I Made That & Around the House

Yay!  I found pictures of Bryson's hot pads and apron/chef hat that I made for his birthday on the other camera!

 Did I mention that he LOVES to cook?  I can't remember what I was about to make, but he was all over me trying to help.  Good thing he keeps those (fully functional) hot pads on his hands!

 Here's some other projects around the house that I've done in the last month or so.  First off I made this wreath for Valentine's Day.  I'm trying to be more decorative with holidays this year, so here's the start.

 This is scrapbook paper (a Stampin' Up colletion to be exact called "Raspberry Tart" I believe.)  I cut the paper in 3 inch wide strips, then I only used half of the strips (the other half I glued together into a large placemat/table runner that is on my china hutch)  The pink and green really compliment my yellow house and red door, I think so anyway.  Here are some close up shots of the paper.

 It was really easy and super cute!

Next, I got some brand new non-stick pots and pans for Christmas (much needed.)  I didn't want to stack them in my cupboards, and space is really limited in the kitchen, so we bought this hanging rack and Doug installed it.  I think it's really neat.  It is covering up some of my pictures on the wall, though, so I'll need to move those (eventually.  It's on the list.)

 Next up was our bedroom, well sort of.  See our room is not high on the priority list when it comes to the house, and there is still lots of other things we need to get around to.  I was kind of jealous of Susan's bedroom makeover that they did over the holidays, because I would've loved to do that, we just don't have the money/time for it now.  We did get rid of our big bulky hand-me-down nightstands (sorry no before shots, I never remember till half way through a project) and for our anniversary (the 6th is the wood anniversary) we bought this bookcase headboard.  Its functional and does make me feel a little more grown up to finally have a headboard.  A couple of artsy shots from our Canada trip printed 11x14 complete the look for now.  Just ignore my ugly flannel Christmas sheets.  They're not stylish, but they are oh so comfy!

 The biggest project over the holidays was to reorganize my disaster area of a craft room.  I had piled so much stuff in there, that I could barely open the door and I was pushing the desk (on wheels) in and out of the room when I wanted to sew something.  More storage space was in order so one day I had the brilliant idea of adding shelves over the ledge that goes around the outside walls instead of purchasing more bookcase shaped furniture.  So off to Home Depot I went and Doug, my hero, put up these shelves for me.  Then came a trip to Target to purchase some bins.  My amazing friend, Miriam, came over and helped me organize my yarn/motivated me to get the stuff organized.  And here's the final (for now) product!

There's still room to grow if I need to and it's nice to be able to see/know where everything is.  Let me give you a little tour.

First off my TARDIS.  If you don't know what a TARDIS is, well then we can't be friends anymore.  Ha ha, just kidding, but seriously go watch some Doctor Who.  The TARDIS is the police box that the Doctor uses to travel all time and space.  It's bigger on the inside.  So is my sewing cabinet (not really, but there's space in it to grow.)

 I bought a groupon a month ago for vinyl wall decorations, so I thought I'd use it to add a little fun to the craft room.  Hence the birds now residing on my magnetic knife holder that I use for scissors (I love that thing.)

 Some more birds and flowers.  And can I just say how nice it is to have bins for everything and then some?  No wondering where anything is, well sort of, maybe I should label the bins at some point.

 My favorite idea I had, hooks on the wall under the ledge for all my knitting looms.  They are just those command hooks that are stuck to the wall, so I could easily pull them off and move them if I want.  It is nice to be reminded that I need to finish all those projects (well the pink yarn on the green loom is Sariah's first project, she's making herself a hat.)  I love the little red bird that lives in the red loom, too.

 One more little red bird on the box on the sewing table.

Well that's mostly all that's been going on here.  A clean craft room means I can start crafting again.  I've already got a couple of sewing projects lined up.  Yay!

Bryson's Birthday "Party"

And by party I mean we had Bryson's friend, Colin, and Colin's Parents over for cake, ice cream and presents.  Here's Bryson's cake.

