Randomness

This cat is so starved for attention. If you're not moving he's trying to get on top of you. Even if it means his head is squished under the edge of the table.

My birthday meant a trip to the DMV. The whole experience was pretty quick and painless (once I got a replacement social security card to prove I'm a legal American) but the new picture is AWFUL! It's super close-up. I think I look very heavy because you can't see my neck, it's just all face. Really scary. 

Uncle Ben in the Texas Roadhouse saddle for his 40th birthday.

In January I bought myself some spring. $10 very well spent.

In January we also got Emma registered for EFY. So exciting!!!

There's a new place in town and it serves Mexican! Emma and I went one night on a mommy daughter date. We got fancy drinks and after dinner we got cupcakes next door. I like that our little town is getting more businesses.

A close-up of the peace offering rose Andrew picked out for Emma.

This is the makings of a quilt like I made my mom but in fresh spring colors. I haven't made a lot of progress, just one block that I used as practice for my mom's quilt. I need to get going on it.

This is what it looks like when Emma and I both get crafty at the same time. It's not pretty.

My mom got me these two scrumptious make-up palates as a treat since things were so rough at the beginning of the year. For the record, things are still really rough.

 I toyed with the idea of going blonde this summer. The idea only lasted a minute. I put my face in a picture of Jennifer Aniston and that was enough of that idea. I'm not meant to be blonde!

Andrew did a country report this year. He chose Mongolia since that is where grandma and grandpa are living right now. They sent us some cool stuff that really helped him with his poster and oral presentation. We left the writing of the report up to him. He did a great job. It was hilariously written. This wasn't ten pages of stats. It was all Andrew telling a story. You'd have to read it to really understand I guess. We were glad his teacher appreciated his approach to such a serious report.

This was suppose to be a postage stamp quilt. It wasn't until I got 60% of the way through that I realized the two jelly rolls weren't actually the same width even though they said they were. Now I have to pick ever seam, trip all the white pieces and sew from there. It will take forever. I'm not sure what I'm going to do at this point. I want to write the manufacturer and complain since it's a design flaw but doubt I will. Still it's very frustrating. 

I was able to get this quilted with my birthday gift card. I LOVE IT!

My cat has a thing for quilt fabric. He likes to deposit as much hair as possible on it.

Emma and I have recently fallen in love with taffy. Coconut is our favorite.

My columbines started blooming in May. I adore these quirky flowers.

We found a quail nest. Unfortunately it was abandoned and a predator ate the eggs a while later. We never got to see the babies.

Hello!

I am so over having a pet but Andrew loves him.

Jenna's big sister Tori got her mission call and Emma and I were lucky to be there when she opened it. I got to teach Tori in activity days when she was ten or eleven. I am so proud of her and so grateful that we got to share this moment with her and her family. I just love them all. She's going to be serving in El Salvador! This is such an exciting time. I'm grateful for her example.

This could be one of the predators that ate the quail eggs...

We've had a lot of snakes this year.

Paul and I got crafty. We built an earring holder for all of my earrings. It turned out well. I like collaborating on projects with my hubby.

Free tickets to Sound of Music thanks to our Pass of All Passes. Maggie and I need to go soon!

Emma and her friends at the Provo temple for a service project.

That's all for now...

Spring Break

We did not get to go anywhere for spring break. We did get to chicken-sit for our neighbors who went to San Diego. Emma loved it and did a great job. We went and visited them many times each day taking them veggies and collecting eggs. Each time we would hear one lay an egg she would head right over to fetch it. It was a good experience for all of us.

This is Princess. She lays the little eggs. They're so cute!

On Friday we took the kids to Lowes Extreme Air Sports in Provo. I actually spent part of my time in Provo at the social security office getting a copy of my card so I could renew my drivers license. That was fun, not! Anyway the kids had a lot of fun jumping and flipping all around.

Spring took it's sweet time coming this year. Our daffodils opened right during spring break.

The fruits of Emma's labors. Aren't they pretty?

They tasted good too! This was our brunch one day.

I tried to make spring break fun for the kids by doing things that I don't normally do, like buy a half dozen cupcakes from Cravings. This cupcake right here was marvelous!

We had a lot of fun trying the different flavors,

The one with the strawberry was so good I may have gone back a couple of days later to get another one. While I was there I saw a maple bacon cupcake that I had never seen before. I decided to get it for fun. It was delicious, until you got to the bacon. Bacon has no business being on a cupcake.

