Then, onto Vegas!! And Sydney's Room REVEAL!

I haven't even gotten to the Easter post yet. Yeah, I'm that behind...

Anyway, since we were already most of the way to Vegas, we figured we'd head over there after St. George to visit my sister, Michelle's family.


We just love driving, what can I say??




Especially with these crazies. Let's just say, on the way home, we drove in the middle of the night...

Anyway...

It was the ideal vacation for me, because we totally got our "craft" on! So, a while back (OK, last summer), my Mom and I helped Michelle make this cute queen-sized strip quilt for her daughter, Sydney's room. We had lots of visions of what the room would look like to match the quilt, but hadn't done anything yet...until NOW!

So, we planned on painting the room and then putting some flourishes around Sydney's name in block letters (that was already above her bed on the wall...) So we just had to paint over the pink and brown stripes and go from there! Michelle wanted me to paint the flourishes I painted in Claire's room, so that's where we got the idea. And in keeping it simple, we left the wall behind the bed pink, and did the flourishes in white, modpodged her letters with some turquoise paper, and painted the rest of the room a buttercream color. The end!


Workin'! Michelle looks hot even at work! (which is why there is no picture of me here...)

Gavin, hard at work! (He was actually really happy to be sanding-- but Jordan had him make that face :)

Sydney in her "paint clothes..." an old bathing suit, haha!

Here's the wall once the flourishes were done...just a few touch ups more and need to take some screws out...

And here it is completed!! We couldn't be more proud!

SO ADORABLE, right???

So, we also did a couple of other things:

For example, Claire learned out to make the plastic tiger bite her face..."look, no hands!"

And she also enhanced photos with her signature Chucky!

The kids also got their craft on!!

Um, the birdhouse, not the chair, Monkey.

A little better, but a brush would be nice...

(Ps. So you notice how the birdhouse is this weird blue color? Well, apparently that color is the mixed result of every paint available at the table)

They also got their "cry" on:



But not all at once, fortunately :)

I got my "nose gazing," or should I say, "nose coveting" on...

What a lovely new nose you have, Michellie :)

And then we got out Red Rock on!!

Notice how I wore the most idiotic outfit for hiking? What can I say...I was running out of clothes...






















We will be coming back. I mean, look at these cuties:

San Jorge

I've always wanted to exclusively call it that. I don't know why.

Anyway, my sister-in-law, Jessica (Jordan's younger sister) and her husband, Joe, eloped in Vegas last year. Well, time flies, and they were ready to be sealed in the St. George temple. So, we all went down to witness the big day!

The sealing was so beautiful. Performed by a gentleman from South Africa--could've listened to his accent all day :) It was great.

Here are some pictures of the day, taken by my father-in-law's long-time friend who lives in St. George:


















LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture of Claire. OF COURSE she has my lip gloss. Of course.

And here are some shots from the casual BBQ we had after the sealing:


Jess and her friends, Nikki and Katelyn

Lenore, Anya, and Jordan

Me and the Groom :)

Claire and Ava: Partners in Crime. They got SO DIRTY at the playground!


Daddy-daughter bonding time

Jen encourages her boy, Solomon, to bring out his feminine side and never shy away from that...


On the left, had to document the fact that Camille ate her ENTIRE raspberry cream jello salad thing (anyway, it's goooood) even though she had a huge heapful on her plate and I told her she'd never finish it. She proved me wrong. All 100 pounds of her little frame :) On the right, there she is with her brother, Ben... he just had shoulder surgery and had "lots of fun" being hauled around everywhere--not to mention driving to St. George in the first place!


Jess and Joe's niece, Marley, and our nephew Sam...or as Claire likes to call him, "Sam-o." He calls her "Claire Bear" all the time. It's really cute :)


Jess wanted cupcakes at the BBQ, so OF COURSE I volunteered! (leading to a cupcake hiatus I am currently on for the next little while...ok til May 21st when I make some for my sister's bake sale). I made chocolate peanut butter (the ones on the right), the vanilla dulce de leche ones, and a coconut cream (not pictured). They turned out yummy, if I do say so myself :)

Anyway, the day was so nice...so nice to be in San Jorge too...it was so cold in Utah still and it was great to be in the nice warm weather. Notice I didn't say "blistering hot?" Yeah, that would have NOT been nice...so I'm not moving there any time soon Honey, sorry...I know you are cold ;)

Anya: The 6-Monther & Photo Shoot :)

OK, I know all of you have been eagerly awaiting Anya's new stats...right? :) JK. But I like to have them recorded because it's fun to actually look back and compare her stats to Claire's at This age!

Weight: 15.9 lbs, 50th percentile
Height: 26 inches, 61st percentile
Head circumference: 16.9 inches, 67th percentile

So, weight is the same percentile-wise, but then she's leveling out in the height department and her head is getting too big for her body. Interesting!

So, photos for this post (except for two totally lame ones from my not fancy camera) are courtesy of Jordan, who took pictures of Anya impromptu actually, when we were in Vegas a couple weeks ago. This is in my niece, Sydney's room, and she has the cute stripes on the wall--actually HAD cute stripes...more on that to come!



All is well with her. She is developing well, aside from all of her ailments lately. She has now had RSV, a variety of less serious colds off and on, and an ear infection.

Anya really likes practicing walking. It is so cute :)

She really likes sleeping...but still not enough. Mommy could use more breaks. She is a CAT NAPPER unless you're holding her. It is so freaking annoying and tiring :( But this too shall pass!

She is incredibly happy :)

Some more Anya-isms:

-She is OBSESSED with soda cans. It all started with Mommy's Fresca one day. Now, any time she sees a can, if she could sprout wings, she WOULD.

- She's a total mama's girl--this too shall pass :) Just like Claire probably, at this age. She will soon be a Daddy's girl, if she is anything like her sister.

-At first, when you fed her anything, she acted like she was going to throw up her whole body. It was hilarious/sad. So, I started feeding her off my finger...then started with spoons, and then realized that I really needed to stop mixing formula in with the cereal, and then she was golden!! "Formula is NASTY, Mommy."

-So I admit she's now 7 months old, since I've been so slow at blogging it (I'm so behind!! I still have to do our St. George trip, Vegas trip, and Easter!! AH!)...anyway...this was a few weeks ago, trying to get her to figure out the eating thing:



-She still doesn't roll over, or even think about crawling. We joke that she'll probably walk before she even crawls. She loves walking with Daddy.









She's just the cutest. What can I say?

Easter Dress

SO, now that I have my new sewing machine, I've been going crazy with sewing projects! I love it!! And I'm getting way better at sewing...to the point that I've finally made some apparel-items I wouldn't mind anyone wearing in public.

Drumroll:

Ta da!!!!!!!!


And there she is showing it off with her signature Chuckie smile!

Now, I have to say that I TOOK these pictures with Jordan's fancy camera. So, basically there were a LOT of out focus pictures. Mainly because I have no idea how to use his camera, and then I had issues taking pictures of a squirmy 2-yr old (go figure, right?)









So I actually made TWO super cute coordinating Easter dresses. But Anya's was off the second church got out, so I only got pictures of Claire. But I'm obsessed with how adorable they turned out, actually. To the point that I even forced...ok...helped...some of my friends make them for their girls for Easter too :) I want to show off and say they were soooo hard, but they're not, let's be honest here :)This is me we're talking about!







Oh, funny about when I was pinning the pattern pieces to the fabric... Claire comes up and says "I do ouchies" and she started jabbing pins into the pattern pieces haha. She was calling the pins "ouchies" because we always say "oh, don't touch those, they're ouchie!" LOL.