Day of Love

For Valentines Day this year, we decided that we'd rather stay in and have a nice dinner instead of going out to eat. And you all know how excited I was to make a fancy dinner! It was also really fun for me to plan the fancy table setting. It brought me back to my days of working for Catering at BYU; tablecloths, setting the silverware and goblets, folding napkins.

Lest you think I am really cool enough to have a fancy table cloth, I just used a clean bed sheet. And the napkins: matching pillowcases. It'a nice effect though.

(Side Note: Did you know that other grocery stores outside of Utah don't have cases and cases of sparkling Apple Cider right by the checkout around Valentines Day?!?!? The store I went to had wine displays! It took we a while to even find 1 of their 5 bottles of sparkling cider, tucked away in the juice aisle. Apparently I'm still getting used to life out of Utah.)

To add to the Valentines decor, I made a Valentine line, kind of like my Christmas card line.

I hung pictures from when Mckay and I were dating, and things like movie ticket stubs, notes to each other and other dating memorabilia. It was fun to look back over our years together as we ate.

For the appetizer, we had Twice-Baked Potatoes.

And for the main course, we had Chicken Cordon Bleu with Lemon Garlic Green Beans served with a Mornay Sauce.

The chicken was easier than I thought it would be to make and it was all soooo delicious! It was much better than the Chicken Cordon Bleu from the Morris Center.

We were so stuffed from dinner that we didn't even have room for dessert: Heart Shaped Cream Puffs.

We just had to eat them the next night.

For the filling, I just did a box of french vanilla pudding, much easier than last time when I made my own pudding. I thought I'd be cute and add food coloring to make the pudding pink to go with the Valentines theme. I didn't think about how "french" vanilla pudding is more of a yellow color than regular vanilla, and how adding red coloring to yellow would make an orange-ish pudding. It still tasted great.

And the cream puffs actually came out looking heart shaped.

We had a great day of Love.

My Sweetheart Baby

I didn't think it was possible, but Dallin is becoming so much funnier, sweeter and cuter by the day. He's learns a lot from watching us and I love when he copies what we do. He laughs so much more now and when he sees us laughing he has to join in, even though he usually has no idea what is so funny.

A few weeks ago in Nursery at church, the kids learned about prayer. Since then, Dallin will fold his arms with us when we pray. He does it all on his own, usually prompted by seeing us fold our arms. Sometimes he'll do it by himself suddenly while he's playing.

I love how it looks more like he's folding his "hands" because his arms are so short and fat.

We've been trying to teach Dallin some sign language so that he can communicate with us better. It's easy to see how frustrated he gets when he can't communicate his needs, so I'm hoping that he'll figure out that signing will make him happier.

He signs "milk" every time when I give him his bottle. I'm still trying to get him to sign milk before I make it, so I know when he is hungry. (Right now, he'll cry and I know he's hungry, so I'll make the bottle and then he signs milk after he sees it.) This is usually what he looks like when he signs milk (which is signed by squeezing your hand into a fist, like milking a cow):

He didn't think it was very funny that I had his bottle inches away and I stopped to take a picture of him. No bueno, mom.

He's learning the sign for "more," but it's a difficult concept for him to understand. We have an awesome pop-up book that he loves! It's called "Mommy" by Maurice Sendak.

He wants this book read to him over and over again. I taught him to sign "more" at the end of the book if he wanted me to read more. This is what it looks like when he signs "more:"

How could you not read that book over and over and over when he asks so cutely? I usually read the book to him about 8 or 9 times a day. However, I worry that he thinks it's the sign for "book" rather than "more." He'll sign it if we haven't been reading at all but he wants the book. It's a tricky concept!!

(Side note: The book is about a baby trying to find his Mommy. The book is mostly pictures; it only has 7 words. 6 of the words are "Mommy." You would think that after hearing the word "Mommy" 40 times in a row, Dallin would say it more often. Nope, his only consistent word is Dada.)

His mobility is increasing and I'm amazed at some of the things he can do. He was standing on a chair by the kitchen table and managed to climb up onto the table. While I was folding laundry the other day, he climbing into the laundry basket and began picking out all the socks so he could hug them.

You gotta love this kid!

Smart Shopping

I'm pretty happy right now because I got an amazing deal on baby wipes.

Amazon.com has great deals on diapers and wipes, as well as other baby products. I've been buying Dallin's diapers from Amazon for a few months now and I love it. This deal on the wipes was particularly awesome.