I also cooked some dinners that I don't cook very often because they are time consuming. We had steak street tacos and Rumbi bowls but I don't have pictures of those. It was sad that we didn't go anywhere but it was also nice to be so relaxed for a week. I got a lot accomplished in my week off. We need more of them!

April 2013

As I've mentioned a million and one times 2013 has been a really hard year. April was no exception. Just when we thought things were getting better with Paul's job we got more bad news. Unfortunately things are still difficult but our fate will be determined this coming Tuesday. Deep breath.

April was an eventful month. We had a lot of life changing events. Some highs. Some lows. It whizzed right by. April consisted of spring break, birthdays, braces, anniversary, electronic baby, sleep depravation, flour sack baby, chicken sitting, cupcakes, track meets, quilting, a trip to the DMV to renew my license and of course church callings etc. etc. Here are the highlights.

Clockwise from Top left-Andrew got his braces on the 29th. Andrew turned 12 and was ordained to the office of a deacon. We got to do it at our home so we could FaceTime with David and Nancy in Mongolia. Andrew celebrated his 12th birthday but of course it wasn't without drama. He injured himself that day and was grumpy and in pain all day long. Paul's brother Ben came for a week of applicating in Utah. While he was here we celebrated his 40th birthday by going out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Emma had an electronic baby for her teen living class. It was awful. That baby put her through hell. Emma registered for high school, her sophomore year, with the help of two older friends. She got all the classes she wanted. Paul and I celebrated 17 years of marriage by going out to dinner.

March 2013

March was another hard month for our family. It had some highlights but I pretty much think 2013 sucks rocks. I'm so so so hoping and praying that it gets better soon. We are still very blessed, but dang, we could use some carefree happy days.

Clockwise from the Top Left: Our St. Patrick's Day family photo, our Easter family photo, Andrew giving Emma a peace offering rose (He wanted to start being nicer to her. It worked for a little while.) , the kids on Easter, Emma and Jenna at a track meet, Emma throwing the shot put and Emma and Andrew at another track meet.

Here are some honorable mentions for the month of March ; )

These two had track practice every Tuesday-Friday. I felt like I drove to and from that school approximately a million times a week. 

Andrew had an epic game of Munchkins. He had so much armor/gear/weapons it was crazy. his fighting power was a 30. Unheard of!

We had a Relief Sole-ciety birthday dinner at church to celebrate the Relief Society's birthday. We had pizza, balloons, cake and ice cream. The turn-out was wonderful and we all had a really good time. These are the cute centerpieces that we on the tables. (Of course there was a ballon bouquet floating above) Since our theme was a play on the shoe theme (hard to explain) we had sisters make the little paper shoes at our visiting teaching conference the month before to deliver as invitations. They stuffed candy and the info into them. It was fun to be able to use some on the tables. The biggest hit of the night was the game where we had to guess sisters from baby/toddler/teen photos. It was a riot.

Yes I found myself in another skit. With shoes on my hands. About visiting teaching. Sigh!

I brought home one of the balloon bouquets for Andrew to shoot at. They were a little rubbery and the plastic BB's were bouncing off hitting ME so I told him to stop shooting them. He threw knives at them instead. I don't really understand boys...

The day after the Relief Society dinner Paul left again for a trip. He was in Pennsylvania for a little while. I kept myself occupied with this happy stack of fabric. The first block was a practice block (I was so scared to try this!) but it ended up going together really well. Now I need to really get down to business. I have everything cut and bundled into the color combos I want. Now I just need to get busy sewing them all together. Hopefully I will get it finished sometime soon but without money to have it quilted it's hard to be motivated.

It lined up quite well if I do say so myself.

 This is a soup recipe that I found on Pinterest. Here's a link if you're interested. It was good. Not great but good. I don't totally love ground beef soups though and mine came out really dry. I should have bought more beef broth. I may or may not make it again. It was hearty! 

While I was digging through and using a lot of my quilting crap Emma decided to sew a project for math, yes math. It was "quilt" for pi day showing that there is no pattern in pi. I texted Paul this picture during his trip and said, "this house isn't big enough for one quilter let alone two!" 

My mom eased my sorrows of being away from Paul with this fun treat. They came in the mail while he was gone and it was just the boost I needed. I love them! Especially the Glinda palate. 

I spent way too may days like this. Face-timing Paul. I missed him.

Andrew and I went through the car wash together and finally got all of winter removed. Good riddance.