Sew what?

I love crafts. I come from a long line of crafters and sewers. For the past year or so I've been saying I want to learn how to sew. Jeramy rolls his eyes and laughs every time I say it. Well, I decided it was really time to learn. I borrowed my sister's sewing machine and took it to Malad with me and got a crash course on sewing from my mother-in-law. She was incredibly patient with me - even when I broke needles and turned the bobbin thingie the wrong way...a lot. I left her house feeling pretty confident...

Sew...I came home and made bean bags. The kids were impressed. Then I asked Lindsay what she wanted and she said a bag. Huh. I can do that...

I made a bag! It only has 2 real problems. 1) I sewed the straps on wrong so it's more like a backpack than a purse and 2). I didn't fold the edge on the pocket far enough under so it sticks out. Both of these issues could easily be unpicked and redone - yeah right. I am not a perfectionist.

Then we saw the most adorable pillowcase dress at Cafe Rio and I said to Jeramy, "I can do that." He rolled his eyes and laughed, so I went home and did it! This one has about a million mistakes, but hey - I did it!

My mom is also a sewer who says now, "Why sew when I can buy things on clearance for cheaper than fabric?" I totally agree. BUT, she got all excited with my new-found hobby and gave me oodles of old fabric (hence the fabric of the dress) AND she handed me my first pattern. YIKES. I read the instructions, looked at the crunchy paper, and handed it back to her. I'm not ready for that yet.

And then I made this:

JUST KIDDING! My amazing mother-in-law just bought one of those huge quilting machines that take up an entire room. I bought the fabric and stuff and she put it together for me. I LOVE it! Macie isn't 100% in love yet because she thinks that she can't have this blanket and her princess blanket at the same time. We're working on it. The first night I just forgot to find her pink blanket and put her to bed, she usually yells at us until someone brings her blanket to her. About a half hour after bed, I went to check on her and found her quietly sobbing "My blankie all gone, I want my blankie." Poor kid.

Sew, if you ever need a quilt quilted or bound, give me a call and I'll do it for ya - oh- I mean, I'll give you my mother-in-laws number!

(Hey, I promised you another pun, and now I've delivered. Have a great Halloween weekend!)

Date night

Friday night I was supposed to go here, but Thursday night Jer told me about a leadership training on the new church family history site. I was torn. I look forward to this party every year, but I also wanted to learn about the new site. So I put it on my sister Kerry. I said, "If you want to babysit my kids Friday night, I will go with Jer to this training. If you have plans, then I'll go to my party and Jer will stay home." Well, she made a few calls and figured out a way to babysit. I was a little bummed.

We got to the church and started our training. Can I say my terrible no good very bad attitude quickly went away? I am so excited for this new site! It is so easy that even I can use it!
Here's the scoop...
www.new.familysearch.org is the new site. You have to have your confirmation date and membership # to get registered. If you don't have this, contact your clerk's office and they can get it for you. There is a 10 minute video on how to get started. Watch this. The old site took 16 steps to get a name temple-ready, the new site is only 5. It's crazy how easy it is. While we were in our meeting I was cruising my family tree and found only 4 generations back someone who wasn't sealed to his parents. The site tells you right there that the work needs to be done. If you want to do the work, you can print out a card to take to the temple right there!

I hope I've got some of you excited. But I should warn you that not all areas have access yet. Yesterday I went up to show my Dad the new site and he can't get in yet. So I signed in and I showed him around and I think he was pretty excited about it. He then said, "Grandma gave me some names she wants us to check on." He read me the first name on his list, we did a search. There he was with no temple work done!! I can hardly wait to get going on this.

I highly recommend taking the Family History class at church. I'm pretty sure ours starts this Sunday. I will admit that I have always thought that Family history is for the old people to do, but it is so not, especially now with all the tools online we have!

So, are you too chicken to try something your grandma does?? I hope not!

Leaf me alone...*

What do you get when you have 8 kids, 8 adults and a bunch of leaves??
Lots of fun!

We spent the weekend in Malad for baby Carter's blessing. Maddie had this brilliant idea to play in the leaves and oh boy, did we all have fun! Adults and kids alike. We learned quickly that Tera's kids are a little over-protective of her getting leaves thrown at her, whereas my children were right there helping get me! We wish lots of luck to Grandpa Kim getting all those leaves cleaned up! (And Grandma getting them all out of her house, if it makes you feel any better, I'm finding them in our suitcases here).

