Weekly Update - Tutu #2 and the Gate Debate!

Ok, as a warning, I have had almost nothing but sugar and Diet Coke today so I may be a little wired as I write this!

Tutu #2:  I had so much fun making my first tutu that I decided to make one for my girlfriend's daughter!  I had learned a bit from the first one I made for Little L so I think this one turned out even better!  One of these days I'm going to have to invest in a sewing machine though, so I can sew the tutus after I'm finished and make them last longer.  Here's what it looks like:

I have a couple more people and ideas for my next tutu projects so hopefully you don't get tired of me posting the pics!  :)

The Gate Debate:  Ok, so it wasn't much of a debate but it was definitely something that needed to be figured out!  We had been using our ottoman as a temporary "gate" to keep Little L out of certain areas of the house.  It had been working great until a few days ago when she figured out she could climb over it!  So we had to run out and pick up a real gate.  Unfortunately the hallway where we wanted to put it was to wide for most of the regular gates and we really didn't want to spend the $60 to get a gate we would have to mount into the wall.  Praise God there was an expandable gate at Toys R Us that was marked down almost 50% just because someone had opened the box! (and of course I had a 20% off coupon for Toys R Us!)  I got it home and at first, as we were trying to figure it out, we were starting to understand why someone might return the opened box!  But once we got it figured out it actually works perfect for us!  

Funny thing is that after we got it up we realized there was no way for our cat to get to his food and bathroom if the gate was closed!  This is where the real debate came in!  How to fix our dilemma without getting rid of the cat!  Thankfully we figured out a way to cut a whole in the plastic cover around our bannister, kind of like a kitty door.  Wow, writing that all out it sounds like the whole place is on lock down with our gates and plastic!  But it works for us!  (at least for now!)

On to the family updates:

The hubby has been keeping his days very full!  He finished his Krav training and then had just a few days off before jumping into two full days of filming for "In Harm's Way"!  He is definitely looking forward to some family time and rest coming up this week!

Little L is getting bigger every day and turning into a toddler before our very eyes!  Her latest has been tickling everyone and everything!  It is hilarious!  She even tries to tickle herself!  Tonight while she was tickling me she actually started blowing raspberries on my belly!  I guess I should say she tried to blow raspberries...it was so cute!  She is talking more and more and able to do so much!  Although her ever expanding abilities are fun they sure do keep us on our toes!  (For example, I now have to go buy those door knob covers since she can open the doors in our house!)

Here is a picture from last night!  This dress is actually from my aunt in England and the hair clip was made by my aunt in North Dakota!  Isn't it great how they match perfectly!

I've been keeping my time filled with mostly the same old stuff but I have been SUPER blessed to be able to be a part of a women's Bible study that meets every other Monday this summer.  We are going through a study on the book of Ruth that was written by Kelly Minter.  I am so loving this book that I will most definitely be writing a post when we are done to share my thoughts!  We meet again tomorrow night and I just can't wait!  I really love the girls in our group and I love having the time to discuss what we're reading.

My cousin is getting married in northern MN this coming weekend so my mom is flying up on Friday and then we are all piling in the car to head up and join in the festivities!  It should be a fun time of catching up with some family and then we'll head home to have my mom stay with us for a full week!  It will be nice to have another set of hands to help keep Little L entertained and out of stuff!  :)

And now I am sure the sugar/caffeine crash is on the way!  The hubby is home from his long day of filming so we are going to veg and catch up on some of our TV shows!  (I love the internet and the fact that I can watch our shows whenever we want!)

Have a blessed week full of peace!

Weekly Update - Happy Father's Day!

Sorry I missed posting last week!  Things have just been a little crazy around here!

So first off I have to say Happy Father's Day to all of you fabulous fathers out there!  Especially to my hubby!  What a great dad he is!

Things I love about his daddy-ness:

• always telling Little L how much he loves her, how proud he is of her, how special she is, how she is his princess, etc., etc., etc.!  
• willing to change diapers (even poppy cloth diapers!)  ;)
• loves to hug and kiss his little princess whenever he can!
• reads to her every night before bed!
• prays with her and for her every day!
• tells her about Jesus and how much He loves her!  (even more than daddy loves her!)

