Spring Break!!! Part 1.....

Well, I'm behind on my blogging again, but I am determined to catch up one of these days! So, I'll start here with our AWESOME spring break trip! We decided to take a road trip to Arizona to visit Grama and Papa! The loooooooooooong drive was tiring, monotonous, and at times, adventurous with me, Amber, Abbie(7 year old), Kallie(5 year old), and Kelton(10 month old). So we took it kinda slow and stopped when we needed to and eventually made it to a hotel just south of the south rim of the Grand Canyon where we met up with Grama and Papa! These kids were just so glad to be out of the car it took us 2 or 3 hours to calm them down and put them to bed! Grama and Papa were pretty excited to see them too!

The next morning we got up, ate breakfast, and headed to a BEAUTIFUL place for some sightseeing.
THE GRAND CANYON!!

Abbie and Kallie were having a great time taking in all the beautiful scenery and participating in the 'Junior Ranger Program' offered by the national park services, but this is how Kelton toured! Asleep in the stroller!

Since Karlo didn't get to come with us, we took every opportunity for photos that we could and we all had a great time. Here's one of me and the kids! It was quite windy and a little rainy so we had to bundle up, but it was fun anyway.

Here's one of everyone except me! This is the closest to the edge that we could get Grama to stand. She has a very unhealthy fear of high edges!

The girls had a lot of fun running around and climbing on different rocks. I put them up on this one for a pic and this was the pose they gave me.

After looking all around and going through some of the lodges and souvenir shops we decided to hike down the 'Bright Angel Trail' just a little ways...

Amidst all of my recent sewing projects, I decided to make my own "Baby Wrap". It is patterned after the "Moby Wrap" which sells for about $60 and I found some clearance fabric and made my own for about $5! It came in very handy when Kelton woke up and wanted to explore the Grand Canyon with us! He just loves being tied onto Mommy and going where I go! And the "Baby Wrap" really saves my arms and back!

Because of the rain, we all got a little muddy and wet on our hike, but it was warmer down the trail and out of the wind so we really had a great time! We stopped at this little cave in the side of the cliff for a pic for Daddy!

When we came back up, it was starting to snow so we decided it was time to head south and get to Phoenix! Along the way, we stopped and another tourist attraction. Bedrock City!!!

It's a little village out in the middle of nowhere, that's been set up just like the town of Bedrock from the Flintstones cartoons. My girls have never really watched that so we had to explain it to them and we watched a few episodes online when we got home, but they had a great time running around and exploring the village. Also, because of the cooler weather, we were the only ones there at the time so we had the whole village to ourselves! Here are a few of the fun pictures we took!

Then we hopped back in the car and headed for Grama and Papa's house! We only had to make a few quick stops along the way and made it there just in time for bed! We spent a week there before the road trip back so I'll be posting more of our fun times in AZ soon! Until next time....

Tea Party! and Repurposing

This is kind of a long post as I've combined 2 of my recent fun things into one post. So, keep reading and bear with me! Last year, for my birthday, I got a new sewing machine! It's come in very handy in recent months, as I've found myself having to alter and repair A LOT of clothing for my family! With Karlo's work being so hit and miss we just cannot afford new clothes and unfortunately, I LOVE new clothes. For me, for the kids, even for my hubby, who is really no fun to dress because all he likes are jeans and t-shirts! I was whining to Mom about how expensive clothes are and she told me she used to make a lot of our clothes when we were kids. But, now-a-days, to buy the fabric to make something is usually more expensive than just buying it new(except when you find good fabrics on clearance). I'm also a big bargain shopper and have become addicted to the Other Mother's Quarter Sale held once a month near my home. I've gotten some great things there including toys and MANY articles of clothing that have only required minor repairs or alterations to make them work! So, as I was repairing and taking things in for my skinny Abbie, I started to think that I just might have the talent to make some of the cool things I've been wanting and seeing on other blogs and websites that I follow. I started out with some simple things.... I paid almost $6 for a Binky saver that BROKE within the first few weeks of use! So, I decided to make my own. I bought 4 metal clips and 2 rolls of ribbon at the craft store for about $3-$4 and made these way cuter Binky savers that have just been awesome(If I do say so myself)! Then I got a little braver and decided to re-purpose a plain boring long sleeve tee that I hadn't worn in a while into this super cute 3/4 sleeve, in-style right now, corsage tee! Now I wear it all the time and it didn't cost me anything more than what I already paid for the shirt a year or so ago! Then I gained even more confidence in my abilities! My girls LOVE dresses! Abbie will wear pants too, but Kallie has to be forced or have a really good reason to wear pants. She wants skirts and dresses EVERY DAY! So, Amber had a bunch of skirts that she was getting rid of so I took them and decided to use them for dresses for the girls! The black and white one was made for Abbie from a t-shirt and an old nightgown and Kallie's was made from a t-shirt and an old skirt and they are well loved by both girls! These next 2 dresses were a little trickier to do and a lot more frustrating, but, I think, they turned out super cute and once again didn't cost me a thing and the girls LOVE them! These are their "ruffle dresses"!

