Weekend at Grammie's! (May 14-15, 2010)

Whilst Hillary and Marc headed south to Tuacahn with Sonia and Shawn, the girls and I started out the weekend in the manner of every kids dream... playing in the field! I used to love the fields around my home when I was young and it was no surprise when these four kids begged me to play in the field. I even let them take my camera with them and this is what they came back with. We also went to the library. They loved it and all came back with books galore (which their mother returned on their way out of town to San Diego... thanks Hillary!) promising to have them all read but then begged to keep them a while longer when it was time to go. I knew they would want to do that.

After the library trip we went to the Community Park at Kearns Oquirrh Park Fitness Center and had a blast. I walked the short trail while they played. One of the funnest things was to roll down the hill and I'm sure that had a lot to do with why Adelyn slept for 12 hours that night.

Planting Trees

This last weekend the family spent a good deal of time at our property. We went thinking we'd spend two days planting trees and bushes. That didn't happen. There was the mondo watering system to build first. That took more than the two days but on day three, there was enough done to start planting. This tree is a Nanking Cherry and was the first tree planted on the property next to that cute little emitter on the hose. Richard worked all day Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to get the watering system completed to where it actually waters. There have been many bumps along the way. There are 8 - 500' lengths of hose to plant along. We have 400 trees/bushes so they are planted about every 10' and we have two lines planted so that's about 100 plants with 300 to go.

The weather is forcing us to take a break but we hope to be back at it and get the rest planted this coming Saturday. Then we can start planning our play time!

Humanitarian Project

A couple weeks ago I was browsing around lds.org and came across the Humanitarian Center's 'current needs' link. Out of curiosity I clicked on it. The only need they have at the moment are 90"x90" quilts and I thought, I can do that.

After the earthquake in Haiti I texted my 10 bucks to my cell phone carrier and participated in the ward's quilt project. We got 3 quilts tied for the Humanitarian Center. Then after more earthquakes in Chile and tsunami's hitting islands, we donated a bit more money to relief efforts but I still had a nagging that I could do more... but what? When I clicked on that link that quilts were needed, I immediately thought of all the fabric I have. A lot of it I would never miss so I made a game plan and started cutting. A couple years ago I bought a bunch of little 8x8x8 open containers to organize my smaller fabric stash by color. Over the last two weeks I've gotten them out, one by one, and cut all the fabric to 10" and 6" sizes. The 10" sizes will take 100 squares to make a quilt, the 6" sizes 360. When I get the tops made, I'll figure out the backs. Anyone want to sew a top together?

My Latest Project

Material Girls is a fabulous quilt and crafting shop. They have patterns for all kinds of fun things besides quilts as well as what to do with quilts. (I'm going to have to ask about an afghan they have... I just love it!) I was there one day and up on their wall I saw a round quilt called Bare Feet Only. It was small and round like an area rug (but looked like an ugly pizza). It inspired me with what to do for some family members for Christmas 2010. I didn't like the pizza look so was on the look-out for a nice pattern that would make a pretty area rug. This picture is what I found. It's very easy and I have two tops of the four I plan to make finished. I'm planning to back them with a light-weight denim for durability. I'd also like to machine quilt them myself if I can figure out how.

The Aquarium

Saturday, January 23rd, I was tending the girls while Hillary was at her clinicals for her nursing course and Marc was in Park City being fabulous (filming at the Sundance Film Festival for Timberland). It was supposed to be a horrible snowy day but it turned out to just look threatening all day here in the valley so Sonia and Shawn came over and we all went to the Aquarium. It was way fun and I want to go back when they have the Penguins which are arriving in March.
All the girls were soaked from 'petting' the sting rays but amazingly enough, were mostly dry by the time we left for home. As you can see by the pictures, there were great photo ops all over. I don't
think the octopus tank was meant to be a photo op but with a little encouragement from 'Auntie', Tasha put her face up to the tank. I've tried to put the pictures in the order they were taken... Enjoy.