Shoes!

Seth feet are finally big enough now that he is able to start wearing shoes!  I am so excited because we have so many cute shoes for this little guy that I have gotten from family and friends.  Thankfully I only have a two pairs of shoes that are the same size and the rest are different so I'm set for quite awhile.  Now since he could wear a pair I had him wear them to church.

They matched his outfit perfectly.  I still can't believe at how fast he is growing up and I'm sure that before I know it he won't be able to wear that cute tie anymore.  Not totally sure where to find more ties but if I don't I guess I could always make him some.  I do have patterns for that but not to sure if I have that kind of sewing skill but I guess practice makes perfect.

Birthday Aflame

I'm a pretty simple gal and so for my birthday I just wanted to have a nice fun relaxing day with my little family.  Michael went above and beyond making me feel special for the day and was sweet enough to let me do something with Seth that I have been dying to do.

Yep, it was to gather around our (in relocation) fire pit.  I've been wanting to do this with Seth to see how he would handle going camping one day.  I really want to take him this summer but I didn't know if he could handle it so this is a fun, controlled, test run.  It was a really great family moment because when it got dark enough we enjoyed looking at the stars together and trying to make out constellations that we knew.  I do hope it warms up soon at night so we can try camping in the backyard with our tent.  It will be an interesting challenge to fit us all in it together but I'm sure we will figure something out.

My Brother First!

I get this all day long.  Both girls just have to be next to their little brother and protect him and keep him company whether he is asleep or awake.  I must say that I am really grateful that they didn't go through any major jealousy with him joining our family.  I just hope these two still want to be close to him once he starts crawling and walking after them.

Happy Hat

Last week I went to a Relief Society party to celebrate the creation/organization of the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  I had a really good time at the party with all of the women in my ward.  I was even lucky enough to have Michael home that night to watch Seth for me.  Well several sisters asked were Seth was and how they missed seeing him, what a popular guy I have.  Anyways once the party was over we were allowed to take home our party hats.  I thought since I've got it and my birthday was coming up that I would take pictures of my cute little man in the hat.

One happy party man.  I just love the little puff ball on the top of the hat.

Now I found these pants in his dresser and amazingly enough they finally fit him so of course he just had to wear them with that fun of a hat on.  I swear this kid is so much more stylish then me.

Of course I just had to get a picture of the hat on my girls too.  Faith was kind enough to volunteer first.  What a happy face.

Last but not least Hope got a turn as well and continues to live up to her diva poses too.  She just wouldn't look at the camera for me.  The only person that didn't wear the hat was Michael but I can forgive him of that because he was at work when we were doing our pictures.

Heaven Sent

I love taking pictures of my handsome little man.  It's just so nice to have someone to help me develop my photography skills.  This is one of my favorite photos and I'm going to use it on a very special invitation for his baby naming and blessing that we will be doing in our ward. I'm making these invites because we have some none member friends that I am hoping will be able to come.  Until then I'm just going to keep taking cute pictures of this little guy.

Snuggle Bear

I can't believe how unpredictable our weather has been.  One day it is nice sunny and somewhat warm and then the next it is cold and cloudy.  Well no matter what the weather is I have to get some outside time and I do that by walking around our neighborhood.  One day was very cold and I was kind of excited about that since it meant I could have Seth wear his cute little coat/bodysuit that a co-worker gave us. 

I just love my little snuggle teddy bear!  He is so cute and I know that he is plenty warm for going outside on our walks.

This picture reminds Michael and I of one of our nephews because he looks so much like him when he was a baby.  So yes, we have all adorable boys born in our family.

I included this photo to show you that Seth does fit into the coat/bodysuit length wise but he can't quit get his arms to fit but that doesn't matter as long as he stays warm.

Lucky Family

Okay, I'm a little late at posting this special family project we created.  I saw on Pinterest how you can use thumb prints to make little four leaf clovers and ran with the idea to make this fun matted frame for a little saying I made up. 

I think it adds some great decoration to our home.  I also like how there is enough space for when we have more kids (or dogs) that they can also put their prints on it too.  We just write the date on the back as to when the print was done.  I now just can't wait until next St. Patrick's day when I get to have it displayed.

It's All Green to Me

I LOVE ST. Patricks Day!!!  It is one of my most favorite holidays of the year because everyone is forced to wear green, one of my favorite colors, or suffer getting pinched (that part I don't like).  Anyways, I was super excited to celebrate this day with Seth and I have been hunting like crazy to find some decorations and I was lucky enough to find some fun items at Joanna's.

