November Highlights

November brought a lot of goodness!

Aside from Jon and I celebrating our 8 year wedding anniversary, we got to spend Thanksgiving with family and friends here in California. Bethany's friend Christopher came all the way from England to celebrate the American holiday with us. When I came home from work on Wednesday, Christopher was giving Kate a personal piano lesson. I was very impressed with what she had learned:

On Thursday we slept in, made candy turkeys, ate delicious snacks and visited my parents. Kate wore her adorable turkey dress from Grandma Chris, and when I tried to get a picture it went really well!

Total meltdown.

Everybody should appreciate seeing that Kate is not a perfectly happy angel all the time, although she seems to be.

I finally got her to stop crying long enough for me to hold her and get a non-blurry picture of her dress!

She was a little bit happier after that :) Oy... toddlerhood is starting.

Back at home we had a beautiful table set up with our candy turkeys at each plate. Jon named his turkey "Frank, The King". You can see him pictured to the right wearing the candy-corn crown.

On Black Friday, I went to work and Kate got to hang out with her Aunt Beth... Not sure what they were teaching her!

That night after work we went to Old Sacramento where they had a performance of The Night Before Christmas along with a tree lighting. Jon's siblings were with us, (Beth, Mike and Dave with the exception of Steve) since they were all in town for Thanksgiving. We wandered some shops and then ended up at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. We let Kate pick out her own 30 cent piece of candy. She chose the milk chocolate Santa Claus, and then bit his head off, foil and all! (Don't worry, we pulled it out of her mouth before she swallowed it.) She loved having a piece of candy all to herself. I wish I had a better picture of the reindeer hat she was wearing, but I'm sure she'll have it on again sometime this December :)

Christopher brought Kate her very own Mr. Blobby plush doll all the way from England for the holidays. She loves carrying it around and playing with his bowtie!

On Saturday we went up to Little Bear Creek Tree Farm in Alta. It's a tradition of Jon's family since he was a baby. This is Kate's second year now.

Me and Kate in 2012:

Beth and Kate 2013:

Kate kept pulling her hat off, leaving her hair funny and flat, but I loved how she just looked like Larry from the 3 Stooges.

We had a great time walking around and looking at the trees even though the whole family got ahead of us and we lost them. After trying to follow them down the mountain for half an hour, we turned back and waited for a truck to just drive us back to the gift shop :)

Jon's family always brings chili and animal cookies for lunch. Kate really enjoyed eating a roll all by herself!

We sat by the fire and picked up some homemade rocky road and fudge from the gift shop. Even though we didn't get our own tree this year, it was still fun to participate in this Christmas tradition!

That night after work, we went to Jon's 10 year high school reunion (woah!) We were so back and forth about going over the years. I'm glad that Jon decided at the last minute to dress up and buy tickets for it. Overall the night wasn't super eventful, but it was still fun to see some people in person that we hadn't seen in years. Oh, and about half of all the women there were pregnant!

On Sunday, Kate wore a fancy dress to church.

I loved how she looked like a puffy cupcake!

After church we ate lunch and Kate was trying so hard to pull the bib off over her head! It was squishing her face and would pull her eyebrows way up. She makes us laugh all the time :) Silly girl.

Sunday night, we helped Christopher experience an American delicacy... SMORES.

Apparently they don't have such things as graham crackers in England.

Jon prepared a delightful fire in our gas fireplace as it was freakin' freezing outside!

Beth showed Christopher the clip from The Sandlot where they explain the construction of a smore. This seemed extremely helpful. We (of course) helped improve the flavor even more by using Ghirardelli chocolate. OH YES.

First bite anticipation!

Even though Beth has this weird idea that your mallow should be burned so that it has a charred outer flavor, Christopher still had a fantastic time making his smore and we're assuming this toe-thumb approval is a win!

We also had smores with bacon strips on them, which is AMAZING! Although it sounds a little odd at first, Sarah and Beth both tried it with me and Jon and agreed it was superb. Christopher, however, does not believe in American bacon. He says it is too rubbery and fatty. Uh... that's why it's delicious! Either way, he agreed to TRY the smore with bacon on it, but was only able to make it through one bite before being totally grossed out. Disappointment.

On Tuesday after work we took Christopher, Beth and Sarah out to Claim Jumper so that he could experience the delight of ENORMOUS American serving sizes. Steph ate her entire Widow Maker burger in one sitting. Proud mama, right here.

Christopher entertained us with stories from his younger days in York and we had a fantastic Mother Lode cake for dessert. No trip to America is complete without a completely ridiculous meal with way too much food that you could never realistically consume yourself!

