Craftiness

I love doing crafts of all kinds from scrapbooking and other paper crafts to jewelry making, to cross-stitch and all kinds of things in between. I come from a long line of crafty people from my Grandma who started me stitching a Winnie the Pooh dish towel when I was about 7 or so; to my Mom, the queen of sewing who is known to quote quite often, "If you can read you can sew;" and both my Mom and Grandma are excellent quilters. Then to my sisters, Kristen - the Princess of the Paintbrush and all her many incredible tole painting in years past, or now, the "collector" of all things scrapbooking. ;) She's still very crafty, just doesn't have as much time to do as much. And my younger sister, Leslie, as I posted a couple weeks ago, has taken Mom's "If you can read you can sew" motto to heart, and whips up all kinds of fun creations. She's also my scrapbooking partner and not only keeps her beautiful books completely up to date, she's been known to work on my kids books, trying to help me get a little more caught up. And that's just immediate family, add in my very talented sisters-in-law, and daughters and nieces, and we've been known to have quite the crafting fests. It's always more fun to craft with friends. I always have someone to call for "expert advice" on whatever project I'm working on. So here's my latest fun I've been having:

The first is a wedding present for a cousin. Now I just have to get the present to her. These notebook/journals were one of our group crafts a couple years ago. I'm just finally getting around to making myself one and with a few tweeks, one for Cheyenne, too. (By the way, family, I have a tab punch now if anyone wants to make more of these. Actually I still have some of the sticker tabs, too.)

Glass etching is my new found love. It is so much fun! I'm always on the lookout for something more I can etch. :)Now that I've cleared off my table of these fun projects, and I've done some cleaning out/reorganizing of my craft stuff, I'm itching to do some scrapbooking. It's been months since I've done anything, and my piles of pictures aren't getting any smaller. So that's my new goal, to do at least two layouts every week. Even if it's 15 min. increments, I think I can accomplish this. Then maybe I can get a little bit closer to getting caught up and Leslie won't have to do my books, too.

Dr. Seuss's Birthday

"Try them, try them and you may. Try them and you may, I say." Since quoting this line is almost a daily occurence at our house, and is mostly said to Cheyenne with Jon coming in a close second, it's only fitting that we celebrate Dr. Suess's birthday with dinner of green eggs and ham (or sausage this time-same family, and so much better:-) ) This year's eggs were a little extra green with some swiss chard in them, too. Yes, I'm branching out and tried a new green vegetable, thanks to my "Bountiful Basket" last week. Cheyenne was not impressed, but I would eat it here or there. Say, I would eat it anywhere. We love celebrating his birthday with this dinner and then snuggling up and reading our favorite Dr. Suess books, of course!

Testing

Natalie has earned her green belt now. She tested on my birthday, Feb. 13, and I actually got to see the whole thing this time. Aunt Leslie and Camden and Cheyenne came too. It was pretty cool. She started by being quizzed by all the Sensei's. Then she had to do her self defense techniques, each level adds on to the moves they do. Then was the fun part, the sparing. It was fun to see Natalie just let loose, especially since she was one of two girls testing. The pictures are blurry, but she's the one with the orange belt. Then she had to do her Kata (no idea if that's spelled right.) That is a sequence of moves and punches and "ki-ya's" that each belt does. Again, it adds on, so she has to remember everything she's learned so far. I thought she did pretty good, but apparnently the whole group needed more work on those. She passed and here she is changing belts.Natalie is still loving karate and has moved to a later class, 7:30-9 now. (Works a little better with our crazy Wednesday/Mutual night schedules, too.) She's now in a class with teenagers and adults, but she is doing fantastic in it and really enjoys not being with the little kids. Next up is blue.

Look how far we've come.

I just realized (through some gentle reminders) that I never posted this article we were featured in: http://tiny.cc/PtwMA

Look how far we've come from this:Chloe at 1 day old.


