{oh how I adore a good wreath}

And a PAPER wreath is even better because I love a good book too. Although, I made this one out of a book that I hated. The Memory Keeper's Daughter was just plain depressing. The funny thing is that the back of the book describes it as "uplifting". That's a joke. If you loved it that's fine but I was NOT uplifted. I was miserable and uncomfortable because the whole darn book was awkward, dishonest and mean. Yuck. NOT my type of reading. So I ripped all the pages out and made a wreath out of them by rolling and crumpling them and hot gluing them to a foam wreath circle. Then I just burned the edges of each page which I was relatively sure was going to lead to me burning the whole thing to a heap of embers. But BEHOLD! I didn't burn it to bits. Hooray.

It looks lovely on the wall in our front room because that window has needed something for quite some time. I almost tea-bagged the pages but I'm still deciding it I want it to be a creamy-beige color or not. It's a light creamy-white right now which suits my white-on-white decor fancies. But we'll see in time. Oh, and this would be extra cute at Christmas time made from wrapping paper or even made of scrapbook papers of your choosing.

{video catch-up}

Our video camera is lame. On occasion I get it to function well enough to capture a video but not well enough to load to the computer. Thus, I get a lot of backed up video issues. Dev just recorded the kiddos doing whatever it is that they do a couple months ago and I just decided I'd better battle the camera for those recordings. Well, lo and behold, wouldn't ya know there were about 20 videos on there. Ugh. So, here's a bunch you've (and we've) missed.

{Ava - 6 weeks, Eli - 18 months, Dean - 3 yrs. Me trying desperately to get a smile from Ava and her brothers being oh-so helpful.}


{Dean - 3 yrs, Eli - 19 months. Trying to capture their prayers on video.}


{Ava - 3 months. Trying to capture that little giggle on video. I love when they first start to giggle.}


{Ava - 7 months, Eli - 2 yrs, Dean - 3.5 yrs. Ava learned to crawl, Eli and Dean know their ABCs and how to pray (again).}


The END...for now.

{Ava - 8 months old}

What a joy our sweet little Ava has turned out to be. She is an easy-going baby which is such a blessing to our home. I teased throughout my pregnancy that when she was born she had better be easy since she was giving me such a hard pregnancy and I totally got my wish! She only cries when she's hungry or tired and goes down for sleep without any trouble at all on most nights.

It is already plain to see that she is going to be spoiled. On some nights she wakes once or twice still, which we didn't really allow when the boys were this same age because an 8-month-old is certainly old enough to sleep through the night, but for her we wake up and get her what she needs regardless. We're already wrapped around that cute little finger of hers and her smile is so infectious.

If you think I sound bad, you should see Daddy! Devin is such a sucker for his little girl.

She has been crawling for about a month now and is quite the pro, getting into everything she shouldn't and steering well around the toys we put out for her. I admire her persistence as she seeks out all things paper in this house as it's her favorite thing to eat these days. She constantly reminds me that I need to get the baby gate back up. Oh, and she has 3 teeth right now - one top and two bottom - and she's working on cutting the second top tooth even as I write.

{happy 2010 to you from us}

the pyros...