Gift Giving

     Does anyone else feel like every year your Christmas gift list gets longer? Just me? Well this Christmas we were pretty strapped for cash so I made almost every gift I gave! I really saved a lot if money and enjoyed doing. The only problem was I need to decide next year before November 30th what I am going to make everyone!

     I made this rag blanket and matching burp clothes for my sister in law Sara. She is due with a baby girl in April!

     I also made this magnetic recipe holder for Sara and Collin. This turned out so cute I want to make myself one.

     This t-shirt quilt was my gift to Tyler. When we got married he literally had hundreds of T-shirts, it was pretty ridiculus. So I took some of my old ones and a bunch of his old ones and made them into a quilt. He loved it! It ended up being huge. It as like a queen size quilt by the time I was done with it. It's really fun to look at remember all the memories that came with each T-shirt.

     This robe was for my dear friend Shari. She asked me to find her a cute one that she could wear around the house but I couldn't find one anywhere so I made her one instead. She loved it and so do I. 


     Sophia's big gift from mom and dad was this baby doll crib. This crib was mine when I was a little girl. It used to have some old teddy bear wall paper on it and some painted hearts all over it. It need a makeover. SO I started sanding but whatever sealant my mother used on it in the 80's was hard core! I could not get it to come off. So i took a trip to the hardware store and bought some heavy duty sandpaper and went to town! After quite a bit of elbow grease it looked like this...

     Then I gave it a coat of paint. I couldn't decide if I wanted to distress it or not, but after my first step I didn't really feel like pulling out the sander again. I am actually glad I didn't distress it, I really love how it turned out.

     Then I made little bedding to go inside the cribs. My mother made Sophia this adorable rag quilt for her 1st birthday for when she switches into a big girl bed. She let me have the scraps and I made the crib bedding to match, with pillows and everything! 

     Put it all together and Voila!! How cute is it? I loved the way it turned out. Sophia loves putting her dolls, stuffed animals, any toy with a face in it ha ha. I am glad she loved it!

     I got pictures of most the presents I made. There were a few that I made super last minute so I  didn't get a pic of them. I made a scrap book for my mother in law. It started from Tyler and I being engaged and went up to Sophia being 18months old. It was beautiful when I was done, and now we will give her some pages every Christmas that she can put in it to keep it up to date. I also made my mother a wood sign to hang in her home. I think those were the only two I didn't get pictures of. 


     I am fulling planning on doing this again next year and probably every year while we are in school. This time around I will keep my eyes open all year and I will get ideas and things going early so I am not so rushed.

                  ~A

New Years

     This year for new years we went to grandpa Bohns in Logandale. Since we were in Ely already the drive wasn't to bad. I did take pictures but they were all of Sophia and none of them were of the actual festivities. So I will just do picks at the end of the post.

     We got to Logandale Thursday. Friday we left Sophia with dad and Saundra and I went into St. George and had an entire day of shopping! It was a lot of fun! We hit all the after Christmas sales and had lunch with Grandpa Bohn's sister aunt Milli. She is a super funny lady! Saturday Tyler got his turn to go into Vegas with his brother and test drive cars.

     Saturday our cousin Megan and I spent the afternoon making cookies and brownies and potato skins. When everyone got there we  ate and ate and ate. I am telling you this family knows how to pack down the food! ha ha It's always a good time though. I did not make it to midnight. I haven't for a few years. We just visited and looked at some old pics which was really fun. Sophia did not stay up even close to midnight. hopefully she wont for a few more years.

    Tyler and I have both made a few new years resolutions. I try not to make to many and I try to make them realistic so that i can stick to them, so here are mine.

1. Exercising, taking over all good care of my body. Along with that strive to have good self esteem. I am not perfect and I understand that but sometimes I can be hard on myself.

2. Eat at the dinner table every night. And along with that be better at planning meals in advance (have a menu for the week). My table is often full of my latest project so a lot of times we end up eating in the living room. I think it's really important to sit down as a family for dinner every night so I am making it happen!

