the Hepworth Family

Still sewing...

2012-01-15T16:04:00.003-07:00

Although I haven't been sharing here...I've still be sewing up a storm. Thought I'd share some of the things I've made over the last couple of months. At least some of the stuff that I've taken pictures of.

Here's Audrey's Halloween costume. Not the easiest one I've sewn, but love how it turned out. It's big too, so Audrey will probably be Tinkerbell again next year.

I started this wall hanging last January and didn't get it finished. I wanted it done before this February so before the Christmas sewing began I finished it up.

I also sewed up some skirts for a friend of mine who has 2 little girls.

I also finished up 2 small wall hanging as well as an advent calendar that I started before last Christmas (2010) and didn't get finished (I finished it up just in time for this last Christmas, November 30th). There aren't picture because I guess I didn't take any pictures of it. :( Maybe I'll post some when it comes out of storage next year.

Here is some of the sewing I did for Christmas this year...
2 notebook covers...

A lion head taggie...

Stuffed Elephant...

6 pillow cases...

And 3 pajama eaters...

Not pictured, I also made up 5 pairs of pajama bottoms and after Christmas another pajama eater. I think there's probably other sewing I've done as well, but can't remember right now...it's all a blur. Oh yeah, I also sewed up some sweatshirts for a friend who needing something to wear for an ugly sweater contest...her husband won. His was a red sweatshirt with a toilet seat cover of Santa's face sewn on the front. :) The hubby was glad I didn't make him wear it! I also did a little crocheting in there too.

My plans for the new year include finishing up more works in progress as well as starting (and finishing, hopefully) some new projects. I'll keep ya posted! :)

Christmas pictures...

2012-01-10T18:04:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. We spent time with just our family and also spent some time with extended family. I love being able to spend time with people we don't get to see a lot throughout the year. It's fun to catch up with others and see how everyone has faired since the last time we saw each other.

I don't have pictures of all we did...but we decided to try and do an advent calendar. We tried to do a fun activity each night of the month to count down to Christmas, some days we did better then others and most nights we did do something fun which helped make the month go by pretty quick, not to mention all the sewing I did.

Some of the fun we had December included:
Visited Temple Square
Wrote letters to Santa
Made cookies
Took treats to our friends
Watched Christmas movies
Listened to Christmas music
Decorated the Christmas tree
Driving around looking at all the lights
Going shopping for each other at the $ store
and more, just can't remember all the fun we had right now!

Here are Nathan and Audrey showing off the letters to Santa...

Of course mom and dad helped them write them, Nathan did sign his name and Audrey drew a tiny picture to Santa.

When we went to temple square we decided to take trax for a little treat for the kids since they've never been on the train before. It sure was fun, although next time we'll take them during the day so they can see everything that we pass by.

Christmas Eve the kids got to open up some jammies to sleep in and we took some pictures, my sister (Aunt Gigi) came over also came over and spent the night with us...

I love to see them getting along and having fun together.

I doesn't happen a lot, but they seem to be getting along with each other more and more.

We sure do love them...SILLY and zombie and all!

And when they are cute and lovely with each other...it melts my heart!

Christmas morning we had church at 9, so we got up and got ready and I pulled out the Cinnamon rolls I made the night before to warm up and rise while we were gone.

Audrey wore the cute jumper Grandma Johnson made her and Nathan wore his new suit.

After church we cooked the cinnamon rolls (YUM) and opened up presents. Then spent a couple hours playing with our new toys before heading to Chris' cousins house for dinner with Chris' side of the family. It was really a great day. One of the best parts of Christmas was that I didn't have to go in to work again until the first of the year! I waited all year long to get a week off for Christmas, it's hard, but SOOOO worth it too.

We hope everyone had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We are looking forward to another great year!

No excuses...

2012-01-10T17:25:00.000-07:00

I've got excuses, but nothing good. So, yep...haven't been blogging lately. Hoping to get better, but no promises. :) So, we can just say I'm starting fresh and we'll see how it goes!

Nathan's First Day of School!!

2011-08-29T09:28:00.001-06:00

Nathan started Kindergarten this morning. I thought it would be much harder to leave him then it was. No tears even. Audrey's not so sure what to think, but is enjoying mommy and daddy time this morning until it's time to pick up Nathan again.

Up for his first day of school. He's having some allergy problems so his eyes are a little red in these pictures. Not sure he's too excited about school...more like indifferent.

That's okay, Audrey was excited.

Eating a special first day meal....his favorite, cinnamon rolls!!!

All ready to go.

And there's the smile for mom!!

Love my boy!! Can't believe he's old enough for school already!

On our way there...

Once we got there and were waiting to go in, he wouldn't let me take any more pictures of him. I was excited to find out that there are 2 girls from his primary class that will be in his class this year!

The kids were taken inside and the parents were able to join the class while thier teacher (Miss Yorke) read them a cute little story about a mommy and her little raccoon called The Kissing Hand.

The parents we all then given a little cut out hand to kiss and give back to the kids for them to hold onto while at school.

Now we get to wait until school is over and go pick up Nathan and hear about the great time that he had! We've also got plans to have more fun as a family this afternoon to celebrate the day even more!!

Keepin' busy...

2011-08-18T19:25:00.003-06:00

Although I haven't been good at posting for quite a while...we've still been keeping ourselves busy. Thought I'd do a whole post just on all the stuff I've been sewing on the last couple months. I'll catch you up on the kids and some of the stuff that's been going on around here in some future posts (and I promise not to make you wait too long).

I've made a couple totes over the last couple of months.

This purple and teal tote I made for my friend. She got the fabric and I just put it together. I love how it turned out! If you wanna make one of these yourself you can find the instructions here.

A cute little tote. Just the right size for date night! And I love the pockets on the outside. Instructions for this one here. I'll be posting more about this little bag in a later post.

Nathan decided he needed a satchel like Flynn Rider from Tangled. How could I refuse that? So I pulled out some of Chris's old work jeans and this is what I came up with. No pattern, just did it as I went.

And a new bag for me! Found the instructions here. Only thing I wish I'd done was make the handles longer...other then that. Love it!

*****

Some sewing for Audrey...

A little summer dress made with some cute bunny fabric. Bought the fabric for $1 a yard and the buttons came from my mom. Love making stuff for pretty much nothing.

A cute little dress made from some of my favorite fabrics. I just LOVE the cherry fabric. So summery and cheerful! Not quite finished here. Needed some lace on the bottom.

And of course had to make some matching bows/flowers for her hair!

Here's my cute Audrey wearing the finished dress. She doesn't look so happy in this picture, but was really excited to put the dress on when I showed it to her.

Made some jammies for her for the summer. Can anyone guess what I used???? It's a vintage sheet I bought at the DI for $2.00. Made 2 sets of these jammies with enough let to make at least 2 more if I wanted to. I'm planning on making me some sleep shorts to match. :)

And a little wallet for the little girl. She picked out the fabrics, that's why there's puppy and fishes.

The outside.

*****

A little mix of different things I've done recently.

3 matching afghans. A friend in my ward had triplets and so made her matching afghans for them. She had 2 girls and 1 boy. So cute! Love the pattern used. Will definitely be making more of those.

For Father's Day I decided to make Chris a little something...did some applique and a little freezer paper stenciling. Chris thought I bought it, so I guess I did good. :)

Made a CTR towel for my nephew that got baptized. Love how it turned out. Gonna make more of those too. Instructions here.

An oven mitt...a Christmas present for my brother and SIL.

And some necklaces for my cute nieces.

******

And last...but not least, some new quilt blocks....

Bow tie blocks.

Starflower.

and the Rail Fence.

I've made other stuff too, but that's all the pictures of stuff I could find!

Sorry that was so long. Come again soon, I'll be posting again...I promise!

My Big Girl...

2011-06-20T19:54:00.001-06:00

On May 28th my baby turned 3 and is now my "Big" girl. If you call her your baby she will correct you and tell you that she's a big girl too!

For her cake this year, I did a castle. It turned out really cute if I do say so myself. Audrey was really excited about the cake and for weeks before her birthday would tell everyone that she was getting a castle cake. She even now will talk about her castle cake anytime anyone mentions anything about birthday cake. She's just too cute.

To decorate it, I used gum drops and jelly rolls that I rolled out thin then used a cookie cutter to cut out. The centers of the flowers are fruit flavored tootsie rolls. Audrey really did LOVE her cake and was very proud of it.

The Birthday Girl!

Blowin' out her candle...

Nathan and Audrey with Grandma Jan and Grandma Alice. I love this picture of them.

I made her this tutu...she's still not sure if she likes it. She's worn it a total of I think 10 minutes since she got it. Oh well, I tried. :) I think it turned out cute. And Audrey picked out the purple. It's her favorite color.

Audrey got a big girl bike for her birthday and LOVES, LOVES, LOVES it. She even got a little bell. I love to hear her ring it. I know she's one happy girl!!

Sure do love this little girl. We are so glad that she's a part of our family. It would not be complete without her in it.

The Soccer thing...

2011-05-23T20:01:00.000-06:00

Well we signed up Nathan to do the soccer thing again this year. He seemed excited at first and really gung-ho, but now that the season has started (actually 1/2 over by now) he's not seeming to be liking it too much. This may be the last time he plays until he shows some interest in it without mommy having to push him at it. I'm hoping to sign Audrey up for fall soccer...I think she really wants to play, so we'll see how that goes.

Here are a few pics from some games and some practices he's had...

The kids posing for mommy after Nathan got his soccer pictures done the first day.

Warming up for the first game...waiting for his turn to kick the soccer ball.

Practice...

When a girl plays soccer...I guess you gotta have your purse with you. That's how Audrey does it at least. :) Just cracks me up...

Some more soccer practice...

That's it for now...hopefully more soccer pics to come.

Easter Weekend....

2011-05-01T13:58:00.000-06:00

We didn't do a lot for Easter, but it seems like the less we plan the better the day ends up being in the end, so I guess it all worked out.

Nathan has started soccer again this year, so we passed up doing the Easter egg hunt at the fitness center this year and just went straight to his game. It was pretty good, Nathan still hasn't decided if he wants to play or not. There are times he wants to be in and plays really good...and other times when he just wants to sit out and doesn't want anything to do with it. We'll see how the season goes.

Here's a pic of Nathan waiting for his turn to kick the ball...

After soccer we went over to the neighbors and hung out with their family. They got a new swingset and Chris helped them put it together while I worked on some sewing projects of my own and helped my neighbor with some of hers. And of course the kids played...and made messes. :)
Sunday morning the kids woke up to find these...

Some cute fabric Easter bunnies I made and some marshmallow chocolate eggs the the Young Women in our ward made as a fundraiser. (They were yummy too, I had to take a taste of course.)

Since we have church at 9 in the morning, the Easter bunny didn't stop at our house until after church.

Here are the kids in their Easter outfits. I made Audrey's dress.

And a close up of Audrey's matching barrettes.

The kids had fun checking out what they got and getting full of candy (sorry, didn't get any pics of their haul). And then they both crashed, which never happens.

Audrey slept for almost 2 hours and Nathan for 1 1/2 hours, it was a nice break. Between playing the day before and all the fun they were having, it really wasn't much of a surprise.

Later in the afternoon while we were eating our dinner, Nathan decided he wanted to go on an Easter egg hunt, so Chris and I filled eggs with some candy and some coins and went outside to hide them. They kids had such a fun time finding them.

Here's Nathan and his eggs...

And Audrey with hers...

I love having relaxed holidays when we're able to spend time as family and it's not too structured so we are all able to have more fun!

Favorites: Old Movies and Musicals...

2011-04-02T10:08:00.000-06:00

I grew up heading off the the library and my sister and I would rent VHS video's that they had there. My parents would help us pick out movies sometimes and I came to really love movies from the 50's and 60's as well as pretty much any musical there is. I thought it would be fun to share with you some of my favorite movies from that time and ones that I still really love. Yes they are corney...but that makes me like the all the more I think.

Tammy and the Bachelor...starring Debbie Reynolds and (a very cute) Leslie Nielsen.

