Christmas Candle

"A Christmas candle is a lovely thing;

It make no noise at all,

but softly gives itself away;

while quite unselfish,

it grows small."

--Eva K. Logue

This One's For My Sista's!

...to Ann, Jan, and Lisa!

Have the best day ever.

WE LOVE YOU!

Quilted Fish Trunk Show

When I was in Utah the weekend before Thanksgiving, the local (and only) quilt store in the Heber Valley--which just happens to be in our little Midway town--had a trunk show!

It was so FUN.

They had a free 'make and take' bottle cap pin cushion.  Very darling.  With the new line of fabric named DELIGHTED, by The Quilted Fish.

 Here is so many things you can do with her new line of fabric.

I just had to stand there for a while and take it all in.

One day.  One day I will be a full-fledged quilter.  One day.

I have to get all those other unfinished projects finished and then dive in!  I'm making headway on those, just so you know!

It was really fun to meet Amanda Herring (get it:  herring, fish, hence The Quilted Fish...clever, huh?)

What a nice person and soooo talented.  We talked for quite a long time actually.

You can barely see it, but to the table on the left was a holiday spread of scrumptious goodies.

Chocolate orange slices, swedish fish, soft or crunchy gingerbread flower cookies, hot delicious mulled cider, and the list goes on.  It was the perfect compliment to the cold, snowy weather outside.

I stuck to my decided ahead items and budget:  apron pattern, and flannel fabric by Riley Blake for receiving blankets for Baby Girl coming in February.  If I don't decide ahead of time then forget it.  It's one of 'those' kind of stores!  All flannel fabric was 30% off that day in honor of the open house.  

I must confess:  I did make a splurge.  Two clear depression glass bowls.  I absolutely LOVE depression glass.  My favorite are the pale pink pieces that are intricate or the clear pieces.  I have a pink pitcher that I picked up at an antique store in Arizona once before I really knew what depression glass was.  All the other pieces of the set were with it, and I only bought the pitcher--because of the color.  Hindsight.

Depression glass originally was very inexpensive.  It was made during the depression and used as incentives when buying products.  It was put inside oatmeal, laundry detergent, it was at gas stations, etc.  Now it is a collectible.  I used the bowls to serve in on my Thanksgiving table.

(These pictures are from Seasons Of Home blog here.)

Happy Birthday, Christine!

Today is Christine's 17th birthday.

What would our family be without her?

Not Complete, that's for sure.

It took us nine years to get her here.

 Blessing Dress at 4 months old.

Baptism Dress at 8 years old.

Today.

HAPPY 17TH BIRTHDAY, CHRISSY GIRL!

We LOVE you!



Turkey Day 2011

We had such a nice Thanksgiving Day.

The weather was gray and cool with our fall leaves all around and the grass still verdant green.

The day was calm and festive all wrapped up together.

Cameron let us know he would be on a layover for the holiday.

Could he come?  Always!

Duff and Christine went to get him on Wednesday.  She drove to Long Beach airport and got some good freeway practice.

He very quickly made himself at home hanging out with everyone.  I got him some dinner.  The pecan pie was in the oven and the house was full of holiday fragrance.



 Christine's assignment this year was the rolls.

She did them from scratch (!) and they were amazing.

She is just 16 and can make homemade rolls.

My mommy buttons are busting.

These three couldn't keep their hands out of them before we got them to the table. Count that FIVE are already missing from the cookie sheet.  That pan was the orange rolls.

Adrianne and Chris set our beautiful table.

Dinner was delicious.  We brined the turkey again this year and it was perfectly perfect.  Gosh it makes for a good gravy. 

We had stuffing, turkey, potatoes, gravy, rolls, red cabbage, brussel sprouts, pecan pie, banana cream pie, mile high apple pie with crumb topping, and pumpkin squares.  Shrimp, stuffed mushrooms (which Chrissy also made), and a loaded relish plate.

--note to self:  don't put the corn in a pewter dish.  Too hot to handle.--

Cam had a report time of 6:55pm, so Mike and Adrianne got him back to LB.  I sent a jar of sweet pickles with him.  He loved the ones I canned this summer. 

Our day was filled with Thanks and Giving and Blessings of each other, you, and the gospel through which all things are possible and gives us perspective.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU AND YOURS!



