox, also known as her Homba.

I also just have to include some other pictures of her.

Her new winter hat:

And her Halloween costume:

Our apartment complex had a little Halloween party tonight, so Ruth and I went down to get some treats. She was a hit with everyone. I love this picture because it looks like she's doing a plie (sp?). If you can't tell she's a fairy. I made this costume for her several weeks ago, it's a onesie, a pair of tights, a bolero jacket made from one of her old receiving blankets and a bunch of sparkly fabric for the skirt and wings. And you can't really see her hair in this picture but it's in a cute little bun on the top of her head!

Halloween part II

2nd Annual Dirty Viggo Fest

Jack-O-Lanterns and Lord of the Rings. Our favorite Halloween activity. Well...there's always the candy part too...

Teaching Ruth to Share

A Week in Review

(She's eating an apple)

Flu shots (Ruth was a total champ), dental appointments, Brad met with his boss again, Relief Society Super Saturday (which was tons of fun), Ruth is growing two molars, I finished my quilt, and taught a cooking class last night.

These two are crafts we did in the afternoon at Super Saturday:



I know the quilt looks crooked, that's only because I was falling off the couch trying to get a picture of the whole thing!


This is the edge of the quilt:


This is the back side of the quilt. Since the front squares are all birdhouses I thought it would be cute to back it with bird fabric.

Quilting and conference

So, yesterday was conference (Elder Hollands talk/testimony was amazing) and I quilted the entire time; I started around 9 am and finished just after 10 pm all the while listening to conference. It was great. Brad set me up a little station in the living room so I didn't have to be banished in the back room. So now I'm completely done with my quilt squares. It's really weird that I'm all done with it! I still have to bind it all together and pick out backing fabric, but the hard work is done! I'm really happy with how it turned out, especially this last square with the pine tree.

And this is a cute picture of Ruth and Kase this last Friday at the playgroup!In other news concerning yesterday...it snowed! I woke up, casually looked out the window and couldn't believe my eyes...it was snowing! It ended up snowing pretty much all day. This video is Ruth's reaction...

Recently...

I am on a quilting rampage. I finished another square a couple nights ago, and today during conference I cut out all the pieces for my last 3 squares! Woohoo!


This is the other thing I worked on this last week. I got the idea from some crafting blogs I was reading. It's called a "Busy Book" or a "Quiet Book." Lots of these other bloggers use them for Sacrament meeting and other times they want their kids quiet, but realize asking them to sit silently, still, with nothing to do is futile. Here are two of the blogs I got ideas from: craftingchicks as well as Quietbooks. I didn't do an amazingly professional job on these, but it was really easy, really fun, CHEAP ($7.50 total) and only took me one afternoon!

The above is the front and back cover of the book. Everything, unless otherwise noted, is made of felt. The left side is a mail box with paper in it to write notes and the right side is a tennis shoe for kids to practice tying their shoes! I simply cut out the shapes I wanted and then stitched them onto the felt. The letters I hot-glued on.

For some reason this picture came out sideways. But the top page is an ice cream cone that I sewed with different stitches on my machine using brown thread. Then I cut out the felt scoops. The bottom page is Noah's ark. I only sewed the boat along the bottom edge so the stick animals can fit into the boat. The water is made of shiny blue thread.


These animals are my favorite part of the whole thing. I just used googly eyes and small popsicle sticks and cut out fun animal shapes for the ark.

The left page is a little pocket that holds the alphabet for practicing letters. The right page is a felt tree. I sewed the trunk on with brown thread and made the black garbage bag to collect all the leaves in. I was surprised because I didn't know if Ruth would like it or not, but she loves pulling on the pages. She especially likes to shake the animals and listen to their eyeballs shake around.

Playgroup

So I've starting going to the playgroup that my ward has. It's been really nice to have something to look forward to, to have other women to chat with, and Ruth loves to crawl around and watch the bigger kids. This last Friday my friend Mandy Williams snapped these amazing shots of Ruth; she's so talented! I love how simple and beautiful these pictures are.

Fall

I love the smell of Fall, I love pulling out all the sweatshirts and other winter apparel and I love putting up seasonal decor. My mom always decked the house out for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas; those are such happy memories. So I wanted to start creating our own memories or the fun decorations we pull out each season. But first things first; below is Ruth swinging on the baby swings in front of the public library. She loved it! I even pushed her really hard and she just giggled and looked around. After about 15 minutes the swinging motion made her kinda sleepy so we left!


But back to the decorating: I made this wreath from a grape vine wreath, fake leaves that came in bunches, black ribbon that I already had, a plastic squash and an orange sunflower. This only cost me $7 to make and I can re-use the wreath for Christmas, Spring and Summer because I didn't glue any of the ornaments into the wreath!


I also made this flower arrangement which only cost $3! I've totally gotten into flower arranging in the past couple months. I've read different online sources about what to think about when creating arrangements, like you usually want 3 different shapes/colors in an arrangement...I can't really remember any of the other pointers at this moment, but yeah! Anyways, I already had this vase and the black river rocks (which originally cost about $6.50) from a simple summer arrangement I had. I like this one a lot because it's orange and black for Halloween! I also just like how the bunch of flowers look on top of the tall skinny vase.


