Happy Birthday Mom!
(a day late. sorry.)

Celebrating the Fourth

We spent out Fourth of July with Grandma & Grandpa.

There was swimming...

and playing at the park.

Dexter was a little confused. He crawled into the room with the dogs when my mom called them for dinner, & even crawled over to my dad for his "turn" to be petted like the dogs. Weirdo.

We went to a nearby lake for the fireworks display, but the bugs were so bad we had to move into the van to watch it.

(P.S. There are more photos of Dexter, but I promise I haven't forgotten about Cooper. He's just become much more difficult to photograph & even runs from the camera now. Unless it's a modeling job, & then he's a complete ham.)

I drank the kool-aid

My mom hosted a "crafty weekend" for my family (well, the girls in the family) a few weeks ago & I didn't take any pictures at all, but you can see my mom's blog post, my cousin Karen's blog post, & my aunt Colleen's blog post for some pictures & details. Karen even made us some goodie bags, including "Creative Juice" (bottled water). Thanks Karen! Anyway, I think being around those quilters (my mom & Karen) got to me 'cause I'm planning to make a quilt now. I'd like to make a fun kid's quilt with lots of textures & fun fabrics. I've asked for creative quilt blocks in some of my swaps on Craftster & this is what I got:

If I ever get the time I'll be making a few of my own & I'm going to keep asking for them in swaps 'cause it's fun seeing what other people come up with.

Christmas crafts

I had lots & lots of crafting to do for Christmas so I had to put Cooper to work. He painted birdhouses for Grandpa & Papa, & frame mats for both Grandma's & Daddy (and we framed a picture of Dexter & Cooper of course).




I made cloth doll diapers for my friend Joslyn's daughter (so she'd stop stealing her sister's disposable diapers),


a towel wrap for my dad,


a laptop case for John's sister's laptop,


a t-shirt for Pat (our future brother-in-law), who loves his van,


and a family tree wall hanging for my mom.


And since I know you've been holding your breath to see what this was (or you've completely forgotten about it), I made a card table felt playhouse for Cooper. There's felt mail for the mailbox & the fruit, vegetables, & birds are all attached with velcro so they can be moved around. (It's a really impressive idea that I completely stole from here.)

Christmas

We had a crazy-busy Christmas (does anyone have a relaxing Christmas? I don't think so). Christmas Eve started with a quick stop at Uncle Michael's house for the extended family, then we were off to see Granny Smith & Papa Fred & John's family.

Dexter got to chill with Auntie Anna. (Anna didn't even know what was coming! But more on that in another post...)

Cooper loved his new guitar from Auntie Anna & "Uncle" Pat. (It just made everyone else in the room feel old because the toy guitar plays instrumental versions of Wild Thing by the Troggs, Message in a Bottle by the Police, Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Queen, Love Shack by the B52's and All Star by Smashmouth.)

Christmas morning was spent at home. Even though we left out cookies & egg nog for Santa & talked about him all day Christmas Eve, Cooper still wasn't expecting him. He slept 'til 8:30 & didn't really get what was going on at first.

Cooper was very excited about his stocking.

And judging by this picture, Cooper would have been happy if Santa stopped at just the stocking. (But what fun is that?)

Dexter, as you can see, was equally thrilled with his stocking loot.

Hmm.. I bet you're wonder what this is...

Dexter is intrigued too... but you'll have to wait for another post.

Cooper and his Thomas train, the one thing he asked for from Santa.

Dexter was tuckered out from all the excitement.

Then it was on to Grandma & Grandpa's house.

Things were mostly a little crazy. Not surprising considering there were 5 kids 3 years & under and (only) 6 adults. Why do we still feel outnumbered? (Gift opening was particularly crazy, which is why I don't really have any pictures of that.)

But there were a few calm, relaxing moments.

Dexter & Lynzee checking each other out.

Since Adam couldn't be with us for Christmas, we tried to get a good picture of all 5 kids together.

We quickly decided it didn't have to be "good", they just all had to be in it, even if they all look like deer in headlights. (I swear, no children were drugged in the taking of this picture.)

This is seconds later.

Dexter, once again, tuckered out. (He was actual awake when John sat him up, but sitting on Daddy was just too relaxing & he fell asleep.)

Enjoying the last of the warm weather

It's definitely not warm now. In fact, yesterday we were blanketed in a bazillion inches of snow so this is just a distant memory. We went to Grandma & Grandpa's in November & Cooper helped with to rake & then redistribute the leaves.






And Dexter napped. Here his is in the Moby wrap:

Dexter did some more napping. Lots of growing going on!

Wrestling with Grandpa