Valentine's Day: Family and Disneyland!

Our Valentine's Day Vacation with the Marstons :
Family. Fun with cousins.

Sunny. 75 degrees.

Beaches. Palm trees.

Smiles. Making friends.

Sightseeing. Tour Guide Stephy.

Strolling. See wild dolphins.

Eating. Ruby's milkshakes

Laughter. Blue eyed babies.

Sand. Bare feet.

Evy. Adoring Julie.

Relaxing. Marston's Home

Dessert. Valentine's Day.

Outside. Mini babysitters.

Swimming. Warm water.

Splashing. Playing with Daddy.

Disneyland. Free tickets.

Rides. Short lines.

Hugs. Minnie Mouse.

Remember this picture??? Liz was soo little! Our awesome friend Laura bought this Mickey for Liz at Disneyworld. She wasn't with us this time but was still nice enough to share her employee benefits :) Thank you!!

Liz is much bigger this time, Julie is with us, Mickey is an expert traveler, and giving twice the love and joy that he did a year ago!

We had such a great time visiting Steph, Blake and family. The kids were so much bigger and so fun! This trip tops our list with NY, as being some super memories with the Marstons. So glad that Steph took some pics for me! We left our camera at home (except for a cheapy $30 camera/camcorder that we brought to the parks). Steph and Blake are always the best host/hostesses. Thank you!!!

I Love 7 Months

I LOVE...

....that Julie is 7 months old! I love the stage she is in right now and am trying to stop her from growing anymore. It must be working because she is so little for her age. Must keep trying... :)

I love...that whenever Julie gets really happy she makes a purring noise like a kitten.

I love... that I can always count on the biggest smiles and happy kicks first thing in the morning

...the way she squeezes me back when I give her hugs.

...the fact that she enjoys playing with her sister even when it means a little wrestling/tough love.

...that she adores her Momma and is always most happy in my arms.

...how she likes to engage my attention by sticking out her little tongue.

...shows affection by reaching for my face.

...the ways she splashes happily in the bath tub.

...her excitement over food and drink. She's doing great with solid foods!

...that she finally gave in and lets me put headbands on her now :)

...her unstoppable will when it comes to reaching and obtaining any object that happens to catch her fancy.

Thanks for the pictures Jamie!!

Baby Lucy Blessing

I had a lot of fun taking pics of sweet little Baby Lucy in her blessing dress.

She looks like a little angel!

As they get older, Lucy and Julie will be good friends, I hope!

Valentine's Day baking

Earlier this month I bought some heart cookie cutters and have been looking for ways to use them since. Here's what I came up with:

Homemade fondant cake...my hands are still sore from kneading that tough dough. (maybe I will buy the fondant next time) It was a gift of love for Dave. Not just the final product, but he loves when I wake up with him at 5am and this just happens to be one of the only times the kids are always little angels. Amazing what you can do when kids are sleeping. I brought it in to Dave's office so he could share it with his staff.

Now, this Valentine's Day gift was eaten up the second after I handed it to him. Dave is not much of a sweet tooth but he looooves meats and cheeses. Its kind of wierd but I knew he would like a meat and cheese bouquet MUCH more than a fruit bouquet. The odd idea spontaneously hit me when I was slicing up cheese for Lizzie and Dave was locked away for the morning, busily preparing for seminary.

And, the final Valentine's Day treat was for Lizzie. She helped me make some mini cupcakes.

She gets very excited to wear her very own apron. She's very good at placing the cupcake papers in the muffin tins, mixing the batter, adding ingredients, and placing sprinkles on top!

Liz and I had a lot of fun making these!

The last Valentine treat idea came from Parents Magazine and I didnt take pictures but they were tasty and cute: Cut tortillas into heart shapes. Spray with baking pam. Sprinkle sugar or cinnamon/sugar on them. Sprinkle red and pink decorative sugar and place in the oven at 400 for 5 min. Quick, easy, and fun for Lizzie. (Plus, another opportunity to use my cookie cutters) :)

***No pics of cute lil Julie this time but Jamie took a whole photo shoot of her. Will post soon!***

Double Birthday

Thanks for taking and getting these fun pics to me, Kim!

Happy Birthday to Lizzie's two friends, Abby and Leah (sisters), who had a double birthday party!Leah had a princess cake.

And Abby had a baby cake.

The kids loved the face painting by the artist and hostess, Erin!

The kids had a good time decorating their super capes.

Lizzie had her first experience with a pinata!

She caught on really fast to the gathering of the candy part!

Even the cute lil babies at the party seemed to have a good time!

Julie is 6 months old!

Julie is 6 months old!!

Julie is such a little sweetheart. Her little personality is really blooming. She's becoming more vocal, more mobile, and more opinionated! No more silent observing for this one! She sees what she wants and she will reeeeach and grab and squawk about it to let you know how she feels. Its really pretty cute to watch.

Current updates: She's sitting up by herself! (a bit wobbly still) She's still rolling around.

She also had her first bite of rice cereal this week. She is really taking to solid food pretty well. Shes a real pro at eating rice cereal already! :)

She was so excited she was shaking when Daddy let her drink a sip of his water from a cup.

She loooves her big sister. She laughs and laughs at Lizzie's antics. She even smiles at her friendly rough housing.

Julie, we love you so much!! We are so blessed to have you in our family! You are such a precious little baby. I'm enjoying every second of it. If only I could freeze you in time and never let you grow older....I suppose that is why these pictures are so important :).

Projects and More Projects

Dave and I have been busy working on various projects in the last couple weeks. Most of these were done when we had a little down time in Chicago!
I had a lot of fun working on a swaddle blanket for my SIL. These pics are actually of one I made a couple months ago for my friend, Mary. Lisa's swaddle blanket had a lot more blue than this girlish fabric. I used a doll for my model until Julie woke up from her nap and made for a much cuter model!

The pattern for this blanket was created by my ever so talented mom!

This project, created after our washing machine broke down and leaked gallons of water all over the floor, was far less cute than the swaddle blanket. However, it was far more profitable. We were bummed when it broke down about having to pay a huge sum to have some repair guy come out and fix it. So I decided that I was going to fix it myself!! After a couple hours of research on google, perusing do-it-yourself websites, I was able to diagnose the problem and learn how to fix it! I'll be the first to say I'm not very handy with tools so I waited for Dave to come home then showed him/explained what to do.

It turned out my diagnosis, leaky water pump, was correct. And here's the evidence! We ordered the new part and it is now back to working condition. So back to the CUTE projects. My mom and I had a blast making these hair clips for Lizzie!

While I was busy doing girly projects, Dave kept busy learning to work with wood with my Dad as his guide! They started out with this plain piece of Brazilian wood:

And after much work and creativity......turned it into this beautiful tile, mosaic, frame!
Its one of the first things you see when you walk in the front door, displaying "The Family: A Proclamation to the World"

It was so fun to see all of the beautiful puzzle boxes that my dad has created with his wide variety of tools, and types of wood. He's already sooo talented in this fairly new hobby of his!