This One's Funnier Left to your Imagination...

Happy Easter!

I'm a little embarrassed about the amount of loot our kids got this year for Easter, but I bought a bunch of used Little People sets for cheap on ebay last November and I've been DYING to finally give them the last of them.  Jay's parents generously sent their own little Easter baskets too, so they are now thoroughly entertained.

The Frog's shirt is off.  There is a long story behind it that merits its own post...

Peach got right in there and knew exactly what to do :)

Imagine a "funny" comment about "why did I even bother with the presents when I could have bought her a knotted rope".  I'm too tired to actually make one...

And here's the moment I've you've all been waiting for!  Peach sporting her new Easter rags.  As you can see, I made her a little headband...

and added a matching rose to the front of the dress.  (which she enjoys munching on...)

Oh yes I did.  I made The Frog a matching tie!

I meant to post these next two pictures after I made it, but never got around to it.

This detail is my favorite part :)

And here's The Frog, after church, showing my mom the swimsuit and hat he got from Nanie and Gampie.  He insisted on trying it on over his jeans...

We got to have the W family over for dinner and last second my parents were able to come too.  As you can see, we were having so much fun together, I forgot to get any pictures.  I DID remember to ask for HW's roll recipe, though.  mmmmm

Easter Egg Hunt

Last year I remember sitting at the kitchen table with The Frog, and dying a dozen Easter eggs by myself and feeling like things were somehow anticlimactic and not as fun as I remembered.  Not to mention the LONG home video we took the next day watching The Frog painstakingly wander around the living room oblivious to the task at hand finding our carefully "hidden" aforementioned eggs.  I must say, it made me look forward to this year and it also made me decide that something different needed to happen.

This year, I happened to find out a friend in the ward who, in my mind, is the epitome of family funness, miraculously had no Easter plans with extended family.  I jumped on that boat and made sure we could tag-along.

So glad I did!  (hopefully they are too?)

I know we all had a lot more fun, even if The Frog still didn't take much pride in his egg dying.  Once he found out about the egg hunt he dropped everything and wanted to get started right away.

That doesn't mean he didn't have his fair share of the action, as you can see by his dyed fingers below.

The W family is always so sweet to us.  Here's their oldest, D, holding little Peach.

They have a little girl, K, about The Frog's age- they are in nursery together at church.  Here they are going through their loot!

And here are our youngests.  Peach and N spend quite a bit of time poking each others faces until The Frog realized all eyes were on them and decided to break it up with a little Frog-style tackling.

Or maybe his "big brother instincts" just kicked in and he could see N making eyes at Peach. ;)  Whatever the case, I think all are now recovered and doing fine.  :)

Peach's Petticoat

Does anyone else get Zulily emails?  For the most part, I just assume most things are going to be out of my price range, despite the steep discounts, but finally something caught my eye.

I've been meaning to make Peach a petticoat ever since I saw a tutorial on it (was it makeit-loveit.com?) but never got around to it because you need SO much fabric that it's quite expensive, even to make yourself, not to mention a bit tedious and time intensive...  As much as I'd like to think it's not true, I'm very motivated by instant gratification.

This infant "pettiskirt" (as Adorabelle calls it) was half off and when I calculated the cost of making it myself, it was about the same (except, let's face it, free time is VERY valuable and hard to come by these days) so I went for it.

I think this is the first time I've blatantly played dress-up with my life-size paper-doll.  I'll be the first to admit, it probably won't be the last time.

(Doesn't Peach look like she's winking? :D) I also justified that it would be a fun Easter basket addition but let's face it, I was so excited to have Peach try it on when it came in the mail, it practically flew out of the package and onto her little onesied waist.  It couldn't wait that long!

Rainy Day Play

72-hour-kit spreadsheet

Jay just told me about google templates and so I made one out of my 72-hour kit spreadsheet to share with you all. Hope you find it useful!  Please let me know if you notice something I over-looked.  (Big thanks to my little sister who got me started with her list.)

Finger Foods!

I forgot to mention that on Thursday, Peach had her first finger foods session!  She's very slow and drops most of it, but I could tell she really really wanted to try, by the way she reached longingly at the lunch The Frog and I were enjoying.

 I'm really amazed by her perseverance and attention span.  The Frog would have been WAY too frustrated to have tried this so young.  She can't eat much- I don't think she still understands chewing, but a friend showed me Baby Mum-Mums and they are great!  They're some kind of rice cracker-ish thing that dissolves in the mouth.  I just break them into little pieces otherwise Peach tries to eat too much at a time.

The Frog had fun running around/under the high chair and driving his cars all over it while Peach worked on her new skill.

Now that Peach's 4 top teeth have poked through, she's started this hair-raising habit of grinding her front teeth together!  AHHHHH it makes me cringe just writing about it.  Does anyone have experience with this?  How to I get her to STOP?!

babbling

Peach started babbling tonight while I made dinner.  It is SOOO adorable!  I feel so lucky because The Frog pretty much never said anything (unless he was fussing) until he started saying actual words at 15 mo.  It's so fun!

Interestingly, she sounds EXACTLY like her cousin S.D.

Looks like my brother J and I are related after all...

First Spring Flowers!

