Picture week

Instead of writing a bunch and then posting pictures I will just explain the pictures, which will explain most of our week!

A rare night that daddy is home and not busy so of course, they crashed early!

I made strawberry cream cheese pastries for breakfast

Maeli helped me babysit and feed Kaisa

A before picture of Maeli's changing table

AFTER - we painted it brown (I'm still debating if I want to paint it darker or even black but...eh, I'm too lazy to really think about it and I like it the way it turned out), I painted the baskets white and made two different changing pad covers

This morning Maeli and I were soooo tired. We got home at 1 this morning from Clay's brother's super bowl party so we were all pooped.

And that was our week. Nights were crazy, I'm hoping it will slow down soon but the next 4 weekends are packed already so I guess we're in the for the long haul! We bring it on ourselves though. Wednesday I went with Clay to his Arnold Air Society meeting - did I mention he applied for a position as a training officer and got it? So now he helps train and prep the cadets for field training by doing different problem-solving activities and things. Thursday we had friends over and played games. Friday we had a "Fry-day" with the Wingates and had two deep fryers going and fried a lot of delicious things. Saturday we spent with the Wingates also playing, baby-sitting, watching a little bit of Evan Almighty but we were all SO tired from the week that we were ready for bed by 9 so it didn't last long. This upcoming week will be busy too...especially with the holiday weekend although we are celebrating it next Friday (Anniversary Inn here we come!). I'll try to update again soon. And a shout out to our nephew Noah, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

Fabric Headbands

This is a SUPER easy project (Christina, I was thinking about you too - this would be really fun for you to do for yourself AND for the girls)
I went to a fabric headband class. It was roughly 40 minutes. We were given about 2 minutes of instruction and then were let loose. Unfortunately the project I made in my head took too long for the class so I left the class with scraps of fabric and ideas in my head. SO this morning I went to Wal-Mart. I already had a lot of headbands that I never wore that I could use but you can find some ANYwhere...Dollar Store sells some too. I looked through the fabric remnants shelves at Wal-Mart and the scraps I bought ranged from $0.23 to $1.41. I think I bought maybe 8 different fabrics AND had some at home already. I also bought a cheap 2 dollar bracelet to use the pearl beads from.


I figured I'd post a really loose tutorial on how to do them...of course there are many different ways depending on what kind of headband you're looking for. I am going to explain how I made the "Rose" ones. Cut a long skinny strip of fabric (1 1/2 feet long and 1-2 inches wide). Grab by both ends and twist the fabric:


Roll the fabric into a loose circle (to do the headband with 3 different circles shown above you use the same technique but roll the fabric tighter):
Then take a hot glue gun, glue the end of the fabric to the rose and cover the back with glue. Then place on a piece of felt :
Cut the felt close to the rose so that you can't see it. Then glue to the headband!
It was SOOOOO easy and I had never even made one before. It took me probably 20 minutes total to make all 4 headbands seen here. The 2nd from the top is a little different - you just cut out circles in different fabrics making them progressively smaller. I put a pearl bead in the middle and I actually sewed all of the fabric together the hot glued it to the band but you could do it all with glue if sewing isn't your thing.




Oh. P.S. I colored my hair darker on Sunday, if you were wondering. I have SOOOOOO much material that I haven't even touched and it hardly uses any fabric that you can make a LOT of headbands. I'm sure I'll be making a ton in the future since I have so much stuff to work with. It even looks cute on Maeli - she has a big head :)

So this is what it's like...

And we're back! Last week Clay and I hardly saw each other. He had school and work each day, at night he had drill team practices, Air Force meetings, and when he WAS finally home at night (around 8) he had homework to do until bedtime. On a night where he WAS home by 6 I had to go Visiting teaching and he had homework. Boooo. Saturday Clay had drill team practice at 6, then donated plasma and got home around 10:30. As soon as he got home I left with some ladies to go to the Stake Relief society Super activity. I attended two classes - fabric headbands (more in the next post!) and furniture refinishing. It was a lot of fun and lunch was delicious! The classes were so fun and got my creative juices going. In fact, it was funny because Friday night I took a trip to wal-Mart to stock up on some things to do some projects over the next few weeks. I bought fabric to re-upholster the glider in Maeli's room and fabric to make a changing table pad cover (or two). I also bought dark brown paint to paint the glider and changing table. They are going to look awesome, I'm so psyched! I just have to figure out when I can take the time to really put my all into it. We'll see!