I absolutely love the song Debbie Reynolds sings called "Tammy". It's also sung by a group from the era The Ames Brothers and I LOVE both versions. You can listen here.

"Gidget" is also a fun one to watch...it's even more corny and silly then Tammy...but one of my favorites none-the-less.

I do remember watching "Gidget" on TV with Sally Fields, but this is the movie with Sandra Dee. I loved the movie so much that I even own the book about the real Gidget. And I actually own all 3 Gidget Movies...Gidget, Gidget goes Hawaiian and Gidget goes to Rome, although the best is the first. Here's a song by a great group that I again LOVE to listen to that sings in the movie...The Four Preps singing "Cinderella"...they also sing the song "Gidget"

And my ALL TIME FAVORITE movie!!!

"Seven Brides for Seven Brothers"!

I remember watching this the first time when my parents took the family to California to go to a Square Dance something-or-other and we went to my uncles while they went off to dance. I fell in love with it then...I'm not sure how old I was, but didn't see it again until I was older and started getting the video's from the library and saw it again. Jane Powell and Howard Keel have amazing voices...I love the singing, I love the dancing, I love the red heads (oh, did I say that), really everything about the movie! My favorite scene in the movie is the barn raising. You can see it here.

Do you have any favorite movies/musicals from this time???

Birthday Boy!!!

2011-03-27T17:59:00.000-06:00

Nathan has been asking for quite a while now when he was going to turn 5 and if when he turned 5 he could go to Kindergarten. He's been so excited for the day to come and we've had to explain to him a few times that yes he'll go to Kindergarten once he's five but will have to wait a couple months for school to start.

Well, Nathan celebrated his 5th birthday on St. Patrick's day and now that we have a 5 year old get to plan on more adventures with him, including...yes, Kindergarten this year.

(He may be ready to go, but I'm not sure I'm ready yet!)

Anyway, since his birthday's St. Patrick's day I like to make a fun treat for his class and this is what I did for this year...

I found the idea in the Family Fun magazine and as soon as I saw it, knew it would be what we'd do this year, both Nathan and Audrey seemed to like how they turned out and I know I do.

Since he was having his actual birthday party on Saturday we took him to the store and let him pick out a small cake to celebrate that night.

Here's the birthday boy! Can't believe he's 5 already, time sure does fly.

We also let him open 1 present for his birthday and as he was opening it, he took the paper off and exclaimed, "A box of diapers!" We had to explain to him that he needed to open the box and inside he found a cute pillow pet. He said the next day that he wants more pillow pets, but not until everyone else has one too.

Since he turned 5 this year, we decided that he got to invite some friends over for his party and decided on a Fireman theme, including a visit to the fire station.

Here's some pictures from the fun...

Good bags made from fireman fabrics, they had chocolate licorice to represent the fireman's hose, life savers and roll ups (stop, drop and roll) as well as stickers, a water gun and some bubbles. I also got Nathan a fire chief hat at the party store and found yellow fireman hats at the dollar store. (The firemen at the station said the chief actually does wear a red hat and the other guys hats are yellow.)

I also got some red fire hats to use with the decorations. The table set with balloons and life savers.

The birthday banner I cut out with my Cricut.

And we decided on a Dalmatian birthday cake. Not my best cake, but Nathan seemed to like it so that's all that matters.

Once the kids got there they each colored a name tag to wear before heading to the fire station.

Audrey, Nathan, Loren and Esther.

Nathan and his buddy Loren...

Cute Esther...

Talking with the fire chief about fire safety...

The fireman all suited up showing the kids that he's not scary when he's all dressed up in his gear and if they see him in a fire, not to hide from him.

Showing us the fire engine.

Checking out the ride.

Fireman in training!

Group shot. The kids did have a lot of fun, but they were ready to go when it was over. Not much attention span, but they all seemed to have a good time.

We then headed home and did presents and had some cake and ice cream.

Happy Birthday Nathan! So glad that your ours!!!

What we've been up to...

2011-02-27T20:21:00.000-07:00

Here's what's been going on in the Hepworth household over the last couple of weeks...

Poor little Audrey got sick at the end of January, she had a rough couple of days. Took her to the doctor and found out she had an ear infection with the possibility of having RSV, so kept her home a couple days to watch her breathing and luckily she got better pretty quick.

I've been sewing of course. Made a Valentines wall hanging, which didn't get done for this Valentines, but I'll be making sure it gets finished up for next year. Got the pattern here. Used stuff out of my stash. I LOVE how it turned out!

And with the left over 1/2 square triangles, made up a block to make into a pillow...

Also finished quilting and binding the Halloween quilt! Finally!! Now just need to add the button eyes on the kitty's and it's all finished!!!

Nathan's been learning how to win at his Toy Story 3 Wii game. He really enjoys his games...

The kids have also played games with daddy. Here they are drumming away to Guitar Hero...

Audrey's being silly, she strapped herself into her booster chair and started walking around...

The kids have also had fun hanging out in sleeping bags in Nathan's room and watching movies together...

I made Audrey of Valentines skirt of course, no pattern, just made up as I went...

And made a Heart quilt block...

And started on a St. Patrick's day table runner...

I have been trying to start working on some decorations that can be used for the different holidays. Plus they are quick and easy so in theory should be quilt finishes too :)

Made Nathan a tote to take to church to carry his Book of Mormon. Used an old pair of jeans for the outside with a pocked on each side. The inside is flannel from some old pajama bottoms that I had cut up ready to use for some project. It also have some pockets on the inside for paper and pencils. I used a piece of the flannel to put a letter "n" on one side. Again no pattern used here, just made up as I went. I think it's pretty cute myself.

And of course, I've also started a new quilt top. Actually it's almost done. Got the instructions for it here, been wanting to make a whirly gig quilt for a while and love how it's turning out. Already have plans for quilting it. Hopefully another quick finish (fingers crossed).

Other things going on...

*I've started a sewing group with some of the girls in my ward and my sister. We are meeting every 4-6 weeks, making a quilt block and will be working on small projects as we go. We had our first meeting the first week of February and will be meeting again next week. I'll post more about this later.

*Nathan is getting ready for Kindergarten in the fall and is doing such a great job learning his letters and numbers. He surprises me each day with the things he knows! He is excited and keeps asking if when he turns 5 if he gets to go to kindergarten. I keep telling him yes, but he will have to wait a couple months after he turns 5 before he gets to go. We'll see how he takes it when he doesn't go right to Kindergarten after his birthday.

*Audrey is working on potty training. She's doing great at daycare, hasn't had any accidents yet, and we're working on it at home. She seems to get distracted playing at home and forgets to get herself to the bathroom, but today she did go all by herself and didn't even ask for any help! She's getting so big!!

January Experiment (s)..

2011-02-08T18:38:00.000-07:00

I know we are already a week into February, but obviously I'm not on top of things here on the blog, so bear with me while I take a little time to get caught up here. I do have a few things to tell you about but first...

Back to what this post is about...I wanted to try some new things around my house to help things run a little more smoothly, and with it being a new month and a new year decided this would be a great time to start. I am please to say that my experiment has been a success!! And I will be continuing to make changes around the house to keep things running better and better...hopefully! (Probably just jinxed myself).

So what did I do exactly??? These are my experiment(s)...
I have set aside 2 days a week to do my laundry, (Tuesday's while watching Biggest Loser, and while Chris is at scouts, and Saturday) all laundry is to be washed and put away before Sunday, anything not put away gets left until my next laundry day to finish...and since I don't want that to happen, laundry's been getting all done by Saturday night! I used to spend Sunday doing most of my laundry and all of the next week trying to get caught up and laundry folded. I now know when my laundry day are and I've been able to stay on top of it. I've been really good at washing and when it gets pulled out of the dryer folding it immediately. What a difference, I don't have piles of clean laundry all around the house waiting to be put away all the time.

Another thing I decided was that if I was making a dish for Sunday dinner that I can put together on Saturday night then I would. I've only done this once so far but was so nice to come home from church throw dinner in the oven to heat and not spend an hour putting dinner together.

I have planned out all my meals for the whole month. I LOVE doing this. I've done a couple weeks at a time, but having the whole month...it's so nice to be able to put together my grocery list for two weeks at a time (only have to go to the store in between for perishables and misc items that we forget) and when I get home from work, look at my calendar and know exactly what I'm making and know I have everything to make it. Now I come home from work, get working on dinner and don't stress about what we are having that night.

Also as soon as we are done with dinner, or any cooking or baking...I do the dishes. This keeps my kitchen cleaner (of course) but then I don't come home from dinner to dirty dishes that I have to do before cooking.

The kids have also been in on this experiment. I have been working to get them to help pick up more. This definitely doesn't always work since they are not always cooperative, but they've been better and are learning. We are trying to get them better at picking up their own this instead of us always doing it for them.

Lastly, before bed each night I go through the rooms and pick up anything that's been left lying around and just do some general pick up.

This experiment of mine has really been great...for me at least. I feel that I am getting the house more organized. I have more time to do things for me (exercise, sewing, etc), and am more patient with the kids. YAY!! It's still a work in progress, things are not 100%, but they are definitely helping the whole family. We have more time together and because I have more time for me, I am a happier mom and wife.

Kids pics...

2011-01-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

The kids wanted to "help" me take some pictures tonight. This is what we got...

From Nathan:

And Nathan

Not too bad!

I did hold the camera and helped them hit the button, but I couldn't see ANYTHING through the view finder. Their little noggins were in the way. LOL!

Been working on some sewing...

2011-01-16T20:18:00.001-07:00

I was able to take the week after Christmas off to spend at home with the kids and do a little sewing. I didn't sew as much as I would have liked, but did get a few things finished. I did sew a few things I can't show yet since they are gifts and we haven't finished with all of our Christmas giving yet. I'll post those later.

But here's what I've been working on...

Some ruffled wristlets...so fun to make! Oh the possibilities!! You can find the instructions here.

These were given to some of my friends at work.

A few quilt blocks for Audrey. I made Nathan a quilt for when he got moved out of his crib. And now it's time for Audrey, so she'll be getting a quilt sometime soon. Here are the first of the blocks. They will be turned into a Disappearing 9 Patch quilt.

And I started on a new table runner...

Audrey got a cute little puppy for Christmas and he needed a little blankie...so I made him one from some fabrics I had left over from another project...

Super simple and quick!

I was also able to finish some crochet projects. Some afghans that were supposed to be done for Christmas...but nope, they weren't.

One for Nathan...

And one for Audrey...

*****

I've decide that I need to do some more sewing this year, some new and of course to finish old (UFO/WIP's) projects. I want to try to sew at least 1 hour each week but with kids and life that doesn't always happen. I was able to sew for a couple hours yesterday while Audrey was napping and Nathan was watching a movie.

A few quilt blocks...
Churn Dash in neutrals

Churn dash in red and cherries...

Snowball...

A pillowcase for one of Nathan's friends who's having a birthday this week...

And some more work on my new table runner...

I got quite a bit accomplished yesterday...and I was able to enjoy a mommy movie too! I watched Phantom of the Opera while I was doing my thing.

*****

And today while Chris watched Sunday Football I sat on the couch and worked on a project that I've been wanting to get finished for a couple of years now...

Got the quilting all complete!! I was going to do a fancy design around on the border...but decided that would take WAY too long and went with simple instead. It's been trimmed down and is ready for binding (still has the basting stitches in)! Yay!! First of my old projects is gonna get finished!! Maybe I'll have to try to finish 1 project each month...we'll see.

It's a new year...

2011-01-01T21:44:00.001-07:00

and I guess that means time to look back at how I did last year and set some goals for the new....

I looked back to see what I'd set for my goals last year and some I did well, some need improvement or I just didn't do and need to try again :)

So two goals I will be continuing for next year, that I did pretty well on and will continue this year are:

1. I had a goal last year to lose weight and get healthier. Well, I can proudly say that with the help of Weight Watchers and work (my work had a biggest loser comp and paid for half of the cost of WW for 3 months), I did lose some weight and did become healthier! Yay!! I've lost 30 lbs since April!! I probably could have done better, but it's not too bad and definitely better then if I'd gained 30 lbs. This will be a goal that I will continue to work on in 2011. No specific weight amount, just take more off and see how it goes. I do need to exercise more and keep eating well and I'm sure I'll continue to see progress.

