Jane turns TWO!

The day began with running through streamers on her door, following candy acorns down the hall and discovering her Totoro!!! What a fun 2nd birthday beginning! I remember so clearly the night/morning Jane was born. It is a very special memory and was the day I became a mommy. This little lady has brought our family so much joy! She is smart, clever, strong, adorable, caring, loving, adventurous and full of sugar and spice. She laughs, dances, swims, runs, and is full of more energy than a thunderstorm. Jane has a very keen sense of the world around her and enjoys exploring every bit of it!

This year we decided to do a Totoro party theme. It was a lot of fun! Jane loves this spirit of the forest and is the one movie she will sit all the way though. I love that it teaches imagination and has such a childlike way of teaching about family and love. I found a little picture of a Totoro stuffed animal and decided that must be her birthday present this year. So the past few nights I endlessly sewed by hand a little Totoro friend for Jane to enjoy. It was so worth it!!! She has played with him all day and cuddled with him for nap and bedtime. It is so fun to see her enjoy this gift so much! She even fed him at dinner time.

Look at that cheese Totoro grin :). I let Jane watch Totoro with her Totoro while I prepped dinner. It was really adorable to watch her holding him as she watched her favorite movie. For dinner we did rice, broccoli (her favorite!), wontons, and chicken. And of course did CHEERS with some apple juice!

Her cake was simple and had some Totoro acorns on top. He loves collecting acorns in the movie and the little girl follows a trail of them when she first finds him. So it was fitting to make sure we had some at the party. And chocolate and strawberry, mmmmm, you can't go wrong with that. Two of Janes other favorite foods.

I bought some special balloons for her birthday that say her name, and one that was a huge letter 2! They were sooooooo fun! I love balloons. Jane really is a special little lady and I adore her. I could not ask for a more bright and fun spirited little gal. She is my favorite 2 year old in all the land. Happiest of birthdays to my favorite girl in the world!

Oh, and her other favorite gift was her $3 bag of Legos. They are cheap, but surprisingly worked really well. She loved building towers with them. I think they will soon be her favorite toy like her dad. I see lots of building fun in our future.

When there's Love at Home

This. Melts. My. Heart. I am going to treasure this image forevermore. I love seeing my Mister James playing the piano and love it even more when our kids are here with him. Each Monday we do Family Home Evening and James is our designated song player. He is so good at playing he hymns in the LDS Children's Songbook. I want him to make a cd someday with his music. It's so peaceful and perfect. I always look forward to hearing him on the piano.

I'm grateful that music is and always will be a big part of our family. James' brother is amazing at the piano, his grandfather played the trumpet, his great grandmother played the piano, he has an aunt who is amazing at music and then j have a grandma who is incredibly musical talented and tons of relatives that are amazing musicians as well. So, music runs deep in our blood I think. I hope that our children will discover an instrument they love and that our home will always be filled with uplifting music!

Happy New Year, 2016 here we come!

Happy 2016! This last year has been amazing, hard, growing, and so happy. We are ready for a new year to grow and learn in. Our theme for our goals this year us clean. We want our home to be in better order and cleaner, we want clean teeth with regular dentist visits, we want clean and healthy bodies, we want "clean" language (basically speaking kindly and being positive!) and thoughts, we want to strive to have a clean car, and basically just help cleanliness be a big part of our habits we form this year.

Our New Years feast was awesome. James loves lamb so that is our new tradition for the eve of a new year. The dish this year was incredible. He stuffed it with olives and herbs and so many yummy things. I made mashed potatoes and corn to go with it. And of course we had our bubbly sparking cider to do cheers to! Jane loves to do cheers! The lamb really did turn out incredible and James said it was the best lamb dish he'd had besides the one we enjoyed in our first anniversary in Jackson. And that was a very upscale restaurant (the blue lion). He did an awesome job cooking that leg of lamb!

Our last outing together was going to a toy store. And dropping off two huge bags of clothes I went through New Year's Eve day to donate to a thrift store. Part of that whole being clean goal ;) is getting rid of excess and clutter. It felt good to just say adios to those items. Jane thoroughly enjoyed the toy store and we got a toy wooden airplane and jacks in the $1-5 section.

Another new tradition we are going to go each New Years is glowsticks!! We turned all the lights off in the house and played with glowsticks, both kids loved it!  And of course the traditional bang pots and pans! Except this year it happened at 7:45, not 12. New Years is a bit different with babies. Now I don't know why I'd stay up that late ever again by choice, oh old age ;).

After Jane went down we enjoyed some cheesecake with orange chocolates. It was decadent and sinful and my last bit of indulgence. My goal is for the month of January to not have any chocolate. And then to try and go a little further and have no sugar. This will be a very difficult goal for me because that is my hurrah victory item: something sweet. And I have a huge sweet tooth. But I really want to be healthier and loose some weight and control that desire. So wish me luck, cause dang this is going to be hard!

Happy new year and happy goals to becoming better people! I am excited to see what this year brings our family.

The best breakfast.

Oh delectable breakfast bites!!!! My parents gave all of us kids a brand spankin new ebelskeiver pan for Christmas and we broke ours in on the first day of 2016! It was so yummy and fun to have a special breakfast to welcome a new happy year.

