Last Craft Day

We headed over to the Moon home for my last chance to soak up all of Elizabeths creativity before leaving. The boys had sooo much fun playing. It was great to see them actually playing WITH each other, not just parallel play. Elizabeth and I talked and talked and talked... and then I sewed and she hot glued... and then we had to take some pictures. Elizabeth made Abby this adorable dress, so when we showed up and Gwyn was wearing hers we had to take some pictures. Of course we couldn't just plop them down and take pics though. We had to showcase Elizabeths table top decor for her Enrichment tomorrow night and her awesome green wall. Abby still can't really sit up so unfortunately my hand is in most of them.

When I tried to let go she would flail. So I tried hiding behind for a few :)

Aren't these girls so stinkin cute! I love these dresses. Elizabeth and I have made both our girls tons of them and talked about how we just never get sick of them.

The girls loved looking at the little sticks and dots.

Sam liked picking out the colored dots and hanging them to Elizabeth to glue on the trees. Aren't they a cute table top decoration! When it was time to leave I literally started feeling ill. This was the first real hit home that we were leaving (You would think that all of our stuff being gone would have been but no). I had to keep telling myself to breathe and not to freak out Luckily we will see them again Wednesday night, otherwise I think I would have COMPLETELY lost it. It means a lot to have someone who you can relate to on so many levels. I am so going to miss it. Having someone to bounce my crazy ideas off of an laugh about craziness during law school. Thank heavens the moons have been in DC. And ya'll better be here when we get back!

Only three days!

We will only be in the states for three more days!! And today is already 1/4 over-- WOAH! This weekend was VERY crazy. Friday the movers came and from 9 am until 4:30 pm packed us up with Abby and I supervising. Chris was good enough to take the boys for the whole day. They rode the metro, played at Monkey Business and had nice long naps in the car. When they got home they were a little weirded out by the fact that ALL their toys were gone but we had prepared them for it saying we were shipping them to the beach house. Now they just want to go to the beach house themselves! We had a blast of a last Friday night though thanks to our wonderful babysitter Rebecca, I really want to pack her into a suitcase and bring her with us. We headed to Chimas, a Brazilian steak house for dinner. It was AMAZING. After gorging ourselves on meat and bread we headed to see the Blind side with our good friends the Nielsen's. We keep talking to them about joining the Foreign Service and I think we are winning them over ;) The movie was wonderfully uplifting and exactly what I was looking for in a movie. After, we had digested enough to enjoy yummy cold stone. Ice cream is very expensive and not readily available in East Timor so we have to take advantage of it while we can! Saturday was a running last minute errands day. Lets just say I spent 2 and a half blissfull hours at Target until they kicked me out at 11pm. I totally forgot my phone though and felt awful when I got home and Chris was looking up phone numbers trying to make sure I was okay.... whoops. At least now we are stocked for the INSANE plane ride! Sunday morning was awesome. It was my turn to repay Elizabeth for our fabulous family pictures. I had so much fun taking them! We were worried at first because it was raining pretty hard. Luckily I thought of a place by our house that has a cool bike/ running trail that goes through a tunnel I thought would make a urban chic background.
I know I am bias because I took them and Elizabeth is one of my closest friends, but HELLO how cute are they!

Elizabeth did such a good job of putting together such awesome outfits. She and Bandon looked like they should be in a clothing add:

Gwyneth was so adorable! I felt awful making her be out in the cold since she had been so sick earlier in the weekend... its all for the pictures though right?

Poor Atticus was so cold. Elizabeth was so prepared with hand warmers and everything, it was just so cold. What a trooper

Elizabeth and Brandon pretended to beat each other up to coax out these cute smiles, you gotta do what you gotta do!

I hope you like them as much as I do Elizabeth! What do you think same deal in two years?

Lots of fun dinners!

