In Progress

I have been sewing a lot this week, Yay!  I have a couple things that need finishing ASAP.  I have this one friend, who I have known my ENTIRE life, no lie.  We grew up together in the same cul-de-sac.  She is an only child just like me, which means we are sisters, just with different DNA.   Even though we don't talk often I think about the girl everyday. And it never matters how long it's been since our last chat we always pick up right where we left off.  We have literally been through thick and thin together, trust me. Lets not talk about how long ago this was, I am getting OLD...

Anyways, this amazing and gorgeous girl is getting married in a few weeks.  Since she is a quilter herself I asked her to choose a pattern and fabric that she liked and let me know.  She did well, just like I knew she would.  And so her wedding quilt is almost done.  But it hasn't been without some help.  Sorry Bri, you know how organized I am, I had good intentions, but there was no way I was going to get it done with everything else going on this Fall.  So Cindy, my other amazing and adorable friend climbed aboard my sinking ship and bailed me out.  I would not survive without my friends, I am so grateful for them.  Anyways, I realize I am rambling, as usual, sorry....

Every year I make a Christmas Quilt and give it to the Hospital in our town and they sell raffle tickets to raise money for Sub for Santa.  It's also in progress.

I have also been working on a few toss pillows for my bed, So far I have these two, only three more to go.

I guess by now it's obvious that I can't just start something and finish it before going on to the next thing.  Yeah, it's an issue, maybe it will be a New Year's Resolution, which means I still have six weeks to start a few more projects :) Stay tuned, I plan on getting a few of these wrapped up this weekend, wish me luck!

Back to Normal

Or Ty's version of normal anyways.  He thinks we need to make cookies every other day.  I agree, but my waist line does not.  Every once in a while I cave, who could resist this little man?

 This sweet little lady had a napper while we measured and mixed, but as soon as the delicious smell of cookies filled the air her eyes batted open and she insisted on sitting at the counter with Ty.

This is the reason we don't make cookies everyday, because as I take her picture and giggle at how funny she looks with her mouth stuffed full of cookie, I realize that I look the same on the other side of the camera. Between that and the lovely post nap hair, she doesn't stand a chance, poor girl is her Mama through and through.

Aimlessly

Last week I dropped Ty at Preschool and Ally and I headed to the post office to drop a few things in the mail.  I stopped to turn back onto the road and all of a sudden my car was being showered with golden leaves falling off the small tree next to us.  I sat there for a few minutes, just staring at them and putting way to much thought into it.  It was overcast and windy, and my mood was a little melancholy.   I finally turned and headed up the road towards home.  I looked in the rear view mirror and Miss Ally was fast asleep.  My car was warm and the perfect CD was playing that matched my mood and the weather.  So I parked in my driveway and ran inside just long enough to grab my camera.  I had convinced myself that it was a perfect afternoon to waste driving around aimlessly looking for cool photo ops.  I felt a little dumb as I passed Ben on the road.  "He would think I am super dramatic right now," I thought to myself,  but oh well, I knew he would be proud of me for playing with my camera.

 It was just what I needed, When it was time to get Ty I was refreshed and had snapped out of my sulky mood.  I am so grateful to live in such a gorgeous place.

Halloween 2012

Since you are undoubtedly tired of my rambling (and so am I), pictures with a few captions are all that are going to happen today.  But I happen to think that it's more than enough.  These two little characters are cuter than any words could do them justice anyway.

"The Minion" his lovely expression was due to the fact that he had to have his picture taken before he could go Trick or Treating, I am such a terrible mother.

"The Oompa" I love that she has no idea how hilarious she looks, she is going to kill me for this one day isn't she? And yes, despite several later, rinse, and repeats her hair is still slightly green.

A little Oompa Minion love, ahhhh.  I should totally have dressed Ally as a minion.  Ty loves all the Minion clips on YouTube but he most loves the Biggest Loser one where the one minion points out his butt as the area he would like to work on.  Ty went around pointing to his butt and saying butt, butt, butt so much that Ally had it down too.  Every time she saw him she would say butt, butt, butt, and it was hilarious.  Oh well, she was still a pretty cute Oompa Loompa. 

The night before my children were on the brink of diabetic shock I decided to carve the pumpkins that Grandma Jen grew in her garden with Ty.  I love to carve pumpkins, Ben hates it, but somehow he always ends up in the middle of it all.  

