Impromptu Photoshoot

I wanted to get a picture of Amelia in her blessing dress for her blessing this Sunday. Again, I thought about going to Target .. but after yesterday's Artic Circle Fiasco I decided not to.

Artic Circle story: I wanted to take the kids somewhere that had an indoor gym. I took them to Artic Circle. We first went to the bathroom, then ordered food ... I was a little scatter brained and left the baby's blanket and purse on the counter where you order food.. ."ma'm is this yours?" Ga'ak! I got the food and the kids settled. By this point Amelia was screaming. I got her latched on with my blanket and thought everything would be fine. Then Phillip asked "Do they have a potty by this park?" He had to go number 2. So I plopped the baby back in the car seat, kept Lily in her high chair and ran Phillip to the bathroom. I kept running back and forth because I didn't want to drag the girls into the bathroom to wait for Phillip to be done. I finally heard what I usually hear at home. Phillip screaming at the top of his lungs, "I'm DONE!!" I could only laugh at my self. I was probably showing my plumber crack half of the time while bending over and taking care of the kids. It's funny how simple things can be really hard to do with 3 kids. Once it was all said and done, the kids had a lot of fun in the indoor play structure. :-)

Sooo...my sink and counter were full of dirty dishes. My hair was greasy and the house was a wreck, but I decided to take a photoshot of Amelia in her blessing dress. This time I put the bouncer in the crib and then draped a blanket over it. Pete's mom made the dress. She looks pretty cute.

Fall Art

With Thanksgiving behind us, we are in FULL SWING of our Christmas festivities. I took a picture of one of my projects and wanted to post it before it isn't relevant. I made leaf art for Pete's birthday present. Before Amelia was born, the trees in our back yard were really pretty. Here's a link to a picture. Phillip and I collected a lot of leaves. I think in all we collected about 50. I tried to get varying shades of color in the same kind of leaf. I don't think you can collect too much.

We put the leaves within 4 of our Harry Potter books. I think it was about 4 weeks time and they were dry by Pete's birthday.

Once they were dry, I glued the dry leaves onto white paper with Elmer's glue. I had a nice frame with a matte (for kids pictures) and stuck the leaf art in the frame. It was a fun project. Now we can pull it out next fall.

Here's a picture of me and the kids decorating for Christmas. I finally cleaned up my mess yesterday. I'll post some videos of our Christmas show soon!

Happy One Month Amelia!

Well, It has already been one month! Crazy! For the occassion I put Amelia in an actual outfit and not a sleeper. :-) Amelia is a good baby. She is on the wake up at 3 AM and 6 AM schedule. Hopefully she can start waking up at 4 AM. That extra hour makes a big difference. She has a lot of the same expressions as Phillip did. She likes to furrow her brow and look around.

Lily loves to help her. She says, "SAD!" if the baby is crying and will say "Ginkee" to tell me that the baby needs her binky. Lily also comments on Amelia's hang-nails and spit-up and says, "Eeeeew!"









Olsen Girls :-)







Phillip is funny and likes it when he goes on outings with Pete. He says, "Only boys can go!" Right now he says "Boys are funny and girls are silly." I told him that Pete only had sisters and no brothers. Phillip said, "I have brothers. Anthony and Andrew. They just don't live at my house."










Here is Phillip, Pete and Grandpa Olsen at Pete's Transformer birthday party. Phillip helped me plan the birthday party. He got a Bumblebee Costume out of the deal. (smart boy). I made a good Carrot cake for Pete. Here is a link to the recipe. (This is one of my favorite recipe blogs. Everything I have tried turns out really good).

Anywho, just taking it a day at a time. I used to make big lists for each day, but right now I try to limit it to 1) Take a shower 2) Take care of kids :-)

NewBorn Photo Shoot - How To

I sometimes feel guilty that I don't take my kids to get their picture taken that often. However, the cost and the stress of it all makes me think I can do it on my own at home. I did get some cute pictures of Amelia the other day. Here are some of my tips :-)

1. Align the stars -

Make sure:

• Older kids are away or occupied
• You are rested and not too tired (you don't want to start bawling because of a bad photo-shoot :-)
• The baby is fed and burped
• If possible, get a helper

I took my pictures while Pete took Phillip and Lily to church. :-) Thanks Pete!

