Yellow Pages

Explain to me why me, the girl who never chooses yellow, has a sudden attraction to bright yellow accessories?

Ooooo! A punchy yellow yet inviting armchair! Aaaah!! Bright and cheery plates! And now I should co-ordinate with my new decor with this chunky yellow necklace and sassy flats.

Anthropology. How do I love thee. Too bad I will never be able to actually purchase something from you.

(*Even though I am craving yellow, I been using lots of cream, brown and pink. Check out my newest tassels on Megity's Handmade!*)

A New Bow

Look at this darling bow that I made for Mia.

Don't you love it?? I do! I love it, love it, love it!!! Love everything about it but apparently Mia doesn't.
Conversation with her about it:
Mama: "How come you took your bow out at your friends house??"
Mia: "'Cause I don't like that dumb bow. I didn't want you to put it in my hair."
Mama: Hugging her and telling her sweetly even though I felt like dropping her on her hiney, "Because Mama wants you to look pretty and I made a pretty bow just for you because I love you.:
Mia: Unimpressed, "Hmm."

If you would like to make your own bow, it's super simple. I simply used four different ribbons from American Crafts. They are perfect width, texture and coordination. That perfect red flower button is from the Creative Cafe. And if you make one (or more) for your cute little one, let me know. Especially if your sweet little one is sweet about it.

My Crafty Blog

I love to craft. I have three young children and they like to demand. Together, we meet their needs, wants and just plain spoil day in and day out. But, late at night, after the kids are asleep, Mama slips downstairs and works on her never ending list of projects. And they make me happy.

I've created a new crafty blog to showcase my latest tassels, scrapbooking, decorating and other crafty goodness. Come on over and visit me at Megity's Handmade, I would love the company!

LOVE!!

Find out more about this fabulous tassel on Megity's Handmade.

New Valentine Tassels!

Finally got some time to work on a new line of tassels. These are so much fun for me to do. I've had several requests for Valentine tassels so here is a few that I've been playing with:

First, a sparkly sequined heart all dolled up with classic red and cream toile ribbon, red checks and layers of red and camel colored fringe. Hanging from a red checked ribbon completes this classic combination. The heart measures 3 inches wide and hangs 8 inches long.

This yummy heart tassel features a chocolate brown and red confetti heart hanging from a rich brown satin ribbon. Layers of chocolate, red and camel colored fringes and ribbons dress this heart up quite nicely!
Heart measures 4" and tassel hangs roughly 10" long.

Last one is my favorite little tassel. Measuring about 4 inches long, it features my favorite cream custom made pom-pom layered with lush black fringe on a antique silver topper. A satin pink ribbon topped with black and pink grosgrain and my absolutely favorite little heart lock and key charm.

More to come soon! If anyone is interested in any of these, leave a comment and let me know. Thanks!

Mia's Winter Recital

Mia was as darling as ever about her recital this year. She was so pleased with how she looked for the recital. If you couldn't tell by the way that she pranced around or kept looking in the mirror, she would tell you. And she did look very cute and she did fantastic! I loved watching her and we were all very proud of her.

This is her third year dancing now at this school and she still enjoys it. Her teacher is fantastic and makes all the girls feel good about themselves. No pressure at all, just dance around and have fun!

An Formal Expression of my Intentions

Every January, I think about joining the masses and resoluting to make the New Year a better one. Lose weight, run a marathon, make lots more money and build a house with my own bare hands! Then, just like most of us, the resolutions get lost in the year and nothing happens. As if I was suddenly incapable of doing even the simplest of them all. Mental block possibly?

In my little attempt to change that outcome, this years resolutions are to make smaller, more attainable monthly goals. This months goal is to exercise more. And, because I let go of my perfectionist feelings about it, I have done it. It may be 20 minutes now, but that 20 minutes is so much better than zero minutes daily and for that alone, I am happy. Exercise is something that my body has been craving and I have not been doing simply because I am already behind in all of my daily chores, my mothering skills, the nightly dinner and all of the billions of projects that I want to do. Excuses, excuses. Time to take care of myself and I am looking forward to it!

So, what about you?? Any New Year's Resolutions for you?

Sammy's 2008

And finally, we can't forget about what a big year Sammy had!

January

Sam gets to be the one of the first to meet baby Aubri and shares well with Baby Alive.

February

Sam feasts upon the Book of Mormon.

March

Sam likes to color, doesn't like having his picture taken and he learns to WALK!!

April

Sammy gets an impromptu photo shoot from Aunt Jessica. I just love this picture of him painting on the table!!

May

The benefit of being the youngest is being able to go on field trips with the older siblings. Dinosaur Park was big fun for him!

June

Time flew and before we knew it, Sammy turned 18 months. And he was just so pretty!

July

Sammy takes responsibility for his actions. I think he thought it was more fun than throwing the flour.

August

We can't forget the story of "The Little Sailor Boy"!!

September

This month, I learned that it was okay to slow down a bit to enjoy Sammy's little goodness, even when he is being an ankle biter. And that overly processed cupcakes are the solution!

October

I loved this little bear costume on Sam just as much as I loved it on Jake.

