It's about time for a family picture

I don't think we have had a picture of us all together since Valentine's day last year... so we set up the tripod and set the timer for some shots of us against the newly painted blue family room wall. Not quite profesh, but about as good as it will get for now. Maybe some day I'll pay someone to take some family portraits. We'll see.

Christmas delights

This is the delightful new bedspread Amberlee sewed for me for my birthday. It makes me so happy, almost giddy, every time I walk in the room and get a shot of all those bright colors! It's exactly the picker-upper I crave in the middle of winter.

These are the Thomas Keller gougeres we made for Christmas dinner (from Bouchon, I think). Wow! Another deluxe delight this Christmas!! I have to say though, that I like the Tartine gougeres a LOT too, and the Tartine variety are so beautiful. I'd like to make them both the same day next time so I can compare them, especially the flavors, more fairly. It's been too long since we made the Tartine gougeres, so it's hard for me to be sure of which ones taste better. Josh thinks the Thomas Keller version tastes better while the Tartine version looks better.
And here I am eating a chocolate pot de creme (recipe courtesy of Cook's Illustrated) at the Christmas Eve party. The chocolate was topped with whipped cream then garnished with crushed peppermint candy and a peppermint meringue cookie. Make sure to serve these when the chocolate creme is at room temperature. They taste much better (smoother, creamier, lighter, yet still very rich) than when they're cold (too rich and overwhelming...you can only eat one or two bites when they're chilled).
Seems like I forgot to take pictures of the rest of our Christmas festivities. Oops. I was too busy making the festivities happen to also make some pictures happen. At least Josh remembered the camera on Christmas morning. The videos he took are the best. See the videos of the kids on Christmas morning.

The Beehive Bazaar—December 2009

For the Beehive Bazaar at the beginning of December I made candy rings, some papier mache, and some felt hair clips and felt flower pins. I had several other projects in the works, but didn't finish them in time, including the paper dolls (there was a big mishap by the place that did some laminating for me...kinda ruined most of the project). It was fun to share a booth space with Josh's cousins, Briana, Tess and Candice! They had lovely things and delicious treats to sell.

Halloween Highlights

A ghost.
A seal.
This boy LOVES to cook! "Sawt, sawt," he says as he grabs the nearest thing he can find and shakes it over whatever he's cooking.

This girl LOVES to hug, squeeze, kiss, chase, tickle, and boss her brother.
This boy busted his chin open on the wooden stairs at the French House at the tail end of a family Halloween party. A few days later he busted it open again on the metal trim of the bench in the dressing room at Old Navy. The day after that he busted it open again when he tripped and smacked it into the carpeted stair between the kitchen and tv area. We used super glue to repair it each time, but after so many repeats the final result left a solid line of scar tissue in the middle of the healed wound. Oh well, at least it's on the underside of the chin, and not very visible. Poor little guy—that was a tough week.

Sock Monkey

I love my little sock monkey and Jack loves being a little sock monkey. He gets excited every time, running around repeating "monkey, monkey"!
Could he be any cuter?! His jacket was a dingy, whitish, hand-me-down that I upcycled with a bit of leftover dye from a tie-dye party at my sister's house last summer. I like the brown and grey version much better—it's just right for this little boy.

Dallin H. Oaks on Religious Freedom and Politics

An excellent talk given by Elder Dallin H. Oaks. I highly recommend it!!

Beehive Bazaar details

The Bazaar takes place on:

Thursday December 3rd from 9 pm until midnight;

Friday, December 4th from 10 am to 10 pm,

Saturday, December 5th from 10 am to 8 pm

Beehive Bazaar — Winter 2009

I'm selling delightful goodies at the Beehive Bazaar in December. I'll have paper dolls, candy rings, papier mache deer sculptures, and more. Come see me there.

Family Reunion Family Photo

I love the family photo taken at the reunion. And how about those shirts? (I designed them :) ) Each of the ten siblings from Don's family had a different color shirt for all of of their kids and grandkids.

A whole new world

The bottom half of one of the wooden planks in the fence is broken off. The remaining hole provides lots of excitement as it exposes the neighbor's backyard, usually replete with boys and bikes, and sometimes even water balloons that the boys might throw at you. Mavis is intrigued by this window into a new world.

Late Snow

I had already planted my garden during a two week warm spell mid-spring, when a late-spring snowstorm took us by surprise dumping a LOT of snow SUPER fast. The first picture is my garden, with the neighbors flowering plum trees about to break in the background. I took some pics, then grabbed my broom to follow the example of my neighbor and her kids in smacking snow off of the trees to alleviate the branches. All around the valley hundreds of trees had huge branches break off from the weight of the snow.


Josh scraped a path to the sidewalk before he left for work.


This is a neighbor's tree right after the snowfall, in the early morning. Next we see the same tree after an hour or so of sunshine had melted most of the snow off.

The Proper Role of Government

Today I heard a quote that I believe is true, and important and not understood by most, especially by our current government (nor was it very well understood by many of those in our government in the last few years):

The proper role of government is to protect equal right's, not to provide equal things.

Also, here is a slide show that I've seen lately that helped me understand more clearly the form of government the Founding Fathers set up for us, namely a republic, and how important that has been to the success of the United States of America. http://www.wimp.com/thegovernment/

Asayo's Wish Foundation Walk-a-thon

I'm excited to go see the beautiful gardens at Thanksgiving Point, in Lehi, Utah as part of a fundraiser for Asayo's Wish Foundation. I think it's a great idea because who doesn't love to walk through the gardens there? And then to pair that with a fundraising effort is fantastic. It will be on Saturday, May 30th, at 8 am (registration begins at 7 am). Check out the official event site for details here.

www.asayoswish.org
www.asayoswishblog.com

Grapes for snacktime

As pretty as they are sweet.

Wacky Jacky

At this age, 14 months, he is very insistent about feeding himself.




This is his favorite jacket that he asks ("uhh, uuhh") me to put on him whenever he spies it. Today, after wearing it during a very messy dinnertime, I took the jacket off of him to put it in the wash. Jack was irate, pointing to the jacket and screaming and crying, hoping I'd return his beloved possession.

Neon Hues

We had fun sculpting with Play-doh the other day. Mavis had the clever idea of pressing her plastic princess ring and other found objects into the clay to make fanciful impressions. I made a river of clay, with floating flowers and a large shoreline bloom.

Easter Blues

Don't let the title of the post mislead you. Easter was as pleasant a day as could be, with the bluest of blue skies and perfect temperatures. Blue is a calming color, and the brilliant sky helped invoke the peacefulness that the Resurrection and Atonement of Christ bring to our lives.

Following is a whole slew of photos from the day.

Hunting for eggs and baskets from the Easter Bunny.

Jennifer made a piñata.

The piñata stick cracked!

And the winners for best photos of the day: