The Quiet Book.

So this has been about five and a half months in the making. I probably wouldn't have started a project this big if it weren't for my good friend Christa telling me she wanted to start one. I was scared of a big project at first but she showed me how fun it is to have something continuous that I can always go back to and work on in the evenings or my free afternoons, etc.. It mainly took so much time because I wouldn't touch it for a week or two, then find a renewed interest in each page. I probably won't ever make another one so I wanted to make a good one. Christa and I also happened to stumble upon this one blog called imagineourlife.com that had the cutest. most detailed pages, which is where we got many of our ideas. The patterns are free, you just print them out on normal paper (for personal use of course, I think you have to pay if you wanted to use them to sell). Anyways, here are some detailed pics if you are interested...

The cover turned out okay. I'm kind of a perfectionist so there are a few things about it that I wish were different but I'm still not a pro with my machine yet so it was the best I could do.. Just don't look too closely, hehe.. OH and I have to thank my friend Hollijo for the idea. I was never a huge fan of the metal rings idea and this worked nicely and was simple enough to improvise on my own. 

The first page was just a simple baseball page. I wanted to have variety in the book and not just girly stuff. The mit is open at the bottom to put your hand it like a mit. The baseball is velcro, attached by a ribbon just in case and to add a little more detail:

The sandcastle is one from Imagine Our Life. This was one of my absolute favorites from the site that I knew I had to do. It was pretty detailed but I think it is super fun. The felt pieces just lay on the sand and can be arranged however you want. Then they go back in the bucket when you are done. :) Ivy doesn't quite understand it yet but she loves all the pieces and the little bead details:

I just love these beachy beads. And Ivy loves the peekaboo crab:

The weather page was sort of my creation. I saw one on pinterest that was a felt magnet board just for play and I thought it would make a cute page with velcro. The rocket page was i.o.l. It took a couple tries to get it right but I love it so much! the rocket pulls the zipper open to reveal the afterburners. and Thanks to Christa for all your help on this particular one! Tricky but worth it, lol:

The sock page! My first page that I made and therefore not perfect. at all. haha..  The socks stay in the dryer and when you match them, they attach with magnets. It is so fun. I would say this is Ivy's favorite page right now. She loves matching the colors and then putting the socks in and out of the dryer:

The flower page was kind of my creation. I found the pattern through pinterest and just found the big buttons and picked out the flowers, added the details. This one is a little tricky for Ivy but she will grow into it. The fish page is i.o.l. It's a counting page and this is another of Ivy's favs right now..

I knew I wanted an ice cream page of some sort and the girl on the i.o.l. website had made an ice cream parlor page with tiny parts and I wasn't sure I wanted to do that one. Then she came out with a much more simple banana split page with bigger ice cream parts so I kinda just created this one out of a combination of the two ideas. Banana split page, and added some cones and extra ice cream pieces. The little sprinkle jar is made with vinyl and the beads sewn inside of it. 

I'll be honest, this page took forever because of the details but I really like it. Again, it's not one that Ivy fully understands yet but she will. And she loves all the sparkly parts to it. She also likes the spoons and pretends to eat with them, lol:

I wanted to have animals in my book but couldn't really find a barn that I liked on pinterest or on i.o.l. so I kinda just found a basic pattern to print out and added some fun details. The animals are finger puppets and Ivy loves to play with them and make their noises and sing Old Mcdonald. I'm really glad I threw this one in there..

Hooray!! I am so glad it is finally done. And so is Ivy! it has already gotten much use out of it with church and flying to Houston. It came in very handy on the plane. And I'm glad I made some more difficult pages that she can grow into. I'm hoping it will last a looong time. 

Happy Birthday Sam!

The big 27! We played it pretty low key this year.. Sam had class on the day of his birthday so we couldn't do much until he got home, and he just wanted a few new discs for Disc Golf so he ordered those online. They hadn't come in the mail yet so I put together a gift basket of some of his favorite small things to have something to open on his actual birthday. :) Ivy was so helpful in making cards for Daddy. She colored one all by herself. We celebrated the evening with yummy Dr. Pepper pork tacos and a Better than Anything Cake, Sam's favorite. 

Sam's mom actually surprised him after he got home from school with a message that said she was sending some birthday money for him to go pick out a grill! It made his day considering he's been wanting a grill for months! And when we drove out to Lowe's to pick one out, they gave us a steal of a deal on a really good quality one! Yeah! Thank you so so much Mom! It has already gotten much use out of it! Sam has now become a fabulous grill master. And I can't complain! Takes half the work of cooking dinner out of my hands. Double yeah!

