Where does the time go?

    I didn't even realize that it has been 2 months since I posted anything to the blog until someone made a comment today on my last post....2 months ago. So quick update:

Keith has turned 1 and has discovered that he really likes to flip the pages in his board books. He's also gotten his first haircut.

Sam turned 30 and so we went camping and climbing at the City of Rocks which is a really neat natural rock garden. He then spent a couple weeks in Colorado for a training and got to visit with his sister and her family.

Connor learned to use a life jacket in the swimming pool without latching onto people and the sides of the pool. He loves his new freedom in the water. Both big boys also got to feed the giraffe's at the zoo.

Bear is extremely timid in the water but we're working on it:) He made friends with the female seal, Sushi, at the zoo. She was so friendly and just kept coming right up to the window.

I've been finishing up a few projects: a t-shirt quilt for a friend, a fabric wall paper project in the master bedroom, an end table makeover and I'm just starting my first knit sweater project.

We've been keeping really busy and have made some really great friends here in El Paso.  I don't think I love it here, but I know that I don't hate it either so I guess it's a good thing.

Here are some pictures from our adventures

 Removable fabric wallpaper- adhered to the wall with liquid starch.

 Fresh haircuts for all my boys. They wouldn't stay still for the picture.

 30 years old coincidentally at campsite #30

 Hiking through the City of Rocks

 Making friends with Sushi.

 Keith Asher, age 1.

 With some of our friends at the SuperCroc exhibit.

Feeding the giraffe's. This is Connor's favorite animal.

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.