Harry Potter Party

I love Harry Potter. I think the books are amazing. Right before Camille was born, and a little after she was born, I had Kevin listen to all of the books while he was driving semi truck and I was reading the books at home. When we both finished a book, we would watch the movie. It was really fun. Then on Pinterest I saw an awesome blog that someone made where they had an awesome Harry Potter Party. At that moment I knew I wanted to have a Harry Potter Party as well. So I told Kevin I wanted to do this, and he said, "that sounds like fun. Just know I don't want to make any decorations. If you need help putting something up, I will help." And ya know what? I didn't even need any help!! It was really fun for me. I read a million blogs (no exaggeration), and made a plan. After the plan was made, I started making the decorations. I had a lot of fun with this. When Camille was asleep, and Kevin was out driving truck, I would sit and make things.

I will walk you through each decoration as you saw it when entering the wonderful world of Harry Potter.

I sent out acceptance letters for invitations and put in platform 9 3/4 train tickets. They looked so great. I should have sent myself one.

When you entered the house I made a brick wall for platform 9 3/4. So you could run through the wall to enter the great hall.

Once you entered the great hall the first thing you saw was the floating candles. They looked really awesome, especially at night.

Next you were sorted by the sorting hat. I wanted to make a real looking sorting hat, but I didn't have the time or motivation, so we just had a little witch hat. I made house badges, so after you put the sorting hat on then you could reach in the cauldron and pick a badge to decide what house you were in.

After being sorted you went to Ollivanders where they could pick their wand, or should I say so that wand could pick the wizard.  Here are the wands I made. I used some chopsticks that I had bought several years ago because I wanted to be cool, but we used them once, then never again. They were too slippery for us to use. I took the chopsticks then covered the bottom with glue and I put one bead on the end of it. After the glue had dried, I spray painted them brown. They actually turned out awesome. My little sister Melissa would say, "They just feel good in your hand." Which they do.

 As you entered the kitchen there was a sign for the three broomstick. So we had dinner in the three broomsticks. I made soup (way way way too much soup) and bread wands (sticks) and Herbology house salad.

In the kitchen I had put up Education Decrees that Professor Umbridge put in place at Hogwarts.

After dinner we ventured over to Honeydukes for some delicious treats. There was so much candy, as you can see in the pictures.

After dessert we turned on Harry Potter and the Chamber of  Secrets for the little kids to watch, and we played some fun games.

Here are some of the other really fun decorations that were up around the house.

This says, "The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Heir beware."

This says, "This ways to the Ministry of Magic."

It is always so fun to play with family, and I was so happy that so many people dressed up and were able to come. It was really fun, and I am glad it all went well. Now that it is over I have nothing to do, so I might need to be planning something else soon.

Dr. Who graced us with his presence 

Hedwig even came! 

Fun Four

1. We got a washer and dryer. I have been wanting one since we moved in, and we finally got some. I am so grateful I am not going to have to go to the laundry mat in the middle of winter with Camille. That really would be miserable for me. This summer has not been too bad because we put the luandry in, and we go walk around outside or inside Walmart which is across the parking lot. In winter it would be a pain. When we went to pick up the washer and dryer, we found this street. Isn't it awesome? We are kind of sad that we have already bought a house, or else we would build on this street. But it is okay because we really love our house.

2. This year we were blessed to recieve some tomatoes (when I say some, I mean a ton of tomatoes) from Kevin's mom and from some neighbors. They were delicious. I ate some for snacks with just salt,but we had too many. We decided to make some homemade salsa. We have tried several times to make homemade salsa through our marriage, but it has never turned out very well. This time was no exception. It is always fun to make things with Kevin, but hopefully someday we can put our tomatoes to good use and not just make diced tomatoes with peppers and onions.

3. Kevin was able to go motorbiking recently. I am always so happy when he can go. This year he has been working like a crazy man. He is such a good provider for our family. He had a day off though so he and his brother Michael went on a ride. He said it was one of the most fun rides they had done for a while. I saw some pictures and the mountain they were on was practically straight up and down. It was a very hard and technical ride, but it looked beautiful.

