Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'!

We bragged about Brookyln rolling over when she was three weeks old, and she hasn't done it more than a handful of times since. This all ended last week when she figured out how to roll both ways (front to back and back to front). We will leave her playing on her playmat, and often find her off of the mat, and as you can see in the picture below, she is loving her new-found freedom.Tonight, Brooklyn hit this week is that she had her very first taste of cereal. Her first reaction was a little confused, but after a few spoonfuls, she kept wanting more and would open her mouth very wide when the spoon was near.
It's fun having a little girl to dress up and all, but those headbands always seem to end up covering her eyes. Today we thought it was funny because the headband made it all the way in to her mouth. Saturday morning Jen made Kyle a delecious breakfast as an early birthday present (she didn't want to wake up at5:00 on Monday morning on his actual birthday). The buttermilk pancakes with fresh fruit, bacon, and eggs made everyone happy.



As another birthday present, we finally got to go out for a date on Friday. Thanks John and Lonnie for watching the kids for us. We went to a very romantic dinner at Chuck-a-Rama's dining on coconut shrimp and roast beef. Then we went to see Monsters vs. Aliens in 3D! It was the first 3D movie either of us had seen since sixth grade when we were rewarded for being on the honor roll with a 3D showing of the old black and white classic The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Needless to say, the IMAX experience trumped the school gym. We had fun.

In other news, Kyle found out that he passed his test that he took a month ago. Hooray!

Ethan is getting very smart. He can now identify Barack Obama on TV, George Washington on the dollar bill, and can recite the Gettysburg Address from memory. Ok, the last one was a lie, but he CAN name pretty much every character from the movie Cars, including the more obscure ones like "Minnie," and "Van."

"A 'Hole' lot of Mischief" or "Stuck in a Hole"

Kyle and I couldn't agree on a title so we thought we'd go Rocky and Bullwinkle style and use both.

Ethan has been having lots of fun playing outside. The other day we were outside and Ethan found the hole we dug last fall to help fix our leaky basement. We were surprised he fit into it. The hole isn't as deep as it looks. Ethan is sitting down with his feet under the sidewalk. We thought this was pretty funny.


Ethan loves to sit on his little tractor and scoot around the house.
Today in church Ethan was scribbling on paper and was very excited about his drawing of a butterfly. This was the first time he has identified his scribbles as anything in particular. He went on to draw a bee, a piano, circles, and mommy and daddy. They all look about the same as this butterfly.
Ethan and Brooklyn had their respective 2 year and 4 month doctor's checkups this week. Ethan has stayed close to the 35th percentile for weight, 75th for height (tall and skinny) but surprised us a bit that his head is in the 90th percentile. This reminded us of a quote from "So I Married an Axe Murderer."

Look at the size of that boy's heed.
Shhh!
I'm not kidding, it's like an orange on a toothpick.
Shhh, you're going to give the boy a complex.
Well, that's a huge noggin. That's a virtual planetoid.
Shh!
Has it's own weather system.
Sh, sh, shh.
HEAD! MOVE
I'm not kidding, that boy's head is like Sputnik; spherical but quite pointy at parts! Now that was offside, wasn't it? He'll be crying himself to sleep tonight, on his huge pillow.

With a head as big as his it's no wonder he's so smart (while emptying my wallet during church today he came across a punch card from Papa Murphy's and and said "Papa Murphy!" though we never taught him that).

Brooklyn's stats were very similar to Ethan's when he was her age. She was in the 30th percentile for weight (about 13 lbs) , 90th for height (25 inches), and 50th for head size.

Mission Accomplished

We pulled out our jumperoo a few weeks ago for Brooklyn to play in. It is hard for us to believe she is already old enough to play in it. She turned 4 months old last week! We took these pictures a week ago of her playing. It has been neat seeing her gain more control of her hands and show more interest in toys.
This winter, Kyle was pretty much locked away preparing for his comprehensive exam. In the meantime, I took frequent trips to Logan with the kids to work on building two chairs for our front room. It was a good opportunity for me to leave with the kids to give him lots of quiet time, and for me to have some fun learning something new.

Kyle's mom knows how to upholster and offered to teach me some tricks. I decided to order chair frames and build them from scratch rather than just recover existing frames. It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. I love these frames. They are solid maple and have inlay across the top. I tried to take pictures of the process, but forgot to take some of all the steps.

Here are a few pictures of the unfinished frames. We had to glue several pieces together, then I sanded, stained, glazed, and lacquered the frames. This part took several days.


After finishing the wood, we applied webbing to the bottom of the chair and sewed 9 springs to each. I feel bad I didn't get any pictures of the springs because my fingers sure were sore at the end.

We also tied the springs down to the height we wanted. Again, I didn't get a picture. This was a frustrating step and again very tiring on our hands. Each spring was tied with 8 knots. With 18 springs with 8 knots each we were very happy to finish.

We covered the tied springs with burlap. You can sort of see little bulges where all the knots are underneath. After the burlap we added layers of padding and foam to cushion the springs.

After looking over hundreds of fabric samples I picked my fabric. Luckily I was able to find one in my price range. Some of my favorites were $100 a yard!!
We had to be very careful laying the fabric just right and always checking that the diamonds were lined up, the tension on the fabric was consistent and that we were careful when we cut. I had to unpick a lot of staples.
The back of the chair was made by stapling a piece of fabric, a layer of what looks like quilt batting, then webbing (the same braided strips that we put on the bottom), burlap, foam, and more of the stuff that looks like batting.