3. Spend more quality one on one time with Sophia. I know what you are all thinking, I am a stay at home mom right? Well I want to be better at having fun little activities planned for us, like play group, or going to the park, or putting a puzzle together, or doing  craft together, things like that. Where Sophia can learn and have fun at the same time.

4. Going to the temple more often. Tyler and I are pretty good but we could get a lot better!

5. Quality time with my husband. We get so caught up in life sometimes we forget to just take a couple hours for us.

So there it is, my list. Not to long, not to unrealistic. I think it will be great to work on these! So anyway enough of my ramblings here are some cute pics of Sophia. When we were at grandpa Bohn's we went on a walk with Saundra afterwards Sophia and I played outside. In grandpa's yard there is this little bunny statue and Sophia thought it was her personal pet! It was so funny! She would sit next to it, put her arm around it, kiss it, feed it, pet it. It was so stinking cute!

     She also found that stump and had to use it as her little personal chair. She had to carry my camera bag around as her little purse too! I sure have a girly girl on my hands. 

              ~A

Chistmas

Sorry about the lack of posting lately, deciding to make all my Christmas gifts the month before Christmas has kept me insanely busy! Plus we have had a ton going on with family and birthdays and such but here is the update on how our Christmas went. This year we spent Christmas in Ely with Tyler's family. We love going to Ely for Christmas! Tyler had some crazy finals and really had classes this semester, so the break was exactly what he needed.! It was fun and relaxing, we were spoiled, Sophia was spoiled, we got to relax,  read some books, and sleep in. Simply put it was amazing.

The first two days before Christmas we just relaxed. I worked on finishing my Christmas presents. Christmas Eve we went to Tyler's Grandparents house and had dinner and sang Christmas songs. Tyler's Grandma has this amazing collection of Christmas Nativity Scenes, I am talking hundreds of them! She has them displayed all over her house. They are beautiful and I love look at them, but they are also breakable and with Sophia running around I was kinda a nervous wreck ha ha. We spent most of the evening in the basement avoiding the Nativity Scenes. But it was great to see them and spend time with Grandma and Grandpa!

Christmas morning we all got up when Sophia got up at 7 and got to opening presents. Sophia could care less about the gifts! She did not want us to make her sit down and open presents ha ha. Once the present was actually opened though she would want it out of the box right then! It was pretty funny, so Tyler ended up opening most of her presents. For Christmas I got a new camera!! Which is amazing compared to the really old crappy one I have been using. Tyler's mom had it all charged and ready for me so I could take pics on Christmas morning.

Here is Sophia Christmas morning. Notice how upset she is that we kept making her come into the living room! ha ha

Sophia got a play kitchen from Grandma and Grandpa and she loves it! She plays with it like crazy! She knows what everything does and she pretends to fill up cups and drink them, she washes her hands, and cooks with the pans. It is so cute to watch her play!

She got this apron for her birthday from Hanna and Sara. I was going to be all creative and make her a kitchen but never got around to it. Some day I still want to try making one though! Maybe with the next kid or when we move or something.I did make one of her big gifts this year and it turned out so cute! I am planning on posting about it soon.

These helicopters were all Seth played with Christmas day. They were really cool. There were quite a few crashes and rumors of one being broken already by the end of the day ha ha, but they were fun!

                                           

Here is the Christmas tree. After the presents were opened Grandma and Grandpa came over and had Christmas breakfast with us then we all went to church. The rest of the week was spent over eating, enjoying each others company, relaxing, and eating more. Sophia is so hilarious sometimes I just wish I could keep a camera on her always. I came home from running errands with Tyler's mom one day to find her reading the paper! ha ha it was to cute. She had this stern look like she was really concentrating on the words!

The weather was like in the mid 50's so we even played outside! It was crazy I have never had a Christmas so warm since we moved out of Vegas. We had a blast! We hope everyone else had a fun safe and relaxing holiday! New years post to come!

                     ~A

Tyler's Birthday

     My wonderful husband turned 25 last week. He is growing up to fast ha ha. His birthday was Thursday and I took him out on a date. First we went out to family dinner with Sophia. We dropped her off at the babysitters then we went to see Planet of the Apes at the dollar theater. I have been avoiding seeing that movie because the old one creeps me out and I thought this one looked way creepy to. It was surprisingly not as creepy as I expected. Then we went to the Nickelcade and played with a bunch of old school video games. It was a blast! We laughed really hard at all the old games but we had a really good time! 


