More t-shirts and onesies

I had a few more friends who wants to learn to freezer paper stencil so we got together last week. Sorry if you're sick of seeing things, but I'm addicted! I made this one using a hybrid of the elephant I designed for the Sycamore Street Press alphabet print and this t-shirt.I made it so the tail wrapped around the back of the shirt.
And then I had so make some onesies for Tiny Ford too!
Too bad that I forgot to take photos of everyone else's projects!

Creed's New Look

Someone around here is really growing up. For months we've had a basket of Pixar Cars on top of the toilet just waiting to reward Creed for using the potty, but he absolutely refused until last week. Then there was no going back. I wanted to give up after four days, but now that it's almost been two weeks, we seem to be getting the hang of things (thank goodness!)
And to top it all off, he got a new haircut and I can't stop staring at this little grownup (who was not in the mood for any of these photos)!

Lisa has new Neighbors

Yesterday I got to hang out with Lisa, and when I asked her what she wanted to do, she said, "Make fairy doors" It's been way too long since I've done that! I even had plenty of parts ready to be painted so we got to work.

And now she has new neighbors in her baby boy's room.
Maybe I'll even get into gear and get a few listed in my shop.

Creed and Jesse, reunited

Creed's best friend Jesse was here visiting from New York for the first week of November and Creed was overjoyed. He talked for days about how he was going to see Jesse. While we were waiting for him to arrive, Creed insisted that he needed to wear the peacock costume for Jesse and he rushed out the door as soon as we spotted him out the window. They were both squealing with delight and ran to hug each other. When they are only 2 1/2 and haven't seen each other in six months, you'd think they might not care as much about each other, but you'd be wrong.

They didn't skip a beat and got right back to their old routine of playing cars and trains.

We loved seeing Jesse and Melissa and it was hard to see them go again. Creed and Jesse were both sobbing when it was time to say goodbye and after Melissa strapped Jesse into his carseat, he reached his arms as far as he could toward the window crying, "Creed! Creed!" as loud as he could. It broke my heart!
We can't wait for them to move back this summer!

Tiny Ford

Oh yes, This picture does say it was taken on October 20th and a month later, I'm just getting to posting it. Poor second child (although, I have to note my scanner wasn't working with my Mac and I didn't want to post this until I could post it with one of the ultrasound pictures, plus, I'm STILL throwing up at six months so I have to give myself a little slack).

We finally got to see a bit more of Tiny Ford and we found out that

It's

A

BOY!!!!!!!!!

That makes six grandsons on my side of the family, four on Larry's and no granddaughters on either side so this little one will have lots of older cousins to teach him all about the joys of being a boy!

And due to complications, we will get to see more ultrasound pictures of this little guy next week. We actually left this ultrasound appointment without any pictures because there was a small concern so I went straight from the ultrasound to another test and left so distracted that we all forgot about the pictures. Luckily, they were able to print them out later and Larry was able to go back another day and pick them up. I just can't stop staring at this picture and thinking it is all worth it!

My heart floated like a balloon.

The night after Lisa's shower, I came downstairs to find Creed watching TV like this, totally not posed, and it made me smile so I had to share.

Lisa's Baby Shower - Part 4 - The Party Favors

This is my last baby shower post, I promise!

I wanted to come up with some kind of shower favor that would be useful, because I've gone home with a lot of cute favors that I had no idea what do to with that eventually had to be tossed. I always want to burn CDs for people, but since we like to keep things legal around here and through I-Tunes you can only burn things seven times, a CD wasn't a party favor option until recently when I-Tunes made it legal to upgrade your songs for a small fee and have a hayday burning as many copies as you like. Wahoo!

For Lisa's shower I put together a list of lullabies that I thought she would love to share with her little one (similar to the list I posted in the past with a few new discoveries).

I figure that even if you don't have a little one, you'll babysit a niece or nephew or grandchild and its always handy to know a lullaby or two. Is there anything that you would have added?

Lisa's Baby Shower - Part 3 - What we did at the shower

I knew that Lisa likes baby showers with some sort of activity since it makes it a little less awkward when a lot of the guest don't know each other. I wasn't sure what to do with such a big group, but finally decided to try embellishing onesies with fabric designs since that could be a simple, fast project so people could rotate through. I drew up a bunch of simple designs (most my own, you'll recognize them from some of my prints for Sycamore Street Press, and a few others that I couldn't resist adding). Then Lisa's mom provided the onesies and I picked up some fat quarters of fabric and Heat & Bond. I just laid out scissors, a cutting mat, circle punch, and pencils and let guest go to town.

