Riley Cait Howard - Welcome to the family!

Riley Cait was born November 3 at 4:40pm to Nate (my nephew) and Caitlin in Mesa, AZ. If I remember correctly, she was 7 lb. 10 oz., 20 1/2 inches. We're so excited to have her join the family!

Owen & Christopher

Sara and Owen came down for a visit so that Deven could concentrate on studying for his master's test. So, we got to hang out with them on a fun Sunday afternoon.

With his broken foot limiting his mobility, Owen had Christopher cornered. Notice how enthralled Owen is as he watches Peter Pan. At one point we looked over and he was in a TV trance but had the cutest little half smile on his face as he watched the fairies fly.

Quiet Book

Well, it's been a while since I've posted. I can't believe how fast time has flown.

I thought I'd share my most recent project with you. I don't know what sparked my memory, but one day I began thinking about the Quiet Book that we had when we were small, which my mom made. I remembered playing with it (quietly) in church and they were fond memories. And so the thought occurred that it would be fun to make a similar book to my young nieces and nephews.

I asked Mom if she still had the patterns, and she did. But they were old photocopies that were somewhat cut off and their weren't instructions for actually putting all the pages together. So, I went surfing online just to see what else I could find that would give me some ideas. After going through A LOT of pages, I was really surprised and happy to find someone else's blog where she posted pictures of the quiet book she made. And it was the exact same pages I had growing up! (Seriously, I was really excited.) So, I sent her an email to find out where she got her instructions and she was nice enough to write back and provide the name and address of a woman in Bountiful, who had written a book called 'The Quiet Book Tutor', which had all the patterns and instructions for construction. After a letter, phone call and email I managed to connect with the author, sent her $10, and received my book.

After a few weeks of work, below was the fun outcome! The pages are far from perfect, but I figured 2-5yr olds wouldn't mind. I actually made three books at once. I have already given one to my nephew Owen, who is 2 1/2. He will still probably need some help to start with. The next niece and nephew are only 9mo and about 1 week old, so I will probably wait awhile before I give them theirs. Shhhhh! Don't tell. I'm taking bets that none of them will actually look at this blog page.