I am way behind in my goings on at the Crawford house posts. Unfortunately this morning is our pack out so I am freaking out and pretty stressed. They take my computer soon so I thought I would put up these few pictures from dinners out. Chris and I have been horrible about eating at home since we kept wanting to fit in "one last time" at all our fav restaurants. Luckily we have great friends who are willing to join us. We went to the famed Sweet Water with our great friends Khanyi and Jake. They are headed to Mozambique this summer and we have loved getting to know them. Every Sunday Khanyi looks like she walked straight out of a magazine, I LOVE checking out her accessories. Khanyi and I have such similar personalities and Jake and Chris are such wonderfully kind mellow guys. We had so much fun trying to down the HUGE portion sizes they gave us.

We met up with Jean and her family. Jean and Chris have been going through this whole state department process since they met in the study groups for the entrance exam. She has been such a wonderful resource and so generous. Not only did she give me all her cloth diapers but all their Scuba gear for the next two years! (She won't need it in Nepal, I told her I wish I had a sherpa to lend her).

They suggested meeting up at a pizza place called Lost Dog Cafe. It was so yummy! And the kids had a blast!

I was able to have a wonderful goodbye dinner with my girlie friends from Williamsburg. I am so going to miss these lovely ladies

And of course there have been countless "picnics" and mid afternoon snacks with these crazies...

Do you like Abby's electric yellow tights haaa!
Well goodbye imac, I will miss you!

This is what happens when your wife is a photographer

You are forced to take family pictures multiple times a year... not just for christmas cards! With our departure immenant I thought this would be the last time for a while that we could have a pro do our pictures. So when Elizabeth asked me to do her family pictures for real. I said I would if she did ours for real ( no both families on one day thing again... big mistake on my part.) I went to work getting the exact outfits I wanted, in the process making Liam a bow tie and Abby a headband. We did them less than 3 hours ago and I have already gone through and edited a ton of them. Elizabeth was kind enough to come back to the apt and let me put them right on my computer. Which works perfect because then she doesn't have to spend hours editing and I can spend hours making every single blemish on our faces disappear...okay so I couldn't get Liam's black eye to go away. When I tried it just looked weirder. (yup Liam fell off our bed last night and slammed into the corner of the frame-- it was scary-- but not surprising). So here is the thing, I LOVE these pictures and if you read my blog you will now be subjected to a huge amount of family vanity because I think they turned out pretty darn cute. I have to ask your opinion though. I have an action that I love that is called "honey" (Nicole and Leah you know the one wink wink). I think it is amazing and love what it does to my pictures but I know it isn't for everyone. So each of the pictures has the regular version and the honey version. Which do you like better?
Sammy looking studily even though he is wearing a 2T dress shirt. I just couldn't bring myself to buy him a new white dress shirt when we won't be attending organized church for two years.

There were sooo many good ones of Sam. He is quite the little model. It helped that I bribed him with everything under the son. Including letting Atticus (Elizabeths darling little boy) coming in our car on the way home (with out asking his mother haa!)

Here is Liam in all his black eyed glory

I tried to fix it a little on this one but it just made him look like he was wearing eyeshadow.. .its really not THAT noticeable and it is SOOOO Liam so I kind like having it ;) (thats the bow tie I made)

He really liked the Little chair and backing up into it haa!

This one is actually a candid cropped from a bigger group picture. Because of that I wouldn't really ever use it but how cute is that face?

The men in my life

The main man in my life

Abby had a REALLY hard time. It was warmer than usual here but still cold. And she was so tired.. but still cute!

We tried so hard to get her to look up because that was exactly the shot I wanted but she wouldn't. It's still pretty cute!

Look at this tongue I think it is hilarious!

Me and my girl! I love that I can say that!

from another angle

And now the adorable family ones!!!

another cute one

So there you have it. I LOVE them. Thank you so much Elizabeth we had so much fun! Thank you Brandon for holding the reflector and working those muscles and holding a screaming Abby. Thanks Atticus and Gwyn for keeping the boys so entertained. We are going to miss you so much it makes me cry!

What Sam thought of Alvin and the Chipmunks the Squeakquel

Relaxin' all cool

Abby loves to play with her toes. She will sit there for a long time shoving them in her mouth and rolling around. It is so crazy to see how flexible she is!