I got these window stickers for a great price.  I only wish they had one more pack of stickers that I liked and could use but I'm still thrilled that I found these (well actually Michael found them).

I also got this table cloth.  It is a square shape so it fits the table kind of funny but I don't care because it works overall and that is good enough for me.  Don't my little houses look cute on that adorable table?  I feel like I should make an entire neighborhood for us to enjoy.

Now ever since Hope was a puppy I have gotten her a bandanna to match whatever holiday we are celebrating.  I also just like dressing her up in bandannas too.  Hope does have a dark green bandanna that she could have worn today but it really blends into her fur coat to much.  I also love having her match her sister.

See how cute they are when they both match.  I just love that with my girls.  It makes it so much easier to have them wear the same thing. 

 

Here is Seth's special outfit for the day.  I think it is super cute on him.  I'll be honest, I've had this laying out ready for him to wear for a couple of weeks I was so excited for today to come.  Although it is kind of sad he couldn't wear it all day because he spit up on it pretty good.  I also had him wear something else for church.

 

Seth's after church outfit which is also green.  You may not notice this but I'm going to point out his cute little socks which also just happen to be green too.  Totally AWESOME!

I had to through in this picture of Seth in one of his cute hats.  I actually made this hat for him several years ago (6 to be exact) so I am more then happy to see him wearing it.

This last picture is one of my favorites.  Hope just loves being close to Seth and she is so gentle and sweet with him.  Now other then wearing green all day we enjoyed some other fun family "hopeful" traditions like eating Lucky Charms cereal for breakfast and listening to some Celtic music.  Next year, I know for a fact, we will have a little green man visit us (that is much shorter then Seth right now) and he will most likely leave us a few penny's in trade for our pot of gold.  You'll just have to wait to see what I am talking about next year.

Grandma's Little House

I loved to visit my mother's parents any time we passed through Idaho.  They were so sweet and kind and really spoiled us grandkids by taking us fishing and cooking amazing meals.  Well my grandfather has been gone for quite some time but my grandmother passed away last year while I was pregnant with Seth.  I was blessed enough to be able to go to the funeral but I still had a hard time with it.  Well as my mother, her brothers and sisters were going through the home dividing things up my mother was able to get me something very special.  Well at least to me it is a great treasure.  It was the little napkin house that sat on the kitchen table.

The original one is the yellow house.  I made the white one for my uncle as a thank you for letting me have this special gift.  I was so thrilled that I had all of the same colors as the little yellow house.  Well except for the yellow canvas stuff.  I don't know where to get that.

 

Here is a fun side view for you to see.  Just so you know the roses are french knots.  I HATE doing french knots cause they are really difficult for me to do but somehow I was actually able to manage.  I'm sure I got a little heavenly help with that part.

Overall I think I did really good at getting it to look like the original, especially since I haven't done something like this ever before.  I learned a lot!  But I think the hardest part was to not cry while making my house because of all the wonderful memories it brought back to me about my grandparents.  I have made a pattern of this little house too which I'm also going to be giving to my uncle in case he wants it.  Now I just need to buy some napkins this weekend and enjoy my little happy home.

Spring is Coming!

Here is my Proof!

I took all of these from our front yard.  The back is still a work in progress since we couldn't finish it last summer but hopefully we will get it all squared away soon.  I also took these photo's for my mom so she could enjoy some flowers in case she is still covered with snow.

Checking Under the Bed

This little girl really doesn't fit well under the bed but somehow she always manages a way to get whatever is under there.

This time (and really everytime) it was a toy that she just had to have.  What a silly and very compress puppy we have on our hands here. 



Reading Chart

Reading The Book of Mormon, daily as a family, is really important to me but I want it to also become important to Seth.  Michael and I have been trying to figure out a fun way to do that for him.  It had to be something that he could see every day but it had to look very nice for me to have it hanging up on my walls for visitors to see as well.  So this is what I came up with. 

The configureation you see is how I'm going to put it up on my wall.  I'm going to put it right under our family FHE chart board.  I thought that would be the best spot so when we mark off what we have read Seth can keep in the back of his mind for the entire week what his special FHE job is for Monday.