I think they actually had a lot of fun making them. I even heard a few that were planning to make more at home, which made me feel good.

We hung the finished onesies as part of the shower decorations
Here are a few so you can see how simple and cute they turned out (Sorry they all have horrible lighting, but I sent them home with Lisa, of course, so I couldn't take photos later)


I struggle a bit with baby shower games because I'm not a fan of most of them. They can be gross or awkward and embarrassing for both the guests, and the guest of honor. I spotted a shower game that I loved a while back, available here, and made a similar quiz with Lisa's help. I was happy with the way that they turned out and wish that I got a picture of them all lined up.
The other game that we played was a name game, where guests tried to name some children's book characters that I provided pictures of. I hosted this game at another shower, but this time I blew up all of the pictures and framed them.
Then of course after the games and food, we oohed and aahed over Lisa's gifts as she opened them.

Lisa's Baby Shower - Part 2 - The Shower!

So I woke up the morning of Lisa's shower knowing that my house was a mess and I had no party decorations since I'd been busy planning games and activities. Whoops! Luckily, I bought extra paper for the invites so I started cutting and sewing and ten minutes later, I had a simple garland.

I also made a bunch of paper airplanes that I hung around my chandelier with fishing line (Pardon the backlit picture with no one smiling)
I was so grateful that Lisa's mom was in charge of food and I only had to gather drinks. I collected a bunch of different orange drinks in individual bottles and thought I went overboard and had way too many, but ended up with just enough.
And I couldn't resist these adding these blue paper straws.
I used extra scraps of paper to put little flags around one of the cake plates
and little paper airplanes for the mini red velvet cupcakes that Lisa's mom made.
She did such a great job with the food. She even made cookies using only orange M&M's

And had a lot of orange and blue candy.

The other thing that made things look really festive were the big round orange balloons Lisa's mom ordered, because Lisa LOVES balloons.

I hope Lisa felt spoiled on her special day!

Lisa's Baby Shower - Part 1 - The Invitations

Last weekend, I hosted a shower for my lovely friend Lisa, who is expecting a baby boy to arrive in the middle of December. I made the invitations myself, and I had to make 30 of them so I tried to keep things simple (you know I tend to go overboard). For some reason baby girl themes come so much easier to me (ironic considering that I only have a son) so after some brainstorming, I decided to go with paper airplanes because I thought it would be cute to have paper airplanes all over at the shower for decorations, and I've never seen anyone do that.

So here's the invite:

I made everything turquoise and orange because those are the prominent colors that Lisa used to decorate her nursery. I picked up some scrapbooking paper in those colors and cut them up and folded hundreds of tiny paper airplanes during our long drive to and from Disneyland. Then I used them like confetti and stuffed some in each envelope. I even found paper from American Crafts that was orange on one side and had paper airplanes on the other side that I printed the invites on so this is what they looked like from the back.
I designed some quick corresponding labels and printed them on my inkjet printer, but if they get even a tiny bit wet, they run all over the place so I covered each one with clear packing tape and cut them out.

Doesn't it always feel good to look at a stack like this that you have completed?
More shower details to come soon!

Creed takes a Trip to Zions National Park

So the second weekend in October we had no plans and I IM'd Lisa at work to ask her what she was doing that night. The answer, nothing. So I asked if she and Tyler were up for a spontaneous trip to Zions National Park and a few hours later, we were off.

We spent the night at Lisa's sister April's (thanks April!!!!!) and spent the next day roaming Zions. Mind you, Lisa and I are very pregnant and Creed is only two so we only made it through a few hikes, but it was such a beautiful way to spend the day.

Creed was so good about hiking a lot of the way by himself.
The only part I regret is that we forgot to bring along Creed's National Park passport to be stamped. At least Lisa took these pictures so we can remember the trip well.
The weather was perfect!




That's Larry and Tyler under that giant tree. Don't these pictures make you want to abandon your computer and head outside?

