Christmas Eve

The morning/afternoon of Christmas eve Bo had to work so it wasn't amazingly fun. I feel thats how Christmas Eve always is. Will and I frosted cookies for santa, made truffles and cleaned because we made a big mess. Will loved using his toy hammer to break apart the Oreos for the truffles. Around noon Will informed me that he was going to make me breakfast he threw a pig into a bowl of popcorn seeds and stirred it to perfection for about 30 minutes it was the most delicious breakfast I have ever had.

Once Bo got off work we drove up to Portland to spend Christmas with his Mom and sister. One of Bo's co-workers left her bag down in Salem so we decided to drive it to Southeast Portland for her. It turned into a fun detour because it was near the area that Bo grew up so we drove past his old home, his Dad's old neighborhood and stopped by the Zellers on the way to Gresham. William had fun with the girls and it was nice to see Margaret and Alex (not pictured) who were home from college.

(left-right Rachel, Martha, Margaret and Will)

Will loves being tortured by cute girls

We then headed to Gresham to spend the remainder of Christmas Eve with Bo's Mom and sister Carly. Carly made really good lentil soup which Will of course refused to eat we also tried to feed him Mac and Cheese but Cheryl had bought him Toy story shaped ones and apparently that makes it uneatable for certain picky 3 year olds so Will had a banana and a roll for dinner. We then went to tangled at the theatre We were all worried it would be packed because what else do you do on Christmas eve but it wasn't. This was our 2nd attempt at taking Will to the movie he really like it at first but then decided that it was more fun to play with the chairs. 3/4s of the way through it he actually turned to me and said "okay lets go home" I guess I shouldn't have expected anything different since he rarely sits through a full movie at home.

After the movie we went back to Cheryl's, set cookies out for Santa read Christmas stories to Will and spent 2 hours trying to get the overly excited child to go to bed. I finally took him up to the bedroom and told him he would be put in timeout if he got off the bed and he was asleep within 10 minutes.

This is Grandpa Nyleen

Bo's family is a lot different than my family. In Grandpa Nyleen's defense this was the coffee cup given to him at his daughter's house. At first he didn't notice what it said and was happily sipping his coffee trying to figure out why every one was laughing. When he read it he just said "Oh geez" soon after this picture was taken I noticed that he was using a different cup.

School

Isn't he the dreamiest studmuffin you've ever met?!;)

I am very proud to announce that Bo got straight A's this semester in school! College has never been the easiest for Bo he is more of a "real world" kind of thinker so he has never had a problem finding good jobs to provide for us, but school has always been a very discouraging process for him. To make it worse he always seems to get the most unsympathetic teachers and I'm not pointing my fingers at any one school since this is the 4th school he has transferred to! This semester has been hard, but I am very proud that he didn't lose steam. He took 8 credits and probably averaged 50 hour work weeks so his days off were cram packed with studying, studying, and more studying. The last week of school he was pretty much worn out and struggled really hard to finish the last little bit, but he did so thats all that matters. It was so funny because with the grades he had before the finals I knew that he would definitely pass and in his economics class he would've had to of taken a zero on the final to not get an A, but he flipped out when he found out he was getting an A in the class he kept on texting and calling me he actually was a little mad that I wasn't surprised at his grade. The best part about it is Will and I have a very happy non-stressed Daddy and Husband for the Holidays. He was so happy that he let me buy more presents for Will (which is pretty surprising since he thinks I spoil him). Anyways the only problem we've had with his new school is their academic advising. They are really hard to get a hold of and when we do reach them they are far from helpful they pretty much told Bo to figure out next semester on his own because they are too busy. Since Bo has a hard time figuring out which classes he has to take and which ones he has already done since it gets confusing when you have three other colleges that you have taken classes from. The job of figuring out the classes landed on me. I spent at least three hours figuring everything out/ helping him register. I think I am going to send them the bill for my time since it probably takes them less than an hour because it is logged all onto their computer. They should at least have a better website where you can figure everything out electronically! Anyways we finally figured out his class schedule Bo has had a huge confidence boost since his grades were so good so he is taking 12 credits this next semester! I'm a little worried that he might run out of steam quicker with more credits, but three of the classes are subjects that Bo does really well in (computer applications stuff like that) so he really is only going to have to work for his math grade. When he graduates I'm thinking they should honor me like they did on that Uncle Ben movie, you know the one made by BYU students in the 70s where the alcoholic Uncle stops drinking to take care of his orphaned niece and nephews and is honored at his niece's graduation with a standing ovation? Please tell me someone knows what I'm talking about! Thats how I fantasize Bo's graduation going!

