Kaylin lost her first tooth!

I didn't think Kaylin was quite old enough to lose teeth. But apparently she is. She lost her first tooth at 4 years and 9 months old. She knows older kids who have lost teeth, she's seen a TV show or two about kids losing teeth, but it scared her when she discovered that she had a loose tooth.

Here's the timeline:

Saturday 8:30 pm: Kaylin gets out of bed to tell us that she has a loose tooth. This thing looks like it's about to fall out.

Saturday 9:00 pm: I do a quick search on Pinterest for a tooth fairy pillow and find the perfect one. Thankfully I have all of the supplies since JoAnn's is now closed and this tooth is seriously ready to fall out. I start working on it.

Sunday 8:00 am: Kaylin and I watch a couple of PBS Kids cartoon clips about the tooth fairy.

Sunday 10:00 am: I finish the tooth fairy pillow.

Sunday 12:15 pm: Kaylin is eating a sandwich. She says, "Mom, what's this red thing on my sandwich?" I look at it and ask her to open her mouth. The tooth is gone. We look around for the tooth, but it's not there. She must have swallowed it. So now we have a 4 year old who is not only scared to lose her tooth, but now she doesn't have her tooth to leave for the tooth fairy. Plus she isn't liking the idea that there is a tooth in her stomach. I quickly explain that she can write a note to the tooth fairy and she will still leave her a prize.

She refused to let me take a picture.

What???? We've known about this loose tooth for 16 hours, most of that time was spent sleeping. The tooth fairy brings a special present when you lose your first tooth, in case you didn't know. In case you weren't paying attention, she lost her tooth on SUNDAY. I'm Mormon and we don't shop on Sunday. Thankfully I'm somewhat of a planner and I had a present I was planning to give her for her birthday that would be perfect. She wanted the tooth fairy to bring her a tooth brush, I didn't have one of those. But I did have princess toothpaste, which proved to be quite exciting.

We went to Grammy and Grandpa's for my birthday dinner and Grammy helped Kaylin write a note to the tooth fairy explaining her situation.

That night we left the note in her new tooth fairy pillow.

Monday morning Kaylin was so excited when she woke up and found what the tooth fairy left her. And she finally let me take a picture of her missing tooth.

Pet Shops and princess toothpaste! The tooth fairy also left a dollar bill, but that wasn't as exciting.

She played with the pet shops and toothpaste ALL DAY. We did leave the house a time or two, so she took a couple of breaks. But the pet shops were a hit.

Here's her tooth fairy pillow:

The tooth is a pocket.

Tutorial and tooth template found here.

Lost Socks

I don't know about you, but we have a lost sock problem. It reminds me of this Seinfeld clip. Eric and the girls always seem to be losing a sock. Kaylin is the worst, she usually wears multiple pairs of socks a day and takes them off all over the place. The other sock usually shows up by the next time I do laundry, but I haven't had a good place to keep the matchless sock until then.

My solution:

It's hanging in my laundry room and I love it! I now have a place for lost socks. What can I say, it's the little things that make me happy.

Crafty Details:
I already had a 7"x24" board cut from a previous project. I spray painted it with Krylon Ocean Breeze, which was leftover from my craft room update that I don't think I've posted. I cut vinyl using my friend's Cricut (thanks, Brittany!) and applied it to the board. I mod podged paper onto wooden clothes pins and then hot glued them to the board. I attached my favorite self-leveling picture hanger to the back. I'm not sure where I originally saw the idea, but after a quick google search I think it was from here.

New pillows for the family room

We bought our couch and red chairs in the family room about 3 1/2 years ago. When we were at the furniture store something came up about the pillows and I said, "I don't care what the pillows look like, I'm going to recover them anyway." Since the red in the pillows matched the red chairs, they still looked like this until a few days ago:

I finally got sick enough of them to make covers. After lots of searching, I finally found the perfect fabric.

The third pillow is from one of the red chairs, I got over my love of symmetry and put the blue flower pillow on the couch too because I love how it looks with the floral.

Our living and dining rooms are red and gold (as seen here), and so was our family room. The kitchen has blue and white, which is what we've always had. I have been wanting to tie the kitchen and family room together better since they are one big room--thus the red, gold, and blue in the new pillows. I am so happy to have blue in the family room now!

Crafty details:
All three pillows have invisible zippers and are fully lined. I got to use my serger which made me happy. Tutorial here. The flower pillow was made using felt and this tutorial.