I could go on and on about the hubby and his daddy skills but I'll stop here!

To celebrate daddy, Little L and I put together a basket of goodies that he loves!  I also made a t-shirt especially for Little L.  I had seen this idea on an Etsy site and when I realized I had some iron on transfer sheets from some project years ago I decided to give it a shot myself!  So here is the shirt I made: 

I thought I did a pretty good job centering it on when I did it but on Little L it looks a little off center...oh well! 

And here is the best picture I could get of Little L in the shirt...she wasn't interested in getting her picture taken today at all!

We also decided to splurge on some steaks and grill those tonight for dinner.  (I know the hubby will have to "cook" on "his day" but at least he gets steak!)

Now on to the update... 

The last few weeks have been full to say the least!  Full of rain if nothing else!  I'm really glad we got all that rain though since it has really helped our yard.  Little L had gotten a little bit of "cabin fever" though so we took an outing to Como Zoo last Wednesday.  (And so did everyone else in the Twin Cities!  It was so packed...a post on that later!)  

One other fun thing Little L and I did was have lunch with my grandparents and my aunt and uncle!  They were on their way back to ND and decided to stay here for a few days to catch a Twins game in the new stadium.  We were so excited that our schedules worked out and we got to see them for a little bit.  Little L wasn't willing to show off her talking skills in public but she was a good girl and gave GG (great-grandma) and Great-Grandpa kisses!

The hubby is gearing up for his Krav Maga instructors training that will be happening in just a few weeks, but besides that he is also getting prepped for filming this coming Saturday!  He is going to be playing his largest roll yet so he is really excited!  I can't wait to see all of his different movies!  Some are coming out soon so I will update when I know more!

I've had some crazy work weeks since I have been flexing my schedule a lot recently to make it to some meetings.  Thankfully they have been fun ones!  I've been blessed with some really fun "end of the year" gifts at work (our fiscal year ends in June).  I do really love working at General Mills!  (Plus it was just rated as the best large, publicly held company to work for in the Twin Cities and it got second overall the categories!)

Our schedule won't be slowing down at all in the coming weeks and this one is no exception!  The hubby's aunt and step-grandpa are going to be in town this week so we will be doing some stuff with my mother-in-law's family.  Most of them haven't gotten to meet Little L so it should be fun!  Then my dad flies in and after a few days with us he will be headed up to the lake for 2 weeks.  We will join him next week for about 5 days.  I can't wait to see how Little L reacts to the lake!  I'm sure she will LOVE it!

To top it all of we are having our Upper Midwest Faith Explosion Week at church starting on Tuesday night.  Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Crefflo A. Dollar, and Jesse Duplantis will all be preaching throughout the week along with some other great preachers for the youth!  Come and join us for one of the nights if you live in the area!

Again, Happy Father's Day!  And may your week be filled with "Happy Days"!

Weekly Update - It's Grillin' Time!

That's right!  We got a grill!  WooHoo!  For those of you that don't know, we have been grill-less for the entire 4 years of our marriage!  Hard to believe it but it was just one of those things we kept putting off buying.  We ended up getting one as an early Father's Day gift so the hubby got to do the picking out.  He decided he really wanted to start with a charcoal grill (for flavor and cost reasons).  We ended up finding a Char-Broiler grill at Fleet Farm and it was even on sale for $100!  The cool thing is that you can use it as a smoker too!  Should be fun trying to figure it out!  We have to prep it this afternoon (it has cast iron grates that we need to season) and then it will be burgers on the grill for dinner tonight if all goes well!  (I'll have pictures soon!)

