Baby Wash

A Tree Skirt

Thanks to Dancing with the Stars being only one hour instead of two last night, our tree now has her own Christmas outfit!  Plus, I can wear it as a skirt for myself the other 11 months of the year!

Just kidding, that's ridiculous.  As is my obsession to fill December with as many crafts as possible!!

What a Doll

Lincoln and Parley each drew one of their girl-cousin's names for this year's Christmas cousin gift exchange, and since I'm still in a peg-painting fix (and since putting babies in charge of giving a gift really means Mom is in charge of giving a gift), I couldn't resist making more dolls!  I know their mothers read this blog, so as long as they don't show this to their daughters, it'll still be a surprise.

My Kids are Cute

Pie Day

Happy Thanksgiving!  This was our first Thanksgiving to spend away from family, so we spent the holiday with some old and new friends from our ward.  Our hosts, the dear Gregersens, are our new role models, and are 100% the couple we want to become.  The spread was beautiful and the meal was delicious, except I got some flu bug just before we sat down to eat, so I missed out on the entire meal!  Well, I had a few bites.  What a let down.  At least I got pictures!

Behold, the 16th rainbow ribbon jello I've made?  It takes over 8+ hours of diligence, so it only happens once a year.  I do believe it looks best in a trifle bowl.

Now THAT's a Thanksgiving dinner.

(The favorite pie of the night was actually NOT my blueberry pie, but the chocolate one behind it!  Thank you Mom Millar for the Lion House Pies recipe book that I finally had a chance to use!  These recipes are definitely repeats)

A Letter to my Younger, Newly Betrothed Self

Dear newly betrothed self,

Congratulations on finally getting a man, you old maid :)  Just so you know, Jason was worth the wait and endless journal entries of how woefully single your lonely little life is.  Thanks for not settling, you won't be sorry.
 
Keep in mind that you will both be better people in four years.  You will understand the other much better, know their insecurities even more, know how to help and when you should drop a matter altogether.

Don't let yourself be bothered by how many times Jason will leave the car lights on, because you will rack up several careless parking violations yourself.  I know you are worried about the little things, but trust me, these are shortcomings that will be easily overlooked as soon as you taste his cream cheese chicken.
 
Don't get discouraged when you feel you will never get pregnant.  Don't lose hope when you miscarry.  More little bundles are on their way!  Money will get really tight, and you both will be really scared, but it will always work out.  There will be times you'll be frustrated with each other, but there will be times that Jason will melt your heart like butter. 

If you ever wonder what your marriage will be like four years from now, know that it is stronger, better, and as happy as ever.  You never need to doubt that you made the best decision of your life.

Love, your happily married self of four years

PS--Its not a good idea to color your hair the week before your wedding, and don't go to that one nail salon for a wedding manicure, just do it yourself.  Wear warm stockings under your wedding dress, and don't forget to pack a WHITE bra, you silly girl.

Young Women in Excellence

Last week we held our Young Women in Excellence!  We (meaning mostly a dear Sis. Gregerson) put together a cute program with "The Worth of a Sole" theme.  It turned out so cute!

If you can't tell, we had a pair of shoes in their value color at each table.  I'm so proud of my girls! 

Pasta, Present, and Future

I haven't used one of these since BYU cooking classes, but I got this pasta machine in the mail this week to write up a review, so we had a pasta night!

 For years I've been wanting to make chocolate spaghetti, and now I can finally make my dreams a reality!  Does anyone have an excellent chocolate pasta recipe?  Its kind of the only thing I want to make right now.

Wishful Thinking

 Enough sewing for me, its time to start sewing for baby girl.  Oh a girl, you ask?  Just wishful thinking :) This quilt may very well be for my first granddaughter instead.

 Thank you, Kati, for the fabric!!  (These are from the Poetica line by Pat Bravo)

Pre-school!

 I would never have guessed Lincoln's first day of school would be just after he turned 2 years old, but then again its not exactly preschool.  Its actually just 2 hours of early intervention speech therapy play group, but he gets to ride a bus and wear a backpack, and mommy gets to grocery shop with only one child, so eeeeveryone's happy.

 He seems to love it!  Maybe a bit alarming how quickly he climbed right into the unmarked van full of strangers.  Bye mom.  Alright then.

Mr. Mobility

 Parley Pants is a mover and a shaker!  He always acts like he's ready to just take off running.  At his 6-month appt. yesterday, his stats put him just as tall as Lincoln at six months (and around 90%-tile), but not nearly as heavy.  Skinny boy!  Projections show that Link will be the football player and PD will be our basketball star.  Or maybe they'll both be band nerds and chess players :)

6 in 6 for 16 Challenge Review

6 in 6 for 16 - NOVEMBER

Finally!  I can end this silly project!  I confess I had much more enthusiasm about this 6 in 6 challenge six months ago.  At the time, I wanted to keep doing this the whole year long, but I've found some other projects that are a little more exciting to me since then.  And hot dog, look at that!  $15.95/outfit!  Couldn't have been much closer to $16 if I tried.  

This month also started out with a fail.  The original top I planned was a pretty fall floral print, but it had too much white, not enough vintage cream in it, didn't really work.  So on to the green, which is not homemade, but I make the rules since its my self-inflicted challenge in the first place.

 

The $390 Chloe inspiration skirt:

I made a mock-up first out of anything ugly from my scrap stash, then picked it apart to use as my pattern.

Mine turned out a little more frumpy, but it was my poor decision to use linen.  It may be a wrinkle fest, and I wanted to find something a little more tangerine (you know, Pantone's 2012 color of the year), but I still think I'll keep this one around :).

Mr. Millar

Jason has put in a request for a blog post about Jason, so here's a little project he's been helping me with doing for me.  I recently got some majestic and almost obnoxiously too big wood letters to make a big "MILLAR" stand for our living room.  They were free review items (and you can enter to win your own lettering this week HERE...), from a cute shop called Craft Cuts.

 I think they actually work great for this space we have above our door frames.  We'll just make sure wherever we move next has just such a space to put a 5-foot long shrine to the Millar family!

Ok, more on Jason.  Mr. Millar is a stud and has been going to the gym a lot more before studying for CFA III kicks in after the holidays.  Work is picking up and will be pretty crazy until the end of the month, and then blessed December is basically nap time at work for the entire company.  Looking forward to having dinner as a family for atleast one month of the year.  J spends almost all his free time researching how to save money, whether its switching our car insurance, taking ourselves off AT&T and putting me on a $10/month phone plan, or converting over to heating our house with space heaters instead of central gas.  He has spent hours looking up the next car we should buy based on our projected family growth.  His idol is Mr. Money Mustache, who writes a blog about how he retired at 29 because of all his wise money choices.

Smushing Pumpkins

Next to the opportunity to dress up, my favorite part of Halloween is cooking up all my pumpkins and stocking up the freezer!  I just can't bear to carve any jack o' lanterns and let them rot on the porch because I love my pumpkin cookies way too much.  And holy cow, Parley loves this stuff!

Baby Ann Romney

 OBVIOUSLY we're pro-Romney around here.  There is a family in our ward who works directly on the Romney campaign (and if things go well today, will be moving to DC next week), and wanted their toddler daughter to be a mini Ann Romney for their work Halloween party! 

We came up with a dress idea last minute, going with the Oscar de la Renta she wore when she gave her speech, and in a night, I busted out this adorableness.  I get SO EXCITED about these kinds of projects!

  Our friends told us that the real Ann Romney got all kinds of texts and tweets about her little mini-Ann dressed up in her red dress and that she loved it!  Warms my heart with seamstress pride :)

Have you voted yet today?!