Just Love Me

A little Christmas cheer...

2009-12-24T00:34:00.018-05:00

Well its 10:30 and I am done sewing and ready to go to G & G's tomorrow for Christmas Eve (Yay!) As I will not be on the computer for a few days, here are a few things we did to get ready for Christmas:

Decorate gingerbread at the library.

GJ mostly licked the stick.

lSM's preschool play (he was a great shepherd)

And usually gets really shy in front of people, but he said he lines, so I was very proud of him. I got to help out this month in his class and get them ready for the play and play the piano while they sang (the two Christmas songs I know)

First ride on Trax.

Needless to say, the boys were in heaven. We drove downtown and parked a little outside from Temple square so we could ride Trax over to the lights.

It was really cold though! I love I get to see my sister all the time! (though I wish I lived next door)

The fam

He threw a fit most of the time because he had to wear his winter coat (he prefers the camo pullover, and fights me everytime) He is 2.

I debated all day, but I went through my scraps and stash and found material to make a little car cozy that my friend Julie had made as well.

I love the material I used on the inside (like chickens crossing the road, get it?)

And I had finished my niece's last week, but I busted out a crayon roll for GJ tonight as well.

Phew! Now its time to go to bed. Or watch a little Chuck.
Hope you have a lovely Christmas!
I am so greatful for all my blessing this year and I know 2010 is going to be a tough one, but it will all work out!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-16T16:14:00.003-05:00

The tree is up, though I didn't take a picture. I made (okay, Lindsey and her cricut made) a Christmas banner out of pretty paper. I glued it together though and laced it with ribbon.
Our advent is over halfway done. Its just stockings from Martha.
I still don't have stockings for my family though, so I am taking any suggestions.

Reading, sewing, thanksgiving...

2009-12-03T17:52:00.007-05:00

Not much has been going on here, but I will do my best to pull together a post:

I borrowed a book from Kembe (which I made her give me when we moved) called Teaching your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and have been doing lessons with Sawyer over the past month or so and he is doing excellent! I am sure preschool is helping him as well, but he can read most words with short vowels (small words) and long a and e sounds too so we're making a lot of progress and he can read simple books to me, though his biggest obstacle is his attention span. I admit I use candy to get through the lessons and they have been going much better (as long as I use candy that doesn't take a long time to chew!) I am so proud of him!

I finished my second quilt for my sister Lisa's baby. I would love to make a quilt for Sawyer's bed, but I haven't found the right pattern yet. And am scared as it will have to be 4x's this size. EEK!

We had a nice Thanksgiving at Tad's parents house. I do admit I miss hosting a big potluck, but this was just right this year and our first time with family since we have been married. I only made cherry pie (which turned out poorly) and rolls (which were delicious as usual) so it was a breeze! Then we stayed up there for a couple more days so we could mooch and eat more leftovers.

Since its freezing, we got a pass to Discovery Gateway (children't museum). So far its been a great success. We discovered the helicopter outside (since it was freezing, we didn't have to share with anyone) and of course they screamed and cried when I said we had to go back inside because mama was too cold. Not the greatest picture, but you get the idea.

Now to get ready for Christmas! The tree and advent are up, we'll see if I can pull anything else off.

Its finished!

2009-11-20T00:39:00.008-05:00

I am not a quilter, but I have always wished that I was. I started this quilt back in February at my mom's house (where I could raid her fabric) and finally just finished tonight (hand stitching the binding is hard! My fingers really hurt!) This is a ragged squares quilt for beginners and its not perfect and puckers everywhere, but since I made it, I love it almost as much as a third child. I would like to dedicate this to Jenny, Chante and Angie, the stalwart members of the sewing club (may it rest in peace). I now want to make one like this but I don't think my skills are quite there yet.

I finished crocheting hats for a bit, and am now thinking of new projects for some new babies, but I haven't been inspired yet. They all live in warm climates! I will think of something.

Skate or Die!

2009-11-13T12:27:00.002-05:00

Its mostly just funny to watch. Kids falling all over the ice. But I love it.

Good bye October

2009-11-02T23:25:00.019-05:00

This has been a nice month adjusting to playing with two cute boys all day. Here is what we have been up to last month. We played superheroes (GJ isn't quite a fan)

Painted pumpkins (GJ is REALLY into drawing and painting, SM lasts less than 5 minutes)

Running errands and refusing to take naps (he really fell asleep the whole time at the grocery store. Looks comfy!)

Going to parks

Seeing conference and MoTab

Being silly.

Painting pumpkinsPainting rockets

Assembly

Rocket launch

Preschool Halloween party, very cute!

Highlight of Halloween night might have been chasing this cat.

