Naps

Today during nap time:

Ethan played games on the National Geographic Kids website
Madeline sang and played in her bed with doll house dolls
And I fell asleep so fast I didn't even know what hit me

Phew, glad we were all happy!

Cute and Easy Owl

Another fun thing I made for one of my nephews this Christmas was this owl:

I found the easy tutorial here.  I liked how fast it went together and how cute it turned out too.  I think it would be fun to make some girl versions of this as well.  And maybe play around with different feet, perhaps longer legs to make it look more Pottery Barn-ish. 

December's Ten Things

I'm a little behind on this one, but I love how Emmy Mom inspires me to look back and see ten reasons to smile each month.  When I do look back, I find there are usually a lot more than ten and that alone makes me smile again.  I have a lot to be grateful for!


So here are my:

Ten Things To Smile About from December!

1.  I found time during the holidays to actually make five darling Christmas Dolls

 2.  I sang in Christmas concerts and felt the true Spirit of Christmas more than ever before!

3.  We went to a church with hundreds of nativities set up and watched a marionette play of the first Christmas

 4.  Ethan turned FIVE!

 5.  I had a blast making him this crocodile cake

 6.  Then I had a blast making sugar cookies too, and candy cane cookies, and lots of other sweets!

 7.  We enjoyed Christmas Eve with both sets of grandparents and tons of family

8.  Christmas!  Do I need to say more?

9.  I got to play in the snow in my sandals . . .brrrr!

10.  I finished my 365 Photo Blog having never missed a day!

January Recipe

Curried Noodles with Vegetables

From The Gourmet Cookbook

Serves: 8 as a side dish, 6 as a main course

½ pound very thin rice stick noodles (rice vermicelli)
¼ cup chicken stock
3 TBLS soy sauce
1 tsp salt
½ tsp sugar
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 TBLS vegetable oil
1 ½ TBLS minced garlic
1 TBLS minced peeled fresh ginger
1 ½ TBLS curry powder
2 medium red onions, thinly sliced
2 red bell peppers, cored, seeded, and cut into very thin strips
3 medium carrots, finely shredded
½ medium head Napa cabbage, thinly sliced
2 TBLS Chinese rice wine (I used extra chicken stock)
2 cups (about 6 ounces) bean sprouts, rinsed and dried

 Soak noodles in boiling water to cover in a large bowl for 30 minutes. Drain.

 Stir together chicken stock, soy sauce, salt, sugar, and pepper in a small bowl.

 Add stock mixture, noodles, and bean sprouts and stir-fry until most of liquid is absorbed. Transfer to platter.

Heat oil in a wok or deep 12-inch skillet over high heat until it begins to smoke. Add garlic, ginger, and curry powder and stir-fry until fragrant, about 15 seconds. Add onions and stir-fry until slightly wilted, about 1 minute. Add bell peppers, carrots, cabbage, and wine and stir-fry until vegetables are tender, 5-7 minutes.

Monster Pillows and a Doll Face Too

For my brother's kids, I knew I wanted to sew things for them for Christmas but wasn't sure what.  Then I saw a tutorial for these monster pillows and it just seemed like a fun idea for my nephews:

The fun thing about these pillows is that they have a hidden pocket inside the pillow to keep goodies or secret toys.  The handles also make them perfect for pillow fights!  They were really fun to make too, but I'd recommend allotting yourself plenty of seam allowance when sewing on the points - that would have saved me some major unpicking time.  I also would sew the Velcro of the secret pocket closer to the top of the pillows if I were to make them again.

For my niece, I wanted to have the same idea only cute and girly.  This time, I copied a picture of a doll face pillow out of a Land of Nod catalog.  They are so cute and maybe you could find them on their website, but they were out of my price range and I wanted to make it myself anyway.  My mom helped me make the pattern and we added handles and the hidden pocket in this one too.  I am really happy how it turned out!  So much so, that my daughter just might be getting one for her bed when she turns three in a few weeks!

Our Sledding Adventure

Yesterday, to celebrate the new year, Todd decided our family needed to go on an adventure.  So after some major warm clothes preparations, hand warmers, and treats, we headed up to Tibble Fork in American Fork Canyon to brave the single digit weather for some sledding fun!

The kids rode down a few times on our laps

 and Todd got to go down bigger/longer hills alone too.

 It was SO COLD, but also SO BEAUTIFUL

 By the end, Maddie was too cold to smile.  It's a good thing Dad had prepared us well.  She was wearing four layers and had hand warmers tucked in her gloves.  I can't imagine how frozen she would have been had it been left up to only me to keep them warm!

 Madeline did have fun despite her face in the picture above though, just listen to her giggle as she goes down the hill:

And we all enjoyed hot chocolate and donuts once we finished sledding

 It turned out to be so much fun.  A totally wonderful family trip and a memorable way to start the new year!!

In the New Year

Happy New Year!  This is the first day in 365 where I don't need to take a picture for my photo blog.  And after successfully taking at least one picture every day for the entire year and never missing a single day, I am happy to report that I am retiring from my Photo Project 365!  It sure was a cool experience.  And who knows, maybe next year I'll try it out again.  For now though, I think I'll enjoy not needing to take a picture every day.  Having said that, I don't plan to entirely neglect my photo blog.  Hopefully I'll get photo blog worthy pictures a few times every month.

Despite the fact that I don't need to take pictures every day, I still took pictures today.  Lots in fact.  Our family has a tradition to go sledding on New Year's Day and this year is wasn't just to the neighborhood park!  I'll have to post about that tomorrow though.

And while I'm on the subject of posting, this coming week will probably be filled with posts of the Christmas sewing projects I worked on over the past few months.  I am mostly posting them for me, as a record, so don't feel like you have to say how neat they all are.  They sure were fun to make though, and I like seeing how I actually am better at sewing than I was a year ago.

I have high hopes for this new year.  Hopes that things won't change much.  I'm glad I won't have to move.  Glad my family is happy and that we'll continue to learn things together.  Glad for days to putter around the house.  Glad I can read new books and try out new recipes.  Oh, and glad the treadmill can't give up on me even when I tend to give up on it a lot.  I'll try and recommit to that too.

So here's to a happy new year!  May it be so for you too.