Here is a closer view of one of the boards for you to see what it looks like better.  This was actually really easy and quick to make.  It was the first project in a long time that I could have had done in one day if I didn't have a sweet little guy to take care of.  I just made a simple template in Microsoft Word and printed on the fabric what I wanted.  I then did a little sewing and attacted the entire thing to cork board and put it in a 12x12 frame (minus the glass).  Now the way we are going to mark off what scriptures we have read for the day is with a simple push tack.  I know that isn't the best kid friendly/safest thing but it was what I could come up with and I also already had all those matterials on hand so it didn't cost us a thing to make it.  Overall I think it is a success.

Little Farm

Since we finally have a child I have been looking all over our little area for some fun free things to do with kids.  Let me tell you, it isn't easy at all.  Luckily though I have a friend who's daughter is in 4H club and she was showing her pet bunny off at a store so we decided to go as a fun family outing adventure.  We had a great time and saw lots of cute baby animals.

Of course I had to get a picture of Seth sleeping through the entire outing but I don't care.  It shows that he was part of the fun and saw some baby chicks too.  Well at least in his dreams, right? 

 

Here is a better photo of the baby chicks.  I don't know what kind they are exactly.  I'm sure you could look it up yourself if you find the kind with featherless necks.  Honestly, these ones kind of creep me out.

 

Here Seth is with the baby ducks.  We just love ducks in our family.  It goes back to Michael and mine's early marriage date night/day fun.

 

Now these are baby turkey's.  I never knew that they looked so much like baby chickens but it makes sence since they are both very closely related in the bird family.

 

After seeing all of the baby birds that were inside the building we went outside to enjoy looking at the farm petting animals. 

 

They had this super cute and very popular horse.  I was lucky to get this photo with how many kids were around that pony. 

 

I love the goats.  This one was my favorite because of it's color.

 

A rather large sheep.  Michael thought it was a lama at first. 

 

Finally the rabbits.  These are just a few and I figure the ones in chages were probably on a carrot brake or something with how many kids were holding and petting them.  It was a long line of bunnies outside.  But this sure was fun and maybe we will do it again next year when Seth is a little older and actually able to be awake enough to pet the fun farm animals too.

Walking Buddies

Since we have been enjoying some beautiful sunshine around here and are allowed to leave the house, I took Seth for a walk around the neighborhood for the first time this week.  I'm sure he would have enjoyed it more if he was awake for some of the walk but he was out for the entire thing.

Even with the sunshine though I made sure to wrap him up warm and layer his close like crazy cause I didn't want him feeling any sort of a chill from the slightest amount of wind.

Of couse you can't live in a house with two dogs and not take at least one of them along on a walk.  Hope for some reason didn't want to come so she stayed home and Faith got to go along.  She really enjoyed the walk and did fantastic walking next to the stroller too.  I didn't know how she would do but I'm glad that she did fantastic.

I think my favorite part of the entire walk was how Faith had to keep checking on her best friend/little brother the entire time.  He would keep looking at him every five minutes or less to make sure he was alright.

Seth did finally wake up once we got home and I just had to take a photo of the pure joy on his face after his first outside adventure with mommy.  Oh yeah, I can see the happiness.  I'm just glad that he does well with my walking route because I'm going to be doing it a lot more with this beautiful weather that is setting in.

Presto!

My mother sent me this package that had some thing in it for Seth and I to share/use.  One of those items was this cute little blue dog that when you pull his tail plays music.  We played it right away for Seth and he now doesn't take his eyes off of that toy.  He just loves to listen to it.  When he is crying we will play it for him and almost all of the time he will stop so he can hear it.

Now I'm sure your wondering why we named the dog Presto.  Well if you look at the photo closely you'll see that the dog is the exact same color as the blanket he is laying on so when Presto is on the blanket he sort of disappears, hence the name Presto!

Sunday Best

Seth finally has the doctors permission to leave the house which means we get to finally take him to church. YEAH!!!  But to be honest he has already been once.  We took him last Sunday because I couldn't stand being away any longer.  I also figured he would be fine cause I wasn't going to let anyone hold him or even touch him.  Now since it was his first time going we just had to take a picture.  This is his very first outfit to church.

What a handsome little guy he is and I just love the red tie (my cousin gave me that).  Actually I made Michael change the tie he was wearing to red so father and son would match.  They were so cute!  Oh, sorry, I mean handsome.  I should have gotten a picture of them together like that but it's okay.  Anyways, Seth did really good and hardly cried at all which makes me happy.  I was really nervous about taking him since I just didn't know how he would react to all of the different sounds but he is such a good baby I never should have worried.  Even other mothers and fathers commented on what a good baby he is and it just makes me a very proud momma.  Now hopefully he will stay that way as he gets older.