"A little piece of heart"

With the weather being so yucky lately, the last thing I want to do is to go out. Luckily I've been busy with my latest craft project. A long time ago my sister Shauna showed me an Etsy site that sells patterns for making play food out of felt. At that time I made a few pieces like hamburgers, bacon, eggs, pancakes and sandwich sets. For those ones, I just copied the best I could from the picture. But this one lady had some sets that really look authentic and I had no idea how to make them.

More recently, my friend Sandra said that she tried making some of the free patterns on the website and she said that it really wasn't as hard as it looks. She was right. The patterns are really easy to follow and come with nice photos. She also has a blog that has different tutorials and tips that are helpful. Here is my first attempt at the dim sum set. Maddy likes her new toys, she knows the names of the different dumplings but I'm sure she doesn't actually know what they are. Maybe we have to go for dim sum really, really soon.

Here's Maddy giving Ethan a 'taste' of the siu mai

My next project is the sushi set, but I have to let my fingers have a bit of a rest first! Stay tuned...

Picture time

A big smile with her big girl ponytail

Ethan in his "I look just like daddy outfit"

He's really beginning to be more expressive and playful.

These two are out takes from our Christmas card photo session

Maddy loves to play with her cookie baking set. Just found out it was recalled though!!

First Smile

I still remember the first time I caught Maddy's smile on camera and recently I had the exact same feeling as I got a good picture of Ethan's smile. After trying so many times, it's so rewarding to finally get it. So here it is, along with some outtakes.

2 months

Tomorrow Ethan will be 2 months old. It feels like he's been with us for a lot longer than 2 months and in that short amount of time he's grown and changed so much. I'm happy to say that he's on a some sort of schedule. It changes some days but for the most part he sleeps well in the morning, has ok afternoons and is ravenous in the evenings. He does go for a long stretch at night, his last feed is usually around 9:30 or 10:00 and lasts until about 4:30am.

I'm also happy to report that he's seems to have gotten a handle on the gas issues he had in the beginning. He still burps like a drunken sailor but he doesn't always have to work as hard for them anymore.

He is definitely more alert now and we even get some smiles and coos when we sit and talk with him. I haven't been able to catch a really good smile on camera but they are there. We have the video monitor in his room so that we can watch him from the living room. It's quite fun to see him smiling up at the birds hanging from his mobile.

I've been terrible about making sure he gets some time on his tummy, but his neck seems to be really strong. He's pretty good at holding up his neck and hopefully the stinky neck days will soon be behind us.

Happy 2 months, Ethan! We love you so much.

Happy Halloween

I love Halloween! I always have, and every year I look forward to having tons of fun with the kids at school. Now that I have kids of my own, Halloween is even more fun. We started by dressing Ethan up in his Halloween PJs. Then he had to go to bed :)


Next it was time to carve the pumpkins from our trip to the farm. Maddy didn't want to actually touch the pumpkin goop, but this year she was happy to squish them around with the carving tools. I did the Jack-O-Lantern and Josh ambitiously tried the witch one.



All week long I tried to think of somthing we could have for dinner that went with the Halloween theme. I also wanted something really easy to do. I came across these Hot Dog Mummies but I wasn't too keen on us eating hot dogs. (Sorry Philip!) Finally, when I couldn't come up with anything else, I went out and got some hot dogs and Pillsbury weiner wrap. I was quite happy with them and they tasted sooooo good. They reminded me of the corn dog I craved when I was pregnant in the summer. I think they just may become a Halloween tradition around here. (Philip, I'm sure you'll be so proud)


After dinner all four of us went trick or treating. Maddy was in a bit of shock at first because we were outside and it was dark. I think the lure of candy was the thing that kept her going. She did great and said "trick or treat" at each house. After about 4 houses, she asked to go home. I think it was because she could feel the candy in her bag and she was itching to go home and have some.

We went home, Maddy had her 3 Smarties and some Aero bar and then went to bed without much of a problem. It was a really fun Halloween and I can't wait until next year with Ethan can join in more of the fun.



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I can't believe I almost forgot to post these pictures. They are from a couple weeks ago. We pulled out the doggie costume to have Maddy try it on and to get her excited about wearing it. She wanted nothing to do with it. We tried a couple of times and every time she didn't want to put it on. Finally Josh put it on to show her, I laughed so hard and begged to take a picture. Anyway, it worked and she reluctantly tried it on. On the actual day, we told her about the whole 'going to collect candy from houses' part of Halloween and she willingly put on the costume.

I could barely hold the camera still to take this shot!

I love the look on her face in this one.