Car is Fixed!

The old Honda is Werty's car since we bought the van last year. Old Honda's are great for tinkering, and Werty wants to learn more about fixing cars. So, he decided to tackle the wheel bearing repair himself. The wheel has made some noise since we bought the car from Soyjoy a few years back. It has been getting more warped and noisy over time. He originally thought he could finish it over Thanksgiving weekend. But, car repair is something new, and it always takes longer than you think it will when you are learning how to do something for the first time. The Honda has been up on blocks for 3-4 weeks, and he has been using my van to get to work. Good thing I had most of the Christmas shopping done, since I was without a car. (Everything is getting to the post office later than I wanted because of this...Jack-Jack's present still isn't mailed. :(  )

But on Saturday he finished it at last. He replaced the wheel bearing, the hub, the lower ball joint...um, if I forgot something else, he can let me know later...and now I have some idea of what those things actually are. He got to buy at least 3 new tools in the process, which always makes my honey happy. He did have to take a part down to a shop that was stuck to have them press it out, so that took up some of the money he was "saving" by doing it himself, but there is value in what he learned from this experience, right? With one week left before Christmas, I have a car again. So far, I have been to C0stc0 and T@rget...and mostly made up for those weeks I had no car to go shopping. Hee hee.

December Catch-Up

 Last month I promised pictures, so here they are. We were sick the last month at our house, but we are finally on the mend. Here's a review of the last month with photos:

 BooBear and Little Miss are playing together more now. He also introduced his little sister to Pikachu, while Werty introduced BooBear to the Pokemon DVDs this month.

We had our first big snow storm.

 Little Miss has improved her ability to reach for and grab what she wants.

 BooBear's favorite cousin came to play. BooBear will greatly miss him when they move in a month.

 Little Miss likes bananas, pears, and prunes. She likes sweet potatoes, applesauce and carrots most of the time. She may have had an allergic reaction to peaches, however.

We finally set up the crib for Little Miss because she is off the acid-reflux meds. Yay! Here is BooBear helping to "try it out for her."

 Unfortunately, we are still getting her used to the crib, because she got sick and was so congested that I left her in the raised rock-n sleeper to help her breathe easily. Some of the congestion was due to teething. She now has her two front teeth. She is constantly drooling, so I'm sure we will see another one soon.

 Here's the story to go along with the new few pictures. I came downstairs and noticed the empty plastic box (upper right corner of the photo). Hmm, that used to be full of pushpins. Where are they now? What did BooBear do?

 A few hours later, we find this truck with a few pushpins. confirming that BooBear was the culprit. But where are rest? Will we find them by sitting on them somewhere? More importantly, we don't want Little Miss to find them.

 The pushpins were taking a ride in the school bus. The bus was full of clear pushpins. Here's an up close view:

 It took some work getting them out because the bus was so full, but we eventually got the pushpins back into their box.

 Here is the apple pie I made for Thanksgiving. I tried a new method of crimping the edge from pinterest, and I really like it. Here are other projects I have been doing to get ready for Christmas. This is a picture from when I finished the top of my quilted tree skirt. I got to use geometry formulas to figure out the dimensions. I have heard so many students say, "I'll never use Math in real life," so I am always pleased when I prove that statement wrong.

New stockings for my kids. I used the material I had left over from Halloween and finishing the bottom side of the tree skirt.  



 We hung up our tree for FHE the Monday after Thanksgiving. BooBear wouldn't leave the ornaments alone for the first two weeks. He broke about 4-5 of them.

Werty and BooBear "fixing" his lawn mower. One of his favorite games is pretending things are broken and then he fixes them. He does this a lot on our walks. "Wait, mommy, my bike is broken. I have to stop and fix it." This is only a bad thing when it's REALLY cold outside, and I am anxious to get back home where it is WARM.

Werty's high school friend and "adopted" brother was married last Saturday at the Timpanogos temple.

Here is Little Miss dressed up for the reception in her Christmas dress. I was going to sew her a dress, but I couldn't find a pattern that I loved, and then I saw this at T@rget, and had to buy it.

In this one you can kind of see my new haircut, it's short again.

Isn't this one sweet?

 Tummy time: not crawling quite yet. But she did roll over a week and a half ago. She really prefers to sit, instead of being on the ground, so she doesn't get much practice, and that's my fault.

  These last two were taken yesterday, so now I am all caught up!