Happiness Is...

I can't believe I haven't posted about baby number 4's cross stitch.  I am terrible!  Anyways, for all of my children I make them each a birth announcement cross stitch.  Well like last time I just couldn't find what I was really after so I ended up creating my own.

 

Here is the design of the entire thing in pattern form.

 

I found different pieces of elements that I liked from snoopy cross stitching on the internet and put them all together.  I did have to make a few changes so they would fit properly.

 Thankfully my changes came out looking wonderful!  I love the hot air balloon.

 

This was a combination of three patterns and then two free hand items that I took the design off of from a fabric piece. 

 Since making this cross stitch for a little boy I thought it was okay to go with a baseball theme.

 

Even though this looks pretty simple it wasn't!  The house and snoopy had a much more rigged design so fixing it took awhile.

I have always loved snoopy on top of his dog house.

 

The finished design!  I think for creating this, again, it turned out great.  I love how the baby will also have a one of a kind cross stitch design and snoopy just plain rocks.  My husband was really sweet and kept telling me that I could sell this design to the makers or something.  I'd be fine with that but I think I would like a job creating cool things like this more.  It was fun to make the pattern up.

Old and New Stitch Work

I tried to make these photos larger so you could see the work that went into them better but it just wasn't working out so sorry about that.  I do have to say that I am more than pleased about these things getting done too.

 

This picture doesn't do this project any justice in any degree.  Seeing it in person is amazing!  This cross stitch is quite a special one to me.  I bought it with my own money from my very first pay check job.  I got it because I thought it looked really neat and I enjoyed doing animal type cross stitches at the time.  I had no idea how it would challenge me with learning a new style at such a beginner level.  Several times it would intimidate me and I would put it to the side or I would have to put it to the side to work on other things.  Honestly at moments I would just get plain tired of working on it and again set it aside.  Well after several years of doing that I have finally finished the thing.

As you can see a little closer up all of the color that goes into it.  There was a ton of thread blending that had to be done and so much of the space is filled with a color.  The only part that wasn't too difficult was the outlining, which I normally hate to do but this time I was okay.  This project took me a little over 15 years to finish!  I am happy that I listened to my husband and never tossed the project out of frustration or despair of feeling like I never was going to finish it.

My goal this year was to get projects that are already started finished before I start a new one.  Well I have already broken that rule.  This little deer was a cross stitch that I saw online and thought it would be a nice and small enough pattern to make a cute little ornament out of.  Yeah, I had no idea how big it was going to be until after I was half way done with the deer.  It only took me a few hours to do the entire thing which was a very nice change for a project of mine.

I thought the deer looked kind of empty so I found three snowflakes that were the right size and style and added them in.  I wanted more so I just came up with pattern ideas for the rest and put them in following the same rule/style that the original three had.  It was fun and nice to do as a simple and relaxing project.  However now I have no idea what to turn this into.  I don't want it to be another holiday wall hanging but something fun for my children.  I'd love to hear any ideas you might have.

My last, and probably my most skill testing cross stitch ever, is this special birth announcement hanging.  I think it has turned out really well for it NOT coming from a kit.  This entire cross stitch is made from other left over materials that I had from past projects.  The pattern is also an amazing feat in and of itself. 

The pattern I pieced together.  I had gotten for free, from the Precious Moments website, the little boy praying with the bear and the angle.  The angel was facing the other way but I used my computer to flip the pattern to have him face the way that I wanted.  The balloon is from a Precious Moments cross stitch booklet that my mother-in-law had.  She sent the pattern to me so I could use it in this project.  The toys are probably the most amazing part of this project.  I found a few coloring pages online and took those pages and combined the toys together in a way that I liked and formatted that into something that would work to cross stitch.  It was a little hard at first to get the pattern just right but I did and I love how it turned out.  Finally the boarder I found again online but tweaked it just a bit to fit the style of my project.

I have, since taking this picture, created a little saying and filled that part in too.  Now I made this special "new" project for my son that will be joining our family.  His older brother and sister have a special cross stitch from me and I wanted him to have the same thing but this one is more special because it matches the Precious Moments theme of his baby blanket from his great grandmother L.  I know as a boy it won't be a big deal to him for while but one day I hope he is happy with how much I thought of him and wanted him to know that his mommy loves him very much.

