Sewing lessons

While Justin's mom has been in town we have been having sewing lessons. I had really been wanting to make an apron so she helped me figure out how to do it. I had wanted to make one of the super cute retro dress style ones but I decided those were a little too advanced for me right now. Maybe that will come down the road. Anyway, I thought these still turned out pretty cute! And now I am working on Macy's Halloween costume. Thanks Brenda for the help!

Miss Macy's Manners

Dad: *Big Burp*
Macy: What's Daddy say?
Dad: Excuse me.
Macy: Good Girl, Daddy.

And some of Macy's expressions from today:
"That smells so good!"
"I'm nice and warm!"
"Oh fudge!" (she dropped something)
"Oh cool!"
"Oh Gosh..."
"Hurry! I have to go potty!"
"I want more Hun!" (Speaking to me)
"Honey, I want more milk please." (speaking to me again)

I am in so much trouble...

We had been trying to get Kylie to walk but we could only get her to do two to three steps at a time until today. After church she really took off. She was so proud of herself and was also adorable to watch.

She also said her first word recently. She now says "dog" and also "Dad." I know she is actually saying them because she signs them as she says them. We have had so much fun with her lately.

Now, if only we could get her to pop out some teeth...

Merry Christmas to me!

Last week I was making homemade rolls and my stand mixer broke. I was pretty sad about this because baking isn't nearly as fun when you have to stand there stirring whatever treat you happen to be making that day. Justing admitted that he had been thinking about getting me a Kitchenaid mixer for me for Christmas anyway so maybe we would just get it a little early. I had no problem with that at all. :) So yesterday, Brenda and I went to do a little grocery shopping. We noticed that they had the mixer I wanted on sale from $329 to $269. There was also a $40 mail in rebate. Sounded pretty good, but then we noticed that the add at Fred Meyer flier had a $30 off coupon a purchase over a certain amount plus a %10 off housewares coupon that could be combined with it. Still an amazing deal, but then we also discovered that a few times a year they have senior discount day where you can get another %10 off hour purchase and yesterday happened to be one of those days. Sounded good to me! We went home and ran the plan by Justin and then borrowed Rod since he is more advanced in years than the rest of us so he could get the discount. After all was said and done, I got out of there with my beautiful mixer for about $150.
Thanks Justin! I love it and I am so excited to get to use it soon!

Driving Denali

A couple of months ago Justin entered the road lottery so we could drive through Denali National Park. Typically, only tour buses are allowed in there and then usually only up to a certain point. However, once a year for four days they have a lottery and open up the road to a certain number of cars so they can drive through the Park. Lucky us, we won on our first year trying so after we dropped my parents off at the airport Sunday morning and picked Justin's parents up Sunday afternoon, we drove four hours north to a hotel outside of the park. We stayed there overnight and then got up Monday morning to enter the park. We saw moose, bears, lynx, caribou, eagles, rabbits, dall sheep and Justin even fulfilled one of his life's dreams to see a wolf in the wild. He was able to watch, through binoculars, as a pack of wolves stalked a group of sheep. He was pretty giddy with excitement after that.
The girls behaved really well considering they were in their car seats with only little breaks from nine in the morning until we returned home at 1:00 am. The picture above is of Mt. McKinley/ Denali- the largest mountain in North America. While this little picture doesn't do it justice, trust me when I say that it was an amazing view. We were also so fortunate to be there on a beautiful and clear day because it has been raining for the last month.
We didn't get many pictures of the animals because they were usually a little ways away and our camera wouldn't be able to catch them well enough but on our way out of the park Justin got out of the car to watch a moose that was in the field next to us. Before we knew it, it walked across the road, right in front of him. I was a little concerned because it is Moose mating season and after being in the car all day, I worried he might smell like a threatening male- or worse, an attractive female. Fortunately he made it back to the car without any problems :)
This was definately a great experience that I realize many people dream to be able to have in their life. The drive was incredibly beautiful and the wildlife was breathtaking. We were also so lucky to be able to have Justin's parents there with us!

