Job, Christmas and Fun

Juan is getting laid off from Nokia. They are moving his job position along with several others, to a factory in Mexico. They told him the first week in November, but his last day working isn't until May. He has been working for Nokia for over 10 years and is getting a good severance package along with a nice bonus if he stays till May and helps train the person who will be doing his job, but the thought of him being without a job is fairly nerve wracking. We are saying lots of prayers and hoping that this is for the best. We are hoping he can find a job in the alliance area which would be an awsome commute. We will see what happens.

I've started sewing some Christmas presents for Jovi. I'm making her felt playfood to replace the plastic food that has slowly fallen apart over time. Making felt food is kind of time consuming as it involves a lot of hand sewing, but it's a lot of fun seeing how it all turns out. Here is what I've made so far; 4 fried eggs, 2 tortillas, a doughnut, 12 strawberries, a quesadilla and 2 cookies.

I have a lot more playfood planned, and we'll see how much I can accomplish before Christmas.

I was finally able to finish some wooden figures I've been working on for like half a year. A few of them may become stocking stuffers for the kids. The triangle block was painted by Jovi while I painted the others.



The owl in the upper right hand corner is special though, he will be my first Toy Society toy. The Toy Society was a street art project that started in Austrailia and is spreading. Check out the blog,http://www.thetoysociety.blogspot.com/. I'm still trying to figure out where to drop him, hmmmm. Near my house? Near my parent's house? Or wait till I go to downtown Dallas? What do you guys think?

Halloween, a new dress and the Temple

Jovi woke up with a fever Thursday morning. It was a major disapointment for all of us because she missed her preschool Halloween party and our church Trunk or Treat. We might have just gone anyway, but she was pretty miserable except for the 1-2 hours the tylenol was working. Fortunately it only lasted 24 hours because she woke up Halloween morning just fine. I was so glad because she has been looking forward to Halloween for the whole month of October. I told her that she could be any of her dress ups and she chose to be a princess. I had bought corbin's costume last year, before he was born. It's a duck, but the head made it too hot and so we took it off and added a magnent and he became a "chick magnent". This first picture Corbin had the silliest face.


They both had a lot of fun that night, Jovi trick or treating and Corbin watching everyone.

Saturday was a beautiful day and we went as a family to the Temple in Dallas to walk the grounds. While we were there we took some family pictures. Jovi wore a dress I had made earlier in the week. Here is the dress without her in it :).



And here are some of the temple pictures.

Jovi's Jokes

Jovi has started telling knock knock jokes. They are hilarious! It started with her saying knock knock in the car. I thought I'd teach her the classic, boo hoo joke so I answered boo. Well, she thought that was funny since we play a boo game with Corbin and all that is involved with that is saying boo and laughing. I had to explain that she was supposed to answer boo who?, and explain it again and again. Juan and I showed her how it was done so now her knock knock jokes go...

knock knock
who's there?
pineapple (or airplane or something else, but she seems to like pineapple best)
Pineapple who?
BOO!!!
(laughter ensues)

Now Juan was telling her some jokes and they were pretty funny to listen to, too...

knock knock
Who's there?
Emma (or Ganna or Eden, we were on the way to visit my family at the time)
You're not Emma (incredulous that Juan would say something like that) You are daddy!!!

I was able to finish an outfit for Jovi yesterday. I call it her PB&J outfit and was inspired by her love for the food. She eats a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch almost every day and when I saw the embroidery design I knew I had to make her something with it. I dyed the cotton velour fabric over 2 years ago and could never figure out what to make with it. I'm glad I saved it though because I think it really fit with the whole outfit.




Jovi had been playing outside while I had been finishing up sewing (I can see her while she is outside from the windows in my bedroom). After I had taken a few pictures. She climbed into the chair she had set up with the jump rope around it and said, "Now take a picture with my horse.". So this is a picture of Jovi and her horse.


My dad wanted some greenery for his office and was going to order some from a catalog for $110 a piece. I told him I could make them for him if he paid me instead of the catalog. He said he'd let me try so here is my first (hopefully of many) plant arrangement for his office.