 I've been seeing a lot of cakes decorated with M&Ms on pinterest, so I thought I'd give it a try.  It is suppose to be a train, but I guess any moving vehicle will do.  It was tasty!  That what matters, right?

 Bryson had a lot of fun opening his presents.  He was excited to get some additions for his train table, and some new sheets for his bed, plus some good looking church clothes and some books.

 Some other favorites are the hot pads I sewed for him (but didn't get a picture of) because he is always stealing the hot pads out of the kitchen and taking them somewhere else to "cook" with.  So I made him some for his very own out of scrap fabric I had lying around.  I also made him an apron and a chef hat, which he wasn't such a fan of because he didn't know what they were.

He also really loves this big Mario and little Luigi dolls.  He sleeps with them every night.  I like that he calls both of them "Igi!" since Luigi was always my favorite of the two.  

 I found this play camera on clearance after Christmas.  It is very obnoxious with the music and lights, but it keeps him from stealing the real cameras, so I don't complain.  He loves to run around with it asking everyone to say "cheese!"

The week after his birthday we took him to the doctors.  He's a very normal, very healthy little boy.  He was weighing in the 75% and only in the 40% for height, so I think he's about to have a growth spurt since his numbers seem to do that (his 18 month stats had his weight under 50% and his height over.)  He's already wearing size 7 shoe (his friend Colin is in size 5.)  His torso is still longer than his legs so that the 3Ts are starting to fit on top but he's just barely wearing 2T pants.

He's really breaking into those terrible twos.  Bedtimes are always a meltdown, everything is "mine" even when we're walking through Walmart, but he's still a great sharer when we're playing with friends.  He's constantly singing, even with the songs on the radio, and he loves his family.  We love him, too.

Double Trouble

I was thinking that maybe now that Bryson is 2, he doesn't look as much like 2 year old Doug. Until I put the pictures side by side. Nope, he's still a mini Doug.  Take a look:

Goodness. Besides hair length, is there much difference?

Happy Birthday Bryson!

Bryson's favorite shirt

Do you remember this hat from last year?

Handsome

I love this hat.

The coloring from Portrait Innovations was much nicer than this looks, I altered this myself to give grandparents an idea of what this looks like.  Still, doesn't he look like he needs a newspaper route?

I love, love this shot.  He warmed up to the camera  by the end, and he's just so  adorable!

The terrible twos are upon us!  Well they've been upon us for about 2 weeks now.  Still, we're so happy to have Bryson.  As my mom would say, "He's a hoot!"   Seriously, though, this kid knows how to get into trouble.  I came in from shoveling snow this morning, and he had pushed a kitchen chair to the sink and had one leg in the kitchen sink and the other over the kitchen counter.  He's constantly getting into things, hates being left alone, and has decided that naps are no fun.  Oi.  

On the other hand, he's super adorable.  He charms the ladies where ever we go.  He's a great helper in the kitchen, he loves to help with the dishes and he wants to be a part of meal prep, no matter what we're cooking.  He's constantly stealing my hot pads and pretending to cook with them.  He even helped make his birthday cake last night, which was exciting for him.  

Bryson loves to sing.  When it is just me and him in the car, he's constantly singing little songs to himself.  He tries to sing along with the radio if we're listening to music.  His favorite song is probably, "Once there was a Snowman."  He's really into snowmen.  He likes to try and play the piano, but he must put a piano book up there to play from.  He really likes to dance, too.  Last Sunday he was trying to dance along with the music in sacrament meeting.  I had to put a stop to that, it's not really the right place.  

Bryson is very opinionated about his clothing.  If you pull something out of his dresser that he doesn't want to wear, he'll wave his arms in the air and yell "no! no! no-no!"  until you pick something else out.  He's not a fan of overalls or button down shirts (unless you put the button down shirt over another shirt, then that's cool.)  He loves his green shirt with the tie on it and his winter boots.  