2. Find a good location

I got this idea after paying for a photo-shoot at Kiddie Kandids. I pulled the bottom cushion away from the couch and added extra pillows for support:

Once the Pillows were set up, I draped a sheet over the couch and propped Amelia in the corner of the couch.

3. Have good lighting

A flash never looks very good for portraits:

Use a couch that is close to a window that gets a lot of light. If there isn't a couch, you can always drape a blanket or sheet over a car seat and put the baby where there is good lighting.

Use a reflector to fill in face shadows. I tried to do this by myself, but it was a little difficult. Get a helper to hold a mirror or piece of tin-foil to bounce the natural light onto the face.

4. Use the continuous shutter option

If your camera has the option, take the picture with the continuous shutter enabled. Little babies are cute but they can do some funny things with their hands in a split second:

4. Delete bad pictures. Pick out your favorite and add any effects. I always like black and white pictures.

Trick or Treat! Smell My Feet! :-)

Here is our latest family picture:

Ha! We didn't get a family picture in the hospital because the kids couldn't visit (Swine flu). Life has been too crazy to set up a photoshoot. But for Halloween we were able to get an updated family picture. Maybe we will use this as our Christmas card picture. Ha! We drove by Inkleys and they were doing free portraits. We missed the time window but they let us use the backdrop. (Luckily they were done because the props were pretty destroyed after I tripped over them and the kids kept throwing the leaves everywhere).

Phillip REALLY wanted to be a scarecrow at the last minute. We came up with a pretty good costume with the straw and face paint. He had to go potty before we went trick-or-treating. We didn't want straw all over the house so Pete helped him go potty outside. The next day the kids were playing outside. Pete went to check on them and Phillip was bare naked from the wasted down. Pete asked him what he was doing and he said, "I want to go potty outside."

Here is me and Lily outside our house. Pete already cleaned up Halloween and I feel our house looks a little bare. Only a short time until our Christmas decorations can go up!!

Another successful Halloween!

More Baby Pictures

To say the least, it has been an adjustment after bringing little Amelia home. I was glad that Pete didn't have to go to work until today. We are glad that everyone is still happy and healthy.

Baby Pictures:

Boo! One of Amelia's Halloween costumes :-) (a garage sale find)

Little Girl Sleeping.

Our darkest and biggest baby. She came out with dark hair and with a lot more hair than our other kids. Pete can't get over the dark hair. She definitely has some of the same facial features as Phillip did when he was a baby.

Meeting the Family

Lily can always smile for the camera. But... 5 minutes later ...

She doesn't appreciate being second fiddle :-)

Phillip has been a good big brother and is helpful with the baby. It's still an adjustment but he loves to hold her and kiss her.

Welcome Amelia Rose!

Born in October 6:30 PM
Weight: 7 lbs 14 oz
Length: 19 inches

Amelia was born yesterday and we were glad to welcome her to our family. She looks a lot like Phillip did when he was born. She has dark hair and darker skin. It will be interesting to see how she looks in a few months.

We are both feeling well and will be home soon to meet the rest of the family.

Post Due-Date Pick-me-ups

Sooo ... I have geared myself up for a week of post due-date blues. I had false labor the day after the Halloween party, and now the days seem to drag on.

Here are some fun things we have done to fill the time:

Decorate cookies:
I invited the girls I visit teach over to use up the rest of the frosting and sugar cookie dough. We had some fun with the new sugar colors I got for Halloween :-) Pete gave my cookies to his home teaching families. (Killed two birds with one stone :-)












Caramel Apples:
I invited a family over to make caramel and candy apples. We made these last year. After I burned both the caramel and the candy I realized that this was one of the things that Pete did and I thought I knew what I was doing. Oh well .. the kids liked them :-) I was more successful when I made them with James for his birthday.













