Better late than never...

I was in my basement today, going through some things,
and I came across a stack of Dillon's
birth announcements that I never mailed out.
For a brief moment I considered sending them in the mail
so you could all get a chuckle, but I'm too cheap to pay the postage.

So, here it is. Thought y'all might want to know that Dillon was born
about 2 1/2 years ago.

Today our little "over-achiever" took a chair into the kitchen, got the ice cream out of the freezer, took the dirty ice cream scooper out of the sink, took a bowl and spoon out of the dishwasher, and helped himself to a little afternoon snack. I found him just as
he was licking the last few dribbles off his lips.

Yesterday, while I was quilting, he managed to find four
glitter shakers and "decorate" the entire basement.

All About Me

Jobs I've Held
1-Sprinkler Pipe Mover (I quit because of the mosquitos)
2-Prep Cook at Cabin Fever Cafe
3-Preschool teacher/Daycare provider
4-Artist for Rebecca Wood Designs (someday I want to end up in Cache Valley just so I can do this job again) Check out her gallery at http://www.rebeccawooddesigns.com/ I can't believe I used to paint that stuff!
5-Machine Quilter for Red Rooster Quilts and Treasures

Movies I Can Watch Over and Over
1-How to Lose a guy in 10 days
2-Pirates of the Caribbean
3-Ever After
4-The Testaments
5-Curious George

My Guilty Pleasures
1-Shopping
2-Decorating
3-Quilting/sewing with friends
4-talking on the phone
5-making lists
6-eating out

TV Shows I Like
1-American Idol
2-Yes Dear
3-Everybody Loves Raymond
4-Oprah (when it's a topic I'm interested in)
5-Clean Sweep or Mission Organization or anything like it on HGTV

First Things I Thought When I Met My Husband
1-He's a really nice guy.
2-How OLD is he?
3-He's a family science major, and we have Eternal Marriage class together. Hmmm.
4-Could I marry a city boy from Washington? Is he worth pursuing?
5-Maybe I'll ask him to girl's choice.

Places I've Been On Vacation
1-Florida
2-Beulah, North Dakota (pretty exciting, huh?)
3-Gillette, Wyoming
4-Washington State (mostly the Puget Sound area)
5-Idaho
6-Las Vegas
7-Oregon (along the coast)

Man, I gotta get a life...but we plan to visit California while Ben and Carrie are there.

Favorite Foods
1-the chocolate "volcano" like desserts at Applebees and Chili's
2-Fried Ice Cream at Pepperbelly's
3-Sweet Pork burrito at Costa Vida
4-Anything at Olive Garden
5-Seafood
6-Salads

Websites I Visit Everyday
1-My credit union
2-Ton's of Blogs
3-KSL (even though the Loa weather is hardly ever updated)
4-LDS church website
5-Ebay, Amazon, ToysRus (not every day)

Body Parts I've Injured
1-I pulled a muscle in my butt playing ping-pong with Todd before we were dating.
2-I hurt my back while running in 8th grade PE, and it still sometimes "locks up" when I bend over to wash my face at night.
3-I broke my finger two days before Thanksgiving last year, trying to tear the fabric off an old couch cushion
4-I sprained my arm in first grade (falling off the bar on the playground)
5-I got two HUGE bruises (the size of canteloupes) on each of my upper thighs when Todd "launched" me off a teeter-totter when we were dating (My thighs hit the handles). A week later I had to go to my first gynecologist appt. and she was in shock when she saw my bruises. I had to tell her that my boyfriend did it.


Now it's your turn! Put this on your blog and let me know when it's up! Have Fun!

For those of us who have boys, and those of us who are glad we don't!

Most of you saw this via e-mail, but I wanted to try out this SmileBox thing.

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

Tornado in Loa???

Most of you probably didn't hear about it--but we had a tornado in Loa. I didn't see it, but it happened while I was at a quilt retreat this weekend, and my boys (all FOUR of them) were home alone without a wife and mother to take care of them. I'm pretty sure it ripped right through my house 'cause it's a DISASTER!

In happier news, I had a great time at the quilt retreat. My visiting teacher, who used to own a quilt shop in Las Vegas, puts it on right here in Loa every September. There were 25 ladies, mostly from Las Vegas, California, and Utah who came to "play". They stay in a local lodge (barn) that is owned by Mike Leavitt's family. I got to stay at home which saved me a bundle of money, but still participate in all the fun.

