Good Morning Little Dude

hmmm, must be cold season...

The Happiest Place on Earth...

Here's what we did earlier this week :)...
DISNEYLAND!!! Aside from Elyette trying to jump off a car statue and splitting her chin after riding only ONE ride, we had a great time. Don't worry, it was pretty minor and a Disneyland nurse took good care of her and even gave her a Cinderella band aid.

Jack's Highlights:

-Billy Hill and the Hillbillies show : He clapped, laughed and danced the ENTIRE time.
- Winnie the Pooh ride (see picture).
- The goats at Woody's Halloween Roundup: He got really excited when they walked around him (almost knocking him over).

Elyette's Highlights:

-The Pinocchio ride: Not sure why she was so set on this ride, before we went to Disneyland even, but we rode it 6+ times.
- Getting dressed up: She got some good use out of her Cinderella and Tink (from last year) costume.
- The Princess Faire: She got to twirl and curtsy with Belle (Belle was REALLY cute with her) and chat with Aurora and Ariel. I was kind of mad actually, because Cinderella wasn't there. Elyette had her little heart set on seeing her. We got to see her on stage. I was hoping that would have been satisfying for Elyette, but when we started to wave and say good bye to Cinderella, sweet Elyette burst into tears and sobbed "I want to kiss her cheek!". Talk about a heart breaker! I was ready to run up on stage and grab Cinderella. It turned out ok though, she was a brave girl.

Boz's Highlight: Beating Elyette's score on the Buzz Lightyear ride.

My Highlights:

-Going on Tower of Terror with Grandma Rae (Boz's Grandma) :)
- Messing Boz up on the Buzz Lightyear ride.
- The "Nightmare Before Christmas" version of the Haunted House.

The biggest highlight though was seeing the kids have the time of their life!

It was a long night home Tuesday, but the kids were good natured. Elyette wore her Cinderella dress on the plane and everything. You can imagine all the turned heads and smiles that brought on. A few people asked to take her home with them :). She's a doll. Jack made buddies with some of the San Jose Earthquakes soccer team players and his uber cuteness earned him a free cookie from a Starbucks by our gate (nice flirting dude)!

How Great Thou Art

I've been playing the guitar a lot lately and ignoring the piano, and I think I started getting bored of it, so I thought I'd throw in another piano song. How Great Thou Art.

When is it ok to start doing Christmas songs?

Fall Sewing: Slimsterella

Slimsterella: That's what daddy calls this fuffy, twirling, blue muffin anyway. After given a few suggestions for Halloween costumes, Elyette, unwaveringly, wanted to be Cinderella. It was really hard to explain to her that "mommy has to work on it" and she must wait. Anytime Cinderella crossed her mind she'd say "have to work on it, mom". She's been talking about Halloween for weeks and weeks now, and she's learning patience. Her costume came in phases.

Phase 1: Fabric. We waited for sales of course. She had a blast with me picking out what we needed, but then she had to wait some more...

Phase 2: The petticoat*. I didn't have enough lining fabric so its very "pieced" together, but hey no one sees it anyway. This costume development held her over well. Elyette has wore the petticoat literally everyday. Even slept in it.

Phase 3: The dress. This one took a lot longer to get started on. When I have a "project", I have to mentally pound it out to see what it is that I want and how best to accomplish that. And in some cases it takes me little while to get the motivation to just do it (mostly due to fear of mistakes). Elyette's been very patient and I finally got to it and finished it 2 weekends ago.Phase 4: Accessorize! Gloves, earrings, choker, headband, and of course, glass slippers. I was hoping to find some affordable clear jellies. Now I've got skills in online deal shopping, but it just wasn't happening. The ones we got are big so they'll make good church/Easter shoes. Plus, Grandma Millar found some light up ones at the Disney store we are so looking forward to seeing.

The accessory details were all Elyette, by the way. She meticulously studied Cinderella thankfully I talked her out of "fingers" for the gloves and wearing the headband OVER her ears...

All in all, it was not mistake free by any means and of course, I had my frustrating moments, but in the end this was BY FAR my favorite thing I've made. Any disappointments melted away when a beaming little girl put on her masterpiece. I'm still totally a beginner, but I'm really LOVING this sewing thing, especially for such an easily pleased crowd. Its VERY rewarding! And she looks DARLING!!!

