Happy Relief Society Birthday!

Thursday night was our annual Relief Society birthday dinner.  My secretary had a fun idea to do a Mad Hatter Tea party.  I wasn't completely on board in the beginning (I worry about things getting out of control), but in the end it was beautifully done and a lot of fun.  I did promise the ladies that I would not post their pictures on Facebook and I don't know if they read the blog or not but just in case, I won't post them here either.  And actually, the only real reason I'm posting the pictures is so that in the future I can reference them for another activity in another ward!  

The entrance to the cultural hall was meant to look like you were going down the rabbit hole so the brown fabric frames the doorway.  It was really cute.

The handouts I made -- yes the poem is cheesy.  I will never be a professional poet -- too rhyme y.

 

Table settings

A sister in our ward had done hats for a tea party in another ward -- glue a paper bowl onto a paper plate and decorate!  Everyone got into it, even people who brought and wore a hat from home.  It turned out sooooo cute!  It would be fun for a little girl's birthday tea party too.

The whole shebang.  The pink on the tables is wrapping paper!  Cheap and disposable!  I work with such talented sisters.

Beautiful cake done by a sister in our ward -- this was her 3rd attempt but it was gorgeous AND delicious.

Now I want a silver tea set just to decorate with.  I am too much of a whimsical girl at heart. 

  

There were eat me signs in the cupcakes and tea sandwiches and drink me signs in the cups for punch.

Dinner was tea sandwiches -- cucumber, chicken salad, egg salad, and cheese spread -- salads, cupcakes.  Very dainty and very good.

We decided we needed a white rabbit and since William goes with me everywhere I go, he got the vote!  My friend Trulee put together an awesome hat for him that I'm sure he'll never forgive me for . . .  

I should probably take a better picture of my hat so you can see the possibilities.  Although I did take the parts home and use tulle as well as flowers.  Hey I like fancy hats!!!

Now tomorrow I get to speak in church about Relief Society and then my mom is coming to visit, Abby's birthday is on Thursday, and then Easter!  It's been a busy month!

Mishmash

So here are the bits and pieces from about the past week -- just the highlights really.

Our spring break was this past week which really only meant no school for Megan.  We managed to fill our time  with plenty of outdoor things since the weather was simply beautiful.

We went with a friend to Arbor Hills -- a "park" with trails and woods and plenty of things to explore.  Our friends are really into geocaching and have an app on their phone that locates any close to your current location.  So we did a little bit with them and the girls really enjoyed the search for treasure!

Believe it or not I already can't remember what we did the rest of the week!  I guess that it wasn't too memorable.

On Saturday it was 80 degrees and so we went to the Arboretum (my parents took bets on this apparently and dad won).  More and more trees and bushes are starting to bloom including this amazing forsythia: 

That would be the yellow bush in the background.

A visit to the Arboretum always inspires Chopper to tackle our own yard.  What that means this time around is that he hacked away all of our bushes in the front. 

I think it's a ploy to get me to let him take them out completely.  Chopper says they'll be back in a month, just smaller and more manageable.  Eventually we'd like to put flowers or something else in for a little color but we need to research what will actually survive the weather!

More Arboretum -- we all ended up with sunburns on our arms -- it was fantastic! 

 

Twirling.  I read a cute book called Edenbrooke.  It's a regency romance (but not romance like, you know, romance) and the main character likes to twirl.  Random information for you there.

Kind've cool (or gross) that this moss is growing down like slime.

Sunday night my best friend from college came for a visit!  She and her family (husband and daughter Stephanie) were passing through on their way to their spring break vacation in San Antonio.  They stayed the night and the next morning and relaxed and played.  It was so good to see her -- it's been about 2 years.  Of course I didn't get any pictures of her, just her daughter . . . 

And William because he's irresistible.

Quick update on that -- we're working more aggressively on the food.  He doesn't seem to mind the taste and is gagging less but still fights me actually getting it into his mouth.  After about 4 "bites" he refuses to open at all or covers his mouth with his arm.  I'm not kidding.

He's not crawling but he's headed there.  On his stomach he spins and scoots backwards and sitting up he flips himself over to reach things and bounces around a little bit.  Since the record for crawling among my children is 11 months, I would say that he's well on the way to breaking it.

Busy or Lazy?

My mom sent me an email saying that she knows I'm busy when my blog isn't update.  Unfortunately, this time it's only partly true.  I am busy -- but I'm also really really lazy right now.  William is getting up 2 to 3 times a night right now because he's a hungry turkey and refuses to eat solids. My quiet times during the day should be filled with accomplishing the tasks that I need to and instead have been filled with tv, books, and sleeping.  So I'll have to post over the next few days in short bursts and get it all in!

So the first update is the Dallas quilt show that I went to 2 Saturdays ago.  It was a good show although I think going to Houston has ruined me.  I only took about 20 photos!!  And they were mostly the unusual ones.  But I went with friends (and William) and had a great time.

This was the winning quilt.  AMAZING workmanship -- terrible color I thought.  Sorry.

A quilted BLT!

Loved this one -- the dinosaur parts come off of the quilt panels.

Chopper was teasing me the other day that if I didn't take the spare room and make it into a quilting room, he would take it and make it into a fishing room.  They had this horrible quilt that would have to be the centerpiece for that I think.

