Continuing Advent.

Advent Day 4

Today we picked out Christmas Pajamas for the girls. Pretty simple and fun

Advent Day 5

We made our Christmas lists to Santa, I got these little fill-in list from www.orientaltrading.com.

Here is Delanie's list, I started to fill it in for her, but she just wanted to draw on the paper, so that's what she did.

This is Amalie's list, she wrote in that she wants an airplane, a baby doll, and an iPod.

Advent Day 6

This year I decided to dive deeper into my German heritage and do St. Nikolaus Day. when I was a kid, we would clean our shoes on the 5th, and leave outside our bedroom while we slept. St. Nikolaus would come and fill our shoes with candy and small toys. So I found some really cute star wars slippers and got the girls their yearly ornament, and some chocolate coins. 

This is Amalie's ornament, she is pretty enthusiastic about Darth Vader (I got this ornament at an awesome etsy shop: www.etsy.com/shop/NerdFreakinTastic)

This is Delanie's ornament; she is really into Sesame Street, and she loves Big Bird.

Advent Day 7, 8, 9

For these days I was in Arizona surprising my best friend for her Birthday, but I made things easy for my husband and had books set up fro him to read to the girls.

Amalie got this from her preschool last year, it's actually pretty fun.

We bought this one at Amalie's book fair for school.

It's just not Christmas with out the Grinch.

Starting Advent!!!!

Advent Day 1

 Today's activity was to decorate the house and put the tree up.

Amalie loves decorating this little tree. The first Christmas Chris and I had together we couldn't afford a tree, but I really really wanted one so we got this tiny little tree, and now it belongs to Amalie.

We had fun decorating our bigger tree, and I was so excited that Delanie could put her own ornaments on this year.

So much concentration.

My favorite ornament!

Delanie got the great honor of putting the star on the tree this year.

All decorated!!

The Christmas toy table with the stockings.

A bigger view.

Our advent garland

Advent Day 2

Today's activity was Santa's Art Shop. The first weekend of December, our town has Santa's Art Shop at the fair grounds, there are a lot of vendors selling everything from Christmas decor, jewelry, Christmas snacks and treats, plants, and crocheted and sewn accessories. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures there, but I can post pictures of the the things we got there.

Amalie playing the pan flute my mom bought her.

The gigantic elephant my mom bought Amalie, it comes with a matching blanket.

Amalie sporting the bracelet she bought herself with her allowance.

Delanie with her pan flute.

Here is her gigantic dog with matching blanket.

I got Amalie a "homework cup", it carries everything except the crayons for Amalie to do her homework. She thought it was really cool, so i just had to buy it for her.

 

My mom bought me this magnetic bracelet; it's supposed to help with balance, and it's pretty.

Here is the bracelet I bought myself.

Advent Day 3

We hung extra ornaments from the living room ceiling for today activity. I am a huge fan of ornaments, I usually buy 3 to 4 a year; which is pretty ridiculous considering how small our tree is, but I love them and every year they come out with new ones that are even cuter then the year before. So needless to say I have quite a few. We let the girls decide where they were going to go and Chris hung them up for me. I love the way it looks, and Chris does too; which is saying a lot, he usually pretty skeptical about my ideas.

This is the view from the hall way.

My friend Sarah's little girl is in Amalie's class, Sarah and I love their teacher; she does so much for her students. So we decided to do something special for her, this is the blanket I made for her baby boy. Sarah made a matching pillow. I am also making her a scarf and Sarah is making a hat to match.

Holidays are fun fun fun!!!!!

 It has been so long since I have posted; I have been sewing, quilting, crocheting, and crafting, but most of it is all for Christmas presents so I can't share it all yet because I don't want to ruin any one's surprise. The good news is that I have a lot of plans for this holiday season so I will be posting more. In a perfect world I would post almost everyday, but my kids probably won't allow that to happen, so I will try to post every 2 or 3 days. Every year we do advent calendars for Christmas, my mother was born and raised in Germany so advent calenders were a big part of my Christmas's when I was growing up. In addition to the chocolate calender we are also doing a Christmas activity calender, everyday the girls will open a numbered bag, every bag has a piece of paper in it with a fun activity on it.

I have a garland hanging across my living room, I thought this was a good place for the bags to be on display, but high enough that my almost 2 year old couldn't reach them.

The beautiful bags are made and sold here. She has all sorts of different styles; and the rest of her store is pretty cool too.

I'm really excited about the holidays this year and I am looking forward to sharing our fun with all of you!

Art Wall

One of the things I finally got around to putting up was our Art Wall in the kitchen. When Amalie started pre-school, I noticed that my refrigerator was drowning in art work; while I do love seeing the pictures she draws it was very annoying when I would open the fridge and everything would fall off the doors. And then there were meltdowns if Delanie managed to reach one and completely demolish it. So I got 4 clipboard and nailed them to a wall in the kitchen. I bought the sign from a wonderful "deal a day" site: www.pickyourplum.com.

