Felt Forest

For Christmas, I made my kids a felt forest and little tiny animals to play in the forest. Some of you have seen my desert and rainforest, but I think this one is my favorite. I do need to give credit to the person who's idea I borrowed:
http://myplumpudding.blogspot.com/search/label/craft%3A%20fabric%20and%20fiber

I have been making a couple of felt habitats for some really good friends, but never made any animals for myself. So here it is: :)

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. Elle woke up just after 6am, then ran around the house waking the other kids up. Santa had left us tons of presents and filled our stockings well. Miles got Jesse and Bullseye, so he spent the majority of the day acting out Toy Story 3. Elle got Lotso Huggin' Bear, who interacts with your touch and voice, so she spent all day playing with him. Morgan got a panda bear, whom she has named Louis, but she spent all day on her new Hannah Montana guitar game and is getting pretty good. :)
After presents we ate a delicious breakfast that I was smart enough to prepare the night before and throw it in the oven this morning. Then we played games and toys all day and watched Despicable Me. Grama and Grandma & Grandpa Reay stopped by after lunch and we visited for a while and ate Grams rolls. Finally, Grandpa and Grandma Teri came over for dinner - delicious! Now we are waiting for pie and bed.
Hope your Christmas was as fabulous as ours!

Felt Dinos

Here is the present I made for my favorite neighbor and very good friend. She helps me out so much, so I made her a little Xmas present for her son who is Miles' age. Everything is hand-stitched, including the little dinosaurs. Now I just need to make one for me... Super proud of this one :)

First Lost Tooth

Morgan lost her first tooth last night! It's funny because none of us even knew she had a loose tooth. I was gone to Relief Society dinner, but Matt said she lost it while eating dinner. He also said she was really excited about it.
She put it under her pillow along with this note:


When she woke up, the Tooth Fairy had come and left her a gold dollar coin! Awesome!
I can't believe how grown up she seems all of a sudden. It makes me smile...and it makes me sad.

Breaking Tradition

This year, we had the opportunity to go see Mrs. Claus. She had an elf fly her in a special red airplane from the North Pole to our library. She told the kids stories and the kids helped her decorate a tree with ornaments from around the world. Then they all stood in a circle around the tree and sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Afterwards, the kids made a special mix of oatmeal (a reindeer's favorite food) and magic sparkles to sprinkle on our lawn on Christmas Eve to help the reindeer find our house. Last, the kids told Mrs. Claus what they wanted for Christmas and she promised to go home and tell Santa.

Camels...

(I just know this isn't going to translate well in print. You may want to read it out loud so you know how adorably cute it is in real life.)
We were watching Signing Time yesterday and the kids were learning signs for animals at the zoo. They got to "camel" and Miles looks up at me and says, "Mom, I love canimals!" Trust me, you would have laughed had you been there. :)

Seeing Things

I took Elle to the doctor yesterday for a well check. The first thing the nurse did was check her eyes. They have an eye chart for kids with pictures of things like sailboats, tea cups, hearts, stars, etc. Elle read all the way through the second to smallest line. When she got to the bottom line, she says, "Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot!" and smiled really big. The nurse didn't think it was nearly as cute as I did. :)