Seth's One Picture Moments Part 3

Okay, now I am starting to be impressed with myself for actually catching up when it comes to the things that Seth has been doing this year.  Not too much more to go.

 

 For Father's Day I had this cute idea (or at least I thought it was cute) to dress Seth up in daddy's cloths and take a picture of him to put with a poem about how he wants to be just like his daddy and give that to him for Father's Day.  It was a lot harder to dress Seth up in the cloths then what I thought it was going to be but so well worth it to see this adorable photo.

 Even though Seth eats at the table and can climb into his own chair too he likes to try and take over the high chair still.  I didn't know he knew how to climb up into it but now I do.  Thankfully this phase didn't last to long.

 One day for fun daddy let Seth play with his harmonica and he loved it and was actually quite good at getting it to play too.  It has now become one of Seth's new toys to enjoy.  He is such a talented boy when it comes to music which I know he gets from his daddy's side of the family.

 Seth really enjoys saying good morning to our pet bird Violet.  One this day we thought it would be a good idea for him to meet the bird a little closer.  As you can see he wasn't so sure what to think about the entire thing but he was very soft with him.

 I like to work on all sorts of projects and most of the time Seth is just happy to watch me but lately he wants to be more and more involved and learn how to do it too.  Sometimes it makes the project last longer but that is fine since this particular one I have been working on for years and years.

 Honestly this like almost NEVER happens so it is a big deal in our house to see Seth fall asleep right after a meal or even during a meal.  He had a great time playing at the neighbors while we went to a friends funeral.

 There are times when Hope and Seth don't always get along because Seth has so much energy and Hope is getting older but it is so nice to see these sweet moments when they are the best of friends.  He had to hand feed her this day and I'm pretty sure she loved the extra attention.

 Enjoying time in the garden pulling weeds without being asked to do so.  I told him he could play but he wanted to do this more.

 One day I was planning on doing something really fun later in the evening and wanted Seth to stay awake all day so he would go to sleep really easy that night.  Well I left the room to go and get him a drink of water and when I came back he was so totally and completely out.  This kid isn't quite ready to give up his naps and I am fine with that.

 This was the fun thing that I had planned.  I knew that the father and son's campout was coming up and I wanted to camp with the kids in the back yard to be apart of their first camping experience.  Sadly, Seth ended up getting sick that night so we couldn't do it at all.  I was totally devastated since I worked really hard on getting everything ready before daddy got home to surprise him too.  Thankfully daddy was nice and sweet and let us keep the tent up for a few days so that we could at least play in it.

 Seth loves to cook and especially with his dad.  One of their favorite things to make together is smoothies.  Seth really enjoys putting things into the blender and it is fun to watch his excitement with doing so too.

 This was the very first year that we got to take the kids to a apple orchard because our homemade canned applesauce supply was low enough that it was time to make more.  Seth had a hard time at first figuring out what we were doing but eventually he got the hang of it and wanted to pick the entire orchard before we left.

 Father like Son moment.  Daddy got a new hard hat for work so he let Seth have his old one.  Seth was pretty please that he looked just like daddy.

 Seth is going to be such a talented little man with all that he does.  He had fun working on his new hat to adjust it to his right size.

 Again Seth is a big help in the kitchen and we think it is important that he learns how to cook and work with the family to get a big job done.  Here we are starting to make our homemade applesauce.  Seth's job was to put the apples in the sink and wash them by splashing around in the water.  Then after we cut the apples his job was to put them into the pot.  At one point it was time for him to go to bed and we weren't finished so he wanted to stay up but sleep won out.

 Seth's first camping experience at the Father and Son's campout.  I was super sad to miss it but I did enjoy some fun girl one on one time with my daughter.

 The next morning.  It was so cold that Seth had to sleep in his cloths and with his coat on.  I'm just impressed the boys stuck it out and stayed through the night with how cold it was.

 I love how this kid can fall asleep anywhere but it is much more fun to see what he picks to go to sleep with.  Today it was a alligator that he keeps all of his hot wheels cars in that is empty and my set of scriptures.

I can't believe that I almost missed our last chance to play in the kiddy pool this summer.  Seth loves to play in the water and enjoys it when Faith joins in too.

 

 Seth finally had his very first sucker and as you can see he loved it.  Hopefully this little man will understand that isn't something we do very often in our house.

