2010 Family Pictures

As we do every year, we took our own family pictures this year. Keep in mind that I am not a professional by any means. I do not have a fancy expensive camera (nor would I know how to use it if I did). We don't have anyone to position the poses or tell us to say "cheese" or "smile for the birdie". These pictures are purely amateur, taken with a timer while the camera sits precariously atop a broken tri-pod. They are a little out of focus this year, which is not entirely a bad thing. It does tend to diminish the wrinkles. At any rate, once again we accomplish getting a few that are workable as Christmas Cards.

Happy Halloween!

What a wet and windy time was had last night. I was hoping the weather would hold off just one more day. But it wasn't meant to be. So we carved the pumpkins, made soup and scones for dinner and got the kids dressed and ready to go. Now for most people trick-or-treating would be on the 31st as usual. But in our area it was decided that it would be on Saturday the 30th so that we could observe the Sabbath Day. So Emilie decided a long time ago that she wanted to be a witch. Erin actually used three different costumes this year. And was a baby for trick-or-treating.

Grandma and Grandpa made it in time to enjoy the evening with us. We could hardly hold Emilie back until it was a good time to head out. So at around 6 we couldn't keep her distracted any longer. We started out and it was raining lightly. For about 3 houses. Then the heavens opened and it rained very hard with a cold wind. Within 15 minutes Emilie's witch hat kept blowing off and was drenched. Her black hair spray had run down onto her green witch face and she was unhappy. So We headed back to the house to regroup.

We attached some elastic to her hat to keep it on, gave her a little candy to get the sugar flowing. The rain had slowed and eventually stopped. So we gave it one more try. Emilie was a trouper and ran happily from house to house. We finally caught up with Erin and continued through the neighborhood.

All in all, a great time trick-or-treating with Grandma and scored on the candy count.

Sarah the Senior!

Way to many beautiful pictures of Sarah to choose from. How do you even pick what pictures to use with the graduation announcements when you have 100 and they all are incredible. Ok, so I'm just a little biased considering she's my child and I love her so much. It is hard enough for me to believe that she is only 3 short weeks from graduating from high school and leaving us to go off and begin her own life adventure. I think she is more ready for this than I am. I'm pretty sure the house will be much different.

5K Run

My girls and I ran in the Junior High 5K race on Saturday! I did one with the Elementary school in the fall and did ok. So I set the goal of doing this one in the spring.
Even though I did not run the entire thing, I did take about 5 1/2 minutes off my time. I really had not worked as hard as I originally wanted to in training for the race. So I really was not expecting to be able to run the whole thing. But I was happy with how I did.
Erin and Sarah ran the race too. They did better than I did coming in at Sarah 29:10 and Erin 34. I finished at 37 min. I am excited at the possibilities of doing more runs. Maybe now that the weather is getting better, I will be more inclined to work on it.

30 Second Easter Egg Hunt!

Kaysville City's Annual Easter Egg Hunt was like a vacuum made of children from all ages. Emilie and I waited, while she shivered from the bitter cold wind. When the time came to start the hunt, 5-4-3-2-1 GO!! Seriously, within 15 seconds every plastic egg was sitting in someone's basked, bucket or plastic grocery bag. Sweet Emilie came away with 10 candy filled eggs and was thrilled. The excitement of the hunt was greater than any disappointment of so few eggs won. In Erin's age group, the experience was the same.

Saying Goodbye

So today was the day. Sarah's boyfriend for the past year plus entered the Missionary Training Center. He is preparing to go to Taiwan for 2 years.
The goodbyes were tearful yesterday, but he is a great kid and will be a wonderful missionary. We had a nice visit with his parents and sisters today. They stopped by after school to see Sarah.
The two years will go by faster than you think.

Happy 18th Birthday Sarah!

I can't believe it! Sarah is 18? It's just too crazy to think about. But, yes, it is true. Our beautiful little girl with the crazy thick blond hair, that walked when she was only 7 1/2 months old. We are so blessed to have her as our daughter.
The traditional birthday breakfast was french toast with bacon then Sarah celebrated her birthday by having some of her very best friends over. They ate pizza, opened gifts, played at Boondocks then came back for peanut butter cup and oreo cookie cupcakes and watching a movie. Thank you Jacy, Bryn, Crystal and Beau for being such great friends for Sarah.