It may only feel slightly Spring-ish around here, but we at least have some Spring flowers to show for it!  One of my favorite things to do is save interesting glass bottles to use for vases for flowers from my garden.  Okay so mostly because I don't own many vases, but also because it's so fun to give flowers to friends and be able to give them a real "vase" that they can keep too.

This one is a maple syrup bottle.  I still haven't taken the label off, though, so I took a picture from the side.  (hopefully you can't tell?)  I just LOVE having fresh flowers around and it's even more satisfying, somehow when they come from my yard- a little bit of cheapness, a little bit of bragging rights, and fresh beauty, all in one little glass container.

Inchworm

Peach scooted forward with her hands for the first time tonight!  It's so cute- she looks like an inchworm with her bum up in the air.

Also, I'm pretty sure she's getting in FOUR teeth on top!!  Luckily, she's not acting like it :)  (for all you non-kidded readers, that means she's not cranky)

Nose Scruncher, new family member, OCD prepared.

Peach has started doing this funny nose scrunchy thing- usually when she's excited.

Unrelatedly, Jay and I decided to host a Japanese foreign exchange student starting this August for the school year!  We're really excited.  I still haven't picked her pseudonym.

Slightly relatedly, all the craziness in Japan has got me thinking about personal preparedness and I've been going crazy trying to organize our 72 hour kits once and for all.  As soon as I can figure out a good way to share my spreadsheet of items, I will so that anyone interested may benefit.  We decided to put all of our stuff in one huge duffle that has wheels and backpack straps and I'm going to organize everything (I'm pretty sure I'm single-handedly keeping Ziploc in business...) so that things can be easily divvied out to each family member if for some reason we need to separate.  It's so intense, I'll probably dedicate an entire post to it when I'm closer to being done.

Kid Conversation

This one is a little graphic, but too funny not to share.  It really makes me wonder how The Frog's brain works...

Setting:  The Frog and I were eating lunch together today.
Me:  My little feet are so cold.
The Frog: You have big feet, mama.
Me:  Okay, you're probably right, but look how cold they are.  You can tell they're cold because my toenails look a little bit purple and when you push on my toes they turn white.  (me prodding my toes) See?  See it turn white?  That's how you can tell my toes are cold.
The Frog: (stands up on his chair and then squats down)  When I do this, that means I'm poopin'.  That's how you can tell.

Perhaps potty training is near?

Peach Sits!

I forgot to mention that as of last Thursday, Peach can sit up on her own now! She cannot get into sitting position by herself, but she can stay there if you set her like that.

Though she doesn't usually like to stay that way because she can't move around. On her belly she can pivot a full 360 degrees using her arms, or she can roll around to get to something she wants.  She also can't get out of sitting very gracefully yet.  Often once she's done she'll just throw her head back or flop to the side.

I think she noticed the coffee table needed some fixing.  Oh wait.  Maybe her tooth did?

Sew Crazy!!

I've somehow managed to make time to complete a lot of sewing projects I've been wanting to do. It's been "seeewww" much fun!! (harhar)

This is an Easter dress I made for Peach.  This is the first big project I've tried to make without a pattern. I think the thing I'm most excited about is that it is entirely made from things I had lying down, except some pink thread and the ruffles on the bloomers, which means it cost less than $5 plus my time.  The shirt is made from one of Jay's old dress shirts (so that I wouldn't have to make buttonholes on the back...) the skirt and sash are fabrics I got from Freecycle.org (which is now Ecobees.com I think), and the bloomers' & lining fabric is just some leftover muslin from somethingorother I made so long ago I can't even remember.

The sleeves were the scariest part to wing because I wasn't sure how big to make them and not have them look funny.  Plus they had to line up right with the arm hole, etc, but they turned out great!  I was so excited!  Even though it worked up so quickly, it would have been much quicker if I didn't line it, but I'm glad I did.  It feels a lot nicer because of it.

Here's my old ironing board cover that came with the ironing board I got on Freecycle that I've been meaning to cover since I got it (probably 2 years ago...)  I noticed that this other fabric I had intended to use for something else, (but never made it) was just long enough to work.

Voila!  No more nasty stains, and much cuter, if you ask me.  The pad is also super thin and you can sometimes see lines from the metal beneath, so I also added an extra layer of fleece I had leftover from another project.

And finally, I covered the Ikea throw pillows we have on our sofa.  I LOVE the fabrics but I'm a bit nervous that putting them together makes it look a bit too crazy.  I found the purple one at JoAnn's and thought I'd find a matching solid color for the third color, but then I found the mustard one at Hancock and I just HAD to have it.  So there they are, looking kind of wild, but I sort of like them.  Plus it's much better than getting stabbed with feathers all the time.

Spring?

We had the most beautiful weather last Friday!! We spent most of the day outside and it got me really excited for the months ahead.

In an attempt to keep her somewhat clean, we brought the exersaucer outside.  She thought it was awesome.

First thing The Frog did when we got outside was take off his shoes and socks. :)

The Frog likes to wear Jay's ear muffs (he wears them when he mows the lawn).  I love that The Frog still has cheeks squishy enough to be mooshed a bit.

And just for old times' sake :)  I can't believe he's old enough to say "this is him almost 2 years ago..."

Sadly, it snowed that night and off and on the rest of the weekend...  hopefully that was the last time for awhile.   (knock on wood)