Sewing Class

I'm not sure how it happened, but I found myself caught in a promise to teach the kids to sew this week. A friend from church put some extra fabric in a bag she gave me on Sunday. The kids happened to be sitting at the table when I pulled it out. Somehow the words, "I could teach you guys how to sew with this" just popped out of my mouth. Oops. The problem is that I really don't know how to sew myself :) I can sew straight lines with a machine but not much else. The kids were so excited about sewing I didn't have the heart to back out. I did, however, manage to delay it until Friday and get a return promise that they would work really hard on home school this week and finish their work by Thursday.
Somehow I kept my promise and they are about halfway done with their little pillows. Our stitches are definitely not pretty, and I'm not sure I'm teaching them correctly, but we're having fun! I think I can safely say we will never be sewing our own dresses (I realize this does make us "B" team homeschoolers), but I'm okay with that.

Grace is sewing her pillow slowly and carefully. She cried a few times when she messed up. I keep telling her it's okay, she can't ruin it.

Even Elsie got in on the action with a little heart pillow. I might have to go back over her stitches and do some reinforcement stitches, but she did wonderful for 4 years old!

Weston was most excited about the sewing. Not excited about the photo though.

Happy 4th Birthday Elsie!

Elsie's special request for her 4th birthday cake was rainbows and Hello Kitty. My mom came up with this cake made from a rainbow of M&M's and two cute kitties. We all thought it turned out so cute!
I've been remembering back to when Elsie was born and the craziness surrounding our home purchase, remodeling, c-section, new infant, and moving all within 1 month! It was a very difficult time, but also so joyful! We have now been at our duplex with the Rasmussens for 4 years and we are still enjoying our home and our friends. Elsie has grown into such a sweet and fun little girl. She is quick to laugh and joke and also quick to pull out the pouts. Elsie has a special fondness for sweets (more than the other kids) and loves to color and cut paper. She can sit for hours at the dining table doing crafts with the bigger kids. She is pretty shy away from home and is not known for being friendly toward strangers, but she really knows how to cut loose at home. As a 4 year-old she still follows what Weston and Grace are doing most of the day. We pray she will learn to be a leader as she learns more about whom God has created her to be. Elsie's speech is continuing to improve and she enjoys going to a preschool speech class on Wednesdays. This girl loves to be in the kitchen helping! We are so thankful for our little "Elfie" Noelle! It's so fun to picture what she might be like in 10 or 15 years!

This is at our special Red Robin birthday date on Friday night. We like to take each of the kids out to dinner alone around their birthdays. With 3 other siblings they rarely get to spend time with Mike and I alone, so we enjoy this tradition. It worked out great that Elsie wanted Red Robin since she got a free kids' meal for her birthday and Mike got a free burger for his birthday (the 18th). They both also got free ice cream sundaes, balloons and the birthday song :)

3 years old

2 1/2 years old

2 years old

21 months old

9 months old

2 or 3 months old

2 days old

1 day old

Christmas Puppy!

I forgot to post a few photos of our new labradoodle puppy, Joy. I'm sure most probably saw these on Facebook, but I'll post here also.
This was the day we picked Joy up 5 days before Thanksgiving. She has already over doubled her weight since then. She is expected to be about 25 pounds fully grown.

This photo cracks me up with her tongue sticking out.

First day home with Joy.

There were many outtakes before we got this photo with everyone looking ahead.

Christmas puppy!

For some reason this photo always flips sideways when I try to post. These are the stockings I made with my mom and my friend, Judie. I was really happy with how they turned out and I have a new appreciation for anyone who sews. Hours and hours of work went into these. I don't think I will be tackling any sewing projects for a long, long time!

Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Here are a few new photos from December.
We had a blast decorating sugar cookies with our friend, Naomi. Well... most of us decorated anyway. Some of us, like a certain unnamed 2 year-old, only consumed the cookies or enjoyed pounding them until they were just bits of crumbs.

Cookie decorating station.

The Dahls hard at work.

I could not resist a photo of these two. Elsie went upstairs and came down totally decked out in ballerina stuff. She even added the pink bow herself. Noah spends most of his day in these cowboy boots that are about 2 sizes too big for him. He even wears them to nap and bed. I did have to make a rule that he wear socks with them. They were starting to stink!

This is a sword Weston bought for Noah for Christmas. I was proud of Weston for using his own money to buy gifts for his family.

Noah was certainly into opening gifts this year. He got in trouble more than once for sneaking and opening other people's gifts in Spokane.

Here is Elsie with her princess shoes and wig. We bought the girls princess outfits for Christmas, complete with shoes and long, braided wigs. The only problem with the wigs is Joy thinks they are some sort of animal. If the girls wear their wigs around her she jumps up and attacks their heads.

I posed Elsie for some photos in Spokane. She's just being silly here :)

This girl wins the prize for fake, cheesy smiles.

Pretty photo of our soon-to-be 6 year-old.

Sisters in plaid.

Cousins in plaid. Baby Vera is 5 months old now! She is such a happy engaging baby. We are all wild about her!

Kyle and Haley bought Noah this cowboy outfit for Christmas. He loves it!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Recent Happenings

The other day I asked Weston and Grace to finish pulling and wash the carrots from our garden. I couldn't figure out what was taking them so long. There were more carrots than I realized, but they were also being very detailed with their washing and drying. Notice the drying system they came up with.

Unfortunately, the carrots were getting dirty again from the dirt on top of the wood. Oops.

Today Mike helped me finish up some homeschooling I didn't quite finish this week. We are studying the history of the United States and are at the Revolutionary War. The kids made their own tricorn hats and goatees. I don't think the Yankees wore goatees, but the kids looked cute anyway! They even practiced their marching to "Yankee Doodle Dandy".

Watch out Redcoats!

Noah came in from playing to say "hi" to me the other day. I'm not even sure what to say to this one. I think you can tell he's got an older brother AND older sisters :)

Dahl Family Photo Shoot

We did it! We finally scheduled a professional photo shoot with my friend, Annie Schilperoort (click on her name to check out her website). I need to mention that my brother is also a wonderful photographer but is currently serving our country by flying Chinook helicopters in Afghanistan (thank you, Kyle).
Annie met with us for the shoot at the George Fox University campus where Mike and I met and fell in love :) It was meaningful to us to have our photos taken in a place that holds so many wonderful memories. Who would have guessed 12 years later we'd be sitting on campus for a photo shoot with our 4 children! The day was beautiful but very cold (especially for early September). Annie was wonderful with the kids and knew just what to say to get them laughing. It was a miracle in itself to get some photos with all 4 kids looking in the same direction, let alone smiling or laughing!

The Dahl girls! Mike loves this one :)

I love their bare feet on the stump in this one.

Noah looks especially cute here.

Handsome 7 year-old! Getting a real smile out of this boy is very hard to do.

Fun candid shot.

We were having a good time!

Sweet sister shot. Elsie was also a tough nut to crack for a real smile, but Annie got a few :)

This nut is not hard to crack. He rotated between laughing and temper tantrums the entire time.

10 years of marriage and we don't look a day older (we don't do we? oh wait, we kinda do...)

We almost didn't try for this part of the photo shoot since the kids were starting to fuss about the cold. I'm sooooo glad we did! I LOVE this picture!

I'll post some of the black and white photos later. Thanks again, Annie! I know we'll treasure these photos for many years to come!