Such a good Daddy he is, I love Halloween!!!

The Hunt

This post has been on my mind almost everyday since this adventure started.  It's weird how writing things out help me put things in perspective.  It's not as much for everyone else as it is for me, it has surprised me how therapeutic this blogging thing has been.  I have gone back and forth a few times, trying to decide how much depth to go into.  But the last few days I have been feeling a little better about things and I think I would rather not relive the whole thing at this point.  So here you go.  The shortened version.  We hunted our tails off and came home with the stupid tag in our hands.  Yep, no deer.  It's not that we didn't see any, we did, just not any that we deemed worthy of a once in a lifetime draw unit.  It was hard, both physically and  emotionally.   All the early mornings and cool weather didn't bother me.  And the hiking was pretty awesome actually, it felt so good, and I was so proud of myself for keeping pace.  But wrapping my sleeping baby up and pawning her off on Nicole at 6 am was hard.  After all it was Nicole's vacation too and I felt like I was taking advantage of her, a lot.  But of course she never complained, and she had a smile on her face every time I invaded her trailer to dump my kid off.  She is one of those people who are few and far between, a true friend.  Shes obviously easy going and fun, but most of all, she's genuine.  I just can't say enough about how grateful I am for her.  There were also several more people who were there to get up early and sit for hours and spot and spot and then spot some more.  They hiked, they cooked, they laughed, they were what made everything OK in the end.  I feel so unworthy of all the time and effort everyone went to just to help little old me.  But despite it all, I missed Chad.  I tried hard to stay focused, but I found my mind wondering almost constantly.  I wanted him to help me, to show me, to tell me where to go.  I held out hope, until the very end, until Ben finally looked at me on the very last day and asked me what I wanted to do, and I had to call it.  It felt like losing him all over again.  It was definitely the very hardest part.  I wanted to scream and yell and call him bad names, and I almost did.  I had a good cry, ripped off my orange hat and after a few minutes I was OK again.  OK until Jason told me as we pulled into the drive way that I had done a good job and he was proud of me for being a true hunter and holding out for the buck I wanted, even if that meant coming home empty handed.  I was so honored to receive such a compliment from someone I consider my big brother.  I now realize, after a few days of trying to sort it all out in my mind, a pair of antlers could never mean as much to me as all the love and support I have felt over the last two weeks.  A huge thank you to Jason, Jed and TJ, my big brothers, (weather you like it or not) thank you for everything.  All the days off work, days away from you families  all the driving and advice and help, I wouldn't have even seen one thing without all of you. Collin, I know you love to camp and hunt but I really am so grateful to you for helping out with Ty and Ally.  I am glad you were there and I think you are a pretty amazing and awesome young man, keep up the good work. Waylon, thanks for being patient with Ally, you are the cutest happiest boy ever and I just love you to pieces. To Nicole, well I just can't find the words to thank you, I love you.  Even though I felt bad leaving my kids I knew that they couldn't be in better hands, you are and amazing Mom and friend.  My Mom and my Uncle Tim, two of the most special people in my life, my world was complete with you there, you provided some sort of calm I was unable to find after you left, thank you for everything over the last 30 years.  To my kids, thank you for being good sports, Ally thank you for not crying for Nicole and only being a diva when I was around.  Ty, you are one funny and amazing boy.  I am so proud of you for always finding the good in any situation and being a happy fun kid.  And to Benny, NONE of this would have happened without you.  You were the first one up every freezing cold morning and you sweetly and calmly asked me if I was awake and told me it was time to get up, even though it wasn't your hunt and I know how much the whole getting me out of bed in the morning drives you crazy.  You never complained about anything, you never told me no.  Someday I hope I am the kind of person you are.  I love you so very very much.  Thank you for listening to me and holding me while I cried.  I know you are the only one who truly understands what I went through and I know you felt Chads void just as much as I did.  There is no one else on the planet I would have wanted to be with for this adventure.  You kept me positive and you still helped me see the good after it was all said and done.  You are my rock, I love you.

OK now that I have spilled my dramatic guts, how bout a few pics?  I only got my camera out one day, boo. But can I just say how much I love sitting in a camp chair surrounded by friends.  There can't be anything better in the world than that.