4. Shaylee came down to play. I love when she does. We went out to lunch at Rusios. It was actually really delicious. It is a soup, sandwich and salad place. It was fun to just talk and enjoy lunch with her and Camille. It is always nice to have a friend to just talk to and not be worried what they think about you. I now just need to figure out a way to convince her to stay up in Idaho when she is finished with school instead of moving back to Utah.

Camille 9 months

*None of these pictures correspond to the paragraphs written, but these are the pictures we have at 9 months so enjoy!*

Yes, Camille has officially been out in this world as long as she was in my tummy. I feel like these 9 months with her out here went a lot faster than when I was pregnant. She has been learning and growing like crazy this month. I have some little notes of what I wanted to write about Camille this month, and I feel like they are all outdated. I must have put them down at the start of the month. We started out with her crawling. She has been crawling for a little while, but sometimes she will be crawling and then see something she wants and she will start to super crawl. It is so funny and cute. She just speeds up to get where she wants.

She has been creeping along the couches and on the walls. She just loves to walk. She will walk if she is holding our hands, and if we get tired (because lets be honest, it hurts your back to bend down that long) and try to have her sit down she will just cry. She just wants to be walking so badly. She has a little walker type toy that she loves. She will walk with it until it hits a wall, and then she will try and turn it around to get unstuck. Usually I just change her position so she will walk some more until she hits a wall. On her 9 month birthday she started taking her first real steps.By next month she will be a professional walker. She is just one crazy girl wanting to learn and be grow.

She has been sleeping pretty good. Usually she wakes up once at like 5 AM, and I think she would go back to sleep without eating, but I give in and go feed her usually because if I feed her at 5, then she will sleep until 8. I am going to start trying to be better at having her practice actually sleeping through the night. I think this Mommy is ready for some more sleep.

Camille is just the cutest girl. She loves to hold things in her mouth and crawl around with them. She has a little lotion tube that she will just stick in there and hold it in her mouth.

She is really good at eating. We have been sort of doing some baby led weaning, so she eats what is on our plates. I want her to have a balanced food group though, so I will feed her some baby puree along with pieces of our food. She like grown up food better, but I want to make sure she is getting enough vegetables and fruit.I guess she is getting enough though. At her 9 month check up she was in the 50th percentile for weight, 75th percentile for height, and 90th percentile for head circumference.

We just love our little Camille so much. She is so special and brings such a joy into our house. Love you Camille!

Walker Annual Pumpkin Carving

Halloween is one of my most favorite holidays. This year Camille and I ended up at Shantel and David's house .We had to pick up pumpkins from Walmart earlier that day. I am excited for next year when we have a garden. It will be so nice not to have to buy pumpkins. Anyway, we picked up some pumpkins and headed to Shantel's house. Every year we eat soup and carve our pumpkins. This year was no exception. One new thing did happen this year. My dad got an awesome pumpkin gutter. You hook it up to a drill and just scrape it all out. It was so nice because that is sometimes the worst part about carving pumpkins. It was really fun.

I carved one for Camille and one for me. Camille's had one tooth, because at that time Camille only had one tooth.

After carving Camille's I started on mine. I tried to do an awesome Spiderman pumpkin. I just looked at it and tried to carve it but it really didn't work. In fact it was probably the worst pumpkin I have ever made. In the end, it just turned out to be a big frowning face. I didn't even take a picture of it. I am so lame. Next year will be better.

It was such a nice night. I love spending time with family. Happy Halloween.

Camille 8 months

Can you believe that Camille is 8 months old? I hardly can. I also cannot believe how interactive she is. She is such a character. She is always doing silly things. She puts her pacifier in her mouth wrong so she can chew on it. It is so funny. We play the "I'm gonna getcha" game. She will crawl away, and when I go to get her, she crawls even faster. It is super cute.

