Monday, May 17, 2010

Bird Watching

It seems that despite the weather of late, SPRING truly is here.  We have had a mama and daddy bird diligently building and watching over their nest that they have built over the down spout on the back of our house.  Here are a few pictures from our bird watching adventures.

(Keep in mind I am taking these pics through a very dirty kitchen window with as much zoom as my little COOLPIX camera can handle!)

                                BEFORE EGGS                                                           AFTER EGGS

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birds labeled

The kids are loving that we have our “own” birds. Avery has named the baby birds Fuzzy, Tweety Bird, Chirpy and Twudily. 

Congratulations Mama Bird…thanks for letting us watch your babies grow!

We’ll keep you updated as the little ones start to leave the nest…More to come!

Thursday, April 29, 2010

A Little R and R

This last weekend we took a little trip to St. George with the Schaff side of life.  We had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa Schaff and the cousins.  We hiked and explored Zion’s National Park on Friday (yeah…that was the cold day!)  We were all in awe at the beautiful scenery.  The number of red rock formation pictures prove that!  Saturday we were lazy!  The boys played tennis and golf, but other than that it was lunch and the swimming pool.  Sunday everybody did their own thing…most of them heading home.  We hung around St. George for a little while.  We went over to the temple and the visitor’s center.  The girl’s had fun.  Chloe didn’t want to go home…“stay a’cation”  she kept saying.  She was probably just not wanting to get back in the car!  The girls really did pretty good with the long car ride as long as we kept the movies constantly running and the crayons and clipboards close.

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Hope you enjoyed our trip as much as we did!

Friday, April 2, 2010

Happy Easter Everybody!

We just wanted to wish all our friends and family a Happy Easter weekend!


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Sunday, March 28, 2010

In like a Lion out like Lamb?

I hope so!  This month has been a little crazy!  I feel like it is over before it really had a chance to get started.  Not that we have done anything special this month, just busy.  We got our kitchen put back together after the flooring project (which I LOVE, by the way).  It’s amazing how just having that one part of your house in disarray throws off your groove!  The garage is also in a much cleaner and usable state.

Church is keeping me busy with a lesson that I taught at the beginning of the month, RS birthday celebration the 2nd week, visits with the stake, presidency meetings, and a get together for sisters with March and April birthdays!  It’s a good thing the church is true!

Avery Jane lost another tooth!  This time she was requesting a new box of crayons and she left the tooth fairy a note.  She wanted to know where the tooth fairy lived.  I was never smart enough as a kid  to ask questions like that! I was just happy with the quarter under my pillow!

The girls and their Dad had their first Daddy Daughter Date of the year.  We have thought for quite some time that we needed to do DDD’s so that Chloe would “love” her Daddy as much as she seems to “love” her Mom.  We started them off with a bang!  Stephen planned the afternoon starting with asking that I get them all dressed up in their princess outfits.  Then he whisked them off for a Princess Afternoon at Disney on Ice.  They suckered him into the $22 spinney light up TinkerBell toy, the popcorn and of course the cotton candy!  Poor Chloe slept through part of the show, but I think overall they loved it!

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Our ward hosted a fun Easter party this last weekend at the park.  While it was still a little cold in the shade under the bowery, out in the sunshine was a good time for all of us.

Easter egg hunt, 3 legged races, gunny sack races,  and candy sling shots…good times!

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After the party we came home and Stephen started in on the next home improvement project…

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The sliver party, wasp infested, great leaning deck met its demise!

Does anybody have ideas for a new one!?

We are currently accepting deck plans and volunteer laborers!

And last but not least…we are officially a one car family!  The Saturn drove off for greener pastures at the south end of the valley.  A nice man came by a couple of weeks ago and offered us $150 for it.  Stephen told him he would think about it.  The same guy came back Saturday and offered him $200 for it…Stephen cleaned it out and off it went!

We hope the guy made it to where he was trying to get!

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(I tried to find a picture of The Saturn, this is all I could find!)

Stephen is having a hard time with the separation, but we hope that he can deal with his grief over time!  It was the first car he ever bought.  It drove us to the Olive Garden almost every weekend while we were dating, we drove it the night he proposed and even drove it from our reception (just in case the friends and brothers decided to really trash our car!)

I should cut him some slack!

Wow, that turned out to be quite the post!  Hope you enjoyed a peek at our crazy life.

See ya next time!

Photos by Avery

Avery got a camera for Christmas. This afternoon we took a minute to look at all 116 of them and she put together a little smilebox scrapbook...hope you all enjoy!

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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Tooth Fairy Pillow Tutorial

We have been awaiting the loss of Miss AJ’s first tooth for a couple of weeks now.

I first saw this pillow on The Idea Room.  I can’t take credit for its crafty cuteness! Nor could I resist making one for our house to enjoy…

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Items needed:

  • white fabric (about 20 inches, 45 inches wide)
  • black embroidery floss
  • white thread and sewing machine
  • tooth pattern (I drew my own)
  • pillow batting
  • velcro or button (if you want the flap to close securely)
  • red crayon

Here’s what I did…

  1. Trace tooth pattern onto white fabric and cut out 2 “teeth”.
  2. Cut out 1 pocket and 1 flap from remaining fabric.
  3. Sew pocket and flap onto one of the “teeth”. Add velcro or button at this time.
  4. On the other “tooth” embroider the face using the backstitch (for the mouth) and French knots (for the eyes) then lightly color some cheeks with the red crayon.DSCN1367 DSCN1368
  5. Put right sides of the 2 “teeth” together and sew together, leaving an opening about 1-2 inches wide so you can stuff the pillow. Turn inside out.
  6. Stuff the pillow to the desired fluffiness.  The kids loved doing this part.  I used a long handled spoon to help get the stuffing down into the “roots” of the “teeth”.DSCN1371 DSCN1372
  7. Sew opening shut by hand.
  8. Snuggle and wait for Tooth Fairy!

 

Also posted on You Know, For Kids…

The Tooth Fairy came to Our House!

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After many weeks of wiggling, the slippery little thing finally came out!

The Tooth Fairy came through with a gold dollar and a note with a promise to come back and get her other tooth that’s wiggly.  Avery lost her first tooth on Sunday morning.  You would have thought it was Christmas Eve the way she couldn’t wait to see what the tooth fairy would leave.

Check back later for a tutorial on the fun Tooth Pillow that I put together for the occasion.