Christmas Cards and Photo

I have been making my own Christmas cards for more than 10 years now, but as the girls get older I want to include them.  Inspired by these, this year we used up a bunch of watercolor paintings the girls had done over the year, cutting them up using our Christmas cookie cutters to get the shapes.  Most are already in the mail, but I did have a couple left to get pictures of.

We included a picture with the cards, I wasn't even going to try getting a picture of all of us together, but Dame came up with this after some brainstorming.

We had some challenges getting Miren to look to the right, but in some ways I like the effect better, her little personality shines through, as does Davin's, who couldn't resist sticking out her tongue!  The dogs don't look too impressed, you can tell they were not willing participants.  After we had the pictures I found some free scrapbook paper here and then put it all together using Picasa, which I have had a lot more luck with than Photoshop, which I didn't find very intuitive to use.

Merry Christmas!

3 Years Old!

Miren is 3!  It's amazing how much she has grown up in the last few months.  She went from our baby just a few short months ago to our little girl, which makes me both sad to see you grow up so quickly, but excited to see the little girl you are becoming.


Just born!



7 months



1 Year old



2 Years old

3 Years old

10 things I want to remember about Miren right now:

• You love doing puzzles, and will do the same ones over and over again every day.
• You're a great little helper in the kitchen, always up on a chair to help with cooking, baking, and washing dishes.
• You're developing quite the sense of humor and are a little ham, always joking and making us laugh.
• You love snuggles on the couch, saying "Can you snuggle me?" numerous times every day.
• You are quite the little night owl, but always stay in your room playing, reading to yourself, and changing jammies at least once or twice.
• You have 3 buddies, Elephant, Soft Bunny and Rough Bunny who you snuggle all day long and in bed every night.
• You love to suck your thumb (and we've caught you sticking it in William's mouth to let him"try" it).
• You always ask if you can "pet" William.
• You love your big sister, and play together all day, with you copying and trying to be just like Davin.
• Your favorite song is "Sugar" by the Archies ("Can you play Suga Suga mommy?")
• You have 3 imaginary friends - Daisy, Jaston, and Paulet that you talk about all the time.

Happy Birthday Mirie!!

She's 5!

I cannot believe 5 years have passed since Davin entered our lives.  She is the most enthusiastic, happy, full of life, ready for anything girl I know, always with a positive attitude and a smile, and we love her dearly.


1 Year old





2 Years old



3 Years old



4 Years old



4 1/2 Years old



5 Years old!

 10 things I want to remember about Davin right now:

• You wanted to learn to whistle (similar to when you wanted to learn to click your tongue), so you practiced, practiced every day until you figured it out.  Now you whistle all day long through whatever you are doing!
• You love cutting with scisssors, and we find bits of wool, paper, whatever all over the house.  You also tried cutting through a necklace to see what would happen, and were very sad with the results.
• You LOVE printing letters, and write us letters everyday either to tell us you love us, tell us you are sorry, etc. You prefer to write in capital letters only, except for the letter "i", because you like to put the dot over it (sometimes making it a heart).
• You love winter, snow especially, mostly because you love to eat it.
• You were a witch with Miren for Halloween this year, and had so much fun trick-or-treating.  You would say trick-or-treat very loud and excitedly at each house, a could commented that you won most enthusiatic trick-or-treater of the evening, and after you got your treat would yell "thanks for making this the best Halloween night!!".  You said you want to be a mermaid next year, we'll see...
• You love your little brother so much, and are so motherly with him.  You are the only one who can settle him to stop crying when he is in his crib.  You've even put him to sleep a few times in his vibrating chair.  You love to cuddle him, hold him, and kiss him, and it is so sweet to watch.
• You want to be an acrobat when you grow up, and have a little dog and a little cat.
• Although you're pretty rough and tumble and always jumping, running, skipping, climbing, you love wearing dresses wherever you go.
• Your best friend is Veronica, but you say she is your twin, and correct us if we call her a friend.  You 2 are kindred spirits, and play together for hours, with rarely a fight or disagreement.
• A few months ago your favorite songs were Captain Kid and Charlie Horse (both sung by Great Big Sea), but these days you love listeing to ABBA, especially Dancing Queen and Fernando.
• You requested eggs for breakfast, pancakes for lunch, and burgers for your birthday meals.

"Puppy" - who you sleep with every night.

Happy Birthday baby girl!

Birthdays & Loot Bags!

We celebrated Davin's birthday over 2 days - her party with her friends last Sunday, and then a family celebration on her actual birthday.  For Davin's birthday party we just invited 4 of her friends plus their younger siblings for a total of 7 children plus Davin & Miren and went to 4Cats Arts Studio for a Paint Splatter Party.  It was a lot of fun for all.

I wanted to keep the loot bags simple and include a few things they would actually use.  I decided to make some fabric bags, and used Betz White's great shoe bag tutorial, but then scaled it down, cutting the fabric to 9" X 10" and reducing the top hem to 1".  To reduce the fabric I put unbleached muslin on the reverse side, and some fabric I had on hand for the fronts.

I then filled them with these pinecone skiers which I made into tree ornaments, inspired by these.

I also included a pack of fruit chews, a couple of tattoos, and a glow stick bracelet.

The hit of the party was the rainbow cake Dame made, inspired by this one - admittedly we did use 2 boxes of Duncan Hines white cake, but we used the recipe on the back, substituting milk for the water and adding 3/4 cup of sour cream to make it lighter.

This was the table that greeted her on her birthday:

 

I kept the birthday shirts simple this year, appliquing a small "5" on the top right side of the shirt with some wool felt I had on hand. Other than that we just gave her a purple sleeper with feet which was a big hit - she LOVES sleepers with feet!  She got plenty of other gifts between family and friends, although I was happy that most were thoughtfully chosen puzzles, board games, and clothes which will all get a lot of use.

Davin ended the day by saying dramatically "thanks so much guys for the wonderful day!".