Hope you have a great one...

happy christmas to you all! i hope you get to celebrate with family and friends, i hope it was and is all you wished for...i hope you feel loved. Merry Christmas people!

Bread Bowls..

or bread boules..

whatever:)

i want to buy some, anyone know a good place to get some in my AZ area?

family pictures!!!

our amazingly talented friend, alacey took our family pictures and i really couldn't be happier with them! she did such a great job, our kids...did a great job all things considered...i just love having these memories preserved so beautifully! thanks alacey!

stockings...

i made our stockings (originally) the year avery was born. i am just gonna say, that was a dark time for me. my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer mere weeks before avery was born, i had a newborn so i couldn't go be with my mom during her surgery or chemo or anything, the newborn in question was projectile vomiting the contents of her stomach on a regular basis because she had such bad reflux...she couldn't sleep well, was cranky etc....so i was tired and emotional and yadda yadda yadda....

so i think in my sleepless haze i dreamed up THE hardest way to make stockings and then tried to do that. they were okay, they were cute from a distance but up close, i didn't love them.

so i went to make Blake's stocking this week (yep, he didn't have one last year...something's gotta give people) and it didn't turn out well and i just thought, if i have to look at these stockings and use them, i better love them! so i made us all new ones! fortunately i had enough fabric for a whole other set of stockings and i really like how they turned out!

(click on pic to see details if you wanna...)
the boys have red stars and red jingle bells (i just bought joann's last little bag of red jingle bells for blake's they aren't sewn on yet) and the girls have white stars and white pom pom fringe! so much better, i have to tell you. i don't even think i have a picture of the old ones, but they had the green santa fabric on the toe and heel and it wasn't a good fit so it was bunchy and weird, and then the cuff wasn't a cuff, it was a flap and i hated that...the pom pom and the bells were the same, the wooden letters were the same...the stars i added this time because i love stars....anyway, i am much happier so that's what matters:)

we went to the Mesa Temple lights display tonight (for the second time) with kendall's family, because his dad is back in town from Iraq...and it was fun. blake loves to walk with anything that will move with him, hence, "helping" daddy move the stroller, the kids loved the lights and a good time was had by all:)



ethan and avery have been painting with watercolor a lot lately (mostly ethan...but avery some) and he's quite prolific so i decided we should make beautiful snowflakes out of his artwork...

table...

when i bought this table and i told my sister in law (elise) about it, i believe she said something like "how many tables do you need jen?" point well taken:)

i have a pedestal table in the kitchen area...i have the huge black dual pedestal table in the dining room...i have a table for my sewing machine and now i have a cutting table! yahoo!!!

i got this blessed table at DI for $8, it is a BEAST...very heavy. when i mentioned this to kendall he said something like, "everything you like is heavy!" (furniture speaking)

and he's right. the lockers, ridiculously heavy; the black table, very very heavy, even the pedestal table is heavy. The tables are heavy because they are all wood...but i digress!

so the base of this table is metal, the top is particle wood or something covered with...something that breaks off if you try:) so i started by gluing down the part that broke off with E6000 glue (amazing glue!)

and i broke away from tradition in favor of speed this time and i didn't prime and i didn't sand! (gasp!) i know, but it turned out fine.

i used Valspar Spray Paint, Pistachio color. it covered really well and went on very smoothly. i painted the top with chalkboard paint, my plan is to get some of those cool ChalkInk markers and doodle or make notes on it with that...
and this is what it looks like now. i have already used it as my cutting station and it is SO MUCH better than sitting on the floor trying to keep the baby from grabbing my rotary cutter! yay!

The Tree...

we decorated our tree on the 3rd...the kids had a great time and blake hasn't quite figured out how to pull it over yet, so we are doing well:)

Recently...

well, recently is a relative term but on November 1 we started potty training avery! whew...the first week was not so great and i had some reservations but we pushed through and i am glad to report that (for the most part) she is doing fantastically well. i was so dubious about starting this process because she is so opinionated and strong willed that i didn't think she would take well to me asking her to go potty a bunch of times etc. and while it wasn't her favorite thing, she did it:) fruit snacks help! she's had a few accidents but really she is doing well. and night training will take time i guess right? we take her to the bathroom in the middle of the night (when we remember) and that helps a lot. that's her recent news:)

blake has turned into a climber...he learned how to climb up on avery's toddler bed and was climbing (and falling) so much off the kid's little folding chairs that they are now in the closet! he is such a sweet kid...he really takes a lot of guff from the siblings because they over love him but he genuinely seems to enjoy their affections:)

ethan is doing well, enjoying preschool and being a might be bossy but he's a firstborn. we put up christmas decorations today! i love it!