A Fun Day With Dakota

Yesterday I took Dakota for the day. We had so much fun playing and talking. He is growing up sooo fast! He is super smart and is learning and saying so many new words. He also poses when I pull out the camera now and says "cheese". We had snacks, played Wii music, played with the dog, did puzzles, and had a lot of fun.

He and the dog napped at the same time which was pretty funny. We also went to Lees and got him a balloon (his most favorite toy). He carried a football around all day and once he got his balloon, he wouldn't let go of that for anything! He also thought it was pretty neat to wear my hat! So cute.

Cake Decorating Course 2

Tonight I finished my last class of course 2 cake decorating. Tonight I had to put together a cake and this is what I did!

Starting next week I will be taking both course 3 and course 4 so at the end of February, I will be done with all of the Wilton Cake Decorating classes!

A Walk Down Memory Lane

Tonight I was looking through pictures on my computer and thought it would be neat to share some of them!

1st Picture: When I was a member of Smithfield Royalty, we decided to do a "future princess" day. We got little girls to ride on the float with us in the River Heights parade and then we did lunch with them and played games. I took Whitney Olson with me. She is so cute!

2nd Picture: I thought this was interesting. It is a family picture from 2006 of us and it is neat to see how much we have changed.

3rd Picture: We get together with the Griffiths family for Memorial Day and this picture is of Maddy & Alyssa. They are sooo much older now and look so different. Crazy how time flies!

4th Picture: Jazz's brothers & sisters. He was so cute when he was a puppy. Now he is just a BIG dog who is sometimes fun, but mostly a handful.

Picture #5: My favorite of my senior pictures. 

Picture #6: As a puppy, Jazz loved to sit in your lap. Even after he got big it took a while for him to understand that he was too big to get in our lap, but he tried for a while!

Picture #7: This was when we came home from McKenna's band competition of Jekyll & Hyde. They took 1st!

Picture #8: A fun Saturday afternoon having a nerf war with Chase!

Picture #9: My "1st nephew" was born! First picture I got of him.

A Winter Weekend

Today we had the opportunity to go visit Grandma Williams, Justin, Jodi, Alyssa, Kaitlin, Colbin, and Kori! It was great to see them and enjoy each others' company. We all piled into the suburban and went to Pocatello for lunch and a visit. We didn't stay long since while we were in Pocatello we heard reports that it was snowing in Logan. We stayed for a few hours enjoying good food and company and then headed home. We dealt with snowy roads for the last half of the trip home. Thankfully we were all in one vehicle and dad was driving. It was great to catch up with everyone!

Yesterday I sucked it up and went to the doctor since my whole face had been hurting for about a week and my ear was bothering me. I am kind of a baby when it comes to ear pain, so I finally went in. Turns out I have a NASTY sinus infection and both of my ears are infected. So now I am on antibiotics and am hoping they start doing their job and I begin to feel better REALLY soon. I had to sleep sitting up last night to alleviate the pressure! Tomorrow our ward is in charge of the linger longer and since there are only 3 of us on the committee, it makes for a LONG day. I just hope that my head will endure the day!

Cake Decorating Progress

So I had my 3rd class of Course 2 Cake Decorating tonight. Since I am the only student, I get to not only get one on one help with my lesson flowers, but my teacher has time to teach me other ones that aren't in the book! Tonight we made violets, daffodils, lilies, petunias, morning glory, and poinsettias.

My last class of this course is next week and I will be doing a cake!

Then my teacher came up with a way for me to take the last 2 classes both in February. That is soooo exciting! I love the idea! Hopefully that works and I will be sure to put pictures of everything I make and the cakes I create!

Family

I love my family! 

In December we had Kaela over at Fresh Fotos take our family pictures. She did great and they look SOOO good. It was really cold, but we had fun taking them. Here are some of my favorites.

Our family is getting bigger too! Carson will be coming anytime. Chelsea wishes that it was NOW! This was her last night. I'm so excited for my nephew to get here!

A Trip to IKEA...great new changes

On Friday, Mom and I took Chase to Salt Lake. We stopped at the Apple store since his Ipod was having issues and then dropped him off to spend the weekend with the grandparents. We also dropped dad's photos off to the Hogle Zoo for their art competition. Then me and mom went to IKEA! We had dinner there and shopped for hours. I was looking for a new dresser and a bookshelf. Mom was looking for desks and other organization for her office. We both got what we were looking for. I'm sure anyone watching us load our furniture would have thought it was funny. We managed to get all of our boxes on one trolley. It was VERY heavy and hard to control, but we did it. Then because we took my Santa Fe, we put down the seats and were able to get all of the furniture in there and our other purchases. 

On Saturday we went to Chelsea's baby shower and then I got to work putting together my furniture. I spent a couple of hours putting my dresser together and moving the old furniture out. I had to face my repulsion of Styrofoam to get everything out of the boxes and now have a sweet blood blister on my thumb. However, I didn't get frustrated with the directions, they were actually pretty easy to follow.  IKEA really packs stuff in small, all of these things were in this box! 

 

Then it only took me a little bit to put the bookshelf together and load it. My new dresser provides SOOOO much more room! What I used to put in 4 drawers in the old one, fit in 2 of the new one! I was able to pull all of my jeans and hoodies out of the closet, which alleviated some stress for me!