My cute fireman and shark.

This month is starting out warm so luckily we are able to keep our park routine (for now), looking forward to ice skating lessons and Thanksgiving! Let me know if you have any toddler/preschool craft ideas for November.

Let it snow!

2009-10-27T15:14:00.003-04:00

Or not. I think we got more snow today than all 6 years in Atlanta. Oh well. Bring it on. The kids had fun. Glad I bought the snow pants a few weeks ago when they were on sale.

Snowman didn't make it too long, you can see how it cracked at the bottom. I am sure we will have plenty more opportunities.

Pumpkin Patch

2009-10-25T22:23:00.012-04:00

A couple weeks ago when Linny was here, we went to Wheeler farm and got some pumpkins, hay ride and maze. I am not a huge Halloween fan, but I love the fall and we had a great time.

Brave Girls Camp

2009-10-18T13:41:00.009-04:00

A while ago, my cousin who is super creative, amazing, arsty, etc.. posted on FB she and her sister were starting a Brave Girls Club. I thought it sounded wonderful, but since I lack a few creative genes, I called a sister to see if they would go, as I can't go alone to these kinds of things as I am way to shy for that. We turned it into a sister's weekend and four of us went down to Idaho this weekend and had an amazing time.

We ate some amazingly delicous food.

And did some fun and very meaningful crafts.

Awesome bird I made.

I thought we would be intimidated by all the other talented people there (designers, people who had their own product lines, etc) but it was no big deal and we learned a lot from the other girls in so many ways.

Its hard moving to a new city and having no friends and trying to find our new groove here, so it was so nice to get away from that stress and just have fun with my sisters and some truly amazing people.

It really is life changing fun for women and I had an amazing time. Let me know if you want to go and I will go back with you!

I have a serious lack of pictures. Hopefully I can get more from the group. I just can't even describe the details and everything they did to make it the PERFECT weekend. It really was amazing.

Idaho

2009-10-18T12:02:00.000-04:00

How I love Idaho. I always wish we lived on a farm. I wish we had chickens. We had to settle for feeding Uncle Marq's cows.

And as always, we love our Pompie and Donna! Wish we had more time. At least I got some of Aunt M's rasberry jam. Yum!

Independence/random park

2009-10-13T12:35:00.011-04:00

Trying to back post before I forget.

While we were on the road, we passed this random old school park, but it did have this cool spaceship toy and was a nice break from the car.
They also had a nice child area at the visitor's center in Missouri.

We are here!

2009-09-27T21:14:00.002-04:00

No pictures, I am bumming off a wireless signal we are faintly picking up, I just wanted to give an update, more for my online journal, so feel free to skip this if you get bored.
We had some wonderful people show up and help us load up our moving truck. The next day, several wonderful women showed up as well to clean my house. By 4pm, we were ready to go. We were going to go to TX, but with all the flash floods, changed plans and ended up in Lexington, KY that first night at Tad's brothers. We then drove past St. Louis and stayed and swam. The next day we drove out through Kansas (not much to note). More swimming and free breakfast, it was nice. We then went to Libery Jail and then Independence, MO. It was fun and a good break for the kids. Then we went to Denver (WY was the most boring part for me...)and stayed with my first missionary comp in Argentina, (she is the best) who took good care of us. Then one last day to G and G's house where we stayed for almost a week waiting for the truck. It finally came last Thursday, we unloaded with more help of the other Denison's and strangers. Can I say how blessed we have been in the last two weeks for people helping us move and clean and feeding us, etc? Too much for me to count. I am so grateful, moving is so stressful! We had been driving back and forth and hour to SLC everyday to take SM to preschool. Then G and G watched the kids all day while we unpacked Friday and we finally slept in our new place! Its not as big as the house, but are enjoying it so far and have 0ver half the boxes unpacked! Nice to be getting settled.
We'll see how this week goes with Tad starting work and maybe snow!

Savannah/Tybee Island

2009-09-09T22:49:00.009-04:00

Since we have no time or money, we thought it would be fun to take a quick trip to the beach as we will be very far from any oceans.

GJ pointing out some of the benefits of a moat around Fort Pulaski to Tad.

SM LOVED jumping the waves with dad.

We forgot to take more pictures until we were walking back to the hotel.

Wind frizzed hair, don't I look hot?

At the fort again (sorry, too hard to download pictures in order) SM follwing the lines of the canons on the floor.

Locked up in jail. Some confederates may have been in this very cell after the Union took it over. Pretty sneaky.

We had a great trip, wish we had more time, but now on to packing.