Except that I confiscated the room for quilting after all.  Of course. 

This is miniature -- they always get me.

Amazing quilting.  I've decided I want a wholecloth quilt on my bed now.  Problem is that I'm just now finishing up my last hand quilted project and it's been several years in the making.  A king size whole cloth quilt?  Maybe when I retire.

I hear William calling my name so that's phase one done I guess.  He's probably hungry of course.

Catch up

 I am actually behind on posting believe it or not.  I've been so tired and have projects that I'm working on or I just lay around at night so I guess that accounts for it.  But today I went to a quilt show and wanted to post just a few pictures (seriously, just a few!) and though these needed to come first.

It's been a colder spring than usual I think.  Lots of gray, 50 degree days.  We did take advantage of some 70 degree weather on Monday and head out to the Arboretum  with some new friends and the flowers were beautiful but the trees are still pretty bare.

Megan had a fantastic week at preschool!  Her teachers gave me glowing reports both on Tuesday and Thursday.  Now we spring break this coming week so we'll see how she is when it's time to go back.  There seems to be a period of adjustment after each break.

Abby has potty-trained gloriously!  She has had one accident.  One!!  And that was at the Arboretum but I was expecting it because their bathrooms are few and far between.  She was already wet from playing in the frog pool so it wasn't a big deal to change her.  Other than that, she has been dry for naps and at night and goes when she needs to during the day.  She even cleans up after herself.  It truly is a miracle if you ask me.

William still won't eat.  At all.  He'll be 8 months next week and I have yet to get anything other than milk down his throat.  I don't want to force it and I guess that he'll start eating eventually but nursing every 2-3 hours is getting old.  Especially since he's getting up multiple times a night too.  He needs food!!!

Chopper and I are the same!  Ho-hum.

Dancing Queens

I will not apologize for the fact that I love rhythmic gymnastics!  I loved watching it with the Olympics this past summer and yes, Chopper and I dressed up as Rhythmic gymnasts (complete with a dance routine) for Halloween.

The girls also enjoy it.  Chopper bought the girls both ribbon sticks for Abby's special potty surprise and I have to say that Megan especially is quite good.  It may be time to start thinking about her future . . . 

Ok so maybe it doesn't look as impressive as I thought.  But Megan was doing a lot of different positions and twirling rather than just running around.  I thought it was pretty good!

Are You Kidding Me?

I seriously think that potty-training is the worst aspect of early motherhood.  Trying to teach a child to regulate the most disgusting of bodily functions and getting it all over your house in the process is just gross.  Add to that the fact that moms feel the need to compare and the pressure of potty-training by a certain age and it's wrong.  Just wrong.

We still struggle with Megan.  She's potty-trained but perpetually on Miralax for her bowels and if we skip a few doses, well we're in trouble.  So you can perhaps understand why I have no potty-trained Abby yet.  I've been totally gun shy.

But she wants to and she will be 3 years old at the end of the month so I broke down, bought a ton of underwear (with Megan we went through 12 pairs in one day -- I counted), a bunch of juice, and let the games begin.

Yesterday (day one) Abby had one very minor accident where her underwear and pants were DAMP.  And she cleaned it up herself -- clothes in the washing machine, the whole nine yards.  Other than that, she peed and pooped in the potty, cleaned up after herself, dumped small potty contents in to the regular toilet, flushed, washed her hands, etc.

Then she stayed dry overnight.  And day two is progressing in much the same way.

Night and day.

Chopper congratulated me last night on a successful day of potty-training.  But it's not me.

This one is all her.

SO what are the chances that the rest of the kids will be this fantastic?  Probably slim to none.

But we're very proud of her!

Our Favorite Things

In an effort to get everyone's perspective on our vacation, I"ve asked everyone what their favorite part of the vacation was.  So in their words (or mostly):

Abby said, "the park, the beach.  I played in the hard sand.  The park was blue and I got a fire station." (Not sure where that last part came in but you did see the video where the seashells will grow into raspberries so I suppose it's not really out of character!)

Megan said, "I liked-ed the candy store.  I like boats now.  Grandma's house -- games -- felt dolls."  And then she started spouting nonsense.

It actually was kind've hard to get the girls to talk about their favorite parts of the vacation.  Perhaps they're still a little young to express themselves fully after the fact.  

Chopper's favorite part was our first day of seeing Savannah as a family.  It really was a perfect day -- we all had energy and were excited to be there.  The girls didn't fight or whine or cry.  We did a ton of stuff and just had a great time together as a family.

My favorite part was watching the girls and Chopper at the beach.  It was very relaxing to me to just sit and listen to the waves and feel the sun and watch the girls entertain themselves in the simplest of ways and watch Chopper be a dad.  So much of our time is me and the kids or if Chopper's home then I'm off to meetings or visits with sisters or grocery shopping or wherever.  I enjoyed just watching my family with no demands and no expectations but also no tv or computer or phones going.  It was so nice not to have those distractions and things that surround me and I feel like I need to be doing -- dishes, laundry, organizing, etc.  I just sat and watched and listened and it was glorious.

I think we need to take more vacations like that -- nowhere to be, nothing we have to do but just enjoy each other.