Easter Egg Coloring

So, I told Nathan that I really didn't want to color Easter Eggs because nobody eats the eggs after we're done. So, while I was taking my Sunday Afternoon nap (the only nap this pregnant woman gets all week) he made sugar cookies for the girls and I happened to have bought an egg shaped cookie cutter for Easter last year. We didn't use it last year, but we won't go there. Then we had 4 seperate bowls of different colored frosting. The girls loved it!

Then, we were able to immediately enjoy our efforts.

The 2yo really just wanted to eat the frosting.

This picture is from later in the week. Meredith has been actually needing a nap lately. Completely surprises me because at one point she dropped her nap and I let her because she stayed happy throughout the day and it was nice to have her go to sleep immediately instead of wandering. She even fell asleep with her favorite thing we got the girls for Easter.

*I just love pictures of my beautiful, sleeping girls. They just look so peaceful and beautiful.

Easter 2010

Saturday, between morning and afternoon conference, we had an Easter Egg hunt with some of our friends. Here they are before. (I knew I wouldn't be able to get them altogether looking at me with their baskets if they got their candy first.)

Here's a picture of the actual "hunt". Meredith in her cute braided pigtails. :)

Here's the girls Easter morning. You can sort of tell that I've been really focusing on teaching them. We got them the "Let's Get Ready for First Grade!" because we've loved the Kindergarten one so much. Of course, they took it around with them and plopped it down in some water they spilled which promptly ruined it, but we're still going to use it. They've also LOVED listening to Peter and the wolf. The candy jewelry was great at keeping Meredith quiet during conference. (Must keep note of that for October.)
She's thankful for Easter, or at least the candy. We try to explain Easter, but how much do the girls actually understand?
The whole day Meredith was saying, "Jesus is Resurrected." So cute!
It was wonderful to celebrate Easter and to have Conference. It was a fabulous weekend.

Busy Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving weekend was very busy. With Thanksgiving, 20 lbs of potatoes to make (thank heaven for all the help), my Mom's Birthday, my sister going through the temple, and a Bridal Shower, dealing with one sick kid and my own cold and losing my voice for the bridal shower there wasn't a slow moment to be had.

My sister Miranda looked after the girls while Nathan and I went to the temple. It was nice to be with my sister. The session was filled with family (the beauty of a small temple).

While we are at Grandma's house the girls wake up early to play, are too excited to take naps, and don't want to go to bed. Understandably they get quite cranky especially for bedtime. Mandy starts putting the girls to bed and Emily tells her, "I'm mad at you Aunt Candy." Emily cried and carried on about going to bed, a great indication that she is very tired. After she was done putting them to bed Mandy heard Meredith tell Emily, "Just go to bed, Emily." Spoken like a true sibling tired of hearing the other one cry. I have no idea why Meredith was being the good one.

In the meantime I have to get a TON of stuff done before we leave for the Holidays and my sister's wedding in less than 3 weeks. Her wedding is the day after our 5th anniversary.

Happy Halloween

Hope you had a Happy Halloween!

Easter Bunny

The Easter Bunny made it this year in spite of the colds (one more year with colds on Easter, what luck. I did try talking Nathan into delaying it a week.)

I couldn't get the girls to look at me. Emily's playing with the chalk, Meredith has her ducky (with bubbles) and Emily's wearing her candy bracelet.

Ok, so this little girl went STRAIGHT for the chocolate bunny. The girls didn't even care that there was anything else.

"Sporting a smile for the picture so maybe my parents will let me eat the CANDY!"

Happy Easter!

Easter's True Meaning

I saw this on another blog and thought I'd share it. It's on the true meaning of Easter.

Enjoy!

Christmas

So, I survived my first Christmas away from home. For anyone that knows me you might know what this would entail. I get really sick or something. To everyone's surprise I did not though. Even my surprise (even just writing this I get a wave of sickness just thinking about it). I came home though and realized what I had done instead. I gained weight. Ugh. So now there is even more motivation to jump right on my New Year Resolutions. I'd show you the family pictures we took as a big group, but I can't. I look absolutely awful, Just my family picture looks ok considering Meredith is covering me up. Meredith was not smiling. It was really hard to get any of the kids to smile since it was so late at night.

Here's a few pictures from Christmas.

Meredith opening up a present. She's really gotten quite fast at taking the paper off.

If you look closely you can see a little strip of orange that is a chocolate orange. I told her I wanted her to open another present and she did not want to relinquish her orange.

Santa Claus couldn't have been more pleased that the girls liked Emily's Santa gift so much. Emily didn't want Meredith touching it, but Mommy made her share.

Here's Nathan playing with the toys before the girls could get up for Christmas. The huge stack of Christmas presents in the back come from being with all the extended family. (Even the family that wasn't there had some Christmas presents under the tree for later in the day.)

