Dreaming of a white Christmas

Our Christmas was practically perfect. We went to bed on Christmas Eve with presents beneath the tree and sticky-bun dough waiting in the fridge. I still felt a bit heart-broken that we didn't have even a flake of snow on the ground, but the excitement in our house was such a treat. The boys fell asleep in their beds with visions of sugar plums in their heads, holding perfectly still to hear the tinkle of bells on Santa's sleigh. At about 4am, Micah tiptoed into our room. 

"Mom, wake up!" he whispered. "There's a surprise out your window! Look! It's snowing outside!"

I don't know why he was awake and peering out his window in the middle of the night, but I can just picture him waking up, and hoping for a glimpse of that jolly old elf driving his sleigh across the sky. Instead, he saw snow. Perfect snow! White and thick, clean and beautiful, light and warm, cold and heavy and everything Christmas morning should be. 

When Grey woke, he whispered "Mom, do you think Santa came?"

"I don't know! Why don't you go check and see?" 

He tiptoed out of the room slowly, and came sprinting back a few seconds later, "HE DID COME! There's a bow and arrows for me, and my stocking is full! Quick, wake up Micah! Come on!"

After presents, we headed to Travis' parents house where the snow continued to fall thickly and left us with the perfect White Christmas. We had an amazing week since, and I promise to post more about it this week. Happy New Year. Merry Christmas. Auld Lang Syne.

From our home to yours:

Good Tidings of Comfort and Joy. 

Photo a Day: November 16 -29

I'm sorry guys. I didn't mean to completely abandon this blog for an entire week. It just sort of happened, and it was lovely. We went to Arizona to be with my family for Thanksgiving (my sister and grandparents live there), and we went for an entire dreamy, sunshiney week! Honestly, these pictures are not in actual order by date. I'm not even sure when most of them were taken. It's been that kind of week... er, fortnight? (Month?)

Anyway, just as it was lovely to be with family, it is lovely to be home. We all slept in our own snuggly beds last night, and we are headed out tonight for our Christmas tree. So yeah. Things are looking good around here. 

Suddenly it's cold out! // Micah is excavating bones at the dinosaur museum.

Frozen blueberries for the win! // Just exploring on our way down south.

 We were in Arizona approximately one minute before everyone had their feet in the pool.

 Making chocolate cake with Grandma.

So, my cousin Kyle has motorcycles and dirt bikes... like, a lot. They were the favorite toy, obviously.

 My cousin Kyle and my sister Katie took a ride on this extremely noisy Harley.

August and his Great-Grandpa. It's almost impossible to get a picture of August where he doesn't look like this. // Micah + static.

Look who thinks he can crawl!

This is the only picture we managed to snap on Thanksgiving. We were really much too excited to dig right in.

Grey // Mama and boy.

Checking out the Grand Canyon on our way home.

From the Batcave...

From three tiny Batmans, all in vastly different costumes in various stages of hand-crafted-ness, Happy Halloween. I hope the Great Pumpkin visits your pumpkin patch (if you are sincere enough, obviously). I hope you get homemade donuts and cider, and don't have to mindless eat 1 million Laffy Taffys. I hope that you have fun, spooky experiences (like seeing a witch with a black cat fly past the moon) instead of creepy experiences (like finding spiders in your hair or being molested by a clown). 

I'm sorry about that clown joke.

In case you have a three year old, we actually have another entire Batman costume, and only one of these three costumes is going to be used tonight. So. We gotcha covered. 

And in case you live in Salt Lake and are my friend, or know where I live... I got those homemade donuts here for you. 

Please note: The baby does not like the creepy Batman mask.

Because of Him

I hope your Easter weekend is beautiful and filled with joy. This is a pretty great way to start your weekend off right:

Happy Valentine's Day!

Now enjoy (and cringe during) this slobbery video by my husband Travis (and some others, I guess...)

Photo a Day: June 30 - July 6

I want to write things, but I think I've used up my allotted blog-time editing pictures. I'd feel bad, but I know you're all here to see these pictures anyway. 