Will's Christmas projects

We are still going along with the activity advent calendar I made for Will it has been really fun doing activities I remember doing as a kid as well as some I've always wanted to do and now have reason to do them. We did miss two days of activities this last week because I had migraines, but Will didn't seem to mind vegging out and watching Christmas movies those days.

One of the Activities planned was the ward party it was a nice party I only got one picture of Will as he was running around though. Santa and Mrs. Claus came right around Will's bedtime so he had no desire to sit on a strange man's lap or stand in line to get a bag of candy so we left early. Will was asleep within 5 minutes when we got home.

I've always wanted to make shrinky dinks so I decided to try them with Will. I found a tutorial on unplugyourkids.com using recycled plastic and Sharpies. It was a really fun project, but I was more excited than Will. They shrunk perfectly, but I wrinkled the tin foil while trying to get it in the oven and so they really bent. I'm planning on doing this one again once I find more #6 recycled plastic.

There are tons of tutorials on how to make sun catchers out of crayon online and I wished I would've used on for our project. I just kinda figured it out on my own and ended up using too much crayon so they aren't really sun catchers they are just ornaments. Oh well Will had a lot of fun grating the crayons.

The cotton ball santa is a project I did probably three years in a row at school. I found the Santa to use on dltk-kids I love that site! I was surprised how well Will did with this one. I showed him how to do one and he did all the other cotton balls with no direction. It was fun for him to do a project other than coloring all by himself. When Bo got home from work he ran up to him with his project so proud it was really cute. FYI it is easier to pour the glue out on a paper plate and dip the cotton balls into it than trying to squeeze the glue onto the cotton.

PS Will does get dressed every day, but he plays in water constantly and gets his clothing wet then takes them off and refuses to put new clothing on.

Christmas Crafting

I have been busy making crafts, some of the pictures didn't turn out too well and I'm too lazy to retake them so sorry if they aren't the best quality.

I made this bean bag frog using the pattern found at Lil Blue Boo (click the link and it will take you directly to the pattern!) it was super easy to make (took me less than an hour) and I'm hoping Will will enjoy it as much as his square bean bags I made him last year. I won't figure that out until Christmas since its a stocking stuffer but if he doesn't like it I'm not too worried since it was made with scrap fabric and split peas that have been in my pantry for at least a year so I'm not out any money.

These gloves I'm pretty proud of since I came up with the pattern myself. I've seen little kids with character gloves all over the place so it was easy to picture what I wanted. I'm happy with the way they turned out, it got a little frustrating because I made three pairs of gloves before I got the thumb right but each pair only took about 30 minutes to make so it was a pretty easy thing to do. They are going in Will's stocking too and were made with left over fleece from his Halloween costume so it was a free project since my mom actually purchased the fleece for me. Thanks Mom!
I was looking through free patterns for purses online and found this one from Parasolco.com. (click the link and it will take you directly there!) I fell in love with it! I love the polka dots in the pattern picture, but I already had the floral fabric that I got for $1.50 from the Wal-mart clearance section. I will definitely be using this pattern again and again. I have only made one other purse using a pattern before and this pattern was way easier than the other purse pattern I have. This project probably took me 3 hours to make, but I seriously enjoyed every minute of it. Bo made fun of me because as I was nearing completion of this bag I kept on saying "Isn't this so cute!" or "I can't believe this is turning out!" what can I say I'm super proud of this bag. Bo can't complain since it only cost $1.50!!
So these pictures really didn't turn out too well sorry! Maybe if I get more motivation I will repost these pictures. I really wanted a full nativity this year, but a nice one was not in the budget this year so I at first thought about making a plush nativity for Will that could sit underneath the Christmas tree, but that seemed like a lot of work so instead I went with felt and magnets so it could be played with on the fridge or on the white board for more portable play. I tried looking for a pattern for these, but couldn't find what I was looking for so I made up my own pattern and went to work. I have plenty to improve on this project, but I'm happy enough with it and think it will be a great addition for Will when we read the Christmas story on Christmas Eve. It is more cute in person than in these pictures just to let you know.

