Recent happenings

Julianna lost her second tooth on Friday night. I finally pulled it by folding a paper towel and laying it over the tooth--as recommended by the dentist on the little field trip we took with our preschool. It worked well! Not too many tears, but I'm sure glad it's out. You'll also notice she has her hand over her ear--well she just learned how to make a funny noise with her hand over her ear. We got the best video of her doing it but it's too big to put on here. She thinks she's pretty funny that she can do it. I just hope she's not hurting her ear!

Thanks to some sewing expertise from Cindel, I made new curtains for our sliding glass door. I had saved some khaki panels I bought on clearance from Walmart a long time ago, and sewed the new fabric I bought over the panels to make them energy-saving and thick. I love them! You can see part of the old curtain on the right. When Joel was with the scouts on Friday night, I stayed up late sewing the rest. They are finished now and look great.

Something else Cindel helped me create--a new pillow cover. This is the first of 6 pillow covers I will make with old fabric I've never used! So glad I kept it all in the hopes that I'd sew one day. I am using the old curtains from our sliding door to make some as well. I'm so glad Cindel took the time to show me how to put thread on a bobbin, put in in the machine, and thread the machine--I pretty much know how to do it now. So there's no end to what I can make!

Well, not the best picture...this was the kids and Olive, Cindel's baby, when they were playing under the table. Blake really likes to cross his eyes right now--so fun, right? Olive had fun exploring our house and watching the kids play in the backyard.

This picture is a little better...at least Blake's not crossing his eyes! Well, that's what we've been up to!

Another reader in the house?

Tonight after dinner Julianna and I went over her spelling words for the week. She is now getting to where she can sound out her words on her own without my help (the 3-syllable words are a challenge, though). She REALLY liked reading her spelling words tonight, and I almost saw that look in her eye that says, READING IS FUN! So after the spelling words I told them it was time to read our Book of Mormon verses (Joel was still at mutual). And she said, "Mommy, I want to do it." So she went to get the scriptures and tried to find the place we are at, and when it was her turn to read, instead of me reading a few words at a time and her repeating, she wanted to look at each word and try to read it by herself. It happened to be a long verse, but she didn't want to stop until she finished it. This was a HUGE first for her--the first time she has ever shown a desire to read something on her own, and I'm glad the first book she showed interest in was the Book of Mormon! I am hoping that this interest in reading will only continue to grow and that before long she will be reading all her books instead of just looking at the pictures! I have a feeling that by the time she is 8 in December, she will be a reader! And then getting her own set of scriptures for her baptism will be a gift she will use! I am excited to see what happens this year.

Just because...

This is what Blake does when I ask him to do a nice smile.

Julianna actually has a wiggly tooth! Much better than having it yanked out by mistake in the bathtub, like her first lost tooth in November! This one won't last much longer.

They love this little "laptop" and play all the games together, when they're not fighting!

We headed to Orange County on New Year's Day to open presents with Joel's family. They got spoiled rotten! Such nice presents that they really love. It was a fun day. Then Briana came to our house and went to church the next day and we celebrated her birthday before she went into the army reserves on Jan. 4th.

Just busy again with school, preschool, doing crafts, new calling, and staying healthy (the kids were sick most of the winter break, and right when school got back, I got sick!) So I took some pictures today so I could have something to put up here, since it has been a while. Nothing big to report right now. But pictures are always fun, right?