We had homemade strawberry syrup, cinnamon sugar and powdered sugar, whipped cream and maple syrup to adorn them. But honestly I could eat them plain they are that tasty. When I think of my mom making these for us as kids I realize how much time it took. They aren't the quickest thing to cook and there are 8 in our family. So that means s lot of ebelskeiver eat'n. I love having special holidays to have the excuse to make extra delicious breakfasts!!!

The Great Animal Tree

Today was record breaking cold with temperatures as low as -17. Oooooo, brrrrrrrrr, that is cold!! We hadn't yet done our animal tree because of all being sick the past but, but it is a tradition I have to keep. Usually we have family or friends do it with us but this year it's been so hard to pin someone down and we've been sickies lies to. So today I got out all the gear and said "we are doing this, sick or not, and we'll have fun!" And it was fun!!

Jane had a blast throwing seeds all about the kitchen and watching daddy make funny faces (doesn't she look amazed ;), she actually laughed quite a bit with her daddio!). She loved the feel of all those bird seeds. And it was so much fun to have her help this year. We read "The Night Tree", which is the book that inspired the animal tree. And it really is such a great tradition that I look forward to every December.

We dipped pinecone into peanut butter and rolled them in seeds, cut out bread and toasted it and put candied nuts on them as ornaments. Usually we'll make a popcorn chain with cranberries to, but that was not a good idea for this year. We had fun with what we did and decided to not go overboard with our littles.

It was so cold outside and the snow was just sparkling in the sunshine. Right now Idaho feels like Narnia. It's so snowy and magical feeling. Hanging the little ornaments and throwing seeds and such onto the ground got us excited to see the first animals that might show up. And guess what the first one was....a squirrel of course! Jane had so much watching him through our back window. THAT is why I have to keep this tradition the magic in a child's face as they make, hang and watch the animal tree get eaten makes it all worth it. Happy winter and new year little animals and birds!

Here's her magical face below, so sweet!

Heavenward New Years!

I love love love these great men and prophets of our age. Both are individuals I greatly admire and look up to. As we move into a new year I ponder what and who I want to become more of this year and goals I would like to strive to accomplish. There are many! Being a more patient and happy mommy, having more dates and time with my Mister, getting my blog more views and an Etsy shop made, having my home feel more organized and peaceful, exercise and eating goals....the list goes on and I really feel strongly about all of them. But one of the biggest and most important, I feel, is to have less complaining and more joy.

I love these two quotes about positivity and looking upward to heaven. Life is truly meant to be filled to the brim with joy and it can be! There is always something we can complain about, cause hey, life's hard. However there is so much more to rejoice about and you know what, it makes life SO much happier when you have a positive and grateful attitude. You can serve others more faithfully, you are healthier in body and mind, there are so many benefits to this lifestyle. I pray that this year even though I'm still working really hard at becoming a better me, getting my home in order, exhausted with youngins, feel far from family, and sometimes have those low moments that I will rise and shine and see the good in all things! That is my desire and a deep motto within my life already and this year I hope to make it dominate this girls attitude!! Here's to a positive and grateful year full of service, love, joy and seeing all things with a heavenly perspective!

Time changes everything!

The clock is ticking and this little man is growing by the second. Not quick enough for his daddy and me though. William has truly been such a beautiful and wonderful baby but his sleep habits and crying are enough to make us go crazy!!!!! In fact we have gone crazy many a night. Sleep deprivation is one of the worst plagues of early parenthood and it has been ruling our household for 5 long months. I know everyone will say, "oh but it will be gone so soon" "enjoy those early years" "treasure that time" and all sorts of other well meant phrases...but time could not go faster! When you have not had a straight night of sleep in 5 months you are ready for your sweet little angel baby to grow up a bit. I know every phase of his life (and all our children) will have its challenges, but this early stage is one of the most time consuming, draining and absolute hardest things I've ever done in my life!

Besides the fact that William is the most exhausting creature on the planet right now here are some things I absolutely love about this boy of mine:

- his smile is always ready and it is perfect! Really perfect! It melts my heart!

- he loves to blow his lips together tons

- looking in his new mirror toy is a favorite place to chat away with his new friend ;)

- he's mastered rolling

- loves loves to kick his legs

- has the most adorable and handsome eyes

- can talk super loud and for quite some time

- loves watching his mobile and sister

- follows his daddy everywhere with his eyes

- can be stiff as a board and is super duper strong

- sits up in his bumbo seat

- loves to snuggle (love this most of the time, except for when it's every two hours at night, like right now)

- is an excellent eater

- loves to chat and look back and forth between mom and dad at night

- takes nursing, a binki and and bottle (thankfully)

- has the cutest little voice that loves to make noise

- enjoys grabbing all sorts of things and chewing on even more!

William is an amazing little boy and I can't wait to see what is in store for him in his life! His nursery theme is "Be brave little one" and I think he truly is. He is my little brave boy. I love you to the moon and back William and hope you will know that all your life. You are a treasure!

Above is one of the precious moments parents like us adore...a sleeping baby!