Mazie

A few friends were talking today about the story of our Nativity and it really got me thinking about the story of our cat.  By the way, if you haven't heard already, she is going to be in next year's I Can Has Cheezburger calendar!  After her appearance in their How To Take  Over the World book, they liked the picture enough to add it to the calendar.  And after you read the story, the calendar will be even more exciting!

When Jason and I were dating, he go the idea to get me a cat for Valentine's Day.  At the time we thought it was going to be practice for having a kid (HAHA!!)  We went to a local animal shelter to find a cat to adopt.  The only thing we knew going in was that we didn't want a kitten since it would be more work (because when you are practicing for having kids, it's highly practical to get one that is already trained, right?)  They led us into a room full of cats and we started looking around.  We saw a few adorable ones and they let them out of their cages for us to pet.  Most of them just wandered around aimlessly.  Jason sat down in a chair next  to the cages to pet one of the cats.  As he was sitting there, a nearby cat reached out of it's cage and started to gently paw at him.  We thought it was funny, again because most of the other cats could care less that we were even there.  After a few more minutes of this, we asked to have that cat taken out for us to look at.  The cat immediately jumped on Jason's lap and cuddled up to him.  It was adorable!  Being that it was a Calico cat, he remembered something his grandmother had told him.  He was always very close to his grandma and

More projects completed

I finished up M's quilt. It was absolutely adorable...until I washed it and parts (not all of it of course) shrunk.  I think that she'll still like it though.  Here is a part of it, she picked out the pink and black skulls on her own.  I also make her a white polka-dot minky pillow.

I also whipped up a little pillow for K to go with his alphabet letters.

And my final project today was a set of Dora crayons for our niece.  I mixed

Just another homemade Christmas in Kentucky....

....or Iowa.  Whatever.  I finished 1 of the 3 projects that I have planned for the kids this year, and I wanted to show it off :)  M's quilt is about 75% done, just waiting for my fabric to come in the mail.  I'm planning on making a little fishing pole set for K next, and then he'll be getting these ABC's as well:

Welcome December!

Wow, time has flown by this year!  I can't believe it's December already, but maybe that has something to do with the fact that it's Iowa and we haven't had a blizzard yet. 
And December doesn't just mean Christmas at our house...it means birthday!  TWO....yes, he's going to be TWO this month.  He's been busier then ever, learning things left and right. I am extremely happy to report that our house is 100% binkie-free!  Jason and I decided we were going to quit cold turkey after the holidays, but then a few weeks ago all of the binkies went missing.  A blessing in disguise I suppose.  Amazingly he has taken it well.  The first nap he cried for about 5-10 minutes, and I was sure he would never sleep again.  But after those few minutes, he was out, and he has fallen to sleep just fine without it every single nap & bedtime since.  I'm so proud of him!!  And now the rest of us are all very careful not to use the "b" word in our house anymore.
His vocabulary is also picking up.  He's never been much of a talker, more of a point-and-grunter.  He says please and thank-you perfectly.  We've been working on "sorry" lately, since it seems to come up often with this child.  He is now saying it regularly...but not in the right context.  He says it when he falls or bonks his head.  So I guess he is only really sorry when he's hurt himself. :)  Other words that we hear regularly are apple, cookies, juice, choo-choo (the boy loves trains!) and sissy (he also loves his sister!)  Surprisingly he hasn't picked up on "no" yet.
M has been doing great in school. She stayed home sick today, she's had a terrible cough for a week or two now and her throat is raw from coughing so much.  Although, she certainly doesn't act sick when she's at home.  She sure is smart though, it's been very challenging dealing with a child that outsmarts me every single day.  There is no lying to her!  And she is reading like a champ, so we no longer can spell when we don't want her to know what we are talking about :)