The Evil League

For several years in a row in Columbus, we threw big Halloween parties, but last year we didn't because we were new in Utah and pretty much had no friends yet. This year, we decided to start up again, but on a smaller scale since our tiny house only fits so many people (plus, let's be honest, we still do not have THAT many friends, give us some time to work up to that).

This year's theme was villains. We sent the guests these creepy severed finger invites from Martha Stewart with a "Don't Forget!" reminder to come to a meeting on the Evil League of Evil and a blog address for more info.

Truthfully, at the time I sent out the invites, I had no idea what we were going to do and told myself that I could come up with elaborate plans later.

Here are the Villains that showed up to our meeting to see if they could get into the Evil League of Evil (they all did an awesome job). Bonnie and Clyde

Captain Hook and Smee (you have to be impressed with Lisa figuring out a way to incorporate her pregnant belly)
the Kathy Bates character from Misery and the swam of bees that killed Thomas Jay in My Girl (Whit said that was the movie that most traumatized her in her youth so that was the most evil villain she could possibly think of)
Wal-Mart AKA big-box American Capitalism and Big Oil
Tanya Harding and Kirk (who warned us ahead of time that he has a policy against dressing up on Halloween, but we wanted him to come anyway)
Larry was a classic Vaudeville villain
and I was The Queen of Hearts (although I had plans for an elaborate Elizabethan collar that I just didn't have time to finish sadly)
Hannibal and Medusa.
Once all of the guest arrived we sent them out on to prove how evil that really are. I made scratch off lotto style cards with eight evil deeds they had to perform before they could begins their training for the Evil League of Evil. Of course I forgot to take pictures of hardly anything because I was rushing around all night, but I used this tutorial, which gives you an idea of what they were like.

Some of their evil tasks included talking on a cell phone during a movie

Recruiting a henchman (this is my favorite photo of the night)

Rooting for the U (Larry and I both went to BYU and couldn't help giving some of our big U fan friends a hard time)

Once they had all their photos they got a clue that sent them to The King's English, a local bookstore, because every super villain has to know how to research things like where to find kryptonite and what Kim Jong Ill would like for his birthday. There they had to find a cashier and quote the first two lines of Poe's "The Raven" to get their next directions. The cashier gave them each and old book that was hollowed out to hold two tiny cameras and a clue.

It said, "You all need a secret Lair that commoners wouldn’t be interested in entering. Head to Summum Pyramid: the Pyramid of Modern Mummification to see just such a lair, and no we cannot reveal whose lair this is, but we warn you to be stealth, you don’t want them to catch you snooping. We thought these cameras might come in handy for surveillance purposes."

And yes, there seriously is a pyramid downtown where they practice modern mummification on pets.

There they found a bucket with Halloween whistles in it and a clue that said, "Every Super Villian needs to have a suitable secret identity; someone who seems crazy enough to keep people from getting close, but not crazy enough to be a threat. Head to Gilgal Garden for a good example. Once you are a member of the Evil League of Evil, you may use these items to make the League’s secret signal if you are in great need of help. "

At Gilgal Garden there was another bucket with glow-in-the-dark masks, and a clue that said, "The key to creating newsworthy chaos is setting the scene, be sure to pick the creepiest scene possible before you strike; for example a dark empty amusement park. Head to the rides at Liberty Park to see what we mean. In the meantime, we have provided these masks to wear for those of you who do not yet have a foolproof secret identity. Be sure to wear them to your final destination!"

At the empty amusement park they found another bucket full of surprised balls that I made like this that had skull rings in them and directions to head back to our house to be handsomely rewarded.

I think that everyone had fun on their adventure. It seemed like they did. In the meantime, I was home finishing dinner and dessert. When everyone got back, we had a candlelit dinner on our back patio, which of course I didn't remember to take pictures of until the end. We served hot apple cider, pumpkin soup and chili in bowls made from hollowed out pumpkins, and spinach salad, and little cornbread muffins.
with Mummy cookies (thanks for the suggestion mom) and pumpkin cake for dessert.

Then we played our homemade version of SceneIt using famous villain scenes, of course.

It really was a lot of fun and thanks to all of our friends for being up for an adventure!