Will is growing up today he told me that the underwear I gave him to put on were "lame" then later on he told me I wasn't his best friend anymore, Elmo was. I'm tempted to tell him "why don't you ask your best friend Elmo to do it" when he asks me for more milk or to help him get on the potty we'll see how long their friendship lasts!

Christmas Time!

I'm excited about Christmas this year. I organized myself a little bit more this year, last year I was only worried about making sure I got the right presents for everybody and I felt like we missed out on all the fun Christmas activities. So this year I made an advent activity Calendar so that I make sure that not only we have fun but we help Will learn the true meaning of Christmas. Some of the activities we have done so far are making glitter pictures. (sorry for the near nakedness he is wearing underwear you just can't see it) This was a hit with Will because he likes "being shiny" as he puts it.

We visited the Christmas fair at our stake center where they had a live Nativity with a real live Camel it was pretty cool the adults were more excited about the Camel than the kids. This is a community activity so in the chapel they had choirs from all over salem performing songs and in the gym they had a huge display of different Nativities it totally gave me Nativity envy since all I have is a small one with just Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus.
They also had a activity for the kids called a journey to Bethlehem where they could dress up, play in Mary's Kitchen (a tent full of rice), make ornaments, listen to the Christmas story, play with child proof nativity scenes, and work in Joseph's workshop. Will had so much fun and we were all impressed with the creativity.

We decorated the house and Christmas tree. When I pulled the Christmas Boxes out I was amazed that Will got excited about the stuff he even grabbed the snowman door hanger and yelled out "my snowman!" apparently he remembers a little of last year.

The first thing we did is actually a tradition that we have done every year which is go through our clothing and toys to give some away to people less fortunate. Last year Will willingly handed over books and toys, but this year at first he was a little upset to give away some of his stuff. Its kind of funny because the stuff we gave is stuff that I have rarely seen Will play with so if I would have gone through the stuff myself Will probably would have never noticed, but we feel that Will needs to learn how to give on his own in the end he willingly said goodbye to his old toys.


Thats what We've been up to so far hope everyone is having a great Christmas season!

Projects (This one is for you Melinda!)

My sister Melinda told me I should make a post about some of the crafty projects I've done so I've decided to finally do it in honor of her birthday. Happy Birthday Mel! I try to be crafty but 9 times out of ten the projects in my head do not turn out the way I want them to. I like looking at other blogs and doing their tutorials and I have a higher success rate of projects turning out when I do that. I found a tutorial on the Samster Mommy blog about how to make felt fridge magnets and had to do it, it took less than a day and it turned out to be something that Will plays with daily. I didn't do the same stitch that she uses mostly because I'm lazy and tried it but it

took so long that I changed it up. Well after seeing Will play with these magnets day in and day out for two months I decided to get him a magnet board so he didn't have to stand in front of the fridge all day so I purchased a white board for him so that he could use dry erase markers on it and as well as use his magnets on it. Then one day I was letting Will color a black piece of paper with chalk and I thought that if he likes chalk so much we should get him a chalk board since I read so many craft blogs I have seen the chalk board paint used on everything and decided to try it on the back side of the white board and it works so good! Then I was checking out the craft activities for kids on dltk-kids.com and decided to laminate some of the rhyming game pictures for will because they are really good for speech development so I put magnets on the back of them for the white board too. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday so I decided to make Will a Thanksgiving magnet to play with. I couldn't really find anything that I wanted to make on the craft blogs so I used my own ideas and made Tom the Turkey. He has different accessories that can be changed up and his feathers can be plucked. Will loves him so much which always makes the project worth doing! So those are a few of the things I've Been up to.