After dinner, Jon and I went to see the newest Hunger Games movie. We made it RIGHT as the movie started so we were in the very very front center. It made the experience of watching Katniss, Peeta and Gale run across the screen very interesting. But we were super happy with this movie compared to the first one and we even liked all the music they played during the credits! Way to go movie makers for working with Coldplay, Of Monsters and Men and The Lumineers. Triple Win.

That night we said good-bye to Christopher since he is headed back to England on Thursday.

We will miss him bunches! But hope he will travel to California again soon :) Otherwise, we may just be making our own trip out to England.

We really enjoyed Thanksgiving and seeing friends and family. It was fun to see Dave and Meg even though we didn't end up with any pictures of them. Beth will be back for Christmas, and I'm sure we'll have many more fantastic adventures to share!

My Cousin Spencer

Dear friends and family,

This is my cousin Spencer:

He was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 12. Up until now he has been able to fight it with the help of surgeries and chemotherapy. He is one of the strongest kids I've ever known. I think I always took it for granted that he was just amazing and always seemed to pull through even when the odds seemed stacked against him. Unfortunately recent turns of events have indicated that we shouldn't anticipate his ability to fight off the cancer much longer.

Jon and I have already asked that friends and family not get us anything for Christmas. We really don't need anything and Kate has recently been given a lot of hand-me-downs (THANK YOU!) so we are set. We are asking that anyone who might have spent money on us, please consider donating to Spencer and his family to help with their medical bills instead. It would sincerely mean MUCH more to us than receiving "things" this year. Although gifts are nice and thoughtful, this season has helped me see how much material items just don't matter. When all you really want in life (and for others) is to feel appreciated and know that you are important to others, that they care, and that you matter to someone.

A friend of my cousin's family has set up this donation plan which I've pasted below and is also on FB if anyone wants more info. We appreciate your time and support for our family this Christmas season.

Love, Jon, Steph, Kate, Margo & Baby II

***

"As many of you know, almost 6 years ago, our friend Spencer Hardy was diagnosed with Ewing Sarcoma, a very aggressive form of spinal cancer. Spencer was about 12 years old when he was initially diagnosed and is valiantly and courageously fighting this disease. He is a true inspiration to us all.

In order to help the Hardy family and Spencer, Natalee Lence, a talented pianist and musician and close personal friend of the Hardy's has generously offered to donate 100% of the proceeds for a limited time from the sale of her current cd, Reflection. Natalee has asked that I be the contact to handle the sale and distribution for this project. There are only 100 cd's available. We are asking for a minimum donation of $20 per cd. Donation amounts can be higher of course. If you would like to order her cd, Reflection, and donate to Spencer's cause please message or call me at 503-330-1004 to make arrangements for purchase and for info on how proceeds will be donated to the family.

If you're not aware, Natalee's cd is a compilation of inspiring piano and orchestral music. I listen to her music weekly and each time I hear it I am uplifted and strengthened. I ask you to consider this special cd this Christmas as a gift for you and your loved ones. Every dollar collected will go to help the Hardy family with their medical expenses. Thank you for helping us help the Hardy's! Please feel free to copy this post on your own facebook account to spread the word. Thank you all for your prayers and support to the Hardy family.

Sincerely,
Nicolle

Spencer's Caring Bridge site
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/spencerhardy

http://www.nataleelence.com
 

8 Years of Marriage

On November 18th, Jon and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary!

Every year we try to go on a mini vacation somewhere. Our original plan was to go visit our friends Bay and Shawn in NV, but when Shawn's grandma had a bad fall earlier this year, the whole family changed Thanksgiving plans and so our mini trip was cancelled. I couldn't let this year go by though as this was an opportunity for us to have our first night without Kate and have a little time to ourselves before baby #2 arrives!

In about a week and a half's time, I planned a surprise trip for me and Jon. I wrote Jon 8 anniversary cards that all told him things I love about being married to him. The final one had his anniversary gift, which was a gift card to Color Me Mine so that we can paint something awesome together. The traditional 8 year anniversary gift is pottery :)

 

I had changed my work schedule and doctor appointments that week so that Jon wouldn't know that I had moved everything around. On the day we were going to leave, he thought I had to close at work. Instead I came home at 4pm and had road trip snacks in the front seat of the car! This was his last day of teaching before the next term, so it was a good chance to celebrate another semester completed.

I gave Jon his first card which said we were going on a surprise date. I had already packed our bags and they were in the trunk. Our neighbors and ward friends were already set to watch Kate overnight and had her bag and pack-n-play. Jon was so surprised. "How long are we going to be gone??" He asked. I didn't tell him where we were going, but just that I wanted him to enjoy it!

