Daddy's Girl

This post has two purposes. First to show you the cute shirt that I made that matches the skirt that I made a few weeks ago. Anna won't stand still for anything, so a video is the only way we could get a picture of the shirt. I am really pleased with how it turned out. Thanks to Marthe and her amazing sewing skills and her stretchy thread. It was a piece of cake to make.
The second reason is to show how Anna has learned to wiggle her ears. Like father like daughter.

New Years Did Happen

Yes it is February 20th, which means that New Years Even was a LONG time ago. But I have so many great pictures, it would be a crime not to post a few.
For New Years Even we decided to have a huge family sleep over at my mom's house. We are grateful that my mom's house is big enough to fit everyone. The cousin's had lots of fun together.
Tommy taught Anna how to play on the DS.

Of course there was all you can eat ice cream provided by Grandma.

We all enjoyed just hanging out while the kids played. Unfortunately, the kids were up to no good and at one point took ALL the toys in the family room and made one big pile. Grandma was not happy about that at all.

From that point on we kept a better watch on the kids. Marie and Peter enjoyed playing games on the i pods.

Most of the evening and wee hours of the morning were spent playing Lego Rock Band.

Paul decided to add some cymbals to our rock band.

Once the kids went to bed the adults had a great time singing and laughing as we played rock band until the wee hours of the night...or morning. It is a good thing that our kids can sleep through pretty much anything. We were having so much fun we almost missed watching the "ball drop" at midnight.

Devin was kind enough to hold all of our rings so that we wouldn't get blisters from playing the drums. He had quite the collection. BLING BLING!

After a few hours sleep the kids were ready to play hard again. The girls had a nice tea party.

We did something different this year. We went to a movie New Years Day. We all went and saw The Princess and the Frog. This was Anna's second movie. We took her to see Up a long long time ago and she slept through most of it. Anna was excited in the beginning.

After falling asleep and then being woken up by a really loud song this is how we spent the rest of the movie.

Sad! We couldn't resist taking a picture. It was a good thing that she wasn't the only sad kid in the theater. Anna and I went for a good walk for the last half of the movie.
After the movie we went back to my mom's house to do our annual gingerbread house making extravaganza.

Hyrum was just happy watching everyone.

Devin and I did a really boring house this year. It was very plain and had a small "For Sale" sign on it to represent our current house status.
The kids then went downstairs and did all the little poppers.

By the time we were done with all of that we were all pretty tired!!! Crazy to think that we all went to Disney World just three days later. I guess we must like each other a lot!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Watch Out American Idol!

My brother Peter makes me smile. 
This is my new favorite video of my brother Peter.

Too bad Devin stopped tapping just before Peter hit this incredible squeaky high pitched last note.  I did included a great clip of Peter spazzing out on the drums.
Thanks Peter for giving me a good laugh!

A Chair

Anna loves to sit on...everything.  She sits on boxes, stools, and anything else she can pull herself up on.  She also enjoys sitting in things.  It doesn't matter how small or large a box is, she will find a way to sit in it. (Not the best picture of Anna.)

Last week we got Anna a real chair.  Thank you IKEA for the hours of entertainment you have brought our daughter!  She will now drag her rocking chair all over the house and just sit and rock.  She will read books, eat snacks, or just sit and cuddle with her animals in the chair.  Funny how much joy a simple chair can bring.

This last picture in not the best, but I was taking in from down the hall.   It shows how cute she is just reading in her chair when no one else is around.

Saturday Sampler #6 & 7

I didn't realize until tonight that I never posted pictures of my quilt blocks from last month. Oh well, I still haven't blogged about Christmas and New Years, but I will, just wait, I'll get to it.
Here are the blocks from December.

And here are January's blocks.

I am starting to feel better about the whole applique thing.  I was watching a movie while finishing my last block.  I looked down at one point and there was blood all over my block and my fingers.  It took me a minute to figure out which finger was bleeding.  I'm just glad you can't see the blood on the block unless you are really close up.
Here are all the blocks I have done so far.  I can't wait to see what's next.

Anna's Favorite Books

Anna loves books! She has been in love with The ABCs of Cookies for the past several weeks. I can quote the whole book because we've read it so many times. I am amazed that Anna can find this book even with all the lights off in her room. It makes me smile each time when we get to "Z is for zero they are all in your tummy," because Anna will rub her tummy with her hand. Too cute! I have it on video, but Devin isn't here to show me where the secret hiding place is for the cord to hook the camera up to my computer. Sorry!
But Anna has a new favorite book. One that I don't quite have memorized yet, but the week is not over. It is called Because a Little Bug Went KaChoo! I ask Anna all the time, "What does a puppy say? What does a cat say? What does a cow say?" Yesterday after reading this book with her I couldn't resist asking, "What does a bug say?"