She also has crazy long eye lash's:

I hope they stay that way!
Apparently when Liam wants to chill out he climbs up onto the dinning room chair and zonks.

This was on a day when he hadn't had a nap and I couldn't find him after dinner. I guess it is a good thing he can sleep anywhere!

Abby is going to be a hippie

East Timor is a REALLY small island. It is smaller then the state of Conneticut. Chris and I want to make sure we are good representatives of the US while there. We had been talking about how much trash just our little family makes and how you could fill a land fill with the amount of diapers. When you couple that with the LONG amount of time it takes for things to get to us (2-4 weeks on average) and the cost of buying and shipping diapers we came to the decision that Abby would be a cloth diaper baby. Yes I know shrieks of terror ripple through the crowd. Luckily we will have a full time house keeper to do the laundry. I already see a pay raise in her future. (What is sad is I really don't know if I would do it other wise...) Christopher mentioned this to his friend Jean who was amazing and gave us all of her cloth diapers! These puppies are quality and thus very expensive and you need ALOT of them unless you want to be doing Laundry every minute of the day. Before Jean made her generous offer I had been doing a lot of research and decided I wanted to go with G Diapers. I liked that they had flushable inserts OR cloth. PLus hello the diaper covers are ADORABLE! I wanted to take them for a trial run before buying a bunch (and I wanted to see what I was in for when we got to Dili) so Abby sported one tonight when we headed to Ikea.

Wow these things were amazing! Not to get into the nitty gritty but there was no way her normal Huggies could have held what this one did! Now I am not going all out until we leave (not having a washer dryer IN your apt makes for a lot more work) but I was very pleasantly surprised and actually pretty excited to make the switch. On a related note Liam will be potty trained the minute we get there.. Brazilian style. Our poor neighbors haaa!
In keeping with the saving on shipping etc. I will be making all of Abby's baby food! FRuits and veggies are EASY and cheap, and on the plus side they can't afford pesticides or growth hormones so very organic. Yup she will be a cloth diaper wearing, organic eatin baby. Only the best for princess Abby (soon to be known as princess conseoulo banana hammock... for all those Friends watchers!)

Christmas Catch up

Our Christmas was wonderful. The boys had stayed up very late the night before so miracle of miracles we woke up before they did! We had planned on skyping with Chris's parents so we actually had to get online and let them know weren't ready yet! Daddy and Abby and I enjoyed a nice quiet hour. Liam came out first and we had to wake Sam up because there was no way we could keep Liam from opening his presents. Sammy was so excited to open his "douglas with all the wheels" and wouldn't hold still long enough for me to get a picture :)

Liam got his Mac truck he had been wishing for.

Abby got... covered with wrapping paper.

It was wonderful to be able to share the morning with Chris's parents. Skype is the coolest invention!

After opening presents and playing for hours the boys zonked and i started Christmas dinner. We had our friends the Nielsen's over and it was so much fun! We ended up playing until midnight... kids included. Boy did we pay for that one for days. It was so nice to just sit and talk for hours while the kids went nuts. Our house literally look like a tornado hit it but man was it worth it! It is crazy to think that next year we will be able to hang out on the beach on Christmas woo hoo!

OH MY GOSH!

Okay, I don't know what crazy lengths I would go to get one of these bikes but I am telling you I would do just about anything.

HOW COOL IS THAT!!! Little cuties ride in the back. I could ride sammy to school in the morning with Abby and Liam all just chillin in the bucket (In East TImor that is WAY to cold and far to do it here) I mean seriously I have never seen anything like this. Just imagine the pictures... wow I am going to dream about it tonight. To bad it will always be a dream thanks to the hefty price tag. Check it out for yourself HERE

Happy Doo Day Uncle Ris!