*There is no reason I said to "Leaf me alone" in my title other than it has the word "leaf" in it. I'm feeling pun-ny AND there will be another pun-filled post later this week.

Good times with Grandma...

Last week we went with Grandma Jean to Gardener Village to see the witches. This is a tradition we have done for many years. This year Maddie said, "But we do that every year. I don't want to go!" And I told her, "It's a tradition and you WILL go and you WILL like it." And she did.

They have a list available here of all the witches so the kids can go around and find them all. It's fun and it's free (as long as you don't get sucked into a shop and spend oodles of money).
These 3 are my favorite pictures of the day. I just love Macie teetering on the edge there - just waiting to fall in. (She didn't, thanks goodness).
This was when we got back to Grandma's. Macie was so funny jumping and singing on the tramp that I had to take some pictures. The last one on the right hand bottom is when she noticed me taking pictures she told me to "Stop it, Mom!"

Speaking of Maddie growing up and not liking "baby" things anymore...a few weeks ago when we were driving to the cabin, I put an Elmo DVD on and she threw a royal fit about how Elmo was for babies and she hated it now and she wasn't going to watch it. I said that was fine, just read a book. About a half hour later when I looked in the rear view mirror, she was glued to the TV with the biggest (toothless) grin ever. I pointed it out to Jer and we both had a good giggle - then I said, "Maddie, you're not ENJOYING Elmo, are you??" She got very upset and said, "No Mom...my teeth just needed some air." Now that is some quick thinking!

Sorry!

For those of you who use Google Reader to keep up with my blog, I think I should apologize.

I've been a blogger now for 300 posts (not including my craft blog, family blog and 3 private blogs I keep for my girls). Sheesh, I write a lot.

I've seen people "Label" their posts and quite honestly, I didn't get it. Then I spent 2 hours searching for the post about Maddie going to the dentist, and then it all made perfect sense. Wouldn't it have been nice if all I had to do was think, "Maddie, dentist" and type that in and walah! The post would magically appear. So.....in honor of my 300th post, I'm going to go back and label my posts (or that is the goal at least, don't judge me too harshly if I don't finish).

I'm pretty sure it will send you an update saying that I've written like 40 posts today. Not so, I'm just updating them with a label. So sorry, but think - now you'll be able to find your favorite posts a lot easier, too. It's a win/win situation. :)

Reward myself, I've earned it.

Soon after Jeramy and I were married, we realized that we don't work well together. Sure, we compliment each others' strengths and weaknesses, but we can not work together on a project. It may have something to do with - well - me. I like to be in charge and to do things my way. I am always right. (see previous post about me being the boss).
We found this out putting together our entertainment center a few weeks into our marriage. From then on, we just did things separate. Like when we were expecting Maddie, he went in the bedroom and put the crib together while I stayed out in the front room and put the swing together. Very good night. Got a lot done. We tried to paint our bedroom together a few years back and quickly learned that we can't paint together, so I now am in charge of all the painting in our house.

This has been a bad spider summer around here. We've found 7 black widows in our garage. YUCK. A few weeks ago I put my foot down and told Jeramy it was his "manly duty" to clean out the garage and spray for spiders. He told me he didn't want to and so it was my "wifely duty". Neither of us wanted to do it, so it didn't get done. Finally yesterday we decided to do it together. I took a deep breath - glad that he was helping - and held that breath for 2 hours while we cleaned. I can honestly say, it wasn't that bad. (Both the working together and the cleaning).

Lesson learned. I can play nicely with others - even if I'm not in charge.
(Oh, and I should probably add that I rewarded myself with this):
This is a banana split from Thanksgiving Point. 1 banana, 3 scoops of ice cream (mint, cookie dough and strawberry cheesecake) 3 toppings (hot fudge, caramel and M&M's) whipped cream and a cherry on top. And yes, it is bigger than Macie's head. Many people walked by and "ooohed and awed" at the marvelous sight.
Us girls polished the whole thing off. Although, I was the one who got stuck with the bananas. And I feel that I should point out another difference with me and Jer at this point. While I was eating this huge, many flavored masterpiece, he had a very boring and bland chocolate shake. He was the one to point this one out.
Also, while we were waiting in line, the person in front of us ordered a cookie sundae. It consisted of smearing hot fudge all over a plate, then putting a huge cookie in it, then ice cream on top and more hot fudge. As I was watching in awe and trying to decide if I wanted that instead, Jeramy says, "Oh how sick! I can't believe someone would eat that!"

p.s. Happy 300th post to me, maybe I should go back and get that cookie one to celebrate...