Fall Colors:
I took some pictures of our trees on our side yard. I am pressing some of the leaves for a possible decorating project.













Garage Sales and Thrift Stores:
Pete came home with a 4ft tall stuffed Homer from DI.
I would say that is one of my favorite finds. :-)









Cute kids:
Phillip and Lily I think sense that we will have a big change soon. But they had fun today when I got on the trampoline. Maybe the bouncing will help!

Halloween Birthday Party

Well, when we were trying to plan our Halloween party, it seemed like there was a college football game every weekend. And then there is the little event of have a baby in the middle of the month. So... we decided to have a family night Halloween party on my BIRTHDAY. Yay!

THEN:


















Here is a picture of me on BYU campus the first time I struck out on town in the pumpkin outfit. I had to use a pillow to fill out the costume. It was kind of hard to sit at the computer lab in the Tanner building. Pete is glad that I was silly enough to stay single until we met in Philly :-)

NOW:
I didn't need a Pillow this year :-) Great Pregnancy costume. Seven years later, married with 2 kids and 1 on the way. The good 'ole pumpkin costume is always great any time of the year :-)




























Here are some highlights:
Cotton Candy - Edible Witches Hair



















Costumes:
Best Couple costume! - Oma and Opa Wirthlin


















Scariest Costume: phillip (mummy)


















Lots of other great costumes but I was so busy I didn't get pictures of everyone!!

Doughnuts on a string:














We also did bobbing for apples, decorating cookies. We had a live Star Wars fight outside with Pete dressed as Obi Wan Kanobe (spelling?) and Paul Hatch as Darth Vader. It was pretty great for the little boys, Phillip especially, and REALLY scary for the little girls.

Melanie and I did a Skelebones dance with black lights.

We kicked off the Halloween light show at the end of the festivities.

There were about 65 people that came to the party. CRAZY!

Great times! Great Food! Thanks for everyone who came and helped out! Thank you to Pete who did a LOT of the work for the party. I LOVE parties, I LOVE dressing up, and I LOVE halloween.

Random Project - Halloween Wreath

So... we have started digging out all of our Halloween decor. Pete had found a dried gourd from DI and we had saved it to make a Halloween decoration. (I got the idea from an artist at Swiss Days). I made a Pumpkin ghost figurine.

I thought it would be cool to have a halloween wreath to go with everything. Pete had a good idea and told me to use a fall wreath that we bought at a garage sale. I wish I had taken a before picture. Anywho, I spray painted the wreath black. I took the gourds off the wreath and made them into pumpkin, witch, and ghost figurines. I won't say how long it took because it was a really random project.

It looks good on our mantel next to all of the candy decor. (BTW, Lily is the candy police and begs for candy every time someone is grabbing some candy) :-)

Indiana Jones Birthday Party

Phillip wanted a 'Snake' and 'Indiana Jones' party. Phillip is known for changing his mind. I had everything figured out and this morning he said he wanted a 'Transformers' party. Luckily he conceded with having a 'Snake, Indiana Jones, and Transformers' party. ha!

I had too many 'good' ideas. ha! I thought it would be nice to have some middle eastern food to eat. I had hummus from Costco and made tabbouleh. I wanted to keep things simple, but I ended up making pita bread from scratch because I needed a lot and they only had 5 pita bread at the store for $4 and they don't taste that good. I used this recipe from my sister, Becca's blog. (I didn't do whole wheat ... I need to get my grinder working :-) I also had falafel, cucumber yogurt sauce, grapes, oranges, and my mom brought a HUGE veggie tray :-).

I think the favorite game was the digging in the sand. We purchased sand especially for the party. I filled the sand box with fake gold coins and snakes. The rule was that if they got 10 coins or dug up a snake their turn was over. After everyone had a turn they all went at it and were busy digging for about 20 minutes.