November

I think my little Sam is going to grow up and be an artist. He loves to color and draw and paint on just about everything. Here, he works with a new medium, Mama's make-up. Isn't he Beeeauuuuutiful??

December

I can't believe that my baby is already turned two! This little monkey had a monkey party to celebrate it!

My oh my, he sure grew this year!! I do miss my baby, but this little guy makes me laugh everyday. Here's to another big year!

Mia's 2008

Mia's Year in Review

January

Mia's a dancing queen in her Winter recital.

February

We don't need no stinkin' hill. We just use our driveway to sled.

March

Mia loves to color and color and color... I couldn't believe how fast she was growing up. She had almost lost her chubby baby hands.

April

Caution!! Monkeys painting!! As soon as Spring started, Mia was outside playing.

May

Mia graduates from Preschool. She was so cute singing in her program. It was interesting to see her personality in school. Very shy and reserved and often did her own thing. And of course, she turns FIVE!

June

Can't forget about "The Standoff - 2008". Even Jake stills talk about how funny that picture that I drew on was.

July

All day, every day, Mia constantly asked to run through the sprinklers. Here, she is sporting my favorite swimsuit of the season (never mind the neighbors spare tire). Little girls are soooooo cute!

August

Mia has her first day of school! I can't believe that he is in Kindergarten already!

September

This little princess learned how to ride her bike! We got a new kitty and Mia loves her more than anything. She even loves to dress her up.

October

I love that Mia calls the Pumpkin patch "pumpkin pouch". For Halloween, she was a hybrid of Little Red Riding Hood (my idea of course) and Dorothy. It was confusing, but I still think that she looked cute!

November

November was a crazy busy month for Mama, but that doesn't mean we didn't have any fun. We just didn't blog about it. We enjoyed Thanksgiving at Teryn's house where we ate good food, played fun games and enjoyed every ones company. Mia especially looks up to her cousin Fayth and likes to follow the girls around.

December

I like this little girl style. She always has a necklace or three on. The Nutcracker performance was my favorite and of course, Christmas 2008 was fun for her too!

Jake's 2008

A year in review of Jacob.

January

Jake rocks his first ever tumbling review. I am especially proud at how hard he worked at it and how he overcame his insecurities.

February

Jake turns eight. He has a energetic Star Wars party with several of his good friends. I learned that the next party I do will be at a venue with lots and lots of space to run around and yell.

March

Jake gets baptized. He was so excited and looked so handsome in his suit that Grandma Sharon and Gramps gave him for his birthday. Jake loves being the center of attention and usually gets very rowdy but that day, he had a reverent spirit about him. Ryan and I were blown away that we had a child old enough to be baptized already.

April

I love watching Jake play with Sammy. He's always been pretty good to him. Jake had spent quite a bit of time setting up his Lincoln Logs and soldier men requesting I take a video of his battles. Sam was instantly by his side, knocking down his buildings and men. Instead of getting mad, he pretended that Sammy was attacking the village. Unfortunately, Blogger won't upload the video clip.

May

A very successful end of year tumbling review and proud to be a bobcat.

June

Jake blogs about his Pokemon cards. Jake loves to have me take pictures of his collections. He often calls for me anxiously asking me to take pictures of his latest battle or collection. And he loves to blog about it!

July

The 4th of July parade water fight was the highlight of Jake's month. He was looking forward to using his new water gun and getting soaked.

August

Jake's first day of 3rd grade starts with tears, he mows the lawn for the first time and he blogs about his soldiers.

September

Jake enjoys his first season of soccer. I had been encouraging him to try it for years and finally, he wanted too. He did pretty good too. But, the highlight of the month for me was him finally, finally, FINALLY learning to ride his bike! Hooorrray!

October

Long gone are the days when I could encourage Jake to pick a costume that I loved. This years choice was 100% Jake. Halloween 2008 was good fun!

November

November flew by for me! Not much blogging was done but that doesn't mean we didn't have fun!

December

This year, Santa made all of Jacob's dreams come true by gifting him a Star Wars AT-TE walker! I hope Santa knows how 110% happy Jake is with it and plays with it daily.

It's amazing to me to look at how much he has grown this year. It's been fun for me to look back at all the fun things he has done this year! Here's to 2009!!

Where A Kid Can Be A Kid

Yep, we did it. We now can proudly (?) say that we have been to Chuck E Cheese's house. Ryan scored big "bestest parent ever!" points by surprising them with a visit to the place where a kid can be a kid. He even brought his camera scoring "bestest Dad ever!" points with the Mama.

Those kids were hilarious to watch being so excited that they couldn't even see straight. While waiting in line, Sam picked out his highchair and put on the bib and was good to go. Jake and Mia were set to play. Pizza was devoured, games were conquered and tickets were won. The Big Cheese even made an appearance giving a high five to Mia and Sam and threw oodles of tickets around for kids to collect. It was good times for this little family!

Basketball was Sammy's favorite game, Jake loved Horse Play and Mia loved EVERYTHING!! Here, she is scoring points for the person next to her while playing skee ball. See the tickets the other girl has? That's all courtesy of Mia. She rolled an extra two or three on over there. Fun!
Chuck E. Cheese. Where our kids were the craziest, most excited kids possible. Thank you Daddy!