We drove up the hill to Nevada City where I had made reservations at a cute Inn. It was adorably cozy and small, super cute and clean! All of the shops in the town were lit up. I was so excited to wander through it all! It reminded me a little bit of Portland and the older shopping district that we loved.

I had even packed sparkling cider for us! Jon was very impressed. We walked a short half mile to an AMAZING restaurant for dinner. Friar Tuck's is definitely in our top 5 of all-time favorite restaurants. After dinner we walked back to the Inn. I just had to get a picture of Jon brushing his teeth with his winter hat on :) It was a bit chilly. Luckily we had a great heater in the room!

The next day we spent our time perusing the shops and had a fantastic lunch at South Pine Deli. Jon found me an awesome pair of wool socks as well as an adorable hat which he bought for me for our anniversary. I've never owned a nice hat before, so it was a lot of fun trying them on!

I would say that Jon's favorite store was the Fur Trader. They had real fox hats with the paws still on and the tail hanging down the back. If they weren't about $300 I'm sure he would have purchased it right on the spot. We loved looking at the coats and blankets! So so so soft. We were also able to pick out our Christmas ornament for this year, which we love to do on our anniversary trips. The winner: a felted fox with a pipe. He is currently chilling in our wreath on the door of our room since we don't have a Christmas tree. We also loved visiting the antique stores. There was some fantastic art deco era jewelry that the antiques lady let me try on. Holy cow, they were beautiful! It was cool to see that some had cuts of diamonds that aren't used anymore in modern jewelry. We could have spent hours in there!

We didn't bring our camera on the trip or the phone charger, so there aren't many pictures. But I kind of liked it that way. We just held hands and talked instead of worrying about social media or capturing every detail. It was such a great chance for us to feel like we were dating again and just talk about our past year and what we hope for this next year.

I'm so thankful for a husband who will do fun spontaneous things with me, even when he has no idea what is going on! I'm glad that he likes to go antiquing with me and stay in cute Inns. I'm so glad that we've made it through year #8 and can't wait to see what we talk about at the next anniversary celebration. We have a new found love for Nevada City and will definitely be going back!!

Advent Calendar Crafting

Recently we had a Super Saturday craft event at church for the Relief Society in which many holiday craft projects were offered, from Halloween through Christmas. The project I picked was this AMAZING Christ centered advent calendar, which I am super thrilled about. After I made the advent calendar, some friends asked me about it on FB. I had all the ladies sign up if they were interested, and my friend Jen offered to host if we had enough girls that wanted to make one. Thus, advent calendar craft night was born!

On November 1st we all got together. Baby Kate had helped me do some prep work beforehand:

We laid out all of the scrapbook papers and put together everyone's project kits.

Actually, I have to give 99% credit for this whole thing to Jon. He cut ALL the wood pieces out for me and helped finish off the kits for all the ladies while I was at work. This whole craft night would not have happened without him! I am so thankful for a husband who supports my crazy ideas and helps me make things happen. He makes me look good!

I am also incredibly thankful to Tracy Baker and all her original work on coming up with this project and giving us all detailed instructions which I made copies of for everyone.

Jodi from Lucy Lews on ETSY who I ordered the vinyl through was also amazing. She helped me get everything cut and shipped at the last minute when my original gal fell through. I was so happy with the size and the fonts! I would recommend her store to anyone looking for affordable custom vinyl.

After all of the wood pieces were painted (we used colors Barn Red and Burnt Umber in the Ceramcoat acrylics) the ladies glued down their paper squares:

Vinyl words and numbers were applied for the days 1-25:

Adorable baby break! Breanna, Leila and Lindsey :)

Finishing nails held "The Savior" plaque in place and were hammered into the top of each scrapbook square making hooks for the tiles to hang on.

Gluing the pictures of Christ to the wood tiles was the final step. I loved how everyone had different Christ picture packs, so the calendars were all colorful and unique!

Here are the lovely ladies with their projects! (in various stages of completion)

Unfortunately Tiani, Lindsey and Jess were all not present for the picture. AND my phone distorted the picture when I sent it to my email and I just now realized, after having deleted all of the originals from my phone. So I'm sorry about Jen and Jody's heads being cut off :(

I'm so glad that we were able to do this craft night together and that even thought it was a pain in the butt getting all the materials together, I still enjoyed working on a Christ centered activity with friends and helping pass along the crafting spirit. Making something homemade for the home is what I love best! I can't wait to see everyone use these for Christmas this year :)

Kate @ 15 Months

Kate is 15 months old! She is definitely a toddler now and already testing her toddler attitude. She is looking so much more like a kid than a baby now in everything she does. Gosh, I love her pigtails!!

