Day Dreams

I know I haven't posted for quite a long time.  I haven't taken many pictures lately because of our hard drive being out of commission.  Which still makes me really sad and I continue to hope that by so miracle we'll get those pictures and videos back.  Tony is less than a month away from graduation.  I spend much of my time day dreaming of the wonderful job Tony will get.  The beautiful home we'll buy and fill with beautiful furniture that's not worn out and/or handed down from this relative or that.  Buying a family vehical.  Expanding our family.  Being able to do all the things that we've gone without for the last 3 1/2 years.  I know that in part I'm setting myself up for disappointment, because much of the time life isn't like we dream it to be.  At this point we have a job offer from Tony's current employer.  Which isn't necessarily bad, but we were certainly hoping for more options.  Tony's got some other job possibilities in the works, but that means waiting.  Which is frustrating to me who likes to know what's coming so I can plan and prepare for it.  Most likely we'll be moving, but who know when and where.  I'm definitely ready for a change and ready to more on with our lives.  Especially lives that don't revolve around Tony's school.  I hope that one day I can feel like I'm doing more than keeping my head above water.  That I can keep up on the house without neglecting the kids.  That I feel like I can take care of myself and my family.  That I feel like I can spend time doing the things I enjoy without neglecting other things.  I know many of you are thinking that I'll probably still struggle with all those things after Tony graduates.  That's the life of a wife and mother.  A juggling act, trying to decide what are the most important things to keep going and what things to leave until later.  We'll let's hope that some great opportunity comes along for Tony and I can live in my dream world for a little while at least.  

Hard Drive Blues

No, I have not disappeared from the blogging world.  About a month ago I went to try and access our external hard drive to no avail.  At first I didn't really panic because I'm not much of a computer person and thought that I was just doing something wrong.  I asked Tony to take a look at it and he didn't have any success either.  I'm starting to panic.  Tony does a scan of the hard drive that takes over a week running 24/7 again with no success.  At this point I try not to think about the fact that the last 6 years worth of pictures and home videos may be gone for fear of breaking into tears.  Our next step is to send our hard drive to a friend in Nampa that is a super computer guru in hopes that he can recover most of the information.  I pray that he can work his magic and all those irreplaceable things aren't lost.  So over the last month I've been playing with my silhouette.    

Sewing when I can.

And enjoying these guys as much as possible.

Mr. Independent

From day 1 Charlie has been his own man.  His first year of life was quite difficult for everyone involved because he wanted to to things himself but his little body just couldn't comply.  Well now that's he's got most of his fine motor skills down, and talking is coming along more each day, now he wants to do everything he can do (not necessarily should do) on his own.  Whenever I try to help him he'll say, "No, Charlie do it!"  I have to admit that many times it would just be easier and faster if he'd just let me do stuff for him, but I know that he needs to learn to do these things for himself.  Now he's undressing and dressing himself with minimal help from me.  Turning the water on and off for baths, washing hands, and brushing teeth.  Brushing his teeth.  Pouring his own drink.  Putting on his shoes.  And the latest is getting out the movie he wants to watch and putting in in the player and turning on the t.v.  I try to not let him do this so that all of our DVDs and Blu-rays don't get all scratched and grubby from his little fingers.  He's a smart little bugger and fast too.  Everyday I realize more and more that my baby is gone and I've got a little boy on my hands.  Honestly I think that if I wanted to I could potty train him and he'd probably pick it up pretty fast.  But to say that I hate potty training would be an understatement.  So I'll put if off a bit longer.  Charlie's quite the character and we certainly love having him as part of our family.

Christmas 2013

The Christmas season this year for me was a very stressful one.  Normally Tony's out of school this time of year, but this year he took a couple classes which made things a little more difficult.  I'd be lying if I said that part of me is a bit glad that all the Christmas celebrating is done, and we can get back to our normal routine.  But meanwhile the kids loved all the activities, goodies, and of course presents.  So I guess all the stress paid off.  Christmas eve was spent with Nathan, Maegen, and their boys.  We had yummy breakfast for dinner, new p.j.s, the nativity, and singing Christmas carols.  After the kids went to bed and Tony went to go watch the BSU game, I watched White Christmas to help me get into the mood a little better.  Carson was up by 5 begging to wake everyone else up.  I held him off until 6 when he fell back asleep until 7.  By then I finally let Carson go wake everyone else up.  The morning was full of excitement!  

