My Sisters

I love my sisters.

They are valiant and courageous,
they are beautiful and smart.
They have tremendous self discipline in the face
of accomplishing their goals.

We talk. We laugh. We sometimes cry.
They are my best friends.

Counting Down: the 13th

Oh how the craft supplies pile up when it's Christmas time. We brought this table in for Thanksgiving and it quickly became my crafty catch all. This way we can still use the table and I have all my stuff close. :) Emma had to scale the table and all of my stuff to put up the next magnet.

Pocket Countdown

I made a pocket countdown for my sister-in-law. I just did it for the 12 days of Christmas, because 24 would have been crazy! I am in love with little denim pockets right now. They are so fun to use. I'm going to make one for me too. :)

A White Christmas

Now this is my idea of a white Christmas.

I'm not such a big fan of the mess and worry that snow brings.
This is my mom's garden under the magical winter spell of the last few days.




Emma and Katelyn

Weekly Ads: A Couponer's Friend

Jason and I have been trying to coupon more to save money on our household and grocery items. Well, on anything we can really but you see the greatest results in those areas. We have a friend who shares her coupon abundance with us. We are grateful that she does. :) It is a lot of fun!

new treat tried

I tried a new treat.

Once I got it figured out, it was very good.



Here's the recipe for any who would like to try it.
I got it from this site.
http://howdoesshe.com/munchy-crunchy-crazy-yummy/
Goose Crunch
1 cup mini marshmallows
2-3 cups crushed pretzels
1 cup M&M’s
4 cups white chocolate
Cinnamon Sugar & Melted Semi-Sweet Chocolate for drizzling
1 batch Caramel Corn
1/8 tsp. kosher salt (optional)
Mix Marshmallows, M&Ms and pretzels with cooled caramel corn. Melt white chocolate. Pour over mixture mixing until completely coated. Spread on parchment covered cookie sheets. Lightly sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Cool & drizzle with semi-sweet chocolate.
Caramel Popcorn
15 cups popped popcorn
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
¼ cup corn syrup
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
Preheat oven to 200 degrees. In medium saucepan combine butter, sugar, corn syrup & salt. Heat on medium, stirring occasionally. When bubbles appear, cook for 5 more minutes without stirring. Remove from heat & stir in baking soda. Mix with popcorn until coated. Place on 2 greased cookie sheets. Cook for 1 hour turning every 15 minutes.

My Happy Birthday Gift

Jason's mom made me these nifty potholders for my birthday. I guess they were used on Rachel Ray. They are connected in the middle so you don't burn your arms. I know, clever!

Lost Letters

I'm working on the last of the vinyl for our last ward craft night.

The vinyl is so funny sometimes because the letters don't always stay put.
If you're careful, you can find the letter and put it back.
But the letters are awfully tricky sometimes.

For example, on this piece, I didn't even know that I was missing a letter.
I just happened to turn my hand and I saw the i stuck to my finger.
Then I went back to the last piece and found that I was indeed missing an i.
Can you see where?

Then shortly after the first missing i, I lost another one.
Only this time where it flew I knew not.
I checked my fingers and all around, but it could not be found.
As I kept going, I saw something out of the corner of my eye, in my hair.
It was the missing i! Can you see it in my hair?
(And do you see the lovely gray hair in that snatch of hair?)

These two lost letters made me laugh as I was working.
We find vinyl everywhere around here: on the bottom of shoes,
on clothes coming out of the washer/dryer, on our fingers and faces,
arms and legs, and there was even a burgundy piece on my brush.

Cheese Louise

My sister arranged a sisters night out for her birthday.

We went to a place called Cheese Louise in Richland. It was different, but fun.

We sat in this sofa area and they brought our meal to us on cutting boards.
It was fun to sit together casually and visit before and after we ate.

Everything in their store is on sale, even their decorations. I loved these pumpkins.

I enjoyed the whole feel of the store. One thing I liked in particular was this tea wall.
I am going to recreate something like this for my craft room.
In the jars, I will store buttons, pins, scissors, glue sticks, flowers, brads, clips, etc.
I am so excited to have an idea to make that room fun.

I wholeheartedly recommend Cheese Louise for your next date night.
Keep in mind that the menu is Paninis and flat bread types. No hamburgers and fries.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is a good day for turning 32.
We shopped for couches, but need a little more time to save up for the one we want.
We went out to dinner with my mom and sisters at Olive Garden.
I had the Chicken with stuffed rigatoni. Delicious!

And for holding a sick child.
Poor Claire woke up and could hardly breathe.
She had a croupy cough and then she threw up twice.
I held her in the rocking chair and she finally calmed down, but
she wanted that bowl close just in case.

Date Night at the Temple

This is the beautiful picture I took just before we went in.

Oh, it's so wonderful to live so close to a Temple;
to go and feel the peace that comes while serving in that special place;
to hear the blessings and be reminded of the covenants we've made.

Oh, it is wonderful indeed to live so close to a Temple.

Craft Night Set Up

Jason and the kids helped me set up tables and chairs for my craft day.
I was so thankful for their help, even the kids helped with the chairs.
Paul was my best helper, continuing to pull chairs
off the stack when the others had already gone to play.

And of course they had a blast running, and riding, around in the gym.

Holiday Blocks

This was a fun project to work on. It started out as gifts for my visiting teaching women for February and then turned into one for each month.

My Mother's Day Tree

Jason went and picked out a tree for me and our new house. :) It's a dogwood.

Wonderful Visiting Teachers

My visiting teachers are great! What a blessing it has been to have them come and visit and stop by. I've learned a lot from them. They brought me this mix of bulbs so that I could take a little bit of them with me to my new house. Yes, how thoughtful!

These were already on the way out when I snapped the picture.

Come Listen to a Prophet's voice

So I was in charge of the table decorations for a dinner that our stake put on. I asked several women in my ward to help and the decorations turned out really nicely. The theme was Latter-day Prophets and we had pictures for each table along with little things that represented the work they had done or messages they were known for. It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. Here's a sampling of a few tables. I couldn't help myself with the blocks and vinyl, ok?!

16th and Current Prophet-
Thomas S. Monson

8th Prophet-George Albert Smith

11th Prophet-Harold B. Lee

1st Prophet-Joseph Smith

15th Prophet-Gordon B. Hinckley

7th Prophet-Heber J. Grant

a little re-lax-a-tion!

I have been dealing with some back pain over the last several weeks. Let me just say that it was bad enough to warrant Jason bringing out his massage table. Wahoo! I got a massage. And no that is not just my enormous rear end in the picture...I have a heat pack on my back. I was so relaxed when he finished that I conked out on the table and didn't really know where I was when he woke me up a short while later. It was nice!