Surprise, surprise... more pictures of Kaitlyn

I just posted a bunch of cute pictures of Kaitlyn on Facebook. Here is the link to check them out!
As always, you don't actually have to belong to Facebook to see these pictures. You'll be able to see them without having to sign up.

I heart Ikea. And Joanns. And friends. And only a day of snow.

I had a friend come up and visit yesterday and today. We had a good time going shopping. She lives in an Ephraim-esque place, so I can totally understand the excitement of leaving town and getting to actually go places.

Lucky for her, I don't get out much either (to keep myself from spending money), so going places is just as exciting for me! Plus, as my family well knows, I am the "go buggy" and love going places.

Anyway, first on our list was Ikea.

We fed ourselves and the kids hotdogs, chips, and soda. Oh how I love their $2 combo.

Then we dropped the 3 yr. olds off at Small-land. After a few tears from Alex and much coaxing, we were able to enjoy shopping mostly in peace with our babies.

Alex LOVED Small Land and did his whole hanging his head, "but I don't want to go" routine when we came to pick him and the other A up. They had a BALL PIT, so of course Alex didn't want to leave.

I told Jon we may have to go there weekly. Drop off the boy, wander around, and eat a meal by ourselves... super cheap date night!

So exciting stuff at Ikea.

I got this shelf for my cupboard so that I can get my plates out easier. It is marvelous and cute. I love it.
I did not love putting the screws in it.

As we were leaving we of course had to hit up the as-is section. I was surprised at how empty it was! They did however have a little 2x2 expedit bookcase. I LOVE the expedit series. That is what all of the bookcases in my craft room are. They are deep and tall cubes and are really sturdy. They have been WONDERFUL for our oversized books like scrapbook binders and yearbooks.
Anyway, they had a damaged (slightly on the back) expedit for $30, which is 40% off the normal price. I was all over that and knew we could use it for a bookcase in Alex's room or in his toy closet.

It found it's home in the toy closet and is housing all sorts of toys perfectly. The little people house and barn are the exact depth of the shelf, the 3 containers ($1.50 ea. at Ikea)have just enough room to be all lined up along the top, and there is also a little wood bead maze from Ikea that is the exact width of a cube. I could not have asked for a better fit.

All of the toys you see on this shelf were lining the opposite wall where there is nothing now. Ya... imagine even less floor space in there. The blue bins were where the bookcase is now.

I couldn't have made a better purchase! (Jon totally rolled his eyes when I brought it home, but after seeing the marvelous-ness that it is, also loves it. He says we should get more. :) )

After Ikea, we hit up Joann. Handy how they are right next to each other!
Joann was good to me this week. They sent me 2 50% off coupons and 2 40% off coupons. The 50% one I can print off over and over and just use it in separate transactions. The best part is that all of the cotton prints I usually buy were not on sale, so I could use my 50% off coupon on them!!! SCORE! I may be stocking up on a LOT of fabric this week.

If you want me to email you the coupon, let me know and I'll send it your way!

They also had flannel 50% off. My friend wanted to learn to make a self binding blanket, so she picked out some for her baby. What she picked out was so cute that I had to make one just like it.

Here is her finished product!

we put a strip of the heart fabric down the "middle" to make it the right size. Flannel shrinks like none other and we wanted to maximize the size of the finished product.

this is the heart stitch that we did around the edges. So cute! Oh and it took like 2-3 bobbins of thread to go around all 4 edges. Crazy!

It's quite well known that I am not a fan of the snow and cold. I LOVE living in TX where I still get my fall and slightly chilly weather, but it isn't freezing cold most of the time. There are also warm pleasant days mixed in with the cold that make it bearable.
Every few years we get a good snow storm that brings us a few inches and then it rains and melts it all by the next day. That is my kind of snow.

Here are the two A.'s playing in it!

The sheer joy of snow!

She was so cute! She was running around with her arms out like this going, "snow! snow!"

What could be funner than going down a snowy slide?! (lol... maybe a hosed down slide?)

Alex was THRILLED that going down the slide created this big snowball!

I loved that she was tasting the snow. Seriously... her sticking her tongue out just to lick it was adorable.

It's a little harder to mow in the snow

I loved this picture too. A. just thought the snow was so magical!

It's hard to really tell, but the snow as coming down in huge soft clumps for a while. It honestly looked like pieces of cotton batting was floating down from the sky. Look at how big those bigger bits are compared to the smallest ones.