Everyone showing off their loot

 Alaina: Dress, Doll, Horse, Doll Cloths, movies, string art, books,watch, barbies, games, girly nerf gun.

 Charlie: Tie, Transformers, Planes toy, trucks, cars, movie.

 Carson: legos, nerf gun, watch, hobby car kit, tie, games, movies, books, watch.

 Dad: Tie, flashlight, movie, led sled, collective coins, BSU car magnets, BSU blanket.

 Mom: Silhouette, vinyl, towels, movie, calendar, long underwear.

Family: Fish tank and everything to go with it.  Even certificates for the kids to go pick out their own fish.

The rest of the day for Tony and the kids was playing with toys, playing games, and watching movies.  I spent the day preparing our Turkey dinner.  Which was delicious!  After dinner we went sledding and then came home for pie and treats.  Also delicious!  All in all the holiday turned out pretty good and we all got some pretty cool stuff.  Merry Christmas everyone.

Getting our Christmas on

I don't know why but it seems this year I'm feeling super overwhelmed with Christmas and I have so much to do and not enough time to do it all!  So although we got a tree and decorated it over a week ago I'm finally getting around to posting about it.  Tony and I have yet to figure out why tree lots don't exist in our part of the country but they don't so we got our tree at Lowe's while we were in Idaho Falls.  I won't go into the details of the fiasco of getting the tree, but all you need to know is that some employees at Lowe's got an ear full from their manager.  We put up the tree on the 8th after church.  Tony wasn't feeling well so I got to enjoy the experience of hauling in the tree, sawing off the bottom, and making sure it stood straight.  It was a lot of work.  After stringing the lights I let the kids go at it decorating the tree.  Usually I'll supervise the decorating and even re-decorate the tree after kids go to bed so that the tree is evenly decorated with ornaments.  Not so this year.  I guess I decided it really wasn't that important and just let the kids have fun decorating the tree. 

 Charlie making sure the bottom of the tree is well covered.

 Alaina hard at work.

 I never thought of hanging ornaments from ornaments.

 Carson's getting so grown up!

The finished product!

Elton Family Pictures

When we were in Boise for Thanksgiving I took family pictures for my brothers family.  Here's a collage I put together of the best shots.

Baby Gifts

So I have 3 nieces and 1 nephew coming in December and another nephew coming in March.  So I've been busy sewing away gifts for all these sweet babies that will be coming soon.  Now that said gifts have been presented I can share with all of you.

First baby that is due is Jana's baby girl.  This is her first baby.  Originally I had crocheted a blanket for her to find out that Jana really didn't care for pink all that much so I whipped this blanket and burp rags for her.  The blanket has the baby's name stitched into it.  And each of the burp rags is slightly different.

The next baby that is due is Maegen's baby boy.  This is her second baby.  To say that Maegen is pretty well set for this baby is an understatement.  She had enough boy cloths to cloth both Mack (her oldest boy) and Charlie!  So I was at a bit of a loss of what to do for her.  Then I hit a stroke of genius (that I found on Pinterest) to make Batman and Robin capes for Mack and the baby.  Turned out super cute and I'm told that Mack already loves his cape.

The next babies that are due are Melissa's twin girls.  These are babies 5 and 6 for them and girls number 4 and 5...yes they'll have 5 girls!  I figured that by this point some of Melissa girl cloths may be a bit worn out and she could use something new.  Also who can resist matching dresses for twins?  I had this skirt given to me awhile ago that I used to make these two dresses and bloomers with flowers for the headbands.  I used white accents one one outfit and blue accents on the other.  I loved how these turned out and can't wait to see the twins in these!    

The last baby due is Collette's baby boy.  This is her 4th baby and second boy.  She said she needed boy cloths and since I have yet to master the art of making boy cloths  I wimped out and bought her an outfit at Walmart.  I promise it was cute and Collette seemed to like it.

On top of making all these baby gifts I also made 3 Christmas gifts for family members.  I'll post pictures of these after they have been opened from said family members.  I'd been working pretty diligently to have all of these done before Thanksgiving so we could take all the gifts with us so I wouldn't have to pay to ship them.  I managed to finish them all in time and now I can enjoy my days being lazy...oh wait I have my own family to get gifts ready for!  Dang it!  ;)