Graduation!!!

I hope you enjoyed the pictures. I liked the arrangement so I'm leaving them alone. Of course it all happened quite by accident since I don't know what I'm doing on this but it was good. Now there is a bonus picture at the end that wont go away so enjoy that too.
April 26 was a red letter day for us, or purple as the case may be. (Weber States colors) Layna graduated from Weber State University in Zo0loGy. I'm so proud of her and she is so relieved. Her boyfriend Chris also graduated with his BS in Nursing and cousin Sariah got her second Associates degree in Clinical Lab Studies (something like that) I'm proud of all of them. We had a fun dinner here. Since L wanted to get together with Chris's family who was here from out of state and we wanted to be with her and there are no restaurants that want to see us in the afternoon of Weber States graduation we had Café Rio catering here. We got to know his great family and got to hang out as long as we wished in a comfortable setting including a park to run and play in across the street.
   Now L is back in Moab working as a river guide for the 5th season. The only summer she took off was one during her mission to London. Many people ask what she is going to do with that degree. She COULD: work at any zoo and would be great at managing the reptile house at Hogle Zoo since they have been lacking for years and she is not afraid to work with the very large reptiles. She could teach, she could get a masters degree but hasn't found any that interest her yet and she has even talked about working at the venom lab milking rattle snakes for anti-venom. You could say she is very unique. The plan is to get done on the river in October and travel in South America where she has friends from her mission who would put her up during her travel. At the end of the summer the L&C relationship will be assessed.... Wouldn't it be great to feel like you had everything ahead of you and many opportunities instead of feeling stuck in whatever we have to do?
   I'm super proud of my "Laynie" and super proud that both my daughters have their degrees. There is a level of peace knowing that there are more options for them and they could take care of themselves. I have great kids!

Follow-up on project

 

Well, I got the shelf finished. I love it. It's quite different than the original picture because I wanted more shelf on the top and this is the trim D had on hand. He had it all ready and I just puttied holes and painted. The hard part was finding hooks I liked. I tried Home Depot, Lowes, Walmart, HobLob and the closest was a nice nickel hook with a square back. I even looked online with very little success. D found these on Rockler (a woodworking site). They were super cheap, which didn't matter but they are plastic and just stick on with double sided tape. That's fine cause I'm not hanging bathrobes on it and I think it would hold up anyway. I love the color and I love how it turned out.

 

I also painted the old faded oak window sills and want to make cornice boxes around the top of the windows and paint them grey too. This is interesting because I'm not a cool colors girl. I love the warm colors but I'm liking this combination in my bathroom. 

A little about cornice boxes because I knew nothing about them. I've been looking on Houzz.com a lot lately and finding different ideas and styles. I never have known what my style was. I bookmark the pictures I like so when we get ready to remodel the kitchen I can look at pictures and see what I like as far as colors and design. I ran across these cute wooden window treatments that I would call a "wooden valance", my daughter who loves decorating told me they are called cornice boxes. They don't look too hard and D likes new projects even though he has a couple dozen waiting and I may even get out in the shop now that I wont freeze and try doing some of the work myself.

I'm so glad it's finally warm so I feel like doing something. I can't believe how much I just hibernate all winter. It's a good time to read.

My Amazing Husband

So I know everyone likes to brag about their husbands but let me tell you a super cool story.
Mr. D always looks at furniture and likes to imagine building it. He started purchasing tools a few years ago and is now quite proficient at woodworking projects. He built this beautiful end table a couple of years ago.

Then he built this wonderful curio cabinet with glass doors and a light. I love it.

When one of the kids moved out we made her room a study. That included closing off the door down the hall and putting in a new door off of the front room. Now we have a conservatory/study so he built these fabulous book shelves. Yes they are kind of junky and cluttered but I love them. I haven't shown any of the fine detail but believe me, it's there. 

Then...I complained requested something other than plastic drawers for my fine lingerie (socks and underwear) in my closet and got this amazing built in dresser. The drawers are all on roller so they move super smooth. Once again, clutter, nevermind that. 

Well, this morning I was looking over my Pinterest pins and found this wonderful shelf I had pinned a few months ago and got all excited. D will be out of town next week and I need a project and a book. Since he had nothing to do but help two people move and mow the lawn and would be left without a car I suggested he just whip this little thing up and I would finish it next week. My question is, how many of you would just happen to have molding already laying around waiting for the project to come up? Well, he does. Not only that but he made the molding himself a couple of months ago. Fabulous!!!

I got home from a grueling day at work (not) and he had this nearly finished! 

Here is a close up of his fine molding. 

I'm so excited. I can't wait to go get paint and hooks and hang this in my bathroom.

I painted my bathroom recently. fifteen years ago it was mauve and white textured with a feather duster. I loved it but it got old. Then, about 7 years ago we had R repaint it a tan. D never did like it, it was too dark for him and we never really finished the fine detail. We decided to brighten it up and use a soft green. I love the color but L says it looks institutional. We still have brass fixtures and the tile has pink and grey tones. It just wasn't blending. But then...I found a color pallet with the light green we already have and multiple greys and I got excited. I'm going to add the grey into the room. I already bought a rose colored towel and rug and I think I'll get the grey towel too. His and Hers.