     That was only his fake celebration, although it was fun to go out on a much needed date. Hanna and I decided to throw him and Eric a combined surprised birthday party on Friday. Their birthday's are a week apart, and they were both turning 25 so it was perfect. The party was themed 80's throwback! Since they were born 1986. We didn't have a dress up party but we did dress up little miss Mia and Sophia in 80's gear!

     For food we did a french fry bar and a nacho bar. The boys always have chili cheese fries when they get together so we thought it was fitting. We found some old 80's candy  for everyone to eat. We also drank Tab and Capri Suns, which were all from the 80's. One of my favorite things at the party was the cassette tape labels, how cute are they?! 

     We also set up an 80's photo booth that everyone could dress up and take pics in. It was hilarious! Some of the outfits weren't so much 80's as they were silly but we still had a good time.

     Tiffany and I were in charge of making the cake for the party. We made a rubics cube cake. It turned out really cute. Everyone loved it. I don't ever actually eat the cakes I  make but I hear it was delicious. I don't know why, I think maybe it's because I work all day with it so the last thing I want to do is eat it? I love it when other people enjoy it though.

     All in all the party was a success. Tyler was actually surprised which is a first for me! I am not a good liar, especially when it comes to Tyler ha ha. It helped that I had a second person to blame everything on. I just told him it was all for Eric and he didn't even think twice about it. Success! Happy birthday again husband! You are the best man a lady could ask for I am so lucky to have you in my life! 

Family Pictures

     SO finally after three failed tries we got our family pictures done! It was freezing cold, and we got kicked out of our spot by the cops, but we got some done and they turned out great. Thanks so much Hanna for putting up with the cold weather and spending your Sunday afternoon with us! 


     Sophia did really well, she was in a great mood and she just wanted to run around rather than sit still and take pics, but we did get a few of  her smiling.

     Tyler made the Merry Christmas sign! What do you think? I was pretty proud of him. I gave him a little direction but he pretty much did it all. I told my husband he would be super crafty before he knew it, he wasn't so sure about that. ha ha Anyway maybe I'll do Christmas cards now so everyone can see how crafty Tyler has become. 


     Oh also if any of you are interested in some great pics done by Hanna Here is a link to her blog. Her prices are so good and she does a great job! Thanks again Hanna! 

Quiet Book part 2

     So as promised here are the rest of my Quiet book pages! I wish I had a better camera because these are so much better in person. 

 

     Isn't this purse cute! Sophia loves my keys and want's to play with my credit card anytime I pull it out so I figured this was a great idea. I used some old gift cards and keys that she could play with. 

     I think this is my favorite page! How cute is it! All the buttons correlate with the color of the felt flower. So she matches colors and leans to button at the same time.

     This is one of the pages that is much cuter in person. She can put her little hand in the mitten. It's cute cause she loves to try putting on her own socks and gloves, I think she will have a lot of fun with this page.

     This one is a picnic basket and she is supposed to unpack it and set a place setting. 

      This one is so cute too! It's a counting one and she counts the cupcakes as you bake them in the oven.


     These next pics you guys already saw but I just wanted to show you how cute they are now that I added the eyes to all the animals. 

   

     This one I added little button flowers in the grass. I felt like the little details made a huge difference. I tend to curse myself for being so nit picky but in this case I love that I was! It made all the difference! Now I just need to bind the pages and make a cover for it. 


       Sophia has been trying to play with it the last few days. She knows it is for her, I think she is getting impatient ha ha. I can't wait to finally give it to her. Making Christmas presents has been really fun, time consuming, but fun. I feel like my gifts are so much better and I am so much more excited to give them to people! I have some more done but I can't show you yet because they are for certain people who read my blog. 


     On a side note I finally got family pics done after three failed tries! I can't wait to see them and I'll post them as soon as I get them! 


              ~A