Little L is starting to grow her vocabulary pretty fast now that she is understanding that words mean something!  She has most recently added "ball" and "bible" to her list!  It is amazing to me how much she knows and understands.  Lately, as we look through her picture books I've been asking her to point to different things (i.e. animals, body parts, food, etc.) and she almost always points to the right thing on the first try!  I can't even believe how fast she is learning and growing!  Seriously, this whole mommy thing is really fun!  :)

Here are some pictures from Memorial Day grillin' with the in-laws:

Nose to Nose with Sparky!Outside with Grandma CarolPlaying with Grandpa GaryGiving Felix some "love"

The hubby is getting closer to his instructor's class for Krav Maga so he has really been focusing on training and learning everything he can.  It is fun to watch him be so passionate!  On Saturday morning he was an extra for a music video that is for some up and coming performer (I haven't heard of him but Hubby says he preformed for them and was pretty good).  The video is for Kidney Research and is supposed to be on MTV and VH1 so we will see!  Next on his list of projects is a mob movie filming here in the Twin Cities.  This will be his biggest roll yet so he is really excited!  Some of the other movies he was in will be out sometime this summer so I will update you when we know more.

As for me, well, it was an easy week at work, which I love!  We had a team offsite for most of one of my days which basically means we ate some yummy food, chatted, drank LOTS of Diet Coke (or at least that's what some of us were drinking!), and played some lawn bowling.  I truly do work for a great company with some awesome managers!

That's all for now!  Don't forget to enter my giveaway!  :)

May your week be filled with unexpected blessings!

Weekly Update - Sleeping Beauty

Yup, I am calling things that be not as though they are!  Actually, Little L has been sleeping really well these last few nights!  We had some rough times there where she just was not wanting to sleep even though nothing was wrong!  I am sure it was just some sort of developmental stage, you know, where they realize you aren't in there with them when they think you should be.  Thankfully we seem to have moved out of this bought of sleepless nights!  WooHoo!

She is sleeping soundly as I write this with her Glow Worm and Giggle Monkey.  I gave her Glow Worm the other night in desperation, hoping that the light and music would calm her...it didn't, well at least not that night.  But now she has started taking Glow Worm and Giggle Monkey to bed with her all the time.  Giggle Monkey has a little noise maker in his foot that laughs like a little baby (sooo cute!) and then Glow Worm plays music so every once in awhile you can here those sounds coming from her room (even when she should be sleeping).  But my theory is that as long as she isn't crying I am a happy Momma!  :)

The other reason I went with the Sleeping Beauty title is because Little L just LOVES her princess hooded bath towel right now!  Yesterday she was wearing it all over and playing in it!  Too cute!  It's pretty big but she doesn't seem to mind.  Here are a few pictures of her with it on:

I am sure you can tell from the pictures what Mamma got for mother's day from her mamma!  That's right! Photoshop Elements 8!  I have been seeing all of these fabulous pictures on other mamma's blogs and I wanted to be able to do some of that too.  Before I just used iphoto for everything which really only gets you so far.  When I saw the price tag on Photoshop I went into sticker shock...Do you know how much groceries I could get with that kinda green on double coupons day at Rainbow!  (Yup, that's how I think!)  So I was super excited when I saw that Amazon's deal of the day a few days back was Photoshop Elements 8 for $55 and there was a $20 rebate making it only $35!  (I can still get a lot of groceries at Rainbow for that but this was SUCH a great deal!)  Since I am not planning on becoming a professional photographer (there are quite a few out there if you haven't already noticed!) I figured Elements would be the perfect place for me to start!  Once I get some stuff figured out I will probably want to upgrade my point and shoot but until then I will just try to muddle through with what I've got!  As you can see from those photos I have a long ways to go to get stuff figured out!

As far as the rest of my week went, I have to say it was pretty darn good!  I got to make yogurt at work, have girls night with my girl MW, and then another play date with her and the babes at her new home!  (LOVE that they are only 15 min away now!)

The hubby has been keeping busy with his night out on the town to see Demon Hunter and War of Ages.  (See my Things I Love post to see how that went!)  And he has been training extremely hard with Krav Maga (one of his new passions).  God has some super amazing things in store for him and I can't wait to see His plan unfold!

Looking forward to abundant blessings coming our way this week and I hope you are too!