Getting Creative with the Beads

Look what I did today!

Happy 71st Birthday, Gram!

Gram blowing out her candles

Ayden and Sophie helping Gram to open and show off her Jim Shore Heartwood Thanksgiving decoration.

Sophie serenading us on the piano

I love our family Sunday dinners. The food is great, the company is wonderful and I love the memories we make just being together.

Thank You for the Thank You

Jenny and Trevor gave us this basket, hydrangea plant, fragrance diffuser, red square plate and yummy caramels as a "thank you" for their wedding. How CUTE are they?
Jenny obviously knows me well choosing perfect gifts that I love!
Thanks!

Random Pictures

We had Youth Conference at the beautiful Heber Valley Camp.

We were invited to dinner at the home of our wonderful Elder Song and his cute wife. We had a yummy Korean dinner and saw his cute baby boy.
(the little girl is a guest)

I made salsa with the tomatoes from my garden!

Tagged, Again - A Repost

Kim tagged me to tell six quirky things about me, so I'm reposting a "tagged" I did back in October of last year. I actually wrote 9 things - I guess I'm kind of a quirky girl:

1. Everyday when I write in my journal I start with the date, written genealogy style: 9 Oct 2007, then I draw a box around it and color in the box according to what day it is:
Monday: Green for Go - it's always a busy get-going day
Tuesday: Blue because it's my favorite day and blue is my favorite color
Wednesday: Purple because it comes after blue in rainbow order
Thursday: Pink (same reason as purple)
Friday: Red because it's a happy - end of the week - day and I might get a date "put a red dress on"
Saturday: Orange (same reason as purple)
Sunday: Yellow because it's the Sabbath - a "Light" day

2. I like to write! Literally to write with a pen or pencil. My Mom says when I first learned to write I used up reams of paper. Now I just write words on my leg with my finger (weird, I know) just whatever words come into my head or I hear in the conversation. So if you see my finger moving, I'm writing words.

3. Whenever I'm listening to music, but especially sing hymns in church, I "conduct" the music with my toe.

4. I can only clean house seriously in my pajamas or exercise clothes, once I've showered for the day, I just don't want to do housework. So if you come by my house in the afternoon and I'm still in my pjs or walking clothes, you'll know that my house is really clean!

5. I make lists, I love lists, I think it's because once I've written something down then it's not in my head anymore and I can think about something else.
And sometimes I rewrite the list - see #2

6. When I'm eating a full plate of food I take bites of each food so that always have the same ratio of the different foods on my plate, except if there's something I don't really like, then I eat it all first to be done with it.

7. I really like to make beds and do the ironing, I like making something go from disorder to order, contrary to the laws of nature.

8. I'd rather clean than cook; I've ruined more than one meal because I start cooking and then get sidetracked by laundry or some other "cleaning up" task and burned the food.

9. I've always had a thing for even numbers, preferring them over odd numbers. For example always leaving the volume on the TV on an even number,etc. But recently I've noticed that the number three is everywhere in the scriptures and life and good design and so THREE is my favorite number, and yes, it is odd. Which has led to my newfound love of multiples of three. For example, I have three sons and three daughters and that makes SIX and three squared is NINE and the number NINE appears in my address, my home phone and my cell phone, so I had to have NINE weird things about me!

My Beautiful, Modest Laurels

We had a fun Young Women Combined activity last Wednesday. Our three senior Laurels modeled their modest formal dresses. They all looked so beautiful! Here are just three of the twelve dressed that were modeled:

Sairah

Jessica

Kylee

Note: These pictures do not do justice to the girls or the dresses, but I posted them anyway.

Moonlight Ride

Barbara Jackson told me about riding the ski lift at Sundance on the night of the full moon, so I checked it out and invited my dear husband to join, seeing as how it seems like a very romantical thing to do. He thought about it for a minute (considering his dislike of both the out of doors and heights) and said, "Why don't you get one of your little friends to do that with you?"

So I did. Only I got two friends: Kathy Chamberlain and Heather Clark

And Heather said she'd give me $100 to post this picture on my blog:

It was a beautiful evening in the mountains and a pleasant ride on the lift.

Thanks, little friends.

Weekday Visit from Gkiddies

Wednesday Mary brought Ayden and Sophie for an afternoon visit, and to pick up her microwave she loaned to Todd. Michael and I were anxiously awaiting their arrival. We started with some trampoline fun:

Michael mid back flip

Michael and Sophie

Ayden showing us his amazing cartwheel


Sophie jumping

Ayden closed himself in the playroom for a little while and then came to get me to show me this:


"I put all the little people together because they are best friends, even cousins, family."


And this best quote from Sophie when I was leaving to go to Young Women, while holding my hand:

"Go a Nana to ung omen."