Erin's New Room

What a relief to finally be finished with Erin's new room makeover. I finished painting this morning and spent the day cleaning up and getting everything put back together. This has been a very long process that has taken about 6 months to finish. I started with the quilt and it just snowballed. This was my first full-sized quilt and I love it. It's what started my new quilting addiction. I was so excited when the window cushion worked out and fit just right. With all the sewing I have done over the years, I've never done a cushion totally on my own. The curtains I had a little help with, and Mom finished them for me. I'm just so happy to have it all done.
Then there was the painting....I hated the yellow at first, but after the second coat it turned out beautiful. The border was hard though. First I had to scan and enlarge a piece of the ric-rac from the quilt and then trace it on to a piece of plastic. Then I traced the plastic pattern all around the room. From there it was all painting freehand, outlining the border then filling it in. Little hint, if you ever paint with red, start with a grey primer coat. It will make the red go on better with less coats. Unfortunately, I didn't do this on the border. I also covered wood letters with pieces of the fabric from the quilt. All in all, I love the way it all turned out.

Erin's New Skirt

Found a cute easy pattern for this skirt. Love the way it turned out. Now I just have to figure out how to adjust the pattern to make it bigger for Sarah and Anna. And maybe even me. Love finding new easy things to make.

Erin's Room Remodel

Ok, so I've been working on remodeling Erin's room since Friday and I'm still not finished. The first day I was worried that I had made a big mistake on color choice. But as I progressed, I grew to totally love the color. Now to finish the details. One more day should take care of it. I've worked so hard for so long on this project doing a pieced quilt, curtains, bed skirt and window seat cushion. Phew, what a project! Can't wait for it to be finished. Then I can finally catch up with the housework.

Pictures to follow.

Congratulations Sarah!

Congratulations Sarah!
Tonight was the Davis High Swim banquet and Sarah received her second athletic letter for swimming. I can't believe she is a senior this year. All of the seniors were presented with a Davis blanket too. We have spent the past 12 years watching Sarah participate in sports and have loved her spirit of competition and drive. What a great way to end her school years!

Updating

I've decided to give the blog thing another shot. I was doing so well for a while, but then came Facebook. But after thinking about it, I am going to try it again. Here's my thought, Facebook is great for keeping up with everyone, but blogging can be more personal and more detailed without giving everyone on your friends list way more information than they want. If you want to know more about me and my family, you can check my blog. So here we go again. It's going to take me a while to get pictures and information updated, so be patient. Emilie is not really a year and a half like in the family picture.

My Latest Quilt

This is my latest quilt project. It's my Valentine lap quilt from a class I took at our craft store. The pattern was actually really easy and took less than 24 hours to put together. I love quilting!

Sarah's Winter Formal

Sarah had a fun time for her Winter Formal. She went with a large group of kids. Her date was a really nice kid named Beau. Silly thing about these dances in Utah, they have to last ALL day long. Well, they did their day activity on Friday because several of the kids were taking the ACT Saturday morning. They all loaded up and went to Deseret Industries with the assignment of finding something for their date to wear for under $5.00. They all came home with a variety of sweaters. Saturday for the dance they had dinner at her friend Dallas' house. Dinner was cooked by Dallas' grandpa and they all loved it. Then they went to the dance. The bummer was that it was snowing and very cold.

Sarah's dress was an amazing find. The day after Thanksgiving Grandma and I took all the girls to a formal dress shop here for a huge sale. It was a mad house. Sarah tried on several dresses including this one which was strapless. She loved it, but wanted a shorter dress. Well this was perfect. The dress was originally $345 but was marked down to $35. So we bought it and cut off the bottom to make the sleeves. Thanks to Grandma for helping.

Second Family Party

Our "After" Thanksgiving party was fun too. This time the party was at my house and we had everyone there again except my sister and her family. It was another fun time.