Take a Deep Breath - Here is my Update!

Pretty Sad that I am finally getting around to updating my blog and I am starting with a photo about our first snow fall, with spring right around the corner. Now I can't even stand the sight of snow!!!! I keep hoping Spring will just come already - I think it's trying to make it's way here. Anyway the first Snow fall didn't bring a lot of snow, but it did bring enough to make a baby snowman. Eliza helped me, she was so cute to watch her reaction to the snow. With her help as with all little kids, she actually ended up decapitating the baby snowman, but we got the head back on. I think Janel got that part on film. The birds took off with the carrot nose and twig arms by the next day, but we had fun!




Then came Christmas!!! Which meant Denise and her darling family came to visit. I had been looking forward to this visit all year! I think one of the things I like best when they come is just staying up late talking, like we used to do growing up. Some of our conversations get a little zany, which is when the guys make an exit!!

Denise is showing off her apron that mom made! -- Very Cute
Mom always make one homemade gift for us, which we always look forward to!

Alexa got a cash register- what a cuttie, she sure can light up a room!

Eliza in her new Kitchen! She was making up orders all day, her specialty is Grilled Cheese!



Tess showing off her MP3 player, that she was so excited to get!



And here is Grace with her new baby doll, she was the envy of all the little ones!



And my favorite gift was- An advent Calendar that my Mother made. She actually made one for all the grand babies. I was afraid that by the time I have kids she would be worn out and wouldn't want to make any more. I kept making her promise that she would make me one when I had kids. When we would go shopping she would point to other advent calendars (ones not as cute) and say wouldn't this be OK? I thought for sure I would never get one, so it was a great surprise when I opened this up! There are 25 tiny pockets with hand embroidered very detailed pictures on each one, with surprises inside. One pocket held the presser foot for my sewing machine that I had been wanting! Very cute, my Mother does such a good job. The other gifts that I really liked were new running shoes. I went with a new brand (new to me) - Asics, and I really like them. They are now dirty which I hate! I tried to keep them clean, I think I can run better when they're clean, funny I know! And the Hollinger family gave me a beautiful necklace, that seems almost too fancy to wear!




For the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday weekend we headed up to Aspen Grove!
We had a lot of fun. Mostly we just hung out inside and worked on projects -crochet, needle work, watched MacGyver- Mom. We are not really snow people or should I say cold people so we didn't do any skiing. It was just fun to get away!


Mom working on a puzzle!


Everyone else getting in on the puzzle! It was a Fall Amish scene, so it was pretty difficult. We needed the expertise of the babies for sure!

We did try to go sledding the first night. It got dark pretty quick and then the babies got scared. We were able to go down the hill a few times. Apparently when Ammon and my dad went down the hill with the babies they put their feet or hands down on the snow to slow them down. No one informed me of this. So when I went down with Eliza we went flying. At one point we were airborne, landed with a thud, up onto the side of the sled and then finally straightened out. Everyone watching thought we for sure were going to wipe out. Needless to say Eliza was done after that! It didn't help that because it was getting dark it was hard to see where we were going and what was in front of us, so when we did hit the bump that sent us into the air it was quite the surprise!!!

Here is the little play house that is so lovingly referred to as "boggy house" I am sure there is something wrong with me, but then again it runs in the family-we like to scare the little one. Janel and I took a short cut to the the play area and hide inside the house. We closed up the shutters and when everyone got close we through them open and screamed! It didn't faze Eliza, she's used to it, but Grace didn't want to go near the house after that, too much scaring!! Here she is with her daddy slowing getting closer and closer, she did end up going inside!

Most of the kids area was covered in Snow. Here is the Pirate Ship that they could climb on.

On the other side of the park is a small western town. Half of the shops were closed up, but a few were open.


Here is Eliza and Grace in Jail!

And the guys of course found their own entertainment. On top of the school house was a bell. The game was who ever hit the bell with a snowball first and got it to ring, won. Sorry guys I can't remember who won!



And to some it all up Here is baby Johnathan or baby John-un as Eliza likes to call him. He is a really cute baby. Such a cute round head. He seemed to be chunky right from birth, which is the way I like babies, they are cuter that way. I don't know how Jillian feels about giving birth to a chunkster, but he's here!


Eliza was so cute after she got to see baby Johnathan for the first time. She kept asking when her turn was to hold him. Before she met him she would carry her dolls around by their arms, but now she tenderly holds her baby doll in her arms.



I will really try hard to keep you updated Denise, but don't hold your breath!!!!!

Gingerbread House's

I guess I should get these posted before Christmas is over. I have been so busy at work and now I am just really tired. It just doesn't seem to slow down.

This year I decided to make Disney themed Gingerbread House's. All the Grand babies are in Utah this year for Christmas and they are all at the princess loving age, and now also Mickey Mouse. Tess' favorite is Aurora from sleeping beauty, Eliza likes Cinderella with Aurora coming in as a close second, Grace love Mickey Mouse and Lexa loves Cinderella. We are also planning a family trip to Disneyland next year so I thought it would be a fun kick off to get everyone excited.

Everything is edible, except the glue that holds the houses together. I hot glue it together, it's faster that way. And really who wants to eat it after it has been sitting out for a month?

This is Mickey's Play house

The Side of Mickey's House

Cinderella's Castle

Daisy's Flower Shop

The icing for the front bushes was to runny. I meant to
thicken it, but through it away and then I didn't want to make more.
Which is why there is a green mark.
Oh well, like Tess says, "We can pretend"

The side of Daisy's House.

