Stick Horse and Popcorn Cakes

This year for Christmas Darcy got to work on a couple fun projects. She had her three year old cousin Raylee's name for the Christensen family gift exchange and after looking at some ideas for her on Pinterest, we decided it would be fun to make her a stick horse that we saw. There were definitely some parts that were a little beyond her level that I had to do, but she worked on a lot of it and had fun getting to use the sewing machine a little. I haven't done a project like that for quite a while and it was pretty fun for me too. 

Drew's parents have made popcorn cakes to take to friends/neighbors at Christmas for a long time. We decided this year to carry on that tradition and we made ten popcorn cakes. We knew it would be handy to have some extra hands, but not the very littlest hands in our family, so we let Darcy stay up with Drew and I one night after we put the other kids to bed so she could help us. She was so giddy about the whole thing. It was pretty fun to see her so excited and happy to get to stay up late and work on that project with us. 

Tracing the pattern onto the felt. I was probably doing something wrong but for some reason the pattern I was supposed to print turned out soo tiny. So I had to free hand a bigger copy of it. That was a bit of a stretch for me since I generally have no drawing skills, but it seemed to turn out ok.

Making the mane

 This is the only picture I have of this stage with the stick in it without the face or horn done.

Darcy's job was to pop the popcorn and then transfer it to the other bowl trying to avoid the unpopped kernels.

 I was mostly in charge of the butter/marshmallow mixture (if the pot in front of me wasn't enough of a hint, you could tell by the marshmallow on my shirt and face). :)

Drew did a lot of the mixing and transferring the cakes into the bundt pan and then onto the plates.

10 Months!

Wow time is flying by! Shelby is ten month old today. She is in the middle of her first nasty cold mixed with conjunctivitis (eye infection), and we are hoping we can get through that quickly because our normally very pleasant baby is having a hard time at the moment.

Some things we want to remember about Shelby at ten months:

- I don't know how much she weighs but we can see that she has chubbed up a little this last month and we long the extra squishiness. It is so adorable.

- She crawls around like crazy and pulls herself up on everything. Just in the past couple days she has let go of whatever she was holding onto and stood on her own for a second. She seemed pretty proud of herself. :)

- She loves to go outside, but unfortunately that it happening very rarely for her right now since it's too cold out there for me. If I go close to the door but don't open it she gets sad. One time I was holding her and went to open the front door to get a package. As I grabbed the door nob she squealed  and kicked her legs because she was so excited to get out there. She has gotten to be a pretty speedy crawler so every once in a while she escapes through an open door to get out there for a second. Obviously I should be taking her out there more often.

- She loves to have her clothes off. I have discovered that if she is having a moment of sadness that I can't fix any other way, I can just take her clothes off and that almost always does the trick. She loves to hang out in just her diaper.

- Her two bottom teeth finally came in! Both on the same day - December 4. Around 9 1/2 months. She started playing with her mouth and making a funny new sound for a couple days after that.

- She notices when we are saying prayers as a family. She is usually really quiet during them and when everyone says amen, she usually yells her own version of amen along with us and smiles so big as we all open our eyes and look at her.

- She loves music and is branching out with her dance moves.

- She is starting to notice other babies around her and seems happy to have some little buddies.

- Fabric seems to be her favorite toys. Some of her happiest places are wrapped up in some floor length curtains, in the low hanging clothes in our closets, or in the middle of an unfolded pile of laundry. If we open a clothes drawer that is low enough for her to get to she loves to pull all the clothes out and throw them and spin around in them. I will post a bunch of pictures I have taken of her in those places. They are some of my favorite pictures I've ever taken of her.

Thanksgiving 2017

We had a really great Thanksgiving this year. My cousin Laura recently moved to the Seattle area and she came, my cousin Dione recently moved to the Spokane area and she came, and my Aunt came with her family from Boise. Along with all the rest of us that are always around we had a real party. There were around 60 people at our big Thanksgiving meal and it was awesome. My parents are such great hosts. My mom spent days in the kitchen but it didn't seem to phase her one bit. I'm so grateful they are willing to have a big crowd, because it is so fun and wonderful to have everyone together like that.

My cousin Laura and I had so much fun together as kids and it was pretty great to see our kids having fun together too. 

The Queen of the kitchen!

Drew, Milas and Brian carved the turkeys. There were four. Brian fried three and Julie roasted one. They were all so yummy!

Laura and I chopped maybe a million sweet potatoes, WAY more than we actually needed. :)

Some of the delicious food

Our friend Jeannie brought this. She always makes everything look so beautiful.

Just some of the pies

Some guys watching football

A little ipad party

Five day old Avery even joined us!

We went apple picking the next day to make some apple cider. The weather was so nice for the end of November! 

 Brynne was excited about this tiny apple she found.

 Rides in the bed of the pickup are always a hit

 Next there was some gun shooting

 On a whim my dad built the most amazing Tonka truck dirt track.

I got to shuttle kids back and forth from the track/shooting to the house.

The guys went riding and some of us went to watch them.

The kids were wanting a ride so I grabbed Drew's dad's four wheeler and the kids took turn having rides around the outside of the track.

Shepherd and Parks