Fall Garland

While at Target today I found some glittery pumpkins and leaves in the dollar section. They were $1 for a pack of 5. I wanted to buy them, but I needed a use for them. I decided that I could make a fun fall garland for our fireplace.

I like how the pumpkins match my glittered pumpkins and the leaves match my red vases and chair.

Kaylin loves it. When she saw it hung up she said, "Look, Mom, a pattern! Leaf, pumpkin, leaf pumpkin..." She also thinks that I need one more pumpkin on the end to finish the pattern. I then explained the symmetry of the garland to her. I was happy to have an opportunity to talk math :-).

In case you're curious, here's how I made the garland:

I punched two small holes at the top of each pumpkin/leaf, I think I used a 1/8" punch. I wove hemp twine in the left hole, around the back, and then through the right hole so that the twine will be behind the pumpkin/leaf. {Side note... I have hemp twine leftover from when I used to make hemp necklaces in high school. They were so cool. Did anyone else make those or was that just cool at my school? It's come in handy for many craft projects, it's thin and sturdy and I love it.} That's it. It took me around 5 minutes and cost $2.

Boise

At the beginning of September we went to Boise to visit Eric's sister and her family. Our newest nephew was born only a month earlier and we were excited to meet him. I realized when I got home that I didn't take many pictures. I don't even have a picture of our new nephew!

The drive went okay. Kaylin did really well and Lauren was alright. The travel toys helped a lot. They kept Kaylin really busy. We stopped in Richland to see the Columbia River Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Neither of us had seen it before. It's a beautiful temple with really nice grounds. We let the girls run some energy out in the grass.

While in Boise we swam in the pool a few times. We invited our cousins to our hotel for a swimming party. Hey... It looks like a did get a picture of the new nephew. Do you see him in his car seat in the background?

We also swam in one of Eric's uncle's pools and then went to another uncle's house for a BBQ.

Other highlights:
*We went to one of Eric's mission companion's house for dinner and got to hang out with his awesome family and see their amazing garden and yard.
*We went to Boise State for an hour. We saw the blue turf and decided that it doesn't look as awful as it does on TV.
*We saw our brother-in-law's new chiropractic office. If you're in Boise and need a great chiropractor, go to Action Chiropractic :-).
*We ate lunch at Cafe Rio.
*We went to a few fun local parks.
*We drove around the Boise Temple that is currently being renovated.

The last night we went to Texas Roadhouse Grill for dinner. Some friends from Boise convinced us that we needed to go there just for the complimentary rolls and cinnamon butter--amazing.
Lauren and Jack entertained each other. They couldn't stop laughing at each other.

The one thing I didn't do that I wanted to... go to Hobby Lobby. I didn't realize there was one in Boise, and right by our hotel, until it was too late. Sad.

The drive home went alright, I think it was a little better than the drive there. Lauren slept for two 30-minute stints whereas she only slept for 15 minutes on the way there. It was a fun trip, I'm glad we were able to go.

First day of preschool!

Today was Kaylin's first day of preschool. She is going to a co-op preschool that we're both really excited about. I'm excited that I still get to be a part of her school experience since I'll be working in the classroom twice a month. We've been talking a lot about preschool and about being nice to others, but this morning I found out what her real concern was. While I was getting ready for the day she asked me, "Mom, is there a bathroom at preschool?" She was happy to hear that there is.

printable found here

"Mom! Look at those birds!"

Kaylin is such a sweet, smart girl. We are excited to see how she grows and develops this year.

Magnetic Travel Toys

We're going on a long car ride soon (about 8 hours each way) and I needed a few more activities to keep the girls occupied.

I decided to make some magnetic toys! They weren't too much work, fun to make, and fairly inexpensive since I already had a lot of the supplies on hand. Also, it helps to have a laminator.

I bought them each a small cookie sheet from the dollar store, they're about 9"x13". They're a great tray for coloring, snacks, or magnets.

I made each girl a set of tangrams.

I printed this pattern (small version) and then traced it onto craft foam from the dollar store. I bought a roll of sticky back magnets from JoAnn's and cut a small piece for the back of each shape. I printed the animal tangram patterns. I left the cards as the "answers" because Kaylin is only 4. I cut the patterns into sets of two and laminated them back to back.

I made Lauren a set of the shapes too. I made them with pink foam so I can easily keep the two sets separate. I am not expecting my one and a half year old to make pictures; I figure she'll have fun just playing with the shapes.

Next I made some magnetic play sets.

Princess and the Frog

Toy Story 3

Farm set

Picnic set

The two Disney sets are paper doll printables. I just cut out the parts I wanted, laminated them, cut them out, and attached a magnet to the back of each one. I love that they have a background to play on.