And once again, I've finished another quilt square. This one was fun because I learned a new technique. I hadn't made these stars before, which were pretty tricky, but most of them turned out really well. I'm really proud because in the last 7 days I finished 3 squares! AND NOW I'm 2/3 of the way done. I only have four more squares left (I'll save you the math: I've finished 8 squares)! I've really learned to enjoy the small details and to be patient with the monotonous cutting because the tiny details make all the difference when the whole square gets put together. My goal is to have it completely finished by Ruth's 1st B-day: November 18th.

Happy Fall Everyone!

Goings On

I finished another quilt square. I really like this one because it's so colorful. It's also great because all the seams line up. I also really like it because it has the birdhouse holes appliqued on! We learned how to applique on Saturday at my sewing class. Speaking of my class...Ruth had to come with me this week (which the teacher was thrilled about because none of her grandkids are close by). I just let her crawl around because it was a big open area with nothing to pull down on herself. However, the class is held in the basement, which means there are stairs down there. But seeing that we don't have stairs in our apartment I assumed Ruth was safe. I watched her crawl across the floor and returned to my applique. When I looked back up a minute later she was at the far end of the room and three stair steps up! I jumped out of my chair and ran to get her. I was so surprised and freaked out. Stephanie (the sewing instructor) volunteered to watch Ruth as I continued to Ruth and she walked up the stairs right behind Ruth. She ended up climbing the entire stair case twice.

In other Ruth escapades:

She crawls down the hall holding her sippy in her mouth

She crawls onto the bottom shelf of her changing table

She loves to flip through books; I hope this turns into an interest in reading

She's started crawling under the couches. This night she crawled right through the other side.

And finally she is walking! Granted she's all wobbly and and supporting herself on the toy, but she's doing it by herself! I was completely shocked when she started doing this without any prompting.

More Sewing and Memories

So I finished this purple shirt today while Ruth was napping. I'm so happy with it! I had "finished" it several weeks ago, but did a very poor job on the neckline, there was a stupid belt and weird buttons on it that I didn't like and it just didn't look right. So I took off the buttons and belt, added the cowl-ish neck and made a cool hood to go on the back. I also finished this quilt square today. I was mostly done so I just had to put all the big pieces together. It's a 20 inch square.

I've been thinking about babies a lot recently, and it reminded me of when my little brother was born. I have 4 distinct memories which I'm pretty sure are all related to Matt's birth. First of all I was 3 1/2 when he was born. The first memory is of my mom getting ready to go to the hospital. I remember standing in her room and bathroom as she she carried her duffel bag around packing it with stuff; I couldn't figure out why she was packing to leave. The next thing I remember is the night we went rushing to the hospital. I remember it was really dark outside. My dad carried me and my blanket into the car. I remember seeing Joey sitting in the car already and wondering how long he'd been there. I don't remember going to the hospital, probably because we were taken to somebody's house...and I probably fell right asleep once in the car. Then I remember what was probably the next day. I remember driving to the hospital on the freeway, which was exciting. It was really bright outside and I remember seeing rows, and rows of of palm trees as we were coming up to the hospital. I also remember that my dad and I had this conversation about what sex the baby would be. I remember telling him that I really wanted it to be a girl. I was terribly disappointed. (Love you Matt) I remember being in the hospital and seeing a big clear tent over a bed. Matthew was suppose to be inside. I don't remember seeing him, just the tent. (He had really bad asthma and had to spend several weeks in an oxidized tent to help him survive.) One last memory concerning Matt. I remember his first birthday. I was 4 1/2. I remember there were several people at our house. I remember he took some of his first steps. Everyone watched him as he wobbled across the living room and they all oohed and ahhed. I was so annoyed because no one was giving me any attention...and I was way better at walking than him!

I Still Can't Believe It!

Brad bought me a car! It's not new or anything, but I now have my own car to use during the day...I'm no longer trapped! Ruth and I can go explore farther than we can walk! I'm free! And the great thing is that it was only $1000, but it's worth $3500! It's a 1996 Nissan Maxima that our upstairs neighbors wanted to sell, so they gave us a great deal. Hooray!

We always seem to have fun in the bath when Brian, Tia and their kids are around! We were lucky enough to have them stay with us this last weekend.


Here are some more pictures from Paula and Asa's visit over Labor Day!

100th post!

Today is 9/9/09 so we're going to celebrate tonight. I'll update what we did tomorrow. Ruth celebrated by sleeping in until 10:30! And here's a cute video of her eating her first banana all by herself.
Paula and Asa were here over Labor Day weekend and we had tons of fun! We went to the fair twice and saw the demolition derby and the finals of the rodeo.

The Last Update

So this is the last post I'll do about my parents being in town. But I just got the pictures my dad took so I wanted to post some more pics of our fun.

All of us at Niagra Springs.

Leaf Bug we found on a tree in the park we ate lunch in.

Twin Falls, Idaho Temple

Ruth in the same leaf bug park practicing her gymnast skills.

All of us at the Gooding City of Rocks.