Pay Attention To The Counting

This is my food processor.  I love it.  I have had it for several years already and use it almost every day for something.  I've gotten brave and ventured out to learn lots of new things with it this year.  I can grate cheese in a snap now.  This week I figured out how to make my recipe of pie crust in in.  You know--like 'Martha'.  Haha!  It needed to be tweaked just a smidge, and after watching different cooking shows I got it.  They don't tell you how many times to pulse the fats into the flour and then how many pulses when you add in your ice water.  I started counting and found out it's all in the counting!  Then for my apple crumb pie, I did all the crumb topping in it as well.  It's so nice to not have to manually cut the butter into the dry ingredients anymore.  My topping was done in 16 pulses instead of the 5-10 minutes of doing it by hand.

Hallelujah!

I love you Cuisinart Food Processor!  What else will you teach me this coming year?

4 Days in 26

I am home.  Duff and I packed up and drove it today.
I am soooo glad.
I have only been home 4 days in the last 26.
I am ready to be h.o.m.e.!

Not that I haven't enjoyed being in Arizona and Utah.  Every thing I did and went to was important.  But I am ready to be home and settled.

Here's what's been going on:

• My mom's hip replacement surgery.
• Natalie and Robert bought their first house and moved.
• Natalie started her brand new job and had no day care since my mom is convalescing.
• Christine's football game one on one weekend.
• Brooke's open house.
• Brooke's wedding.
• Josh and Meredith's football game one on one weekend.

And during all of this, all of the normal stuff with the rest of the fam.

I did make some headway with my Christmas shopping in the two days in between Brooke's wedding and when Duff and Josh and Mere got there.  Thank you to Wal-Mart, Home Depot, The Store, and on-line shopping.  I'm just about done and it feels good to be there before Thanksgiving.  I used to be such a procrastinator with Christmas shopping.  The last 4-5 years I have made a lot of progress in starting early and minimizing the stress I always self-imposed.

I am looking forward to a nice Thanksgiving and putting my Christmas tree up!

Journal Jar

This cute little journal jar is the last activity I did with the ward Activity Day girls.

We taught them how to decorate it with ModgePodge.

Inside are little strips of paper with prompt questions to write about in their journals.

Journals are important. They are sacred.

All of the scriptures came from journals.

The girls had a great time and loved their jars.

(Behind the jar are all my nieces and nephews high school graduation pictures.  I love that I get to see them everyday.)

2011 YW In Excellence

Last month was Young Women In Excellence.

What's Cooking?

The YW Values!

When you mix them into your life you end up with a no-fail recipe!

Each YW took home a cookbook filled with recipes from their leaders.

Every recipe section coordinated with a value color.

Clever!

They spent several activities making these aprons.

Christine's value that she chose to highlight this year was Divine Nature, so her embellishments were blue.  That is the color associated with Divine Nature.

Each girl told about their value accomplishment.

Every apron was the black and white polka-dots, but after that they were all different with the girls individual colors and interpretation.

I helped her with this flower.

I saw it on a tutorial from the Quilted Fish on the Pine Needles blog.

Individual circles folded in half and then in half again, pinned and sewn in the middle in a circular pattern. Cute huh?

Pleated pockets.

It was a great evening.  Good talks, fun games, and of course, dessert!

Thank You to our YW leaders and the girls.

A Boy And His Mud

Lisa and Craig got Natalie and Robert hoses and nozzles as a house-warming gift.

I don't think anyone outgrows how fun it is to play with water!  She enjoyed spraying everything down: the stucco, windows, concrete, rocks, garage, patio.  You never notice how much dust is on things until you spray them down.

Ah, how clean it is now!

Linda working away in the kitchen.

John immediately found the mud puddle.

That is what little boys do, right?

He enjoyed himself, completely! and was covered in mud by the time he was done playing.

Lisa and Duff took him back to her house--in the buff--to clean him up, have lunch and a nap.

Cleaned up and watching Elmo's Song on you-tube.

More Homecoming Pics

Such a pretty waterfall in the background.

So many different shoe choices.



Group photo.

Homecoming Float--Batman

This is Christine's Batman costume for the Homecoming half-time show.

She was part of the junior dance portion of the show.

It was AWESOME.

She wore the costume for Halloween too.