Nathan's Christmas present to me was a little getaway. He had coupons for a motel room in Salt Lake, dinner there as well, milkshakes, and $100 shopping spree. We ended up in South Jordan instead and ate dinner at the Spaghetti Factory in Salt Lake (my all time favorite restaurant, so if you ever are in Salt Lake you have to go to the Spaghetti Factory there. If you have ever been to Spaghetti Factory but not in Salt Lake you are still missing out. This one is the best. Need help ordering, order this: Manager's Favorite (spaghetti with 2 choices of topping) mizithra cheese and meat sauce, with milk, salad (with whatever their equivalent for ranch dressing is. I can't remember the name, but it is WAY better than ranch in my opinion.), and spamoni ice cream at the end. They also serve all of this with some yummy bread. It's sour dough, but Nathan even likes it and he claims he doesn't like sour dough bread. They also give you garlic butter to go with it (Nathan also claims he doesn't like garlic, but he still puts it on his bread and loves it, lol.)

OUR SMALL MIRACLE
After making reservations at a motel we realized something. There aren't very many hotels with a Spa in the room. When I was pregnant with Emily we moved to Michigan for a time, and on the way home we had to stop at 2 hotels. (The trip on the way there was a little longer, but we only had to stop once.) It was a tough trip for a pregnant person, so when I was even more pregnant we had to stop more. Our first motel stop we got a spa in our room. It was wonderful and was just the thing I needed from the traveling and for the rest of the traveling. Then the second motel we stopped at had a wonderful bed and I had the best night sleep I have ever had because of a VERY comfortable bed, which is really something to say for someone pregnant. (although come to think of it, if you haven't had a good night sleep for a while from the tossing and turning of pregnancy and you get one night after months of that where you are finally comfortable, it would definitely seem like it was the best night sleep you ever had, even if it wasn't.) Anyhow, we knew that this was a wonderful miracle for me, but didn't realize how much of a miracle until we were looking for the same thing again.

Pre-Christmas Present Opening

This year we will be at Nathan's parents' house for Christmas, but I wanted my parents to be able to see the girls open the presents my parents were giving them and I wanted to see Matthew (my brother) open his present so perhaps I wouldn't be so incredibly homesick for Christmas (for those that know me, I get really homesick. Quite literally, I get sick.) So, it ended up being a Pre-Christmas Present Opening Party where we opened the presents that were either to me, Nathan, Emily or Meredith or from us for those presents that were to or from my family.

This picture is of meredith hugging her dolly (that she absolutely LOVES). We couldn't get that dolly out of the box fast enough for her. And Matthew is showing us his cool present from me.

Funny story for this picture. I was talking to my Mom in her room and had Matthew's present with me because I was supposed to wrap it. But I was in a chair and very comfortable so I just put it next to me kind of hidden and forgot it was there. After forgetting about the present being there Matthew came in and sat on the bed. He saw it and says, "cool". I was mentally shooting myself because I just KNEW I should have wrapped it before when I had a chance. I gave him a hard time and said I'd have to return it to get a present that would be a surprise. Poor boy, he started crying because he really wanted the toy. I had to tell him I wouldn't return it and he helped me wrap it. I did get little additions to the watch that were a surprise though.

Nathan got some nice basketball shoes. Meredith helped him try them on.

This was one of my gifts from my parents. My Mom bought me a knew Christmas decoration which I love. It was bells that were the 12 Days of Christmas. I collect bells, so it makes it even better. Of course, I don't just collect any bell. It has to be something special. And these bells are definitely special to me. I also got some knives, which I haven't got to try out yet, but they look really nice and I can't wait to go home and use my gifts.

Here is Emily undressing her dolly. She likes to undress her dolls so that I am ALWAYS looking for clothes to put back on the dolls.

Busy Christmas Season

I'm not posting alot, and the pictures are pretty much scarce, but I'm thinking about Christmas and I'm feeling fairly frazzled because I have so much that I WANT to get done but I don't know if it is going to get done. Here's for hoping. But, I have one thing to add to the Thanksgiving Holiday Blogging and one for the Christmas Holiday Blogging.

I had a friend ask for this recipe, so I'm just going to share it with everyone.
Thanksgiving - Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe (soft cookies)
2 c. brown sugar
1 c. oil
2 tsp. vanilla
2 c. cooked pumpkin (I just add a whole can)
2 tsp. soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1 stp. salt
1 stp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ginger
4 c. flour
2 c. chocolate chips
(other options I don't use)
2 c. raisins
1 c. chopped nuts

Compine sugar, oil, and vanilla. Next the pumpkin. Then all of the dry ingredients and then stir until smooth. Next add the chocolate chips (or other options). Bake at 350^ for 12 to 15 minutes (I bake mine for 10 and they are done, but I like mine not so done so I bake it for 9 minutes).

