Playin on the Dunes

A few weeks back Sam took the big boys to Red Sands which are about 20-25 minutes away.  They had a BLAST!!  And Sam has been wanting to take me there ever since. Well, he was right. It was super fun, even though the sand was a bit warm out of the shade.  So we played  in the shade of the little Suzuki for awhile and got EXTREMELY dirty. It was so worth it.

I can check something off of my bucket list too!  I've always wanted to be completely buried in the sand(minus my head). It's surprising how heavy a thin layer of sand is.

 Here's a couple from their trip out there a few weeks ago since I didn't get any of them jumping this go round. Connor has no fear....I love these shots.

A little color on my feet!

As a girl I LOVED rainbows.  And it was cute and appropriate for a little girl to like rainbows.  As I moved into my teen years it was a little odd to love rainbows but it never really bothered me what other people thought so I wore them on my toes, ears, around my neck and on many of my articles of clothing.  At 27, ahem...I mean, well, anyway....I can't just wear rainbows around town without people staring at me, then my children, then back at me....So, to avoid giving my boys a complex....I've almost completely liquidated my collection of rainbow possessions(that is, until Heavenly Father blesses our family with a little girl, and in that case, this discussion will be completely null and void).

However, last year while working at JoAnn Fabric and Crafts I was walking past the yarn aisle and spotted this GEM of a yarn.  It is called Serenity Garden Yarn from the Deborah Norville collection of Premier Yarns.  The name of the color is called GEMS and I simply had to have a skein or two for a later project.  Fast Forward to now.  I've completed my semi-acceptable rainbow socks for home use and possibly snow boot use and I might just be in heaven. These babies can get my feet warm lickety split!  Of course, now that I live in El Paso, my feet don't get cold all that often...

But I digress....I know you are dying to see a picture of them.

It's kind of hard to see in this picture but there is a really neat spiral pattern to them.  The pattern is called Frog Pattern or Ribbelmuster on Ravelry and it's FREE.  It was easy to follow and a great pattern to try if you are wanting to learn how to start doing cables(This was my first attempt at a cable pattern).

For my next project, I think I'm going to do some quilting....stay tuned :)

11 months and walking!

Keith started taking his first steps just before he turned 11 months old. Let me also say, that he has wasted NO TIME in getting serious about this walking thing. Saturday he would get so excited that he couldn't take more than a step and then fall forward into my arms. Today, he's walking back and forth giggling because he's so pleased with himself. So funny.

The bummer? Sam has been gone all week. So he left with a baby barely taking two steps at a time and will come home tomorrow to a little boy walking(on the verge of running and chasing his brothers!) all over the house.

Take a look:

Can't believe my baby is walking. But I absolutely love it. He's such a sweetheart!

Easter Weekend Photo Shoot

There is nothing more fulfilling than making something. And although I've had the fabric for awhile, I decided that Easter would be the perfect Sunday to have a new outfit.  So I scrambled my outfit together in a week and decided that my boys should have coordinating ties.  And once I'd decided all this, I wanted it documented in a more memorable way than a quick snapshot.

Enter Lesa Miller.  Such a sweet lady. She offered to meet us at a local park and get some shots of our family for a GREAT price.

Here are some of the photos she got. I love these boys to pieces.

Sam's socks

To properly introduce these, I need to back up to about a year ago, maybe a little more, when I stumbled across a sock knitting book at the Tooele Library. Although I didn't know how to knit at the time, I checked out the book and determined that I wanted to learn how to do it.  Fast forward to...today!  I finished my first pair of knit socks and had SO MUCH FUN making them.

Sam put in the first order, so he got the first pair....for better or worse:)

They might look a little funny here....

 BUT THEY FIT!!!! And that's the important part, right!?

Now, to make my boys and myself each a pair....

P.S. If anyone wants the pattern, it came from the Patons - Next Step Four - Socks and Slippers knitting book that you can find at JoAnn. It is Step 1 - The Basic Sock in Super Fine Yarn Weight.

The instructions were REALLY easy to follow except for two steps that I had to google.  PSSO and picking up stitches, neither of which had I ever done before.  So with google, and YouTube.....a beginner knitter can easily do this pattern!

10 Months Old and a New Abode....

Here we are, the middle of the month already and I can't believe it. Yesterday marked one month since we arrived in El Paso. Wow.

Tuesday marked 10 months since Keith was born and what a little cutie! I mean check out these CHEEKS!

After two ridiculously difficult weeks in one hotel and almost a week in hotels while traveling before that, we were very anxious to get into our own place.  So anxious that we opted for living in an empty house for three days and three nights before our things arrived, over living in a hotel. It was worth the camping experience for separate bedrooms :)

Here's a small picture tour of our new place

The front.

My Quilting Corner.... which happens to be the front room as it's the only space large enough for the frame of the quilting machine and my desk.

Looking Up from My Quilting Corner into the loft.  LOVE this part of the house.

My extremely messy kitchen and dining room. 

From dining room into living room. Also messy. But I have happy kids....most of the time :)

 

 

See? Look!

Oh wait, this one is just very tired but he was happy earlier.

Graduation, 9 months old and another cross country trip

In the past week, we've accomplished some pretty big things in our family so I wanted to document them. Sam completed his training at Fort Eustis and looked super duper handsome in his Class A's.  We  are so proud of him.

  Our little Keith turned 9 months old and is the sweetest little chunk ever.  He's starting to get brave and will let go of whatever he is using to stabilize himself to try standing by himself.   It's SOO cute.  He spent a little while in the mirror tonight smiling at himself.  It was so adorable.  He is by far the wiggliest child I've ever had.  It's nearly impossible to hold him on my lap and eat at the same time.  Oh, and he's gotten a new nickname.....Hands.  Or Mr. Hands.  Can you guess why?  Have you ever seen the movie The Count of Monte Cristo where Dante is learning speed by quickly moving his hands in between the drops of water? Yeah, well, this one....Dante's got nothing on him.  He's dumped many a tubs of baby food, plates of our food, bowls of cereal and even my morning herbal tea.  And his arms seem to grow like Gumbi. You think you've placed everything out of his reach and he'll surprise you yet again with a lap full of whatever you were hoping to put in your mouth.

  On the day of Sam's graduation, we started another journey.  Again, cross country. But this time to El Paso, TX!!! 6 days and 2500 miles later, we are nestled into a cozy little hotel room while we search for a home to rent.  Meanwhile, we've all gotten sick and had a much more difficult time finding a home than we expected.  Good news though!  Today, WE FOUND ONE!!!  Hopefully, our application will process quickly and without any difficulty so we can move in sometime early next week.  I want my things back and definitely want to be able to close my kids into or out of some room other than the bathroom.

My big ol lap dog on the way to El Paso ---------->            

Visiting The Frederick Family in Gadsden, AL on our way cross country.
<-----------  What a goofy bunch we are.