Fun times...

So this is what we've been up to lately:

With the summer heat we have been swimming a lot.

It's official, Katelyn finally has hair...okay she's had hair for awhile now but she now has enough to put in a little ponytail!  Yippie!!

And speaking of Katelyn, she loves lotion, chapstick, makeup brushes, combing her hair, shoes, pretty much anything girlie.  Well, she found some "lotion" and boy did she smear it on thick!  Waterproof sunscreen isn't exactly easy to wash off either...She keeps me busy. 

I have had a GREAT time sewing and working on projects.
This shirt of mine went from this

To this and I made a skirt to go with it.  Doesn't she look so cute!!

And I made this shirt for her out of an old shirt of mine.  I stenciled a high heel shoe on the front because she is OBSESSED with my high heel shoes!  It has elastic lace at the neckline and at the waist.  I learned how to stencil on clothes by using this tutorial: Freezer Paper Stencil  So easy and she's right it is addictive!  (Beware, freezer paper only comes in gigantic rolls so if you need some, I have lots to spare come and get some!)

Both shirts were inspired by this tutorial:   90 Minute Shirt Tutorial
The skirt is my own creation.


So I am finally over half way to having a baby!

My official half way point was July 4th, but I'm sure this baby will be late like James and Katelyn so I celebrated the half way point a few days later instead. (This baby is due to make its appearance at the end of November) We still haven't had an ultrasound to find out if we are having a girl or boy and we probably won't. With our other children we just kind of knew what we were having and were right ever time. So we think we are having a boy and we are just going with it.  If we do happen to need an ultrasound we will find out then.  Someday I'll take a picture of my expanding belly...but apparently not today.

Our Love Story

It has come to our attention that some, possibly many, in our family got the impression that Robert and I came to a "mutual agreement" and decided to get married.  This rumor possibly began because we had dated and had been best friends for years before we got married.  But it still wasn't a "mutual agreement".  We would like to set the record straight and tell the story that apparently some, possibly many, haven't heard.

I'll try to make this story as short as a 4 year courtship story can be.

The Beginning:
Robert and I met in high school while he was dating my best friend.  We all hung out a lot together and during this time we became really good friends.  After several months of being friends we began dating (don't worry he and my friend broke up before we started dating) We became best friends and loved being together we were always so happy and had so much fun.  This was our Prom picture from my Junior year, his Senior year. 

The Middle:
We dated for 9 months and then Robert went on a mission to the Germany, Frankfurt mission.  We wrote and kept in touch the entire 2 years.  When he came home we dated and hung out.  Then he decided he was supposed to move back to
Arizona.  So he did.  We still kept in touch and visited each other several times.  During the eight months we lived in separate states we dated other people but we realized after a while that we were so very happy when we were together and hated being apart.This picture was taken after his mission, he came  up to Utah from Arizona to visit me and his family. 

Not The End, But The Beginning of Forever:
We talked about marriage a few times throughout our courtship but we knew that the time just wasn't right for us to get married.  Finally in September/October 2003 we knew were supposed to get married and we knew that we loved each other and wanted to be together forever.  So Robert bought a ring.  We met in Alamo, Nevada at my grandparents house for a vacation and on October 31st, he surprised me by waking me up at dawn.  (dawn is my favorite time of day)  He took me for a drive to a canyon where we could watch the sunrise together.  He wrote a poem and surprised me with the ring and I said YES!! (Yes, it was an offical proposal, that was another rumor going around too...Funny where do these rumors come from?!?)

We were married in the Mount Timpanogos Temple on January 17th, 2004, four years, to the day, after our first date.  We've been married 6 1/2 years now and have been the best of friends for 10 1/2 years and it has been wonderful!!

So no, it wasn't a "mutual agreement"; it was love.

Ahhh....New Fabric!

I have been patiently waiting for JoAnn's to have a 50% off sale on their clearance fabric...I know you may be thinking, they are already on clearance--just buy it! But I'm a bit cheap and try not to spent too much on fabric. Don't worry the wait was totally worth it! I bought some really cute fabric for pretty cheap; $1 to $2 per yard!

I can't wait to begin sewing a lap size quilt out of these four fabrics.  The bottom fabric will be the back of the quilt.  It's going to be a gift, I hope they like it!! It will be lightweight and machine quilted.

I'm excited that I found two more (pink and blue) to match my color scheme I picked out about a year ago. Someday I'll have enough to start my quilt.  It takes awhile to get enough to make a queen size quilt when you only buy remnants or 50% off clearance fabrics. 

I just finished this quilt top and I'm contemplating what to do for the back. I want it to be interesting to look at too so I can flip it over if I want a change. My goal with this quilt was to use up as many scraps as possible but I didn't want to do a traditional square patchwork quilt. I cut all the colored pieces 4 inches wide but I varied the height, it made it kind of challenging to put together but I love the randomness of it.  When it's finished it will be queen size and machine quilted in lines parallel to the colored stripes.  Robert keeps reminding me that we live in Arizona where quilts are unnecessary for 3/4 of every year.

