Losing It

Yup, I'm officially losing it. Weight, that is. For the past few weeks I've been working at controlling my eating and periodically exercising. So far I'm down 4.8 pounds, an average of about 1.2 pounds per week. I'm taking it slowly, but trying to be consistent. And I think I'm doing pretty well.

I'm using the Virtual Trainer tool at Shape Magazine. It's free, and it helps me keep track of what I eat and how much I exercise. It  lets me know when my calorie burn is in the weight loss zone or whether I need to eat more or less. It's pretty cool and so far it's working.

Anyway, just wanted to post this, because I just finished a half hour workout on the treadmill, covering 1.5 miles, and I'm exhausted! But even so, it feels good. It feels good to know that I'm finally doing something about losing the weight I gained back after I had Audrey.

New TV

Our old TV has had a very good run. It was given to us used when we got married. Over time it has developed certain interesting quirks. Trying to turn the volume down generally resulted in changing the channel. If we wanted to turn the volume up, we had to hold the button down as the volume went down and up and down and up, until it reached the volume we wanted. The power button broke off at one point, so we had to reach into the little hole it left behind to turn the TV on or off. Also, we couldn't hook the DVD player up to the TV; it was so old that it didn't have the right connections. We had to hook the DVD player up to the VCR, and hook the VCR up to the TV if we wanted to watch a movie. Yep, the TV had a good long run, but it was time to upgrade.

Getting our tax refund provided the opportunity to finally get a TV that works properly. This evening we came home with a 42-inch plasma-screen TV. We thought about getting an LCD, but the plasma is stronger. It will last longer in a household with small children.

Jeff and I, after moving a bunch of furniture around in the family room, are now watching "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" on our new giant TV. It's pretty awesome.

By the way, it's sitting on the book case I built way back when. Isn't that awesome?

Family Pictures

While we were shopping at Wal-Mart today, the photo studio guy came up and asked if we would like some family portraits done. He didn't have any appointments and wanted to do some practice shots, and just basically fill his time. Well, we haven't had family photos done in practically forever, so we agreed. I'm so glad we did! We got some wonderful shots and we all had a good time. Here are some of my favorites:

So Good to Get Out!

Ever since last Monday I've been sick. Cough, sore throat, fever, chills, stuffy runny nose, aching muscles and joints, the whole works. I couldn't even go to church on Sunday because I wasn't well enough. The past couple of days it's finally been getting better. Last night I was finally feeling well enough to get out of the house - and go to a Relief Society activity. It was so nice to get out and be able to hang out with a bunch of other women. We talked about visit teaching, and had a really yummy potato bar dinner.

Unfortunately, now Zaylee seems to have caught whatever I had. Yesterday she had a fever and a hoarse throat. Today, it's 10:30 in the morning and she still hasn't gotten out of bed. She's awake, but she just wants to lie in bed and rest. Oh Zaylee, well do I understand, since that's all I wanted to do when I was sick too! Well, at least this week Jeff is home from work, and I'm well enough to care for Zaylee as well.

Uppy-Datey (or I could boringly call it Update)

Time for an update, I suppose. Let's see, I guess I'll start with the youngest and go from there.

Audrey is now standing a lot. She can get to standing from anywhere, she doesn't have to be holding onto furniture anymore. She has ventured to take a couple steps here and there, but ends up falling after one or two steps. Still, it's very cute and exciting for us to watch. Zaylee loves to announce, "The baby is standing!" every time she sees Audrey stand up. She also has a voracious appetite, and especially loves bananas, bread, cups of water, and she loves to be able to eat what everyone else is eating.

Thomas likes to say that he is a big boy. He doesn't refer to himself by pointing to his chest - he points to his cheek instead. It's so cute to see him point at his little cheek and proudly say, "I big boy!" We haven't really started him potty training; we're still focusing more on just being able to communicate with him. But I have made him a couple pairs of underwear that he likes to wear on occasion. He's very sweet and loves to give kisses.

Zaylee has been going through a growing up phase - alternating between being helpful and being defiant. Personally I like the helping better! If I get ready to start cooking or baking something, she'll run and grab an apron for me and one for herself. She helps with stirring, counting, measuring, scooping, and whatever else she can. She also helps unload the dishwasher, wipe the table, pick up toys and books, throw away trash. It's really nice. But when she's being defiant, that's a different story. She does like to pick on Thomas, and on the cat, and time-outs are becoming fairly frequent. Hopefully it'll sink in eventually that it's not okay to pull the cat's tail and hit Thomas with books. Sigh.

Jeff just started his week off. We both really like his work schedule, halfway. He works ten hours a day for seven days, then has the next seven days off. His work week gets really tiring and by the end of it we're all ready for a week of vacation! But his week off is usually really nice, so we're looking forward to having him home for the next seven days.

As for me, I've been having more fun with Google SketchUp, and have designed a table, a whatnot (Victorian stacking shelves), and a little bookcase. I wish I could build these things as fast as I design them, but so far I haven't built any of it. Waiting for the weather to thaw, I guess. I've also been reading the Little House books, which I got for Christmas. I just finished reading The Long Winter, and it makes me feel so thankful for our warm house and plentiful food. And for the fact that we don't have fiercely huge blizzards lasting 3-4 days each with only a day or two in between for the entire winter.

