Another Talented Family Member

So I just wanted to brag on another talented family member. My sister Joyce has always been a great artist. When she was five she was drawing way better pictures than I was. Now she has her own website and draws portraits on commission. Head on over there to check out her work.
http://www.jacustomportraits.intuitwebsites.com

This is a Long one...Sorry

We haven't been up to much lately, mostly hiding from the snow that is piling up 2 feet deep outside...but we have done a few projects around the house: We painted the bathroom this funky color of green which we are still in debate about. We had to paint to cover up the bright red fingernail polish that Clare had painted on the walls. I think we are going to have to paint the cabinets white to make the green look okay.

I made these curtains for Clare's room. I LOVE the fabric. Now I just need to hang them up.

David and I made this coat hanger/message board to hang by our back door. Now are banister will be free of coats! I perhaps I won't forget half of the things I'm supposed to be doing like...Taking dinner to Amber tomorrow.

David periodically has back pain. It is usually set off by some incident where it gets tweeked. Well, he tweeked it last week playing elders quorum basketball. Heat packs help to relax him and relieve the pain somewhat so I made him a rice pack. (He complained for a very long time about how "cutsey" it was..but that was the only kind-of-manly fabric I had that was big enough.) Clare loved it so much that David didn't get to use it much so I made her and Hyrum one too.

Clare and Hyrum have just been hanging out, reading books, sliding down the makeshift table slide, playing "bedtime" (they get all of the blankets out with their pillows and spend about an hour on the floor snuggled up in their blankets saying "goodnight mommy!" Super cute.

Clare loves to hear stories. She usually asks me to tell her stories when we are driving and when it's nap and bedtime. She asks for a plethora of different stories including "three bears story"

the "three kitties story" "three doggies story" "the banana story" . Most of these I don't know so I've had to make them up as I go along. Lately her favorite is the "shoes story". This one I had to make up and it goes something like this:

Once upon a time there was a princess that loved to dance. Her name was Princess Clare. One day the princess went to put on her dancing shoes so that she could dance and found that there were holes in them. She needed to have dancing shoes so that she could dance and twirl and spin beautifully so she went out in search of some new dancing shoes....... We then go through bunch of different things to make dancing shoes out of. We've made dancing shoes out of paper, wood, mashed potatoes, cold cereal, water, bread, snow...and all kinds of different things. Of course none of them work. The paper shoes are to crinkly and get holes too fast, the wood shoes are too heavy and make clunky noises when she danced, the mashed potato shoes are too squishy. The cold cereal shoes got mushy too fast. ....and so on.....Finally Princess Clare goes to the shoe maker who makes her some shoes out of leather. Clare picks the color and then declares that the shoes should be sparkly. Princess Clare takes her shoes home and wants to dance and twirl and spin but first she needs sparkles on them to make them the most beautiful dancing shoes of them all. She looks up into the night sky and sees the stars twinkling and decides to put stars on her shoes to make them sparkle. So she reaches up and takes some stars from the sky and places them on her shoes. Then she danced and twirled and spun in the most beautiful dancing shoes ever. The End.

Lately I've been hearing Clare telling the story to Hyrum during their "bedtimes" and I get a kick out of the creative twists that she comes up with. For instance, yesterday she included in the story shoes made of Playdough. but they were too heavy and Princess Clare fell down and got an owy on her bum which started to bleed and Princess Clare was so sad until her Mommy put a Dora bandaid on it. Then she was all better and got some blue dancing shoes and put twinkly stars on them so that they'd be sparkly then she danced and danced in her beautiful shoes. The End

Terrific Twos

Hyrum turned 2 on Monday. Aaah....it seems like only yesterday that I was screaming my head off as I squeazed his little melon out. He has been such a joy ever since. Hyrum is always smiling. He has always been such a happy little boy and a joy to have in our home. He is definitely a Daddy's boy. He LOVES to have Daddy home and follow him around, copying everything he does. He loves hats, trucks, and especially BALLS. Any kind of ball is his favorite but her recently discovered Basketball when we went and watched David play Elder's quorum ball. Hyrum was in bliss and had his eyes glued on the court the whole time. Now he gets super excited when we drive past the church and screams "BaBall!" I love my little man so much. I can't imagine life without him. Hyrum opening his birthday present.

Scary Hitler Grandma. They came all the way from Brigham city at 8:00 at night to celebrate Hyrum's birthday with him. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

They brought balloons! What a treat!

Hyrum's Baseball cake. I wanted to make a soccer ball cake but do you have ANY idea how hard it is to get all of those geometric shapes in there? There are Hectagons and sexagons (six sided things? I think that's what they're called) and the Sexagons surround the hectagons and they all have to be geometrically accurate to fit appropriately into they're designated spot. It's exhausting just to think about! Anyway....Hyrum didn't care. He loved the baseball cake.

Hyrum enjoying his birthday present from Grandma and Grandpa.

Great toy

We have discovered one of the great toys ever. I got our little folding table out and leaned it up on the love seat and let the kids use it as a slide. They've been playing NICELY on it for an hour! They are having so much fun and being so nice to each other. I've been able to blog while they are awake! I wish I knew how to spell Halleluja...because that's what I've been sing over and over in my mind!

Snow Daze

Having a lazy, snowy day today and thought that I should FINALLY update my blog. We haven't been up to much but we finally made it sledding. We went to "JackRabbit Hill". It's a hill in the middle of nowhere that is privately owned but the guy opens it up in the winter for people to sled down. It's perfect because it's not super steep but it's long. The kids loved it!

Hyrum giggled all the way down the hill. He thought it was the greatest! I'm worried. That kid already feels the need for speed.

Clare, as always, was fearless and kept saying, "Again! Again!" David and I had to convince her to wait a few minutes after each turn because hauling the kids back up the hill wore our poor, flabby, winterized bodies out. I think the my body goes into hybernation in the winter even though my brain doesn't. It would rather stay in bed and in the nice warm house and eat oreos.

Just had to include this adorable photo of my cutie pants kids. Aren't they munchable?