Clay picked me up from the stake activity and we drove straight to Orem for a baptism! Cadet Barry, in the drill team, got baptized on Saturday. It was great. He was one of the very few non-members in the ROTC and I think the only non-member on drill team. He is dating a girl on the drill team and started taking the discussions. It was really neat to me to walk into the room and see nearly the entire drill team there to support him, including his superiors. The drill team commander, Cadet colonel McClain is the one that baptized him. It was really cool to see all of these people come to support him. He is from Alaska and didn't know anybody here when he moved and to see an overflowing room of people that support him was amazing. I am really impressed with the unity of the drill team. They are really there for each other.

We got home around 3:30 and had plans to go to the BYU vs. Utah basketball game BUT when it got down to it we decided not to go. At first I was like 'What!? It's Utah! We have to go!" but we decided we were both pooped out and had such a long week plus Maeli was cranky and just figured a night at home is what we needed. Don't get me started on Sunday though! Maeli has decided to be an absolute monster for church now! It is frustrating. She started screaming about 30 seconds after the sacrament meeting started, for no reason at all! So I knew we were off to a bad start. Clay had to take her out for half of that hour and ALL of the third hour. During Sunday school she had been standing between Clay and I's chairs on Clay's lap and then totally dove for it and fell backward. UNFORTUNATELY all she could grab in her desperate moment was MY HAIR. She hung there holding my hair for 10 seconds probably. Once Clay grabbed her she still wouldn't let go. Boy was that painful! After that, I had it. I didn't want anything to do with that monster so Clay took care of her for the rest of church. It was actually REALLY nice to enjoy church without watching her. I got a lot more out of it than I have been. Just can't wait til she goes to nursery! Clay and I decided waiting until 18 months for nursery is too long. It should be maybe 14 months :)

She is obsessed with chocolate. It's a huge ordeal to keep her from even finding any!

Before church on Sunday in her dress from Adam and Nicole. It's a little big (it's 24 months) but she looked so cute! She didn't wear the hat to church but I think it'd look real cute once she gets longer hair!2122

Here is a video of her taking a few steps. This was about a week ago. She has been walking like crazy now but still crawls a lot too!




She also started signing. We check out Signing Time from the library and she will watch it all if she's eating in her highchair. If not she only watches for the first few minutes. Anyway, she has figured out one sign last week! You'd think milk would be easiest since she actually knows what it is but oh well. She has only seen the dvd maybe three times at most so I'm impressed she learned so quick.

For those who give all

Sometimes I feel like my blog is too much about military but I've realized this is what our life is about and will be even more about in the future. Plus I have a lot of blog followers that are related to the military in one way or another and I know they will appreciate this video.

Our day

I get to watch these two beautiful little girls! Of course, Maeli I watch ALL the time but Kaisa I get to watch three times a week. Today is our first try at watching her for 7-8 hours. We'll see how it goes! So far, so good. She is sleeping and I just put Maeli down for a nap. I am surprised how well Maeli does with a tiny baby around. I can tell she has bouts of jealousy but nothing major but I'm surprised how much she LIKES Kaisa. She loves to watch her. When she cries Maeli comes to her looking all worried, trying to get my attention. But my favorite is that Maeli is constantly trying to give her kisses and head bonks when she is near her. Unfortunately Maeli's head is like 5 times the size of Kaisa's so I have to be on mommy patrol when they're near each other so that Maeli doesn't head-butt the poor girl!

Staring at each other

Giving head bonks and "kisses"

Maeli telling Kaisa an inspirational bedtime story

This one I threw in just for kicks. Spaghetti is Satan's idea I have decided. I had to get a picture - she looked like an Oompa Loompa!