Craftiness and Cuteness

I made this blanket the other day. It's silky plaid on one side and flannel on the other. I used the same self binding tutorials that I used for the other flannel blanket I made.
I had left over flannel from that blanket and some silky fabric from another blanket I made, so I decided to use them together. I didn't have enough flannel to do a solid square, so I used a strip and cut it in 2 to make 2 stripes. I really like how it turned out!

wow... and sorry for the crappy picture.

I've also been making little leg warmers (aka babylegs) for Kaitlyn. I've been loving putting them under her pants on chilly days and they are great with onsies around the house. This is one of the many pairs I've made!

here's alex being crafty and making snakes with his play-dough

Here's your daily Kaitlyn cuteness in an outfit from Grandma M. I have to say that Valentines is a great holiday when you have girls. We have several heart/pink things (outfits... babylegs...) that Kaitlyn will be able to wear any old time- not just for Valentine's Day. It is excellent.

LOVE that smile!

and the lip sucking!

"seriously mom? more pictures?"

tummy time and eyebrows!

concentration

Sick of pictures of Kaitlyn yet?

She appears to be.

OH. And here's something that's not so cute.

Ya.
Those are chocolate hand prints on my wall.
Having kids and flat paint is awesome.

Sweet Baby Smell

I don't know HOW she manages to smell so good.
She spits up all day.
She hasn't had a bath in at least 2 weeks (I am horrible at bathing my children).
I haven't applied any lotion.

And yet, she smells absolutely wonderful.

It could be the fresh outfit she donned at 3pm, but I was smelling her at 11 and she has spit up on the outfit numerous times since 3pm.

I don't really understand it, but I'll take it.

One Final Highlight

We were out at dinner at a Thai place tonight with a bunch of Jon's coworkers. We got Alex some noodles, chicken, and broccoli in a soy sauce (he's obsessed with soy sauce).
He really liked it.

Except for the chicken apparently.

As he spit chewed up chicken out of his mouth onto his plate he says, "this chicken is disgusting!"

It made me laugh so much to hear him say that that I didn't really care that he was spitting chewed chicken on his plate.

After the first incidence I tried to cut his chicken into smaller pieces thinking that maybe he was putting too much in his mouth and those ones were met with the same fate.

Weird thing is that he really likes chicken. And dips it in soy sauce regularly. And this chicken didn't have any out of the ordinary flavor or texture, so I'm not really sure why he deemed it to be disgusting.

Alex Highlights of the Day

I know I've already blogged way too much today, but Alex has been saying some funny things today!

He was playing with his matchbox bulldozer in our bed and was driving him around under a wad of blankets and said, "he's struggling in the blankets!"

He was mad at me and ran into his room. I needed to ask or tell him something, so I opened his door. He apparently didn't want me to talk to him and yelled, "DON'T WORRY ABOUT ME!" at me.

He was playing with some little animal figures and asked me what one of them was. I couldn't really see, so I asked if it wa a cow or something and he goes, "no.... try again". I then asked if it was a moose. It was, but Alex insisted it was a reindeer.

He was alsso playing with some toy tweezers he got in a bug kit and kept telling me he was tweezering his animals.


And I have to include one from Saturday...

We got him a box of ice cream sandwiches for a Valentine treat and he was eating one in the car on the way home. As he's eating it, he exclaims, "This is the best sandwich ever!"

We HEART you!

We had a good Valentine's day!
Here are some recent pictures since we love you so much (and because I have to show off Kaitlyn's cute outfits :) )

Alex loving his trains

Alex taking pictures

He was also taking pictures of his trains. It was quite cute.


I found this adorable thermal suit for the Kaitlyn girl. I'm in love with it!

And I'm in love with her adorable face

This is Kaitlyn's other Valentine's outfit. It's a bit big for her since she's barely getting into the 3-6 month size. Alex helped me pick out the skirt. He choose the denim one with the heart over the hot pink one. Good choice buddy!
I need to get a picture with the bow and all since we didn't snap a picture while it was light yesterday.

We also made a heart shaped cake and cupcakes yesterday.

Jon took this picture and looked at it on the camera and sighed. His words: "you're just so un-photogenic honey".
This has actually become quite funny to us and we have a good time trying to get good pictures of me.

attempt #2 was a little better

love the chunk of heart missing? Jon neglected to grease the pan. Getting it out resulted in a chunk missing.
Jon also was going to put all of the batter in the heart pan (it was full nearly to the top). I made him take out enough to make 10 cupcakes. Good thing I did or we would have had a mess in the oven!

Alex picked the color for the heart and decided that it should say Kiss Me.

The finished cake!

mmm... cupcakes!