Funny that I couldn't bring myself to do anything in the winter and already this spring I have finished a quilt, got the top finished on another and worked on redecorating. I needed spring.

finished project coming up!

Finished project

I finally finished a project I began nearly two years ago. It wasn't even that large of a project. First of all I had to get nine different fat quarters that coordinated. That took a suprisingly long time but I enjoyed it. I ended up getting some that didn't coordinate as well so I could probably do another quilt with all I had left. The cutting and arranging is also pretty fun. I saw this in the fabric store a couple of years ago and even shelled out the $$ for the pattern. The one they had done for display was beautiful, the one on the pattern picture, not at all. I should include that picture, hideous. Anyway, loving the fall colors as I do I picked browns, tan, cream and rust. I love the way it turned out and I really love the randomness of the blocks. I was surprised how many times I just screwed this one up. It seemed so easy and I thought I had cut them right but I had to add a couple of half inch pieces to some blocks to make them fit, dumb. Oh well, I love it now.

Then to the quilting itself. I don't do very well machine quilting on my regular sewing machine and I didn't really want a close stitch like you get with a machine quilter even though I have a friend that owes me one quilting job. I just wanted a loose daisy pattern and once again I love it.

 

It looks great in my living room or my family room. (I must really like these colors)

and it's just a throw size so it's a little bigger than a baby quilt. I can be seen dragging this around with me to watch tv or read a book so it can be found in any room. Did I mention a nap? I really love it for that. I'm excited to finish the others I have started.

Happy 53rd to D

 This is our birthday man. He still looks and acts young except for the pain in his back that has him flat down in bed some days. It just so happens he got a book for his birthday called "Strengthening your core for 50+" I hope that solves some problems. His favorite dessert is Raspberry Deluxe. It has walnuts and cream cheese so some of our kids don't like it but it seems to disappear rapidly.

 D had early meetings this Sunday plus conducted our Sacrament Meeting and had to stay to figure and deposit charitable donations. It made him soooo tired but since he really just wanted to hold baby e, he was content.

 These are his two beautiful daughters who came to celebrate with us and helped me prepare. I love my daughters.

 I love my Sons too! I only have a picture of one of them and no, this baby is not theirs. She is baby e BUT...they did make an announcement. They plan to have one of their own in October!!!!

We will have three grandbabies! That was the highlite of the birthday celebration.

Happy Birthday D! and hoping we can celebrate many more!

Hello,
It's a new me and a new life. I plan to blog again. It's been 19 months since my last post.
First of all, I dread winter. I despise being cold and usually hybernate until the temps reach the 60s. So much has happened since my post about the basement flood. I should post pictures of the repainted, recarpeted basement but more importantly I should update on Braden's wedding, little e's birth, a trip to Europe to reunite with our finishing missionary and the closing of our business that I ran for 10 years. I also have opinions to rant about. Maybe I shoud rename this to Gigi's blog because I'm afraid the focus of most of my posts will be:

 

And some of this:

(yes, that is a young alligator)

My family does interesting things and I like to brag ahem, write about them.

So, we'll see how often I can manage this.

Loves, M

 

Flood of 2011

Yes, we've had a lot of rain and the river a mile from my house and down the hill is nearing it's point of over-flow and I've had people ask me if we are in danger of getting flooded and I say "No, not even possible" Well the river didn't hit us but a broken irrigation pipe did. It broke underground and finally found an escape route through the dirt and spewed up one night after the sprinklers went off. It's a pressurized line so it had some force. It filled the big window well and the pressure broke the window and destroyed the blinds in the process. It was 4:30 AM, thank goodness we were home. It was very loud and there was running water so we ran downstairs...barefooted. When I heard arching from the treadmill I ordered all barefoot people out of the water and ran upstairs to hit the breaker switches and unplugged everything before turning the lights back on. On our second trip down nearly every step under our now shod feet was breaking glass that had floated all through the craft room and hall and was making it's way into the bedrooms and even into the family room. This water came from the window well so of course it had dirt, leaves, worms, bugs and even a salamander.

Did I mention that the force destroyed the blinds?

I've never been known for my immaculate house keeping and it came back to bite me in the craft room. I had my top drawer full of stamp pads open 2 inches. It instantly filled with water and filled all three drawers below it. The cart with my paper caught the water coming down and ruined all of that. The family and personal portraits, however, were in hanging file folders safely under the counter.

The counter had my paper cutter, quilt fabric/projects (only a few) and pictures, framed and otherwise. Those items did not fare well and were strewn throughout the room.


This is down the hall and into the family room. Glass even got this far.






Dirty water everywhere.

(I lost a couple of pictures here, sorry)

ServiceMaster to the rescue and after much ulcer causing questions, State Farm came to the rescue and is covering the repairs.

