a sweet end to the day

after getting lyra to sleep, i went in to put archer and eleri to sleep, eleri has been such a stinker all night i was so shocked to see this. archer was reading sweetly to eleri, and she was loving every minute of it. it was such a craptastic evening, this makes it all better :) <3

random pics from our day

today is brought to you by the letter 'K'



isn't this a strange creepy picture of eleri???? i had the shutter set too slow.

almost a walker! she'll take a few steps and flop :)

eleri being sweet

math on a cold day

today ended up being a cold and rainy day. normally i dread these days, no outside play makes archer and eleri a bit on the crazy side. it was after lunch and time for us to do 'math'. in this case, learning our numbers. i had an idea, that worked brilliantly, to get them moving and recognizing and ordering numbers! on the front door i put post its with 1-15, scattered randomly. then i had them stand at the back door. they took turns running as fast as they could, and had to grab the next number in order. then they ran back and stuck it in on the back door in order. they had a blast, and we played it twice, switching who was odds and who was evens.

a few of the things i accomplished today

since austin took the babies to his family's house, i had some time to actually make things, and clean unhindered! i love the babies, but they're not the best helpers quite yet. i cleaned about half the downstairs and mopped, and even scrubbed the wood floors on my hands and knees, and then i decided i was done with cleaning! i made a few things for my first stocking at Creatively Serene, it's going to be Feb 1st.

the reason it takes me so long is i hand sew each and every layer before gluing. this insures the bow isn't going to fall apart or come loose :)

these are to match the newest gymbo line! it's so cute. i'm secretly hoping these don't sell so i can have an excuse to buy some clothes :)





and finally, i started making something for ME. i can't remember the last time i did that. i've had this pendant forever and i finally decided to start a necklace with it. the stones are rose quartz, sodalite, amethyst and there is also some freshwater pearl. it takes so long to make each link by hand out of silver wire i didn't get to finish tonight, i wonder when i'll actually finish, lol.

bathtime and photoshop fun

thanks to discovering the amazing site http://thepioneerwoman.com/
i am finally venturing in to the other side of my camera's dial! i have a lot to learn, but my easily confused brain finally gets what aperture, shutter and ISO settings are for! however, with these pics i completely forgot about ISO and they were shot in 1600! so they are miserably grainy. the pic of archer was so bad i just can't seem to do anything with it. here's my girls, in various states of graininess. and cuteness...

so big, so small, so freaking cute

i went to wake lyra up from her abnormally long nap so we could go to the park, and she just all of the sudden went from baby to toddler in my eyes. it shocked me how much of her crib she took up, how big her body looked, but it was also so cute. sleeping babies have to be one of the best things to look at for the heart. i went back down stairs after not having the heart to wake her...





i went up again and she'd stuck her big booty in the air, double the cuteness, but my shutter woke her up this time...

and triple the cutenss, look at that sad pouty face! she had fun at the park though :)

lyra and westleigh's party invite!

My best friend and I took our girls out today for a photo shoot for the 1 year pics. They were born only 2 days apart, and we're having their first party together! This is my first real foray into digital scrapbooking type things. I am SO happy with the way it turned out. We ordered them as glossy 5x7's. it looks slightly funky cause i blanked out the address :)

bread bowl and soup!

here's the delicous soup and bread bowl! i used the recipe from My Kitchen Cafe here on Blogger, and the soup was adapted from her Broccoli Cheese soup as well. http://mykitchencafe.blogspot.com/2008/12/broccoli-cheese-soup.html
i changed the soup by sauteing shallots and garlic in butter first, then diced potato and carrots in the small sauce pan, then added the broth :) i also used at least 2 cups of cheese, including extrememly awesome sharp cheddar and aged provelone.

making bread bowls

chilly day at the park

we went to playgroup, and were the only ones apparently, but we still had fun. lyra even crawled around on the jungle gym a little for the first time :)