Sewing kick

I've been on a sewing kick lately. It helped that I got cheap fabric and patterns on sale at JoAnn's. here's what I've made:

Train pajama pants, seen here on Whitney, and isn't this the cutest picture ever??

And here again, isn't Katelyn hugely tall? Whitney's 90th percentile for her age too, so she's no shorty!
I made these jean skirts from Eric's old jeans, and made up my own pattern from my jean skirt. Knee length would have been cuter I think.
And I made these babies, also with my own pattern based on a skirt Katelyn already had. Love them! And the sweet coats from Grandma Murray!
I have fabric and a pattern for another CUTE skirt for them, and two more pairs of PJ pants. I wish I was this productive all the time! :)

BYU Victorious

Yeah baby!!

Hall's kind of a dork for his extreme comments afterward, and our offense didn't play that great a lot of the game, but our defense was AMAZING and we pulled it off! Go Cougars!

Thanksgiving at the Harveys!

New Christmas dresses and tights from The Children's Place: $13.75

A matinee movie ticket for New Moon: $6.00

babysitters for 5 children: free (husbands)

A fun Black Friday morning with your BFF: Priceless :)

So here are my deal dresses:

I am in love with these dresses, especially because they were so cheap. Even though the girls blend in with the tree. And I had them wear them today even though it's still November.
So we went to the Harveys' for Thanksgiving!! SO fun. Here was our feast (we didn't wake Whitney up from her nap for the meal...)
The kids got along GREAT, they ran around and played all day for two days with almost zero arguments, pretty amazing. Here's Kate and Matt helping decorate the Christmas tree!
4 of the 5 kids, can you tell they're watching a Frosty the Snowman DVD? Kristi got a picture of all 5 of them.
Look for a future wedding announcement photo similar to this next one. James is a year and a half older than Katelyn, but they had so much fun together. She also loved Matt, who's closer in age to her, she thought he was so funny. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of her and Matthias playing tiger and lion, costumes and all. The boys also taught Katelyn a lot about playing Pirates and bandits. So cute.
Whitney and Hannah became friends- mostly they enjoyed looking at each other, and Whitney liked to pat Hannah's head. She loved the boys, saying "boh" all the time for boy and "bebe" for Hannah. The boys played with Whitney a lot too, one time it was so cute I saw James bending down to Whitney and saying "do you want to be on my side?"
Obviously we adults had a good time too-- me and Kristi's Friday excursion, lots of game playing and talking... And the drive was so much shorter than California. Thanks for a great trip Harvey Family!

growing up

Whitney and I have been a little out of sorts these last couple of weeks. Like she has been driving me crazy. Freaking out about everything. Having major tantrums and fits over every little thing. I was thinking maybe the terrible twos had come early and mourning the loss of my sweet little girl. But THEN I had a revelation: We have entered the

Independence and Communication Frustration Phase!!

This is how I discovered it: Getting Whitney a drink had become a big problem. She would freak out every time I handed her her cup- throwing it on the floor, crying, if I tried to talk to her and find out what was wrong she would push me away and say "doh, doh, doh". At first I thought maybe she was just mad when it wasn't juice in her cup, but then she did it with juice too. I tried leaving her alone to get over it. I tried hiding the cup and bringing it back out a few minutes later with the same results. A couple of times I put her in her room for a minute when she hit me while I was trying to figure out why she was freaking out. I finally ended up trying to always fill up her cup when she wasn't in the room and then just bringing it to her, but that wasn't always practical. SO, two days ago when I had given her juice and she was doing the usual freak out, it just came to me--- she wants to put the lid on herself!! I had seen her playing with cups, putting the lids on, and I realized that must be it-- and I was right! The last two days we have had zero problems with that because I am letting her put the lid on her cup "by herself". With minimal help from me. Yay!

The best part is, this principal applies to just about everything else we were struggling with- I just let her do it herself, or at least start to, and then if I come in and help since she really can't do it alone she's okay with it. Wow.