One more Trip to Disneyland

We had one free weekend in October and after a little bit of debate, we decided to take a quick trip to Disneyland since it might be our last chance to stay at Larry's mom's for free if she sells her house next summer. Creed was thrilled with the idea and my mom ended up being able to come along. My little brother and his girlfriend Brenna were also spending the weekend in CA for the BYU game so they spent Friday at Disneyland too. Unfortunately, do to random circumstances involving Utah's fall break, Australia's spring break, and certain blackout dates for season pass holders, I've never been to Disneyland when it was SOOOOOO CROWDED and to make matters worse, it was really hot. That said, most of the lines moved pretty fast, and it was so fun to be there with Creed who thinks all the characters are real.He got to meet Mickey twice the first day and was shy and excited both times.

He rode the Toy Story ride in California Adventure with us and when he got off, he tearfully told me, "I was terrified, Mama!"
So here are a few pictures of him before he was "Terrified" (How does he even know that word?)
He took a nap and woke up during the Aladdin show. I've never taken the time to see the show before, but we opted for it for the air conditioning and we were all impressed. It was like a 45 minute Broadway Show.
It's always fun to see the whole park decked out for Halloween, even Mickey.
We left after the fireworks show (which Creed is still talking about) and debated about going back the second day or just skipping it all together.
Ultimately, we decided to go back for one more day, but to leave as soon as we all felt tired. It actually ended up being a very relaxed, fun day and we stayed much longer than I thought that we would. We rode a few things at Disneyland when the park opened and then avoided the crowds and spent most of the day at California Adventure. Creed and I started out riding finding Nemo while my mom and Larry went on some grown-up rides.
We had his silhouette cut out since I've always wanted to do that.
we also had some mother/son time in Bugs Land where we rode the Heimlich the Caterpillar train over and over again.
and we met Mr. Incredible
which Creed really thought was very incredible.
He also rode the carousel eight times!
He loved feeling like he could fly on the golden Zephyr so we also all rode that a few times in a row.
And he loved having my mom there to steal drinks from.
I actually took very few photos, but just wanted to note a few of Creed's favorite things here. He still loved the Playhouse Disney Show with Mickey Mouse. He refused to go on Pirates of the Caribbean. He still talks about flying in Boats on the Peter Pan ride and the flying Dumbo ride, but his favorite ride was definitely It's a Small World, although when he tells you about it, he will tell you that it's a "little bit fast!"

Overall, I would say the trip was exhausting, but still well worth it. Plus how can you complain when your trip starts with this
And it ends with hours of this on the way home?

Creed makes a jack-o-lantern

All week, Creed pointed out to me that our pumpkin didn't have a face yet. He was desperate for one by Halloween and the idea made me feel a little sick (yep, 23 weeks and still-not over morning sickness). Since Larry was out of town, I had no choice but to call my dad and ask for some help, and boy did he come through.

We spent Halloween in Provo with my parents and they took good care of us. Creed requested a happy and silly pumpkin and that's just what he got.

It was out on the porch whole we were trick-or-treated and someone came around and gave my dad an award for the best carved pumpkin. Isn't that a great idea? Trick-or-treating can be quite a selfish event and what a good way to help kids get in the mode of giving too. As you're trick-or-treating you could have an award for the best pumpkin, the best costume, the scariest house, etc.
Thanks for everything Dad!

Max From Where The Wild Things Are

This year for Halloween, I made Creed a costume for another book character, Max, from Where The Wild Things Are. Thankfully, my mom came over and helped me make it because it took us way longer to make than we thought that it would and my mom did a lot of the sewing.

I am so happy with the way it turned out so please indulge me while I post way too many poor quality photos.

Creed knows the book well so every time that he wore the costume, he kept quoting Max saying, "I'll eat you up!" and "Be still!"
I loved seeing his long tail drag all night. He looked so adorable.
I had to bribe him to put it on, but it was quite comfy and warm and he wanted to keep it on afterwards.
My mom went trick-or-treating with us and Creed made it to four houses before he said he was done and wanted to go back to Grandma's house so then we trick-or-treated our way back home and were done. Most of her neighbors told him to take another piece of candy and he kept saying, "No, thank you." One told him, "Why don't you take something else?" and he said, "I don't need something else."
We made the hands so they could be mittens or we could slide then off when he needed to use his fingers.

When we got home Creed was content to just sit on the couch and eat one sucker. If only he'd stay this way when he gets older!

Dreams really do come true!

