I'm back - hopefully!!

Sorry, once again, for slacking in the blogging department.  Just know that we've all been busy and having fun and getting sick and having more fun and making lots of fun things (mainly me)!  I have LOTS of pictures of our adventures this summer that will be posted shortly, but here's some of the projects I've been doing the last few months.



Some ties I made my nephew for his 1st birthday

For some reason I can't make a caption for the picture of Bryn.  I'm tired of trying different things, so this will have to do.  I found the cutest hat pattern and have made several hats since then.  The hat Bryn is wearing is one of them.  I have a better picture of the hat, but I had to post this picture because Bryn's smile is just too funny in this picture!  I still need to take a picture of the matching hats I've made Paige, Austin, and Bryn. Once I do, I'll post it.





I made 13 of these babies for a friend's family to wear at a wedding.  I had to enlarge the pattern for most of them, so I'm glad they turned out so well!



More of these fun, easy booties!!  I absolutely LOVED the ribbon bows and flowers I added this time!

The last couple weeks, I've been really into making hair accessories!  Here are some that I made my niece for her 6th birthday!  Hopefully they've arrived at her house!!

I've been trying to make a few items of jewelry.  Thank goodness for kits and step-by-step intrstructions!!  Now I know a few more techniques that I'll be able to use to make my own jewelry, when I have time! :0)

More hair accessories.  This time felt.  How I love felt and these are just too easy!!  I got several ideas for these online, the main one being makeitandloveit.blogspot.com.  If you search this very talented lady's site, you'll find more ideas for these babies! 

Here are the vinyl hair accessories.  I have yet to make some headbands with this vinyl, but that will come soon.  Once again, makeitandloveit.blogspot.com.

My sister had a headband for her little girl from Walmart, I believe.  She happened to leave it at my house and I happened to use it to make my own headbands.  Aren't these too cute?!?  And they're are super easy!!

Last but not least, this scarf from makeitandloveit.blogspot.com.  This is the first time I've really used knit, so it took a little while to get used to, but it really was a very simple, quick scarf to make!!

Hopefully these will inspire you to make your own fun "accessories" of all shapes and sizes!  By the way, for those who live nearby, I'm going to plan a girl's night in soon where we can use my vinyl to make hair accessories to our heart's content.  I'll let you know when it is!!

So very lucky!!

Today has been crazy, to say the least.  This morning started like it usually does on a school morning.  We rushed to get Paige on the bus and then I had to get Austin ready for preschool.  Bryn was still eating breakfast in her booster seat.  Amid all this craziness, I hear sirens pretty close to our house.  I didn't think too much about it because it's not too uncommon to hear them close by.  That's when I got a call from my friend saying that Paige's school bus was hit by a semi-truck.  I can't even describe what I was feeling when I heard those words.  It felt like my heart stopped beating.  My friend quickly assured me that Paige was fine and that they were down at the stop sign where the crash happened.  We found Paige scared and just a little bruised up on her jawbone.  Oh, it could have been so much worse!!  The truck hit the bus as it was crossing the highway, so luckily most of the damage was to the engine and door of the bus.  There were a few kids taken to the hospital, along with the bus driver.  The most serious injury I've heard about is a broken clavicle, but most of the injuries were just scrapes, cuts and bruises.  Thank goodness!  I can't even imagine how the bus driver and truck driver are feeling right now.  Everyone is definitely in our prayers.  I am so grateful to our Heavenly Father who answered our prayers of safety and protection this morning.  I love my family more than anything and I am so grateful that Paige and the other people involved are OK. Here's a link to one of the news channel's websites that covered the story.  kpvi.com

Happy 1st Birthday, Bryn!!

Wow, we cannot believe that Bryn is now 1 year old!! Where did the time go?!? We are so grateful for this sweet, little girl of ours! She always has a ready smile and has quite the personality already! She loves to show-off when she knows she has an audience, she adores her brother and sister, and definitely has her daddy wrapped around her little pinky!!

Here are a few more things about Bryn:

~She only has 2 teeth so far. She finally poked those through at around 10 1/2 months...hopefully that means less dental problems later on!! :0)

~She was a late crawler, too, but being the 3rd child, we didn't mind too much! ;0) When she did decide to crawl at 11 months, she just did it. No, rocking back and forth on her hands and knees or anything like that. She just went. Funny girl. We have a feeling she's going to be the same way with walking!

~Along those lines, she is cruising all over furniture right now, so walking isn't going to be too far behind.

