Baby E's Newborn Pictures

Here is gorgeous Baby E in her newborn photo-shoot.  It was SO much fun planning out her little outfits and headbands!  I love all the lacy-ness and flowers going on!

I love this one of me trying to pose her little arms.  She just wanted to stick them out that day.  Look how tiny she was!

And of course there are always the test subjects to share as well!  

I love these of Cupcake!  Her hair grows straight forward and it is always falling into her face.  She is SO gorgeous!  But then, so are ALL of my girls!

 A big thank you to Chloe Rose Couture for the beautiful headbands! Go buy her stuff- she is the best!

Gifts I Made- Thank you Pinterest!

Isn't Pinterest wonderful?  I finally got around to making some of my pins this last Christmas. I think the one I am most proud of is the girl's pillow mattresses! 

I loved this idea because my girl's love to throw all of the pillows and blankets on the floor to jump on or lay on while watching TV or to make paths to walk on.  It wasn't really hard, just a little time consuming.  My advice: don't wait until 3 days before Christmas to start!  I did a lot of searching around for tutorials and how to get the best deals on pillows and fabric.  Cause 9 pillows really adds up!  My secret: IKEA!!  Thanks to Southern Disposition I had a great idea of how to actually sew these things!  I found the tutorial wasn't perfect so I made my own little tweaks.  If you are really that interested message me and I will give you directions!  Sorry- I just don't have time to take pictures for step-by-step tutorials.  I am kind-of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pj's kind of girl!  Needless to say the girls LOVE them!

My other pride-and-joy craft this season was Cupcake's wooden shoes.  If you didn't know, my mother-in-law is Dutch.  She moved from Holland to the US as a child.  So this makes The Artist 1/2 and our children 1/4 Dutch!  I think this is so neat!  So when we were first married we decided that instead of stockings at Christmas, we would leave out wooden shoes for Santa to fill! 

I like to decorate them special for each child so I order them (usually directly from Holland because it is actually cheapest) plain and then get my crafting on!  I order them huge too so that they can fit more stash in them.  Wooden shoes are surprisingly challenging to "stuff" like a normal stocking!  I ordered Cupcake's last year, but the arrived too late.  So this year (2012) I was finally able to decorate them and let Santa fill them up!  I LOVE them!  I painted them purple and then glittered them with white glitter!  The pictured has been blurred on purpose to hide her real name, but they have her first and middle name in white letters too!

I find a mess similar to this at least once a day thanks to Cupcake:

So I was hoping this next gift would fix it.  It is a wipes box with scraps of fabric for them to pull out as much as they please.  I loved this tutorial to help me make this for Cupcake.  But I think now she just thinks it's ok to pull stuff out of any wipes box she finds.  Oh well.  It was very fulfilling to make her a Christmas present myself!  Here is my version:

Our neighbor gifts this year were a hand towel and dish cloth as a "Washer and Dryer"

The tag reads: "This Christmas you deserve the best.  A present unlike all the rest.  We considered a new car or exotic cruise, but decided on something you could really use!  Finally we found a gift to admire, we hope you like your new washer and dryer!!"

Princess' pre-school gifts to her friends were chaptick and Hershey kisses with a little tag reading:  "Merry Kiss-mas and Chappy New Year!" This has always been one of my favorite simple gifts at Christmas time!

And lastly, The Artist's family decided to do cheap White Elephant gifts this year.  These were the ones I copied from Pinterest.  

Sorry this last one was pretty blurry.  I thought this one was so hilarious, but my sweet 17-year-old niece decided to play the game with the adults this year.  Guess who ended up with this one?  Yep!  Poor N, she was so embarrassed!

October Outings

We had some fun times in October.  In the beginning of the month we went to Gardner Village with our friends for a Witch Hunt.  They have funny witches all over and if you find all of the ones on the list you can get a cookie.  Princess thought the one in the outhouse was the funniest.  Her name was Witchy-Poo!

She was too scared to get too close to this witch but wanted a picture with it:

My own little witches:

Princess really liked this bike.  Because it was pink, of course:

Princess and her friend Kaylin:

Next we joined Princesses preschool class for her first fieldtrip of the year at the Pumpkin Patch.  We had been sick and were just on the mend, but it was still a lot of fun.  We got to see a lot of farm animals and there were lots of fun activities to do.  Princess liked running through the corn tunnel and hay maze and going down the ginormous slide. 

Even Cupcake got in on some of the fun toys. 

Princess also got to ride the Cow Train and then we all went on a wagon ride together to pick a pumpkin for Princess! 

 

Kaylin and Princess again.  I think Kaylin hugs her in every picture we take of them.  Princess is definitely loved!!

 
I took the girls to a local ski resort this month because if you brought in a can of food you could ride the tram for free.  Which is a great deal considering it's usually like $12 a person!!  We rode the tram all the way to the top of the mountain where you could see into three different counties.  It was a warm day in the valley but only 35 degrees at the top!  We even found a few snow patches to play in. 