2. I had also wanted to 2-3 5K's and I did that too! Weight Watchers had a 5K that I did and then did the West Valley West Fest 5K. Wahoo! I want to do 3-4 5K's this year (maybe even run one) and want to also hike to Timpanogos Cave and Ensign Peak (last time I hiked up this was the summer after I moved here and was so out of shape I thought I was NOT going to make it to the top). This may not seem too hard for most, but as I am so out of shape those are pretty good goals for me I think.

And for the goal I didn't do so good on, but will work to do better this year is:
3. Finishing projects started that NEED to get finished! Luckily I haven't started many this year that need to be finished, but still have a few from years past that I REALLY want to get finished! I have already pulled out a few to start working on in the coming weeks!! Yay!! I'm hoping this will be a good goal for me this year and who knows...

maybe next year I can have 3 brand new fresh goals!! Keeping my fingers crossed :)

December fun...

2010-12-30T10:56:00.002-07:00

We have a fun December...we visited with Santa, saw LOTS of Christmas lights, listened to Christmas music, watched lots Christmas movies/shows, etc. It was a great month. I didn't get a lot of pictures taken, but here are a few of what I did take...

We set up the Christmas tree...

Tried on some reindeer ears...

All decorated!

Here are Nathan and Audrey all spiffied up for Church...

The kids got to go to a Christmas party at the Union Hall for Chris' work and got to see Santa and got their faces painted.

Spiderman...

Little butterfly...

Best I could get with both of them together with faces painted. Audrey only wanted to show me the side of her face.

Getting ready to open our Christmas Eve presents...

All ready for Santa in our new Christmas Jammies...

When we handed Audrey her stocking stuff Christmas morning, she just hugged it before even checking it out.

We spent an hour opening presents. I took only a few pics, I got distracted by all the fun the kids were having.

We were able to spend Christmas afternoon at Chris' Aunts house and had a great time visiting with family, then headed home and played with our new toys. :)

Hope everyone had a great December and wonderful Christmas and were able to spend a lot of time with family and friends!

Things I wanna make...but not til next year!

2010-12-14T19:41:00.001-07:00

So, I've been seeing some really cute things that I REALLY want to make, but seeing as how we are getting ever closer to Christmas and I have other things I am working on...I will not be making these things this year. I thought maybe some of you who do read this might be interested in seeing some seriously cute stuff that you too might want to make for Christmas next year. So here they are...

Really cute finger puppets, found here.

Or how about these cute reindeer gift tags/ornaments.

I also think these flower ornaments are pretty cute too.

I'm gonna get me some power tools so I can make me some of these cute things.

I do need a cute wreath, or two, or three. Ok, it looks like there are four wreaths I've been looking at! Guess I'll make one for every room. I am SURE I have enough scraps to make the wallhanging!

A little something for the kitchen table, some reversible place mats. I like that these could be made for any holiday depending on what color you use!

Since I'm taking you to places with stuff that I want to make, how about I show you something I did make! I decided the kids needed some cute T's and had a few ideas, but when I saw this I knew what I would do.

I LOVE being able to make things with stuff I have on hand. The T's have been kickin' around for a couple months and I had the felt on hand from other projects.

For Audrey's I added a bow and a cute button that I had bought for 'something' who knows when.

And to jazz up Nathan's, added a little bow and button around Rudolph's neck.

I LOVE how they turned out!

Of course I'll also need some new ideas to make the kids some cute holiday shirts.I think these might do.

And how about some simple Christmas tree bows for a cute little girls hair.

Yep, cute stuff! Better get busy early next year. :)

Feelin' Crafty...

2010-11-28T16:24:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling like I needed to do some sewing but didn't really want to since I had a curtain that I had been needing to finish since July. I finally decided to finish it and get it out of my house and so worked on it this last Monday and handed it off to it's owner on Tuesday. Now that that was off my list of "to do's" I felt like I could craft/sew again for me and my kiddos.
I had Wednesday off to get prepared for Thanksgiving and while Audrey took her nap, Nathan and I got to work on making 2 paper chains (one for each) to start counting down to Christmas. I figured with these being so visual it would help them better to know how long they have to wait for Santa.

I had also been blog hopping and saw a really cute turkey barrette and decided that Audrey had to have one! Luckily I had everything...well almost...that I needed. Only thing missing are some googly eyes, but I still think it turned out darn cute! If you want to make one for next year go here.

Then this morning we woke up to it snowing...and it hasn't stopped all day. I found instruction a while ago for some cute winter hats here and decided that since they're gonna need to keep their ears warm I'd better make them quick. Nice thing was they really were a quick sew up and both kids really seem to love them.
Of course Audrey loves dino's just as much as Nathan does, so they both got dinos! So cute!! I LOVE how they turned out.
Trying to figure out what the spiky things are on top of her head...

Daddy distracted her on this pic so I could get a side view. Love her little smile!

I made Audrey's first since I wasn't sure if it would fit Nathan too and could make his bigger if needed. When I went to make his he decided he wanted green with yellow spiky's. I said "I can do that!" and then he 'patiently' waited for me to get his finished.

And can I tell you how much I love to do projects when I don't have to buy anything new! I had the green and yellow left over from Nathan's first Halloween costume (he was a dino, go figure). And the pink and purple for Audrey's came from Grandma Johnson's on one of my trips to visit. I had forgotten all about the pink and purple, I was going to make hers red but I'm glad that I found it!

Wonder what other things I can get to work sewing. I think I'll work on some UFO's (unfinished objects) that I can finish up for Christmas this year! We'll see what I can get done. I'll keep ya posted!

SN*OW!!!

2010-11-24T21:12:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday we had our first good snow, and as soon as Nathan saw it asked if he could go out and play. So while Chris went out to shovel the walks/driveway, I bundled up the kids and took them outside to play...and of course I 'HAD' to get pictures! Audrey wasn't too sure of the snow, but Nathan had a blast!!

Gathering snow...

Going after Mommy...

Trying to get Daddy...

Cheese!

Nathan even got Audrey. She did not like it!

Gonna have to go pick up snow pants and snow boots for Nathan. He had a great time but was frozen when he decided he was done.

Caught a pic of Nathan right after Chris got him with a snow ball...

Making up...

I'm not a big fan of the snow...too cold for me...but I'm glad the kids can enjoy themselves. I'm sure well be spending more time out in the snow this winter.

We love visitors...

2010-11-22T20:13:00.001-07:00

A week and a half ago my brother Gregg had to come down on a quick trip for work and needed a place to stay overnight. We had fun spending some time with him and the kids had a buddy to hang out with.

Takin' a picture with Audrey...

Being silly with Nathan...

When it was time to eat. Gregg sat on the floor. Nathan sat down next to him and then scooted over as close as he could. Nathan's new buddy...

It was just a quick trip for my brother but the kids sure did enjoy spending time with their Uncle Gregg.

Halloween fun...

2010-11-21T19:45:00.000-07:00

We had lots of fun this Halloween...besides the party. On Friday the kids went to daycare and had a little Halloween fun with their friends there. They go for a Halloween parade with the teachers and parents that come, on the way around the area they got stopped by one of the companies that gave them each a candy. Then they went back to spend some time with their classes and then had pizza for lunch. Here's some of the fun they had...

Audrey with some of her class and her teacher Cheryl...

Nathan...

Nathan with his good friend Tamaurus and his teacher Neysi...

Nathan and his buddy Buzz...or I mean Jaxson...

Nathan's class...

Here is Susan...She's the Daycare director and we love her...

Audrey eating some lunch...

Nathan...

*****

After the kids had lunch, we headed over to my work so they could go trick or treating. They sure know how to work it. Audrey would get some candy, then go back for more and everyone just said, "it's okay". Working the cute she was. Then Nathan would get candy for him and Audrey from someone and Audrey would do the same thing from the same person. They did this over and over again. And I wonder how they end up with so much candy! No pics of having fun at my work.

*****

Then we headed home and got ready to go to the Ward Chili/Soup cookoff and Trunk or Treat. I usually make Chili, but this year just did some cupcakes for dessert instead. Much easier. We had some good food and then headed out to get more candy...

Audrey enjoying a cupcake after eating some yummy chili...

Here's Audrey with her Gigi. When Audrey saw this picture she said "My Gigi!"

*****

We didn't go trick or treating on Saturday because is was so cold and rainy. We just hung out at home and handed out candy to the few people that braved it out in the cold.

Sunday the kids got dressed up and headed over to Chris' parents to visit them for a few minutes and then headed out to do a little trick or treating. We didn't have anyone stop at our house and there were only about 5 houses that even answered their doors. That's okay though, they didn't need the candy, just wanted them to have the experience.

Waiting to leave...

Off we go...

""""""

As you can see the kids dressed up as a purple witch and Buzz Lightyear. I made Audrey's costume and I LOVE how it turned out. We're already deciding on what we'll be dressing up as for next year. Until then...

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween!!!

Fun with friends...

2010-11-07T17:42:00.003-07:00

So this year I decided to do something fun for the kids and throw a little kids party for them and some of their friends. I probably got a little carried away with some of the stuff, but the kids all seemed to enjoy themselves. We had the party for them the weekend before Halloween, October 23rd.

Here's the invitations I made...

I also made some candy pretzels...

And some gift bags...

For the party, the kids decorated picture frames and made masks (didn't get pics of the masks)...

We played a beanbag toss game. I got the instruction here if you want to make one next year...

Also played Pin the Heart on the Skeleton (he's a nice skeleton)...

And decorated sugar cookies (should have got a better pic of all the candy they had piled on them)...

They also had a lot of fun dancing around to the music that I had playing.

Here's the gang...

Kingston, Nathan, Sydney, Whitney, Tali and Audrey.

I also wanted to show the decorations I had up. I saw somewhere (can't remember where) someone had done silhouettes of some Halloween shapes. I thought it would be fun to replace the kids photos on the mantel and put up pictures to represent them Halloween style...

Not sure if we'll do another one next year (it's a lot of work) or not, but glad that I decided to throw one this year for them.

Cornbelly's...

2010-11-07T16:55:00.000-07:00

During October we headed down to Lehi to Thanksgiving Point to have some fun at Cornbelly's. The kids had a lot of fun. We went inside a huge blow up lizard, rode a wagon through the corn field and saw lots of neat stuff! Audrey really loved seeing the mechanical bull riding and Nathan loved the slides and bouncey things they had there.

Visiting Dinosaurs

2010-10-24T20:00:00.001-06:00

The first weekend in October we decided to take the kids on a mini vacation and headed to Vernal to visit the museum and just get away for a day or two. This was the first time we have taken a vacation when we haven't been going to visit family. And the first time for the kids to stay in a hotel. We left early Saturday morning and came home Sunday evening, Not a long trip but we had a great time just the 4 of us. No real plans on what we were going to do, just winging it. :)

When we got into town, after eating some lunch and checking into the hotel we headed to the Utah Field House of Natural History to check out the dino's there. Here's some of what we saw when we were there...

Glad there's glass between him and us!

I thought this was neat. They weren't done with the mural and you could see the sketches of what they were working on behind the displays.

Looks like Nathan's getting a kiss.

After the museum we decided to drive over to Flaming Gorge Dam and check things out there. It was really pretty and the weather was perfect!

Sunday morning we headed over to the temple to take some pictures....

And then we headed over to the visitors center over at the Quarry. The Quarry is currently closed. I guess they have some cool fossils you can see, but they are currently closed while doing some remodeling. We were able to take a shuttle and do a little 1 mile hike to see a few fossils in some of the rocks.

This was one of the fossils we saw. It's a vertebrae of something, I can't remember what. If you look closely there's an error pointing it out...

Nathan with his hand on another one of the fossils...

After seeing the fossils we headed back and headed home. We had such a great time that now we want to start planning more little mini weekend vacations. Wonder what we'll come up with next?

Alpine Slide...

