Our last few weeks together

We have been busy little bees around here lately. Kevin has completely updated our yard and done all kinds of fixes and upgrades to it. It looks so much better than it used to. We even were able to clean out about half our stuff stored in the garage, attic, and storage shed and sell it in our garage sale this past weekend. We ended up making about $650! Go us! I'm not sure if I'm more excited about the money or the fact that we got rid of a bunch of stuff.

In addition to cleaning and yard work, we've just been enjoying our days together before Kevin leaves. It's been kind of like a stay-cation for us. We do productive stuff during the day, but sometimes we just stop what we're doing and go out to eat. Or go to a festival and get Eden's face painted.



Or get ice cream for dinner.



Or go on an impromptu picnic and climb a tree.



Or go for a ride in our new wagon.



It's been great.

Kevin officially leaves from the Montgomery airport on Tuesday, May 7 at 3:30pm. I know this week will fly by.

I'm hoping the next year does the same thing.

Who needs paper...

...when you have a perfectly good dog on which to stick stickers?



Courtesy of Eden the Artiste.

P.S. Yes, those are pipe cleaners wrapped around his legs. Courtesy of Cameron. Hey, his ensemble wasn't complete with just stickers.

Yogurt

Don't you hate it when you get yogurt in your ear?

And your hair?

And down your shirt?

To be joined by noodles?


And another thing: why is it that no matter how much I wipe or what I choose to wipe first, Winnie grabs her feet after eating and gets food all over them and in between her toes?

Winnie's First(ish) Birthday

So Kevin and I decided to take a quick vacation together in Myrtle Beach together - just us - before he leaves in May, so we went to SC for a short jaunt and had my mom watch our girls. Unfortunately, we were not in town for Winnie's first birthday (I was kind of sad about this) so we've been dragging out the celebration for several days.

Her first experience with cake was a store bought one from Publix, which also makes me sad, but I made her her own chocolate homemade cupcakes once we got back home, so that's a little better. She did not have a discriminating palate, though, and wolfed down the Publix cake.







She especially liked the plate.



After we got home, we've been doing a bunch of house projects (like installing a storm door) and yard work (re-mulching all the beds and planting flowers), again to try to get a bunch done before Kevin leaves, so I finally got around to Winnie's 1-year-old photo today. Only 5 days late. Not too bad.





The weather has been nice, so the girls have really enjoyed playing outside. Eden and Winnie like to ride around in the pink Jeep and today they got stuck so Eden fixed their situation. They didn't know I was watching them and it was so cute to watch.

This is what I imagined Eden was thinking:

"Huh, we're stuck."


"I can fix this. I'll pull it backwards."


"Okay, I fixed the car. Now I must give Winnie some drink."


"Now some for me."


In between these shots, Winnie tried to get out of the car. Eden shoved her back in.


I loved seeing them play together. I could watch them forever. :)

P.S. Don't you love that Eden is wearing an apron? Lately, she's been mispronouncing it as "rape-on." Toddler-ease strikes again.

General Conference and Sewing Adventures

Our church has a general conference that's aired world-wide for all its members twice a year and this spring we spent Sunday watching part of it on TV with our friends, the McCombs family. Kevin met the dad, Dan, at work and came home one day and told me, "Today, I met a dude with 10 kids." I was like, "Whaaaa...?" The great thing is, these are the nicest, most well-behaved, most polite, most helpful kids ever. I told Dan and his wife Kim that I'm going to take parenting lessons from them because they don't yell. Ever. It's amazing. And they have an 11th kid on the way.

So anyway, the McCombs are moving to Colorado this summer (and taking their four awesome babysitting daughters with them...and their other kids too) and Kevin is going to Saudi (obviously) so we decided to have one last huge shindig together before parting ways.



Kim and Dan


Eden finding something to keep herself busy


Entertaining the littlest ones


Piles of McCombs


Ring around the rose on the trampoline!


First trike ride


Hurdle jumping practice


Dinner time!


Quiet observation


And finally, you can't have a group photo without one full of silly faces!


And after conference was over, I worked on sewing a tunic pattern that I was testing for a sewing bloggy that I follow. Here's the finished result:




Tomorrow we are going to SC until Saturday so no posts until after we get back. Toodles!

Redneck Sledding and more

Hello, everyone.

I have nothing specific to write about in this post. Just thought I'd show you some more photos.

And whoever asked if I made the Easter dresses, no, I did not. Winnie's is a gift from someone at church, and I found Eden's at a consignment sale. I haven't been in my sewing room in more than I month. I'm having sewing withdrawals.

So anyway, here are some more photos from our life lately.

Right before Easter, Kevin went to the clearance plant section at Lowe's (his favorite shopping area) and got a bunch of spring flowers to plant in our yard. Winnie likes to pick the buds off the flowers.

Winnie alternates between sucking her thumb and forefinger. It's so funny to see her suck her pointer finger.

While Kevin was in Ohio, it snowed enough to go sledding so he bought a sled. He brought it home with him and it is Eden's new favorite toy. So I now present: Redneck Sledding!

Yep, that's how we do it down here in Alabammy.