The Wilhelmsen Botanical Blog

Hello all, I am not feeling well and so you will have to forgive my lack of much news from last week.  On Saturday we made cookies and let Aiden help.  He really enjoyed being able to put the ingredients in the bowl and stirring.  He also liked tasting, after we had all of the flour in the bowl Aiden stuck his finger in it and tasted it.  He also tasted the sugar before we put in in the bowl.  I think he justed wanted to make sure that we were using quality ingredients.

We also made sure that he tasted the end result before bed.  As you can see from the mess on his face the cookies were a big hit!

We look forward to Halloween this Saturday and I hope that my cold (or whatever gunk I have) is gone by then.  We haven’t had any opportunities to wear our costumes yet and I am kind of bummed about that because Aiden’s is so cute and was slightly costly.  I guess baby #2 will have to wear it in a couple years so that we can get some more use out of it.  Lastly, you will see my felt pigs in a blanket which was my felt food of the week.  This week I am working on carrots and peas.  Brandon asked me if any amount of money would make it worth it to me to make and sell these and I told him no.  They are cute and will be well loved and used but they are tricky and slightly time consuming, thus they are one of those projects where once is enough to make them.  Have a Happy Halloween everyone.  We will do our best to get and post pictures of our Halloween festivities.  Thanks for reading.

Well, last week was pretty uneventful.  Brandon worked a temp. job on Tuesday and Wednesday so Aiden and I had to entertain ourselves.  Luckily we had playgroup on Tuesday so that helped a lot to pass the time.  Wednesday we just kept ourselves busy and we also went on a little walk to a near by mom and pop store for some treats.  Here is Aiden trying on daddy’s shoes on Monday.

Thursday and Friday must have been pretty uneventful too because I do not even remember what we did.  I do know that we got some more Christmas shopping done this week and I got all of the Christmas pajama’s sewn.  The days leading up to Christmas get kind of busy with Christmas gift projects but then once Christmas is over I have to start Aiden’s birthday movie and make preparations for the arrival of our second little one in April.  This involves a few sewing projects as well.

Saturday was a busy day.  In the morning I went to super saturday.  I made some cards and a started a tutu.  Hopefully this little one is a girl otherwise I will put the tutu in storage with all of the other girl stuff I have until I do have a girl.  Anyway, after super saturday I came home and had to make a chocolate cream pie for the ward party in the evening.  They were having a chili and pie cook off.  In the evening we went to the party.  Aiden had a hay day running around and going places that I didn’t want him to go.  Brandon had been asked to judge and I didn’t know where they were so I had no back up.  After what felt like an hour later I finally asked where the judges were sitting and went over to talk to Brandon.  In the end my pie won 2nd place!  I was pretty excited because the edge of the crust had burnt a little and I didn’t think I would get anything.  So hey it must have been pretty tasty!

Sunday evening I took Aiden over to visit my grandma and grandpa.  Here he is with my aunt Mary learning to take the lid off of his sippy cup.  Which incidentally is something I could have waited a little bit longer for him to learn.  There was a slight mishap today.  I will write about it next week.  

Lastly, here is week two of my felt food.  As you can see I have made two very tasty looking donuts and some very realistic meatballs for the bow tie pasta that I made last week.  So far the felt food is turning out better then I thought it would.  Well, until next week…Thanks for reading!

So, our week…Tuesday evening we took Aiden out to Layton Surf and Swim.  We practically had the entire football field sized pool to ourselves.  Aiden had a lot of fun though and his favorite thing was running up and down the ramp and into the pool.  Brandon was sure that Aiden was going to turf it but thankfully he did not.

The next eventful thing that we did was going to Angela’s 1st birthday on Friday.  The party was a lot of fun, there was even a party favor bag and party hat for all of the kids.  Aiden mostly just checked everything out and ran around.

Saturday I noticed that a friend of mine was going to Oktoberfest and that it was the last weekend.  So, I asked my dad if we could go so that Brandon could have some peace and quiet to finish up some t-shirt design work that he was behind on.  As you can see Aiden is no longer against snow and actually enjoyed playing in it a little bit up at Snowbird.

Lastly, here is the finished product for week one of my felt food endeavor.  It turned out much better then I thought it would.  This week project, 6 meatballs and 2 donuts!  Have a good week!

As far back as I can remember I have been involved in many family traditions.  When my parents separated and subsequently divorced during my childhood, which in turn led to moving multiple times while growing up, I felt that I had no roots to cling to and I would not have, if it had not been for the traditions that I enjoyed with my father’s extended family.  These traditions, which were everything from family camp, Easter egg hunts, and Halloween parties, to Valentine’s cookie decorating, Christmas Eve dinner, and putting flowers on graves for memorial day, gave me a sense of stability that I could not find elsewhere and also gave me something to look forward to and to count on through out the year.  I have a firm testimony of the importance of family traditions and know of the unity that it brings to families.

Because of my strong conviction of the importance of tradition and the arrival of our first child in 2008 Brandon and I are looking forward to starting our annual traditions for each of the holidays during the year we plan to start these tradition with Halloween this year and to keep them up indefinitely.  I have even written up a list of what we hope to do each month in the way of traditions.  This list is a combination of things I used to do growing up, things Brandon has done, and some things that will be new for our family all together.

Ok, so this past week has been fairly busy.  Tuesday was playgroup, Wednesday I got visit taught, Thursday I had a WIC appointment and went to Vicky’s for scrapbooking (I was going to make cards but ended up just sitting and doing nothing), Friday I went to help my grandma make some applesauce, and all weekend we have had conference on.

Yesterday we did go and here my mom sing between sessions of conference.  It was a lot of fun.  I even tried a hula hoop contest.  I didn’t do as well as I usually do.  I blame it on the elastic from my maternity pants being right where the hula hoop needed to be.

Well, I guess that is all for this week.  Check out my online store handmadehodgepodgebyerin.blogspot.com I start taking orders on Monday!  Have a good week!  Thanks for reading…

In our continuing effort to secure our places as the ruling members of the household we occasionally remind Aiden that mom and dad are the boss.  Despite these efforts Brandon had the following experience while I was gone scrapbooking for a few hours.  Aiden came up to him,  looked him dead in the eyes, and pointing to himself cheerfully said, “Boss.”  While Brandon thought this was cute he again reaffirmed his authority as the boss.  He told him, “Dad’s the boss.”  To which Aiden replied, “No.”  Then Brandon said, “Dad’s the boss and mom’s the boss but Aiden is not the boss.”  Aiden just smiled like he knew better and walked away.

Later that same day he pointed at himself and said, “Daddy.”  Then he pointed at Brandon and said, “Aiden.”  I think we have a silly one on our hands.

Today I told my dad, “See you later” as he left the house and Aiden, quick to chime in repeated, “See you later.” in his own little toddler voice.  Kids learn so quickly it astounds me!