Whatever Craft Weekend

Last weekend was amazing--the ultimate girls' weekend.  I had the opportunity to road-trip to Newton, Kansas with two of my friends, Amy and Tiffany, for Whatever Craft Weekend.  I started following Meg's blog about a year and a half ago, after discovering it through Amy's blog.  When Amy invited me in August, I couldn't believe it--hundreds of people are on the list, and I never imagined that I'd ever get the chance to experience this.

Amy and Tiffany picked me up early Friday morning, and the trip down to Kansas went pretty fast.  We were SO excited when we finally made it to Newton that we had to stop for a couple of (windy) Newton pictures.  We arrived a couple of hours early, so we first drove by the house to make sure we knew where it was.  We felt a little like stalkers, but were already in awe of how amazing the house looked.  We checked out a couple of shops in town to kill time.

Friday night was so much fun--meeting Meg and Kimberlee, and helpers Megan and Becky, checking out the incredible house, delicious fajita supper, and getting right to work on the ruffle aprons.  Being a very beginner sewer, I was probably most nervous about this craft, but ended up enjoying it the most.  A local news crew was doing a report on the craft weekend, so they were around while we were working on our aprons, taping and interviewing some of us.  Around midnight, we loaded into the 15 passenger van and drove to the local donut shop, which opens at 11:30 on Fridays and is a big hangout for this college town.  When we got back, some continued working on their aprons and some (me included) were just too exhausted and went to bed.

My bed

Amy, Tiffany, and I got to sleep in this cute room

The swag--amazing!

Photo courtesy of Tiffany--cutting fabric for our aprons

My finished apron

Saturday morning, we had another delicious meal made by Kimberlee--cinnamon rolls, eggs, yogurt, and fruit.  We had some time to finish our aprons and get ready, then headed out for a day of antiquing.  We went to a local town to a cute antique store, then out of town a little bit to The Barn.  It was fun to see all of the treasures that people found when we got back to the craft house and spread everything out on the table.  After The Barn, we stopped at Sonic for happy hour.  We enjoyed our treats out of the wind in the van.

After sharing all of our treasures from antiquing, it was time to get to crafting.  Meg and Megan introduced our 5 projects for the night, and we got right to work.  We only stopped for a yummy chili supper and amazing cheesecake break later on.  Here are pictures of my final projects:

It was another late night, but fun to have time to create and learn more about the women from all around the country who had also come to craft weekend.

In the morning, after our last amazing meal from Kimberlee (creme brulee french toast), we took pictures and got packed up.

Meg and me

Me with Kimberlee

Meg, Becky, Megan, and Kimberlee

This weekend was exactly what I needed--time to do something just for me, a little break from real life, and a chance to create.  Meg and Kimberlee were so gracious and kind, and are such down-to-earth, incredible women.  I'm so blessed to have met them and the other amazing women from the weekend.  Definitely an unforgettable experience!

8 months old

I can't believe that Norah turned 8 months old yesterday!  She's still just a little peanut, weighing in at just 14 1/2 pounds on our baby scale that we are borrowing from a friend.  She's still a busy, happy little girl--loves her piano and Little People toys, playing with Abby and Sadie, and her puffs and yogurt melt snacks.  She really only gets upset when she's hungry at suppertime, and is otherwise very content.  She's been getting tired around 6:30 each night, and sleeping pretty well at night, but caught a cold this weekend (of course, when Dave is gone for 4 nights) and has had a rough couple of nights of sleep.  No crawling yet, but she can roll wherever she wants to get, especially if she spots something that she really wants to put in her mouth.  I realized today that Dave took our camera hunting, so had to just take a couple of quick pics with my camera--I'll have to try to snap a couple of clearer shots when he gets back.  I can tell these photo shoots are going to get more and more challenging the more mobile she gets!  I tried to get a good shot of her sitting in the rocking chair, but she wanted to turn around and look behind her.

Happy Halloween!

We had fun celebrating Halloween this year, with celebrations and activities spread out throughout the whole week.

Last Friday was the ECFE Halloween party.  You'd think we'd learn after going for a few years that it's not Abby's scene...I don't know if it's all of the people in the gym that she doesn't like, but once again this year, she refused to play any games.  We'd try waiting in line and watching the other kids, but she'd get up to the front and cry and run away from it.  She enjoyed the story time, and we did tell her that she had to play at least 3 games to get the goody bag before we left, which she did.  She had fun seeing a couple of her buddies, but was ready to go home pretty early.  Oh well...maybe Norah will be more of the Halloween party type.