All carpet had to come out and the cabinets. Sheetrock had to be removed 16 inches up and all insulation below that point. D was ready to start on his back yard work shop but now he's sheet rocking and we spend a lot of time looking at paint and carpet samples. Not how we wanted to spend our summer but so grateful that our disaster was nothing more than an inconvenience and otherwise we have all been well.

For my Sisters

No, it's not done yet but do you wanna see the progress of our sampler quilt?
Let me remind you that I've been crazy busy and...well...CRAZY!
This thing is a little labor intensive and remember me reminding you all that I had a new blade on my rotary cutter and it's sharp? Well, I had a little delay because of a rotary blade accident. Haha, nothing serious but it stopped me for a while. Anyway, Here it is:

Obviously I have not put the blocks together but see how cool they look all criss-crossy? If I do two more and put a border on it should be plenty big because it's not supposed to fit a bed anyway, it's just a throw.

I love the randomness and the contributions. Believe it or not I have actually sewn several more strips. It really takes a lot of strips. We bought the green and the brown solid fabric and the green just looked a ton better even though I was leaning toward the brown. Anyway, I love it but can't wait to get it done cause I have so many other projects I want to work on. Thanks again for coming and thanks for indulging me in this fun little project.

Wha? Two months? Really?

OK, First let me be the first to congratulate myself on getting right to the Thanksgiving blog post and showing off Sista J's amazing hosting skills and cute kids to boot. BUT (and it's a big one!) The last two months have really slipped through my fingers. I'm not a big fan of January and I find myself enduring rather than being productive. While I have done all of this (snuggling with Baby E) as possible.

There has been way too much of this going on:

I have managed to get around to this:


I am notoriously NOT a decorator but my lovely daughter helped me make the word HOME in big letters on the shelf above the doorway in our living room so by getting the letters L and V and repapering them I now have my Valentine decoration up. Ok, there's more but I really don't like the old ones I have so I'm working on something new.

I've been trying to get to this:

This is one finished quilt block that my sisters and I worked on while we were together. I should have it done, put together and all quilted up but refer to the beginning of this post. But, hey, did you catch the point about ALL my sisters being together? That has never happened before with just the girls and Mom. We had a great time and since the girls from the midwest were here we saw a little of this:



Yeah, these two are 32 days apart in age but from birth have been 6 inches apart from birth but since the growth spurt of last year this is now the distance between the two. If I did nothing but blog I would go into detail about these two and their exploits. Oh My!

But, yes, we all got together and on a cold blustery day we braved the icy roads and went to the Salt Lake temple and trudged on to the JSMB and enjoyed a wonderful early dinner at the Garden Restaurant complete with fried dill pickles. don't knock it till you try it. We stayed up late that night and the next night was New Years Eve. We had our traditional German Chocolate cake and observed my favorite tradition and went to bed early. Really, I'm no fun late at night. On new years we ate and sewed and watched movies and laughed. We planned another get-together and made memories. I love my sisters and enjoy getting together with them and can't wait to do it again.

As you might have guessed they came a day early and we had a salon day where they got their hair done. That was fun too.

Thanksgiving

It looks like we are about ready. 13 of us ate in one room at my sisters house. The placemats were made by her family. They had real fall leaves between sheets of wax paper. They were so cute and the kids were so proud.

They made the cutest centerpieces! (yes, they deserve exclamation points)

This is the group minus the hosts. Interesting group. I usually host but was feeling a little overwhelmed so a couple of months ago I volunteered to bring food to anyone elses house and not host. It was an "off" year for my bro-in-laws family so we had his Dad and younger, single siblings, my parents, my two sons, me and my husband, D along with J and DH (hosts) and their kids.

Sweet little E managed to take out her pony tail but was cute never-the-less and headed to bed before dinner making dinner itself less stressful for J.

Cool dude, R was excited to have so many guests and yes, my Mom really does have a Thanksgiving apron.



Grandpa B managed to get little E in a snuggly mood and danced around the kitchen with her. This is a bad back-lit picture but it was the only one that showed both their faces. So sweet.

T and R get plenty of attention from their Aunt and Uncle.

Oops, this was not Thanksgiving. This was Saturday when R popped in to see Grandpa and he got out the new toy he bought. We aren't sure who likes it best but baby E seemed to really enjoy it. I was at work but they did come see me too. I was disappointed to have to work so much around the Holiday but expect to get a little more time after Christmas when I am planning a sisters get-together with....my sisters, of course!

Just pictures (to melt you heart)

Here's our little darling at 2 months in her blessing dress. So cute.

She was an m&m for Halloween and R and A were packages of m&m's, plain and peanut.

Here she is at four months. So much personality and expression.

We had family pictures done the end of September just before L left for London. The leaves had just started turning so we got the perfect blend of colors. I loved the background.

Ooooh, he's so handsome. don't worry, you will all get a Christmas card with the fam picture on it plus a couple of bonus picts.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!