Next, I love this tradition. This is to help the kids to remember to be good this holiday season and that Santa watching. This tradition reminds the kids every time they see an elf hanging around your house. Check out this blog - Elf Christmas Tradition

Christmas

Wow! I was checking my Aunt's blog and found this cute widget (see right side) that is the countdown to Christmas. Let's just say, it's making me just a little bit nervous. I still want to get my 25 days of Christmas Scripture Study done. That's a lot of work, and I only have 11 more days until we start that. So much to do, so little time. Is anyone else starting to feel the crunch? There's the ward Christmas Party, then there is a piano recital, all of the crafting I'd LIKE to get done before. Black Friday should at least take care of all the rest of the presents I need to get. I think that is plenty to get done all before December 25th.

Christmas carols have always been sung early in my family. We couldn't help it. My mother was a piano teacher and as soon as the Halloween recital was over, her students began their Christmas music. So early November is quite normal for me to be singing Chirstmas carols. Of course, the Christmas decorations didn't go up until the day after Thanksgiving (even if we begged :). You know, maybe one time we did decorate after we were done with Thanksgiving dinner. ??? Nathan and I have been singing "Christmas Bells are Ringing" from the Primary Songbook with Emily for a while now. She's getting quite good at it, and the girls love the little bell bracelets that I made for them to use while we sing this song.

Halloween Party Pinata

The girls enjoyed the pinata that was at the party. Emily enjoyed taking a wack at it, and then the girls discovered the candy afterwards. Emily wanted to just get all of the boxes (nerds). I'm not a really big fan for 3-year-olds and 1-year-olds with candy and even less of a fan with candy that makes bigger messes (ex: nerds). So, I started pointing out other candy to her.

Meanwhile, Nathan had Meredith. He told her to pick it up and put it in her bag. She was doing it like she was just cleaning it up. Then we went inside and Meredith saw someone eating candy, so she ran over there. It took Nathan a little bit to show Meredith that there was candy in her bag, and as soon as he did, she took her bag and dumped the contents on the floors to eat the candy. So cute.

Halloween Pictures (Yay!)

Happy Days are Here Again! I've got my camera cord. Ready, set, post!

Nathan came home from school and said that someone was having a party that started at 5:30. Of course, he told me this at 5:00 and it takes 20 minutes to get there. So, I threw in a pizza and dressed the girls. I had been working on a red cloak for Meredith, but it didn't work out. I was in a rush, and you should never sew in a rush if you want to doing everything right. (One more reason that makes me a terrible seamstress.) Luckily we had Emily's costume that she wore 2 years ago.

My happy girls (after the party).

That serious face means that she is really enjoying herself :)

Hopefully next year we'll be able to go to the ward party with the trunk-or-treat. The girls were sick this year (wonderfully timed cold). I'm not a big fan of trick-or-treating unless we go to people's homes that we know, and since our ward is pretty scattered that wasn't very convenient. I'm glad we had a party to go to instead.

Halloween

We had fun for Halloween. We went to a party instead of trick-or-treating. Of course I'm well known for forgetting my camera, but I remembered it. But, I didn't have a memory card in it, so we used the internal memory. It was full, I thought there was a memory card and that we were deleting the memory card, but we deleted the pictures that I couldn't take off the camera. I can't remember all of the pictures that we deleted, I can only remember one that I could just cry about, so I really don't want to remember what else was on there. It wasn't very much because the internal memory is minimal. So now I've got a cord coming for my camera dock (since the original one got lost) and I should have some Halloween pictures up. We also went to the zoo today with my family. It was fun. "Pictures?" you ask. Well, we won't mention the fact that I forgot my camera, but my parents have pictures. When I get the pictures from them, I'll post them.

Fun Travel Activities

My reason for posting these here are two-fold. First, it's for me. Second, It's for you (my beloved reader. All 5 of you, LOL). Which my reasons for even blogging are the same. This is basically just my journal.

Anyhow...
We have several long trips coming up for Thanksgiving and Christmas where we get to go visit family and friends. And you're asking, "How do you do that with a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old?" And my answer is, "Ha. I don't know." That being said, here is what I'm going to do this time around.

Paper Doll Printables

Papercraft Trains

Dot Art

Dot Art

I also ran across some tips that someone did. Some of them I enjoyed and some of them, well, what do you think?

1. (And this one is questionable) Play-doh. And the tips said that even after the dough is gone the kids enjoy the container. (Um. Where does the dough go? And if you're going to say the carpet, is that even worth having a non-crying kid if you have to take it out? Maybe I should just cover everything in plastic!)