Thanksgiving

We went to Roseburg for Thanksgiving to be with the Nyleen side of the family. It was a nice trip the roads were clear the whole way and its a very pretty drive. I didn't know very many people from the Nyleen side so it was nice to meet Bo's Aunts and cousin. It was funny because this side of the family takes their dogs with them where ever they go so there were tons of little dogs running around for Will to torture. There were two that are not really kid friendly dogs so he got nipped a little bit which I actually think is a good thing because Will is fearless around dogs and will walk up to any dog and try to play with it so I think it was good to learn that not all dogs are going to like being played with. Bo's Grandma gave a tour to Carly, Will and me of Kim's house and on the tour Will found out that they had a cat shut in the bonus room so she wouldn't get demolished by the dogs and made it his mission to free the poor kitty. He would sneak upstairs whenever I had my back turned and try to free it I finally had to tell him that the cat couldn't come out because she was in time out which immediately ended the mission. I only took one picture while I was there because we were having so much fun. Will loved the little dog Coo she was such a good dog. Up until now he really hasn't had that much interaction with a little dog so the first time Coo hopped onto his lap he started laughing so hysterically that Coo hopped right back down and wouldn't come back up until Bo was sitting down with Will. We had to leave pretty early because Bo had to get up at 4 am for Black Friday so we left at 5 and he was in bed by 7 so I pulled Will's mattress out to the living room and he and I watched movies and ate oreos until we fell asleep.

I FINALLY have a camera!!!

Last July when I went to the beach with my family my camera randomly stopped working. Seriously one minute it was fine and the next minute it went blank and said "lens error". I took it home and researched the problem and found out that unless I wanted to spend more money than its worth to have an expert fix it I was pretty much screwed. I told Bo we needed a new camera and he told me we can just use our phones. Have you ever tried to take a picture of a three year old on a camera phone? Its not easy! 90% of the pictures I take turn out blurry and if you take pictures when its even a little bit dark they turn out really grainy. Well after four months of whining and complaining Bo broke down and bought me a camera! I told him it was what I want for Christmas and yesterday he worked a 13 hour shift at his Best Buy and Radio Shack locations so he had plenty of time to look at the Black Friday deals and brought me home a camera. He even wrapped it, of course his form of wrapping is covering the box with duct tape but its the thought the counts. He gave it to me and left so I'm not sure if I was supposed to save it for Christmas or open it today but I opened it because its better to ask for forgiveness than permission right? So here is a picture with my new camera he wanted me to take a picture of him with his new horse the Great Grandma Nyleen gave him. Hazel works at a shop to help raise money for the VA so she is always getting things for Will. When we went down for Thanksgiving everything Will touched she tried to give us it was pretty cute.

Halloween and Fall

I love the fall and I'm so happy to be able to experience fall in western Oregon. I love the vibrant colors every where we go it just makes me so happy! The other day we went to the park in just sweatshirts and I got a text from someone in Idaho saying that it had started snowing in Rexburg. I am so happy not to be there for the winter! We came home from our visit with my family the Monday before Halloween for a couple of months we had been talking about doing a star wars theme for Halloween so I went to work and in just two days I came up with our costumes I was most happy with the fact that I just used fabric I had around the house so it was definitely not expensive to make them. When I started trying the stuff on Bo little by little he looked at me and said maybe we should wear name tags so people know who we are, but once I was finished he was happy with how it all turned out. Bo went as Obi Wan, Will went as Yoda, and I went as Queen Amidala. We had fun we went up to Portland to hang out with friends for Halloween. Saturday we went to the Mt. Scott Ward trunk or treat with the Zeller family and afterwards went to Red Robin it was fun. Will had a hard time asking for the candy but after it was dropped in his bag he would say thank you. The next day we went to Hillsboro to see Bo's grandparents and then to Beaverton to see our friends the Jacksons their two boys and went trick or treating with them on their block. Will did really good yelling trick or treat and going door to door. I was impressed with the neighborhood he got multiple full size candy bars and one house gave out playdough. We were having such a good time then half way through tick or treating Bo turned to me and said "I'm not feeling too well" by the time we got back from trick or treating he had to run to the bathroom so the night was cut a little short he was feeling so bad that he asked me to drive. That was a little scary I hate driving anyways but this was the worse because it was an area I had never driven in and it was dark and raining and Halloween so it was busy, but we made it home safely and after puking all night Bo was perfectly fine in the morning besides the fact that he says he doesn't know if he'll ever eat kit kat bars again since that was the last thing he ate.