~She is tiny compared to Paige and Austin at this age. She is our petite child (she just takes after my side of the family, I guess!). She has her 1 year doctor's appt on Monday, but the last time she was in, she was around 15 - 20% in both height and weight. We'll see how much she's grown on Monday. :0)

~She absolutely LOVES dogs and horses! In fact, dog was one of her 1st words (the other one was Dada, of course). This girl can spot a dog or horse from a mile away. When we were at the 24th of July parade, I learned to hold onto her tightly whenever a horse went by because she seriously tried to fall out of my arms to get to each one!! She's just like Paige in this area. Maybe we'll have 2 vets in the family! :0)

~So far, Bryn says dog (daw), Daddy (dada), Mommy (ma), that (dat), uh-oh (uh-uh-oh) and lots of jibberish! She will also wave if she feels like it.

Those are the highlights of our beautiful, sweet, Bryn. Here are a few pictures from her birthday party and in her cute birthday outfit.

She looks so grown up in this picture!! I embellished one of her onesies this morning. The picture below kind of shows it better. I just cut out a flower and a number one and sewed them onto the onesie. Then I made a fabric flower bow to match.

We actually celebrated Bryn's birthday on Monday because Kandra and the kids could come and it worked well as our Family Home Evening for the week! She got a new baby swing, some finger puppets from IKEA and 3 adorable animal "cars". She really loves the snail car that my mom and dad gave her!

As you can see, she LOVED her cake. We had to laugh at how she kept putting her foot on the table. At times, it looked like her big toe was giving a big "thumbs-up"! (She moved it before I could get a picture of it. Darn it!)

Paige and Austin helped me make a lady-bug cake for her. It was the best we could do since we decided to have her party just that morning! :0) The cupcake head worked great for Bryn's piece, though!

We love you so much, Bryn!! Happy Birthday!

New England trip - Part 2

The 2nd day of my trip back East we went to New York City. We took the train from Connecticut to NYC and when we walked into Grand Central Station it really was surreal. I just kept thinking of all of the movies with Grand Central in it and couldn't believe I was there! It just got better from there, too! We stayed at the Hilton in Times Square with the best view ever. We looked down onto Times Square and could see the Harbor just to the left of us. It was awesome.

Here we are in Times Square. I couldn't believe how many people were there. It was packed, but I guess that's New York City! ;0)

Ash wasn't so sure about this guys for some reason. :0)

Jill was just being silly and walked up there to get a picture with this guy and then when he handed her the torch it read, "Now you owe me $3." Oops! ;0)

We went in the St. Patrick's Cathedral. It was a beautiful building. I'm always amazed by the details of these old churches!

I'm so glad we went to NY over Memorial Day weekend because we were able to see scenes like this at 30 Rock. It seriously took my breath away seeing all these flags. It was beautiful.

That night we got dressed up and went out to eat at Bobby Flay's restaurant, Mesa Grill, and then to Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic Theater. Here's Nan, Athena and I in a taxi on the way to dinner.

Our meal at Mesa Grill was AMAZING! I had the spiced pork tenderloin medallions which were divine!

Right before the show. Oh, how I love Broadway!!

I don't know if it was all the exhaust, the different smells, or what, but my allergies started acting up the night we were in NY. I thought it was hilarious that Nan took this picture just at the right moment to make me look like I'm sleepwalking on Broadway! ;0)

Central Park was amazing. I wish we had the time to walk around in it more, but we were trying to fit so many things in our trip to NY. It still is so crazy to me that a place like Central Park can be right in the middle of NYC.

We took the subway to Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero and Wall St. Definitely a 1st!

Ground Zero. The feeling I got there was indescribable. I am just so proud to be an American and have the freedoms we have in this wonderful country. I am so grateful to all of those who have fought and given their lives for those freedoms. I am so grateful for all of the men and women who are now fighting for us and our freedom. I will never forget the tragic day of 9/11/2001.

Battery Park

Wall Street and the Financial District

We had such a blast in NYC. We fit so much in and my feet were so sore from walking so much, but it was worth every mile walked!! ;0)

New England trip - Part 1

I can't believe it's taken me this long to post about my trip to New England. It was such an amazing trip and the girls I went with made it even better. Most of my roommates from my sophomore year at Ricks College were there. We missed Beth, though. She couldn't come with us because she's expecting her 4th baby. I guess that was a good enough reason! ;0) (BTW, Beth, is your sweet baby here yet?!? We need an update!! ;0))

The first destination on our trip was to Newport, Rhode Island. It was such a beautiful place. We toured a couple of the mansions there and, boy, they were some of the most extravagent buildings I have ever seen! The first one we saw was the Breakers. It was the Vanderbilt's summer home in the late 1800's. The whole time we were there, I just kept thinking about how it would be to live in that mansion and it wasn't hard to imagine yourself walking down the grand staircase in a ball gown at the beginning of a ball. It really was amazing. I really wish we could have taken pictures of the inside, but then again, they wouldn't have done it justice.