Wasington DC

2009-08-23T20:45:00.007-04:00

I had a business trip in DC, so I brought SM along and he spent a night and day with his cousin Ryan. We got to stay in my hotel the next night and swim and have fun. Then we rode the METRO to the Mall and went to the Air and Space Museum. SM was in heaven.

he loved all the rockets. Though there was a definite lack of helicpoters. Well, they might have been there, but with two kids and a huge museum, we just couldn't spend hours looking.

We could hardly get them to smile together.

Sawyer driving a little cessna.

My sweet hotel. After the museum, the boys were racing down the sidewalk and R crashed and gashed his knee open. S carried him a block back to the museum where and then we were escorted through an underground maze to a nurse station.

No stitches, but he was still NOT happy about the whole situation. Poor R!

We had a fun quick trip and I am glad we did it. Who knows when we will be back on the East side again, thanks for having us S and not getting your car stolen.

Villa Rica Balloonless Hot Air Balloon Festival

2009-08-21T13:50:00.005-04:00

It may have been too hot for the balloons to stick around, but there was some really cool tractors.

These are my favorite

2009-08-18T10:51:00.003-04:00

One good thing about being out of town is that no one is picking my veggies (expept maybe the deer or something large that took some major chunks out of my red tomatoes) So while I have usually been grazing and getting one or two things a day, I cam home to a handful of yellow goodness.

Smokey Mountain National Forest

2009-08-18T10:11:00.007-04:00

The next day we drove into the forest and hiked to a waterfall and had a good time. We went to go find a place to picnic and ended up getting rained out. Kids did remarkable well for a mile hike.

Dollywood

2009-08-18T09:50:00.011-04:00

We packed up and drove out to Pigeon Forge, TN right after graduation and had a fun time. We had a great cabin close to the pool and stayed with Tad's brother and his family and Grandma and Grandpa. We went the first night to the Dixie Stamped, which was a fun horse show and dinner (with no silverware)The next day we went to Dollywood and had way more fun that I expected. They had plenty of little kids rides and I wish we would have had more time! We drove cars (SM's favorite) and rode some rides and got wet and had a lot of fun.

We were able to go on a couple big rides, they don't have a lot, and that is just fine with me. It was perfect!

Graduation

2009-08-07T10:08:00.010-04:00

He finally did it! Tad is officially Dr. Denison. I am such a proud wife!

It's Official

2009-07-21T17:31:00.003-04:00

We are moving to Salt Lake. Tad has accepted a post doc position. (I will remain a Cougar, forever). We leave sometime in Sept maybe, we'll see what we can do with the house and if they will let me keep my job. We will miss this place and the friends we made so much, but many have come and gone, so I guess its just the life of students. I can't believe we have 3 more years. Then hopefully a faculty position somewhere (UW...)

Vegetarian Month!

2009-07-12T20:50:00.003-04:00

Lisa eating fresh bean from the garden

Okay folks, we are already 1 week into vegetarian month and I need some more recipes, so please let me know if you have a good one! We are eating fish, just no other meat. I admit, we are not going die hard (the kids eat chicken nuggets if I am out of options for lunch, and I had to eat Brenna's soup, it was delicious) But we are really trying, so please post some more ideas for me! Summer salads, great soups, whatever you got, I will take it! Or we will be eating beans and rice a lot (Puerto Rican of course).

squash

2009-07-09T20:02:00.002-04:00

This is my first zucchini. I did not want to post because I hadn't done my hair that day, but Lisa said that is real life and blogs shouldn't be fake and all perfect. So here am I and my good friend, which SM and I enjoyed cooked with a little evoo. He was perfect.

End of preschool

2009-06-29T11:45:00.002-04:00

I am catching up a bit here before we go on vacation. Here is SM on his last school day. they had a Japanese celebration. He has learned so much this year and he is missing school! I hope we can work something out for him next year. I am a huge fan now of Montessori and will hopefully continue him on that path.

Family Fun Day at Centennial Olympic Park

2009-06-29T10:50:00.005-04:00

Though we have lived here a long time, we have never played in the fountain rings at the park. So since they were having Family Day (last Sat of the month, lots of free craft booth for the kids, we are for sure going next month, you should come) we packed some lunches and headed out. I wish I would have worn my suit. It was HOT!

SM couldn't get enough or running around in the water.

GJ was happier on the sidelines, not too happy about the whole "wet." He does love the pool though.

And there were free Georgia peaches for all.

6 Years

2009-06-29T10:15:00.002-04:00

I so love being married to my sweet husband. Life has had its ups and downs, but I am so glad we got married, we compliment each other so well (another way of saying we are quite opposite!)
We actually got to go on a date this weekend. Hopefully we have more of those to come.