The Pumpkin Patch

On thursday we went to the pumpkin patch. I learned that if taking a good picture of a 3 year old is like taking a picture of lightning, then taking a good picture of a baby and a 3 year old together is next to impossible. Here are my attempts:


Jovi was not actually choking Corbin, but trying to pull him back up since he had slipped down. After that I decided that a wagon may be a better choice.


Better, if it werent for the fact that the sun was in their eyes so they couldn't look at me and my shadow was in the picture. My photography skills are definently lacking. But, at least I learned from my attempts and here is the best of the bunch.


And then, I took some pictures of Corbin alone, here is the best one. I would have taken some of Jovi too, but she wouldn't stand still long enough ;).



Jovi had a great time at the pumpkin patch. They had a bounce house which she loved playing in and she got to choose a baby pumpkin to go with the one we had already carved at home. Corbin thought it was great watching everyone and riding in the wagon. It was a fun afternoon.

I had a bunch of cute Halloween embroidery files that I wanted to use so here are the results, some trick or treat bags I whipped up last week.

First Sign, a Dress and Fair Pictures

Corbin used his first sign on Friday. We've been working on signs with him for the past month or so, specifically food related signs, like food, more, water and finished. Jovi's first sign was finished because it got her down from her highchair faster than screaming. Corbin's first sign, like the majority of the kids I've know, was more. We were at Central Market and we got him a sample of bread, when he was finished he signed more and we gave him more bread. Then we tried giving him some cantaloupe and he signed more for that too. He's still not super consistent with it and sometimes he tries to say it and it just sounds like mama, but it's an exciting first step. This is a picture of Corbin from Friday.



I finished Jovi's dress on Friday. She picked out the main fabric when we were at Joann a few months ago. She asked if I could puleeeze make her a dress out of it and I just couldn't say no. Overall, I am happy with how it turned out. It is the Olivia pattern from Farbenmix. I love the pattern, so cute and easy to put together.



Here is a closeup of the embroidery :).


And now a modeling shot.


And, I thought that all my pictures of our state fair trip were ruined, but I forgot that we got a photo taken right when we went in by photographers working for Mrs Baird's (yep, the bread people) and they put it on the internet for free so here is a picture of our trip from Friday the 10th.


Jovi, Corbin and I also ended up going to the fair again yesterday with my sister Eden. She was out of town the week before so she hadn't been able to go with us, but she really wanted to go to the stae fair. I love the state fair so I had fun going again too. We went to the petting zoo and saw a dog show which Jovi thought was just awsome. Here are a couple of pictures from our trip.

Sewing Again

Last Friday we went to the state fair. We all had a lot of fun. We tried Chicken Fried Bacon which was a lot less gross than it sounds. We went to the petting zoo and Jovi rode her first fair rides. She kept wanting to go on the really fast adult rides, the child is fearless when it comes to amusment park rides. She ended up going with me on a ride where we got to be firefighters putting out a fire in a cherry picker attached to a minature fire truck. She also got to go on a little boat ride all by herself. So, we took lots of cute pictures at the fair, but when I came home and downloaded them I found out that there was a fingerprint smudge on the lens making all the pictures blurry. I wonder who could have put a fingerprint on the lens of our camera, hmmmm.

After almost a month long break I've started sewing again. I'm currently working on a dress for Jovi, I (finally) finished hemming some pants for my sister and I put some embroidery on two onesies I bought for Corbin. Here are pictures of the onsies.



Here is Corbin modeling one of the shirts.


We went to Teresa's Resale Shop today and I found a Cinderella dress for Jovi for $1.50. The skirt had come undone from the bodice in one spot, but a few minutes sewing made it as good as new. Here is a picture of her in it.

Reminiscing

I'm not sure what even made me think about it, but yesterday I got out our wedding album. I'm almost embarrased to say that I hadn't looked at it in a few years. It was fun thinking back to that wonderfully happy day over four years ago. Four years really isn't a long time, but so much has happened since then, buying a house, having one child, having another child, that it seems like a lifetime ago. Just for fun, I thought I'd share my trip down memory lane with everyone: