C+J forever

Jilly and Clark play together all the time.  And Clark is my hero because Jilly is bossy and dramatic and always wearing a princess dress and Clark is just cool and puts up with it all (probably because he has 3 sisters and is used to it.)  We love love love Clark.  When he was over this week I had my camera out so I let them be silly and took some pictures.

Playgroup

Every Tuesday morning some friends and I do a "kid swap."  One morning a month I get these 7 cuties (3 three-year-olds, 1 two-year-old, and 3 one-year-olds) and the other 3 Tuesdays I get a free morning.  This playgroup idea is brilliant.  Jilly is (kind of) learning to share and take turns, once a month I get to channel my teaching skills and plan a little activity for the kids, and three mornings a month I have 2.5 hours of extremely productive time!  

Lessons

On Tuesday afternoon I cut my thumb open when a glass cup I was washing broke.  I got 7 stitches, a huge bandage, and a splint to keep my thumb still for a week.

Here is what I have learned:

1. A box of Sesame Street bandaids is not an adequate first aid kit.

2. Opposable thumbs are an amazing thing.

3. I am extremely right handed; my left hand is basically worthless

4.  When emergencies happen, it's nice to know we have wonderful people around to help.  My friend Megan took Jilly on very short notice, and she fed, bathed, dressed, and entertained my girl.  Megan's daughters are two of Jilly's favorite people in the world, so she was in heaven (in fact, she probably wishes I would cut my hand more often.)  Our other friends Miranda and Tommy stopped by with ice cream- my favorite remedy for any ailment.

5. Reading The Happiness Project is a great distraction when you're being numbed (ouch!) and stitched up.  The doctor said he was going to recommend it to all his suture patients.

baby shower

My friend Miranda is having a baby girl so Emily and I threw her a shower this weekend.  A couple months ago I won my first and only giveaway from Karly's blog.  I got a gift certificate to Anders Ruff so we ordered these invitations- they turned out darling.

the food spread

Emily made the quiches and they were to.die.for. 

Emily found this super fun game on pinterest.  We made lots of copies of a picture of Tommy and a picture of Miranda and then had the guests cut out features to create the baby's face.  Hilarious.

This was Miranda's prediction for her little girl- let's hope she's wrong!

the gifts

Jilly was very helpful with the gift opening

We also made appliquéd onesies.  This one was my favorite- Tommy is a dentist!

Everyone went home with a cupcake in a cup (the tag is from Anders Ruff)

emily, miranda, me

We had so much fun planning this shower, can't wait for the next!

Halloweekend

Bryan and I showed our age this weekend.  We went to our ward Trunk or Treat on Friday night, Apple Hill with our friends Saturday morning, a Halloween party Saturday night, then a family Halloween dinner on Sunday.  Little Jilly was a trooper and wore approximately 15 costumes/outfits over the weekend.  When we got the party invitation it said the party went until midnight.  I found it astonishing  that people were still awake, let alone partying at midnight.  We only made it until 10pm, but were very impressed that our party animal daughter was happy and delightful 2 hours after her usual bedtime.  On our way home from Bryan's parents on Sunday night Bryan said, "Thank goodness tomorrow is Halloween and we can finally sit and relax at home."  Despite the fact that our weekend totally wore us out we had a great time.

Jilly walking with Miranda and Emily 

The gang at Apple Hill- can you tell why everyone thinks we're sisters? 

"It's a Small World" Bryan is Mexican, I'm Japanese, Jilly is Indian - all our costumes are authentic (except for the mustache...)  We downloaded "It's a Small World" and Bryan kept it playing on his ipod all night long- no doubt everyone appreciated having the song stuck in their head.

My little ladybug 

Halloween Jammies- I love sneaking into Jilly's room at night to see my little glow in the dark skeleton lying in her crib

Happy Halloween!

Final Weekend

Jilly and I are leaving on Tuesday to be in Virginia for a month (crazy, yes, but we are so so so excited!)  Bryan is going to come out eventually but we'll be away from him for two and a half weeks- so sad!  This weekend we decided to enjoy all our favorite things in Sacramento.

Friday- Rivercats Baseball Game with the Yagers and the Clements
great friends, beautiful weather, yummy dollar hot dogs, bummer of a game (but who really watches the game anyway?)

the boys

the girls (yes we segregate)

Saturday- a walk by the American River

first time exploring rocks, summer = dirty baby 

Dipping her fingers in the freeeeezing water 

Can you tell what I did Saturday morning?  Chopped 6 inches off my hair!

Friday Night- dinner and a Black and Tan at Leatherby's  (using our groupon- yea!)

Sunday- celebrating Father's Day a week early 

helping Dad open his present 

 she's very proud of her first gift (and I'm proud I actually got her handprints because it was tough!)

playing in the park

True Love = Letting your husband keep the computer at home for 2.5 weeks (there are computers at my parents' house, but I have to compete with 6 other people including a sister obsessed with eBay shopping and another obsessed with Farmville on FB)

True Love = Sharing your suitcase with your baby (I'm just planning on her looking really cute and me wearing the same thing all month long)

Skirts

I'm not sure if it was Pinterest, Kayla's skirts, or the fact that I am in love with my sewing machine these days but I got a major itching to make a skirt this Spring.  Luckily, my friend Emily is a skirt-making pro and was willing to be my patient teacher.  Miranda joined in on the fun as well.

Emily had a skirt already that we liked so she just made up a pattern from that skirt (the girl is a genius.)  It took a lot more time than we had planned, but we had so much fun picking fabric, measuring, cutting, stitching, ripping stitches out, and stitching again.  We made them with elastic waistbands which made our lives much easier.  Miranda and I weren't planning on being twinners but we both loved the fabric.  Plus, we thought it would be exhilarating to wonder every time we wore the skirt if the other was going to show up in it as well.

We debuted our skirts at our Relief Society Garden Party (lovingly called "Relief Society Prom" by Miranda because of the extensive planning and decorating that went into the event.)  I'm pretty sure everyone was jealous of us.

{Miranda, Emily, Me}

We already have plans in the works for our next skirt and I'm so excited!!

You've got a Minute to Win it

Everyone should have friends like ours here in Sacramento.  They're always thinking of fun things for us to do (remember Chopped and Jelly Belly Factory?)

This week it was Minute to Win It.

Challenge #1- Cup Stacking- you make a tower out of 36 cups then deconstruct your tower into one stack.  This should come as quite a shock but I actually won this challenge (probably because I was the last one to go so I got to see everyone else's tricks.) 

Challenge #2- Chopstick Stacker- You had to use chopsticks to stack 4 chapstick tubes.  This was much harder than it looks, especially for people like me who have no clue how to use chopsticks.  Tommy was the chopstick master of the night.

Challenge #3- Penny Sucking- You had to pick up 27 pennies with a straw one at a time and drop them in a cup.  By this time Jilly was needing lots of parental supervision so I only got a picture of Tommy.  But, Kiel dominated this challenge.

Unfortunately there was no million dollar prize, but Emily did make some delicious cookies that were tempting even to Jillian