That is what our Nephew Cooper said to Chris a few years back and I will NEVER forget it. He is sooo stinkin cute, even now when he is "all grown up". It was Christopher's 30th birthday on December 29th! Wow. I cannot believe he is 30. I think it wasn't as weird as I thought it would be because we talked about it a lot previously. We talked about how much Christopher had already accomplished in his life and he was only 30, (this list is not in order of importance!)
1. Served an honorable 2 year mission
2. Graduated from College
3. Married in the temple to a gorgeous girl (That would be me he has no other wife!)
4. Had 3 gorgeous Children
5. Become a Lawyer
6. Traveled the world
7. A war veteran
8. Landed his dream job
I mean seriously that is not too shabby! I am so proud of you Chris and sooooo grateful to your parents for raising you to be the wonderful man, father, all around fabulous person you are!
Alright now to the nitty gritty. I wanted it to be an awesome birthday so I hired a babysitter and we head to Founding Farmers for lunch. We were worried at first because they had a very small drink selection. I thought great this is one of those pretentious little places that has no refills and is drowning in its own self importance. Boy was I wrong. Chris and I couldn't decided if it was THE best meal we have ever had or tied for the dinner at the Italian restaurant his parents took us to. In any event it was AMAZING!!!

This is the only picture I got at the restaurant. I was to busy making a pig of myself scarfing down my pot pie. After a super yummy meal I told chris we were headed to the Newseum. He has wanted to go there for some time but it is expensive and not the type of place you go with three cuties in toe. So we headed over and drove around for about 15 minutes looking for parking. It was FREEZING cold that day and we were not about to walk 10 blocks so unfortunately we packed it in and headed home. It was great because as soon as we got home the boys were ready for naps so we spent a nice relaxing afternoon! That evening we went as a family to Elevation burger- super yummers and then home for cake.

This cake was special. It was from Buzz's my favorite cupcake place. I had asked them to make Chris's fav chocolate on chocolate with blue polka dots. It turned out soooo cute. Unfortunately they told me that they couldn't write on it but when I got there the girl said she totally could so I asked her to write Happy Birthday Daddy. She did-- in RED frosting!! What the what? SInce when did RED go well with brown and blue?

Good thing Chris really couldn't care less.

We ate it with some yummy vanilla bean ice cream and for the second time in one day I thought I had died and gone to heaven!

Three layers of choclatey goodness. The boys really loved the cake too.

Look at the knot on Liam's head in this picture. He ran full force into a heavy table at Elevation Burger. He is going to be the death of me.

Can't you just hear Liam saying Cheese!!! When you look at this picture:

Abby decided she was tired of missing out on the fun and tried to help herself.

To cap the night off we had ANOTHER babysitter after the cuties went to bed and went and saw Sherlock Homes completely ALONE. It was fabulous. I hope enjoyed it as much as I did!

You want how much for that?

There is a seller on Etsy that creates beautiful funky silk necklaces. I love her stuff but could never actually afford to buy it. Well I decided I could try and make it! This is not a tutorial because Elizabeth and I talked about how we don't know what is okay to post on your blog with regards to tutorials etc. I don't want the girl from the store to hunt me down and sue me or something. THIS was the article I wanted and this is my creation:

I couldn't find blue silk so I just used blue broadcloth. While hers would have run me 60 dollars mine cost 2.50. I kid you not. I found the tassels at the fabric store but just thought it pushed it over the edge, and that saved me a dollar. I originally thought I would make it a hair accessory but I think for its size it would be better attached to some ribbon and worn around my waist with a dress. Better hop to it since we only have to Sundays left... oh my tummy just dropped. ANYWAYS this is the headband I showed Elizabeth how to make. Hers turned out ADORABLE since she substituted three little pearls where I had rhinestones.

And these are the little hair clippies I made for Abby. I think the red one is a little burlesque looking and I actually don't think she owns a stick of red clothing but we'll see ;)

Isn't that an awesome cake stand-- good 'ole Target. What will I do with out you? There will be more pictures of it when I finally post about Christopher's awesome birthday and our wonderful Christmas. I will do it when you least expect it-- like in March or July... or tomorrow :) FInal note, I do these crafty things and think I am the bees knees and then I find a site like Ruffles and Stuff and am back at square one and feeling so humble when compared to their crafty goodness. Check her out, her name is Disney, I mean that right there should tip you off!