On Thursday night, we played bingo with "cards" that we made out of our stash of fabrics. They would call out things like purple leaf, orange batik, yellow metallic, green holiday print, etc. and if we had those fabrics on our "card" we marked them with M&M's. I won a new needle case :o)

On Friday we had breakfast at the lodge, and then we sewed ALL day, stopping only for lunch and dinner. Friday night we had "show and tell" where we showed the quilts we've finished this past year. Then we sewed until midnight.

On Saturday we did the same, except in the evening we had a trunk show by one of the ladies who works at the quilt shop in Richfield. She has made some AMAZING things, including a miniature double wedding ring quilt that was smaller than a sheet of paper.

I won a pillowcase kit for my creative name tag, and one of the ladies showed me how to make it (I have been trying to make heads or tails out of the pattern for months and it didn't make any sense at all). It is the COOLEST pattern ever. You lay your fabrics out and stack them on top of each other, ROLL THEM UP LIKE A BURRITO, make a seam, pull out the inside part that's rolled up, and make two more seams and you have a finished pillowcase with no raw edges. It truly takes less than 15 minutes. I can't wait to go to Jo-Ann's with a 40% off coupon and buy cheap fabrics to make fun pillowcases for my kids for their birthday's, holidays, tooth fairy days, etc.

Here's what I accomplished while the tornado was hitting my house:

This quilt is for my dining room--I'm always searching for orange
to match my lovely countertops.

This is the pillowcase that I made in 15 minutes after winning the kit.

I made this quilt for Grandma Great for her birthday (shh, don't tell). She only sees what's on my blog if someone shows her. I've been searching for the perfect fabric to make something for her, for a couple of years now. When I saw this fabric, I had to have it. I knew I wanted blue, but since I love green so much I always have a hard time shopping for blue. Now I just have to get it quilted before the end of October. I started cutting the fabric for this quilt on Friday morning, worked on it all day, and added the borders on Saturday morning.

Here's my hideous name tag. It could be anything from duct tape, to a mini quilt with your name embroidered on it, as long as it was creative. Dillon helped me with this little beauty. He used the glue stick.
Todd always says that when I die, they're going to put a list on my headstone of everything I didn't get done, so that was my inspiration for this "GRAVE" name tag full of fabric related death quotes.

Is anyone else confused?

Ok, so Jon commented that he didn't understand my PMS post. It makes perfect sense to me, but Todd says it "doesn't read well" so I'm clarifying. It was supposed to be funny. I'm poking fun at my own PMS. Todd has been nothing but WONDERFUL (as always), and yet because of raging hormones--I see and think the worst. It's really a tribute to him for his patience. Perhaps it's just the way it's written...I just don't want anyone to misunderstand and think I'm actually complaining about Todd--he's a saint.

I can't possibly be the only girl who feels this way on occasion...
Maybe you have to be a girl to understand??? Can anyone else relate?

Like father, like son

I stopped quilting for a minute to see what my boys were up to,
and this is what I found:

Todd was sawing some free wood we got from a local sawmill.

Dillon was doing the same, on a much smaller scale.

A *TOUCH* of PMS

Note: I copied some of this blog from the blog of a girl I don't even know. I read her blog everyday because she usually has me laughing until I cry. I copied parts of her post (and added some of my own stuff) because her day so closely resembled mine...
Here's a link to her blog if you ever need a laugh. Lawson's do dallas

This entry is dedicated to Todd, and every married man out there...

What he says:
I can't stand the way this new shower curtain liner sticks to itself!

What I hear:
You're horrible at buying shower curtain liners and an all-around bad person.

What he says:
Oww! You're stepping on my toe!

What I hear:
I think you're very fat.

What he says:
This enchilada sauce is good, but your secret recipe will always be my favorite.

What I hear:
Get back in that kitchen and make me something worth eating, woman!

What he says:
I threw a load of laundry in.

What I hear:
You are such an incompetent wife--I don't even have a pair of socks to wear to work.

What he says:
You look pretty today.

What I hear:
You look kind of shabby today, but I'm gonna lie to you to try to keep some peace in this otherwise insane household.

What he does:

*takes the garbage out and forgets to REPLACE the liner
*folds the laundry and gets the boys's shirts MIXED up
*takes the kids to Big Rocks and leaves me home ALONE to quilt
*dresses himself in a shirt with a miniscule HOLE in the collar
*brushes his teeth with Crest---I HATE Crest!
*replaces the broken kitchen faucet while I'm TRYING to make a sandwich
*Nick at Night replaced The Cosby Show with Home Improvement--
somehow that HAS to be Todd's fault...
*lays down in the recliner while I'm watching TV and GOES TO SLEEP
Why the hell doesn't he want to talk to me???

Poor Todd. I hope that one day God will grant him the gift of invisibility. He deserves it.