Birthday Quilt

Sunday was my Birthday. Strange that it was so late after Thanksgiving.

It was a pretty non-special day, but I had been celebrating all week.

I sent myself cookies on Monday.

I saw an ad for frosted cookies in the mail for $5. So, I sent one to my Brother on his mission. 

Then, they sent me another coupon. I had to try more.

They had this sampler pack for only shipping. So, about $7. Awesome. They were pretty tasty too.

 Nope, I didn't share.

I am lucky enough to also share my Birthday with my Best Friend. Hers is the next day.

Being the crazy person that I am, I made her a quilt. Yes, after just having a baby. I blame the lack of sleep for my super busy pattern choices. It was difficult to find the time, but I got it done.

I think it looks pretty darn good too.

I was going for vintage, modern, pink, Mickey and Minnie. I think I pulled it off.

 I especially like the Mickeys quilted in.

I hope she likes it too!

Pirate Parrrty

Rome turned 4 this year. He is getting so big! He has been very into pirates, so I thought it would be fun to have a Pirate Birthday Party. He changed his mind after the invites were out and wanted a Pirate-Lightening McQueen Party. Um, sorry Buddy. We are sticking to Pirates.

I made these cute invites in the shape of a pirate hat.

I even thought of adding a strip to the bottom so they could stand up. I felt so clever! He he!

I was all excited planning fun stuff for the party. I found these cool skull cupcake decorations and gift boxes to cut out on my Silhouette.

I even had extra time one day to make a Pirate Banner. I cut out the letters on my Silhouette too. Some days I Love that thing!

The cute gift boxes filled with Pirate Loot! (silver kisses, gold Reese's, Shark fruit snacks, a Ring Pop, a necklace and some Pirate tattoos.

I also cut out this super big Pirate Skull for the flag and used the negatives from the invites to make some Pirate Hats. I had eye patches and bandanas too in case anybody needed one.

I made chocolate cupcakes with blue frosting for waves and red and green apple Pirate ships on top. The cupcakes were a bit of a disaster. I first made egg-free ones the day before and they were tasty, but very fragile. They were falling out of the wrappers the next morning. No way I could frost those. So, the morning of I made another batch of just regular cupcakes. Lucky I bought two boxes of cake mix at the store.

I also had all this extra time to design and cut out skull food labels. They were so cute! It was really windy though, so they are all securely taped on. I thought of all this cute Pirate food to eat too. Breadstick "swords", Hot dot "squids", Beefy "cannonballs" (meatballs), Fruity Scrolls (fruit roll ups), Peg-leg Pretzels, Fruity Jewels (fruit- in scooped out watermelons. A first for me and my dad tried to throw them away!), and Skeleton Bones (pretzels with marshmallows covered in white chocolate- they were gone in two seconds!). Okay, to be fair, most of the ideas came from Pinterest. They are still cute.

I Love how the Pirate Flag turned out! The table doesn't look much like a ship, but oh well. You get the idea.

I even froze Cool-aid in skull shapes for the drinks. The kids thought they were so cool! Tasty too. I had a red skull frozen for the water, but somebody used warm tap water to fill the water so it melted very fast. grrr... This was the first time my cool ice cubes have actually been used though. Woohoo!

The kids table before the wind started. What cute pirates!

I had a Treasure Hunt planned for outside, but after we ate the wind came up like crazy! It was a mad dash to get everything the 10 feet back into the house. I said to put stuff on the table so people could keep eating, but nobody listened. So, we had food and decorations everywhere. I pretty much gave up at that point. Pregnancy will do that sometimes. Luckily we got this super awesome gave for the Kinect. It is called Super Fine Double Action Happy Theatre. Or something like that. It is the best 3 year old game ever. Well, I guess he is 4 now, but Capri loves it too. It shows your room filled with balloons to pop or fish or lava and you can interact with whatever is on the screen. It really is so cool. (and if nobody plays it just rotates to the next scene, no interaction needed) So, here is the kids playing. It was so fun to watch them and they loved it too!

Rome and his Pirate Ship Cupcakes. He looks so excited doesn't he.

Blowin' out the candles.

Capri with her Pirate Loot.

Grandma and Grandpa flew in that afternoon for the party and the weekend. As an extra surprise my Brother and his family (and Uncle Tyler) showed up too! Cousin Abi is always a big hit! Capri loved Baby 'Looklyn' too.

Trying to get a picture with my little pirates.

No smiles. What can you say, they were pirates...

The Thank You notes. I found these at a cool blog for free! (I will have to find the link sometime) Aren't they so cute?

Capri's First Party

Capri had a Ladybug Birthday Party. It was so cute and fun!

Yup, you have a bow up there. Leave it alone!

Awww, Mom!

There is my cutie!