Dream Project

One day I would love to restore an older home. I would learn the history, find out what the original colors where, everything! That will be one Expensive project, but it will be fun. I don't think I would keep the house, just restore it and then sell it. I have this thing with older houses being haunted! Anyway I grabbed a book off the shelf at the library the other day called "New Old House" It was all about home restoration. It took you through the whole process from start to finish, right down to what permits you will need and time lines, it was great, and it had lots of photos! The whole time I was reading the book I kept thinking the woman doing the restoration looked so much like Martha Stewart. I mean just look at these pictures. Don't you see some kind of resemblance?





Finally I was near the end when the resemblance started to bug me. So I finally looked at the cover to see who the author was and guess what! It was Martha Stewart. Crazy! That was my goof ball moment of the week! Ya gotta have at least one a week, right? Although I have many!

Letters to Santa!

So this is the first year that I have my own mail route. So when letters come addressed to Santa this year I get to answer them for my route! Not all Mail Carriers do this, but a few do and I thought it would be fun

That is until I received my first letter yesterday. This youngster asked for 23 things, most a which are really large purchase items. He wants an ipod, laptop, x box, wii, guitar hero etc. At first I thought what a greedy little kid. Then I got to #10 and he would like a washer and dryer for his dad. This broke my heart to see a child think of his parents.

Now my dilemma is how do I respond? I need to create some kind of cute form letter without promising anything. I don't want to give false hope when I have no idea what the financial situation is with all of the families. I was thinking of just saying something like I received your letter and I'll be watching to see if you are knotty or nice or something like that. I've been told that the kids get so excited when they get these letter. There is one Down Syndrome guy in his 20's on one of the routes in the office who sends off a letter to Santa every year. Then he waits by his mail box everyday for his letter from Santa. Last year the mail carrier got behind in answering the letters and this caused the fellow some anxiety! He was afraid Santa didn't get his letter! It is so fun to see Christmas through the eyes of children!

Beauty Shop

We were babysitting Grace the other night and the girls got bored. So instead of just letting them beat on each other Janel decided to play - Beauty Shop.

When we were younger we used to play "Beauty Shop" We would take turns doing each others hair. And then it would usually turn into a full blown beauty pageant with a talent show and evening wear. The evening wear could get pretty interesting! Anyway that is off the subject.

Janel gathered up all the necessary hair equipment
and initiated Eliza & Grace into this tradition,
and they loved it!

Janel placed glamorous, dazzling, sweeping
side ponytails on both the little girls!
And then spiked them up good!

Grace was the funniest, she was so proud of her hair! After her hair was done she would go and stand next to people and just look up at them until they commented on her pretty hair, she would get the biggest smile, and then it was onto the next person. When Grammie told her how pretty she was she started batting her eyes.

They both really loved their new do's. I think one of the funniest things is that the side ponytail really is back in (I didn't see that one coming -we'll see how long it lasts).

To bad it was right before bedtime,
so they weren't able to show them off for too long!

Halloween 2008

This was the first year that I worked Halloween at the Post Office. I didn't dress up (maybe next year) A few of my co-workers did, and got pretty creative. It was fun to deliver mail and see everyone who did dress up. I deliver to a lot of businesses and most of the offices had people who dressed up. Here are the pictures of my co-workers who did dress up. Which is your favorite?







We went to Ammon's work for their Halloween extravaganza later that day! The whole company decorates each of their departments in theme. Each department is given a budget and then they choose a theme, Ammon's department chose Ninja Turtles. They had the Ninja Mobil, flashing lights (they had turned all the lights out) and everyone in costume! They really go all out. They each vote on the best department and the winning department splits $5000! This is a company that loves Halloween. We got to walk through all the departments, they have three buildings (2 floors each) so it took a couple hours. They had tons of candy for the kids to go Trick or Treating.

Here is the gang walking through an enchanted forest!
You can see a pink dragon's tail in the background!
Ammon is in his Ninja Costume, the rest of us are just regular Joe's

You can see the leaves on the floor, some departments had straw and other floor covering,
nothing was over looked, right down to the tiny details.

This is Candy Mountain. If you went through it there was a bucket of candy.

Here is Ammon, Jillian & Grace next to a Gingerbread House
You could take a piece of Candy off of the house!

Here is a cave with a dragon (the eyes would light up) and a skeleton.
They had cute and scary themes.

These are lollipops in the Candy Land department!

They really went all out. I wish I got more pictures.
One department did the Wizard of Oz theme, another had a Football theme
(Where they laid real sod inside), another did Ghost Busters,
and there was a wild west town! And More!
I can't imagine the clean up, but it was a lot of fun!

It's hard to imagine that the areas we walked through are usually office's and desks!

Thanks Ammon for inviting us to come join in the fun!


Here are my cute nieces'
Grace as a Kitty &
Eliza as Princess Jasmine
I should have got a close up picture of Eliza's shoes,
they curl up at the toes! -so cute!

Current Project

The project I am working on right now is a Halloween quilt called Hoscuspocusville by Crabapple Hill Studio. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays to decorate for so I was really excited when I saw this pattern at my local quilt shop. This quilt is really whimsical and light hearted. It draws on the humor of Harry Potter, The Wizard of Oz. and anything witch related. With Hermione's Slit Ends Hair Salon, where bad hair days are guaranteed. And Hagatha's Dirty Laundry, - hard water stains added, and many more. There are 12 haunted houses total.


Here a some of the squares that I have done. You can kind of get an idea of what it will look like. The darker black is what I have stitched and the lighter black is the outline of what I still need to stitch.








Here is a picture of what the finished project will look like. There is no way I will be finished with it by Halloween. I just started it at the beginning of October so it will defiantly have to be for next Halloween!