-Um, in case anyone notices she's wearing only one earring in the picture, she lost one already (hopefully that will show up).

*Ok, so for those that are thinking, "a petticoat even? Geeze, a little overboard, don't you think?"- Yes, I totally agree :). This costume is "DELUXE" because it was fun for me :). Elyette would have been happy with anything, but I really wanted to try my hand at something a little more elaborate than usual. I didn't cost much more and I had the time (or so I thought:)), so why not?

Jack Stats and more...

So its been a week since Jack had his one year Dr. appointment (he's 13 months now), but I thought I'd share his stats for those who like to know:

-Weight: 21 lbs (20th percentile)

-Height: 29.5 inches (30th percentile)

-Head: 19.5 inches (over 95th percentile)-- HAHAHA, that's right folks, his head is only 10 inches smaller around than his entire height! We already knew he was a fat head though, oh our little fat head :).

What Jack is up to:

-EVERYTHING! He's as busy as ever. He took his first steps back in August, but didn't give up crawling all together until about 3 weeks ago. Now he's just about running and so am I!

-He still loves soft things. So much so that he had this dirty habit of pulling dirty laundry out of the closets to cuddle with it. Thankfully that one is finally stopping, now he has this new love for these monkeys that he found on a window sill at Grandma and Grandpa Millar's house. I guess they use to belong to Boz (and NOT when he was young, I might add). Jack can't help but grin huge at the sight of them and they make him so happy. Its kind of this weird connection he has with them or something :).

-Talking, a lot: He's always been a great little communicator and mimicker. My favorites are his pig and lizard imitations. He calls daddy ("da-dee") and Elyette ("Ya-ya") by name and I'm "mum". I get confused between "mum" and "num"-for food, cause I'm the one who usually gets him food too. "No" and especially "DON'T" (courtesy of his sister) are WELL said and often used words of Jack's. "This" is another one of his regular words that I love. He point to things and says "this, this". Oh and I dare not forget "hi" (which was his first word actually). To anyone he sees he quickly says "hi, hi, hi, hi..." until they are out of sight, he's good at meeting new people when we are out.

Last night during FHE we showed a picture of Jesus teaching children and Jack pointed and exclaimed excitedly "thisdis"- Jesus. He said it enough for me to notice it didn't sound the same as his "this". He chatters mumbo jumbo all the time, granted there are many things he says regularly that I haven't learned just what they mean yet. The best is that he occasionally sings- makes me melt!

-He dances. I personally think most babies have really good rythmn, Jack is one of them. He's a crack up, he even begins to sway when we sing hymns at church.

-He prays. He HATES it when we try to fold his arm, but when we, scratch that, when Elyette prays (no one else ever gets a turn around here) he bows his head over and over until he sees us put our heads up.

- He's a tease. What little brother isn't? This of course began early on. A memorable one was when he was 9 months old he'd point his finger and hold it just an inch away from Elyette's face until she got mad (I kid you not- it was hilarious). More recently, he and Elyette got in a fight over who got to sit in what chair (or something like that) and she shoved him and he came back and pounced on her and FARTED, then of course laughed about it. Yep, a true boy!

- He's learned the art of fake crying. To his credit, he's pretty good, and WAY dramatic. To anyone else it probably sounds like being killed. He's brilliant actually. When he doesn't get just his perfect way, he now scrunches up his little face, covers his nose with his hand and hunches over into a ball, WAILING. You don't even have to say "no" to get this dramatic response, just say his name in a certain way or even just give him that look and he'll do it. He certainly is starting to test his boundaries, and I mean he knows he's testing. Hitting his sister with drumsticks is the newest one.

- I feel the need to mention here that, YES, Jack and his sister fight, but they also love each other very much. They play and giggle together more than they argue (ok not always more ;)). And the best is that they look out for each other.

Last night, instead of his sister, Jack came at me with a drumstick, to which I gave him "the look". He stopped short, turned up his lip in revolt, dropped the drumstick and whacked my knee with an open fist instead. I got wide eyed and said "Jack" in that "I can't believe you just did that" sort of way and before I even finished saying his name, he got this look on his face and hobbled into his crying stance. I scooped him up without a word and he began to kiss my cheek, seeking for forgiveness. The whole thing was one of those experiences where you realize, your baby is no baby anymore, and he is beginning to understand, with great maturity, things like guilt and remorse even.

