Owen's Quilt

Usually quilts take me a reallylongtime.  Like that baby quilt I was making for Owen that still isn't finished...or the baby quilt I was making for a sweet baby girl, only to find out it wasn't wanted and so I never finished it....  Yeah, I am not really a finisher, but I am working on this area in my life and am completing more projects that I begin.  So, when we thought of transitioning Owen to his big boy bed, I thought he needed a nice new quilt of his own.  The idea came together quickly - I did not use any patterns, just kind of winged it based on examples of quilts that I like.  And I finished it super fast - like the top was finished in less than 5 hours, and the backing was finished in less than 7 hours (although I did take a 9 day break between the two sides as I figured out what I wanted to do on the back).  Wow!  Speedy!  Hurray!  I finished something (hold the applause).  Just needs some trimming on the sides...and then it's off to the quilters!

Blog Happy

Since my computer is finally working, I've been getting caught up on my posts.  There are a lot of new posts that are backdated, so I've included the links for them in this post, just so you don't miss any!  I'll be posting even more over the next few days, including pictures from New Year's Eve, a snow day, Halloween, Christmas in Indiana, and Jonathan's 4 year post.  Stay tuned and check back often!

November Posts

Thanksgiving

8 Months

Trimming the Tree

Fall Photos

December Posts

Hope for the Holidays

Crazy Chaos

Celebrating 8 Years

An Early Christmas

Gettin' My Crafty On

Christmas Eve

Christmas Mornin

Jonathan, the Chef

An Indiana Birthday

9 Months

Gettin' My Crafty On

Jonathan and I made some fun crafts this year!  Some were gifts, and some were just for us.  It's always fun to see what I can get Jonathan to do because he's not very interested in "crafty" things.  It took me three whole days to convince him to let me paint his feet green.  Only one day for his hands, though!

First, we made a "magic tree" from a kit that I got at Michael's for 70% off.

He watched it for a loooong time, but soon got bored because nothing was happening.

12 hours later!

 I painted Jonathan's feet green and stamped them on canvas, and then painted Owen's feet green and stamped them on the canvas, too.  Then I drew a strand for lights with a paint marker, and wrote "Mistletoes 2013".  We used acrylic paint to make thumbprint lights.  Super easy and super fun!

Owen and Jonathan's feet, plus Jonathan's thumb prints for the strand of lights.  (Just missing the red bow at the top.)

We painted Jonathan's hands white to make snowman ornaments. Then I painted scarves, hats, and a carrot nose on each snowman.  I added "coal" eyes, mouths, and buttons using a black paint marker. 

Such a sweet ornament!  Thanks, Pinterest!

We even included Owen.

His didn't turn out so well....

I made a garland out of paint chip samples from Lowe's.  I just cut some fat and skinny trees, and added a trunk from another paint sample.  Then I hot-glued them to ribbon.  This was a "free" project because I already had the glue and ribbon on hand, and the paint samples were free.  (Don't worry, I used some of the paint samples to choose new wall colors for our dining room and kitchen.)

My mother-in-law and I made all of this play food for my nieces, Jade and Lily.  I also bought them each an apron from IKEA, a blue basket for storage, made them aprons on coordinating cardstock, and bought them a guest check order book from Amazon.

Play food, apron, and menus.

Restaurant in a basket!

Celebrating 8 Years

Darin and I celebrated our 8th anniversary on December 9th.  Each year we go to the Melting Pot for dinner, and then walk around Kenwood Mall and look at all the Christmas decorations.  We had a great time reminiscing about the last eight years of our lives.  Though our marriage is far from perfect, we are deeply in love, and are committed to growing closer to Christ and to each other for the rest of our lives.  Happy Anniversary, my love.  God has brought us through times of joy and times of hardship, and blessed us with two beautiful boys in the process.  I can't wait to see where God leads us in the future.

Don't worry, we cooked that.

The best part!

Christmas Cookie Baking!

Baking Christmas cookies with the Thomas side is a family tradition.  It gets even better as more kids are added to the mix!  Jonathan is now old enough to really enjoy decorating cookies (and tasting batter, icing, and sprinkles, too!).

Here are some of the highlights:

It would be wise not to eat any of the cookies that Jonathan made.  :O)

Cookie decorating is serious business.

Another serious look.

The girls.

Don't worry about eating any that Jonathan made - I think he ate all of his!

Gavyn trying to help Jonathan.

Kaylee and her awesome gingerbread woman.

One satisfied kid.

Notice that his tongue is out; he's REALLY concentrating.

Cute girls.

Me and my lil' man.

Showing off their snowflakes.

Riley and Zoey.

Motherly love.

What Will It Bee?

We are very excited to announce the gender of our baby!  A special thanks to all of our family members who helped us find out the baby's gender in such a fun way.  We loved sharing the news with all of you!

Love this banner!

"Voting Table" - Complete with ballots and invitation. 

Another view.

Food!

Reveal cake!

Cutting the cake!

What color is that?

That is definitely blue icing!

Jonathan wasn't so sure about the blue icing.  He was team pink.

Darin was team blue, can you tell?

I made a pink cupcake and a blue cupcake just for Jonathan.  He had his heart set on the pink one.

Two peas in a pod.

Liam, ballot counter extraordinaire.

Jonathan was pretty satisfied with the bee.