Project Baby Quilt

I'd seen on Pinterest a few months ago a cute tutorial on a Stripes Baby Quilt, having never done a quilt before it looked easy enough and something that would be fun. So I asked Nikki to partner with me on this project while she was in town during her Christmas vacation. She quickly replied that she was interested and after all the instructions looked like something the two of us could figure out. So yesterday I head over to the fabric store to get the fabric and I'm sitting in the parking lot trying to figure out the instructions on how much fabric to get. I quickly call my mom who immediately helped me figure it out. That should have been my clue #1 that having mom's help might be helpful!
I snagged up this adorable combo and headed home to get things ready for our little project.

So Nikki comes over and we both kind of stare at each other trying to take the instructions and do something with them. While it did take a while to get a plan in place we soon were on our way to kick starting our little project. By the time mom arrived we actually looked like we knew what we were doing!

We cut our pieces and arranged them in the right order.

Next we pinned the pieces together

And then sewed the pieces to each other

Ironed out the seams

And trimmed the edges

Sprayed adhesive to attach all of the pieces together

Quilted the pieces with the sewing machine and sewed on the binding

And finally...stand back and admire your beautiful end result!



This project was not a little one....it took several brains to pull it off! I sure am thankful that Nikki didn't give up on me and thankful that my mom was so willing to answer our questions and give good advice. While I love the end result and am so thrilled at how it turned out....I don't think I'll be taking up quilting any time soon.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day was with the Powers family this year, we had a great time and it was so nice to have Aunt Nikki in town from Colorado.









Jaxson got to try out his new slide which will be added to his playscape. He wanted to do this over and over and over again. Soon we'll have to add a kids table to the meal time, Jaxson sure loves his cousin Ian!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning was quite humorous to me this year. Scott woke up at 5am and couldn't go back to sleep, he was so excited to see Jaxson's reaction when he woke up that morning. At around 6:45 he decides to set up our video camera to catch it on tape, so he spends some time getting that set up. There were only 13 minutes of tape left, so every 13 minutes he'd reset the tape. Over the next hour he flew paper airplanes into Jaxson's room, threw Angry Bird type toys down the hall...all in an attempt to get him to wake up. But no luck...Jaxson woke up close to 8:30. So think of that time Scott spent over the previous hours pacing the house, preparing the camera and just bursting in excitement for that moment that Jaxson would wake up. Seriously the funniest thing to me...I slept through almost all of this!

Santa was very good to Jaxson and he really enjoyed his new toys. The one specific request to Santa was a guitar...boy am I glad that thing is more in tune now. Ear piercing, cringing sounds that would make your eyes water! He sure looks cute focusing on "playing" and showing off his "skills".

We had a great time watching him open his gifts from us and see the excitement on his face with each gift.



He made this cute little keepsake at school for us!

Christmas with kids is so much fun, they really bring that spirit back into the day that is so easily lost the older you get. I'm sure we'll have many more Christmas mornings where Scott is up before the kids, and I'm sure the stories will be just as great. I sure do love that we never have a dull moment in this house!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was with the Richter's this year. Jaxson was so excited for Christmas to start, he asked about it all day long! We got ready for church and headed to a excellent Christmas Eve service at our church. Jaxson sure looked handsome!


After a great dinner Jaxson quickly tore into the gifts, only stopping for a short bit to test out one of the cute gifts for Bailey.






Christmas Eve was great this year and we were all blessed with amazing gifts. After that we made sure to get everything ready for Santa and his Reindeer.

The big man in red is going to love these cookies made especially for him by Jaxson!

O Christmas Tree

32 Weeks

Well here we are another 4 weeks have gone by...32 weeks it is. How the days go by so fast is beyond me, but I can say one thing...I FEEL 32 weeks pregnant! Holy cow is all I can say!

According to my weekly email update from Baby Center she's sleeping 90-95% of the time...guess what...they lie! There is no way that is possible, she is sooo active! The hiccups have started and the alien like belly movements happen daily. I remember that I used to sit and watch Jaxson slowly moving beneath my skin. Yeah there's not much slow movement going on these days with this little girl. A sign of things to come....possibly!
We've got more of her room finished up, and are just putting up the finishing touches. I'll post pictures when it's all done. Almost all of her clothes have been washed, hung and folded away. I sure did love looking at all of that adorable cuteness again when I was washing everything.
I have finished working for the year and look forward to a week of relaxing. After that we have a few events over the weekend, which I plan on relaxing and laying low between those events. My sore back and sore feet will thank me if I could just park it on the couch for an extended period of time. We have another appointment at 34 weeks and then again at 36 weeks. Scott and I both predict a January arrival, so we shall see what she decides to do.
As we close out 2011 as a family of three we are so excited to see all of the excitement and memories that 2012 will bring to our family.

The Return of Toeti

You might remember our friendly elf Toeti from last year , he didn't waste any time to come back this year and check in on his friend Jaxson. Toeti has been a funny one this year and Jaxson has been full of laughs finding him each morning. Here's some of his latest adventures.

RELAXING IN A BUBBLE BATH

CELEBRATING WITH THE BIRTHDAY BOY

MAKING A LOCAL AGGIE FRIEND

CONQUERING THE TRANSFORMERS

GRABBING A QUICK SNACK FROM ALL THE HARD WORK


We sure think Jaxson has been a good boy and are excited to see if Toeti's reportings back to Santa show the same.

Wedding Day

Saturday we welcomed a new Mrs. Richter to the family. Steve married his long time girlfriend Kat and the wedding was just perfect. These Christmas weddings are so neat, I love Christmas decorations to start with so having a wedding with Christmas decorations is so beautiful! Scott was the best man and Jaxson was the ring bearer, they both did a excellent job! We are so happy for Steve and Kat, I'm pretty excited to have a sister-in-law now!













Don't worry neither one of us were the designated driver for the night :)