Glacier Cruise

My parents came to visit us last week and even though they weren't here very long and they came during the rainy time of year, we still had a lot of fun.
Friday we went on a Glacier Cruise out of Whittier. We saw sea otters, bald eagles and amazing glaciers with huge chunks of ice that fell into the ocean.
Macy enjoyed using the binoculars to check out the glaciers.
And driving the boat.

It was a five hour cruise which made for a very long day. Around hour 4 she gave up fighting exhaustion and she passed out in my mom's arms. Fortunately we were seated in the back corner so we had a good space to lay her down in. She didn't move for the rest of the trip.Thanks Mom and Dad!

So maybe we are pioneers

Several months after we moved to the Great White North, a good friend of mine informed me that her and my other great friend say that I am a pioneer for living here. I laughed and thought it was funny until yesterday. The memory of this comment popped into my head as I stood over the sink rinsing the raspberries I had just picked from my neighbor's yard. I washed, dried, froze and then packed the frozen berries into bags for our "winter supply." Macy asked where Daddy was, to which I replied "He is cutting firewood so we can have fires this winter."

Maybe we are a bit pioneerish now :)

The other day we drove up to Hatcher's Pass to have a picnic and look for blueberries. It was yet another beautiful place with great views and we did find some blueberries but they hadn't gotten ripe enough that Justin and I wanted to spend the energy picking them. The girls, however, loved playing on the spongy crowberry bushes. The would roll around and eat all the dark berries they could find. It was pretty fun...

What we will not be spending $13,000 on...

Thanks to our wonderful governor, (you may have heard of her by now) most Alaskans will be getting an extra $1200 "energy rebate" credit along with their permanent fund dividend checks this fall. Yes, the PFD is the money "they pay you for living in Alaska" but since we moved in after January of last year, we or not eligible for any of this sweet moula. Those eligible will receive $3269 each. Yes, so our little family of four would get $13,000. $13,069.00 to be exact. I love the whole energy rebate idea but when they decided to give it only to people eligible for PFD's, I became very disappointed with our legislature. What about us??? We have lived here over a year. We have been paying the same amount on energy costs as everyone else. Are we nto also deserving?
Apparently not.
So in honor of how, for the next two months, I will hear nothing but commercials for "PFD sales" and how to "Use your PFD to buy this or that" I will make a list of what we won't be spending our $13,069 on:
1) Paying off student loans we took out so Justin could get flight hours. Well worth the money but we would really like to get those paid off.
2) A cheap four wheeler. Not really on my list but lately Justin has become convinced that every Alaskan (that's us now) needs one of these in order to fully enjoy what Alaska has to offer. I just smile and nod "Yes Dear, of course we need a four wheeler, if only we had the money..." -knowing full well we don't and won't.
3) Save several thousand to pay some highly trained medical people to impregnate me with our frozen little frosties. Shouldn't getting pregnant be much more fun? Oh, and the plane tickets to get to Boise, where are embies are currently residing. Anyway, that will have to wait...
4) There was this really great outfit at Bebe the other day, And Banana Republic...
5) Just a fraction of this money could cover a really nice vacay for a husband and wife who haven't been alone together for more than 3 hours at a time for over two years. I guess my mom did watch Macy for us one night for our anniversary but I was practically a whale with Kylie by that point and a woman only feels so romantic when there is a little person bulging out of her stomach.

I know many of you may be thinking "Cry me a river, I don't get paid to live in the lower 48." True, I know, but you also don't have to hear about all of the people receiving large sums of cash and their plans with what to do with it. I am not joking when I tell you that all we will see on TV or hear on the radio will be retailers trying to get your PFD thus constantly reminding us of what everyone else has but us.
Okay, enough whining.

Seriously...

All I can say is wow. We went blueberry picking Monday and it wasn't quite as fun as I had hoped it would be. It was cold and windy and the kids were very tired so we didn't last too long. But we did walk away with some blueberries! Macy and Kylie both fell asleep on our hike back to the car, it was pretty precious:

And then this morning Macy and I made blueberry muffins with about the best recipe I have ever tried. Here are the fruits of our labors:

This was a really great and easy recipe. I know you are all jealous of my incredible baking skills, you might as well admit it. :)