I love it!

Skirt Pattern Request

I've had quite a few requests for the pattern for the skirts I made for Anna and Phebe.
It is kind of a pricey pattern, but I really liked the skirt.
It is by Kustom Kids.
She has a lot of really cute stuff.
Enjoy!

Skirts

Don't you just love those projects that you work on when you have other things that you really should be doing, but you really don't want to do them?
Well, we won't talk about all the things that I should have been doing, because I really have had fun being sidetracked lately.
I have been searching for a cute Easter dress pattern for Anna. Yes, it is only February, but I like to have time to save up my 40% off coupons to JoAnns so I have to think ahead. I finally started looking on Etsy for cute dresses and boy oh boy have I found some! I found a several that I really like. Last week I made this fun spring skirt for Anna.

Doesn't it look great with her purple shirt? NOT!

It was such an easy fun skirt to make. I was glad that Anna's friend Phebe was having a birthday party so I had a good excuse to make another one. Here is Phebe's skirt.

Who would have thought that I'd have so much fun making skirts for little girls??? This weeks sidetrack project is to make a shirt to go with the cute skirts.

Disney World Friday & Saturday

Here it is, the final Disney World Blog.
Friday we decided that the kids would have more fun if we went back to the Magic Kingdom. So many of the kids were sick on Wednesday we figured we go back so they could really enjoy the park. We were finally able to get a picture with our whole group in front of the castle.

We spent the morning going on lots of rides. Because I was feeling pretty horrible on Wednesday, I didn't get a chance to go on the tea cups. I went with my good tea cup friends Mark, Tommy, and Spencer. I didn't get a picture of us spinning like crazy. Devin and Anna had fun, so did Peter and Emily and their kids.

Anna was too small to go on the Tomorrowland Speedway, so we went on the Winnie the Pooh ride, talked with the White Rabbit and then had a blast playing in Pooh's Playful Spot.

She loved the Winnie the Pooh play area, it was like pulling teeth to get her to leave. She could have stayed there all day and played. You can see from her face how happy she was.

We joined up with everyone else and went on Winnie the Pooh ride and then took a ride on Dumbo. It is a good thing they have an elephant that is not part of the ride that the kids can just climb all over. We got some great pictures.

We went on Mickey's PhilharMagic next, which the kids love.

We went on a whole bunch more rides and had a great time.
After that Devin, Anna, and I had to go so we could go pick up our race packets. We decided to eat lunch before we left the park. Anna conveniently fell asleep as we walked over to Tony's Restaurant. We were able to sit in a booth so Anna had a nice soft bench to sleep on. She slept all through lunch, which was a real treat for Devin and I. We did wake her up so she could eat something before we left. We then took a ride on the monorail to go get our race packets.
It was crazy! There were so many people. It was fun being around so many runners. It just made us so excited to run the race...who cares if it was going to be FREEZING!
After picking up our race packets we went back to our hotel, ate dinner, and then went over to Downtown Disney to do a bit of shopping. We then went back to our hotel so we could get some sleep before having to wake up at 3am or so.
We ran the race the next morning, which I've already blogged about. It was fun and very cold, and I'd do it again anytime.

After we were done with the race we showered really quick and finished packing everything and then checked our luggage as fast as we could so we could catch up with my brothers and their families at Animal Kingdom. We were able to meet up with them and WALK right on to Expedition Everest. This is hands down one of the best rides I've ever been on. It was a blast, even though it was raining on us the whole time. Then some of the taller kids went on the Dinosaur ride. We ate lunch and then hustled back to the hotel so we could catch our bus to go to the airport.
After making it through airport security, which was much easier than going through Salt Lake's security, we all camped out for a while until our flight was ready to go. There weren't enough chairs for us to all sit on so we just camped out on the floor.

We let the kids take pictures we our disposable camera that we got for the race. They would get frustrated because they wanted to see the picture right after they took it. Funny how spoiled we've all become. They took some pretty good pictures.

The plane ride home was not as easy as the ride out. We were really glad that we had brought toys for Anna to play with. She did great, just wanted to move around and play and touch everything. My favorite part of the flight was during take off and landing. She would just cuddle up and look out the window a bit, didn't make a peep. I think she might have been a bit scared, but then again she might have just been enjoying it. I guess we'll never know.
And that is the end of my blogging about Disney World 2010. Thanks mom for making this great trip possible!!! I am so thankful that I have such a fun family that loves to go to such a fun place. I can't wait until we do it again.

To Do!

I am not a singer, but I sing with Anna all the time.  Anna's new favorite song is the Fun to Do song.   We do a lot of things, all of which are fun to do.