Bryson is not a fan of television, unless Sariah is watching.  He would rather be involved with what Mommy or Daddy is doing.  He wasn't a fan of books, but now he's just starting to sit still and listen, his favorites being "Tickle the Duck," "Baby Colors" and "The Cheerio Play Book."

He's saying most words, although some sounds seem to be tricky for him.  He can say Mommy, but milk comes out as "nox" and chip has the unfortunate swapping of the "c" to "s" and "p" to "t".  (I'm not going to type that out.)  Speaking of food.  His favorites are probably still hot dogs (pronounced "HAWDAW!!!!") and the variation, corn dog.  He's not a picky eater (yet, knock on wood.)  And eats pretty much anything.  

He loves his big sister.  He thinks he can do anything she can do.  He is really so much fun, and we're thankful he's in our family!

(Grandparents, let me know which pictures you'd like!)

Happy New Year!

Wishing you all the best in 2012 from us and our friends!  Best Party Ever!

Big Kids for Christmas

I might get around to posting about our other Christmas festivities, but at the moment I'll just share 3 things about my kids and how big they're getting.  Honestly, where did the time go?  Wasn't Sariah just 3?  Wasn't Bryson just born?  

First:  Sariah got a bike for Christmas.  She's very excited about it, while she was sad that it was Sunday so we wouldn't let her go out immediently, she has been out on her bike both yesterday and today.  (How fortuitous that its been a super mild winter so far here and there's no snow.  Doug has been teaching her the hand signals and how to brake.  If the weather holds up, she might ride her bike everyday.  I know she's going to love it once it gets warmer!

Why yes, there is a princess crown on her helmet, was there ever any doubt she'd need one?

 Other new things Sariah likes to do: 

Sing, she was front and center when the primary sang on Sunday, and she at least moved her mouth like she knew the words, I know she knew the first two lines.  

Sound out words, she's really close to reading those words herself.  Often if you pick out a word for her to find and help her sound it out, she can find it on the page.  Another favorite present for Christmas was 6 Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems.  

Crafts, before 4K, she wasn't very interested in sitting down with me and making crafts, but on Christmas eve while Bryson was napping we did all kinds of paper and bead crafts.  Its fun to see her develop her creative side.

 In Bryson news, I swear he's picked up about a thousand new words in the last two weeks.  He'll repeat practically everything you say.  With Sariah almost ready to read, we've been able to help Bryson learn new words as well.  We're working on colors at the moment since he knows most the objects around the house.  He's still a big fan of the knock, knock joke, he even told the Interrupting Cow joke correctly the other day!

As a very early birthday gift (so my mom could sleep on it while she was here) we got Bryson a big boy bed. He's been running around the house telling everyone about it since it came the Tuesday before Christmas.  ("Bed! Bed!" means come and lay down on it with me.)  Tonight is the first night he's actually sleeping on it.

So he doesn't totally have a grasp on how this works yet...

I imagine he'll figure it out eventually.  I pulled the covers back up around him when I snuck in to take this photo.  Isn't he cute?  

The bed isn't the only grown up things Bryson did today.  He also got his first real haircut at Great Clips.  Both he and Doug needed a hair cut so we went in.  He wasn't totally happy about it, but he did sit in Daddy's lap and let the lady cut his hair without too much fuss.  I think it looks pretty handsome now (sorry about the ipod quality photos...)

I feel like I got big kids for Christmas.  Every time I turn around they're doing new things and acting older that I'm ready for them to be.  I'm proud of them, though.  They're pretty awesome kids.  I can't wait to see what they'll do next.

Chicago Weinachtsmarkt 2011

One of my visiting teachers, who knows that Doug and I served German/Austrian missions, has been telling me for a couple of years now about the authentic German Christmas market that is held in Chicago every year.  Her husband also served in Germany, and his mom is German, so if they found it to be a good experience, we thought we'd try it out.  It just worked out that Doug has vacation till the end of the year and Sariah doesn't have school on Mondays, so we drove to downtown Chicago and checked it out.