To this:
3 goofy, 4 1/2 year olds!

Check this out!

So my very creative little sister makes some amazingly cute things - baby slings, nursing covers, bags (from scripture size to large totes), and baby dresses/preschool tunic tops (check these out they are awesome!). I think the talent for sewing skipped me, but she excels at it, and luckily I get to benefit from her talent sometimes, too. Check out her new blog: http://cornflowerattic.blogspot.com/

or go shopping here: http://www.cornflowerattic.com
Oh, and check out the cute models under the ZuZu dresses. :)

Super Bowl Party!

The excitement for the super bowl was huge this year as Cheyenne's favorite team was playing, and favored to win. Plan were set into motion a few weeks ago as the menu was carefully debated and thought out - key elements to a good super bowl. The game was going to be good, the food was going to be good, great friends and family were coming, just hoping the commercials would complete it all. Go, COLTS!!

Well, sadly, Cheyenne's team lost and she faced much taunting the next day as she still stood up for her beloved Colts. The food was delicious - pulled pork tacos with all the trimmings, spring rolls (we were going for an international flair, I guess), and carameled popcorn and ice cream cones for dessert. Our awesome neighbors and friends, The Huntsmans, came, along with Bill's Aunt Janie and Uncle Leon, and his brother, Tom. We had a great time! The commercials were okay, there were some good ones, there were some stupid ones, there just not as good as they used to be. And then after everyone left, Thomas stayed and played guitar hero for a while with us. It was a good night!Aunt Janie, MaryJo, Wade, Cheyenne, Tom, Bill, and Uncle Leon. The rest were playing upstairs most of the time.

Natalie, Lauren, and Page playing cards.Jon, Trey, Maddie, Chloe, and Billy playing nerf guns.And the guitar hero playing. Billy was rocking on vocals and really got into the guitar tonight!

Another Favorite Spot

A while ago I posted about my favorite things/places in my home, well, I have a new one. Okay, so really I took these pictures a few months ago, but I finally got around to writing about it now. :)The sewing machine was my Grandma C.'s and I have very fond memories of sleeping over at her house in the "blue room" and playing with the pedal on this sewing machine. My sister and I would try to see how fast we could get it pumping. Somehow I ended up with it in my room when Grandma moved to her apartment and I've treasured it ever since. The the doily on top was crocheted by Grandma H. and what a work of art it is. The sewing box next to it was also hers. As I look at these things I remember all the wonderful memories I have of these two incredible women. The fun of sleepovers and playing hopscotch on the stones out back, visits after school, "special plates", smarties, chocolate cake and frog-eye salad, her weekly visits (and loads of goodies) when the triplets were born and much more from Grandma C. Grandma H. reading "Henry Huggins" while we ate twizzlers on her front steps, lots and lots of playing and coloring at her house, her patiently helping me start (or fix) many a cross-stitch project, her telling me to never learn how to milk a cow, and so much more. I really miss my grandma's, but I'm so glad I always lived close to them and they had such a big influence on me. As for the pictures, that another story. One day as my sister Kristen and I were in Sam's Club, they had a display for these old-fashioned pictures. We decided it would be so fun to have the only grandaughters (my two and her two) take a picture together and we'd give it to Grandma for her birthday. The day came and as they were all playing dress up, Kristen's youngest decided she wanted nothing to do with it. She cried and cried (very unlike Hailey) and we ended up just getting a picture of Cheyenne and Natalie. We even tried again a few months later, but still no luck. Fast forward to a couple years ago and I saw the offer for these pictures again. So with Kristen's help again (she was the "mom" to the boys so we could get the cheap price) we got these taken. The kids had so much fun playing while the guy took some wonderful pictures. It was hard not to want to buy them all. It wasn't until later that I realized that Cheyenne and Natalie, in their picture, are about the same ages as Billy and Jon. I worked out perfectly! These pictures just make me smile every time I look at them, they're just so darn cute!