Some prep

I am starting to do a little prep for Anja's party.  I have seen these fun banners and totally thought that I could make it...and make it I did.

I cut burlap into triangle pendants and then found a fun font to use on the burlap.  I printed out the letters I needed and then used them and a ruler to free hand the font with a permanent marker.  I then used brads to connect the pendants and some left over ribbon that I had for ties.  The cool thing is for other birthday's too.  I actually had left over burlap, so I did Kyper's name too. 

Now unto making some pinwheels for her 1st birthday garden party.

Upcoming posts: Joel's week off, Great Wolf Lodge

More craftiness

Our Christian school hosted a craft day for women in February.  I went for a few hours and finished my anniversary and birthday calendar.  (We had gotten one of these for our wedding, but it fell into dirty dish water and there were a few birthdays that I really didn't need on it anymore.)

So here are some pictures of my new one.  I had a lot of fun making it and am deciding if it would be something fun to make and try to sell on etsy or something, thoughts?

To make it, I figures out how to use download fun and free fonts to use in Word.  I decided to do this on the craft day, because I basically used my friends' scraps from scrap booking to add a little flare to each month.

Used a little ring to keep it together

One of my favorites

Another craft I am still currently working on--I need to get staples for our staple gun and then it will be done in just a few short minutes.

I went to goodwill the other day on the sole mission to get a old picture that I liked the frame of.  I found one and used a 25% off coupon--hurray for coupons to thrift stores.  I then took the picture and the glass out and sanded the frame.  It started as silver and I first thought about just antiquing it.  But, I didn't like the way it looked.  So, I got some black spray paint and painted it.  It was fun.  I plan on stapling some strings from side to side on it, so I can clip pictures on it.  I found a great deal on mini clothespins at Meijer.  I hope to fit almost all our Christmas card pictures on it.  I like to save the pictures that our friends and families send--I cut just the picture out and then put them on the fridge normally.  I just got a little sick of them on my fridge and I felt like it just looked cluttered.  Therefore-my new project.  Sorry I didn't take before pictures of the frame.  But here are some pictures of it in progress.

The antiqued look--all I did was sand it.

the whole frame-black

A close up look

Meeting Henry

 

James meeting Henry compared to Anja meeting Henry. 

Visitors in February

JP, Katie and James came to Michigan in February.  It was fun to have them out here even though we didn't get to spend as much time together as we originally hoped due to sickness. 

They drove out on a Friday and spent the night in Detroit.  I got to spend a little time with them, but I had a conference in Kalamazoo that weekend for coffee break, so they actually babysat until Joel got home.

Cousins

 I heard they had a good shrimp dinner that night.  On Saturday, Joel, Kyper, Anja, JP, Katie and James made the trek in the snowy weather to Holland.  The boys and Leah did a little winter beach hiking.

Mountain climber

Sliding down a iceberg

Tia Leah and Kyper in an ice cave

My conference ended in the afternoon on Saturday, so I drove from Kalamazoo to Holland to join them for the evening.  Aren and Leah cooked us a delicious meal of deep dish pizza at their house.  (congrats on home ownership guys!) Anja and James had bath time.  They were also introduced to Henry the bunny--videos at the end of the post.

Bath time--James liked the extra big cup

Sunday morning, we went to church with Aren and Leah and then my family of four headed to my parents for Sunday dinner.  Joel headed back to Detroit to study for his program exam and I stayed at my parents for an extra day.  My mom had the day off--it was President's day.  So, we just spent the day there and around bedtime I headed back to Detroit.  It was prefect since Joel was on call anyway, so we got home around the same time he got off from work.

February Happenings

Kyper crawled the entire length of the tennis courts at the park on a snowy day

Swinging in the snow

Anja 9 months

Daddy and his kids

Mommy and her kids

Anja standing up on her own.  (she is really good at squats.)

Our little family

Playing in the Snow

Anja's first time in the snow

She sort of face planted and didn't like it so much

Kyper doing a snow angel

She didn't mind being outside if she wasn't in the snow

This is the snow suit that Grandpa Rog got her.  Thank you!

Zoo in Wintertime

We had a fairly warm Saturday in January, so we headed up to the zoo.  Here are some pictures:

Ducks on the frozen pond