The poor girl had just been suffering from knowing exactly what she wanted to do, but not being able to totally do it by herself, and on top of that, not being able to TELL me what she wanted. What a frustrating time for a child. Thank goodness she's learning a couple of new words each day. And thank goodness I am now alerted to her stage of development and can act accordingly. :)

Indian Summer Heaven

Dear Indian Summer,

Thank you, thank you, for coming into my life these past two weeks! I was overjoyed at your arrival and I have loved every minute of our time together. I have definitely fallen in love with you, and we have created so many precious memories! Like a beautiful Halloween evening to trick-or-treat in. Many occasions of running in only a t-shirt and shorts with you by my side. Walking barefoot in the leaves. Picnics and playing basketball and tag at the park. And that wonderful surprise you gave me, a 65-degree evening on Happy Murray Day so we could do our family Olympics after Eric came home-OUTSIDE, in the dark, in November, I will always cherish the memories of that night! You have warmed me inside and out, dear Indian Summer. I know you have to go now, but I am not sad, because you have given me enough warmth to last me through the cold winter ahead. I do not know when we will meet again, but until then, I hold a special place for you in my heart.

Love always,

Rebecca

Marriage Advice

I just heard this quote from a CES broadcast by President Uchdorf last Sunday, and I LOVE it.

“Since you won’t find perfection in your partner,

and your partner won’t find it in you,

your only chance at perfection is in

creating perfection together.

That is the secret.”

So there you go. My words of wisdom for the day.

Whitney 18 months!!

Our baby is 18 months old! So old! She was sick the last few days- like just laying around, not moving or talking, and I missed her! Now she's better and it has been so fun to have her silly little personality back. Here's a video we took of her last week saying some of her words.

She says at least 30 words, including truck "kuck", car, book, cracker, stop, done, down, juice, cheese, Jesus, more, mine, "mo" for Nemo, and many more. Many of them sound similar, but if she says "buh" when she sees a bug and "buh" when she sees a bear, she really is saying each word, right?

She's also started climbing, something Katelyn never did at her age, and she loves to dance, read stories, and do pretty much anything Katelyn comes up with.

We love our little Whitney Mae and we're having a great time with her!

Halloween

Our favorite Halloween pictures.

Kate with her pumpkin. We also cooked delicious pumpkin seeds.

jack-o-lantern mini-pizzas for dinner on Halloween, yum! Kate made them almost all by herself.
We had a monkey and a dinosaur! Wait, do we have two little girls or boys??

Imagine seeing this cute face on your doorstep! Whitney had a death grip on her bucket the whole time, and was very good at picking candy if they offered her the bowl. Kate was our expert door knocker, and she would always say "happy halloween!!" as we walked away, so cute. Whitney even started saying "nah, nah" and knocking on the doors too.

We took this video while trick-or-treating, we kept laughing becasue Katelyn would say 'TOOTsie" with a big OOO sound instead of tootsie normal... anyway enjoy.

Fall Fun

A few random pics from lately:

bucket heads! They loved to run around with their trick-or-treat buckets on their heads! In this picture I think they were actually playing fireman.

Welcome to January! We had our first snow, and first running with snow pants and lots of blankets on.
THis is what happens when Dad's in charge. sliding and....
jumping down the stairs...
into huge piles of cushions and pillows!
Fun with leaves!
helping rake
buried!

Bake-Off!

Last week, inspired by my awesome friend Nicole, we had our "first annual" Mom and Child Bake-Off! It was a BIG hit! The whole point (besides an excuse to hang out with other moms) was for the kids to be in charge. So katelyn helped me make and deliver the invitations, make decorations, we even colored Halloween pictures on plates and cups! Then the kids were supposed to do as much of the baking as possible, and at the party they voted for the Best Tasting and Best Looking treat awards.

Katelyn with a sample of the treat we made- rice crispie jack-o-lanterns! So fun to make!

The treat table mid-way through the party- everyone had such great and delicious ideas!! The winners are both at the back left though. Best tasting- "Party in the graveyard", an Oreo/brownie/pudding/whipped cream delight! And Best looking- "zombie eyeballs", peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate with a realistic m'n'm pupil and red lines, wow!
This is the last of the punch I made, witch's brew, after most of the sherbet had melted and the ice-cubes-with-gummy-worms-frozen-in-them had all been taken. It was delicious and cool-looking. :)
We are DEFINITELY doing it again next year!!