sew, sew, sew

My old sewing maching died weeks ago (poor old feed dogs!) and Mom must have gotten tired of lugging her machine to my house and back so they got me a new one for Christmas! My first new machine! I am just giddy. They even got me the quarter inch foot attachment... sigh... I am so excited I don't even know what abandoned project to start with (or finish). These are a couple I have been working on the past few days.

The first project I had to work on was another taggie blanket.

Emma thought Macie's was so cool it just HAD to be hers - and

must have been Macie's by mistake. I can fix that! Two blankets!

I started this snowflake quilt when I was pregnant with Emma

and was never brave enough to machine quilt it myself. My

little Emma is pretty sure this is for her, too. Guess it is.

We seem to always be short on baby doll blankets, so

I gathered some of Mom's scraps and thought this was a

cute way to use them. I machine quilted this, too, with my

new darning foot... I am still giddy.

Many more projects to come... I am wishing nap time at this house was longer than an hour and a half once a day!

... and the stockings were hung ...

Well, we don't actually have a place to hang stockings this year, but they were made with great care. One of my favorite things to find when we pull our our Christmas decorations are the stockings Mom knit for each of her five kids. They were all made with the same pattern, but each kid has a different color combination. She has now also made one for Nick and two for each of my girls. Since they take about eight hours each, I was so thankful that she took that time this year so my girls would have ones that match mine (made 25 years ago!). Thanks Mom for making these stockings for me and my family!

Christmas Jammies

Snacks for Santa

... made by our naked chef!

{Santa}

Santa stopped by the Jackson Hole Town Square so we made our way over in the storm to see him. Emma didn't do so well last year, Nick and his family took her and she screamed when they handed her over. This year, I have been working on explaining that Santa is just a great big grandpa that has horses and brings us toys. She certainly liked the idea of that, but we didn't do much better with actually seeing him this year. Macie did just fine and slept through the whole thing, but Emma was more or less a repeat of last year. Nick did snap a couple pictures of her near Santa... maybe next year???

pumpkin cupcakes

I found a great recipe for pumpkin cupcakes at Little Birdie Secrets and I just had to try them! Mine didn't turn out quite as pretty as theirs {aren't they gorgeous?} but they were really yummy! I am also thinking really hard about making red velvet cake balls from Bakerella but I usually end up eating the whole batch of baked goods myself so maybe they will be a Christmas treat when we have family around.

Four month checkup

We took Macie in today for her four month checkup - and {drumroll please} she is 18 lbs! That is generously in the 95th percentile for height and weight. She is growing faster than Emma did, and is already wearing 6-9 month clothes. I love having a good chunky healthy baby, it gives me some peace of mind knowing she is doing well and definately eating enough. This is the latest snapshot I got of Macie before Emma jumped in front of the camera. Her cheeks are even bigger in person!

Christmas Crafting

I love the Christmas Season, mostly because it gives me another excuese to do crafting projects day and night. And during the Christmas Season, I do craft day and night. I don't do much more of the baking {mostly because Nick doesn't eat sweets so that leaves them all for me...} but I do break out the sewing maching, hot glue gun, beads, ribbon, etc. I am thankful Emma loves the crafting supplies as much as I do - she has been playing with 'rocks' that I made magnets with, pom poms, glue sticks, ribbon and cotton balls for the last couple days. This is a quick look at some of the projects I have completed in the last week or so...

knit scarves for my oldest nieces

oven mitt and hot pads for Emma

taggie blanket for Macie

fridge magnets

hair clips

chipboard book for Grandma Jane

Merry Christmas banner

I still have quite a big list of things I am working on... maybe I'll get some more done next week, but I was happy I was productive this week. Wish me luck next week on completing the rest!

Emma's Christmas Tree

The other day I had the following conversation with Emma

Emma: MOM! MOM! MOM!

Lila: What?

Emma: Lila (pointing to our Christmas tree)

Lila: Yes, that's Lila's tree

Emma: Emma (pointing to a fake tree we have)

Lila: Yes, that's Emma's tree

Emma: Lila's balls

Lila: Yes, Lila's tree has balls

Emma: EMMA BALLS!

... I guess she thought her tree wasn't complete without balls! So we found some I had and put red and green ribbon through them to hang. She was so pleased with my work, when I was done she applauded. What a funny kid!

Our Christmas tree

Nick, Emma, Macie, Cavet, Angie, McCarty and I all went out tree hunting on Friday. It was really a fun afternoon and we had perfect weather. There was only an inch or two of snow on the ground and for part of the afternoon it lightly snowed, but it was a warm snow. We bundled the girls up, Macie in the Baby Bjorn and Emma in the sled and hiked up South Leigh to find the "perfect" tree. Nick and I are not so picky, but it still took about three hours to find our trees.

Looking back, we should have turned Macie around for the picture, but she was sound asleep and I was happy keeping her that way. I love this little family!