I made her this little dress, but I altered the pattern and it was almost too small to wear. Oops! Later, I added red ties and uncrossed the back so she can wear it as a shirt. Much better! (because it took a long time and is too cute to wear once!)

Ladybug crackers, cute and tasty!

We also snacked on caterpillar grapes, peanut butter and apple butterflies and cream cheese and strawberry heart sandwiches.

We made bug antennae with headbands and pipe cleaners. Rome was "Hopper" from Bugs Life.

We played pin the dots on the ladybug. (yea, I made that too!)

Rome liked it. Look I did it!

Capri wasn't a fan of the antennae.

Capri's little cake. Really the only one we ate at the party because we only had one guest and they didn't eat cake. So, we just split this one. Capri couldn't have eaten it all anyway.

The balloons with Rome.

The balloons on the move, more often than not.

Decorations

The real cake. The lady said she could make cute ladybugs with chocolate frosting. Yea, this is what I got. Oh well, at least they are reusable. For future reference, I am never buying a whole sheet cake again. Cupcakes are just as tasty and easier to give away.

Thanksgiving and Birthday

We played in the snow.

We looked great.

We saw family.

We ate a good meal.

We had great attitudes.

We made turkey cookies.

We were entertained.

We had a Murder Mystery Gods and Goddesses Birthday Dinner. Corn Chowder, Yum!

I got presents! Chocolates

and fuzzy slippers! Good Job Honey!

Byu lost. Sorry Dan.

2 Years...Oh My!

Yup, that's right. Rome is Two! He is such a fun little kid. He is still such a Mommas boy. I like it, but it makes things difficult sometimes. He as quickly learning new words and even sentences. His first one was at bedtime one night and he said, "I go out dare say ni-night daddy." Pretty good! I started this list a couple months ago and he says waaaay more already. My favorite is "I trazy tid." Yea buddy, you are. He really keeps us busy and on our toes. Ahhh, I just love that boy!
Some of these are easy and some are funny, but really this list is just for me.
banana- nana
cookie-doot doo
cute- koot
play- play ah
its dark- its barn
piano- trano
pancake- cancake
pizza- pedis
this kind- skine
grapes- brates
strawberries- strawbees
blueberries- boo berries
raspberries- red boo berries
spongebob- spom bum
salt- sauce
stuck- skuck
slide- sah wide
tv- tee
computer- puter
helicopter- he cocker
frog- fawg
clap- crap (this one will get you if you are not listening!)
monkey- worky
off- ott
dinosaur- dars
shake- hake
cream/ clean up- creema
noodles- yooys
food- foo t
thank you- ke koo
josh- jaw sh
jocie- doe tee
capri- cappy
sister- sitter
later- yater (with so-so hand sign)
I like it- I yike it
flip flops- fah fops
I throw it- a foe t
train says "ah-choo!"
hide and seek, we don't hide, just run around saying "I hidin!"
please- pah-weeze! with cheesy smile (no more little kid 'pees' for me!)
Ah at the end of words- hiya, play ah, fun ah
He puts 'nin' at the end of words too- run nin, sleep nin, play nin nin nin
He will say he is doing something 'ah kay' and if you say OK, he will do it. You really have to listen to what he says he is doing. "I go outside wit Zeus, ah kay."
He likes the letter I and things are scared and in trouble a lot. (I promise he didn't get that from me! It was in a book!)
He says "ah-no" or "oh-yea" to answer questions and "oh" for I don't know
"you say dat" to copy him and say whatever he is talking about, makes for funny conversations