We had a lobster dinner at our hotel room. It was the first time I had eaten lobster and it was pretty good. We didn't have the right utensil (tool) for breaking open the lobster, so that was a little weird, but it was better than I thought it would be, especially because I am not a seafood lover! I thought it was a very nice-looking dinner, though, don't you think?

Before dinner we went to the beach. It wasn't the warmest day, but it was still fun and refreshing to go to the beach. We had so much fun taking fun jumping pictures and running into the ocean. Ashleigh and Athena even went completely into the water (crazy girls!).

Happy 4th of July

I meant to post this a little earlier. Oops. We hope you all had a great 4th. We sure did. Set off a few fireworks and firecrackers tonight, which the kids LOVED. Had a little BBQ with the fam. Attended church and listened to wonderful testimonies and Paige's talk in Primary about following Jesus' example. It was a great day.

Yesterday we went on a little hike and it was a great one for the kids. I ended up having to turn back a little early, though, because Bryn was having an allergy attack. Something up there was getting to her and her nose was running and her eyes were starting to swell up. It was so sad to see. She was taking it pretty well, though. I might need to take her in if it continues, poor girl!

See her eyes?

A day of firsts

Yesterday, was definitely a day of "firsts" at our house. First of all, Bryn's first tooth finally decided to make it's debut! We were wondering when her pearly whites were going to decide to come out and I guess they picked yesterday! It's her bottom right tooth that's peeking out right now and her bottom left will be coming through soon after, I think. It's weird having her teeth so much later that Paige and Austin. Paige was 6 months and Austin was 4 months when they got their first teeth. Each child is different in more ways than one, that's for sure!

Our other "first" was Paige's first experience with organized sports, T-ball. She had her first practice last night and let's just say she absolutely and totally loved it. She went to bed a very happy girl. She had to go out with Daddy and me to "practice" throwing and catching before her actual practice. She loved using her brand new purple baseball glove with its matching purple and gray ball! At practice, she learned where Home, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd bases were, she practiced fielding (going down on one knee, even), and batting. She did quite well hitting (which she says is her favorite part of the game) and didn't have to use the "Tee". One of her coaches tossed the ball to her and she hit the ball on her 2nd try. Now she just needs to remember to drop the bat and run to 1st base after she hits it! :0) (She definitely wasn't the only one having trouble getting this concept down!) Paige had to tell me several times last night and today that her coach called her "lightning" because she runs so fast around the bases. She really was quite fast which makes me happy being a sprinter in my younger years! ;0) It was so funny watching Paige and her teammates learn a new sport and see how much fun it is to play. Hopefully they'll always keep that love of playing and staying active throughout their lives. We'll see how they do during the season. They have games twice a week for about 4-5 weeks which will be fun! Wish the Mets, luck!!! :0)

More Family Time

We went to Brian's parents' house about a month ago and the kids had so much fun. Here they are showing off their mad baseball skills!

The kids LOVE bedtime stories, especially with Grandma's special books. You have to love how Grandpa and Uncle Dan are fast asleep!

We love our cousins!

We are so lucky to have family so close to us. We get to see them quite often and the kids love it!

Here's Dawson and Bryn. Aren't they so cute?

My kids absolutely adore their cousin, Max. This picture shows this quite well, doesn't it?

Bryn did like this before I came out to take a picture....promise.

And she likes Max, too!

And Max likes Bryn!

And who could forget Bryn?

Here's our sweet, happy Bryn. I took this picture when she was 9 months and I just

love it!! Her toothless smile (yeah, still no teeth) and her cheeks get us every time. She really is a very happy baby unless she's sick (as Brian found out while I was gone last week). She has now begun to really pout when she gets a toy taken away from her or doesn't get her way. It's really quite funny. I have a feeling she's going to as dramatic as Paige, so we'll have to watch out for this one!

I couldn't help but take this picture. Her little bottom was so cute!! And those thighs!!! ;0) I'm just really glad that she took a nap before church that Sunday!

Nothing like gumming a little apple core!

This girl has quite the facial expressions, doesn't she?

Bryn says, "Howdy!"