Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Our holiday weekend....

So we've had an interesting holiday. We spent the night of the 23rd in the hospital with Jillian. Her cold had turned into croup and she needed breathing treatments. She was sooo close to having to be admitted to the hospital for a day or two. Which REALLY would have stunk. Since the start of Tyler's issues over a year ago and not knowing if he was going to need brain surgery or if he had something that would kill him, I have turned into one of those crazy people that have to document everything. I have a picture of every time we've been in the hospital, every serious procedure we've had to do. This time it was for my little girl. She had to have two separate breathing treatments, chest x-rays (the thing that keeps little kids from moving looks like a torture device, I felt awful) and she had to be on "wet" oxygen (the hospital's version of a humidifier in her breathing mask). Here are some pictures of our late night adventure (we didn't get out of there until after 3:30 a.m.)



 She really did like the popsicles though. 



Now they're both sick, although the croup is gone, now it's just really bad coughing and lots of goop, grump and cling times 2. I hope we will all be better soon. 

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Eep! I actually can show you something that I've been working on!!

I know right? I haven't been able to show anything since they've all been Christmas presents. But I can finally show you something! Because they're gifts for little people who don't have internet access (aka, my children and babies). So without further ado:
 One of these is a Christmas gift for the 8 month old of our best Alaskan friends, and the other one is for a brand new baby girl, born on Monday morning.



 Kitchen accessories set for my little chefs. Mini pot holders, oven mitts and aprons (one several inches shorter)



Christmas dresses! My first experience in making clothes with no pattern. It was a learning experience and a success. 
I've been having a lot of fun! Are you all ready for Christmas?

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Quick, easy Christmas gift


 Oh I'm so mad. I uploaded pictures, wrote out the whole blog, and then when I posted it, it kicked me out and the only thing it kept in the drafts was the title!! So I have to start again from scratch. Okay so a few months ago I picked up this chalboard menu vinyl set from www.pickyourplum.com I love that site, they have a new crafty deal everyday. But if you have a Silhouette or a Cricket, you can make the same thing. I bought 6 of them I think, because I was going to use them for Christmas gifts then decided to go in a different direction. Anyway so I had the vinyl, the 11x14 frame that I'd picked up for dirt cheap at Michael's, and the fabric from my stash and today in between laundry loads I decided to just put it together.

So first I took two of the main chalkboard pieces (if you're making your own, you can make yours bigger) and cut off one end of each so it could lay down evenly. Prepare your surface.
Then add your chalkboard vinyl
 Then I added the 'menu' word on top and cut apart each day letter so I could figure out where they were going.
 For the background, I just cut around the back board of the frame. Since I know I'll probably end up changing out the fabric I only used a glue stick, but you could mod podge yours.

Ta-da! A super cute and functional chalkboard menu. Maybe now the hubby will stop asking me "what's for dinner?" This would make a really cute simple gift for someone. :)

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Pictures!

Alrighty, I promised, and I deliver! ha ha! Okay, so here are some pictures for you. Enjoy!!

 My bottom heavy Christmas tree
 The reason why my tree is bottom heavy. ;)
Aaaaaaaand....... 







Just kidding! This is my friend Rachel. She's due in about 2 weeks. Isn't she adorable? I took her maternity pictures, and when her little girl gets here, I'll be taking her newborn pictures too. I liked it so much, I might just have to start being an actual photographer. :)


 Seriously, one of the most beautiful pregnant ladies I've ever seen. I wish I was that cute when my belly's popped. lol! :D

 Kari all bundled up. :)
 Poor Jilly could barely move. lol! I called her my little abominable snow baby. :) 
 Ready for some ice slides!!
Okay honestly, I don't remember taking this picture........but that's Tyler and Kari getting ready to go down the medium slide. :)

Kind of update, but mostly just chatting.

Okay so I've been ignoring you all shamelessly. :( I really have been trying to get everything done, and I have to pick and choose, which stinketh. And I don't even have any pictures for you because my camera is in the car (oops) but we've been having fun. Last Saturday the Christmas in Ice park opened up. It's one of my favorite things about Alaska. So we bundled (although, we really didn't need to so much, it was 30 some odd degrees, I ended up taking off my outer coat) and it was really dark so I didn't get any pictures, flash ruins the look, and I don't have nor did I want to cart around a tripod to get good night pictures, next time we go, we'll go when it's light outside (all three hours of it). Anyway, we slid for a couple hours, the girls had a ton of fun, so did mom and dad. We were all a bit sore the next day though. Speaking of the next day, it warmed up to a whopping 47 degrees! I know what you're thinking, "Awesome, enjoy the warm weather!" well let me tell you a little something about Alaska, if everything melts, it WILL all freeze again, this time as solid ice instead of mostly harmless snow, and that ice will stay coated on my driveway, the roads, the sidewalks, the parking lots, ect, until everything melts finally in MAY. We had something similar last year and let me tell you, it was terrifying every time we got in the car. I had hoped that last year was a fluke, but two years in a row equals major suck. I can honestly say that I will be very happy when we finally move. Speaking of, our future is kind of in flux right now. We're trying to decide between re-enlisting for 4 years and going overseas (REAL overseas this time) which would be so awesome to live somewhere in Europe and get to go see all the incredible stuff over there, the Roman coliseum, the Louvre, the Neuschwanstien castle, all the wonderful things that I loved learning about. Another option is dropping into the reserves and going to law school, there's also this Law Clerk program in Washington that is basically you're an apprentice for 4 years with an experienced lawyer and then you can take the bar exam, law license without a degree, which would be limiting, if Tyler wanted to practice anywhere but Washington, he'd have to go to school when he's already a lawyer =suck. BUT it would let us live in the Tri-Cities, Tyler have a full time good paying job with benefits instead of being a starving student family for three years. Another option that just opened up is a reserve opening in a small post in Salt Lake, they want him now though so he's thinking about the "Palace Chase" program (don't ask me why it's called that, I have no idea) and getting out of here as soon as May, but the downside to that would be that he wouldn't have his degree yet and most schools won't accept his military credits so not only would it set him back in his bachelor's degree about 18 months but he wouldn't have a degree to be working as a paralegal, which means he'd be in some stupid menial job doing who knows what for a year and a half. I vote that we DON'T do that one. I'm trying to "go with the flow" but it goes against my personality and I'm having a hard time not being worried/frustrated/terrified/annoyed with having absolutely NO idea where we will be even 18 months from now but I'm preparing as well as I can and putting my faith in the Lord that he will help us know what the right decision is and that we'll be okay no matter what happens. Anyway, when Tyler gets home from lunch, I'll put up a couple pictures, until then, I'll be working on Christmas presents (as usual). I'm hoping to get my packages out by the end of this week though so I really have to pick things up. Later everyone! Miss you all.