Happy Birthday Capri

So, here is my birth story for Capri.
I talked to my midwife on Tuesday and told her I was having problems with my back going out. There is not much to do about this except for have a baby. So, she said they have an opening to induce Thursday morning. I said Yes of course! I was so excited. I called my mom to come down and thought I had everything planned, except Rome. I decided I wanted my Mom at the hospital with me. Josh was there too, but he is more of a back seat helper. Which is fine, at least he was there. Well, all evening Wed. I was calling people to see if they could watch Rome. It was not working out very well. I couldn't get a hold of anyone and it was YM/YW/Boy Scout activity night. So, nobody was answering. Finally, after 10 pm, I got some friends to say they could watch him. Ahh, good! I kept getting things ready. You know, just being nervous. I tried to go to sleep, but it didn't work. My Mom showed up at midnight and told me I should be sleeping. Yea, I know, I tried. Finally I got to sleep and woke up a dozen times until 5 am. Then, I just laid in bed until 6 when I was supposed to get up. I got ready and got Rome ready and Josh dropped him off while my Mom and I went to the hospital. We checked in and got a room and waited. Josh showed up just in time for my midwife to check me and give me the Cytotec (??) insert at about 9 am. I got my IV and antibiotics. Then, Josh went to get an oil change on his truck while Mom and I walked around the hospital. I started having a few contractions, maybe 10 minutes apart. We went back to the room to have the nurse check me at 10:45 and then walked around some more. Josh came back and brought me a snack at 11:45. I was having contractions maybe 8 min. apart and my back was hurting really bad in between. So, no real break in between, but not too bad yet. My nurse checked me again and we walked down and got Mom some lunch. We went back up and my midwife checked on me and I was only at a 2 maybe 3. She broke my water and I expected to go out and walk around some more. It never happened. I leaked and leaked and my contractions just got faster and faster. I got some kind of medicine in my IV that helped me to relax and worked great. I moved around my room and had ice on my back and my face. I was still having back pain in between contractions off and on. I could really tell when baby girl changed position because it would my back would hurt again. Time kind of got lost after that. I know my midwife checked me and I was at a 6. I wasn't real happy to hear that. She was a very good back massager though. I had the relaxing medicine again and it didn't help much. It was getting painful and I thought about getting an epidural, but at the same time I felt okay. I could make it through the contractions and relax after. It helped that the contractions only hurt on my lower belly. Not all over like with Rome. I could tell they were working and doing something and I could kind of relax into them. I finally got one last dose of relaxer medicine and got on the ball. I think Josh held ice on my back and my Mom helped me breathe. I thought it was really weird that I could hear what everyone was saying, but kind of from a distance. And I kept thinking, "I am okay, I feel pretty good." Yea, even at the end. My midwife checked me and said I was at an 8 so it would be really fast after this. I didn't want to hear that I was only an 8 and I told them that I had heard that before with Rome and I was skeptical. I think that was at 3:00. The contractions were really painful and really fast (I think). I thought that I would get an epidural after 3 more contractions. They started asking if I felt pressure and I couldn't tell. They said I could push I felt like it. So, I tried. It didn't feel better, but it kind of helped. I got on the bed and my midwife came in. She said I didn't have to wait for a contraction, just go for it. I pushed twice and she was out! at 3:50 pm. Only about 5 hours of labor. Crazy! Then, I hurt. Josh and Mom were looking at the baby and Josh cut the cord. Good job honey! I was just on the bed crying. I thought it was supposed to feel better after they are born. No, it hurt a lot. I think that is the only time I cried. I didn't even open my eyes to see the baby. I think it was about 1/2 hour later that I could calm down and sit up. I finally saw baby Capri and got to hold her. I think she looks like a little an eskimo baby with that round face and chubby cheeks.
Afterwards, I stayed in my room for a while. I was super tired. With Rome, I remember being wide awake for hours. Not so with Capri. I was exhausted and couldn't sleep. They wanted to check me and nurse a baby and move me and check me and nurse a baby and check me again. Seriously, they were nice, but I was so tired! I think it has to do with whatever relaxer medicine they gave me because it lasted for days. I am so glad my Mom was here to play with Rome and that Josh just wanted to hold the baby. It left me with nothing to do but sleep. And I did. I could use more, but I am doing okay.
Capri is seriously such a good baby. I am sure she will find her voice,but for now she just squeaks when she is awake. She hangs out, eats and goes back to sleep. She even lets me sleep for 4 hour stretches at night. You really can't ask for more than that!
Such a huge change from Rome. And I am soo very glad for it. I needed a GOOD story to make up some for my traumatic first one. I don't think I ever really told people about it. It was bad. We'll leave it there.

Crazy Weekend

Thanksgiving Weekend was super crazy for us. Well, I planned most of it and filled it to the tipy-top with activities and parties. Here are the plethora of pictures of what we did.

My Birthday Dinner, too bad I didn't get a picture of the Manicotti, well it was stuffed shells, but it was delicious! I turned the brownie into a delicious sundae too, Yum!
First Thanksgiving

The tree for one of the many activities I had planned, Jen and her prize for winning a game
We made ornaments too, why didn't I take a pic of that?

The Cooks, Waiting to eat
Second Thanksgiving

I didn't get any pictures because it was so crazy (and I was a bit tired after all of those family activities). I did get Rome trying out the whip cream and then bedtime stories with Grandma.

Where Rome slept (top bunk) Poor Daddy! Turkey Day leftovers are funny!
Ladybug Shower

The super cute cake made by Clare; Me and Lace eating cake

Painting Bibs, My good friend Amber (who made the gorgeous green and cream crochet blanket)

The gifts, So many cute pink things!

The beautiful bibs, Seriously we had some artists!
The quilt from Great Grandma Thomas
Temple Time
I should have turned sideways or something, I look so big here!
I also went to the Twilight movie New Moon with my sister and best friend and her sister and friend. It was soo good! The first one was okay, but the second was way better. I am not normally a fan of Man-Candy, but I have to admit I was impressed and there was some girly giggling going on. Even from me. Whoo! Then we went out to lunch and it was so much fun! I love girl's night, or day!