Turkey Hostess

I love to party. I really enjoy having people over to my my home to do it. I also enjoy a challenge. I love to learn new things. These aspects of my life collided and the opportunity presented itself for me to invite the Bouchers over to our home for Thanksgiving Dinner, I welcomed the challenge.

I invisioned a nice, wonderful afternoon -- to create the perfect meal, I needed to get the menu right, as well as the atmosphere. I went to several home decorating stores for the table settings, made 16 sets of dinner ware (it has to match!) and made little gift placements for each guest. Once all 16 of us were there it was time to eat!

We enjoyed a spectacular day of food, fun, friends, and family! (Cheesy!) It was exhausting ... but I'd do it again in a heart beat! Just let me know when it's my turn to host again! I really enjoyed it.

Big Boy Chair

My baby is a very mobile eater. By this I mean -- he will eat where ever I put him! He eats in the car (on very RARE occasions!), he eats on the floor, on the bed, on the table, in the Bumbo ... with Thanksgiving just around the corner, we decided to advance him to a "big boy chair". There will be 16 Boucher in our quaint little home -- no room for Jace to eat on the table!

A few teachers at my school went in together to get me the high chair that I had on my registry. At the time, we wanted a chair that would connect to a piece of the dinette set, and that is what they got. (We then realized that we would need a dinette set! So we got one of those.) The chairs we purchased had padding on them -- and I didn't want this portable high chair to permanently indent the padding ... so we exchanged the gift for this bad boy!

Jace has learned quickly that when he gets put in that chair ... his belly will soon be satisfied! Smart boy.

I'm gunna be a ....

When Jace was born, my siblings and I kept predicting what Jace would be when "he grows up". "He's gunna be a basketball player, look at those hands!" "No, he'll be a pianist!" "Look at his parents, that kid's gunna be a genious!" (I said that one!)

We discovered that you don't need an expensive fisher price piano when you have your own at home! He loves it.

He will sit there for quite a bit of time just jammin' out.

He immediately turns looking for approval. Once the "atta boy Jace"-s are exclaimed, he keeps on playin.

Whatever that kid's "gunna be" ... I will always be his proud mama.

Eight Months and Counting

This is my start of a string of posts that are FAR over due! I'll try to remember everything that has happened so far :)

I love my baby. Time just has flown! This last year has been full of such great blessings. My family is the sunshine in my life -- the reason that I love to live. I never knew how much being a mom would change me.

Eight Months

Jace just started giving kisses the other day. He LOVES to give kisses. He'll kiss your cheek, mouth, shoulder, leg ... He'll kiss the dogs, neighbors, and friends. There is nothing that i love more than a big slobbery kiss. Jace has now become mobile. He loves to crawl around the room and (for now) does a fairly good job staying out of what he is not supposed to get into. He has experimented with gravity several times, learning quickly (I hope) that he will never win. He is such a good, well mannered baby.

Yummy Biscuits

Just playin' (and showin off the dimples)

I love my toys!

Eight Months!

Cookie Monster

Jace is now starting to explore the joy of new solid foods. He has eaten the blended up foods very well for the last 3 months. He recently has started enjoying the teething biscuits, (he now has two teeth!) His first biscuit I gave him without even thinking about it. We sat on the couch together, Jace enjoying the biscuit, me enjoying Jace. Then the slobber started. Jace doesn't do extremely well at keeping the "eat by yourself" solids in his mouth. It was EVERYWHERE ... and I didn't even try to keep him clean! He ate and ate and ate that biscuit until there was nothing left of it! (Copper enjoyed the pieces that were "choking hazards" for Jace.)

He then immediately went and took a bath. The next time he ate a graham cracker biscuit ... he ate it naked -- sitting in a chair!

BirthWeek Day #1

In our family (the Joe and Jen Boucher family) it is not enough to celebrate the birthday. We need to celebrate the birthweek. I think that this tradition started because once November rolls around ... I am FAR to excited to wait until the 9th to see what surprises are coming my way. Today (11/3) starts my birthweek. (Joe wants me to point out that normally it is the Jen half of the "Joe and Jen Boucher family that usually gets this treatment. I'll work harder on carrying on the tradition for him ... )

Joe kicked if to last night with a bang! He told me that he needed to go somewhere last night. As I was paying the bills (fun) Joe came home and brought me out to the garage. There stood two BEAUTIFUL LARGE book shelves PERFECT for holding all of my stamping supplies!! I was SO excited!! I needed to prepare for club -- and that was a more time sensitive activity than rearranging my "office" aka "stamp room." BUT my room was slightly cluttered anyway and if I were to organize it -- I'd just have to redo it once my shelves were in place. SO we decided to bring the bookcases downstairs.

After no success trying to bring it down the stairs we resorted to going through the window. Finally it was in the basement! Joe and I quickly transferred things from one shelf to the other, did a bit of rearranging and this is what we got! It is the double shelf on the left. The shelf on the right I already had. There is a second shelf that I need to figure out what to do with still. Our room is pretty small downstairs.

Thanks JOEY for the best PRE-Birthweek gift EVER! The best news is -- he got it for FREE! I love it :)

Trick or Treat

I always grew up with home-made costumes -- so that what I want to provide for my kids. They don't cost less -- and they certainly don't take any less time to make/find ... but they are SO SO SO much cuter than you can buy them for at the store. This year I decided to make Jace a monkey. I sew quilts ... and costumes have curves and fabrics that I am unfamiliar with. Nevertheless, Joe and I picked out the material and got to work. Because my last few weeks have been quite ... miserable ... I didn't get the costume finished until Friday night ... RIGHT in time! We ran to Sears on Saturday afternoon to get his pictures taken.
We chose Pose #4 here -- although as you can see it was a tough pick. I really like the "mischievous monkey" and the "hanging monkey" at the bottom. Afterwards we went to Grandma and Granpa Stohel's house for dinner and "show off" time. We "trick or treated" at the neighbors house -- really we just said hello. We didn't need any candy :) BUT SOMEONE had to see the cute monkey costume I made :)