Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Farewell Sister Kiley Bailey!

Tomorrow my sister, Kiley Bailey, goes into the MTC. She has been called to serve in the Texas Fort Worth Mission. She will be such an amazing missionary. I will be keeping a mission blog for her with her letters and some pictures throughout the next 18 months. For all of you who know her, add her to your blog-list. The website is: http://sisterkileybailey.blogspot.com

Good luck Sister Bailey! You'll be in our prayers. Texas is lucky to have you!




Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Christmas update

Okay all you cute bloggers out there... how do you get cute titles on your blog? You know, with pictures, or cute fonts and stuff. My blog has been too boring for way too long. Someone needs to let me in on the secret! Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm not too blog-savy I guess:).

Hope you are all having a good holiday season and enjoying your hunt for the perfect gifts. We are almost done with ours, just a few little things left. We are so thrilled finals are over and are just enjoying our month break. Dave has to work at Verizon through Christmas Eve, but I am going to stay with the Bailey's for a week prior to Christmas. Can't wait! Since moving to Cedar, we have hardly got to see them at all, but we see my family all the time. Sort of unfair, but then again, it was the other way around when we lived in Idaho. So everything balances out I guess.

Princess Peyton has done really well at not touching our Christmas tree and gifts. Every now and then she'll make a game out of it though. She will get an inch away from the bulbs with her one little finger then look at us with a mischievous grin like, "I'm not touching it!... What are you going to do?" It is so funny! Once in a while. She will hurry and snatch something off the tree and run down the hall giggling! She likes to be chased and invokes it however she can. :) How we ever lived without this bundle of joy before, I don't know. She makes life so much fun.

(I don't know why... but she almost always only has one sock on.???...)

Playing in the snow! She doesn't care that her fingers get freezing cold, she just likes to hold it, and of course eat it!

Helping (we can sort of call it that) with the dishes. She loves to help! She'll get the broom out and even though it's 3 times her size, she tries to sweep for me. :) Funny story: By our garage door, we don't have a rug, so it seems like I am always wiping up that area of the floor. The other day I came home with a new kitchen towel. It was pretty--white with green and red snowflakes on it for Christmas. I hung it on our oven and a while later walked into the kitchen to see Peyton wiping up mud by the back door with it! I couldn't get mad! It was actually sweet in her own little way. She was just helping--doing what she sees me do. :) Thanks Peyt, it might be stained already, but I'll always think of your helpfulness whenever I see it.

Mom and Peyton--ready to go find our Christmas tree! I'll post pictures of it as soon as I take some! It's pretty :)

What's better than toys? The toy box! We got Peyton a big girl car-seat for Christmas, but gave it to her as soon as it arrived. She had so much fun playing with the big box, that I cut holes in the sides of it for windows, cut the top flap into a triangle to look like a roof, and wrote "welcome" on the bottom flap with some designs to make it look like a welcome mat. Oh, and I made little handles on the inside and the outside :) She loves it! We play peekaboo in it all day long. She even put all her stuffed animals in it. She likes it so much I am considering spray-painting and making curtains!

This girl LOVES purses! In the store, she will grab them and carry them around even. I gave her an old one I had and she carries it on her shoulder. It is so adorable. :)

We love lazy Sunday afternoon. This is the whole family decked out in sweats watching movies. :)

Monday, November 22, 2010

Shutterfly's 50 Free Holiday Cards Promotion

Hey everyone, Shutterfly is doing a promotion for 50 free holiday cards. You can check it out at http://bit.ly/sfly2010 Shutterfly is such a cute sight with so many great ideas for cards, calendars, invitations, announcements, etc.

Anyway, as part of the promotion, I am required to post about my favorite holiday cards. So... I seriously can't tell you how much I love Christmas cards. I love sending them and especially love receiving them (I am a little bit greedy in that way). : ) I like them probably more than presents. They really set the mood for the holiday season and make you think of all your friends and loved ones.

My favorite types of Christmas cards are the ones that capture the moment and make you reflect on the past year. The kind that you never get sick of looking at, and end up finding a place for them to keep up all year long. I like simple things, so my favorite are the ones that just accentuate the picture. There are so many ADORABLE cards on Shutterfly to choose from. Here are some links to some of my favorites:
The wall calendars are SO CUTE! You can insert pictures into the box of any date and choose from lots of different layouts. I think I'm going to make one for 2011. :)

Anyway, I am so excited to make our Christmas Cards this year. They are going to be so cute. So watch your mailboxes in December for them!

Jewerly I'm Selling for Christmas

Hey everyone! I am so excited about this new jewelry making hobby I have! I have made a bunch of stuff as gifts and club prizes and people have liked them so much that I have decided to sell them for Christmas. Here are just a few examples of things I have made, but I make everything on a custom-order basis. So tell me what color you want and for who (older people like more elegant things, teenagers like more hip things, and babies like adorable cute things) and I will put it together. It only takes me a day too and I will even ship it to you if you want. The pictures don't show how cute they are--I couldn't get my camera to show the color diversity on them, but at least it gives you an idea. :)

Bracelets: They are a layered look with 3 different types of decorative chains as a base. The color band can be swatched out. They come off separately from the chain so you can wear red one day, blue the next, yellow the next, and... you get the picture.
Base 3-chain bracelet with one color band: $10
Additional color bands: $5








Necklaces: They come with a long chain that you slip over your head. They each come with one big charm focal point and have the same idea as the bracelets--you can unhook the cluster of charms from the chain and clip on different colors depending on what color you want to wear that day. Here are just a few examples of some that I have made. I seriously love these :)
Necklace with one set of cluster charms: $14
Additional sets of cluster charms: $8





Sunday, November 21, 2010

Halloween!

For Halloween, Peyton borrowed Anna's costume from last year. She was THE cutest little ladybug I have ever seen. :) The hat was a little big for her and she didn't understand why she was in such a big, puffy thing, but we had fun showing her off to everyone.
These are Peyton's friends, Bella and Karter. She just LOVES playing with them and gets so excited/hyper when we go to their house. :) I love this picture because they are all like, "Mom, what are you doing to us? Why are you guys laughing? We feel ridiculous."
I was a witch. It was the closest thing to my personality. Peyton blew out of her plain black pants, so we had to switch her to striped pants too.
This is my friend/old roommate Sam's little girl Kaycee. She was a bat fairy. So cute!
Our neighbor pirate, Landon. Isn't he cute?!
Right before bed I remembered that I didn't get a picture with her by the pumpkins like I had planned... she wasn't happy about taking more pictures and wouldn't let her baba go. Her facial expression says it all. Maybe next year, we'll get a happier pumpkin picture.