June 30: Exploring the Californian woods on our way to Grandma's house. // July 1: Grey and Katie, reunited! 

July 2: Micah and me at Lake Tahoe  

July 3: Four generations! Grey and Micah, Me, my Dad, and his mother- my grandma Mary. 

July 4: Grey and Micah love their aunty Katie! // July 5: Back at the lake with my Mom.  

July 6: Micah and Grandma riding an old fashioned steam-engine. The boys LOVED it!

Bleach Designs DIY

This is such an easy DIY tutorial, that it hardly deserves it's own blog post.
But it gets one, none the less.

A few years ago, when dressing as Tonks for a Harry Potter birthday party, a group of friends and I created shirts that said The Weird Sisters using this method of dying and bleaching.


Using a colored shirt (not white), create a design on one side using making tape.
Slide a piece of cardboard into the shirt.




Then, spray the design liberally with bleach.

The shirt may bleach more or less depending on it's make (for example, the shirts for the boys didn't get "bleached" like I wanted at all! They just got a bit less bright. Black shirts are extra fun, because they tend to turn a surprising color.)



Let the shirt sit 2-10 minutes.

When you can see that it's starting to fade how you like it (but keeping in mind that it will continue to whiten  for a bit), rinse the shirt off (we just sprayed ours down with the hose) and wring it out.


(In the above pictures you can see that I peeled my tape off and threw the shirt in the wash when it was only slightly faded, but it bleached WAY more!)

Peel the tape off of your shirt, and let the shirt continue to sit if you want it to bleach more, or wash it (with soap), if you are ready for it to {kind of} set.

Dry and wear!



Some tips and thoughts:

This time, we only used masking tape and a squirt bottle full of bleach to keep it simple for kids, but there are lots of other ways to get crafty with this.

*Using a sponge brush and gel bleach, you can dab on or "paint" your designs.

*Cut out a design on Freezer paper (or even print one on Freezer paper, and cut it out using an exact knife - that's what we did with the Weird Sisters shirts) and iron it on to your shirt.
(Did you know that you can iron Freezer Paper to fabric? Waxyside down, iron on low. The paper will stick to fabric but can easily be peeled off later.)

* Use a bleach pen for more intricate designs.

* You can bleach both sides of the shirt, but must do it one side at a time. We're talking: Bleach, wash, dry and THEN repeat.



It's perfect for jazzing-up shirts for Independence day later this week, and a fun craft for kids without having to buy a tie-dying kit. Just be careful using bleach! (I feel like that goes without saying, yet that I also am somehow responsible for saying it: Bleach can be dangerous, etc. Okay, people. Done.)

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday - Easter

Our Easter weekend was pretty much perfect. The weather was sunshiney and bright, the boys were happy and healthy, and we attended church with my in-laws so they helped take care of the boys, and we didn't have to teach 7-year-old Primary (there isn't a lot of "teaching" in that job, mostly just crowd-control) so we got to listen in church!
There are dozens more pictures of Grandmas holding boys, and boys holding bunnies, and no one feeling very happy about being held - but until I can sort through them and share, here are my favorite pictures from Easter morning. My little family is the best family in the whole world.
I suspect I'm biased in our favor, but I don't think anyone minds too terribly.

Happy Easter one and all! I hope everyone has a family to stick with on this happiest of Holidays.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday - New Year

We spent New Year's Day with Travis' family in Orem. (We spent NYE in bed. Asleep. By 10.) New Year's Day was perfect. The whole world was crisp, white, and ready to be built new and fresh for 2013. 

So we went sledding. Or rather, we pulled the boys around in their sleds until we were all so cold that we couldn't hold real conversations. (Or maybe that was just me. The Pitchers aren't quite as pathetic as I am.)

I love this picture of the Pitcher boys! Although Travis and Tate are making silly faces on purpose... But man, my boys look identical, don't they?

I sure love my boys. What a treat to start the new year with them!