The farm and picnic sets are cutting activities for kids. I didn't print all of the pages for these ones. I thought the barn needed a little more for the background, so I cut out some green paper for grass and glued the barn and grass onto a blue piece of paper.

I needed a place to store all of the pieces! The next day one of my favorite blogs, Make it and Love it, posted about vinyl pouches. Problem solved!

I had some thin clear vinyl and velcro on hand so I got to sewing. The tip in the post about putting scotch tape on your presser foot and the bottom plate by the feed dogs worked like a charm. I'd almost sworn off sewing on vinyl until I tried this. Then I attached sticky back velcro circles to the back of each pouch and the back of each background paper. Awesome. Now each play set is organized and all the pieces will stay together!

Kaylin has been wanting to play with the magnet sets, but I won't let her. I keep telling her that they're only for our car trip. Now that they're finished they're hidden away and I think she finally forgot about them. Hopefully these will make the trip a little easier on the kids (and the parents!).

In case you're curious, other things we're bringing include:
Tag Reader with headphones, extra batteries, and a new book
Cinderella book with dry erase markers (from Costco)
Tangled book with cling stickers (from Costco)
Dry erase cards with letter tracing
Magnetic letters to use with the cookie sheets
Coloring books and crayons
Lacing cards
Pipe cleaners
Misc. books
Portable CD player and iPod with headphones
Travel pillow
Lots of snacks!

Pearrygin!

At the beginning of August we took our yearly trip to Lake Pearrygin. The weather was perfect for hanging out in our swimsuits on the beach, in the boat, and in the water all day.

Our days consisted of this:

floating on air mattresses

riding the new and fabulous GTX
that's our green tent in the background

kayaking

sitting on the saddles at Shari's

eating ice cream

more saddles

more swimming

more GTXing

maybe a future knee boarder?

more floating

We had a great time! My whole family was there and it was so fun to see everyone.

Slip 'n Slide!

We actually had some sunny, hot (for us) weather today! I bought the girls a slip 'n slide over a month ago and finally pulled it out today.

Lauren was so excited that she couldn't keep her clothes on.

The girls weren't too in to sliding, but they loved splashing in the pool at the end.

They also both enjoyed drinking the water.

And they did a lot of this:


After realizing that there wouldn't be any sliding, I hooked up a sprinkler.

Fun!

4th of July

Eric's parents' neighborhood had a little parade (1st annual?) in the afternoon and we thought it would be fun to decorate Gordon's yard wagon and pull the girls in it. They weren't too sure about it, but they went along with it.

Eric pulling the girls. Carolyn is walking with the dogs, they got dressed up in their 4th of July bandanas from the groomer. Notice that one dog is walking and the other is being carried.

I of course don't have any pictures of them smiling or looking at the camera. Oh well, at least they rode in the wagon.

After the parade there was a BBQ. Kaylin had lots of fun playing with the neighborhood kids and eating chips and hot dogs and drinking capri suns. Apparently all the fun and sun wore her out, she informed us she was ready to go and got in the wagon with a blanket. It was hot out, but she claimed she was cold.

We didn't have plans for the night time. I wasn't going to sit at home all night and I love the big fireworks shows, so I came up with a *brilliant* idea. I decided that we would load the girls in the car at bedtime and hope that at least Lauren fell asleep. Then we would find a spot overlooking Lake Union and watch the fireworks from the car while listening to the accompanying music on the radio.

Well... it didn't go as planned.

We drove to Seattle and started driving around the hills surrounding Lake Union. Every road with a view was blocked with barriers and a police car. We found a park that had a view of the Space Needle where people had set up chairs to watch the fireworks. Since Lauren was refusing to sleep, we got out of the car and set up some chairs.

My family is so photogenic.

Thankfully I brought Lauren's shoes so she could wear them over her pajamas. When the fireworks started they were directly behind some trees. Kaylin and Lauren didn't care, they thought they were amazing. We grabbed our stuff and rushed off with everyone else in search of a better viewing area. We got as close to the fireworks as we could while still in the park and watched them through some trees. The really big ones were high enough to clear the trees, but the rest were partially blocked. This is about the only time I am annoyed by trees in Seattle.

We still had fun and Kaylin loved the fireworks. She didn't even seem to realize that they were blocked by trees.

Next year we'll have to make different plans.

For any locals who are curious, while Volunteer Park has great views of the Space Needle, the lake, and downtown, it doesn't have great views of Gasworks and therefore the fireworks.