He's still MY baby even though that "baby" is long gone. My little boy amazes me, and though he almost always resists cuddling, he is totally a mama's boy and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Under Construction- Again

Please be patient with us and ignore any ugliness you may witness as our blog gets "sweded". Thank you!

Fall Sewing: Kaytee's Tote

My niece Kaytee just turned 8 this week (HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAYTEE) and will be getting baptized in a few weeks. Since I knew she would likely be getting scriptures for her birthday, I asked my sister, Stephanie (Kaytee's mom), if I could make her a scripture tote for them. I have been wanting to try a style/design I've been mentally concocting for sometime now and can't make it to Kaytee's baptism in Washington, so I thought this would be a great idea.

It was my first time working with corduroy so that was interesting :). I looked up some tips on sewing with corduroy, but I'll admit my laziness won out at times. Despite some unwanted stretching, lines not matching, and several snap mishaps (thanks for you help hammering, Boz) I'm pleased with how it turned out. It didn't take too long, but I've figured out how to mainstream it so I can make it more easily.

Some features:
-It has identical horizontal and vertical pockets on both inside flaps. The vertical pockets fit paper/handouts and the horizontal ones fit pens/scripture markers.
-The scripture covers slide into the flaps under the pockets and the seperate Bible and Triple combination attach to each other and to the tote by a "flap" insert that velcros to the tote's spine.
-It can fit a quad too, just take out the center flap (hence the velcro :)).
-There is a snap closure when not in use, but the scripture don't need to be taken out of the tote and won't fall out anyway, either.

I hope you like it, Kaytee- love you and congratulation!

How do you like to Sleep?

These pictures are not of any unusually naptime occurrence, this is just how they like to sleep...

Elyette: Doll in arms and dressed for the finest occasion in a petticoat and heels.
I'd like to go where she goes in her dreams.

Jack: Pantless (naked if he could), with a book near by and blanket over his head.
I like a good book before bed too.

Occasionally Elyette likes to mix things up...What? That's not how you sleep?

Good Habits Start Young

It used to be when the child gate for the bathroom was open, Jack headed straight for the toilet (hence the reason for the gate in the first place), but he's beginning to mature in his old age of one. Now he heads straight to the stool, climbs up and grabs his toothbrush. If the stool is not there, he goes and picks it up and carries it to the sink. A great habit to have, except that anyone's toothbrush will do (he puked on Elyette's the other day- don't worry we tossed it), and when it comes time to pry him away, an extreme fit that is not easily distracted breaks out. All in all, a HUGE improvement from the toilet.

Song 16 Again

I've been messing with this mix for the last few days now, and I think I'm to the point where I'm not making it any better, I'm just making it different. So here it is. I'm making it my goal to not touch it again until I put vocals to it, which may be a very long time from now.

I also added a guitar solo. I'm not too sure how I feel about it, but again, I think I'm just going leave it as is. You can listen to that here so that you don't have to listen to the whole song just to hear the added guitar solo.

Time to move on to a new song. Yippie.

Song 16

The Monkey Dude and His Monkeys

Sorry dude... I had to.

Fall Sewing: Curtains

Boring I know, but I figure the people that couldn't care less about the sewing/craft stuff will just skip this anyway.

-Curtain for the kids' room: These were inspired by my mom's kitchen/family room curtains. I love the ribbon ties. I didn't have as much brown fabric as I wanted since it was originally meant for a quilt I'm making for Elyette, so I had to piece them quite a bit. Thankfully, you can't really tell. These curtains don't match anything in their room...yet. Soon I'll be done with my transformations in there to share too. Elyette's most excited about the prospect of a "big girl" bed (instead of her toddler bed).

-Curtains for our room: I've been slowly putting things together to transfer our dull room to be more inviting. I'm done! I'll share before and after photos when my room's actually clean enough to take pictures of :). Anyway, these curtains are a crinkled sheer ivory that were really cheap online ($2/yrd for 102" width sheers!-free shipping) and I was amazed at the quality. I also got this embroidered "brown" shear fabric online. It was risky, because the color was hard to tell, but they turned out okay. They look brownish at night and more reddish during the day which works with our bedding.

Truth be told; sewing curtains is really boring for me. Just a bunch of long straight lines and tons of ironing. The kids' curtains where actually pretty fun, but ours where BORING! I didn't even bother hemming the ivory sheers since you can't see the ends anyway :).