Valentine's Day

To celebrate this year:

1) We had a "heart-attack" FHE last week and made a valentine for each member of our family to hang around the kitchen.

my hubby likes to make the kids and me laugh with his valentines...works every year!

2) Joseph (with some help from Beans) created Bentley's valentine box which, you'll never guess, ended up as a shark! It was a true labor of love...meaning Joseph loves that kind of thing and gets totally absorbed by it. Artist that he is...



3) Cares and I made sugar cookies today which we delivered to primary teachers, visiting teaching sisters and babysitters tonight (you can see them in the top pic cooling before we frosted them.)

4) We gave the kids a little valentine's prize once Joseph was home from work.


5) Joseph brought home beautiful red and white flowers for me and we ate a Papa Murphy's heart-shaped pizza for dinner. Pretty good day around here!

Livs Reading

*We've been playing around with Joseph's new iPhone app, 8MM.
It gives videos an old school feel and has various tints and settings. Fun.

*And yes, my voice is still trying to find its way back (after 3 weeks!)
Can I ever just get better?

*We basically had to ban the big kids from Livs room to film a mere 45 seconds without them in the shot somehow. They love the spotlight and were very upset they couldn't touch or snuggle or help Livs in any way while we filmed. Our sweet little 3rd child needs her own moments to shine (her daddy and I are very particular about it since we are both 3rd in our families...)

Kid Quotes

Bentley:

--My mom found Bentley's new Oceans book we accidentally left in St George back in November. I told him that Grandma Bobbi had found his book and would bring it back to us. He was thrilled and in his glee declared "Mom, I bet Grandma has been reading some of the pages since she found it huh?"

Caroline:

--Playing brides with Livs in the upstairs toy room: "Livs, you need to marry a boy that tickles kids and has a soft beard. And you need to marry a boy that is kind, ok?"

--To Ashley, our babysitter on Friday night when she asked Cares if she needed a back tickle to fall asleep: "That's not really my privilege Ashley. I have the privilege of songs and laying by and my door open just a little."

Olivia:

--I asked her if she wanted to come run an errand with me the other day and she ran over to me and said "be so fun!"

We need to post some videos of her reading her picture books and telling us what each thing is. I love how most farm animals are "cows" except horses which are "neigh." Any and all princesses are also known as "White." Can you guess which one is her favorite?

January 2011

Felt Quiet Book

A few months ago my LeBaron sisters-in-law and I decided to make some felt quiet books together. It's taken me a while to actually get to work but I finally got things rolling this weekend. With 6 of us working on the book together we will all make 6 copies of our pages and then trade them around. Mary, Jess and I had a work day together for just a few hours on Friday and seeing their cute ideas has made me so excited for the finished product.

We used this blog and this one (among others) for tutorials and ideas--so helpful to have the internet for these kind of projects!

I am making "ark" pages and "mom's purse" pages. Want to see how they are coming along?

all the pieces for the ark page

had to document my very first sewn in zipper!
(even though you can't see it that well in the pic)

Finished page.
The finger puppets are from IKEA
and I ended up hot gluing the windows to the ark
because I am not great at sewing a small circle.

Some of the purses (above and below)

Finished page (except the felt wasn't sewn to the muslin yet :)
Cares was kind enough to "help" with the pink coin purse on Friday and decorate it just so with yellow accents.

I hope to post final pics when I have everyone's pages collected together (such as Mary's cute Potato Head page, Jess's vegetable garden and Maggie's mailbox and letters). I am such a nice mom to make this! (I do enjoy it though--never knew I would but I do.)

Date Night

The hubby and I just got home from a lovely night out. We went to Fashion Place mall to make some exchanges and ended up with a cute new tie for Bentley and a dozen chocolate covered strawberries from V Chocolates. Then we met up with my parents at Flemings for a delicious birthday dinner celebrating my Dad's 63 years. Seriously, my parents don't seem that old to me. I mean my dad spent the day skiing with my nephew and after dinner he and my mom were headed to the temple to fulfill a cleaning assignment--they're active and involved and do so much for us. They are such good people. And fun company on date night (they think all the silly stories about our kids are just as entertaining and endearing as we do!)

Happy Birthday Dad!

Fresh Flop

Love this baby's hair fresh from the bath (and her fascination with reading).
She's just days away from turning 2...how did she grow so fast?

60 years

Today my amazing mother-in-law turns 60. To celebrate all that is wonderful about her we've started a blog in her honor ("we" meaning all her children and their spouses.) Each day for exactly the next 60 days she'll find a new post all about her.

And then it will be my father-in-law's turn as he turns 60 a few months after his lovely wife. It's a brilliant plan (good work thinking it up Johnny) and should be a lot of fun. If you'd care to join us over there for the next 120 days, check it out at lebaron60.blogspot.com.

Happy 60th Ruth Ann!