We had a pinata and everyone got to swing on a jungle vine (Frisbee swing).

Anywho, I think the cake was one of the highlights. I got the idea from this site. Pete's sister made a cake with the barbie skirt pan. I made two chocolate layers to go underneath. I carved the cake to look like a mountain. The inside of the dome cake had a plastic cup. I added the figurines and the logo from the figurine package. When it was time to serve, I broke up the dry ice and put the piece of cake on top. I added luke-warm water to make the smoke. I think Phillip's expression is priceless.

It was a great party! Thanks to everyone who came!

Freezer Meals: Meatballs

I must be on a blogging kick lately.

Anywho, I have been having very erratic cooking "mood swings." I will go all out and make a great meal one day, then the next few days it will be either cereal, or toast. Sooo, I've been trying to figure out how to have better options when I don't feel like cooking. This is a great "pull out of the freezer meal." My only problem now is that we may have meatballs for dinner every other day :-) (p.s. don't look at my dirty oven :-)

This is my latest and it tastes really good. Oven-baked meatballs. I used this recipe (alton brown) as the base.

Here is how I modified it:

• Instead of the 3 different meats, I did one half ground beef and one half pork (ground pork or mild Italian sausage).
• I doubled the recipe so that I could have more for freezer storage.
• You can form the balls by gently grabbing some with a cookie scooper. I ended up just doing it with my hands.
• In this recipe you bake the meatballs in a mini muffin pan so that you can still get a nice crust on the meatball, without having to saute them.
• The meatball shape turns out better if you can let them sit on a plate or tray in the fridge for a few hours. I tried some that were freshly rolled, and they ended up looking like meatball mini-muffins. I guess they still will be good once you cover them in sauce.

Once baked, let them cool then keep them in a zip lock bag in the freezer.

To unthaw, let them simmer in some marinara sauce. (You could also microwave them if you are in a hurry.

They may cost a little more than Costco meatballs, but they taste WAY better.

Anywho, I must be in the nesting phase of pregnancy. Right now Pete and I are painting all of the doors in the house. :-)

Canned Peaches ... I did it!

So, I was inspired by my sister Emily's blog post last year when she canned peaches (notice how many jars she made!!) I stopped by a stand on the side of the street and the lady wanted $20 for a bushel. I figured I'd just get the fancy canned peaches from Costco instead. Later in the week I noticed my one neighbor had a pair of peach trees which were full of ripe peaches. I traded 18 eggs for a bucket of peaches. I picked the peaches at 2:00 PM and I have been working non-stop on cleaning, pealing, cutting, and processing the peaches. Here is the result of my LABOR day. 10 quarts of peaches.

Sooo... I couldn't get a hold of my canner experts while I was doing this, so these are some of my questions

When you process cans do you process them with the lid only, or lid and screwtop (not tightened all the way?)

How do you transfer the pot AND jars from the stove? It was so heavy! (Pete had to help me because I knew that I would end up a burn victim if left to my own devices)

How can you get canning done without having aching feet and back? (I guess I am 8 months pregnant). I wish I could have filled more cans, but I was physically spent by the time I was done with my two batches.

Do you do a hot or cold process for peaches? I did both, but I think the peaches that I did the hot process look kind of mushy.

Anywho, I may pick some more peaches and make some jam later in the week... Maybe.

Most Improved Wall

Before:














After:













When we bought our house, we knew that we would eventually renovate the basement. We would always say, "yeah, this is our dated basement." Most people would say it was a great space, 'retro' etc.

Now that we renovated, almost everyone has said, "THAT was the UGLIEST fireplace" or "That was the most atrocious wall!" My favorite comment was from Pete's mom who said she was so glad that we got rid of the "Dinosaur Toe Nail" tiles that were under the cast iron stove.

So after a lot of hard work and adding a new glass tile surround, I think we have our MOST IMPROVED Wall! :-)

We are making headway on our projects before the baby comes :-)