Now when the girls have something new to put up they have to pick something to take down first.  

Working it Out!!!

So I'm just going to say it how it is. Like most women, I have hated my body since I was a teenager, and even more now after having 2 children. I'm not under any impression that I am going to feel comfortable in a bikini again. It's bad enough that stretch marks are inevitable during pregnancy, but then you have to deal with the weight that hangs around. And does that weight ever go to the right places? No, it doesn't, it just deposits around your waist like some permanent god awful flotation device. Well SCREW THAT! I'm getting rid of it, and I'm lucky enough to have a friend who feels the same way. My friend, Sarah and I decided to get together during the week while our kids are in school to work out. We have been at it for 2 days. I think it's going well considering every muscle in my body hurts.

My before picture, hopefully I'll have a decent after picture soon.

Just so you know this woman is crazy, and I think she might be a sadist. But she does produce results, so I guess I can deal with it

And lastly, this is my inspiration, my Halloween costume.

It's been a long while; so lets play catch up....

So it's been a busy month and a half around my house; at the beginning of July we found out that my father's lung cancer had spread to his brain. My father decided that he was going to fight on, and asked me to shave his head to prepare for radiation.

George W. Nehr: April 14, 1956-August 3, 2012

My dad always made sure to put on a brave face for us; I know he must have been scared... I will always admire him for this. He was getting radiation every weekday. On Thursday, August 2nd, my father needed a ride to his radiation appointment, so I took him, he seemed better than he had been, and I am happy that he got one last good day. The next morning at around 9:30 in the morning I got the phone call telling me that my father passed away. With the help of my husband and despite my grief, I called Jessica (my sister) and my Aunt Heidi; luckily my aunt took it upon herself to call the rest of my father's siblings. After everyone got into town we all decided that we weren't going to mope, we were going to celebrate him, we were going to enjoy stories about him, we were going to laugh; and we did. We looked at every picture in my house and my mother's house, and rediscovered so many memories. Looking at pictures of my father with me and Jessica, and with Amalie and Delanie, I see so much pride and love in his face. We had a celebration of his life with his coworkers, friends and family. I miss him everyday, but I'm starting to consult Google for the home improvement questions I would normally ask my dad.

Since my father's passing I have been trying to occupy my time with projects, cleaning/organizing, and getting Amalie ready for Kindergarten. 

Here she is with her schultute (German school cone)

Her first day of school board.

Right before we left the house. She has been loving school, but not the homework.

I also got most of my sewing room finished, I just have a few small things to do to finish up.

I got the shelves up and storage boxes labeled. (I know it looks kinda messy, but I know where everything is so it works for me)

The opposite wall has my cork board and magnet boards I made out of old cookie sheets.

This is the beautiful sign my very talented sister-in-law, Marina, made me for my birthday.

The only thing I have left to do is put down a transition strip for the doorway and then it will be done. There are many other project I have completed around here but I will get to those at another time. See you later!

My Amalie is 5!!!!

I know, I know....I haven't been on here for ever, between starting school shopping for Amalie, working on my sewing room (almost done!!) and dealing with the stress of worrying about my dad (he is fighting lung cancer) I just haven't had a chance to write a post.

July 20th is my oldest daughter's birthday, and we celebrated for 2 days. We woke up bright and early to open star wars pancake molds. 

She was very excited.

We made some cake better pancakes because she had to wait for the 21st to have birthday cake.

She took pictures of me while I was cooking.

She also took pictures of herself and her sister eating.

Later that day my sister, who is visiting from Texas, came to get Amalie for lunch at McDonald's and to go watch the new Ice Age movie, so that gave me the opportunity to make her cake, I couldn't make it in front of her because I wanted it to be a surprise.

I made rainbow cake!

I needed two layers.

And here is her cake all decorated, i put the two layers together with butter cream frosting and put a thin layer of frosting on the outside of the cake, and then covered the whole thing with whoppers.

Today we had grandparents, and 2 aunts over. We all enjoyed pink and green spaghetti with red sauce.

Then it was time for presents. Amalie got her first sewing machine and she can't wait to try it out.

She got a Leapster 2 and a few games for it.

Oma and Opa got her the Tangled game for her Leapster

Delanie loved the wrapping paper.

Auntie Jessica got her a La La Loopsy Carnival set.

She was also very happy about her Hello Kitty earrings. She also got a bunch of the Junie B. Jones books from Grandma and Grandpa, and some cool building squares that lock together from Aunt Casie. She was very happy with all of her gifts

Then it was cake time. She had no idea what the cake looked like on the inside.

But she was very impressed, and she actually ate the cake this year (she usually doesn't). I had no idea it would turn out this pretty on the inside, I was very proud.

This is just a funny picture of my sister rocking the Pride and eating rainbow cake.

We had a fantastic celebration for Amalie's birthday, and had a blast with family. I can't wait to play with Amalie's new toys with her, and I'm really excited about teaching her how to sew.