Other Halloween stuff

The actual day of halloween was pretty low-key. But the day before and day after had some fun activities thanks to good friends and an awesome library toddler day party. On Tuesday, our friend's Jessica and James invited us over for some fun pumpkin carving and cupcake decorating. Sam had to study for a test that afternoon so I took Ivy over and I'm so glad I did! We had so much fun. Thanks Jessica for hosting! I know I didn't get many pics but just thought these were cute:

So the library in the next town over has a toddler day every Thursday. We look forward to it every week because it's always well organized and they do more than just read a book. There is usually a craft, coloring, and some music time in there too. The day after halloween, they threw a party for the kids and said they could dress up. They read some books, made a monster picture holder, and had cute games set up and lots of snacks and treats. They also gave each kid a halloween book and a big bucket full of goodies to take home with them! Best library ever! I wonder what their Christmas activities will be like! Thanks Miss Cindy! You rock! :)

Trunk or Treat aka Halloween for Ivy

So around here, the neighborhoods are hilly and the houses are sort of spread apart.. Not typically ideal for trying to trick or treat with a toddler. And, we were told by some locals that not many people trick or treat around here because there are so many different churches that throw "trunk or treat's" which seem to be much safer. I thought it was funny how we live in such a different place these days but glad that the pressure was off to take the little one trick or treating (probably wouldn't have anyways, let's be honest, lol). So we planned to go to our ward's chili cook off/trunk or treat activity and it was perfect! There was actually a pretty big turnout, too, which made it that much more awesome. Ivy did really well with the whole idea of saying trick or treat and getting candy! After showing her how to do it, I'd walk her up to every single car and she'd go up to the person and say some sort of variation of "chka chh" (trick or treat, hehe) and bring her piece back to me to put in her pumpkin. She thought it was so fun. Occasionally she would want to hang on to that piece of candy, once she realized what it was but she was pretty good about waiting til the end.. It was so fun to see how grown up she was and how capable she was of doing it all herself.. It was the perfect Halloween for us! 

Our little ladybug:

With her buddy Graham, the fireman, waiting for dinner:

Trunk or treating:

Pumpkins and animals

Just catching up on October posts... The weekend before Halloween, we drove out to a corn maze that a local Christian campsite had been putting on for the past few weeks. We high hopes for their pumpkin patch considering it was a little ways out in the country. Well I'll be honest, it was a pretty sad little pumpkin patch but Ivy still thought it was fun.. And luckily the people who were running the place were super nice and took us to see the animals they had on the property, which absolutely made Ivy's day! She moo'ed at the cows and said "bach, bach" at the chickens (thank's Baby Bach for teaching her that one, lol). It was fun to watch her reaction to each of them.. Anyways, here are some pics of our day:

So, sometimes Ivy does this hunchback type walk and I'm actually pretty glad I got a pic of it, lol.. I'm not sure where she got it from but it's hilarious to watch. Especially when she starts swinging her arms while she walks. She may have gotten it from Brobee on Yo Gabba Gabba? That's all I can come up with, lol:

 She's all smiles when it's just me and daddy around......

Then one of the workers comes by to take our pic for us and this is all we can get, hahaha:

 Animals! Loved the sheep and goat:

I've never seen a turkey all feathered out like this before. It was so funny to watch.. The worker said that they had him for a while and then someone donated a female. As soon as they put her in the cage with him, he started showin' off. Too funny! And these things were loud too! If you made a noise similar to a gobble, it would gobble right back. haha:

And finally the horses. They were very sweet.

Sam's weekend in DC

First, just wanted to post a few pictures of the house Sam lived in as a kid, when his dad was a mission president for 3 years in the DC area. The South mission I think. He often talks about how fun it was to live there and how different it is from Texas. How he would play in the woods right next to it and how beautiful all the trees were in the neighborhood and nearby. Lots of fun memories for him.. When we stopped there, we decided to knock on the door to see if it was still the mission home. Sure enough, the son of the current mission president answered the door and let us look around inside a little bit. It was fun to see what was the same and what had been renovated, considering it has been close to 20 years since he's lived there. Crazy! 

Woods in front of his house:

looking down the street:

Sam said they built this square fort in the backyard while they were there. Apparently another family added on the swing part... he also talked about how that round thing on the ground seemed so huge to him when he was little. Not so much now, haha:

Sam had always talked about wanting to show me the house some day. I'm so glad we had to chance to stop and see it. It was fun to hear some of his memories of the place.

Sam's elementary school just down the road... We were able to stop and see it on the way to Kristin's house:

The next morning after sending the kids off to school and after us sisters took off, Neal and Sam took Noah and Ivy to the new Flight Museum right near their house. I'm pretty sure it was more for the them instead of the little ones though, lol... It seemed super cool! I'm actually pretty jealous that Sam got to see the space shuttle that they have there right now. SO cool.

 

The next morning, while Neal took Kristin's kids to their swim lessons, etc. Sam headed back down to Fairfax to the high school that a few of his brothers and sisters went to. It just so happens that it's named Robinson High School. How fitting, hehe:

Later that day, Neal made some homemade wings and they were able to sit and watch the BYU game together. Fun stuff! Then they met us for dinner that night at Jackson's. Thanks again babe for taking such good care of Ivy for me!