It started out with a little friendly shooting competition. Can you see the cans?

Somehow they ended up shooting one of Collins Gatorade's because of who won, or lost,

 I can't remember how it all went down.

While the boys were having their fun, Nicole and I loved on our little people. 

(Don't his curls just kill you?)

 Ally slept on my lap for what seemed like hours, I loved every single second of it.

After that was a friendly game of pine cone baseball,

 Which turned unfriendly pretty quickly.

Ben found this 4 wheeler for sale on KSL two days before we left.  It wasn't running, of course my handy husband had it fixed in a few hours, and the part to fix it was only one dollar, sweet!  

Ty rode it non stop for 4 days.  Ben told him only First gear, that lasted almost a whole day.

 This was the view out the windshield on the way home, it was sad to say goodbye, bittersweet.  But I am so grateful for the opportunity and I am doing my best to find all the good in it.  Which there is, a whole lot of good.  Thanks again everyone.

PS  I asked Ty when we got home if he was glad to get back to normal? he said "Yeah, like making cookies and going to the movies...."  What? that's not normal? How about cereal and cartoons buddy.  I love you.

Some quiltyness, and other things

My friend and I were shop hopping a few months ago and saw this really cute idea for a quilt.  It was a chevron print made rag quilt style.  It was a small scale chevron and it only had a few layers and no batting in it.  Oh, we can totally do that so much better we said to one another.  We get ourselves into things like this all the time, you would think we would learn.  So a few weeks later Cindy and I ran a quilty errand together one Saturday afternoon and she showed me the large chevron print she had bought.  I was totally in love, so very cute.  So I went and bought my own along with some yellow minky that Ally kept laying on and rubbing her face on while we were in the fabric store.  Then I went and bought five colors of flannel to match.  Oh I was just so excited to get going.

 So a few weeks after that Cindy and I got together on a Friday night for our monthly quilt night. We layered all of our fabrics together with a little spray glue and then happily started sewing down the chevrons.  After about 45 seconds I realized that this little project was dumb.  You see there are 10 chevron stripes, and then Cindy thought it would be best to sew down the middle of the white stripes.  That means 30 seams total.  Which means sewing 2.5 inches stopping, turning the entire quilt sewing 2.5 more inches, you get the idea.  And it's not like it was 2 light fluffy pieces of cotton and some batting.  It was a fluffy piece of cotton, five fluffy pieces of flannel and one extra fluffy piece of minky.  It sucked.  So I started whining, and I kept whining.  It went on for days.  Every time I worked on it I send Cindy a text and whined about how bad I hated it.  Until she offered to finish it for me, but I told her no I just wanted to whine about it.  One Saturday I finally buckled down, fed my family cereal and fast food all day and finished it (stopping every hour or so to text Cindy).  And now I'm pretty glad I followed Cindy down this quilty path, It's darn cute. (I should mention Cindy finished hers in like a week with very little, if any at all, whining, and it was really super cute :))

 Whats even better? My daughter really loves the back.  Which makes me extra happy about all the time I spent on the front :)

And it apparently doubles as a yoga mat.  Come on Ty, do yoga with me.

After the trauma, I needed something really easy to work on.  So I dug this rag quilt out of my stash.  It's one of my original unfinished projects.  We are talking almost a decade old. But a neighbor of our is expecting a baby boy in a month or so and I thought this soft quilt might be fun to wrap him up in.  And it took me one hour to finish, sweet!

But the very best thing in recent history? My new pantry! 

There are no words to express the joy it brings to my soul.

This space used to be a half bath.  It's right off our kitchen and hadn't been used as a bathroom for at least four years.  I had stuff stacked all over in there.  A few weeks ago Ben told me that if I cleaned it out he would tear out the bathroom items and put shelves in for me.  I had that thing cleaned out in like 10 mins. Ben, well he is my hero, as usual.  All that stuff in there, it used to be shoved in all my cupboards.  You took you life into your own hands opening most of my cupboards, until now that is.  I tell ya, I don't know how I lived without a pantry, I know I never can again that's for sure.   OK I gots to go.  I need to pack, and grocery shop, not normal grocery shop, Sam's Club grocery shop.  And then pack some more. 

Less than 48 hours till go time.