Blogging

So I haven't been updating my blog, yes I have noticed. I just haven't felt like it. I have been doing other things, like rereading the Twilight series, because reading them once, just wasn't enough, and trying to organize my entire house, by the way my laundry room looks soooo nice!

So I have pictures of the girls, and they have been doing cute stuff lately, it is just feeling like to much effort the last couple of weeks to post, maybe I will post some stuff next week.

Also I love the bus, I feel so much freedom that I can ride the bus places I need to go. Me and the girls went to Orem on the bus today. I know now how to get to a lot of places in Orem and what buses to take, so I am excited. Also my pro-tip is to remember when you are supposed to transfer buses, I forgot that and we ended up being on the bust for about an extra 45 minutes, oops!

Playing in Des Moines

Since we had been traveling so much and we were so busy with Lindsey's wedding reception, I thought my kids needed a break before we spent 2 days straight in the car. The large mall in Des Moines has a great play area for kids so we took our kids there. They had a great time, and were able to get a lot of wiggles out.

Entrance to the play area



Autumn walking on the butterfly bridge


Prairie doing the sign for elephant standing on the elephant's back

Prairie playing in the boat section

Autumn very frustrated that the door won't open

Autumn pretending to be asleep on the elephant

Prairie playing in the log tunnel

Prairie kissing the lion

So it has been pretty relaxed since we got home. I am trying to recover from our very busy vacation. The first week I finished a quilt that I started in NY. I made this quilt from little blocks that my Grandma cut out before she died, I thought she would be very pleased that I used all the squares. Then middle of last week both of the girls got sick. They started throwing up at bed time and between the two of them threw up around 11 times and didn't stop until 5 in the morning. Needless to say I didin't get a lot of sleep that night and I did a lot of laundry. I was so grateful for my very own washer and dryer. I have also been relaxing reveling in the less stress we have because Ben is completely done, and he isn't stressed about his thesis. So my present to myself for Ben graduating as been indulging in reading the Twilight series and doing the bare minimum this last week and spending a lot of time reading, it has been glorious. I think it is about time I got back to real life though and started cooking and doing laundry and dishes, oh well, giving ourselves a break is really nice though.

Me holding the blanket that I made to use in our bike trailer to keep the girls warm during the winter when I bike

Autumn needed a hair cut but she wants to keep her hair long so I just trimmed it. She was really pleased and so was I. She has been trying to take better care of her hair because I told her she can't have it long unless she is brushing it everyday.

Christmastime

We have a whirlwind of the last month. My sister got 2 weeks notice to move out her apartment, which was then shortened to 10 days. Which made it smack in the middle of finals. Then we had Ben's sister's wedding in Idaho 4 days before Christmas. Ben and I put on Christmas Eve dinner for his family and my sister and her husband. Then we had the whole crew over again for Christmas day. Ben had to work on both Christmas eve and Christmas day. Then me and the girls flew out the day after Christmas to New York, because my mom was having everyone to her house for new Years. While we were in NY we drove down to Maryland for a day for my sister's graduation. We participated in the Emerald Nuts 4 mi fun run on New Year's Eve. Then on the 2nd of January I flew with the girls to Des Moines, and Ben left like 3am that morning from Utah and he drove 1100 miles and met up with me at the airport that evening in Des Moines, Iowa. The next day we the Iowa reception for his sister and Ben and I were in charge of setting up the room, so that was a busy day. We had a day off before we had to drive back to Utah. So then we had two days in the car each for about 10 hours , and are girls were amazing. So we got back Sunday evening, and now we are trying to relax and recharge after our exhausting vacation.

So that is what we have been up to. I wanted to post some pictures from Christmas, because it was a lot of fun, and I worked hard to get the girls' presents ready.

Growing up in my family we had a tradition that we got a new pair of pajamas each year and it was the only present that we got to open on Christmas, so my girls got pajamas this year.

Autumn opening up her pajamas and very excited about them.

Prairie loved how soft her pajamas are. She was upset when we changed her diaper because she thought we were taking off her pajamas.

Prairie and Autumn in their pajamas on Christmas eve. Autumn likes to get dressed as soon as she wakes up. We weren't opening presents until Ben got home at 11:30am, so I forbade Autumn to change out her pajamas, I'm such a mean mommy.

Jennie and Janardan with Prairie waiting for Ben to get home so we can start opening gifts.

Prairie climbing the rocking chair and inspecting the new big present.

Autumn got the Aurora Princess (Sleeping Beauty) dress for Christmas. I started working on this in September. I had it was going to take so much time to make it. It turned out beautiful, and thanks to my mom for getting the fabric in New York City.

