Modern Envelope Budget

Today we finally started our Modern Envelope Budget blog. We LOVE our budget and several friends have asked about it. We figured this would be a good way to share how we do it.

The Modern Envelope Budget
Scroll down to the bottom of the blog and start with the first post.

Saturday Sampler #8

I decided it was time to finish my quilt blocks for the month.  I have had the flag block and the orange and brown block done for quite a while.  The bird block has been done except for the stitching for the heart and the feet for the bird.  I guess today is the day when I found the 15 minutes I needed to finish the bird block off.  I feel  like I am getting better at applique, still not perfect, but better.
Enjoy!

Daddy's Girl

This post has two purposes. First to show you the cute shirt that I made that matches the skirt that I made a few weeks ago. Anna won't stand still for anything, so a video is the only way we could get a picture of the shirt. I am really pleased with how it turned out. Thanks to Marthe and her amazing sewing skills and her stretchy thread. It was a piece of cake to make.
The second reason is to show how Anna has learned to wiggle her ears. Like father like daughter.

New Years Did Happen

Yes it is February 20th, which means that New Years Even was a LONG time ago. But I have so many great pictures, it would be a crime not to post a few.
For New Years Even we decided to have a huge family sleep over at my mom's house. We are grateful that my mom's house is big enough to fit everyone. The cousin's had lots of fun together.
Tommy taught Anna how to play on the DS.

Of course there was all you can eat ice cream provided by Grandma.

We all enjoyed just hanging out while the kids played. Unfortunately, the kids were up to no good and at one point took ALL the toys in the family room and made one big pile. Grandma was not happy about that at all.

From that point on we kept a better watch on the kids. Marie and Peter enjoyed playing games on the i pods.

Most of the evening and wee hours of the morning were spent playing Lego Rock Band.

Paul decided to add some cymbals to our rock band.

Once the kids went to bed the adults had a great time singing and laughing as we played rock band until the wee hours of the night...or morning. It is a good thing that our kids can sleep through pretty much anything. We were having so much fun we almost missed watching the "ball drop" at midnight.

Devin was kind enough to hold all of our rings so that we wouldn't get blisters from playing the drums. He had quite the collection. BLING BLING!

After a few hours sleep the kids were ready to play hard again. The girls had a nice tea party.

We did something different this year. We went to a movie New Years Day. We all went and saw The Princess and the Frog. This was Anna's second movie. We took her to see Up a long long time ago and she slept through most of it. Anna was excited in the beginning.

After falling asleep and then being woken up by a really loud song this is how we spent the rest of the movie.

Sad! We couldn't resist taking a picture. It was a good thing that she wasn't the only sad kid in the theater. Anna and I went for a good walk for the last half of the movie.
After the movie we went back to my mom's house to do our annual gingerbread house making extravaganza.

Hyrum was just happy watching everyone.

Devin and I did a really boring house this year. It was very plain and had a small "For Sale" sign on it to represent our current house status.
The kids then went downstairs and did all the little poppers.

By the time we were done with all of that we were all pretty tired!!! Crazy to think that we all went to Disney World just three days later. I guess we must like each other a lot!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Watch Out American Idol!

My brother Peter makes me smile. 
This is my new favorite video of my brother Peter.

Too bad Devin stopped tapping just before Peter hit this incredible squeaky high pitched last note.  I did included a great clip of Peter spazzing out on the drums.
Thanks Peter for giving me a good laugh!

A Chair

Anna loves to sit on...everything.  She sits on boxes, stools, and anything else she can pull herself up on.  She also enjoys sitting in things.  It doesn't matter how small or large a box is, she will find a way to sit in it. (Not the best picture of Anna.)

Last week we got Anna a real chair.  Thank you IKEA for the hours of entertainment you have brought our daughter!  She will now drag her rocking chair all over the house and just sit and rock.  She will read books, eat snacks, or just sit and cuddle with her animals in the chair.  Funny how much joy a simple chair can bring.

This last picture in not the best, but I was taking in from down the hall.   It shows how cute she is just reading in her chair when no one else is around.

Saturday Sampler #6 & 7

I didn't realize until tonight that I never posted pictures of my quilt blocks from last month. Oh well, I still haven't blogged about Christmas and New Years, but I will, just wait, I'll get to it.
Here are the blocks from December.

And here are January's blocks.

I am starting to feel better about the whole applique thing.  I was watching a movie while finishing my last block.  I looked down at one point and there was blood all over my block and my fingers.  It took me a minute to figure out which finger was bleeding.  I'm just glad you can't see the blood on the block unless you are really close up.
Here are all the blocks I have done so far.  I can't wait to see what's next.