Michelle Got Married!

Michelle Got Married!

So I haven't posted in a while. I really wanted to but I went home for 2 1/2 weeks to see my little sister Michelle get married and while I was gone my computer broke it was a sad day and made me very grateful for my computer nerd husband who spent a couple a days looking at it ordered a part and got it back up and running.

I drove to Vale with my Mom because Bo was only able to get the reception in Vale off not the wedding in Utah. On the way we stopped off in La Grande for a potty break and to visit my Grandma Kaaen. It was so nice to see her and I was very happy to be able to show her how big Will has got. Will and I had a lot of fun on our little vacation Will was super happy to be around kids and pets every day plus he had a backyard he could run out to whenever he wanted to and a trampoline which he spent hours on. Will loved walking to the school to say "Hi" to Grandpa and to pick the girls up from school Brooke and Aubrey were so nice to him always willing to play with him and baby him. When we got home from all our travels we opened the door to our apartment and he asked us where Brooke and Aubrey were and still asks us everyday if we can go see them. Will loved to hear my Dad play his guitar every time he'd start to play Will would grab Aubrey's pink guitar and strum along with him. We also got to see all of Will's cousins he sometimes got a little overwhelmed when we were around everybody, but was super excited to be around tons of kids and just to be able to goof off and be crazy.

The whole reason we went down to Vale was so that we would be able to go to Michelle's wedding. So a week after we arrived in Vale we drove down to Logan Utah to see the big wedding. It was fun and very tiring to do all the activities crammed into such little time. I became very grateful for my husband on this trip because it was very exhausting to be the only person watching Will and trying to entertain him at the luncheon, reception, and all the pictures we had to do. I'm happy for Michelle and Jeff, I just hope that Jeff knows what he has gotten himself into. :)

Zoo and Baking

We finally took Will to the Oregon Zoo two weeks ago we went with the Galloways who were up visiting from Rexburg. It was the perfect day to go we went on a Monday in the middle of the day there were no major crowds just moms and kids around Will's age and the weather was perfect. Will loves to ride the Max (Portland's train) and he begs us every time we go to Portland if we can ride it so since the day was centered around him when he asked we said okay. Bo and I had no idea the Max stop for the zoo area was underground so when it stopped we were a little disoriented and just followed the crowd of people that got off with us into this elevator that shot us up to right out side the zoo entrance it was a pretty fun experience when your not expecting it. William liked to look at the animals and stuff, but he wasn't overly excited like I thought he would be I think Bo and I were more excited. There is a dinosaur exhibit there right now with motion sensor dinosaurs that was Will's favorite part he also liked the dome you could stick your head in and get an up close look at animals and rodents. It was so funny to see Will's reaction to the elephants there was one outside and one inside when we were there we saw the one outside first and then went inside to look at the other one inside Will pressed his nose right up to the glass like he couldn't get close enough to it I wish we took a picture of it but by the time we got the camera out the moment was gone.

The other day Will and I made rolls together, Will always wants to "help" me make things but really all he does is get out his own cup and play in the flour and sugar. This time I made an extra big batch and decided to see what he would do with the dough. He loved it! I gave him some cookie cutters and helped him make a "W" for his name, but he was more excited to use the rolling pin and fold them like mommy was doing. The only problem I had was once he was done making his creations I tried to let them rise like your supposed to but he kept on begging me to let him eat them. I finally told him he could try it thinking that he wouldn't like it but of course he did it was pretty gross so I threw them into the oven before he could try to take another bite of the dough so his were a little flat of course it didn't stop him from devouring them.