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.

Extreme Makeover Home Edition

When Bo got his new job this summer he was really excited that it was a job that is flexible so that he could join the Red Cross and Rotary Club. About a month ago he came home really excited from a Red Cross meeting and told me that he gets to do something really cool, but he is not allowed to tell me about it because it was "Top Secret"(he really likes to torture me). After trying to trick him into telling me what it was for a while I kind of forgot about the whole thing until last week he came to me and said that the local news is covering it so he can tell me. Extreme Makeover Home Edition was in town re-doing the School of the Deaf and Bo got to be a a part of it through the Red Cross. Apparently the whole process is way different than what it looks like on t.v. (surprise, surprise) so Bo didn't get to meet any of the hosts of the show. One of them was on the roof doing a tour with the cameras and during that time none of the average workers were allowed close to it, Bo and a couple of others were actually yelled at for not being in their designated areas, but still I still think that it is really cool that he got to participate in something like that. If you want to watch the show it is supposed to be part of the Halloween episode this upcoming Halloween, I think.

We are still pretty busy every weekend we are pretty much doing something which is really nice it always makes the week go faster when you have something to look forward to. We took Will to a developmental screening so that we could get him started on preschool through the school district because of his speech delay we thought that we would be able to score free preschool this year but through the testing we found out that Will has pretty much caught up with his age group! I was happy when the lady said I shouldn't be stressing over his speech any more, but sad when she said that he didn't qualify because Will LOVES preschool and I was hoping it would be a good way to meet some friends in the area for him. So now we are on the search for a good preschool that isn't too expensive.

A while ago At&t had an employee appreciation day at a family fun center in Wilsonville we went and had a lot of fun. We kind of got there a little late and left early because we were tired but we had a lot of fun while we were there. We played miniature golf as a family which was what Will would've done all night if we let him. It was so cute how happy he was golfing alongside his Dad. We also went into the kid zone with Will and because no one else was using the area Bo I jumped in with him and climbed through the tubes and went down slides I was laughing the whole time because it was so funny seeing Bo trying to maneuver through the tubes he actually got stuck inside one of the slides because of his long legs he came out with rug burns all over his arms. The best part of the night was when we got home Will didn't even make to his bed before he was asleep, I love nights that end with no bedtime battles!