The rest of the projects

I finished the pillowcases that I had mostly done from Monday and the patchwork blanket! I also got pictures taken of everything and posted in my Etsy shop. I went into work for 2 hours yesterday morning and then ran some errands before I came home to work on the other projects. I was home by 11 and was sewing. I finished my projects right before piano lessons. I taught piano and then took pictures of everything. It is a relief to have so much of that stuff done! It is amazing what something sitting in the storage room can make you crazy. I still have a few more projects that I should do to be all caught up on projects waiting in storage, but they will have to wait for another time.

A Long Awaited Finish!

Today I took the day off work to catch up on my boxes of projects. I didn't buy anything to complete all of these which tells you how much I had in the storage room. The first thing I did was finally finish a quilt that I put together 9 years ago. The only thing that had to be done when I put it in storage was that it needed to be bound. I know right!?!? It has been 99% done for 9 years! Today I finished it.(The 9th of January!?! Total coincidence)  I am not totally thrilled with the way it turned out, but I am psyched that it is DONE!

I also finished 4 blankets (2 patchwork & 2 not), and 9 burp cloths. I only need to rag the other patchwork blanket I did so I will put a picture of it when it is done! I also did 4 pillow cases, they are 99% done! I will put pictures of those up too.

Thanks to Nyla who let me take the day to catch up! I still have more to do, but this is way more done than yesterday!

New Year's Resolutions

This year I wasn't going to set any resolutions, even as of January 2nd, I hadn't come up with any and wasn't trying to. Then I thought of a couple of things I would like to do so I figured that was probably as close as it was going to get!

The very first one I came up with was to finish my cake decorating classes. I took the first one right after high school and loved it. Once college classes started, life got too busy to take those classes. The thought has entered my mind a few times over the last few years, but there was always something in the way. I signed up for course 2 on Wednesday and my first class was on Thursday. I am the only student so I get 100% off the teacher's attention which I hope will help me to be even better! It was my first experience working with gum paste and fondant. I don't particularly like the taste, but I love what you can do with them. I made button flowers and pansies. The pansies were kind of tricky for me, so I made a bunch more the next night to practice. I have 3 more classes for course 2 and should be able to do the following when I am done:

Button Flowers, Pansies, Violets, Daffodils, Roses, Lilies, Apple Blossoms, Primroses, stems, leaves, and basket weave.

I will actually put together a complete cake in my last lesson. Then I am hoping to jump right into course 3. There are a total of 4 courses, and depending on how everything works out, I will have them all taken by July! That would be pretty neat. Then I will be looking for any opportunities to make fabulous cakes, cupcakes, etc!

My other resolutions include exercising everyday, making better food choices, studying the scriptures more often and in more depth, staying financially on top of everything and trying to pay down my car quicker. I sure love that car, but I don't like how big my payments are and would like to eventually switch my loan over to my bank and hopefully get smaller payments. In the past most of my resolutions have been weight loss related. Because of my PCOS and insulin resistance, it is hard to lose weight. I get so frustrated when I work hard and the number on the scale doesn't get smaller, in fact sometimes it is bigger :( I have decided to not focus on weight this time. I figure as long as I am really working hard every day, I will be benefiting from regular exercise. If I make better food choices, I will be healthier and maybe with all of those combined, I will lose weight.

New Years Trip 11-12

This year for our family's annual New Years trip, we went to the Whites' house in Manila (Flaming Gorge). We spent the entire weekend chilling and enjoying the relaxation and great weather. It really hasn't been cold this year which is kind of strange.

We left on Friday morning. Since our family is getting bigger, we took two cars this year. I rode with Chelsea and Connor, everyone else rode in the suburban. We stopped in Evanston, WY for a quick lunch at Arbys and a quick stop for blankets at Walmart. On the way we got to see all of the windmills turning like crazy!
Once we got there, the boys took the dog on a hike while we unpacked and got settled in. I really didn't take any more pictures at that point, except for everyone trying to feel Carson kick, punch, or wiggle. He didn't really like his space being compromised, so if you put any pressure on Chelsea's belly, you would likely feel something. It was the first time Chase had ever felt a baby kick! It kind of freaked him out.
I took my Cricut and Gypsy and cut out shapes and letters out of a bunch of my scrap paper. We played Just Dance 3, pretty fun when you got all 4 kids playing together. We then watched Harry Potter 7 part 2 and went to bed. It was REALLY windy that night so it was kind of hard to sleep. It was cool to listen to Il Divo's "Wicked Game" , looking at the moon (which was right outside the window in the upstairs room we were staying in) while I drifted off to sleep.
I was very cold all day on Saturday and most of the day found my curled up on the couch nearest to the heater, wearing my dad's new warm jacket, and wrapped in a blanket. I even slept like that for a little bit. The boys went and took pictures for a little bit and we played games like Phase 10 and Farkle. We didn't stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve. Lame Right!?! We started watching Prince of Persia at 10 and only made it about a half hour before everyone went to bed. I was asleep by midnight!
Dad took pictures and read, we played card games. It was wonderful to just relax! On Sunday night we watched Inception and went to bed. This morning Connor and Chase went fishing while Dad took pictures. Mom and I cleaned up the house and everyone packed up. Poor McKenna felt horrible this morning which only made our trip home quicker. Once again I rode with Chelsea and Connor. We got home around 5 pm. It is amazing how much going on vacation and traveling can wear you out! I am definitely going to sleep VERY early tonight! I am exhausted!