2010-09-24T20:57:00.000-06:00

A couple weeks ago we decided to head up to Park City for the afternoon and ride the Alpine Slide with the kids. This was a first for me and the kids and it's been years since Chris had gone. I had no idea what to expect, but it was super fun.

You have to ride the ski lifts to the top in order to go on the Alpine slide. I am not a big one for heights and dangling over the ground was not my kinda fun. If the kids weren't with us I probably would have enjoyed it more, but I kept imagining them falling. They enjoyed it and didn't seem the least bit concerned. Because of my fear of heights, I didn't dare let go of the bar...or Audrey... and therefore didn't take any pictures of the trip up the slide...or down for that matter.

Audrey and I rode together down the Alpine slide and we did go pretty slow, but it was really fun and I would love to go and do it again. Audrey LOVED it! As soon as we started I heard a little "Weeeee!" coming from her.

I did get a picture of Nathan and Chris coming down the end of the slide.

Nathan had a lot of fun too.

Before we left we decided to enjoy the nice weather and treat ourselves to some slushies.

Here's Nathan sharing his with Audrey.

I think Audrey was sharing hers with Nathan here...

As we were leaving we stopped in front of this really cool statue to get some pictures. If Nathan sees the camera pointed his direction, he just gets goofy. What else can I say?

Another fun and successful family outing!

Creepies and Crawlies...

2010-09-21T19:52:00.000-06:00

The first part of August we were able to make a trip to the zoo. We went to see the Nature's Nightmares exhibit and they had these bats just hanging out. Not even separated from the visitors. Very creepy...

And of course we had to check out the baby elephant Zuri...

Nathan posing on the big elephant outside the Elephant Encounters exhibit...

Riding the Carousel...

And the ostrich came over to say hello too...

24th of July

2010-09-21T19:41:00.000-06:00

Ok, I'm gonna try and get caught up again. We'll see how it goes.

Since the 24th of July landed on a Saturday this year, we decided to take the kids downtown and camp out to see the 24th of July parade. This was the first time for me and the kids. We met up with some of my friends from work and their kids Friday night and set up camp.

We spent the night talking, playing games, reading and just enjoying one anothers company. We did end up setting up next to some interesting people and it seemed a time or two to be in the middle of a gang war with the cops stopping by to talk to our neighbors, but overall had a great night.

We even got free breakfast out of it. Some people left their canopy and chairs and asked us to keep an eye on it for them and they brought us bagels the next morning.

The kids had such a great time hanging out, but I was glad when we got done. Of all the fun we had, we didn't get much sleep. We are thinking we might have a go at it next year too.

Here are some pictures of our fun...

Playing with bubbles...

Checking out the stars...

Waiting for the parade to begin...

Our friends Angela and Kingston

Daddy getting cooled off by Audrey...

A little bit of what we saw...

The policemen/women all were wearing mustaches. Guess it's some kinda tradition. It was funny to see.

President Uchtdorf

Some of the floats and such...

There were sure an amazing bunch of floats. The only thing that would have made it better...more sleep and not so much heat.

Climbing the wall...

2010-08-09T19:01:00.000-06:00

We took Nathan to the climbing wall over at the fitness center a couple of weeks ago. We thought he'd have a really great time since he likes to climb things.

Getting all harnessed in. Safety first!

Chris went first...

and went all the way to the top.

Nathan on the other hand, really didn't want to climb. This was about as high as he got...

He just wanted to hang...

and swing.

We figure we'll go a few times more, get him used to things and then we won't be able to keep him off the climbing wall.

a BIG wheel....

2010-08-05T08:41:00.000-06:00

On the 17th of July we headed up to Kennecott Copper Mine to see the open mine, the had free admission so we decided to take advantage of it and have a little family outing.

Here are the stats on this BIG tire...

If you ever get the chance to go and visit it, you should it's pretty neat to see.

4th of July...

2010-08-05T08:26:00.002-06:00

***Warning...LOTS of pictures***

Over the 4th of July we were able to head up to Idaho to spend the weekend with family. My niece Kassie was getting baptized on Saturday the 3rd so we packed up to have some fun...

Here's Kassie, on the right, with my other niece (Kassie's cousin) Jessica.

We are so proud of her decision to be baptized!

As you can see their skirts match. I made the 4 nieces that got together matching skirts. Each pattern was different. It was fun to make them and I'm sure I'll be making more of each pattern.

Here are all 4 girls, from left to right Kassie, Alyssa, Jessica and Audrey...

and another one...

(My SIL's sister Angee took these great pics of the girls, you can see more pics on her blog.}

Here's a picture of Audrey that she took. I love how it turned out.

Here are some pictures of the skirts up close with links to the patterns if anyone wants to make one :)...

The blue one with the red on the bottom, I made up myself, the one with the blue on top and the bottom was made from the Market Skirt tutorial.

I used instructions for the Split Twirl Skirt for this one.

This skirt was based of the 2 Layer Twirl Skirt, with some modifications since I only had 2 fabrics I was using.

*****

Enough with the skirts...on the 4th we met up with my brother's family and his in-laws family to watch the Fireworks at Ann Morrison Park in Boise. I didn't get any pics of the fireworks, but got some of the kids having fun before.

Here's my sister Gina giving me the stink eye...

Nathan and his cousin Bryce playing Uno...Nathan just started throwing in all his cards. First time playing and he had no clue how to. It was funny to watch.

Another one of Audrey...

Here's Audrey with her cousin Bryce, she really likes him. No, she's not going to kiss him, although that's what it looks like, he was pretending to be a puppy and she was just holding his face.

Here's a picture of what some of the adults do while waiting for it to get dark enough for the fireworks. There's my mom, Chris, my bro Evon and sis Gina.

Audrey getting a ride from her puppy friend...

Alyssa came over to say hello...

and another of Nathan....

I don't know if you noticed, but the boys had matching shirts that I made, just took some light blue shirts and ironed on some stars I cut out of some fabric I had on hand.

I hope everyone had a good 4th of July weekend, we sure did!

Still catching up...

2010-07-25T11:18:00.003-06:00

And we're almost there...just need to stop taking new pictures!
Here's two posts in one...

Father's Day

I showed you some pictures of Audrey that I took Father's Day.

Here's some pictures of the kids with their Daddy that were taken on Father's Day.

Takin' turns on the slide...

Daddy

Audrey

Nathan

Love this picture!

Yes, she's saying Cheese.....

We sure do love Daddy at our house!

West Fest Parade
West Fest was held at the end of June. We love being able to walk up to the corner from our house and watch the parade each year. Here's some pictures of the fun.
Waiting for the parade to start...

Yay! It's begun...

We love to see the policemen...

Daddy was there too...

There's the firetruck!

Nathan actually got to sit in this firetruck the night before when we went over to West Fest. He loves the firetrucks.

A little side note. I did the West Fest 5k earlier in the morning. Came in at 50:29 minutes. I that's about 5 minutes quicker then the one I did 4 weeks earlier! Also walked to and from the walk since it started just down the street in front of the West Valley Fitness center.
Been working on being healthier this year and one of my goals was to do a few 5k's. I'm also doing Weight Watchers at work and am down 22 lbs so far. WooHoo!! It sure feels good getting healthy!!

Fun stuff....

2010-07-18T11:30:00.001-06:00

Just a random bunch of pics of some stuff that we've done and had going on lately...
and still trying to get caught up.

Here's Audrey and Grandma Johnson looking through some quilting books.

I was working on an afghan for one of my friends and Audrey decided to help me out. She likes to hold onto the hook and "help".

We went to the drive-in to watch Toy Story 3. The kids loved it and had a lot of fun. Audrey's showing you the little movie screen, we watched Toy Story 2 while waiting for the movie to begin.

Nathan finished playing soccer for the summer. I thought it was really neat that they gave the kids medals, they're really nice ones too! He only missed one game due to being sick and played in each of the others including one that was played while raining and was super cold.

My Girl...

2010-07-15T19:26:00.000-06:00

I decided that since I did an all Nathan post, that I should do an all Audrey post. She's a little more helpful when I try to take pictures, but only a little. These were taken at the park on Father's Day (I know, it's Father's Day and I'm taking pics of my kids. Just can't help myself).

Here's my girl...

She has so much fun when we go to the park. She especially loves the big twisty slide and the swings.

Boy oh Boy!!

2010-07-10T11:17:00.002-06:00

A couple weeks ago, before Nathan had his hair cut, he decided to see what it'd be like with a mohawk. So he gave himself one, straight out of the bath before it dried. The first one shows it pretty good.

Here are the many faces of Nathan...what a boy!

He sure is a nut! These are the kind of pictures I get these days of him...if he'll let me get any. Can't get him to give me a straight face for nothing.

OK, I'll do it...

2010-07-07T19:37:00.001-06:00

I figure it's probably time for an update and I've got some catching up to do seeing as how it was a month ago since the last post. I won't be overloading you all at once, so keep an eye out.

The weekend of Audrey's birthday, we also had family in town to help us with putting a new roof on our house. (More info on that to come.) My brother Evon and his family came to help out and we had a GREAT weekend with them. On Sunday, before church, we decided to head down to temple square for a little bit. Here's a little of our time down there. We also went on a tour of the Conference Center and we were able to go all the way to the rooftop, which was really cool and beautiful.

The beautiful temple (please ignore the big crane in the background.)

Daddy and Audrey, up on the Conference Center roof.

Nathan looking out over to the temple. And of course you can't go visit the temple without your Bumblebee Transformer. Nathan didn't want to cooperate with the picture taking, so I didn't get many with him.

Nathan and Audrey by the fountain. I wanted to get a good one with both of them looking at me...but no such luck. Oh well, still cute!

My brother and his family...

and our family...

Here's Nathan with his cousins. They are his "best friends".

And with his Aunt Angela, she's his "buddy".

And lastly...some of the pretty flowers we saw on our visit.

It's a Pink Poodle Party!!!

2010-06-04T15:03:00.000-06:00

We celebrated Audrey's 2nd Birthday this last Saturday. She turned 2 on May 28th. For her birthday I had originally wanted to do a princess party, but when I saw instructions for a pink poodle cake I knew that's what I'd do since she LOVES animals. And it turned out pretty cute too.

The birthday girl and the man in her life...Daddy.

Although Audrey just turned 2 she's been displaying signs of the Terrible Twos. A couple weeks ago she was upset about something. I tried to console her and it wasn't working so I decided to walk away...well she wasn't having that. She chased me down the hallways and tried to dig her nails into my legs. I guess it was bound to happen with one of my kids since Nathan's tantrums consisted of him laying down on the floor quietly.

Happy Birthday baby girl!!!

We LOVE you!!!

Soccer Mom...

2010-06-04T14:46:00.002-06:00

It's official. I'm a soccer mom. And I love it!! We decided to let the kids try out different sports and this is the first one for Nathan. He's still not quite sure about it, but he's getting more comfortable with it.

Nathan looks really happy in this one. It was the first day and the only way we could get him out to run was if dad went with him.His team's name is Chaos. One of the parents suggested it saying
"Because that's what it'll be out there."

Audrey wanted to join in. She almost snuck in...she's wearing the right colors!

He played the whole game his third game...only 5 kids showed up so he kinda had too, but he does seem to like it a little better and will stay in the game better.

I love being a soccer mom. Wonder what sport we'll try next...

At it again...

2010-05-08T17:46:00.002-06:00

I've been doing some more sewing lately and it's been pretty fun. I found a cute little dress pattern that I decided would make some cute dresses and nightgowns for Audrey and so bought some cute light weight fabric, it's called tutti fruitti, and made her 2. Same fabric just did them opposite. I love how the turned out and I'll probably be making some more soon.

The shoulder straps are a little bit so I might have to tweek them a little, but other then that, they turned out great

(at least I think so).

I also finished a couple more pairs of shorts for Nathan to wear to bed. Here he is modeling them off. He doesn't want to stand still lately when I pull out the camera, he's a little goofy.

He really likes his shorts, they are also tutti fruitti with little fishies on them. Nathan really likes them, just don't tell him half his fish swim upside down (OOPS!!).