 Well with Seth going to be a big brother again he has been trying to find ways to be even more helpful.  At the moment he likes to use his favorite stuff animal Pete as a test subject.  He has tried to put diapers on pet and feed him bottles and he is actually getting really good at bundling him up to put Pete to sleep too.

 Of course when we visit grandma S, I like to try and take the kids to the zoo.  Daddy was on a business trip and I decided to be brave and go no matter how I was feeling that day.  We had to take Pete along and let him visit his family of Penguins too.

 I also took the kids to see the temple.  Seth had just woken up from a nap so he was pretty happy to be out and about and look at all of the pretty newly planted flowers too.

 His very first time to feed the ducks.  I will confess that there was a sign that said don't feed the wild life but can you really consider them wild when every one of them come up to you asking for food like a pet would?

 We also went to the beach.  It was sort of cold that day but I just had to go back to the ocean with how close we were to it.  I love the sound of the waves and the calming effect it has on me and my children.  Now you see that rock in the back ground?  Well I know that it has tide pools and I wanted Seth to see the critters that live there so we walked that entire way.  Yes, probably stupid but I'm one determined lady at times.

 I am so glad that we made the walk because the water was so far out that you could really see some amazing things even with it getting dark.  Seth enjoyed the starfish that I found.  He wanted them to come off of the rock but eventually he was okay with just touching the outside of them.

 One family tradition that I love is taking my kids to a pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins to carve.  We had to pick some small ones because they were going to be traveling back home with us.  Seth did a great job at finding some really good ones for us to carve.

 It took me awhile to figure out what Seth should be for Halloween but then it hit both Michael and I that he would be more then perfect for a train engineer.  He has really started to love trains and it was great to do because we had pretty much the entire costume except the hat.  So we got that and he was ready to go.

 I really try to let my kids have fun with some messy things in life because it is good to have different experiences to learn and grow.  I'm happy to say that Seth did a lot better this year for playing in the pumpkin gunk and finding all the seeds too.

 With a bigger family comes the need for a bigger car.  It also means that as the biggest and oldest kid you now get the very cool privilege of sitting in the back and ruling that area too.  Seth just loves our new car and is quite pleased with himself for being able to get in and out of his own seat too. 

 Our little family Thanksgiving turkey.  Seth actually helped prepare the bird for cooking and as you can see is a little surprised with how it has changed.  I must say he is a really good cook like his daddy.

Seth and daddy working on a special wood Christmas project together.  Seth did great in helping to sand some of the pieces down too.

 



 This boy is getting to be too big! Most of the time he tries to climb into his crib when he is tired but the last few times he has wanted to sleep on the big boy bed in his room.  Well I put him in his crib one day and he threw everything out and then actually got out himself.  Put all of the things on the big boy bed and climbed up to sleep in it.  I decided that must be his way of telling me he was ready to sleep their so I let him for nap time.  Get this, He actually STAYED and SLEPT in the bed his very first time.  I was so proud.

 One of our Christmas traditions is to see Santa's reindeer and of course our little animal lover enjoys every moment of it too.  This time he wanted and actually tried to feed the deer the straw that had fallen on the outside of the pin.  It didn't work but he had fun all the same.

 I tried to do a new Christmas tradition with the kids this year which was to watch one Christmas movie a day and each day it had to be a different Christmas video.  It isn't that hard to find so many different Christmas movies either so we saw a lot and listened to a lot of music too.  I'm pretty sure I'm not going to do this next year though cause it takes a lot of time from other fun things we could have done.

 I'll be honest, this year has been tight and hard on our family for several reasons so we couldn't get a normal size tree.  We found this one and was thrilled that when we bought it that it was actually half off.  YEAH!!!  The kids and I decorated it as cute as we could and put it up on our table to enjoy until Christmas Eve when we moved it to the living room.  I'm just glad that even in this spot it was out of reach for both of the kids so I didn't have to worry about them messing with ornaments.

 I am so thankful for family and how they give so much.  Seth was able to have a wonderful Christmas and got to enjoy lots of new things to play with and cloths to grow into.  Here he is with everything he got this year.

Okay this picture is just too funny not to include.  Since Seth has been sleeping in his bed he has been doing great staying there but for some reason one night his bed wasn't good enough and he had to move the laundry basket by the door.  He put his blanket in the bottom got Pete and fell asleep inside.  I figured that he was fine and just let him stay there for the night.  Kids are so cute and funny.