Gifts

On Labor Day we went to Williams-Sonoma so Jenny could use a gift card she got as a wedding gift. I don't usually frequent that store for a couple of obvious reasons: I don't really like to cook, and everything is a bit on the pricey side. But while browsing there I came across this beautiful bowl - okay, I'll admit it caught my eye first because it was blue and second because it's made of gothic arches! But then I read the fine print and realized it was also quite functional, as a fruit bowl, and it can be heated in the oven and will keep napkin-covered rolls warm on the dinner table. I didn't buy it then, but kept it in the back of my mind. Well, I wasn't the only person who remembered. Last night when my dear husband and I went to Maglebys for dinner and had a 30-minute wait he said, "Let's walk over to Williams-Sonoma and get you that bowl." What a sweetie!

Speaking of gifts, I never posted a picture of this most beautiful Nativity set that my dear husband got me last Christmas. It's so lovely I can't bear to put it away, so we have a bit of Christmas all year long.

I'm one lucky girl to have such a kind and generous husband.

A Dream Come True

Years ago, before I starting keeping a file of decorating ideas, and in fact before I recognized my obsession for blue and white, I saw in a magazine a picture of a red rattan chair with blue/white cushions. I hadn't thought of it for years, but the other night I dreamed of that picture. So I got to looking around my house and realized I had some chairs, not rattan mind you, yet with possibilities. So I purchased spray paint and fabric and voila!

Here are the "before" pictures:



The red rocking chair was just in for a touch-up. And here is the coolest tool for using spray paint, especially for a person with an incapacitated pointer finger:

I recognize that the title of this post is a little over the top, but the inspiration did come in a dream . . .

What I've Been Up To (or anything to not have that picture of my chubby hand)

First of all I wanted to post these cute pictures of my NY gkiddies on their first days of school. Wow, do I miss them!


























Next here is what I did with that giant zucchini that I grew in my garden: I made zucchini bread and grated and packaged the rest to freeze for future zucchini bread.












And finally, today I changed the front porch decor from Fourth of July to Fall. I decided to wait until after September 11, because it's a patriotic day, too.

Booboo on My Finger

Earlier in the week my right pointer finger started hurting. At first I thought I must have a sliver, but couldn't find anything. It just kept getting worse, red and swollen and that kind of deep pain that makes you nauseous, so I finally went to the doctor. I felt stupid going to the doctor with a "sore finger" but he took me seriously and got an x-ray and blood work. We were thinking maybe gout. Well, today I got a call with the diagnosis: a fracture! I have no idea when I got injured enough to break a bone ~ but apparently I did. So I get to wear this lovely splint for two weeks and return to the doctor. Crazy!

La Caille

A year ago we got a gift certificate to La Caille, the most expensive restaurant in Salt Lake City. So on Friday August 29th we joined with the other two lawyers at Morinda and had a lovely evening out. The food was delicious and the company delightful and the surroundings just beautiful!

My Three Sons

Today my three grown-up sons worked hard for me in the yard. First we trimmed the front bushes and then they pulled off the ivy that has been growing on the back of the house for over ten years. I'm guessing that you're supposed to trim it more often than that! It was growing into the wood trim on the eaves and the guys really had to work hard to pull it free of the house. It took two truck loads to the dump to dispose of the ivy they pulled off the house!

Todd pushing it off the roof

The final clean-up

A bonus was that it was so great to see and hear my boys working together and enjoying one another.

Thanks, guys!

55 on the 5th

Happy Birthday to my dear husband, Richard! It's kind of like a magic birthday ~ he gets two ~ 5 on the 5th and 55 on the 5th. He is a dear and kind man who loves God and his family. He is generous to a fault and has a gift with words, whether speaking or writing; he is always inspiring.


This is a picture we took in Geneva, Rich is pointing to the work "bijoux" - it's a silly word that Rich and Connor laugh about. Behind him is "schmuck," also a pretty silly word. That's another reason we love Rich ~ his sense of humor. He keeps our family laughing and not taking life too seriously. In fact, he's not above making "poo" jokes to get a laugh from the grandsons!

I love you!

Garden Update #3

For the last month I haven't spent much time in my yard and my garden has gone a little crazy. I've never been very good at the "harvesting" part of gardening. I finally made it out there today and got a huge zucchini and cucumber. I took a picture with the salt shaker so you could see how large they are. Apparently, I need to learn a little about pruning or thinning the garden as well!

Labor Day

We had a fun Labor Day this year. The Hammers and Coxes came on Sunday for a BBQ to celebrate Rich's 55th birthday (coming up tomorrow on September 5th) and they spent the night. We had fun at home playing games and watching old home videos. In the morning the couples decided to try out our amazingly comfortable bed:


Then we all headed to Riverside for the Labor Day lunch and carnival. It was pretty cold, but we had fun anyway.

Sophie

Ayden

Snow on Timpanogos on Labor Day!

Mary made pizza for dinner and it was AMAZING! BBQ Chicken, Alfredo Chicken, and Pepperoni ~ YUM!

It was a really fun family day and we're thankful to have such fun kids to share it with.