If you sew for kids and haven't used tutti fruitti before, it's really cute fabric. I love it! It's really soft and they are cute and bright colors. I've even got some more pieces to sew with. Yay! Unfortunately they don't always have stuff to use for boys so I was really happy to find the cute fish fabric.

So I'm off to work on some more sewing. I've got some things to finish in the next 3 weeks before Audrey's birthday at the end of the month. I'll fill you in when I've completed more!

My very own Superheros!

2010-05-04T08:32:00.000-06:00

For Christmas this last year, Grandma Johnson (my mom) made the kids (and their cousins) some superhero capes. Lately the kids will come up to me carrying theirs and want to wear them around for a little bit. I love my Superheros! And they are cute to boot!!!

Last night Nathan came to me with his cape and so I put it on. When I went to check on him later to see if he was asleep this is what I found...

Laying just inside his door, nice and calm...not yet asleep, but looks like it'll hit soon.

*****

Audrey isn't feeling good this morning, but is feeling well enough to wear her cape.

I love my little Superheros and am proud to call them all mine!!!

The kids (warning: picture overload, this one's for the grandma)...

2010-04-14T19:46:00.000-06:00

Lots of pics of the kids in recent days...

Takin' turns wearin' Grandpa's hat.

Audrey punishing Lucky for something...

Since Daddy always gives them rides, Nathan decided to try giving Audrey one...

Some Easter fun...

Audrey reading books to her baby. What a great mommy she is to them! So cute!!

Havin' fun at the park! Lovin' them sunny days!

Good bye old friend...

2010-04-14T19:26:00.000-06:00

It may see strange to be blogging about my old ratty quilt, but I have had it for so long that it needed some type of recognition as it's on it's way out the door.

I have had this quilt since I was in second or third grade (I think, it's been a while) and it's been a great friend of mine. It was made by my mom and I think I even got to pick out the backing fabric for it. It has been on many a sleep over, many road trips and has kept me warm during camping trips. When I moved to Utah, I did make a replacement for it, but still brought it along. Until I got married it was always on my bed although did little to keep me warm as it has been falling apart for quite a while, but it was hidden in between my sheets and other blankets and quilts as a comfort.

I was cleaning out the hall closet the other day (ah...spring cleaning) and ran across it. I have decided that it's time my old friend was put out of it's misery and would pass it on to Lucky to enjoy and destroy. So, I took this picture to remind me of what my old friend looked like, to remember forever.

Now Lucky is enjoying it (he really does seem to love it) and when he's completely destroyed it, it will be thrown out.

I know this may sound harsh, I know people that still have old baby blankets and this quilt is really near and dear to my heart, but honestly who but me is gonna appreciate it years from now when I'm gone and they find it hiding in my closet. At least now Lucky will enjoy it and I can remember all my fond memories of our time spent together everytime I look at this picture. :)

So, Good bye old friend! I will remember all the good times we've shared and the comfort you've given me in bad.

Puppy Love

2010-04-14T19:10:00.000-06:00

Thought I'd share a little update on how the Lucky's doing. The kids are really enjoying him (including Audrey). Audrey decided after about a week or so that she did like him and would pick up him and carry him around by the neck. Now that he's as big as she is...she's again a little unsure of him. She still likes him, but he's big enough to fight back...and he does.

Here's some pics of Audrey and Lucky once she decided he was O.K.

And Audrey demonstrating how she picks him up using his tail as a handle.

He doesn't let her anywhere close enough to do that now!

Here's some pictures of Lucky last weekend. We've had him for about 2 months and he's gotten so big already!

Lucky is enjoying the warm weather when we have it and get's to spend his days outside playing with Nathan when he can. We are still working on potty training, but he's getting better with that too. We are sure enjoying having him around. Just the other day Nathan told me "I love Lucky so much!".

Look who's 4...

2010-03-26T19:54:00.001-06:00

Nathan turned 4 on March 17th. Yep, St. Patrick's Day.

Here's my boy showing you how old he is...

For his birthday I made some rainbow cupcakes to take the day of his birthday to daycare. They turned out so cute! After dinner that night, Nathan got to pick and he chose McDonald's or 'Donald's' in Nathan terms, we had a little family party with the 4 cupcakes that were left.

I found the instructions for the cupcakes from the Family Fun magazine, which is a really fun magazine with lots of cute kids craft ideas. I think they turned out great, although they were a little time consuming to make.

Audrey enjoying her cupcake. This is her "cheese" face. She give it when the camera is pointed her direction and then says cheese.

Friday I took the day off and the kids, Grandma Johnson and I were planning on going to the zoo. Too bad it was too cold. Someone suggested going to the Museum of Natural History up at the University and since they had a dinosaur display...that's where we went.

The kids had lots of fun...until Audrey got tired. They both fell asleep on the way home.

*****

For Nathan's birthday party on the 20th, Nathan asked for a Bumblebee cake (Transformers). I looked on line to see what I could find and....um, no. Much too difficult. I did find an Optimus Prime cake pan, but my sister suggested doing the Transformers logo. So that's what I did.

Nathan seemed please with it, but keeps asking for an Awesomus Prime cake. Maybe next year. :)

Here's Nathan with his cake.

And Audrey checking it out too. There's that cheese face again!

More stuff I want to make someday...

2010-03-14T17:42:00.000-06:00

I really love searching for free tutorials for cute stuff that I can make someday. Here are a few more that I've found that I can pull up later to make and also to share with my friends here in the blogging world incase you want to try too.

Love this! A cute baby doll bassinet. Gonna try and get it made to go with a baby doll I'm making Audrey for her Birthday in May.

Just found this today. What a cute idea for a homemade color baby book.

How about a chapstick cozy! Super simple yet cute gift idea for sure!

I made some cute placemat totes here, but I like these since they are bigger. I need a dozen for sure! Can't have enough totes!

With all the skirts I've been making Audrey, I think I need to make some matching barrettes too. These are too cute and look easy to make too. Might be trying this out so she'll have a barrette to match the St. Patrick's Day skirt I hope to get done for her. Gonna try clips instead of bobby pins.

Oh and I need to get me a set of power tools and make a bunch of stuff here. This whole website is cool. I especially love this bookcase, and this bed. Look around this site, there's lots more I like too.

We'll better get working on projects! I've got lots I want to make.

Our new addition....

2010-02-28T11:52:00.000-07:00

Introducing Lucky, our new puppy....

He's a cute 7 week old Lab. Nathan is completely in love with him...

and has already claimed Lucky as his own.

Audrey on the other hand isn't quite warmed up to him yet.

She likes him when someone else is holding him and he's not trying to play with her and when he's sleeping. Then she'll get close enough to pet him.

We've been talking about getting the kids a puppy sometime this spring and while driving back home from getting Chris and Nathan haircuts we stopped to check out what kind of puppies someone had over in the Walmart parking lot. Usually they end up being pitbulls and we didn't want one of those, but this must have been our lucky day because she had these cute labs. She was trying to get them sold so they were half price and we decided to go ahead and get one. (We thought about getting 2 so he had someone to play with, that thought lasted only a few seconds, I'm glad we've only got one, who knew he'd be so much work).

Chris went in to get some cash and then we let Nathan give the lady the money for him and we brought him home. Within just a few minutes Nathan was calling him "my dog".

We let Nathan decided on what to name him. He couldn't think of any names so he chose between Charlie and Lucky and Lucky won. I thought the name was cute since it was "lucky" we stopped to check out the puppies and also since he'll kinda be Nathan's dog and his birthday is coming up in a couple weeks on St. Patrick's day.

Sewing stuff for little girls and boys...

2010-02-28T11:33:00.001-07:00

I've been working on some more sewing projects with stuff I've already got here at home (I did have to buy some more elastic). It's been fun going through fabric and deciding what to do with them. Most of these have come from my mom, I posted about some of the fabric here. I've finally gotten to sewing with more of them.

This year I'm going to try and sew the kids a bunch of their summer clothes. That'll be easier for Audrey, but I will be doing some sewing for Nathan as well. For Audrey I do have some plain t's and will be making skirts and shorts to match those.

Here's another skirt that I finished last weekend for Audrey. I love it! This isn't fabric from the previous post of fabrics from my mom, but this came from her stash as well. I thought it would be so cute to do a black and red skirt and I was right!!

This isn't a great pic, wish it had turned out better. I think it's really cute.

Here's a better picture of the skirt. It's similar to the skirt I made in my Spring post, but I didn't use as many fabrics and I gathered the bottom ruffle.

This week I sewed up some shorts for Nathan. These will go with some plain whites t's and be used as jammies.

The dino's are left from when I made these pj's for Nathan last year. Had just enough to make these and the blue plaid is left over from a robe that I made Chris a few years ago.

I also made a cute peasant style dress for Audrey. I'll be making her more of these. They are easy to sew and turn out cute.

You'll be seeing more of the fabric used in this dress in the future. This was also in the post here. And there was a paper on it that said there was 7 yards so I'll be making up a few skirts later with this and some other fabric I've got.

Valentines weekend...

2010-02-28T11:13:00.000-07:00

I know...I am so behind in posting. I'm gonna try to start being better. Now time to start catching up...

*****

Over Valentines weekend we headed up to Idaho to visit with family since we weren't able to make it for Christmas. It was a really fun weekend. The kids had fun with their cousins and us adults had fun catching up with everyone. I didn't take a lot of pictures, but do have a few to share.

On Saturday we hung out all day at Evon and Angela's and in the afternoon met up with Gregg and Sandee and their kids and we had pictures done with all the cousins together.Angela found super cute shirts for the girls on clearance and got the boys shirts that would match.

Then we stuck Grandma in the middle of the kids...

As you can see, by this point Audrey was done and if Grandma wasn't holding onto Nathan he probably wouldn't have stayed in the picture. At least it stilled turned out cute. :)

*****

Later that night while eating dinner Audrey decided to give herself a new hairdo using her soup.

Sunday we hung out at mom/grandma's house. The kids had lots of fun with her piano. We had a hard time keeping them away from it.

The musicians...

Other then that it was a pretty laid back weekend. We did do Christmas with family Saturday night and Sunday we gave the kids Valentines with a little chocolate and each other cards and Chocolate. Nathan and Chris also gave Grandma and me some pretty roses. Nathan picked them out, red for Grandma and pick for me.

Spring is in the air...

2010-02-03T18:02:00.000-07:00

The kids have been sick the last couple days and I've had to stay home with them. Yesterday wasn't too productive, but today they were doing better and I was able to do a little sewing. Sewing for the spring weather and luckily Audrey seemed to be feeling well enough to model for me...

Here's Audrey wearing her new "Valentines Day" skirt. I wanted to make her a skirt she could wear for the Valentines and found this fabric in my stash. I got them both from my mom. The lighter pink is a striped white/pink striped seer sucker and the darker pink...I'm not sure what it is, but it's a heaver fabric and I had just enough for what I needed. I made it from the instructions here called The Market Skirt. (I love finding cute stuff online). It was really easy and I'll be sure to make more of these.

This one I made from a cute pattern called The Girly Stripwork Skirt from Pink Fig Patterns. It took more time, but the results are definitely the pay off. The fabrics here are all stuff I had left over from other projects or that I bought just to put in my stash. I didn't quite have enough of the yellow gingham so I patched it and put a little rickrack over the seam to disguise. (Now you all know my secret!)

While making these Nathan said he wanted a skirt too. I told him that boys don't wear skirts. He said I just want a boy shirt... would that be a kilt?? I let him know that I do have some stuff I'll be sewing up for him soon too.

Here's another view of each of the shirts.

I love that I was able to make both of these with things I already had. I am hoping to be able to make a bunch more stuff for this kids for both spring and summer. I've got lots of fabric and some cute patterns to either make again and some new things to try. I'll try to remember to show you things along the way :)

Me mateys...

2010-02-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

Nathan was invited to a birthday party for one of his cute little friends, Loren, from Nursery/Primary. It was held on Jan.18th at the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy. It was a really fun pirate party. And having it at the aquarium really worked with the theme. Chris had to work in Logan and wasn't able to get home in time to watch Audrey, so she was able to come to. Unfortunately I didn't think to bring my camera, but when we got home the kids wanted to dress up in the cute pirate dress up items they got from the party.