You could tell that it is Christmas week, because even though it was a Monday late morning/early afternoon, the place was packed!  There was very little opportunities to sit down, so the kids and I took this spot under the big outdoor tree while Doug went foraging for food.  There were lots of amazing smells coming from the market, but there were lots of long lines for each food booth!

The kids with the Markt behind them

Doug ended up bringing back some tasty pretzels.  They were warm and soft and delicious.  The downside was we ended up being pretty thirsty and left our bottles of water in the car.  

Tasty, tasty pretzels!

What a cute couple!

After pretzels we wandered around for a bit and took a look at all the booths.  Most were from Germany and Austria, but there were some random central asia booths and a couple local Chicago ones as well.  I especially liked the honey/beeswax candle booth and the tablecloth booth right next to it.  The candles were carved into pretty designs, I really liked the nativity ones.  Doug and I both agreed they were too pretty to burn!  There were lots of things I liked at the tablecloth booth as well, but I already own 2 tablecloths from the Weinachtsmarkt in Bamberg, so we decided to pass on purchasing anything there.

These were some of my favorite booths.

After we walked all the way around, we stopped to rest at this nativity.  This might have been Sariah's favorite part, not because of the nativity, but because there were lots of little birds and pigeons around.  She asked a lot of questions about pigeons as we pulled her away.  I might have been secretly disappointed that with all the amazing German things around, she only cared about the pigeons.  I got over it quickly.

Sariah enjoyed the birds that flew in and out of the nativity, and the nativity, of course.

Next we walked over to Santa's Haus.  There was a small line, so Sariah was game for going in and seeing Santa again.  It wasn't very cold or anything (we must have picked a perfect day to go, sunny and about 53 degrees in downtown Chicago) but it was nice to go inside for a bit.  There was a toy train that rode the track around the walls and this pretty tree inside.  There was also a Santa Matic 3000, that builds toy trains if you turn a wheel, I think I posted a picture on my facebook page.

Waiting in line for Santa

Bryson was once again not amused by Santa and did not want to sit on his lap.  Sariah was a very good sport about it.  She had a nice conversation with the very nice Santa.

Sariah enjoyed seeing Santa again; Bryson did not.

After Santa, we decided to brave the food lines again.  There was a ton of options, brats, snitzel, leberkaese, struedel, potato pancakes, crepes, goulaush soup...  It all smelled great.   In the end we opted for simple brats.  Yum.  The kids and I took refuge with this Nutcracker while Doug got lunch.  Like I said, there were not many places to sit, so this was about it.

The big nutcracker was our lunch buddy

Doug was brave and stood in line for our Nuernburgers and Weiss Wurst.  With not really a great place to eat under our Nutcracker buddy, and the unfortunate very drippy (yet incredibly tasty) mustard, it was kinda a mess of a lunch.  It was good, though!  It also made us even more thirsty, so we could tell that our experience would be coming to a close soon.  

Doug getting our brats from the German Grill.

Doug and the kids hunkered over at the nativity again while I ran and picked up a couple of gifts for us and some sugar coated nuts (one of my favorite treats from the Weinachtsmarkt in Bamberg, Burnt Mandeln or toasted Almonds in English.)  Then we headed back to our happy home.  Everyone had a real good time!

Here's what we picked up.  These are ceramic, hand painted little German buildings.  When you put tea lights in them, the windows light up.  I don't have any tea lights at the moment, so I can't show you, but they'll make a great edition to our Christmas decorations.  We couldn't decide between the Post and the Bahnhof, so we got both.  I think they compliment each other nicely.  Plus they have the added edition of being important building when we were on our missions!

The spoils of our adventure!

I think we'll definitely go back again, maybe not next year, but sometime soon.  Sadly, when we got home, Sariah threw up about four times, all night long.  I hope it doesn't taint her memory of what was a really good time.  She is doing much better now.  Ironically (and here's the TMI, so feel free to stop reading) all that pretzel and brot came out of her tummy smelling like fermented yeast, aka, beer!  Another German staple...  No she did not drink any alcohol on our adventure, I promise!