Kate walks everywhere. She is quite the mover! She is still getting used to shoes, but always perseveres and keeps standing even when she falls. Last week we put her in a cute set of bear jammies that were just a LITTLE too small for her. The legs didn't give her enough room to really walk like she's used to. After a couple little falls on the bum, she finally stood up and fell straight backward like a dead fall on her back! Luckily she was on carpet and the jammies were really padded. It was so adorably funny and sad at the same time.

Kate loves throwing Margo's toys for her. She will giggle and clap her hands! Books are Kate's favorite toys. She will wake up in the morning and point at her bookshelf saying "boo!" She loves to pick out books and carry them everywhere. She will read to me whenever possible. She doesn't always have the patience to let us sit and read a whole story to her (she really prefers just to turn the pages and point at the pictures) but I'm still glad that she has a love for reading already. I'm hoping that her first real official word that she can say the whole way is "book".

When given a hair brush to hold she will run it through her hair. It's so fun to see her learning how things work and understanding when she watches us. I didn't realize that she would be imitating us so early on. Like most kids, she also loves to pull the toilet paper off the roll. This week she has been tearing off a piece and holding it to her face and blowing. Jon and his mom both had colds last week. I wonder where she learned that...? ;)

Kate will also hold cell phones up to her ear and talk to them... much to daddy's chagrin.

Kate's sign language is getting better and she is so close to saying words! She will say "mooo-re?" all the time as she signs. She doesn't quite have the "R" sound down, but at least we know what she's talking about :)

This morning I went into her room when she woke up and I asked her to say "hi mommy!" and she did say "mama!" I'm not sure she knows it's me, but it was still cute.

Kate loves to push buttons on the remotes, the TV itself, or anything else she can. She has a little leapfrog alphabet toy that was passed onto us from some cousins and she knows how to start the alphabet song, so she will play it over and over again! Kate also recognizes a few body parts (like her nose and eyes) and can point to them on herself and others.

Kate likes to feed us and the dog. She will pick Margo's food out of her bowl one kibble at a time and laugh when Margo takes the kibble from her hand. This morning with breakfast we had a banana and Kate loved picking pieces off the banana and feeding them to me. It's cute to see her learning how to do things for us that we have always done for her.

Katherine loves dancing to music and she loves baths. Katherine's favorite foods are anything with fruit and breakfast. She will eat a whole peanut butter and jelly sandwich on her own at lunch. She struggles with most dinner times, but still eats everything. I can just tell it's not her favorite because she's usually grumpy about it. Hopefully we can find better ways to help her enjoy dinner time.

We're hoping that potty training is fast approaching and will be easy. Kate has started to pull at her diaper when she goes, so we taught her the sign for "potty". Now when we notice her squat, we ask her if she is going "potty" and she will sign back to us. Then we take her to change her diaper right away. She is so smart and helpful. I love it!


She has no idea that we have another baby coming (at least as far as we can tell). She is happily oblivious, but does like poking my big tummy. I tell her there is a baby in there, and I've helped her learn to be gentle with her baby dolls, but when Olivander is born I'm sure there will be much wonder and confusion in her 19 month old brain :)

I am really looking forward to Christmas this year with Kate! I know she will love looking at Christmas lights and having a tree here in the house. People should make "Baby's 2nd Christmas" ornaments, because that's the first one that's exciting haha!

Kate loves animals (especially dogs!) and enjoys walking laps around the house. She can also make it up the stairs in 30 seconds by herself. We worked on teaching her to come back down safely, so she knows how to come down backwards, one step at a time. Last week she made it all the way up the stairs with a book so that Grandma and Grandpa Alston would read to her. She just went one step at a time, putting the book in front of her and then climbing up the next one. It's amazing to watch her figure these things out for herself!

Kate usually spends one or two days a week with Gram and Grandpa Bailey for a few hours. It's so cute to see her smile and get excited when we get to their house.

Overall, we couldn't have asked for a more hilarious and awesome kid. She is so happy and curious! I know she will be an awesome big sister.

Speaking of which - I am just past 21 weeks and feeling good!

Our 20 week ultrasound was really fun and baby Olivander looks great! We're not finding out the gender though, so you'll just have to wait until March :)

October - The Month Of...

FAILURE.

We didn't do a Year of Exploration project in October :(

We spent so much time prepping for Halloween and working on costumes, that we almost tried to claim that the costuming was our exploration for the month, but let's face it... that's just not true.