These Pampers wipes 720 ct. (pictured above) are listed at $25.00. When I bought them, they were marked down to $19.19. (Amazon's "marked down" price changes a lot, so you have to watch and search around for the best price.) You save an additional 30% when you sign up for Amazon Mom and Subscribe and Save (15% savings for each one individually). It's free, easy to sign up, and the discount applies to most diapers and wipes. This promotion also includes free shipping. The wipes are now down to $13.43.

I discovered a code to use at checkout from The Screaming Penny that saves an additional $1.92. Enter MOMWIPES when you checkout. I don't know if this code works on all wipes or just these ones. Now my wipes, originally $25 are costing me only $11.51. The wipes only cost 1.5 cents per wipe! And they're shipped to my house for free in 2 days! That's a really great deal!

But it doesn't stop there! A few weeks ago, I got a $20 Amazon gift card for $10 through a groupon thing. Basically, $10 free dollars to use at Amazon. I used that gift card on the wipes, so I really only paid $1.51 for 720 baby wipes. And That's why I'm feeling pretty happy with myself.

I love getting a great deal on something, even if it's just wipes.

Snow and Fudge

Lafayette was hit with a huge snow/ice storm (and most of the mid-west for that matter). Purdue classes were cancelled for two days! You know things are bad when they actually cancel university classes.

We stayed inside for 2 entire days. There was no need to go out for school and we had plenty of groceries, so we stayed warm inside watching movies while Mckay did homework, I sewed food and Dallin crawled around trying to eat things like coins, dry beans and poly-fil batting.

It's not a good idea to leave your car sitting in the parking lot for 2 days in an ice storm if you ever want to drive it again. It took 30 minutes this morning to dig the car out from underneath all the ice and snow. The ice scraper took quite a beating. After that, we had to get the car over the mound of ice and snow behind it to get out of our parking spot. With the tires slipping on the ice beneath them, it took the help of two kind neighbors pushing the car to get it out.

After dropping Mckay off for school, I came home and got stuck in the snow again trying to park in a parking spot. A nice lady saw me trying to dig the car out of its predicament, and she helped me push the car far enough into the spot so that the back end wasn't blocking up the road. (Don't we have such nice neighbors?)

It looks like I'm not leaving this apartment until the sun melts the car out or Mckay comes home to push me out. There's only one things to do in a situation like this: stay inside and make fudge.

Just mix and little of this and that...

...and you get fudge!

I used this fudge recipe. It's very easy and quick.

Even Dallin had a little lick.

And then he just kind of held it...

Felt Food

I have a new obsession.

It all started on Christmas with a present my sister-in-law made for my nephew. I was fascinated. It was so cute, so fun and yet so simple.

I knew I had to make some for Dallin. I started googling, searching craft blogs and etsy shops. I went to Hobby lobby and bought supplies. I began crafting.

Introducing my first attempt at making Felt Food.

So far I have made a banana (with a removable peel) and 3 orange slices. I love them! They're so cute and really pretty easy to make.

The banana was my first experiment so the stitching is kinda funky. My skills have gotten progressively better and the third orange slice turned out quite well. I don't know if you can tell in the picture, but my banana turned out pretty short and fat. But that's ok, I'll just say it's one of those little bananas from southeast Asia.

Here are the links for the banana tutorial and orange slice tutorial I used.

There's so much more felt food that I want to make, including pretty much everything on the list compiled at homemade by jill.

I love this felt donut from Escape Artist.

It makes me hungry just looking at it.

The food I'm making is for Dallin's birthday present (so don't tell him about it). It should be the perfect gift for him; he can play with food, but won't gag on it!

Birthday Card

A friend of mine had a birthday so I made her a card.

I thought the card was really cute so I thought I'd share it.

I was just looking through my paper scraps trying come up with a cute card to make, and the idea hit me.

I used embroidery floss to sew the sprinkles on the cupcake. It gives the card some 3D flair.

I almost didn't want to give it away, but I took a picture so I can remember how cute it is.

Getting ready for bed

I was getting Dallin ready for bed tonight and I took him into the bathroom to brush his teeth. I set him down so that I could get the toothpaste out. In the very short amount of time it took for me to get his toothbrush ready, he did this:

I don't know where he got the idea to climb into the drawer. He's never done it before.

I'm sure it won't be the last time either.