2. Blue Painters Tape. Just let the kids play with it. That is a much cleaner idea isn't it. Of course, Emily, I don't think is quite old enough to get the tape off all by herself, but maybe.

3. Pipe Cleaners - This one I honestly think is fabulous.

4&5. Books and Music - Now I ALWAYS have traveled with music and a book, but quite honestly I didn't even think of bringing a normal book for the girls until I had a friend wrap up a book for us (like a present that would entertain Emily with the unwrapping part too) for our move here. I did bring quiet books for the girls though.

6. Dress-up clothes

7. Crayons and a notebook

8. Catalogs

9. Deck of Cards (I would definitely take one that I'm willing to throw away, like the old beat up deck of Uno cards.)

10. Colorforms / reusable stickers.

11. Fingerplays - Click Here

My ideas, beyond what I've found on the internet.
1. Printing stuff from the friend. (The friend homepage is fabulous.)
2. (This idea from a friend.) Wrapping the toys separately. So when they get bored you toss them a wrapped toy, that'll get you another minute (and in our case 1 down 720 to go!)
3. The small boxes of fish crackers.
4. Go to the toy section in walmart and there are some $.88 toys. (Little cars, bracelets, animals) And who cares if they get lost.

If you've got a great travel idea, let me know. (12 hours of travel one way. That takes some REAL creativity.)

25 Days of Christmas

A couple of years ago my mom did a 25 days of Christmas binder that had a cute little story and a coloring page for each day in December before Christmas. Well, I liked the idea, only saw it once (detrimentally seeing that they had already colored half the pictures and NO COPIES!). Now (since I've sort of finished my last project) I'm doing a booklet for the 25 days of Christmas. I've got about 10 days worth of stuff so far. Of course I want to do the normal "church approved" stuff, so if you have any great ideas, send them my way! I have coloring pages (mostly from the friend), reenactment ideas, and pictures to color, cut and laminate. And yes, I start thinking about Christmas early. Which reminds me, if you're reading this and I (or any of my family) have your name (or your family's) for Christmas, What do you want? (Nathan, this includes you :) Anyway, look at my fhe blog to find the 25 days of Christmas that I have done. If you have a fun, fun, fun idea to add, let me know.

http://familyhomeeveningfriends.blogspot.com/

Memorial Weekend

My mom's camera has all of the pictures I took. Her camera was just so handy. I either left mine in the car or my suitcase. But, I forgot to get the pictures from her and now I have a limited number from our fun weekend.

Me, the official picture taker. (Nathan using our camera to take a picture of me taking a picture. Very funny, Nathan :)

Meredith enjoying her pizza at Bits and making a mess. (Do ya like the bib? Whew, that was some quick thinking.)

Emily enjoying her pizza.

Group picture. (Look at that. Emily is such a great photo taker.)

When I get the other pictures, I'll post them.

Fourth of July

We went to the Fourth of July Parade in my hometown this week. The girls had a lot of fun.

Nathan is attempting to keep Meredith on the sidewalk. She wanted to go in the street like everyone else.

Emily, running for the candy.

Picking up the candy.

Meredith thought that this time she was going to make it out into the street. Of course Mom was right there with a camera, so she really wasn't going anywhere.

We ate barbecue afterwards and then the next day Grandma babysat the girls while Mommy and Daddy went to the rodeo and watched fireworks afterwards.

Meredith's First Birthday

Meredith is one! She loved opening presents. Her face just lit up when she opened her presents. She was so cute. I have no idea where all that time went. She is always discovering something new. Since the last time I wrote in my blog she has done so many new things. She folded her arms for the prayer for the first time about two weeks ago, and then wouldn't repeat it again for a little while. Now when we say "it's prayer time", or "time for a blessing" she just folds her little arms. And then at the end of the prayer she'll say "amen" with us. It's so fun to see her volunteer to do this. She sees sister say her prayers every night, and a last week she wanted to try to say her prayers too. So, I tried to help her and she repeated what I was saying (to the best of her ability). The one word I could really decipher was "amen" at the end. She follows Emily into every mess. I am finally just keeping the bathrooms locked so I don't have to dig stuff out of the toilet and clean toilet water hands.

We got Meredith the Little People Zoo set for her birthday. She loves to push the button on the train that makes music and then she dances to it. Her dancing is bouncing up and down.

The girls love to dance. Emily will point to the cd player and say "dance, please". Meredith will start bouncing (dancing) as soon as she says it. They both want to dance with me at that point, which usually creates jealousy, but most of the time I find some way to dance together, or we create a train and dance around the living room.

They are so much fun. I'm so glad I get to stay at home with them and see all of their progress and the new things they do every day. I love the way the girls' faces light up when they see me. I am so blessed.