It's coming...

Get excited, my friends...

Knock Off Pottery Barn Shelves

I saw this really cute idea on this blog: Anna White's Ten Dollar Ledges

I thought, I can do that, easy peasy.

And you know what? It actually was.

I love how it looks! And I REALLY love how easily Jamie can get to all her books on the bottom ledge. She is way more into books than Tyler ever was. Several times a day, she'll wander in here, grab a few books, and bring them out for me to read them to her. She loves the mommy and Jamie time, I love the not-screaming time :)

This is Why I Yard Sale:

Anyone who has been in a Joann's knows how pricey home decor fabric can be.

Whole box: $5

Most of it is red and gold, so I see Christmas decorations galore!

Tyler's Car Party!

So, I think the lesson here is to never, ever have a birthday party on a Saturday morning, because if you do, everyone you invite will have a soccer game, a play group, or a babysitting job to be at. Thank goodness for cousins and grandmas, or we would have had a very empty park!

Even so, we had a really fun morning:

We had cars from Cars:

A Pinata:

And so much FOOD:

Jamie was such a good sport and stayed in her Car seat the whole time:

Well, we had a lot fun anyway.

And we all got like five cupcakes a piece, so not a bad day.

This is Halloween

This is Halloween!

Halloween!

Halloween!

Halloween!

Halloween!

La, la, la, la-la-la, la, la......

A Name and a Blessing

Our beautiful girl was blessed in church yesterday:

Ms. Jamie Addison Claire Hinckley

He was joined by our bishop, our home teacher, a few friends, and McKay's dad and brother. We are so lucky to be in the church, to have our little babies blessed by the priesthood so early in their lives. It's also a wonderful reminder to us as parents that we are not her only parents, that Heavenly Father loves her as well and is watching over her with us, and helping us to know the best way to raise her.

McKay gave her a beautiful blessing, and she didn't cry (unlike Tyler who yelled all through his). According to her grandpa, McKay's dad, she grabbed the pinky finger of the man holding the microphone for McKay and held his hand all through her blessing, and that is so like her. We are so happy she is in our family. We already can't imagine our life without her sweet little smile.

PS: Our couches look really gross in that picture, but remember, we just had them cleaned last week in the great poison ivy purge of 2010.

Is it fall at your house yet?

Arts and Crafts for Mommies

If you check out the links I have on the side bar here, most of them are crafty blogs. I am ADDICTED to them! U-Create, Make It Love It, All Things Thrifty, I check them all everyday, and more often than not, I come away from them with a few new ideas. I have a folder on our computer full of to-do projects. I rave about them so much that I've got McKay's mom hooked too. She doesn't have babies to get up with anymore, so she can stay up until 2 AM blog-hopping and perusing and idea collecting. Lucky!

Anyway, I did finally get one finished:

These are animal alphabet blocks, and they're on the wall above Tyler's bed (just out of reach!).

They are already doing their job! He's been so interested in them, and has been picking up on the letters fast! Now if we could just get him to look at some of the other letter beside S (snake), W (whale, or "fishy"), and B (buggy-fly).

It Starts

I cannot even express how excited I am for the holiday season to begin.

Tyler and I have been waiting all week for Oct. 1 to get all our spooky decor out. And this is just the tame, tasteful Halloween stuff. We haven't gotten into the spider webs and ghosts to hang out on our porch and front window...yet.

Each year, around the beginning of October, I have a moment where the transition from normal person to haul-out-the-holly and deck-the-halls happens. This year, it happened when I passed a holiday-themed Airwick display at the grocery store. It was instantaneous.

Christmas music on the radio! Presents! Baking! Christmas trees, ornaments, family gatherings, love, cute nativity scenes, mistletoe!

I bought two refills for my living room air freshener, Vanilla Indulgence and Fresh-baked Gingerbread. I am perfectly aware and okay with the fact that I am playing right into the manufacturer's hands.

Happy October, everyone!

Black Friday?

My good friend Tiffany agreed to be my partner in crime at 5:00 AM this morning outside of the Provo Robert's Crafts. The first 50 customers got a free $25 gift card! Since most of Provo is poor college students, we figured we needed to get there extra early to be in the first 50.

Here we are, #1 and #2 in line! I think it took at least another hour and a half for the line to get to 50 people.

Tiffany and her well-earned gift certificate!

Here's my loot! I was really into all the Halloween and Thanksgiving decor for some reason. We don't have a lot of decorations for this time of year, but I think that celebrating the little things in life like season changes and the first day of the month and silly holidays like Pirate Day and Pi Day makes everyday life new and exciting for your family.

At any rate, I bought more than I should have. I think sleep deprivation may have been a part of that decision making process.

This actually says "Give Thanks," although we do love us some Tom Hanks.

There were a few smaller things, but the minute they entered our home, they disappeared.

I think he knows something.

PS: Our lovely neighbors are hosting another party tonight. I'm really glad they're making a habit of this. And just to shake it up tonight, they've been honking their car horns and they've played "Gimme Gimme More" three times already. Love it.

Family Pictures

This week, we went and had some pictures taken, which was so much fun for Tyler. They had tons of little props for kids to play with during picture-taking, and Tyler was smitten with this car. This was one of the only pictures of him on it that he didn't have a huge, crazy smile on his face from excitement. Don't worry, Grandma's, copies of the pictures are on the way!

McKay and I had had another project this week. I saw this really cool home decor idea on a morning show. You take any picture that you like and use it at a website that blows pictures up for you, and then it gives you the pages in adobe photo shop form, and you print them out yourself. You end up with a HUGE picture (up to 20 meters in length, if you want), and we put them in a bunch of 8 X 10 frames. This is what we ended up with:

It looks pretty cool in person. We feel pretty artsy :) If anyone wants to do it too, the website that does it is http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/wizard.gas?Phase=1