I'm not having the best night (while I was in the bathroom, Creed crawled under my desk and turned off the powerstrip to my computer. I lost some unsaved Photoshop files that I spent a really long time on and it's killing me. There were tears and it was all my own fault for not double checking that they were saved.)

Anyway, I need to take a break and think about something happy so let's talk about how Laurel saved the day by lending us her daughter's peacock costume from last Halloween. You've never seen a happier kid! His dream of being a peacock for Halloween came true! (and it didn't even have to involve a leotard or tutu or tights)

I wish you could have all seen him in person because I promise that it would have made you grin!

Creed takes a trip to Bear Lake

We spent the first weekend of October at Bear Lake with our friends Rachel and Jeff (for free, might I add because Jeff's sister let us use her condo. You'll notice that's the theme of all the places that we went this month: free places to stay, which made for cheap travel).

We spent most of the weekend relaxing, watching General Conference, and eating some amazing food, but the chilly weather didn't keep us from venturing out to visit the lake.

Creed was thrilled with all of the tiny shells all over the beach and didn't hesitate to soak himself in the lake.

We even found a letterbox along our way, which took us along this cool boardwalk.
And of course, many raspberry shakes were sampled since that's what Bear Lake is known for.

Did I say it was fall?

Good thing we took advantage of the fall weather on Monday because Tuesday we woke up to this

I hurried to bundle Creed up to go out and play in our first snow, thinking it would melt quickly, but it continued to snow off and on all day long and into this morning.

Oh, UTAH!

Sampling Utah

Since we don't know if we will always be living in Utah, we've been doing our best to explore while we're here (plus it's just a fun way to live. I really think the more you explore the place you live, the more chance you have to find things to fall in love with). Now that we've been here a little over a year, here are a few of the things we've done:

Ate lavender ice cream and sipped lavender lemonade at Lavender Days

Watched the grand champions at the Sheep Dog Festival

Shopped at Swiss Days in Midway

Hiked to Stewart Falls

Raced down the Alpine Slide

Stayed with the Randalls at their cabin in Kamas

Went on a moonlit tramride at Sundance

Hiked to Delicate Arch and spent a weekend in Moab

Admired Christmas Lights and Temple Square

Sledding at Gorgoza Park Sledding Resort in Park City

Saw a touring broadway production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Took a road trip to Las Vegas and stayed in a posh hotel

Covered ourselves with Paint at the Holi Festival

Took two trips to the family cabin at Lake Tahoe (without Larry both times)

Took Creed to the Dinosaur Museum and Children's Park at Thanksgiving Point

Roasted Hot Dogs in Big Cottonwood Canyon

Kite and Balloon Stampede on Antelope Island

Dipped our toes in the Great Salt Lake

Payson Onion Days Festival

Had Ice Cream at The Big Red Barn in Santaquin (and apple cider slush that makes my heart pitter-patter)

9th and 9th Street Festival

Spent many an afternoon using our memberships at the Hogle Zoo and Gateway Children's Museum so we could ride the train and visit the baby giraffe

Toured Red Butte Gardens (and we really recommend their Halloween event for little kids)

Ate fried food at the Utah State Fair (which is nothing like the Ohio State Fair)

Sampled all the raspberry shakes we could while spending the weekend at Bear Lake

Hiked at Zion's National Park

Sampled tons of new restaurants (new to us anyway)

Mazza

Koko Kitchen

Kyoto

Five Guys

Smash Burger

Crown Burger

Rumbi's

Emigration Market

Trio

Pat's Barbecue

Ruth's Diner

Moochie's

Lonestar Taqueria

Rooster

The Soup Kitchen

The Beehive Tea Room

Big City Soup

Tulie Bakery

Mini's Cupcakes

Les Madeleines Bakery

Vinto

Bruges Waffles and Frites

There are still a lot of things I want to see and do so we'll see what we can fit into the next year while we have a newborn. Here are a few things on my list:

Spiral Jetty

Fossil hunting

Homestead Crater

This is the place

Wheeler Farm

Treehouse Museum

Dinner on the Heber Creeper

Weekend at Zions

Camping in Goblin Valley

Shakespeare festival in Cedar City

Trip to yellowstone

Restaurants

Sawadee

Pizzeria 712 in Orem

Communal in Provo

What am I missing? What's on your list?