Kyle's mom, Lynne recently broke her wrist so we were nervous whether or not we would be able to finish the chairs so soon. Although she wasn't able to help as much as in the past, we were able to finish them during our most recent visit.
Kyle took this picture of us pretending we did something wrong.
Trimming the fabric was sometimes tricky, especially in this tight spot.
This is the chair without the welting (aka trim that finishes the edges). There are special glues that are used for this. Lynne likes to use one that goes in your glue gun.

Voila! Here is the finished product in my bay window. They fit great! We are so glad that now when we have visitors we won't have to pull out our kitchen chairs.
I am so happy to finally be done with these chairs. I now have a greater appreciation for upholsterers. It is true that they earn every dime. Next, I am going to make some bar stools for my kitchen island and recover my kitchen chairs. That will be quite simple compared with what I just finished.

Hmmm . . . I never thought I would ever be someone to ask my husband for an air compressor or a staple gun for Christmas.

Baby Giggles

Brooklyn has been such a cutie this week. I've been having so much fun dressing her up in new outfits she hasn't been able to fit in before, though it is hard to put away those that she has outgrown. She started laughing recently and it has been fun trying to make her laugh. She was laughing at me this morning in delight as I was changing her diaper and Ethan and I were singing "Five Little Monkey."

Here are a few pictures of her from the week. (Her hair is growing quite well, though she still looks really bald in these pics.)




Ethan had a great week playing with the train set he got for his birthday, but I have to admit Kyle and I have probably had about as much fun playing with it too.
One of Kyle and Ethan's favorite things to do is build "garages" for Ethan's cars out of blocks. I think they could do that for hours.
We haven't had the most exciting week, but it was a good one. Kyle had his big exam a little over a week ago and our level of stress has gone down dramatically. This week is Kyle's Spring Break and we are looking forward to getting to spend time with one another after work each day. We've recently had time to watch a few movies together, which we are lucky to have time for one a month. This weekend we saw the movie Australia and really liked it. It was much better than the last movie we saw, Mama Mia (If anyone liked that movie please explain). That's one of the biggest disappointments I've seen in a very long time. I'm sorry but I just couldn't get past Mr. Darcy (Colin Firth) being gay. The singing was pretty bad too. Australia, on the other hand, although very long, was much more enjoyable, and the little boy in it was cute. We would also recommend the movie Ghost Town, but beware if you have sensitive ears. The language gets bad at one part. Definitely a fun movie, but one that we would watch on Clearplay in the future.

Also, for anyone interested, I just started a food blog for favorite recipes. The chicken wrap recipe from Ethan's b-day party is on there, which I got a few requests for. I am planning on posting many of my favorite recipes on there to document them for myself and to share them with friends and family. Please give them a try and give me your feedback. You can find a link on my sidebar where it says "My Food Blog," or you can find it at http://eatdrinkandbemorrey.blogspot.com.

Birthday Boy

Yesterday we celebrated Ethan's 2nd Birthday with lots of family. We were originally going to have a small party, but decided to invite Ethan's aunts and uncles and cousins since we don't all get together as often as we'd like and it seemed like a fun thing to do on a Sunday afternoon. Ethan's Grandma Morrey broke her wrist when she tripped while walking home from church yesterday so we were surprised they they were able to still make it to the party.

Ethan loved his race track cake which he called his "McQueen cake." It had crushed Oreos on top for the road and everything but the green and white frosting was chocolate (or the cars and flags of course). You just can't go wrong with chocolate!


We got Ethan a wooden train set for his birthday since he loves the one they have in nursery. He seemed really excited. He also got a coloring book, a board book, and a bath toy from us. His Grandma and Grandpa Taylor gave him a wagon, he got sidewalk chalk from his cousins, and a play tool set from his Grandma and Grandpa Morrey.Ethan has absolutely loved the warmer temperatures outside. He will spend hours outside playing with his big car, digging in the sand or rock pile, or just exploring. It was hard to get him inside to open presents yesterday since he was having so much fun pushing around his new wagon. Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture.

We were at Walmart on Saturday night (where we often are on a date night) and promised to let Ethan pick out a new Matchbox or Hotwheels car for his birthday. He was too smart for us however, and wanted either the 10 pack or a big car. He became really attached to a black car that is about 6 inches long. We told him he could have it but didn't understand that he had to give it to the checker so we could pay for it. His eyes welled up with tears and his lip quivered as he thought it meant he had to give it back. He loves this new car and has to do everything with it: Eat, sleep, take a bath, play outside, etc. We asked him what his car's name was and he told us "Cargoes." Why? We really wish we knew what was going on in that little head.

Ethan has been really funny in trying new foods lately. He has always been really difficult to try new textures and we have not been able to get him to eat any fruits besides bananas and raisins (if you can consider it a fruit). He seems to be interested in all the sauces and spices he sees us adding to our foods so whenever he sees a sauce or salad dressing he wants to taste it. But lately he wants to taste all the spices and seasonings we have. The other day he grabbed the bottle of cumin off of the counter top and came to Jen and said "Some," meaning he wanted some. She put a bit on his plate and he loved it. "Nummy cumin!" he exclaimed. He also thinks cornstarch is "nummy," as well as oregano, onion powder, thyme, and uncooked pearl barley. Silly boy. If only we could convince him that apples and grapes are even more "nummy."

Brooklyn gave Jen a wonderful present last night. She slept a record 7 hours straight last night between feedings. This is a new record for her! We only hope this isn't a one time thing. She hasn't been the most consistent sleeper. Ethan was much better and was sleeping through the night by now. If it wasn't for that stinkin' binkie falling out at night she'd probably be better. Ethan never liked using one so we never had to deal with it. He wasn't as happy and quiet of a baby as she is though. It is funny how unique they each are.