I made a Christmas tree today!

Two years ago, Ryan and I bought our first Christmas tree. It was five feet tall and pretty nice. We were able to get it at DI for really cheap. But, now, in this new apartment, we don't really have room to put up a tree, seeing how we have two couches, a loveseat, and an arm chair in our  living room. So, we gave our tree to a neighbor who was needing one and today I made a tree that was of a more manageable size for our living room... two feet tall.

 This is something I learned how to do from a sister in my Clearfield home ward. All you need are six wire hangers, a string of lights about 25 ft long or less, garland of any sort or color, and a glue gun with glue. First, you glue the six hangers together in the shape of a Christmas tree, to make the frame. Use plenty of glue.

 

 Then, you wrap the lights around the frame, gluing as you go. This takes a while, because you don't want to go to fast. At the end you want to leave a couple feet loose so your tree can reach an outlet if it's not close by.

 Then, you can wrap your garland around the tree, gluing every now and again, but only two or three times with each time around. Make sure the lights can poke through.

 

It took about an hour to make and when I was done with the garland, I put a golden flower on top and I was done. It makes for a really nice little tree to put in a kids room or on the front porch, or in this case a crowded living room. :P

Jared loved it! He really wanted to play with it, so I had to find a good spot where he could see it, but not reach it. So, I put in on the table by the front door in the living room. It turned out okay and I'm glad we have some sort of tree, but it's kind of sad not to be having a big one this year. Hopefully our plans can work out of us being gone most of Christmas break and we can enjoy other peoples trees. ;D

Our Little Lumberjack

For Jared's Halloween costume this year we searched around until we found this toy axe that could go with his lumberjack costume. We finally found it at Toys "R" Us, but it came in this "log splitting kit," which included the axe and a log that you could split. When we got home, Ryan and I tried it and it was kind of fun, but it didn't seem like a toy that could be fun for very long. Little did I know how much fun Jared would have with it those next couple days. He's been having a ball with it. He saw Ryan and I do it so he caught on pretty well. He just whacks and whacks and whacks 'til the log splits, and he gets so excited when it does. It's very cute! :)

Halloween Fun

Last month, we did a few fun Halloween things. This was my and Ryan's fourth Halloween together and our second with Jared. We decorated and have been trying to start some family traditions. This year we had a Halloween dinner with Halloween jello jiggles and veggie burgers. Veggie burgers were definitely scary for Ryan, but he's a good husband and ate them anyway. ;) We made frosted sugar cookies and took them to neighbors and friends.

ghost, cat, half moon, bat, pumpkin, witch head

We had our ward trunk-or-treat on Halloween. We wore our Christmas tree shirts and were Christmas trees. We got Jared some clothes from Di and an axe from a toy store and dressed him up as a lumberjack. He looked really cute. We used some of my brown eye liner to give him a little beard. It was a pot luck, so I made an apple pie with a ghost on it and brought that.

 There were a lot of little girls at the truck-or-treat, most of them were princesses. Jared had fun watching them and wasn't too interested in his dinner. Once I let him down he squealed at a girl he saw and then started following her around. It was really funny. Everyone thought Jared was Paul Bunyan, so we went with it. Ryan took Jared around to do some truck-or-treating while I passed out candy. Ryan says Jared was really good about taking the candy from their hands all by himself. Before heading home we asked a sister in our ward if we could take our picture in front of the huge spider on her car. Jared was a little distracted by it.

At home, Jared had fun pulling out all his candy. He didn't care too greatly for anything in particular until he saw the sucker. He loves suckers! Ryan helped him open it and he got pretty sticky enjoying it. So, we gave him a bath before laying him in bed. I think he had a pretty fun day. :)

October Pies

Banana Cream Pie

 This month we made a few pies. The first was a Banana Cream Pie. That's probably the one I make most often because it seems to be Ryan's favorite. We have a few different recipes and we've liked them all so far. The second was a Fresh Berry Pavlova. This is the first time I've made something like this. It was made with a meringue tart shell. This is a "light-as-air" pie named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova. It's filled with lemon flavored whipped cream and topped with raspberries. Ryan loved it. It was very good and very light and fluffy.

Fresh Berry Pavlova

The third pie was a chicken pot pie we made for dinner one night. I made the pie, but Ryan decorated it with pastry leafs. He did a pretty nice job too. :) It was delicious!

Chicken Pot Pie

Progress on Go-cart

about three weeks ago

Ryan's been working a lot this month on his go-cart he's making for Jared. He's been working hard and making a lot of good progress. It's starting to get cold now, so he's really depending on the weather to let him get as much of it done before winter. His friend Paul, from school, helped him get quite a few of the supplies when he was getting started.

