A quilter turned seamstress!

I've been feeling extra sew-y lately.

This is what I was able to make during Eli's nap today. Yup it took three hours to make from start to finish. I absolutely love it.

The pattern and tutorial are found at: http://www.kukyideas.com/journal/2006/07/tiered-skirt-tutorial.html

A museum?

During Fall break the kids and I decided to join some friends at the local children's museum. Ella loves museums. She was expecting an art museum but I don't think she was disappointed.

Eli's Dessert

We begin our story with Chris getting Eli ready for bed. I was practicing the piano. Chris was working on the computer. Eli was...

Eli was getting into Chris' chocolate covered pretzels. His loving older sister has taught him how to reach things on the counter. But Eli doesn't know how to get down from the stool. So this is how we found him when he called for us.

I am glad that Chris hadn't put Eli's pajamas on him yet. I am also glad Eli couldn't get down. Could you imagine the mess he would have made?!?

So Eli got his dessert and a bath too! His dream come true.

A hiking we will go...

I love October in Tucson. The weather actually feels cool enough to go for hikes again. We jumped at the opportunity to enjoy the 90 degree weather that happily occurred on Chris' day off and went for a hike in Catalina State Park.

The view was amazing and I'm not just talking about my family...

The hike was 2.2 miles round trip and Ella hiked the whole way. She carried a water bottle and dry clothes in her back pack. Sadly, the "pool" we were hiking to was dry so the extra clothes were not needed. One might be led to believe we live in a desert.

After the hike we enjoyed a picnic in the shade. Ella loves picnics. She was also thrilled to find a tree that she could climb.

Is it cold where you live? Want to come visit us? We could go for a hike...

Princess bowling

While on vacation this past August we had a girls outing of Princess Bowling. This entails getting dressed up like a princess and going bowling. Ella was in heaven.

Here are the princesses: Doddy, Aurora, and Thumbalina.

Ella named us, and we will never know where she came up with the name Doddy for the princess in white. She was persistent though and her aunt worried that Ella thought that was her real name.



We thought this picture would be a great advertisement.

My happy birthday

I've been updating our family photo albums and I noticed that we have picture documentation of everyone's birthdays except for mine. So I told Chris he absolutely had to take pictures of my birthday celebration. I envisioned multiple pictures of me opening presents and eating birthday cake. What I got was a whopping two pictures. Two pictures to make up for eight years of no pictures on my birthday. Sigh. Thanks to Chris for these great pictures:



Ella and Eli both thought I needed help blowing out the candles.



Curious about the cake? This is the best cake ever. It's a yellow cake with a broiled nut topping. It is brown sugar, butter, milk, and pecans mixed together and broiled on the cake. Soooo yummy.

Free Summer bowling!

I recently discovered that there is a "kids bowl free" Summer program here in Tucson. So when Chris had a day off yesterday we decided to hide from the 105 degree weather by going to the bowling alley.

Eli was excited to see all of the balls.

Ella used the 6lb orange balls, though she would rather have bowled with a pink one.

It was fun helping Eli on his turn.



Eli wanted to chase his ball down the lane and as it got closer to his nap time, it became more and more upsetting that he couldn't go get the ball slowly rolling away from him.



Chris and I took turns helping Eli and Ella on their turns.



Ella quickly graduated to bowling without our help.



I love this picture.



Here Ella and I are doing a celebratory dance after she knocked down some pins. We danced after every ball she sent down the lane.

We bowled two games. I won the first game and Chris won the second. When we left the bowling alley Ella continued to praise the whole experience. "I love bowling."