Loren's mom made cute little capes and bandanna triangles. The kids had to go to different stations to win the different items. They also got eye patches and some chocolate "loot" (coins) at each station. The stations included walking the plank, talking like a pirate, etc.

Audrey even got into it. She came over to me making a really goofy face...I realized she couldn't say Aargh, but could make the face that went with it. So cute.

Audrey doesn't have whisker stubble, that's chocolate milk. LOL!!

Here they are dressing up. I even pulled out Nathan's pirate swords from when he dressed up a couple years ago for Halloween. They make some really cute pirates...I think at least.

By request...

2010-02-03T17:27:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, Nathan said he wanted some donuts for breakfast. Well I didn't make any for breakfast, but decided to make some later that evening for a little dessert.

They turned out pretty good...

but it wasn't my favorite recipe. It was an quick and easy recipe, but the dough was pretty sticky and a little hard to handle. I got it off of my recipe go to web page allrecipes.com. Next time I think I'll try a recipe with yeast. It'll take longer to make, but I think they'll turn out better.

Of course Nathan enjoyed the donuts quite a bit and actually was able to enjoy the left overs for a few days after.

My kids do like each other!!...sometimes...

2010-01-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

Nathan was enjoying a Sunday morning on the couch under daddy's blanket when I got Audrey up. He wanted her to lay by him. They are so cute sometimes and do seem to like each other, sure doesn't last long though. Guess I need to continue to capture the good moments so I can remember what they look like so when they are driving each other crazy I have reference of a good time. LOL!

Recipe Day

2010-01-04T18:25:00.000-07:00

I figured it was time to share another recipe with you today. This is a recipe that I got from my friend Tammy that I used to work with at Clarke American. She brought some in one day and they looked yummy, so I got the recipe from her and guess what!! They are really yummy! At least I think so. Chris doesn't enjoy them so much, but he suffers through them every once in a while.

Sour Cream Enchiladas

Sauce:

1/4 c. butter

1/4 c. flour

2 c. chicken broth

1 c. sour cream

8 oz diced green chilies

You'll also need:

Flour tortillas

Monterey Jack cheese, grated

Yellow onion, chopped

Make the sauce: Melt the butter in a pan, add the flour to make a rue. Cook for a minute or 2. Add broth, use whisk to blend into rue. When evened out add sour cream and chilies. Let sit on low to thicken.

To make enchiladas: Wrap cheese and diced onion in tortilla, filling as much as you like and place in 9 x 13 inch baking dish. Pour sauce over enchiladas. Add more cheese on top. Bake for 20 minutes at 425 degrees.

Some alterations to the recipe that you can try: I use whatever cheese, ususally cheddar, and onion that I have on hand. I also always make mine with shredded chicken ( I actually haven't ever made them without). I did also try them with shredded turkey the other day since I've had so much around here, not as good as with chicken, but still pretty good.

Looking back...

2010-01-02T09:48:00.000-07:00

Another year has come and gone and it's time to look back over the last 12 months.

We've had a fun year, here's a look back at us:
Nathan turned 3 and had his very own Dinosaur birthday.He's learned his colors and knows his alphabet. He's really good at frustrating mom and dad and picking on his sister Audrey. He still loves all things cars, spiderman and dinosaur.

Audrey turned 1 and loves everything girly! She had learned to walk, has gotten a few teeth (4) and is learning new words although she still doesn't talk a lot. Audrey is definitely a girly girl and loves being a 'mom' to her babies, but also enjoys playing with her brothers toys. She's also learning to fight back and pick on her brother (she's learned well from him! LOL!!)

Chris is still working for Cache Valley Electric and with his job has done a little traveling around the state this year and also headed to Arizona for a couple days. He has a great time rough housing with Nathan and 'nicely' tossing Audrey around. He continues to enjoy his computer games and has started up playing D&D again with some friends.

I'm still working at Harland Clarke, same old stuff there. I've enjoyed making my kids birthday cakes this last year (we'll see what I can come up with this year), sewing up new and old projects, crocheting and trying new recipes.

Now on to the new year...
I remembered some of the goals for last year, and unfortunately didn't do so well with some of them, but did okay on others. After reading through them, I'll be making all them them again this year. (Maybe one year I'll do well enough that I can take some off! haha!!)

*Gonna work on losing some weight through exercise and eating better. I did lose 10 lbs during July-Sept. (have kept it off too! yay!!) Some of my friends at work and I were doing a 'Biggest Loser' comp, but it kinda flopped. I've got some new videos to use and hope they will help me stay on track along with having a membership at the local fitness center.

*I'm going to continue sewing/crocheting up some UFO's (Un-Finished Objects/Works in Progress). Still haven't finished up the items I listed last year and have others I've added to the mix. I'm planning on really making a dent in projects this year, so maybe next year this one can be taken off the list.

*I want to do a few 5K's this year including the SLC Susan G Koman's Race for the Cure. Didn't do any of these last year (other then on the treadmill), but want to do 2-3 if not more this year. Since I have a goal of exercising more, I should be able to do this one for sure!!

a new one...or two!!
*Doing better at planting and maintaining my garden. We've put in a garden the last few years, but hope this year to do better at maintaining it.

*Do more scrapbooking!! I've got lots of pictures and I think I'd better start doing something with them, especially since Chris has now invested in it by getting me the Cricut!

and one more,
*Reading my scriptures each day.

I'd better leave it at that! I want to be better at accomplishing more of my goals this year and as is, think these will keep me pretty busy along with things I'll add along the way to do and watching my kiddies grow.
Here's to a great 2010!!

Christmas Day...

2009-12-31T12:16:00.000-07:00

On Christmas morning Nathan came in to our bedroom at about 6:30 and climbed under the covers with us. This wasn't too bad since he wasn't ready to get up yet. Then at about 7:30 he decided he wanted to watch his show, so we turned on the TV for him to watch (we wanted to let Audrey to get as much chance to sleep before opening presents). Nathan did check on Audrey twice and both times she was still sleeping. Then between 8 and 8:30 Nathan went out of our room and snuck into the living room and saw all that Santa left!

He was so excited!! He came to our room and kept saying "come on, come on". When we asked what was going on he said "there's CANDY!" So we headed out to the living room, but told Nathan that Audrey had to be awake before we could open presents. He went to check on her and ran back down the hallway yelling "Audrey's awake! Audrey's awake!" LOL!!!

He was so excited, here's some pictures from our fun morning opening presents.

We didn't have anywhere to go Christmas day. It was a nice and relaxing day to let the kids (big and little) play with their presents (the kids of course got lots of toys each, Chris got some tools he wanted and a GPS and I was spoiled with a new Cricut machine...bring on the scrapbooking!)and watch "Christmas Story".

For dinner, again it was just us and my sister Gina. We enjoyed a honeybaked ham, thanks to a gift certificate from work and some yummy potatoes that Audrey really enjoyed...

And then for desert, decided to carry on something we had done a few times with my mom and dad in the past and we made cream puffs. It was the first time attempting to make them and they were soooo good. This will be something we will do for Christmases to come for sure! We filled them with vanilla and huckleberry ice cream! YUM!!

Hope you all had as fun a Christmas as we did!!

Waiting for Santa...

2009-12-31T11:51:00.002-07:00

We had a pretty busy and fun Christmas Eve. Chris and I both were able to get the day off and spent it getting everything ready for that night and Christmas Day. The Daycare was doing Christmas stuff and throwing a little party for the kids so we took them there for the day to play.

*****

At 2pm Santa was to show up at the Daycare so we headed over to see the kids with him and pick them up.

Nathan did really good with Santa and asked him again for "Star Wars."

Audrey on the other hand, didn't like Santa one bit...

until Nathan stood by her then it wasn't so bad!

They used to have the kids open presents at the daycare, but it got to be so chaotic that this year they gave us the gifts for the kids to take home and let them open. They each got a gift from Santa and also from the gift exchange with the other kids. When we got home we let the kids open them and play with their new toys. I didn't think to pull out the camera, so sorry no pics :(

*****

My sister Gina came over to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas with us and for dinner that night we ordered pizza and started a fire and hung out for a while before it was time to get ready for Santa to come.

I wanted to start a new tradition for the kids this year so we baked some cookies to put out for Santa. He requested snickerdoodles which I haven't made before, but found a recipe and we were off!!

Nathan had fun helping me roll the cookie dough and then drop them in the cinnamon and sugar mix to cover them...

Audrey had fun watching with Aunt Gigi, but wanted to join in too.

So I handed some cookies over to her to help put on the cookie sheet.

We had a lot of fun making the cookies and they turned out great too!

Then it was time to get ready for Santa to come. We each got to open 1 present each...and surprise! they were pj bottoms (This is the first year that I made them, they turned out cute if I do say so myself. I had found some matching Christmas frog fabric earlier in the year with backgrounds of blue and pink. I even ended up having just enough left over to make the kids some matching pillowcases to sleep with.)

We decided to take advantage of the matching pj's and take some family pics.

As you can see, Audrey was enjoying the cookies!

My little elf, Nathan...

We got Mickey's Night Before Christmas as a gift from my dad and Nathan wanted to hear it, so we read that and then it was time to go to bed to wait for Santa!

Audrey with her new baby doll...

and Nathan...pretending to sleep. Silly kid!

Another first...

2009-12-19T17:06:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I took Audrey to get her very first haircut! A nice lady named Sharon at Great Clips did it for her and she did such a great job. (Didn't think about it til just now that I should have taken the camera...oh well). Audrey was so good too. She just sat there patiently and looked around a little bit and because she was so good earned the reward of a sucker!

Here's her new do....

Chris took Nathan and they both got a haircut too. Here's Audrey and Nathan together.

Pretty clothes...

2009-12-06T17:33:00.002-07:00

After having a not so fun time at Festival of Trees, I feel I was very brave to get up Saturday morning to take the kids in to get their pictures taken. I had decided that since Nathan hasn't had professional pictures done since he was 18 months old and Audrey hasn't had any since her hospital pictures, that it was about time.

We did both pictures in their holiday clothes and also in everyday clothes.

Audrey wasn't sure what to think about any of it. I don't think we got any pictures of her smiling (I just looked back and there were 1 or 2 smiling). And Nathan was of course his restless self and wanted to get into and see everything he could without listening to either Chris or myself.

They actually both did pretty well until it was time to pick out what pictures we wanted, but we are glad that it's over for this trip. Hopefully when we go back after the first of the year to do family pictures they will both be better.

Here are some of our favorite pictures...

The picture of them kissing is the last one we took. I asked the lady if we could do one more picture and this is what we got. I love it!

Not doing that again...

2009-12-06T17:19:00.003-07:00

On Friday Dec 4th we decided to take the kids and visit the Festival of Trees. We thought they would have great fun checking out all the Christmas decorations, seeing Santa, etc.

When we got there Audrey started not feeling well. She wanted to be held and was seeming to run a little fever. We got in line to see Santa and while there snuggled her until she went to sleep. Nathan on the other hand spent the whole time trying to climb on things, pull on things etc. We did finally get up to see Santa and Nathan was able to tell him that he wanted 'Star Wars' for Christmas.

And Audrey asleep.

Nathan was not happy that Audrey was asleep in the stroller in his spot and kept trying to wake her up. (This was probably when we should have strapped him into the front seat of the stroller instead of letting him walk).We finally started to look at some of the tree and wreaths. He kept trying to get at the animals and toys in the displays and just wasn't getting the fact that he wasn't suppose to touch them.

We saw a whole row and a half and decided to try and check something else out to distract him when he saw a cute little log cabin all set up with a TV and such inside and he crossed under the chain that was supposed to keep him out and inside before we could stop him. The nice lady that was watching over the booth went in and grabbed him out. Well that was the last straw and we decided it was time to leave.

It was really a waste of time and money for us with how it ended up and really made me upset that I wasn't able to enjoy the evening. It's been 10 years since the last time I was able to go to Festival of Trees and I had been really excited to attend. And also at the time we left Audrey was feeling better and seeming to want to check things out too.

Here are a few pics of some of what we liked of what we were able to see.

