The Quilt is finished!

I'm so excited to have this project completed. It feels good to know I can do that! We didn't do it how the pro's do it, but we got it done Burke and Jenni style. :) It was nice having Burke's help. We made lots of mistakes, but as we kept going and piecing it all together it didn't matter and we loved it more and more. So if you look at it up close you'll notice the imperfections, but from a distance it's pretty nice! Just like us!!! Hahaha. It was really fun doing it and thinking about all of the comparisons with marriage, people and life. I know, I think too much! But it was still fun.

Now that I'm 5...

Since Kaiya's turned five she has changed a bit. Here's some of the updates:

• she informed me that when she was four she really liked the Tinkerbell song, but now that she's 5 she doesn't.
• she tries to use grown up words in sentences a lot. Yesterday Kaleb told her something and she said in a grown up voice "That's interesting." But she didn't say interesting correctly, I don't even know how to spell it the way she said it.
  
• She lets me know that now that she's 5 her body is a lot bigger too. I don't break her heart by telling her she's actually the same size she was yesterday.
  
• And she's already told us she's excited to turn six because then she can stay up longer like Kaleb.
  

kids make life fun

Here's some pictures of the kids over the last week just doing things they do. I love watching them play with each other, help out with cooking and just being plain silly. They really add fun to life and I just love them.

Ottley family picture

Over Thanksgiving break all of my siblings families and my dad and his wife Gail all got together to get our picture taken. I thought I'd share it with you.
And here's all 14 grandkids. They range from age 7 and under. They are really fun friends too. I love when we can all get together and play. It makes for a full house and lots of fun noise! I'm glad that we don't live too far away because the kids need their cousin time. One time Kaleb had had it and wanted to see them all so much so he started chanting, "we want to see our cousins" over and over again. We love you family!!!!!!

Kaiya's 5

Burke has done the kids cakes for most of their birthdays. It's great because they tell him what they want on their cake and he figures out how to do it. This year Kaiya wanted a Belle cake. Kaleb helped out with the frosting of it and helping me decorate the house for her last night. Here's the beginning of the making of Belle. We didn't have all of the colors we needed so for her hair he melted some chocolate and for the rose and lips he used strawberry jam. He did a great job. It was really fun watching the creation of Belle with frosting.
And the completed project. With what he had to use I thought he did a great job! Kaiya liked it, but wanted it to be more exact. She's getting picky in her old age!
When the girls got there I had them decorate a little princess hat with stickers. Aren't they just so cute?! We're grateful to have such sweet, fun friends here in Green River.
Our first game was pin the tiara on the princess. Here's how close Kaiya got. The girls liked this game. They would laugh and laugh each time they saw where each girl put the tiara. It was really cute.
Here's Kaiya just before she blew out the candles. One of her friends asked what she wished for and she said she wished for her dresses (that she already got for her birthday today).
Then we played a game with Kaiya's dress up clothes. There were two teames and they were timed by how quickly they could put on a dress, shoes and a purse. The team that got the least amount of time won. I stood by incase anyone needed help, which they did.
This is what it looked like while Kaiya opened her presents. She had lots of helping hands.
Here's some of the girls after they dressed up like princesses.
It was a really fun party. I'm glad so many of the girls could come and celebrate with us. It really made her day special. I just love my little Kaiya. She just makes me laugh and smile a lot. She's such a smartie and a great little mommy. It's so much fun watching her grow up, even though it seems way too fast, I still enjoy every moment.

Quilt update

Here's the quilt Saturday as I was sewing on the borders one by one.
Here I am SO excited with my quilting scarf on, made up of batting and fabric trimmings. We've got the borders all on and everything pinned down where we want it and we're ready to quilt it in the sewing machine!
We went to fast on our first row, so here is Burke picking out the stitches. :( Not all of them, but it's still not fun!

Well, I haven't worked on our quilt for a few days now because I needed to step away for a minute! But I will post pictures of the finished product once I get it all done for sure.

Tinkerbell song by Katelin and Kaiya

This is by far Katelin's favorite song. If she's ever upset it will calm her down immediately. She LOVES singing along with it. In this video Kaiya is singing along in the background. I'm not sure if that's why Katelin keeps stopping and saying "HEY!!!" or what. I just love to hear her sing it. Kaiya is a sweet little singer too. The video is like 2 min. long, so if you listen to the first minute you'll get the gist of it. Or keep watching if you want to see Katelin put a slipper in her mouth and then later her and Kaiya turn around and around and Katelin falls both times, but loves it. Such fun little girls!

Simmons Singers

I totally forgot about this video. It cracks me up. The day we left to Salt Lake for Christmas Break we gave the kids one present to open for the ride there to keep them entertained. Kaiya's was a CD player and Kaleb's was Burke's old ipod that he doesn't need anymore. They were SO excited and seriously listened and sang the whole way to Salt Lake. It was so cute. Here's a clip of them singing their own songs.

Famous Mormons

Burke found this web site about famous mormons. Yesterday he told me that Izzy from Grey's Anatomy was LDS and I said "No way!" It's true! They tell a little bit about each one. You have to click on one of the squares and a bunch of people are listed for each catagory - actors, authors, musicians, etc. If you want to check it out click here.

The Quilt

I had this desire to make a quilt for our bed a while back and we decided that it would be a fun thing to do during our Christmas break. We got started on it towards the end of our break, so we're still working on it. It is a big project! I really had no idea. Burke has been a lot of help though. It's been fun to do it with him. He even wanted a bag to put his Wii in for when we go to Salt Lake and bring it along. He wanted pockets inside for different things here and there. So we got it all figured out and he did most of it. I was very impressed. It's been a fun sewing journey for us. So here's me sewing together these little triangles into the 60 squares I needed. I asked Burke to count them for me since I thought I was just about there. He told me a number and I wasnt' quit there, so I kept sewing. Then a while later I see hiding under a different scrap of material 10 squares that weren't counted! So I sewed a total of 70 instead. Now I can laugh about it! Haheheha.
Now I've finished about four of these rows, just two more to go! Then for the borders, batting and quilting or tying it together. I am SO excited to finish it. I am a very impatient person. I think that's why I'm not a perfectionist, I just have to get things done fast! Burke is a perfectionist, but he is still fast, no fair. I will post the end result when we finish. Hopefully it will be very soon.

You've had a birthday shout HURRAY!!!

My sister Tiffany and her husband Randy made the cute FAMILY frame holder thingy for my mom. We put our new family pictures in it. I got to help by cutting out the vellum FAMILY part with my cricut cutter. It turned out really nice.My mom and niece share a birthday on December 27th. We got together at my sister Tiffany's house and had a party for them. Then after their little party we had a surprise open house party planned for my mom since this was her 60th birthday. It turned out great. People just showed up that we had invited to wish her a happy day, she was really surprised, it was cute. My sister Robyn and her husband Steve put together a slide show of pictures of her growing up and then of us growing up, with such cute music with it. They did a great job. My mom got a Karaoke machine for her b-day and wanted to bring it so we could make fools out of ourselves singing songs together...so we did. The kids really got into it too. Kaleb even found a toy guitar to play along with us. It was fun. That's my sister's, Juli and Robyn smashing their noses on the glass. They crack me up. Happy day mom!

Christmas Day

We slept at my dads Christmas Eve. Kaiya woke up first and wanted to go open presents right away. We had to wake up Burke, Kaleb and Katelin and then off we went. My dad and Gail were already awake so we didn't have to wake them up, but we would have! hahaha. I really enjoy watching the kids with their presents and getting excited about what eachother got too. Later on all of my siblings and their families came over for our traditional breakfast at my dads house on Christmas morning. We opened presents from eachother and just played around. It was nice to be together. The little girls all gathered in the bathroom and put on make-up that Sophie got. They looked like little rock stars. It was really funny seeing them with make-up on all together.

Christmas Eve

We had our Christmas Eve get together with my mom and Dave and his kids at my step-sister Tricia's house. When we all get together it's a lot of people. Tricia said she felt like it was a cafeteria in there because of all the tables they had to set up. We all brought food to share to make a huge dinner, and it was REALLY good! Burke continues to talk about even the gravy...mmm. After we ate my mom and Dave gave all of the Grandkids a present. And that added up to 21 grandkid presents with my mom's and Daves all together. That's a lot of kids and presents! So here's a BUNCH of pictures for you of the night.

Christmas Party

Every year my step-mom Gail's family does a party with Santa and it is really fun. We enjoy going when we can. This was Katelin's first year going to the party and I was SO impressed and surprised how she just sat on Santa's lap and looked at him and was fine!!! No crying or anything. My kids were always freaked out with Santa every year, except for now of course. They are just fine with it now, but Katelin amazed me - it was so sweet. When we get there we put a present for each of the kids with their names on it in a big bag on the back porch. When Santa comes he picks up the bag and comes in and we sing with him and the kids each get a gift from him (us). We eat yummy food and one of the cousins plays the bag pipes for us while Grandpa dances a silly jig and makes us all laugh. It's a good time!
And yes, Kaleb is in his pj's. It was a pj day at school that last day and we left right after school. He didn't mind at all staying in them all day though. Comfy, comfy.
Kaiya was so sweet. She wanted to give Santa a hug, until she saw him and then said "maybe later". So I thought she just wouldn't, but just before he left he went around the room and was shaking hands and when he put his hand out to shake hers, she opened her cute little arms and got her hug. It was really cute.

My dad playing with Kennedy and Katelin. They love hanging out with Grandpa.

Gail with her sweet mom, June.
My sisters and I. Tiffany, Robyn, Juli and me. Aren't they the cutest?!?!!! I just love 'em!
Everyone loved Katelin's toy from Santa. Especially Reagan and she was quit upset if you tried to take it away. So we had them play together and that went well. I love this picture with Reagan's candy cane sticking out of her mouth. This is serious business! Katelin found a new love of candy canes this Christmas too. She doesn't suck on them, just bites them with her little front teeth and it's gone! She ate one faster than Kaleb yesterday!