Dress Re-fashion

I have pinned ton of t-shirt dresses on Pinterest, so I finally made one for Lizzy. I liked how it turned out. The shirt was a heavier knit so it was a little difficult to sew, but not too hard. It just made me want a serger even more. Alas. Anyway, here is the finished project, I made the arm holes a tad too big so I fixed that later.

From 2012-01-27 Shirt dress

Luckily Lizzy loves it. It reminds me a little of a  Romulan outfit, but I like it!

Baptisms and Blessings

From 2012-01-28 Taylor's Baptism

Saturday we were able to witness Taylor's baptism. I love going to baptisms. I was grateful that my children were able to see their cousin get baptised. Lizzy is so excited about being baptized that she mentions it almost everyday. She knows that she has 5 more years to go, but she is so excited! It makes me smile. Then on Sunday my nephew received a name and a blessing in sacrament meeting. 

Isn't he the cutest? Daniel was able to stand in the circle while Rex performed the blessing. It was very special. Afterwards we had to rush home so Daniel could leave for Vancouver. I always hate it when he leaves for long periods, but that's where we are at right now. Hopefully he'll be back next weekend! This weekend was wonderful!

Winter Fun

We finally had some snow and I took the kids out to enjoy it. Lizzy was disappointed that her snow balls fell apart, but they both had fun.

Looking Back

Since this is a new year I wanted to take a look back at the past year. I have so many fond memories of 2011. I met wonderful people and had many grand adventures. We moved back home to Washington and I met many wonderful people here as well. Some thing that I will miss about living in Missouri are:
Seeing the Mississippi river, it is such a celebrated river and truly lives up to it's fame.
Going to the St. Louis Zoo with all my friends.
The Magic House and the City Museum.
Being closer to the Bartholomews.
My fabulous Ward family.
Climbing on the tank in the park.
Going to Nauvoo.
Adventuring around Eastern USA
Play dates and LINK
Frozen Custard!

So many fun things and wonderful people to share them with. Now we are looking forward to the new year and all of it's possibilities. Daniel accepted a job working at the Clark County Power plant in Vancouver, Wa. He will start work on the 30th. We went down to look at houses and made an offer on one we like. The home owner accepted our offer and we hope to move in by March! I am so excited! There is so much to do in Vancouver and Portland that I'm sure I will be busy for some time. Check out their web page Here.

Making Wands

To get away from the winter doldrums I suggested that we make wands. I kept seeing this post in Pintrest about making wands out of glue and paper. See here. I was intrigued to say the least. Daniel was game and so we set out to make wands with the girls. Since we were limited with glue I suggested that we try filling them with melted crayons. They worked great and were much cheaper.  Here's Daniel filling the wands:

From 2011-12-28 Wand Making

It was a fun all day process. Here are some finished wands:

From 2011-12-30 Wands

Christmas

As Christmas was on Sunday we decided to celebrate a day early. So on Friday night we celebrated Christmas eve. Traditonally we read the Christmas story out of Luke in the Bible, but since the kids are so young we opted for the nativity movie the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints put out a few years ago. I like the simplicity of it. Then we opened a present and listened to the Tabernacle Choir sing. It was a nice night. Saturday morning was fun, we had to convince Lizzy that Santa had really come and she was sad she missed him. She woke up the Grandparents and we all went downstairs to see the tree.

From 2011-12-24 Christmas

It was so classic. Charles was not ready to get up!

From 2011-12-24 Christmas

Lizzy and Charles had a great time opening gifts. It was great. Later on Jessica and the gang came over to help us celebrate:

From 2011-12-26 Christmas

Good times, good times.

Christmas Traditions

From 2011-12-08 Tree trimming

Here is Charles helping us get into the Christmas spirit! We trimmed the tree together. Then we took a candle light tour of the historic Fort Steilcoom. It was so fun, like we were guests of the Ghost of Christmas Past. The girls really enjoyed the dancing:

From 2011-12-11 Ft. Stilicum candle light tour

I really enjoyed hearing the musicians outside. They let us play the Jaw bone.

From 2011-12-11 Ft. Stilicum candle light tour

It was really quite magical. Next Charly helped us get into the Christmas Mood by Singing at the Seattle Center Winterfest. We had fun riding the ferry and listing to the schools perform. Charly did a wonderful job!

From 2011-12-14 Charly's concert

Every year the Seattle Center sets up a miniature train. Lizzy even got to be a guest conductor!

From 2011-12-14 Charly's concert

Lizzy go to be an Angel in the primary "Picture a Christmas" program. She was so excited!

From 2011-12-16 tward party

Unfortunately she was in the very back so we couldn't see her. Here we all are!

From 2011-12-16 tward party

Then we went to the Clear Creek Nursery to see some real reindeer and a camel! Not only that, but inside they make it snow! Lizzy loved it!

From 2011-12-18 Saturday Fun

And finally our last Christmas stop was Poulsbo! A quaint little Norwegian town. They had Father Christmas and  horse drawn carriage rides.

From 2011-12-18 Saturday Fun

We finished by taking in the lights at the Harborside park.