Diary of a Craftaholic Gift Exchange

Earlier this month I

 participated in a gift exchange 

from Diary of A Craftaholic. 

I was way excited because this sounded like a lot of fun.  As Christmas got closer, I got a little bummed because nothing had arrived.  

On Dec. 23rd, I went and got the mail and to my surprise I found this wonderful gift from the gift exchange.

A holiday "Let it Snow" tile.

I love it!

Thank you to Julie for sending it my way!

 Thanks! It is  very cute and will be a great addition to my Christmas decorations.

I look forward to participating in the next one that Linda has in July!

Visiting Santa Christmas Eve 2009

Every year on the 24th in Green River, Santa comes to the firehouse to visit with the kids.

Neither of my kids had seen him yet so we bundled them up to go.

Zach was really interested in watching Santa until it was his turn to sit on his lap.

Then he doubled over crying.

Santa finally got him sitting up so we could at least get a picture of him.

Kylie was all smiles because she finally got to tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas.
We hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

New Hair Cut

I got a little carried away with the clippers the other night.

Zach needed a haircut so I thought what the heck.  I probably should have used one of the bigger settings on the clippers.  But her sure looks like a little boy now and not a baby.

A Day in the Snow

After getting everyone healthy we decided we needed to go out and play in the snow.

Kylie started building the snowman by herself and she couldn't get to far before the ball was too hard to push.  So Zach and I headed outside to help.

Kylie posing with her creation.

I tried to stand Zach next to her so that we could get a picture and all he could do was cry.

He loves watching Santa get blown up each night we call it waking up santa.

But of course standing by him was out of the question.

He was crying so hard that he knocked them both over.

Cuddling with Dad

Kelly thought he was going to have a relaxing night watching tv on the couch.

Little did he know that he would get a couple of little visitors.

Don't they just look all comfy?

First Big Snow 2009

Here is a picture from our first big snow fall this year.

In this picture there is about 9 and half inches.  We got about 4 more during the night. 

Kelly started moving the snow with the snow blower and then I finished while he went to his meetings at church. 

This is the day that Kylie and Zach were both under the weather, so I left them in the house and tried to help with the snow.

A coke drinker!

Kelly was giving Zach drinks of Coke from the big two liter bottle, and he wasn't finished when Kelly stopped sharing, so Zach brought the bottle to me.

I had Kylie snap the picture so that we could share it with all of you.

Here is the big ahhhhhh! that he would give after every drink that he took.

I know coke isn't the best choice of drink to give him, but hey a little bit won't hurt anyone!

Dressing up the Christmas Stockings.

Last year when Christmas was over I bought some plain stockings that looked something like this one.

I decided that it was a little too plain, and I wanted to do something with it.  I just couldn't figure out what.

So I came across this blog entry at Pleasant Home.  The creator of this blog had taken a stocking and added some decoration to it so I decided to give it a try.

Here is my version.

Here is the version that I looked off of.

A simple store stocking.

Now looks like this.

I took a couple prints of Christmas material, and a glass.

I traced a little more than half of the circle of the glass, and then cut them out.  I made about 11 of them to go all the way around the stocking, but probably should have made 12.

(I didn't really do any measuring, I just guessed about how many I would need.)

Taking right sides together I stitched around the outside of the circle, leaving the flat part open for turning.

After turning, I used the iron the flatten it out.

Then I started pinning them all together.

The part that I didn't get a picture of was actually sewing it to the stocking.  I was so caught up in what I was doing that I forgot to take a picture.  I pretty much just pulled the white part up so that I was seeing the back side of it, and stitched the two together.  I was worried that I would see the stitch line, but it is hidden in the fur pretty well.

The final result.

And here are the five finished products.  One for each of us.  If you look closely you will see that there are three different patterns of material, and I added our names to one of the half circles on the left side so that we would be able to tell whose was whose.

They were fun to make and a lot easier than I thought it would be.

Thanks to Pleasant Home for the idea.

Brooklyn's Blessing

Brock and Monique had Brooklyn blessed on Thanksgiving so that all of the family could be there.

In the picture is: Clint, Jay, Brother Garfield (Tub), Brooklyn, Brock, and Kelly.

Brooklyn looked really cute in her blessing dress.

Brooklyn's binkie was left sitting on the couch and Zach was really fascinated by it.

He kept reaching out to touch it, until someone would tell him no.  It was basically a game for him.

Ovard Christmas Party

On Thanksgiving this year, we also decided to do the Ovard Christmas party.

This year we tried something a little different and the oldest grandchild in attendance (Whitney) helped the little ones act out the Birth of Christ.

Trista was Mary, with little baby Brooklyn being the baby Jesus.  Joseph is missing from most of the shots as this was Zach's part.

The three wise men came bearing their gifts.

While the angel of the lord spread the word of the birth of the baby.

Here is a picture of the whole group including the missing Joseph, who was trying to get away again.

Zach opening his little cars.

Kylie got clay animals that she can sculpt.

It was a great day spent with the Ovard family and we all had a lot of fun spending time together.

Kinsey's 2nd Birthday

We went to Roosevelt for Kinsey's 2nd Birthday party.

Here the kids are enjoying eating some cupcakes.

What a bunch of little cuties we have in our family.

I think Zach was loving the cupcake a little too much.

Kylie and Nathan

I think that Kylie is somewhere at the bottom of this picture.  

Zach and Kinsey kept crawling all over her.

And rolling off the bed was fun too!

Or hanging upside down.

Thanks for inviting us to your party Kinsey, and letting us stay at your house.

We are glad that the snow stayed away so that we were able to make it.

Big shoes to fill!

The other day when Zach was sick, I came home for lunch to see him walking around the house in Kylie's shoes.

He was doing such a good job at getting around too.

When I asked him how he put them on, he looked at me, took them off and proceeded to put them back on again so that he could show me how he put them on.  It was just too cute.  

What a smartie!

New Church clothes for Christmas

Kylie wanted to wear her new dress for the primary program, so we decided Zach should wear his too.  Zach even got to participate in the program this year.  The nursery went up when they sang the song "Follow the Prophet"  of course his binkie was in the whole time and he was leading the music instead of singing it.  Kylie did a great job in saying her part too!

Halloween 2009

So Halloween seems like a long time ago, so I decided I had better sit down and post some pictures.

My little Hannah Montana, and my spider.  Zach did not want to have his picture taken.  He was just going to get off the porch and run.

Kelly even dressed up for the occasion this year.  Kylie and I told him that he looked like Indiana Jones, even though Kylie had no clue who that was.

Zach after realizing that people were giving candy to him had no problems going from door to door.  I tried to do trick or treating with out the binkie, but as soon as I took it out the candy started to go in.  So I put the binkie back in and had no problems.  

We didn't quite get to as many homes as we usually did as Zach started throwing a fit.  But we ended up with plenty to go around.