Autumn holding up her dress

Autumn going to her "boyfriend's" birthday party wearing her dress ( Lindsey B., she loves wearing the lime green shoes you gave her with her dress)

Autumn in her sleeping beauty dress with clip on earrings

Autumn was really concerned about showing her shoulders the first time she put it on, and on Christmas had the dress pulled up on her shoulders so you couldn't see them, what a modest girl.


The girls' big present this year was a kitchen. Autumn always looks forward to going to NY because my mom has a play kitchen for them. I knew Autumn would like it, but I had no idea how much Prairie would love it. They also got a set of aluminum pots and pans and food to go with their kitchen.

Prairie playing at the kitchen

I didn't really want to get plastic food for their kitchen. I had looked at wood food but it is so expensive, then when I was searching online and discovered felt food. I also found out that wool felt works a lot better. My mom found a book on ebay that is all in Japanese, but it gave me a start. So I bought some felt food and have been working on making their food since September.

I have never enjoyed hand sewing, in fact I detested, but most of the felt food is with hand sewing, and I really enjoyed it. I loved making the felt food. I didn't finish the pizza and the green peppers for their food set yet. Autumn has already requested that I make some apples, oranges, cantolope, broccoli and cauliflower. So she will keep me busy with making their food more complete.

This is the food that they got for Christmas 3 hot dogs, 3 hot dog buns, 3 crescent rolls. 3 slices of pumpkin pie, 3 bunches of grapes, 3 cobs of corn, 3 bunches of sweet peas in their pods, 3 slices of bread, 1 section of watermelon, 3 peel able bananas, and 3 fried eggs. The hot dogs and bun, crescent rolls and bread were patterns from my book, the rest were patterns that I made up.

Prairie's special present from us was an aquadoodle mat. She has gotten really into coloring, so I thought she would really enjoy it. She got 2 markers with it, a large one and a smaller one. Immediately Autumn said the larger marker was hers, I reminded her that it was Prairie's present and both of the markers were Prairie's. So later in the day I wanted to spend some time with Prairie, so I got the markers and was going to color with her. Well she grabbed the big marker from my hand and yelled for Audie to come draw with her. In Prairie's mind the big marker is Autumn's.

Me watching the girls draw on the aquadoodle mat.

Okay so I have to brag. Ben and I found this aquadoodle mat at DI months and months ago, for $1.50. I just had to spend $4 on replacement markers.


So that isn't all the sewing I did for Christmas. I decided it was high time I finally finished my sister's wedding gifts since she got married in August 2006. So I worked hard to finish her presents when she wasn't around, which isn't very often.

Jennie and Janardan's tied blanket before I finished the edges

She loves tied blankets with soft fuzzy warm sides, so the blue is a really really soft blue fabric. I also had started before she got married a wallhanging of the Provo Utah temple. I am really proud because my mom didn't help me on this project one bit, which I really can't say very often. This is the first intense quilting project I did. I basically sat at my sewing machine for two days straight just to complete the quilting while my sister was away for Thanksgiving.

If you look carefully you can see lettering in the borders that I did with the sewing machine to give all the details of their wedding day

I also wanted to make sure Jennie had a present that was just for Christmas, because she knew something about both of her wedding gifts. She made up this character the Cheese Monkey in her Freshman year at college. She had it hanging on her wall. She had recently talked about decorating her kitchen in cheese monkey. She doesn't have an apron and bakes a lot, so i thought that would be useful, so she didn't get so much flour on her clothes. I decided to put the cheese monkey on it, but changed it so it was a kitchen scene.

Those are towels that I made into the pockets so that she can dry her hands on her apron.


The cheese monkey is holding a wood spoon and a silver bowl, because Jennie loves wood spoons and silver bowls when she is cooking

New Year's Eve in NYC

Jennie and Emily getting a little oreo cookie pre-race snack

Christy (Jason's wife), Jason (Tom's son), Mary Anne (my mom), Tom (my mom's husband), Brian (Tom's son), Jennie (my sister), Emily (me!) all in our shirts for the run

Emily, Christy, Jason, and Jennie in their statue of liberty 2008 foam hats

Jennie and Emily in Central park with their shirts on backwards, so that their race numbers didn't cover up the shirts

So even though I have lived in NY, I have never gone down to time square for new year's eve, and honestly I don't think that I ever will. There is just too many people for me, but this year we as a family went to Central Park. Central Park was not busy or crazy, there was a lot of people, but it didn't feel insane. We went down to participate in the Emerald's Nut fun run. It is a 4 mile route that goes through central park, the race begins at midnight with fireworks. My mom wanted as many of the kids as possible to come back to New Year's Eve for the run. We ended up having 7 people and had a really good time. I think it is going to be an annual event for my mom and her husband.