We had planned to make photography development an exploration project, and then with my work schedule and getting ready for Halloween, we didn't budget our time well.

HOWEVER, our costumes turned out amazing! I feel like these were our best Halloween costumes yet.

I want to do a whole post on the awesomeness of our costume projects this year and how we made everything (because we documented it all in pictures) but we need to get more organized first. So for now, you can just enjoy these pictures of The Katherine in her blue fairy glory :)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Cooking with Jon & Steph - Pumpkin Patch Brownies

While looking for fun Halloween baking ideas on Pinterest recently, I came across this gem:

It looked and sounded amazing! But when I couldn't find the candy corn Hershey's kisses ANYWHERE, I decided to improvise with these fall favorites:

Jon doesn't even like these candy pumpkins, but he LOVED these brownies!

First, you mix the shortbread dough together. The Pinterest/blog recipe has this. It was super easy! Cream together butter and sugar, then add flour and a pinch of salt until doughy.

Then you press it into the bottom of a pan. I found this easiest to do with my fingers :)

I decided this was like the "patch" for my candy pumpkins.

 I lined the shortbread with the pumpkin cuties so that there would be about 1 per brownie. If I were to make these again (which we WILL) I would put in twice as many pumpkins.

I covered the pumpkins with this delicious Ghirardelli double chocolate brownie mix.

I have since learned that there is a TRIPLE chocolate brownie version of this. But seriously, this dessert is so rich, double was plenty!

I mediated all of the baking times from the Pinterest recipe and the back of the box. We baked our brownies in this 12x8" pan for 45 minutes and that was PERFECT.

Over the stovetop, we melted 1.5 cups semi sweet chocolate chips with 3/4 cups heavy whipping cream in a double boiler to make a chocolate ganache for the top, because I just thought that sounded better than melting down candies for the top like the Pinterest recipe suggested. And I hate store bought frosting in a can.

We poured/spread the ganache over the top of the brownies right after they came out of the oven and it bubbled a little at the edges, sealing in the amazingness of chocolate overload.

 

Even though I had to scrape the ganache off the top of mine and let Jon have it, I thought these were DELICIOUS!! (Don't worry, I braved it a couple days later with some lactaid pills, and it is SOOOOO good. And I didn't even get sick. These brownies are a miracle!)

I loved that I renamed them and they ended up being "pumpkin patch brownies" because we ate them after Family Home Evening while watching The Nightmare Before Christmas after we went to the pumpkin patch. It was perfect! I'm pretty sure that these will be made EVERY October from now on.

The best part is they are fantastic warm or cold. The shortbread layer makes a perfect buttery neutral flavor against the gooey brownie and the rich ganache on top.

Heaven. On. Earth.

September - The Month Of...

HOMEMADE CRAYONS!

This project was not originally one that we had thought of at the beginning of the year. But when things like "glass blowing" prove to be monetarily challenging, you get creative :)

Making Kate her own crayons was actually Jon's idea - and I loved it! He found a recipe online for making crayons and it is very simple. You basically melt caranuba wax over the stove and add in pigment (like good gel paste food coloring or other natural plant pigments.)

We had these cool fishy ice cube trays from IKEA so we decided to use that as our mold and make Kate fishy crayons :)

 

We made sure to use a pan that we were never planning on using for food again. You can use it for future projects and wax melting, but otherwise it will destroy your pan. Luckily this one was super old and ready for the recycling anyway.

*sprinkle sprinkle* like waxy snow!

Margo thought the whole thing just looked delicious :)

The wax melted beautifully at a medium/low heat. Once melted all the way you turn the heat down as LOW as possible.

The next step is to pour about 1/4 cup of wax into another container for adding color. The approximate measurement is 1TB of pigment per 1/4 cup of melted wax.

Our first attempt did not go super well. We thought you were supposed to reserve a bit of wax and add the color, then put that wax back in with your melted stuff on the stove.

So these first crayons are not very pigmented.

After reading the instructions a little more closely, we did the next ones with more concentrated doses of food coloring, and they turned out ok!

The best part is that the extra wax on the outer edges of the mold can be re-melted down with the other wax to recycle and use in more crayons.
We made green, red and blue for our first try.
After letting the fishy crayons cool, we popped them out of the molds:

Obviously this is something that we can continue to get better and better at. We decided that next time we'll order pigment online so that the crayons have more color to rub on the paper.

Jon gives this project a rating of: "Unsuccessful, but definitely try again."
Steph gives this project a rating of: "Fun and worth playing with for better results!"

We're really hoping that this is the first step in creating baby Kate's very own homemade line of toddler art supplies ;)