On Monday, we spent time carving pumpkins.  Dave was very ambitious this year, and spent part of his day off that day emptying out most of our many pumpkins, making sure they were all set to carve by the time we got home.  Abby designed her pumpkin--Dave told her to make the second eye a little bigger, so she took his advice to heart:

We had to recreate the baby-in-a-pumpkin picture from when Abby was a baby--Norah's pumpkin was a little narrow, so we squished her inside and she thought it was pretty fun.  She wasn't a huge fan of the pumpkin goo that Dave put in her hands, though.

Here are some of the final products:

On Tuesday, Abby and Norah had their daycare party.  Our daycare provider met us at the door in her costume--hand made, and so creative!

That night, Abby celebrated at her preschool Halloween party.  I helped lead a craft station with two friends, and it was fun being on the volunteer side of the classroom.  Here is the whole group dressed up for Halloween:

After a quick supper of jack-o-lantern pizza, Abby, Norah, and I took off for trick-or-treating while Dave stayed home to hand out candy to our few trick-or-treaters.  It was a nice night, and we had fun going down the street.  Abby and Dave later went to a couple of houses of friends around town.  She definitely has enough candy to last a long time!  Dave was also excited this year to pull out the banana costume from when Abby was a baby, to complete his gorilla/banana costume.

Girl's Weekend 2012

This weekend was our annual Girl's Weekend  (+ Connor).  My aunts Miriam and Mara and cousins Sarah and Connor came up late Friday night from Iowa to spend the weekend with us.  This year, we stuck closer to here, and did some shopping and had Caribou in Northfield before heading to our hotel in Faribault.

We stayed at a nice place with a 2-bedroom suite and pool area that had a zero-depth entry kiddie pool/splash pad.  It was perfect for the girls.  After a nap Saturday, we checked out the River Bend Nature Center in Faribault, which was having a special Halloween event.

It was pretty packed, but we still enjoyed a jack-o-lantern trail walk, a "haunted" house, some cider, games, and a bouncy house.  After supper, Abby did some swimming with everyone, then we enjoyed some game-playing time after she went to bed.  This morning, we did some more swimming and some Christmas ornament crafting before parting ways.  We always have a great time, and this year was no exception!

Family time

This weekend was a rare weekend where everyone in my family came home--these weekends go by in a blur, but are so much fun.  Lots of yummy food, tons of game-playing, and beautiful weather made for the perfect weekend.  My mom's goal was to get a family photo taken for their Christmas card, and I think we were able to get some good options (my cousin Ben was up for the weekend, too, so became our photographer):

We soaked up the family time, and look forward to having everyone together again at Thanksgiving!  

Pumpkin patch

Life/school has been pretty crazy lately, with conferences, meetings, and schoolwork galore, leaving little family time...  Our weekends have been full as well, with no end in sight until probably Thanksgiving.  It's just a little crazy, so when the opportunity presented itself to meet up with Dave in New Prague after work on what was probably the last nice evening, we snatched it up and headed to the local pumpkin patch to stock up for Halloween and get some cute photos of the girls.  Abby has an amazing memory--she said, "Do you remember when I didn't want my picture taken here?"  She was referring to last year, when it was really sunny and she cried when getting her photo taken by the big display out front.  She was much more cooperative this year, and we got some good pics.  Abby got to pick out a pumpkin for herself and Norah, and helped make sure Norah wasn't eating too much hay or getting into trouble.  :)  Soaking up these precious moments with my girls!

7 months old

Our sweet Norah girl turned 7 months old last Wednesday.  Life has been crazy busy lately, so we finally found time to take her 7-month pictures today.  She is such a happy baby--loves everyone and everything, especially anything she can put into her mouth!  She's going to be a busy one once she's mobile.  She will grab anything that looks fun/yummy--necklaces, buttons, tags, etc.  She loves sitting up and playing with her toys, especially her piano and Little People.  She's tried lots of new foods in the past month, and really hasn't found anything she doesn't like.  A new favorite is Gerber puffs, which she can pick up and put in her mouth on her own.  Those are a nice distraction when she's fussy at suppertime (which happens when we don't feed her fast enough!).  She's still doing great at daycare, and has even started going to ECFE class on Wednesday nights.  She's not a fan of staying up past 7 on those nights, but is enjoying the toys and the friends there.  She's really settled into a good routine, taking two good naps at daycare each day and then sleeping from 7-6:30 most nights.  Now that she's discovered how much she loves sleeping on her stomach, the nights are going a lot better (she was in a phase where she'd end up in the corner of her crib on her stomach, stuck, crying in the middle of the night).  Norah's still a peanut, weighing in at only 14 pounds.  Here are some pics from her 7-month photo shoot: