Introducing Ayla

Ayla Miriam Lindsay was born on May 22nd at 1:07pm. She weighed in at 6 lbs 5 ounces and 19 inches long. She came with a good set of lungs and an appetite. She loves to be swaddled and held, and she also sleeps really well in her bed. She eats every few hours, and sometimes she stays awake for a little while looking around and listening to what is going on around her.

Gideon loves to cuddle her and pat her head. He tries to climb up in her bed so he can look at her and pat her. He snuggles on her and sucks his thumb. It's so adorable.

Zenock likes to hold her. Yesterday he told me he changed his mind and he likes having a baby girl in our family.

Ammon loves to hold her too. I had him hold her this morning so I could help Gideon do something, and I think that made him feel important because he knew he was helping me.

My recent projects

Carseat tent to keep the sun/heat/wind off the baby

Wipes/diaper case. I used the one my sister made for Gideon as a template and just went with it. It turned out really well, and I have made a few more since for friends who are having babies soon too. This will help us keep the right diapers straight for each kid since they will both be in diapers for another year or more.

 3-6 month dress I made that I think is actually almost a 12 month size. I wish pattern companies would get their sizing more accurate! It's a cute dress and an easy pattern to put together, but I will never use this kind of fabric again! It was horrible to keep from puckering and moving!

A floor cushion I made for a friend's boy's birthday last month.

Zenock's floor cushion. They are filled with bean bag beans, but I might switch to foam or add some fiberfill stuff in there just to help it keep some shape longer. The beans get squished fast.

Ammon modeling his cushion. His favorite thing is to use it for a pillow and eat treats while watching a movie.

I used freezer paper to make a gallery template so that all the pictures were hung equally spaced from one another and the nails were put in the right spot to keep everything straight. The hole is for Ayla's picture. I just bought the frame, so now it's on the wall waiting to be filled with some pink fluff! On the right side I also added a vinyl quote from a Primary song. I stuck it right on the wall. I haven't taken a picture yet, because the wall isn't complete without that cute picture up, so you'll have to use your imagination!

Vinyl on a piece of tile from my kitchen floor. I made this for the ward auction to help raise money for Boy Scout camp and Young Women's camp this year.

A baby blanket I also made for the auction from some scraps I had. I love shopping in the reminant bin at Joann's! I have saved so much money doing that, especially since it helps me have more pieces on hand for last minute projects for birthdays and baby showers.

Baseball

Ammon got the chance to play city league baseball again this year. His age group was coach-pitch. Brady volunteered to coach the team of 13 rambunctious kids! They had a great season, with lots and lots of improvement from the first game. Ammon loved playing catcher and pitcher positions the best. Tonight was his last game, and I didn't get any pictures because the camera is in my hospital bag ready for tomorrow. So these three are from his first game of the season back on April 9th.

Zenock gets his training wheels taken off!

This is my sweet little 5 year old, who just a few months ago insisted he would not learn to ride without training wheels until he turned 6. Today he changed his mind (thanks to some positive peer pressure) and just did it. He is still a rookie, as you can tell by the wobbling, but he does pretty darn good for only riding for about 10 minutes on his own. He said he is ready to practice more tomorrow, even though he was worried for a minute about being able to remember how to do it. He had some awesome cheerleaders!!!

Mothers and cute boys

All last week my boys kept asking me if I saw what was in their backpacks or under their beds. I said no every time. A couple of days ago I walked in to check on Zenock and he quickly threw a paper under his bed, then said, "Did you see what that was?" Um, no I didn't. Then he asked me several times a day when Mother's day was. First thing this morning when I got up, I was surrounded by two boys with arms full of things for me. Zenock made a MOM sign at preschool with each letter decorated differently. Ammon gave me a crown that said Queen Mom, a paper with some of his adorable first grade drawings and a few sentences on what he loved about me, and a paper puppet with some coupons stapled to it that I can redeem whenever I want. At Church today the kids made a magnet with their picture and what they loved about their mothers. My favorite was, "I love it when you take me to Walmart."

Gideon survived all three hours of Church quite well today. Last week was his first trial run in nursery, and he hardly noticed I was there in the room with him. This week he did excellent as well, until the last 5 minutes of singing time. I took him into Relief Society with me, and he was pretty content to play with another little girl who is just a month younger. But had the drive home from church been two minutes longer I am sure he would have fallen asleep in the car.  That boy was soooooo tired when we got home. For the last couple of weeks he has been in transition mode for going from 2 naps to one nap a day. It's still a work in progress. I hope we have it figured out by the time the baby comes on the 22nd.

Lastly, Mom, this video is for you. Thanks for being a wonderful Mom to me! Dad, thanks for being such a good example of how to love a Mother. I hope I can teach my kids by example as well as you both have taught me. I love you!!!

Mom is great, she gave us chocolate cake!

Last night I had a chocolate craving, so I whipped up some of these muffins. This morning I let the boys have some for breakfast with milk. I thought of this skit the whole time they were eating this morning. Ammon thought it was really cool that I let him have chocolate muffins for breakfast. I figured Bill Cosby's reasoning was good enough for me to let him. They have wheat, eggs, sour cream....healthy right?

"Miracle" Bread

I found this supposedly amazing bread recipe on Pintrest a while back. Today I finally had all the stuff to make it (thanks to Winco's bulk food section). I would not call this miracle bread by any means, but that's what it's called in the recipe. Mine didn't rise (those of you who know about my history with this will not be suprised) nearly as much as it should have, so it is super dense. The texture is weird because of all the different grains in it: crunchy, chewy, and almost bird seed-like. Perhaps if I would have followed the recipe to the letter it would have turned out better, but I have my doubts. I completely omitted the oil because the dough was definitely wet enough without it. I also put in another cup of whole wheat flour instead of one cup of white flour. I guess the next time I'll make this bread the "right" way and see how it turns out.