This was the first quilt that I machine quilted (all others before this one I tied with yarn).  I am now addicted to machine quilting!  The fabric puckering and puffing up just makes me smile. The pattern is out of the book called The Modern Quilt Workshop and is called Love Beads if I remember correctly. 

Pool Pictures

Wondering yet how are we taking such fun pictures in our pool?
Here it is, the best waterproof camera case that $35 can buy you on ebay; made by My Aqua Case:

In the past we have spent money on disposable waterproof cameras but always forget to use them or to have the film developed and then there was always the hassle of scanning in all the pictures since everything we do is digital these days. So this year I spent the money and hoped this worked and it does!! We are having such a fun time taking pictures in the pool. And the best part is we can take thousands of pictures and if only 4 work out it's okay because we are using our digital camera, not a film camera.

So if you go swimming a lot like us and love to take pictures but don't want to risk ruining your nice digital camera, perhaps this is the thing you too have been looking for. Okay enough with the infomercial...Enjoy some more pictures. :)

Refashions

So I have a friend who blogs about the refashions and crafts she does and it inspired me to do some of my own.  :)  Here's what I've been up to:

I am beginning to need maternity clothes and WILL NOT pay $50 for pants that won't be worn very long...okay really I won't pay $50 for pants ever!  So I found this tutorial:  Maternity Pants Tutorial on how to turn regular pants into maternity pants, it looked easy enough so since it was 50% off day at Goodwill my three kids and I took a little trip.  I found 2 shorts that were cute, modest and would have fit without the baby bump.  So on to JoAnns to buy stretchy fabric.  It took about 30 minutes to cut off the top and sew on the stretchy band; it was so easy and I LOVE them.  Every crafty pregnant mama should try this!!  (Sorry no picture, I wasn't in the mood to take a picture of my belly today.)

While I was there I also found a men's shirt to try out this tutorial: The Shirt Dress Tutorial  Once I got the pattern drawn up I was able to sew up the entire dress in about an hour!  I LOVE IT!!  Instead of sewing the waist band on top I cut the dress and sewed it in and with that was able to make the skirt fuller.  To make the skirt fuller I cut the entire bottom of the shirt off and gathered it then sewed it onto the waist band.  The shirt I got was strait across the bottom so I didn't even have to hem it!  I removed the buttons from the left over part of the shirt and added them in between the original buttons because for a little girl's dress they were too far apart.  (I didn't make new button holes just sewed them on-Button holes get very time consuming)

I can't wait to do another one!  Sleep in fear Robert's dress shirts because you are next...you know which one's you are...the one with the little stain on the collar and the one with the stain on the sleeve...You will soon be a lovely little girl dress!!

Happy Crafting!!

Califonia Pictures...Finally

I really struggled doing something with the hundreds of pictures we took in California but I FINALLY narrowed them down to the best and here they are.

A Good Dog!

So an update on Chelsea, the dog. She is still driving me crazy digging up the gardens, I swear she knows what plants we are especially proud of and tries to destroy those ones-never hurting the weeds of course! I have tried every suggestion out there besides a 6 food fence (a bit much for a small back yard though). If anyone has any more suggestions, I'll try pretty much anything.

When we got her we also got a cage for the bird, Cookie...just in case... Well, today they had an encounter...

Cookie flew out the open door. Robert and Michael thought that she flew out of the yard so they started searching down the street when they heard Cookie squawk in our back yard. Then they heard a lot of squawking from Cookie and from other birds.

They ran fast and when they got to Cookie they found her in the corner of the yard with Chelsea protectively laying in front of her keeping away the larger, meaner black birds that were circling above!

Cookie had a minor foot injury and she's missing some feathers off her back but she was so happy to see Robert and the inside of our house again. Perhaps she won't be as eager to get outside and she won't fly into the windows as much.

So good dog Chelsea, you passed the "are you friendly with birds" test!

This is a good post!

Do you ever have great news that you just don't feel like sharing right away?  You just want to be selfish for a time and keep all the joy to yourself?  Well, I do.

Sometimes I just don't want to share things because sometimes people just aren't as excited as I am about my joy or they say, "I knew it!" instead of the "That's so wonderful!" that I hope to hear.  And other times I just don't want to tell because of all the work it takes to tell everyone that must be told...all the phone calls to parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, friends...and the list goes on! (Not that I don't LOVE talking to all of you but sometimes knowing that I must call all of you in a short amount of time while taking care of my children too can be a bit overwhelming-I know you have all heard them screaming for my attention in the background!  So please don't be offended that we didn't call.)

So, I am telling how I want, when I want and if you are reading this congratulations, you may be one of the first to know.  To those of you who wanted to know sooner but didn't check our blog, you should check our blog more often because there are some really fun pictures of our kids (that some of you have probably requested to see) and fun movies of, what else, our kids!!

Speaking of movies of our kids, here's a great one, they are SO SILLY! Enjoy!



Come back again soon to check out more fun stuff about our kids on our blog!!