Celebrating Lydia's Birthday

On March 8th, we celebrated Lydia's 7th birthday!  Unbelievable how quickly time flies. Lydia is growing up into such a fun girl and she is absolutely AWESOME playing with Amaya.

Once again, it was another American Girl theme as they had released the Girl of the Year - Lanie, in January. We gave her the second book in the Lanie series because.....

Lydia got LANIE from Grandma and Grandpa Gustafson!! She's super cute too! I can't wait until Amaya is old enough to start collecting all the American Girl things. Unfortunately, I may need more restraint than Amaya....

While Lydia was opening up presents, Amaya and Miles tried sharing... sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. Here they are beginning to put a  puzzle together - happily... for now...

Look at all that loot!

Arwen made her Grandma's recipe for apple crisp - absolutely yummy!

The Gustafson family.... Annika, Lydia, Miles, Ben, Arwen, and Mike. Happy Birthday Lydia!

Dyeing Easter Eggs

Ahh... we still have the lingering smell of vinegar in our household after dyeing Easter Eggs yesterday. Brings back a lot of fun childhood memories...

Amaya was very excited to dye Easter Eggs, although she didn't understand the word, "dye" so I explained to her that we would be "painting" the Easter Eggs. That she completely understood and was THRILLED to get out the "paint."

Amaya added the vinegar and put in the dye tablets.

I told Amaya to GENTLY put the egg in the colored water... she pretty much launched them in the cups on the first try, but that's what the newspaper is for, right? This picture shows her gently placing the egg in the dye... much better!

Amaya thought it was taking a looong time for the eggs to get "painted" and was anxious to decorate them with stickers.

You can never have too many stickers!

A picture of Amaya waiting patiently for the second batch of eggs to dry.

Amaya posing proudly with her decorated eggs.

The finished result! Pretty, huh? Not too bad for her first time dyeing eggs!

Another Julia Child?

I think we may have another Julia Child or Martha Stewart on our hands. Any time I'm cooking or baking in the kitchen, Amaya wants to climb up on the countertop and "help." On Monday, we had my parents come over for dinner - just because - no special reason, but Amaya thought it was someone's birthday since we were making a cake and had candles on the table.

The dessert we made is called, "Strawberry Yogurt Cake." Very easy, very kid friendly, and very good! If anyone wants the recipe, just shoot us an e-mail and I'd be more than happy to pass it on.

Amaya is helping me put the strawberries on.

Amaya frosting the cake. Yes, I let her frost most of it with the exception of the sides of the cake. I've given up my desire for perfection and have allowed Amaya full reign of her creativity.


The finished product!! Beautiful, don't you think?!? Amaya decorated the top with strawberries too - with just a little help from me rearranging them...

Now that her gymnastics class is over, maybe I need to sign her up for a cooking class.....

Amaya's First Hair Cut

Back in Steve's "long hair days," he had these BEAUTIFUL long curls. Simply beautiful - but completely wasted on a guy. We hope that Amaya will take after Steve and have beautiful long curls, but as of last week, her hair was just a long bunch of wispy snarls. We were both a little hesitant to get her hair cut because we didn't want to lose the curls that she did have, but it was getting too hard to manage and it needed to be done.


We took Amaya to Pam at Hair's What We Do, to clean up her mess of waves, curls, and snarls. (Pam has been doing my mom's hair since forever, cuts Arwen, Annika, and Lydia's hair and did my hair for our wedding - she's amazing!) Amaya was "SO EXCITED" to get her haircut, although she really had no clue what was going to happen.


Pam couldn't remember the last time she had done a "First Haircut" and had to dig through her "bibs" to find one for Amaya. Even though it wasn't a girlie "bib" Amaya still liked the cars!


Amaya was pretty stoic throughout the whole thing. She was a little surprised when Pam would squirt her hair with water, but overall did great. We weren't sure if she was enjoying herself at all, but a week later, she talks about how much fun it was to get her hair cut, so I guess she liked it!

All done and as cute as ever! I think she looks older, don't you?

A shot of the back - there's still a few little curls, right?!?

Hide and Seek

Lately, Hide and Seek has been Amaya's FAVORITE thing to do!! Her best hiding spots are underneath her crib and behind one of our chairs in the living room.

She's even learned how to close her eyes and count. She can count to 11, but sometimes when she's in a hurry, she'll count... "1 - 2 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10!"

"Here I am! You found me!"

Amaya Visits Me at Work

While I'm working on a teaching guideline for nurses at work, I hear, "See Mama! See Mama! Where's Mama?" Soon I hear the little pitter pats of her feet galloping down the hallway in her pink jelly/croc shoes. It's my little girl coming to visit me at work!

I love when Steve and Amaya come and visit me. It breaks up the day and makes me look forward to come home even more! And of course, I LOVE showing her off! One of my friends made Toffee Brownies and Cupcakes with white frosting and green sprinkles and brought them to work, so she gave Amaya a cupcake and a DORA sticker!! (By the way... how did I miss that it was St. Patrick's Day today?) Amaya's eyes got REALLY big when she saw the cupcake! I wonder how much she'll eat at lunch today knowing that she's got a cupcake to eat for dessert!

Anyway, back to the grind...

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY HOPE!

My littlest cousin, Hope turns ONE today!!! Happy Birthday Hope! I'm SOOO EXCITED for your birthday, but I wish I could see you open presents and eat cake! Have an awesome day! I love you and miss you so much!!!!

Valentine's Day!

Amaya was VERY excited to make Valentines for her great-grandparents, grandparents, and of course, Daddy! Here a a few pictures of her working on her masterpieces! I even got a little creative too!


This year, for Valentine's Day, we gave Amaya a shopping cart. She loves going grocery shopping and since she got a kitchen for her birthday, we thought this would be the perfect gift.

Do you think she likes it?

Celebrating Great-Grandma's Birthday

Yup... I'm a month behind... but better late than never, right?

On February 11th, Amaya's Great-Grandma turned 91!! She's quite an amazing woman. Still drives, still grocery shops, still lives at home, still goes to church, still goes to quilting, still goes to Bible Study, still makes dinner for us weekly - the list goes on and on.

Here's a picture of her cake - "Happy 91st Birthday Wife, Mom, Grandma, and Great Grandma"

Singing "Happy Birthday" to Great-Grandma!

It's been fun watching Amaya develop a special relationship with Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa. She's very fortunate to be so close to not only her grandparents, but great-grandparents too.

Happy Birthday Great-Grandma! Looking forward to celebrate a lot more with you!

My 2000 Piece Puzzle

Most of my free time the last part of January and most of February was spent completing this puzzle... all 2000 pieces of it. Unfortunately, as I was nearing the end, I realized that one piece was missing. All that work and one piece missing... Grr.... Steve's parents thought I was up for the challenge and gave this to me for Christmas and I honestly didn't think that I'd be able to finish it. A little perseverance, a few tears, and some help from Ruth Ann - it's DONE! It's beautiful isn't it?!?