That was a few weeks ago. Since then we've been making trips to hardware stores around the area. It was funny; we went to one store Ryan had looked up online and found out they had key stock. When we got there we had a hard time finding an employee who knew what key stock was and could show us where to find it. Finally there was this old lady who worked there who knew exactly what it was and made sure to show her coworkers.

one week ago

Like the welding cart, Ryan made the designs and all the plans for this go-cart himself. Last Saturday, he worked for hours on it cutting parts and welding parts together. It's been fun to see it come together. Jared and I helped a little, so we could spend some time outside with him. Throughout the week, this week, he's been taking certain materials to school with him and getting a little work done at lab at BYU. It's really come in handy. Now that he has more parts cut out he going to be able to get some more work done on it this weekend. 

Reading Time

This little boy loves a good book! He loves sitting and looking at pictures and turning the pages and then closing it and looking at the cover and then opening it up and looking at the pages again. It's fun to watch him explore a book. Jared and I try to spend time every day reading together. Sometimes he's interested and will sit still and let me read to him, but usually he wants to pull the book out of my hands and "read" it by himself. Sometimes he babbles while he looks at the pictures, so that's what I call his "reading." It's very cute and I love that he likes books so much, so hopefully we can encourage that as he grows older. :)

Amazing, Awesome Welding Cart!!!

Earlier this month we got Ryan a nice welder from Harbor Freight. We got it so he could make a go-cart for Jared, but we also knew it'd come in hand for many other projects down the road. To go along with it, we got him a nice welding helmet.

Ryan taking the welding cart on it's "maiden voyage."

Ryan's first project after getting the welder, was to make this cart to carry the welder and tools around on. It turned out really nice and works really well. He designed it and then built all himself. He bought the metal form a shop and got the wheels off a tiller he had original bought so he could use it's motor for the go-cart.

Within a week of working on it in the evenings and on the weekend he had it done and was ready to start on the go-cart. I was very impressed on how well it turned out for Ryan's first time welding (in several years). But, it was a good practice project to do before he got going on welding the go-cart together.

Jared's Little Buddy

As we've moved from apartment to apartment here in Provo we've been finding different things we like, and don't like, about each place. So far with this place we've discovered it's actually really nice having three couches, even if it is a little cozy, there's a lot of cupboard and closet space, we're not in a basement, we can actually hang pictures on the wall 

(our last place had cement walls :P), we have our own washer and dryer, etc. Then there's the little things like having coat hooks by the door, big windows, being closer to school, etc.

 

Something we've enjoyed about this new apartment is this mirror in the hallway. It's a full body mirror, so it's been nice for Ryan and I to use, but it's also low enough that Jared can see himself whenever he walks by. I think it's a baby thing to like looking at yourself and other babies, but Jared especially loves it.

That baby boy in the mirror is always there to play when he is. He has a pretty good time with it. So, I think when we get our own home someday we'll make sure and have a low mirror for all our kids, so they can all have their little buddies in the mirror. :)

Daddy's Tie

I remember when I was a little girl I used to get into my parents closet and try on my mom's high-heel shoes. I'd sometimes pull them out and walk around in them and think I looked just like my mom when she was wearing them.

Well our little guy doesn't wear his mommy's shoes...luckily...but, he sure loves his daddy's tie. Every Sunday, after church,  he grabs it off the chair in our bedroom and puts it around his neck and walks around the house with it like that. I make sure and tell him how handsome he looks, and he gives us big smiles.

That's our little, silly, cutie boy! :)

Rock Climbing at The Quarry

Ryan's friend from school, Paul invited us to go rock climbing at The Quarry here in Provo with him, his wife, Danielle, and his little brother, Peter. Paul and Peter both have memberships and can bring someone for free on Fridays, so they invited us. Ryan and I have done this before, but it's been a long time, so I was kind of worried about how it'd go.

Ryan and Jared with Paul and Peter.

  We started out with bouldering, which was a nice warm-up. Bouldering is where you climb walls about 15" high and you don't need a harness because the floors are pretty padded. Ryan gave it a try and climbed quite a few times. He was a pretty good at it. I wasn't so brave, but I tried one and discovered how fun it was, so I tried a few more. Jared even tried it, sort of. He forgot his climbing shoes so he just had fun touching the rocks.

Jared with Danielle.

After that we went to the bigger walls to do some real rock climbing. Ryan and I raced for our first one. Of course it always has to be a race knowing Ryan. We made it to the top at the same time, but if you ask Ryan he'll say differently. ;) We climbed several walls and tried harder and harder ones each time. Some of them were pretty tricky, but it was way fun. We had a blast doing it! I told Ryan as we were leaving that this is going to be on of our families hobbies (if our kids enjoy it anyway). 

Ryan helped Jared onto a wall and I was able to get a picture of Jared hanging on all by himself, before Ryan helped him down. That's our tough boy! :)