My Payless Peeps...

Have you ever answered your phone and had the person on the other end say:
"The cash register is off $200, what should I do?" or
"I don't have my keys to close the store, can you come?" or
"I don't have my keys to open the store, can you come?" or
"I didn't get out of the store before the alarm went off and I don't have my codes, what should I do?" or
"Ma'am, this is the Centerville police. It's 2:30 a.m and your alarm is going off in the store, can you [drive 30 minutes to] come check it out?" or
"this is ShopKo. We just caught one of your employees shoplifting."
"this lady's credit card just fell down the side of the register and we can't get it out." or
"I just fell off the ladder and sliced my head open" or
"The toilet's backed up and there isn't a plunger" or
"I just had a guy pull a knife on me."

I have. All of the above and more.

Have you ever witnessed:
A man standing in the mall's fountain calling us all to repent and be saved?
A man take off his shoes and socks and clip his toenails onto the carpet and leave them there?
Very "pretty" men stealing size 12 ladies shoes?
Men wearing women's shoes and asking for help finding their size?
Someone stealing your purse?
A drug deal in a parking lot?
Someone going through the pockets of your coat that is hanging in the back room?
Your store being dusted for fingerprints?
Someone using your bathroom in the back, then you go in the bathroom and discover that he had diarrhea and the toilet got backed up and IT was all over the walls and sink, etc.
A 14 year old girl hide a stolen checkbook in your store?

I have. And lots more that I'm sure I'll remember later.

I was a store manager for Payless Shoes for 5 years. I ran 5 stores in that time period and probably had a million employees - good and bad. I'm still in contact with lots of the good ones, and this past Saturday I went out to lunch with some of them.

As I was making the long drive to lunch in Sugarhouse, I reflected a lot on my time with these people (and some that couldn't make it for lunch). We were together and there for each other through so many happy times, and so many sad times. There were babies born, promotions, engagements and weddings, great days at school and work, and so many happy things that we shared. And there were sad times too. Broken engagements, miscarriages, a house burning down, car being stolen, health struggles, financial struggles, martial struggles bad days at work, and on and on. I realized how lucky I was to have such great people around me at those times, and how happy I am that we are still friends!
(and sorry, no picture. I forgot I had my camera with me until the drive home).

Whirlwind weekend

Wow. I think we've packed just about everything possible into the past 24 hours!

Jeramy's mom celebrated a rather important birthday. Let's just say she's not 40, and she's not 60, but she's somewhere in the middle of the two. We decided to surprise her and meet up at Maddox in Brigham for dinner. We left an hour and 45 minutes early and it took us 2 hours to get there with traffic - YUCK! But we beat the birthday girl, so all of us were seated and waiting when they came in. It was so fun to surprise her! Dinner was really good. We didn't want to leave, so we went and hung out at Wal-Mart for an hour after dinner and chatted some more. Happy birthday, Mary!
We got home about 11:45 p.m., then got up at 7 and headed up the canyon to the "Mower Mansion" for a day full of 4-wheeling and watching conference. The kids had so much fun! Maddie immediately went and found her STICK, or what she believes was her stick. Who knows if it was or not.

We've found that it's harder - but not impossible - to fall asleep in a camp chair. Lindsay spent the entire time on someone's lap. She is afraid of dogs and my sister's dog Dreamer got to come with us. She warmed up to him a little by the end. Her cousin Ashley gave her that rocking cool hairdo and taught her how to flash some "gang signs" or something...I'm so old I don't know what that means. Macie loves Scott and curled up on him and took a 2 hour nap through the second session.

We decided not to spend the night, so we drove home around 7. We stopped in Heber for dinner. Who knew that Heber was such a big, happening town? Not us. We spent the day today watching conference at home and recovering from our huge 2 days with over 8 hours of driving!