Airplane Tray Cover

In my current thoughts of airplane travel I saw a tray table play mat on a blog. I decided it was a wonderful idea!  I took it and ran with it!  I had all sorts of extra fabric and scraps lying around so I didn't even need to take a trip to the fabric store.  I may be a bit biased, but I think I improved a bit on the original design I found.  I am really happy with how things turned out!

I put little "taggies" along the sides for Elise to tug and play at.  The white ribbon you see tied in a bow is so it will stay attached to the tray table. The side seam is left open so you can slide the cover on and then secure it with the ties.  The pumpkin face and counting beads are the side you will see when the tray is in the "upright position".  I realize that not every activity is something that Elise can really do right now, but give her two years and she'll be there!

I had a lot of fun with this project because other than the dimensions I got from the other blog, I had total creative liberty!  I could pick the activities and the size and placement of everything. It took me most of yesterday but I did finish it in one day :)  The above photo shows you the opening so it can fit around the tray.  I put a small cookie sheet in it to test it out!  I can't wait to try it out for real!

And while I'm sharing craft projects, I also started working on the party favors for Elise's birthday.  It will be a circus theme.  I found a candy mold with circus animals and then bought a big box of crayola crayons and melted them away until they turned into these awesome animal crayons!  They aren't the colors I was hoping for, but I love them all the same!  Can't wait to give them to the kids!

And finally this is my marble maze I am making in part of a busy bag swap.  It was a simple project and I'm almost done with all of them to send away!  I don't know if you can tell but in this picture the marble is in the bottom right corner and you move it along the sewed lines to get to the other side. Simple and easy!  The best kind of craft!

Tots & Travel

In a desperate attempt to not re-create this cartoon above, I'm here to ask for tips for traveling with an infant. We fly out to Utah (hooray!) in mid-December and I'm looking for any advice my fellow bloggers might have.  Things I'm wondering now include: Elise doesn't actually have her own seat...how does that work?  Do I bring her to the gate in her car seat?  Does that count as luggage?  What about a car seat base?  Her stroller...do I have to pay to check that? It is just me and Elise on the flight, Zack will join us later.  I will be bringing a busy bag full of activities to hopefully keep her occupied and entertained as well as food.  I could bring a laptop with some Baby Einstein DVD's- is that a good idea?  Let me know :)  Thanks in advance for the help.  Here's to a happy and safe holiday travel season!

Everyday Elise

Here are a few random pictures of Elise in some funny and cute day to day experiences.

Her hair is getting so long!  We have to put a bow in it everyday or it would get in her eyes!  I had some fun during bath time and gave her a cute little mow hawk.  She enjoyed it as well :)

I caught her smiling at herself in the mirror the other day.  This made me happy.  I hope she will always have good self esteem about her herself- because she is beautiful inside and out!

Big smile behind the binky as we played at the park.

We had stake conference yesterday and were (of course) late.  We didn't even bother looking for seats since it was so packed and just hung out in the foyer listening.  Elise loved having all the space to crawl and playing with the other kids out there!

Daddy was helping her steady her bottle.  Had to snap a picture of how cute this was!  And I promise we were listening to most of the conference!

In other news I realized I never posted Elise's stats on here and thought I would for memory's sake-

Height: 29 1/4 inches 95% Who knew she was so tall?!
Weight: 18 lbs 10.5 oz.  60%
Head: 43 1/4 cm 25%

She is getting so big!  I can't believe she'll be one before we know it!

Happy Halloween

We were able to take Elise trick-or-treating at the medical college this year.  All of the offices decorate to make it look great.  It was fun to take her to a place that is warm and inside- I don't know if future years here will give us snow on Halloween but I'm happy to know that we can always have the school to go to :)  Elise was a skeleton this year!  I'm sorry to say we didn't dress up :( I normally like to but just didn't get around to it.

Zack would hold Elise and she'd reach into the candy bowl and grab some.   She would always grab out 2 pieces of candy in one hand. We didn't even teach her to do that! We are so proud, ha ha.

Taking in her spoils!  It was a lot of fun to take her out and show her off.  I know that holidays and traditions will only get more fun as she gets bigger.  Happy Halloween everyone!

Boo at the Zoo!

On Saturday I was invited to go to the zoo with some friends.  The zoo was decorated with lights and sounds for Halloween.  They had several trick or treat spots along the way.  It was a lot of fun to get out of the house and check out some spooky animals!

The Stroller gang!  Melanie and Sadie, Necia and Ellie, Me and Elise. If you click on this picture you can see Elise and Ellie grabbing hands!  So cute- I didn't notice until I uploaded the photo.

Many of the animals were given pumpkins inside of their cages.  It was interesting to see which animals touched them, devoured them, and had nothing to do with them.  Milwaukee Zoo has some great animals.  Definitely a step up from Hogle Zoo.  They have lion cubs right now too but they weren't out for display while we visited :(

Here are some fish from the Amazon!

Elise went in her pink skeleton Halloween costume.  I didn't get a great picture of it on Saturday, but I will soon!!  Happy haunting everyone!  

Grandma's Visit to Wisconsin

We had such a blast when my mom came to visit!  One day we headed out to Lake Michigan to check out the beach and have a picnic lunch!  It was a lot of fun.

I love this picture!!  Elise is so delighted.  I'm not sure if it is my mom or the wind or what, but she was loving something.  Cute!

Me and my best girl!  Lake Michigan is the largest of the great lakes and man it is huge!  If I didn't know any better I would have thought it was an ocean!  We tested out the water and it was cold but I would have happily slapped on wet suit and jumped in if that meant I could have gone water skiing :)

Around dinner time we went to a family farm called Apple Holler.  It is about 30 minutes south of Milwaukee.  I had heard from many ward members that this is a great place to go, so we decided to check it out.

We had a fun time looking at all the baby animals.  Elise really liked the baby goats.  She laughed at them and was very interested in them.

Another great picture of Elise and Grandma Marie!  Check out those cute pigs in the background :)

They had all sorts of fun activities for kids to do like hay bale maze, pony rides, apple picking, etc. It was fun but I think Elise would have enjoyed it more if she were a little bit older. We still had a great time.  After walking around the farm we decided to eat there.  Many of the dishes use things that are grown right there one the farm.

And to end on, our little flower Elise.

Busy Bags!

Have you seen a busy bag?  Essentially they are bags filled with all sorts of quick, small activities to keep your little ones entertained at home, church, travel, etc.  Who wouldn't want one?!  You can check out more ideas on Jens blog here.  My cousin Erin is spearheading this busy bag swap.  Hurry fast and get in on all the fun!  Click this LINK if you are interested in signing up!  You know you want to :)