I will not be taking my kids back for a few years yet. Hopefully I will have a much more enjoyable experience the next time I'm able to go.

Yay! Another year has come...

2009-11-22T22:43:00.002-07:00

It's time again for TSO's concert! This will be year 3 for us and we are so excited.
And it's such a great way to start off the holiday season! We only have 3 more days to wait.

Take a listen , I think you'll like it!

1st attempt...

2009-11-21T22:47:00.000-07:00

Last year I had bought some small pie pumpkins for us to decorate. My thought had been that after Halloween was over I would scrub off the paint and cook it to make my own pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving. Well...that didn't happen. So I bought some more pumpkins this year. They didn't get painted, but I did make my first attempt at a pumpkin pie today.

Here's the pumpkin pieces after they were baked in the oven.

There was a sticker on the bottom of the pumpkin with pie directions, so I followed those.

It was pretty easy too.

The pie sure looks good. It baked really well and making it was a lot easier then anticipated. I did use a ready made pie crust. I've mentioned before that I haven't mastered pastry making and wanted to make this easy. (Maybe next time I'll try making my crust too?)

I have tried a piece of the pie and it's not bad...but needs a little more seasoning with my next attempt for Thanksgiving I think.

I'll let you know how that one turns out.

Here's another of my easy recipes, just in time for Thanksgiving...another recipe from my childhood.

Easy Stuffing

3 tbsp chopped onion

1/4 c. butter

4 c. cubed bread

1/2 tsp ground sage

2 to 4 tbsp or chicken broth

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp poultry seasoning

1 1/2 c. celery

Cook onion in butter until soft. Combine with bread and seasonings. Toss with enough broth to moisten. Bake at 350 degrees.

***

How I like to make this recipe: We like onion around here, so I actually use more onion, usually about a 1/2 cup and I don't use as much celery. When cooking the onions in butter I add the celery to cook it a little bit too. For the bread, I usually used a combination of both white and wheat breads. I have never cooked this inside of a turkey so I'm not sure how it would work. I like my stuffing a little toasty/crunchy but not too dried out, so I put it in a casserole to bake. Oh...and I'm not sure about the baking time. The recipe I've written down doesn't have a time. I just keep an eye on it and when it looks done to me I pull it out, about 20-30 minutes if I remember right from the last time I made it.

So if you need an easy stuffing recipe for this year. Maybe you'll give it a try! If you have any questions, let me know!

Hungry??

2009-11-14T18:34:00.000-07:00

Here's another easy recipe for you. This is also another recipe that I grew up with and is now a favorite of the Hepworth's.

Spanish Rice

1/2 lb hamburger

1/4 c. chopped onion

1/4 c. chopped green pepper

1 can tomato soup

1 c. uncooked rice

2-3 cups tomato juice

dash chili sauce

dash worchester sauce

salt and pepper

Brown hamburger and onion. Add pepper, soup, juice and spices (I don't use the chili sauce, I just shake in a little chili powder). Add rice. Stir all together. Bring to a boil cover and simmer until done. (I stir occasionally throughout cooking and add more juices if you notice it needs it. I usually start with the 2 cups and add from there.) Done in about 45 minutes.

Great served with tortillas and grated cheese. Enjoy!!

Here are some pics of the kids enjoying theirs...

1st Christmas project...started!

2009-11-14T18:16:00.001-07:00

So I have officially started sewing for Christmas. I do have a few projects that I want to get done before December, so I am starting them now in the hopes that I can finish them on time. Here are the fabrics that I have chosen for my advent calender...

And with all of them laid out, ready to be sewn...

I have started putting the numbers on them. It's turning out really cute so far. It will be sashed in white. I'll hopefully be posting more pics soon!

Something fun...

2009-11-07T15:22:00.001-07:00

I decided that since I was done with Halloween costumes, and before I started my Christmas sewing that I wanted to take the time to sew something for myself. Something that I could enjoy sewing and using. So this week I sewed up this...

and I LOVE it. It's the first time I've taken a charm pack to make something.

A charm pack is a set of 5 x 5 inch squares that you can find at most quilting stores when a new line of fabric comes out. Each fabric square is a different fabric. I used a little over half of my charm pack to make this table runner so I still have some more pretty fabrics to play with from the set.

I used the instructions here. I of course did not do a quilt, but loved the idea and actually ran across another person who made a table runner and thought it was a great idea.

I still have some work to do on it. Haven't decided how to quilt it and I've got to find some fabric I want to use to bind it, but I will have it done in time for Thanksgiving.

I will be starting on all things Christmas next. I have a few Christmas stockings to make, I am going to finish the Christmas table runner that I started last year and an advent calendar that I want finished before December. And of course in two weeks I have the Festive Friday I'll be helping with.

*****

So if you can't find me, come see if I'm burried under a pile of fabric. That's probably where I'll be for the next little while.

Still having Halloween fun? Yep we are!

2009-11-03T19:32:00.000-07:00

We hit the after Halloween sales and got some really great stuff for Halloween next year. And although Halloween is over for some people, it seems Halloween isn't quite over at the Hepworth house.

I was able to find a Batman costume on clearance and he can now be found at my house...

Who knew Batman had a light saber, wore Spiderman shoes and rides on the back of daddy!

He won't be able to wear it for a really long time, but will definitely be putting good use to it until he can't wear it anymore.

And Audrey has found a new friend...

Can't figure out why she liked it so much, but she spent quite a while dragging him around and playing with him.

Not sure why Nathan was looking so sad. I think he may have wanted to play with Audrey's new friend. I think it's a cute picture.

Finally some time with Mr. Bones...

And don't think Audrey didn't get something fun out the our after Halloween shopping (beside her new boyfriend). Got her a little crown and wand. And of course here she is sitting by her new friend again! LOL!!

I now think it is officially time to move on to another holiday. Gonna be putting away Halloween and welcoming in Thanksgiving. Of course I will still be brainstorming and thinking up what I'll be dressing the kids up as next year.

Lotsa Halloween Fun!!!

2009-11-01T14:49:00.001-07:00

We had a lot of fun with Halloween this year. Here's some of the fun that we were able to capture...

On Wednesday night made some mummy cupcakes for Nathan's class at daycare.

They were fun to make and turned out cute too if I do say so myself. You can find instructions for making these all over the web.

*****

Friday I had the day off and so we went to the daycare to see the other kids and hang out for a little while.

Here's Audrey with one of her teachers. Carmen...

And Nathan with his teacher Rose...

The kids then went on a parade...

Then we went back to the daycare and got a picture with Nathan's class. It was fun to see the variety of costumes. There were 2 Woody's other then that all the costumes were different...

And finally it was time for lunch...yummy pizza!

After lunch we headed over to my work to do some trick or treating (sorry no pics). Everyone loved seeing the kids in their costumes and the kids LOVED getting candy from people. At first Audrey would take one piece of candy from people and was good, then she starting going back for more then one from people. She sure caught on really quick with the whole getting candy thing. We made out for sure!

The kids had so much fun that we didn't even make it home and both of them were asleep.

*****

In the evening we headed over to the church for our wards Trunk or Treat and Chili cook-off (again no pics). While getting ready to head over and decorating the trunk for the trunk or treat I actually set a fire in the kitchen...not intentionally either. I had put all the candy we were taking to had out in a big cauldron we have and to keep it out of the hands of the kids had set it up on the stove, well when I put it up there I accidentally turned the burner.

I had gone outside for a minute and when I came back in smelled something burning. I had set a kitchen towel and the kids daycare halloween buckets on fire. That's what I get for being in a hurry.

We had fun eating yummy chili and checking out the backs of the neighbors cars as the kids went Trunk or Treating.

*****

On Saturday night it was time to go trick or treating around the neighborhood.

First we took some pictures of the kids.

Mommy's living dolls, Raggedy Andy and Raggedy Ann...

I love how the costumes turned out (I got the last completed Thursday night) and by the time all was said and done Nathan actually seemed to like being dressed up as Raggedy Andy.

We then headed over to trick or treat over at Grandma Jan's. Then came back to our neighborhood and visited some friends. This is the first year that Chris has gone with us trick or treating, usually he's at home handing out candy. We had lots of fun and were glad that the weather was so nice too!

After trick or treating we headed back home for tamales and chili and handing out candy.

Nathan seemed to alsmot have more fun handing out candy then everything else combined. Everytime the doorbell would ring he would yell "Only me do it, only me do it, not you!" as he ran down the stairs to open the door and hand out the candy. If he recognized a costume he would shout it out, especially Iron Man. Then would politely say "Your welcome" with every peice of candy he'd put in the kids bags.

*****

We had such a fun time for Halloween this year. My mom, Grandma Johnson, even came for a visit. This is the first year she's spent Halloween with us. Of course we even found time to head to the fabric store. My sister, Aunt GiGi, even came over and spent some time with us.

We had a great Halloween, we hope you did too!!

6 years ago...

2009-10-26T21:48:00.000-06:00

On October 25, 2003 Chris and I married for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake City Temple. It's hard to believe that 6 years have gone by already. We have gone through a lot of changes, some good, some not so good, but we are as strong as ever.

I love Chris with all my heart and am so glad that he asked me to marry him.

Who knew that I would meet the man I would marry over the internet living hundreds of miles from each other.

I am so grateful for all the blessings that I enjoy because of my marriage. We have a beautiful home together and 2 beautiful children that bring so much joy to our lives.

We celebrated our anniversary Saturday night with dinner at Red Lobster (this seems to be where we've ended up each year we've been able to go out for our anniversary) and then headed over to the Nightmare on 13th (so romantic I know!) We both enjoy haunted houses and it was lots of fun, they do a great job. We were able to talk my sister into watching the kids overnight so we made reservations to stay a local hotel and spent the evening and next morning all to ourselves.

When we came home Sunday morning we got a great reception from the kids, you would have thought we had been gone longer then just overnight. Gives me warm fuzzies and a big smile just thinking about it. I LOVE my family!!!

Here's to another 6 years together!!

Raggamuffin...

2009-10-25T12:29:00.000-06:00

Enough said!

Halloween sneak peek!!

2009-10-23T17:15:00.003-06:00

Here's a peek at what my kids will be wearing next week. Minus the red wigs that I have yet to do. I finally found a place online to buy the stuff I needed to make the wigs, so now I just need to start cutting and sewing a bunch of red yarn.

I'm sure I'll be working on them well into the night tonight. I am trying to decide if I want to take them to Boo at the Zoo or not.

Nathan's costume was super easy, except for the zipper. (I hate sewing zippers in.)

The hat was super super easy and I got that all sewn up in about minutes.

I've had Audrey's costume done for about 2 weeks now. It was also pretty easy. Sure was easier then I thought it would be with the ruffles and all.

I am so super excited to see my kids all "dolled" up for Halloween. I've even ordered red and white striped tights for Audrey and socks for Nathan. Now I'm just hoping they get here time.
Oh, and I think I've finally talked Nathan into wearing this costume. We'll see how next week goes.

Don't you just love HALLOWEEN!!!

P.S. Note to self: Next year no costumes with zippers or wigs that I have to make! LOL!

What's for dinner...

2009-10-17T19:12:00.002-06:00

So I thought some time ago that it might be fun to start sharing some of my recipes with you all (okay, the one or two that read this), but hadn't taken the time before now. I figure since I've not done much blogging lately due to nothing much exciting going on around here, this would be the perfect opportunity. Of course I say this now and it's the start of the holiday season, so I am sure I will start posting more... but in the mean time I'm going to go ahead and share a recipe or two with you here and there.

I love really easy recipes and I have a bunch that I've grown up with, some I've "borrowed" from friends, and also ones that I've pulled off the internet. I do enjoy cooking, but I don't do so well with being creative enough to come up with my own stuff. So the recipes I will be sharing will not be my own, but ones that I do love and enjoy making. They are simple recipes, most with not many ingredients and are just easy to make. I think that's why I like them most.

When I started cooking on my own and trying out recipes from growing up, I can't tell you how excited I was when something that I cooked tasted like my moms. It still bring a smile to my face, even after all this time, when I make something that tastes just like when mom used to make it. The first recipe that I'm going to share with you tonight is one of those recipes.