A Preview on our October

I'm still behind on blogging because our October has been a little crazy. For the last year, Larry worked six days a week and then on Sundays we were busy with our callings at church so we weren't left with much time to spend as a family. I guess we've been trying to make up for that now that Larry is doing research for most of this year and has a fairly regular schedule. The first weekend in October, we spent the weekend at Bear Lake with our friends the Davids. The second weekend we called Lisa and Tyler on Friday afternoon and asked them if they wanted to head to Zions National Park for the weekend and we were off a couple hours later. The weekend after that we made another fairly last minute decision to go to Disneyland for the weekend and my mom made the trip with us to meet up with Eli and Brenna who were in CA for the BYU game. Then last weekend we threw a Halloween party for some friends in our neighborhood, and the preparations took over a lot of my week.

I feel like I need to catch my breath and just enjoy some of the everyday sites around here. Like the view out of my dining room window.

And the piles of leaves in my backyard.
And here's a little preview of Creed's unfinished Halloween costume. I let him watch way too much TV today while I finished it so more pictures are to come soon.
And PS- for the last month and a half, if you ask Creed what he's going to be, he promptly answers, "A Peacock!" He seriously has his little heart set on it so we will also be borrowing a peacock costume. Luckily, we have a friend who has one and several Halloween events to attend.

And PPS - Do you know how hard it is to find a peacock costume that does not involve a leotard or a tutu?

Creed Takes a Trip to Antelope Island

We decided to live it up over Labor Day weekend and spent Friday night at Swiss Days in Midway visiting my mom and Grandma at their jewelry booth. Saturday afternoon we went to the Balloon and Kite Stampede on Antelope Island. Then Monday we went to Onion Days in Payson and got ice cream at the Big Red Barn in Santaquin. Too bad my camera only made the trip to Antelope Island so that's all that I have to show you. It actually ended up being too windy for Balloons, but not windy enough for kites so the festival wasn't much, but we did have fun exploring the island. I made Larry stop on the drive out to take a picture of me feeling like I was walking on water (the water is shallow for a really long way out from the road)

After we visited the festival and had our fill on cotton candy, we explored the island.
I read that there was a beach with showers there so I wanted to investigate the beach. It was a bit of a hike down to the water and I have never seen so many sandflies or smelled such a stinky lake so I was glad that we were not there to swim, but what little boy can resist a big beautiful pool of water, especially one that will make you float so easily?
I had swimming in the Great Salt Lake on my list of things to do while we are in Utah and I think I'm going to count this. The stinky smell was worth the beautiful view.
And Creed got a lesson in skipping stones to boot.

Happy birthday to us

I made it back from Lake Tahoe just in time to celebrate my 29th birthday with Larry. For the second year in a row he surprised me by making a cake.It was the perfect little celebration. He also treated me to a night out to dinner and to watch the movie Paperheart, which made for a happy evening together.
Then a month later we got to celebrate Larry's birthday. It's funny how as parents, a lot of birthday celebrations are more for the kids than the parents, even if it's their birthday. Creed was SOOOOOO excited to help make Larry a cake.

And he insisted that we have birthday flags up like we had for his birthday, but they needed to be Larry's favorite color, black (which makes for sort of a bleak looking birthday celebration, but we left it up for Halloween). I decided to just make a miniature garland for the chandelier and Creed dutifully stood by me at the sewing machine, handing me one tiny flag at a time.

Then we made a simple card to match.Before we moved from Columbus, Cat made our friend David a chocolate cake with the most amazing brown sugar frosting, and Larry loved it so she walked me through making it. It's called Penuche Icing (I think) and everyone who stopped by to try a piece asked for the recipe so I thought I would share it here.

1 stick of butter, melt then add

1 cup brown sugar, boil over low heat for two minutes while stirring

add 1/4 cup of milk, bring to a boil while stirring

add 1 3/4 to 2 cups of powdered sugar

a pinch of salt

2 drops of vanilla

pour over cake

And Creed decorated the cake all by himself.

And at the end of the evening, we had some surprise birthday well-wishers!

More Freezer Paper Tees

One night at the cabin, Brenna and I worked on some freezer paper stencil t-shirts. I didn't get a photo of Brenna's shirt, but I made Larry a robot shirt to match Creed's.

And I made Creed this firefly shirt based on this one that I love, but is sold out.