Christmas Elves

Dave and I have been little Christmas elves over the past several days working on our Christmas gifts for Haylie. When I was a little girl my mom made my sister and I this dollhouse. She has kept it around and we brought it home from her house when we were there for Thanksgiving. I spent hours playing in front of it as a kid and now I will get to give it to Haylie for Christmas. Of course it needed some major work to bring it into this decade and that is what I have been working on every chance I get for the past 3 weeks. It has been really fun to redecorate, but I am glad that it is almost finished. I have a few curtains to make today, and finish up a few pieces of furniture but otherwise it is ready for Christmas Morning.

Here is what the house looked like when I got it. It brought back a lot of memories to see it. Thanks mom for making a great house, and for keeping it around for me.


And here is the newly remodeled house!

I got carpet samples from Nampa Floors and Interior, the wall paper I found at Lowes for super cheap. (I think they must be discontinuing wallpaper sales.) Dave helped by cutting the wood for the furniture. I will post some more pictures when I finish the curtains and the rest of the furniture.


While I have been out in the garage, Dave has been at the sewing machine creating his vision of a cape for our in-house superhero, Superfast! Haylie made up her own super hero name a few months back and now she will have a costume! She runs around saying, "I'm Superfast...I can do anything!!" She will love this. Now we have set the bar high with special homemade gifts. I don't know how long we can keep this up!
Merry Christmas!!!

8 months

Zander is 8 months old today. It doesn't seem possible! He should still be a newborn! I get sad sometimes thinking about how fast both him and Haylie are growing up. Dave always reminds me that our job is not to keep them little, but to teach them and and help them return to Heavenly Father. I will just have to try to enjoy this time to the fullest. Anyway, Zander is such a sweet little boy. He LOVES to jump in the jumparoo. We are a little worried that the springs will give out because he gets so crazy in that thing. He jumps clean out of the seat sometimes. He also loves Haylie and laughs at just about everything she does...including when she cries (she really loves that).
The silly boy still doesn't roll over and I think it is about to drive Dave crazy. It does make it easy to watch him because he doesn't go anywhere, but we are getting anxious for him to to something else. He is starting to get a little bored with his current tricks. He loves to eat baby food, and we are getting a little more adventurous with table food. The pictures here are just some random shots that were taken over Thanksgiving.

Haylie's 3rd Birthday

Haylie had her 3rd birthday on December 1st. She ended up having three different celebrations for it too. I guess one per year right? First she had a party with my family while we were at my parent's house for Thanksgiving. The thing about Haylie is that she LOVES the idea of a party. She loves invitations, balloons, party hats, and cake...although she usually doesn't eat the cake. We sent invitations to all her aunts, uncles and cousins, and of course to grandma and grandpa. We opened presents, then sang and ate cupcakes and ice cream. She definitely got spoiled with lots of nice gifts for her birthday.

Her next celebration was on her actual birthday when Dave and I took her and Zander for pizza at Primos and then she opened one more present from us...a doctor's kit which she promptly used to examine Zander and me.













Note the band aid...and ignore the disaster area that we call our family room!


Haylie wanted a princess party with her friends when she found out that they wouldn't be at the party with her relatives so we invited some friends over last Thursday for a little party complete with princess cake. This was much easier to make than I expected it to be. I took pictures during that process that I will have to post later.

Haylie and Daddy

Haylie and Dave have made up tons of different games that they play together. Usually they don't involve any toys, just our living room pillows and a Dad that can be a horse, a slide, a cave, or a wrestler. Here are some pictures I took after Dave started out being a slide and then Haylie decided to put him to bed. It is so fun to watch them play together!