Speaking of patches, you may have noticed a Pirate Patch on Princess.  That day at school had been Pirate Day for Princess so she insisted she wear the eye patch for the rest of the day.  But she didn't like it or understand why a couple people kept saying "Argh!"  to her. 

After our ride back down we stopped for some yummy ice cream cones!

It's funny because these are all places I've been for my jobs with various clients/patients and some of my favorite fall activities to do.  It's fun to get to experience them with my children now!

On Cloud Nine

In June we celebrated our ninth anniversary!  I can't believe it will be 10 whole years next year!  Hopefully we can do something extra fun to celebrate then!  But this year we did our favorite thing for dates: Dinner and a Movie.  But we did it in a fun way.  We drove up to Salt Lake and found somewhere free to park that was also in the "free fare zone" for the Trax train.  Yes we're cheapskates.  Haha.  Then we took Trax over to the Gateway to see "Snow White and the Huntsman", which sadly, was not very good.  So at least we only paid for a matinee!

Then we took the train over to the new City Creek Center.  The Artist hadn't seen it yet and it was fun checking out the different stores.  Our absolute favorite store was Restoration Hardware.  Oh WOW did we fall in love!  We played a fun game of guessing the price on our favorite items.  Yeah they were all pretty up there in price!  I think The Artist was closest on his guesses. 

And we even took pictures!  Doesn't this bed look so comfy?!  We need a headboard and this one would be perfect:

Check out this unique way to mount your flat-screen TV on an easel.  Wouldn't it be just perfect for our artsy family?!

And I love this over-sized trunk that can open into a desk area:

Perfect for all my scrapbook goodies.  Yes, I did just over-use the word "perfect" in just about everyone one of those descriptions.  But that is exactly everything at that store to us!  We are such design nerds!  Haha.

Finally we ended the night with dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.  Mmmm....  Here is an awful closeup of us in the restaurant lobby.

But it proves we were here and still smiling nine years later!

City Creek Center

"Mormon's Build Massive Mall" was the headline of the one of the nation's biggest newspapers in March when the new City Creek Center in downtown Salt Lake opened.  It just makes me laugh.  Did you know it is also the only new mall to open in about 6 years?!

Anyway, my Mom wanted to go check it out and wanted me to show her how to use Trax- our light rail train in the valley.  So the kids and I happily tagged along one Friday in May.  Here Princess is showing Grandma the ropes of the train.

City Creek Center certainly lived up to all of "the hype".  It was everything people were talking about and more.  There are only a few stores there I can actually afford to shop in- but it is fun to see everything else too!  And the scenery is gorgeous!!  We did some window shopping and checking out the fountains.

We ate lunch at Kneaders. 

This mall has a Chick-fil-A, Kneader's, AND a Cheesecake Factory!  Does it get any better than that?!  Well, maybe if they added a Sconecutter- but that would probably lower the classiness of the place!  LOL!  We let the kids play at the indoor playground for a bit.  I took lots of cute pictures that were too blurry or didn't turn out sadly.

I bought a new hat and some jewelery and Princess bought a little purse to hold those stylin' star sunglasses she got at lunch.  Then we let the kids play in the little splash pad before we headed home.  It was such a fun outing!

What the Heck is Norwex?!

In April I went to a Norwex party.  Yeah I didn't know what it was either at the time.  I just went to support a friend.  I bought a basic package and signed up to host a party the same day.  Before I left- I saw their awesome mop.  I WANTED it!  My neighbor who had just signed up to become a consultant with Norwex laid out the numbers of, on average, what you could make as a consultant doing just 4 parties a month.  I combined that with the idea that this is going to explode eventually and I figured it was a good idea to jump on board now before it is a household name.  Plus I got that cool mop in my consultant kit!  So I signed up on the spot to become a consultant!

 Now, I know you are still wondering- what the heck is Norwex?!  They are a company that sells cleaning and personal care products allowing you to clean with just water, therefore reducing the use of chemicals in your home.  This was really amazing to me to see you can clean even better than before and I don't have to worry about my kids touching or inhaling harmful chemicals.

I save both time and money- and cleaning is actually kinda fun with their products.  They are famous for their Anti-Bacterial Microfiber cloths.

Anyway.  I don't want to go into a full-blown explanation here.  But I am asking for my friends and family- and even strangers, to host a party for me to help me get my business going!  The best part is I come and clean parts of your home for you and you get to earn free products!  You can't beat that!  So please let me know if you want to be a stellar friend and host a party.  If you want more information you can see my website here.

Or for tips, testimonials, and before and after pictures "like" my Facebook page.  Once I get to 50 likes I will be giving away one of the famous Anti-Bacterial Enviro Cloths- a $15 value!  Here are a few examples of what I post on my Facebook Business page:

Thanks again and HOST A PARTY!  Pretty please? :D