I started doing our taxes yesterday but can't finish them until I get some forms from the newspaper agency which should be next week. I'm pretty optimistic about our refund so far. Hopefully it will allow us to pay some things off and take some of the weight off our backs! We also found out that the Air Force WILL be paying for mine and Maeli's health insurance now. Clay talked to the guy in charge of those things and just has to get a receipt from the student health center showing that the Air Force only paid for HIS health insurance even though he was on the plan with dependents so we should be getting more money coming our way. Here's hoping!

The Wonders of E-Bay

I used to use E-Bay all the time. Since we've been married though, it has kind of fallen in the back of my mind. We usually find bargain items at stores here but some things are hard to find! I had been on the search for a brown waist belt (it has elastic so you can put it actually ON your waist) but I couldn't find any cool ones in the stores so I hit E-Bay! And I got this:

It came yesterday and I was pretty excited. Nothing like getting a package in the mail! It's the only time I check the mailbox regularly, which is unfortunate for the mailman because we can go an entire week without checking the mail which means that when we finally open it TONS of mail comes toppling out and that poor mailman has been having to stuff everything in there, probably hoping that we'll get our mail before he has to come again the next day. Sorry mail man guy.

Now I'm awaiting a bid I just made. I'm pretty sure I'll win it because it's ending in a few hours and nobody bid on it. Plus, for 5 dollars more you can just buy it, guaranteed.
I'm getting Clay a wedding ring. The one he had been wearing was too big for his fingers now and easily slid off. So easily in fact, that he lost it in December. We're pretty sure it's somewhere in the Jeep but we haven't been able to find it yet and besides...he needed a smaller one anyway. So we're spicing it up with some black! He's pretty excited. So am I! I believe this will be ring #3 for him. He doesn't have much luck when it comes to NOT losing things or misplacing them...which is why from the start I have always given him rings off of E-bay and it has proved to be a good decision. :)

With that said, I have no pictures of us to show. We had a hectic weekend. So many commitments. We were invited for a game night at a friends' that live in the building behind ours and got to hang out with other couples from the ward. Saturday night we went to our ward party in Hobble Creek Canyon (about an hour drive) where it was snowing heavily! I wish I had pictures though - the party was in a mansion that had two kitchens, many "family rooms", a full gym, air hockey, pool tables, ping pong, TVs w/ gaming systems, a jungle gym and there was even a full-sized tree inside. The walls all had stone covering them (picture a sweet castle) with TONS of windows. It was awesome. Because the party was so far away we had to miss two other commitments we made with other friends but it was okay, we had a lot of fun anyway!

Maeli update - She officially has started taking steps. On Sunday morning she even took three in a row. She is just over a year old so I suppose it's a normal age to start walking but it seems like every other kid I know has started walking before that. Oh well! It is pretty cute though to see her stand up (she stands ALL the time) and try to take a little shaky step. She loves walking with us holding her hand and she just stares down at her feet the whole time. She is also officially weaned off of formula! I couldn't believe how quick it was. It took maybe 5 days total...and probably could've taken less. I would do 2/3 formula 1/3 milk for three days. I had tried to do half and half earlier but Maeli didn't want to drink it. So after three days we did half and half, then did 2/3 milk, 1/3 formula and now it's ALL milk! My only problem now is that she doesn't want water! Occasionally she'll drink some but not often enough. She loves milk. She doesn't enjoy water or juice even. Hopefully she'll get better with the water thing!

And I hear Maeli waking from her nap, whining in her crib so I better get going!

2 posts in one day!

I completely forgot - yesterday around 11:50 I got a text from Minta saying Clay was going to be on TV on KBYU at noon. Well...we haven't hooked up our DVR yet so I grabbed our camera and just recorded the clip on there so that Clay could see it. Minta is majoring in broadcast journalism and is the reporter talking about the drill team here! Her husband Michael is on the drill team and they're close friends to us and Maeli- Michael is in the clip too :) Thanks Minta for the heads up!

P.S. Maeli is standing on her own a LOT today and took her first REAL step...finally! But Clay and I have not been encouraging too much, walkers become runners all too quickly which means CHAOS for us! This is what she has to say about her new developments: vdfgtrk n v k n n,,l ,.,l,m .