I do have to add that all of my creations have minor flaws in one or more places and I'm OK with that! I'm not the greatest of seamstresses and if anyone is looking that closely they really might have some problems that need addressed! HAHA!

Anyway, on to my next project! One of my friends blogged awhile ago about making these really awesome cake platters from things found at second hand stores or garage sales and I LOVED the idea. So I scoured some local thrift stores until I found what I wanted. I love to have parties and entertain and I thought these would come in handy at some point and they did! I used them at a SUPER FUN "Tea Party" that Kallie and I had a few weeks ago!(That's the next part of my post.)

Kallie has been pretty bored this year with Abbie in school ALL DAY now and I don't always have the time to play with her like she would like. So, we decided to invite her friends and their moms(and little sisters) to our house for a Princess Tea Party! Amber(the most awesome scrapbooker in the world) helped us make the cutest invitations and we hand delivered most of them. In the end we had about a dozen little girls, all dressed in their finest ball gowns, to our "lovely home" for a Tea Party!

This is how we set up for our girls! We even found little plastic tea cups at the dollar store 8cups/$1! Then Kallie decorated them with flower stickers and we had flower plates and napkins!

This was our food table! We made Pink lemonade for the girls and Italian Sodas for the Moms. Kallie requested strawberry(pink) cupcakes with Pink and white frosting and we made little flower cupcake toppers to stick in them. We also had little cucumber sandwiches and fruit with a yummy fruit dip.

Everyone had a great time and all the little princesses were so cute!

Especially this one(Rylee Call)....

And.... Our Hostess... Kallie Grace!

Well, this post is finally finished! I hope you enjoyed the update to our life and until next time....

Jump Rope for Heart!

Well, I know it's been like 2 months since I blogged so hopefully I'll be able to catch up with a few different posts. We've been very busy and loving every minute of it! So I'll start out with Abbie's Jump Rope for Heart event at school. This is a cause very dear to us. The American Heart Association does this fundraiser all around the country to raise money to help kids with "sick hearts". Most of you know that our Kallie Grace is one of these kids. She was born with a heart defect and has had 3 surgeries to repair it. However, she has a few other heart anomalies and risks to her heart health that will always have to be monitored closely. We are so thankful to have Kallie in our family and we're so happy to have had Abbie participate in this event to show her love and support for her sister and so many other children around the world! Here are some cute pics from the event held at Abbie's school! We had so much fun and Abbie reached her fundraising goal thanks to the support of all you wonderful friends and family members(you know who you are)! THANK YOU!!

Christmas! (A little late!)

Ok! Well, I wanted to get my Christmas post done before the end of January and I'm just barely going to make it! YAY! So, I'll just start with my pics and give you a little fun info to go along with. The 1st is this picture of Abbie and Kallie in their cute little Christmas dresses that I made from an old skirt that was my Mom's. I was very happy with the way they turned out and the girls loved them. I even reached deeeeeeep down inside to find enough creativity to make hair bows that matched! I LOVE re-purposing!

On the 23rd of Dec. we went to Kelton's 6 month check-up and then left from there to go to Karlo's parents home in Preston, Id. Kelton's 6 month stats are as follows - 19 pounds, 8 ounces - 27 1/4 inches tall! What a big boy!

We spent some fun time at Grandma and Grandpa Stucki's house and took this picture on Christmas Eve. What a cute family I have!

This was on Christmas morning! All smiles and one confused look. Kelton was wondering what in the world was going on!

Here's Abbie showing off her Christmas gifts! She was so happy!

And here's Kallie digging in to her stocking! She loved her gifts too!

Kelton got this wobbly penguin that makes silly sounds and plays music, but SANTA forgot the batteries! He had fun anyway!

We stayed in Preston for another couple of days and then on the 27th we drove down to Salt Lake City to catch a flight to ARIZONA! Here's a pic of Kelton on his very first airplane ride! He did sooooo good!

We arrived in Phoenix to find out that my brother and one of his kids(who had arrived from Wyoming earlier that day) were sick! OH NO! Karlo was threatening to go to a hotel in order to avoid the illness! HAHA! We had tons of fun anyway and they got over being sick pretty quickly.

Here's a cute pic of what we lovingly refer to as the K Boys in the family. Karlo, Kolby, and Kelton! So Handsome!

And here's a great shot of the four girl cousins! It's so fun to see them growing up as best friends even though they live far away from one another and don't get to see each other as often as we'd like. They just have so much fun together!

This one is hard to see because I took it with my phone, but it's a great picture of all the kids together getting ready to scream and make some noise for a Happy New Year! Lots of fun!!

We eventually had to come home, after a nearly 2 week vacation, and get back to real life. But, we had such a great time with both sides of the family and we are so grateful to have been blessed with the opportunity to travel and spend time making wonderful memories with our awesome families! I hope you enjoyed this belated update and until next time.....