Hamburger Pot Pie

1 lb hamburger

1/4 - 1/2 c. chopped onion

1 can (pint) green beans, drained

1 can (10 oz) tomato soup

1/4 tsp. black pepper

1/8 tsp oregano

salt to taste

Pie Crust

To start...if you plan on making your own pie crust, I would make this now and get it ready, or you can make it while browning the hamburger. I have made my own crust before, but usually buy it. I haven't quite mastered pastry making.

Brown hamburger and onion together. Stir in green beans, tomato sauce and seasonings. Pour into pastry filled pie plate. Add top crust and cut slits.

Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes.

And that's it. It's really that easy, and such a good meal. If you have a larger family or want to share with friends this can be made in a 9 x 13 in pan. If you do this, you will need to make your own pie crust and would just double the recipe. (This is how mom did it growing up.) Or you could just do 2 regular pies.

It's a good idea to let it cool for 5 minutes or so for the sauce to thicken up.I got a little anxious and as you can see it's a little runny.

And it didn't come out very well either, but it sure did taste good. Hope you enjoy it if you try it!

How'd you do that??

2009-10-08T18:07:00.001-06:00

I've had a few people that wanted the info on how I made my scripture totes. I did take inspiration from others but did my own thing when I put mine together. I'm really not clever enough to think of something like that on my own, but am really good at copying :) I also do not promise for any of this to make sense, but if you need clarification on something...I'll try :)

How I did mine....

This is what you'll need...
*1 placemat ( I got some at the dollar store, Target and Walmart. They can be found for $2 or less)
*3 feet of ribbon for the handles (I used 1 inch wide)
*a little over 2 feet of ribbon for the accent stripe (I used a little wider ribbon, up to 1 1/2 inches) on the red one
*1 silk flower
*safety pin
*thread

To put together...
1. Cut the ribbons for the handle 18 inches long
2. On each end of your placemat measure 3 1/2 inches in from the side and 2 1/2 inches in from the top and pin on your ribbon to create a hangle on each end of the placemat.
3. Sew on handles. I started on the cut end sewed to the and went around so that my thread ends would end up under my accent ribbon.
4. Cut accent ribbon to width of placemat, this will cover the cut ends of the handles
5. Measure down 2 inches from end of placemat (same side as your handles are on) and pin on your accent ribbon.(On the red version I didn't have any wide ribbon so I used one that was a little narrower then the handle ribbon and then a checkered ribbon that I had.)
6. Sew down both sides of ribbon.
7. Fold placemat in half with the handles on the inside. Match up sides and sew down them. I sewed in about a 1/2 inch so I didn't have to compete with the seams of the placemat.
8. (This is where it get's tricky and may not make sense) To make the corners squared, push the seam open and pin. Measure up 2 inches and draw a line. Sew on the line you drew. You can now cut out the excess leaving a 1/2 in allowance or leave it there. (I'll take a picture and post it once I make another one since I've already turned in the samples I made).
9. Turn right side out. Put your scriptures or other books, items etc you want to carry in your cute bag and enjoy.

I really hope this makes sense.

Here are the websites I checked out when I was getting ideas...
Tote I, Tote II, Tote III in case you want to check them out.

Ta Ta for now!

Fun and Easy!

2009-10-07T18:25:00.001-06:00

One of my callings at church is on the Enrichment committee and for our next activity we are doing a Festive Friday instead of the usual Super Saturday. We'll be having a progressive dinner and then heading back to the church to craft the night away! I'm so excited for this activity!!

Seeing as how I am part of the committee I get to help with planning, food and one of the crafts. The sewing craft of course. I will be helping the other ladies create some super cute scripture totes out of simple placemats. I myself had not made one of these until last night... and I made 2 of them! I have been admiring them for some time and I'm glad that I was able to take on the task of making some to sample. They are super simple. The first one I made took me about an hour to put together and all while doing dinner. The second one took about a 1/2 hour and probably would have been quicker if I hadn't had the kids trying to get my attention the whole time.

Here's the before picture...

I was given a few websites to check out with samples and looked at a friend's version on her blog, then decided to try one out myself. The first one is cute...

but I ended up making a few adjustments for the second one...

I really love how they turned out and I have more supplies to make a few more. Who knows how many I'll make before I'm done.

Now back to Halloween sewing and costumes!

What's keeping me busy right now...

2009-10-05T18:01:00.000-06:00

I am in the process of getting the kids Halloween costumes complete. If all works out as planned there will be a cute Raggedy Ann and Andy duo visiting the neighbors this year.

Here's a sneak peek of what you'll see...

The blue floral and white fabric is for Audrey's costume and the blue and red gingham is for Nathan's. Still trying to figure out how to make the wigs. The pattern calls for stretch tricot and neither Joanns or Hancock fabrics carry it.

And here is a picture of my not so helpful helper.

She so wants to help, but of course is more of a hinderance then anything.

It's amazing but with her "helping" me out most of Saturday and some of Sunday, her costume is complete... sans wig of course.

Along with Halloween costumes we are also in the process of getting out all our Halloween decorations and I'll be working on some other Halloween sewing once the costumes are complete.

Lots of fun going on in the Hepworth household for sure!

Idaho...

2009-10-05T17:53:00.000-06:00

The kids and I (Chris was heading back from work in AZ) went up to Idaho the weekend of September 26th for my niece Jessica's Baptism. It was a fun weekend spent with family. The kids absolutely loved it and Nathan's even asked to go back to grandma's house. Here's some of what went on...

Audrey having fun drawing at grandma's table.

Jessica and her dad after she baptized and confirmed. We are so proud of her and the decision she made.

After the baptism we headed over to my brother and sister-in-laws house to hang out with family and eat. The kids had so much fun. Audrey spent most of the night going up and down the stairs and once we got to the house, didn't hardly see Nathan at all. Nathan and his cousins spent most of the time til we left in the play room.There's Audrey and cousins Alyssa and Spencer playing on the stairs.

A brief shot of Nathan as he came down stairs for just a quick minute.

There was a BSU game going on so one of the Uncles took Alyssa and put her in her cheerleader outfit. Such a cute girl and I love those big blue eyes!

Spencer playing with Audrey.

We sure do have fun when we get to visit and play with the family.

Thanks Evon and Angela and Jessica for inviting us to come and be able to take part in such a important decision in your life.

Thanks to all our family for spending time with us. We love you!!

Finally done!

2009-09-23T18:36:00.002-06:00

I've been working on finishing some recent and not so recent projects and LOOK, I've got a few done!

I made this bag for a friend's little girl. She belongs to a dance group who's colors are pink and black and her mom wanted me to make her a bag for dance for her birthday. I ran out of black so trimmed it in the pink to match the stripes and I love how it turned out.

I also FINALLY got the buttons put on Nathan's "summer jammies" that I blogged about way back here. My button hole maker on my sewing machine is really retarded! I got them to work...kinda. I already need to do some repair work on at least one, but Nathan seems to like them. Unfortunately he won't be able to wear them super long since they are just shy of being too small, but I do have enough fabric left that I hope to make him a pair of jammie bottoms for next summer.

While trying to get a somewhat decent picture of Nathan to show you(he's lately been giving me only goofy faces), Audrey and him started to have a little fun together.

She was sitting on his chair and grabbing him back to sit on her.

They were having such a great time I had to get some pictures.

I love that they are starting to have fun playing together!

And lastly... My mom made Audrey this cute little summer dress, oh I think 3 months ago or so when she came to visit. Of course my sewing machine's buttonhole maker was having issues then too, so I just finished putting the button's on when I did Nathan's jammies. It is so cute and it's big enough that I'm gonna get her a white shirt to wear with it and she can wear it this winter.

Here's the back showing the buttons.

And here you can see a little of the front. I love the little ruffles on the sleeves!

The last picture shows what a lady Audrey really is...(haha)!!

Not a lot goin on...

2009-09-13T19:12:00.005-06:00

Not too much going on here in the Hepworth household. Well, that's probably not true...lots going on just not much to really blog about lately, or I'm just being lazy :)
We have done some fun things, but unfortunately didn't take any pics to share.
Some of the things going on around here...

Grammy Johnson came down from Idaho and spent a girls night with Audrey and my sister and I while Chris took Nathan on their first Father and Son camp out. They both had a great time. The girls went out to eat then to a fabric store. Then Saturday morning we got up and went to a yard sale and got a great deal on lots of fabric (can't pass up a great deal of fabric). The same weekend my work put on a movie at the park, so we headed over to watch "Princess Bride", one of our favorite movies. It was a really fun weekend.

We've made a few trips to the zoo, haven't seen the baby elephant yet, they just put her out this last Friday so we'll be making a trip to see her soon I'm sure. We did see the baby tiger and meerkats and all the other new additions that are at the zoo. It's been fun going to see how much Nathan is growing up as he's started to ask to see certain animals. He surprises us each day with the things he knows. Audrey is also starting to have fun seeing the different animals.

Nathan has been having fun spending every other weekend with his Grandma Jan and sometimes his cousin Jeremy will go along. They like to go to the park to play and sometimes will go somewhere new to play. Last weekend they went to Wheeler Farm and Grandma Jan said they had a great time.

I've been doing some sewing. I have completed all of the crayon holders and then some that I told you about in a previous post. The black and pink crocheted bag, that wasn't started before, is almost done (hoping to finish it tonight, so pics to come soon.) And have finished some other items as well. Still have some other works in progress close as well.

We are now in the process of planning a trip up to Idaho at the end of the month. We are excited to see family and also hope to get together with some old friends.

I'm also going to be working on new and work in progress projects for Halloween and Christmas starting this week including some Halloween costumes.

I do have a few pics to share...
Audrey loves spending time with her Grammy! (Mom don't kill me for sharing)
Showing off some of the veggies from our garden. We've gotten a few yellow squash and zucchini. The tomatoes are home grown, but they came from my moms garden.
This is one of our favorite summer meals.
To make brown 1 lb of hamburger, add onions and bell bell peppers and squash cook til soft. Add tomatoes a few minutes before done to heat through. Season with salt and pepper. We eat it with a little grated cheese on top. Yummy!
Audrey is not a morning person, unless she wakes up on her own. The morning I took this picture she didn't want to get up so she snuggled into the corner of the couch and went back to sleep.
Our wild and crazy haired girl.
Our cute little man.

the Hepworth Family

Still sewing...

Christmas pictures...

No excuses...

Nathan's First Day of School!!

Keepin' busy...

My Big Girl...

The Soccer thing...

Easter Weekend....

Favorites: Old Movies and Musicals...

Birthday Boy!!!

What we've been up to...

January Experiment (s)..

Kids pics...

Been working on some sewing...

It's a new year...

December fun...

Things I wanna make...but not til next year!

Feelin' Crafty...

*S*N*O*W*!!!

We love visitors...

Halloween fun...

Fun with friends...

Cornbelly's...

Visiting Dinosaurs

Alpine Slide...

Creepies and Crawlies...

24th of July

Climbing the wall...

a BIG wheel....

4th of July...

Still catching up...

Fun stuff....

My Girl...

Boy oh Boy!!

OK, I'll do it...

It's a Pink Poodle Party!!!

Soccer Mom...

At it again...

My very own Superheros!

The kids (warning: picture overload, this one's for the grandma)...

Good bye old friend...

Puppy Love

Look who's 4...

More stuff I want to make someday...

Our new addition....

Sewing stuff for little girls and boys...

Valentines weekend...

Spring is in the air...

Me mateys...

By request...

My kids do like each other!!...sometimes...

Recipe Day

Looking back...

Christmas Day...

Waiting for Santa...

Another first...

Pretty clothes...

Not doing that again...

Yay! Another year has come...

1st attempt...

Hungry??

1st Christmas project...started!

Something fun...

Still having Halloween fun? Yep we are!

Lotsa Halloween Fun!!!

6 years ago...

Raggamuffin...

Halloween sneak peek!!

What's for dinner...

How'd you do that??

Fun and Easy!

What's keeping me busy right now...

Idaho...

Finally done!

Not a lot goin on...

SN*OW!!!