ear surgery, and Annie came!

Last week Jonathan got to have ear surgery again. Woohoo! 

We rearranged our furniture a bit to make him a nice place to hang out while recovering. The kids loved helping him try out the new set-up (and unfortunately now Ella loves watching shows with Daddy - she loves handing him the remote, then climbs up on the couch and points to the tv...pretty funny!).

We were so blessed to have Aunt Annie fly in to stay with us and help with the kids during the surgery and for the weekend! James looked forward to it for weeks and counted down the days until Aunt Annie arrived. The kids had such a fun time playing with Annie. And we had so much fun hanging out with her too! We watched lots of good movies.

Home from surgery - poor Daddy!

The aftermath. Just scroll quick past that first one if you get squeamish. We've done this thing three times now so we're used to it :)

We spent a good 2 hours trying to dismantle his glasses so he could actually wear them.

Looking ever so slightly loopy in these....

Thanks for coming, Annie!! We love you!

Our Ella

This girl just cracks us up. She's not talking much but is oh so expressive. And it's super easy to find out what she wants.

All you have to do is ask her yes or no questions: 

if the answer is no, she shakes her head emphatically;

if the answer is yes she grunts like a little goat.

Simple!

Clothes

Lately Ella has a cute little fascination with clothes. I bought her these pants (on clearance for 2 bucks!) and just look how pleased she is. She loves to drape new clothes around her neck or under her chin and feel how comfy they are.

These silky Valentines pajama pants were also a big hit (although they are totally huge on her, and she got a bit frustrated when trying to walk around...they looked like clown pants...plus they totally fell off in her crib and she was very upset!). 

Playing a little board game (which James doctored up with his own board pieces made out of paper - this kid is creative!) with Daddy and Brother before bedtime.

Little Pianist

At our house, we start them young...

One of Ella's favorite things is to sit with Daddy or Mommy and play the piano. 

She loves experimenting with the notes and playing her own song. (She usually will actually remove my hands from the piano so she can have a turn all by herself. Or sometimes she likes to grab my fingers and make me play the notes of her choosing.)

For some reason she is more lenient with Daddy, and tends to let him play whatever he wants while she plays. (Note her Daddy's awesome ear bandage - he just had ear surgery numero 3, and hopefully his brand new prosthetic hearing bones will help him hear better!)

This girl sure loves music!

I turned on the classical station in the car the other day, and Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" suite was on and she absolutely LOVED it. She just grinned and bounced in her car seat the whole time, and clapped after every movement.

I love my girl :)

A Wonderful Christmas

We had such a wonderful little Christmas here in San Antonio! Jonathan and I were commenting that Christmas is even more fun as a parent than as a child! It is so fun to make it special for our kids and to see their excitement :) We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve pajamas...

Adventures in Sewing

During the past year or so I have loved learning how to sew! My mom always sewed for us growing up, and recently I realized that I really wanted to be able to do that for my kids. I always seem to take on crazy projects, and this Christmas was no exception. I decided to make my kids a fabric play house that slips over a card table.

I found all sorts of pictures and ideas online, and from that I made plans for my play house. I was actually surprised how much fun it was to make this! I was only slightly stressed about it the last couple of days (well, late nights, really) leading up until Christmas trying to get it all done. I'm sort of a "wing it" and "eyeball it" kind of a gal. I just sat down and started cutting out felt - flowers, vegetables, a tree, leaves, etc. Then I just figured out how to put it all together. I ran into only a couple of problems along the way (like sewing windows and doors together before I should have turned the whole thing inside out to hem the bottom...oops!) but it all worked out great in the end. And the kids love it!

Here's pictures of all the sides:

The front. The mailbox opens up and there is a slot for letters. I ironed on the address above the door (our wedding anniversary, plus the road my in-laws live on, not to mention our last name :)). The door just flaps open and rests on top of the house to stay open.

I love how the little felt letters turned out. I love that my sewing machine can sew words!

An outside window. The flowers velcro to the flower pot, and the watering can velcros so they can take it off and "water" the flowers. The finished window is also lined with a checkered turquoise felt (the same as the front door). 

Apple tree! The apples stick on with velcro so they can "pick" them and put them in the basket. The dolly velcros to the swing (Ella LOVES the little dolly - so glad I made it!) The little knot in the tree opens up...

...and there is a little bird inside. The bird comes off and can be put up in the tree in place of one of the apples.

In the back of the house is a little garden! The corn comes off of the stalk, and the other vegetables stick in the ground in little pockets in the dirt. Now to the inside of the house...

Next to the front door (not cut out yet in this picture) is a little book shelf, with pockets for a couple of real books. The mail slot comes through the book shelf. I thought the curtain above the little window turned out cute!

Close-up of the book shelf. I sewed book titles on the spines of the books.

Inside of the big window. The finished window is edged with turquoise fabric. Ella loves to climb in and out of the house through this window!

The kitchen! This was really fun to make. I found a picture of a play house online that had a kitchen almost exactly like this (can't remember where I saw it). The hands of the clock move (with velcro); the oven opens up and there are cookies inside; the big pot is a pocket so you can put vegetables inside; the fridge and freezer open; inside the fridge is a bowl you can put food in.

Close-up of clock 

Cookies in the oven 

Inside fridge and oven

This is probably the wall I am most proud of! I wanted the house more personalized to our family and to the things important to us, so I decided to make a piano on one wall! The sheet music pages turn. Then I used an iron-on transfer to make a framed family picture on the wall, and then used felt to make a picture of the Salt Lake temple! I think it turned out pretty cute. Here's some close-ups:

Here are a couple more pictures of the finished product:

So it was a success! And surprisingly (even after also making Christmas pj's and some cute round cushions for the kids as well), I am already looking forward to my next sewing project! It's a lot of fun.

Caterpillar

Well, it's been way too long. Thought I'd blog! Woo-hoo!

Today at Stake Conference, James got the brilliant {and random} idea that when we got home we should make a caterpillar costume. He was playing with a stuffed caterpillar toy of Ella's, and he was just so excited about his idea.

He had it all planned out - we were going to use blankets, and then sew them with thread to make them "more beautiful," and have holes for the arms and legs, and I think a hole "for eating" as well, and of course it had to have buttons to fasten it together. We thought we could convince him to just use some blankets and drape them over him, but he would not be deterred in his dream.

So, I spent my Sunday evening sewing this...voila:

A caterpillar costume made out of an old bath towel (I knew there had to be something I could do with all of our millions of towels!). I sewed the top kind of like a hooded towel, cut arm holes and edged them with bias tape, then made antennae and feet out of felt and sewed a velcro square to fasten it. I think it turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself! He was one happy caterpillar.