Camille is pulling herself up on everything. She can stand up when she pulls herself up on something that is like 3 inches tall. She just loves to stand up. She will pull herself up on things that are taller than her, and she will start doing a pull up so she can see over them. She can climb up a couple of stairs. She has a little musical chair, and she loves to climb up on it and stand straight up on it. Goodness is scares me.

Camille  really is so cute. She is starting to make this clicking sound. I think she is copying us giving kissing sounds, but she just clicks her tongue. At least I pretend that is what she is doing. It is so cute. She is also buzzing her lips a ton. It is really drooly, but funny. Sometimes when I am feeding her she will buzz her lips, then we have sweet potatoes everywhere.

Camille is pretty much sleeping through the night. It is wonderful. She goes to sleep around 7:30, then I dream feed her at 10, then she sleeps until 4-5. I think that she would sleep longer, but if I feed her at 5 then she will sleep until 8. But if I don't, then I think she would wake up earlier, so I feed her so I can get a couple extra hours.

The other day while Camille was taking her nap, she woke up and started crying. I went up to get her and I found both of her pacifiers were thrown out of her little crib. This happened a couple of times. It was so funny. She was sad because she didn't have her pacifier, but she had thrown them out. She is a silly girl. She hasn't done it since.

We are down to 2 naps a day. I think I like having the two naps a day better than three, as long as she take good naps. It is nice to have a little time with her where we can go out and I don't feel stressed about getting home immediately so I can put her back down for a nap.

She really is so smart and so precious. We love this little girl so much. Even though she is getting into more things, it just makes me smile to see her learning and growing. We love you Camille.

Date Day

I love going on dates. Like real dates that were planned and asked a couple days ahead. Not just getting dinner because we are too lazy to cook. Kevin didn't have to go to work on Wednesday for some reason. I don't remember why, but I don't really care. I am just happy because we were able to go on a date. My Grandma Knowles is so thoughtful, she sent us some money for our anniversary. I decided it was going to be used for a date. I asked Kevin a couple days in advance and started planning out what I wanted to do.

Wednesday came around and I went visiting teaching and when I came back we hopped in the car and headed for Rexburg. It feels like it has been ages since I have been there. It was like a blast from the past, except everything has changed. There are buildings flying up all over the place. I couldn't believe it. But the one thing that didn't change was the Taco Wagon. Kevin loves the Taco Wagon. I am pretty sure they are suffering now that we don't live there. Kevin would eat there everyday if he could. They have really delicious burritos. So we went to the Taco Wagon for lunch. The Taco Wagon is actually a in a bus, so we went to the park to eat lunch. I love the parks in Rexburg. They are really fun. So we ate in the pavilion then we went to some swings and gave Camille her first swing on a swing. She seemed to like it, but not anymore that anything else really.

Next we went to Fat Cats to play some arcade games. I really love to play arcade games. I don't know why, but it is probably one of my favorite dates to do. Fat Cats wasn't really taking great care of their arcade games, and I felt bad because on several games we had to go get the attendant to get our tickets or give us another token because a machine ate one of ours. We had a lot of fun. Kevin really liked playing Fruit Ninja (which we now have on our tablet because he liked it so much), and he like ski ball. He wants to become a pro ski ball player, so if anyone has a ski ball machine laying around let me know and I will buy it from you. I liked the game deal or no deal and the game that you have to get the light in the jackpot slot. I don't know what it was called.

After the arcade we went to BRC's. BRC's is a really delicious custard place. It is so so so good. We love getting a little treat there. It is close to the campus, and has such a cute atmosphere. It is decorated like a Swiss shop in the Swiss Alps or something. It really is so cute. There is a chocolate shop there too. We went in, and we found out that it had gone out of business. We were so sad. I don't even know why they went out of business, they were delicious and so fun! We were so sad, but I wanted a treat, so we went to Kiwi Loco a frozen yogurt shop. It was good, but not as good as BRC's.

After the treat we came home and put Camille down for a nap and finished out our day. It is really nice to be able to spend time with Kevin. We hardly ever get to go out and do lots of things, so I cherish the times that we get to.