Look What I Did...

Ana-White.com just put up a great tutorial. A vast majority of her posts are instructions for how to build furniture. But this latest was not how to build one of the pieces of furniture she designed, but how to design your own furniture using a free downloadable program called Google Sketchup. I was so excited about this tutorial! Now look what I've designed:

How awesome is this little storage cube? I based it on this cube by Pottery Barn. It's like a cute little side table, but the lid lifts off to show a convenient storage space. I want to build it and use it as a toy box or something. I haven't created actual instructions for how to make it, but I want to give that a shot at some point. Eek, I love this little thing, it's just so beautiful!

Happy New Year's!

Christmas

I figured I'd better post about Christmas before New Year's. :-)

We had a nice, simple Christmas this year. On Christmas Eve, the kids helped me to make cookie bars to leave for Santa.

 

Zaylee was very excited about the prospect of getting a magnifying glass for Christmas - it was the one thing she put on her Christmas list. She even left her list out under the tree to make sure that Santa saw it and left her exactly what she wanted.

After I put the kids to bed, Santa paid a visit and left some nice gifts.

The kids were so excited to come upstairs on Christmas morning and see their treasures! I don't have any pictures of the fun unwrapping that ensued, I was busy enjoying the looks on the kids' faces as they opened their gifts. That's my favorite part. But here's some pictures of the kids enjoying their gifts.

Zaylee enjoying her magnifying glass

Playing with Thomas' train set

New hat for Zaylee

New hat for Audrey

New hat for Thomas

Michelle made some adorable bath puppets for the kids, and they have been having a lot of fun with them at bath time.

All in all, it was a fun Christmas, and we all have been enjoying the gifts that we received.

HomeSpun Threads - Free Patterns!

As has already been posted on both Michelle's blog and Melinda's blog, Aimee of HomeSpun Threads is giving away the patterns in her shop, for free! Lots of cute stuff like baby shoes, bibs, bags and backpacks. Check out the fun patterns at HomeSpun Threads.

The Magic of Cupcakes

Audrey has finally begun to stand all by herself. Jeff is giving her little pieces of banana cupcake, and Audrey decided that she wanted some in both hands, and therefore had to let go of the coffee table. In the process she was so distracted by having cupcake in her hands that she forgot to sit down. She ended up standing for quite a while before getting shaky and having to finally sit down.

Yay for cupcakes. :-)

Mini Matryoshka Softies - Tutorial

I made a cute little fabric dollhouse for Zaylee for Christmas (used this tutorial from UK lass in US), and needed some little dolls to go with it. I originally planned on making wooden spool dolls, but Wal-Mart didn't have wooden spools, and I was too impatient to try anywhere else. So I decided to go a different route.


I created these cute little soft dolls that resemble Russian matryoshka dolls. They're so little and cute, only about 3 inches tall. They fit perfectly in the little dollhouse.

And I'm going to show you how to make them!

You'll need:
Pattern pieces
Main fabric - 1 6x4" piece (quilting cotton with a fun pattern)
Coordinating fabric for the head kerchief - 1 3x3" piece (knit so the edge around the face won't fray)
Fabric for face - 1 3x3" piece (flannel or quilting cotton)
Small amount of poly-fill
Markers to draw face

The hardest part about this will be the pattern pieces, I'm afraid. I'm not tech-savvy enough to make a printable page with the pattern pieces. So maybe just freehand it? Anyway, this is what my pieces look like (I couldn't even scan them, I held them up to the screen and traced them). The back piece is 3 3/8 inches tall, and 2 1/4 inches wide at its widest. Skirt is 2 1/4 inches tall and 2 1/4 inches wide. Head is 1 3/4 inches tall and 1 7/8 inches wide. The hole in the head piece is 3/4 inch diameter, with the top of the hole 1/2 inch from the top of the head piece.

Clear as mud? Okay, let's get started!

Cut one back piece and one skirt piece from the main fabric.



Cut one head piece from the knit fabric and one from the face fabric. Trace hole from the head pattern onto the knit piece.



Cut out face hole.



Pin face and kerchief pieces together, with the right side of the face fabric facing the wrong side of the kerchief fabric - you want to see the face through the hole in the kerchief. I don't have the pieces pinned in this picture, but you get the idea.



Carefully sew around the face hole.



Draw a cute face onto your doll. I used Sharpie pens, you could paint or embroider it on if you prefer.



Pin the skirt piece to the head piece right sides together, and sew (1/4 inch seam).




You should now have the complete front of the doll.



Now put the front and the back of the doll together, right sides together, and sew around the sides and top (1/8 inch seam). Leave the bottom open for turning.



Turn the doll right side out. You can use a pencil or a chopstick to help.



Stuff firmly with poly-fill.



Tuck the bottom edges in, and sew shut. You can hand sew this, or use the sewing machine, depending on how you want it to look.


You're done!

Now some pictures of the dolls and their dollhouse:



I got a lot of inspiration for decorating my dollhouse from this flickr group. Check out the cuteness!