Top Ten

1)Sometimes I wonder if teaching myself to sew is going to be worth is. This week, my friend Katie showed off a jacket she finished.
Can you believe she made that?
Someday, I hope to be able to fit a garment well. She has thousands of hours more experience than I do. Need to overcome some roadblocks, ie perfectionism.

2) Christmas card saving (scroll WAY down to see how they keep them). I did this over the weekend. I've been saving cards for a long time. I chose the best photo from each family over the years and finally have a place to keep it. I must have more photos hiding somewhere . . . . .  Enough room for family photos in the back. All my kids looked at it yesterday. We will swap them out next year when we receive new ones.

3) Enjoying the 100 days at Modern Quilt Guild: color, shape, everything!! I love modern quilting.

4) Best mail day since Christmas on Saturday. Received BYU magazine and my copy of Slow Cooker Revolution in the mail on Saturday. I find cooking at 4 pm challenging, so I am going to add more slow cooker options to the regulars. I want to use it every day this week. Barbecued Chicken breasts tonight. Later this week are: Chicken and Dumplings, Slow cooker applesauce, and Loaded Baked Potato soup. There are lots of steps . . . . as always with America's Test Kitchen. I need to lighten the after school burden. Plus, 10 or more recipes made with dried beans. I love cooking with dried beans.
I fully acknowledge I have way too many recipes.

5) Finished 13 rounds of dominoes with good friends. Only the 3rd time in history we've made it through all the rounds.

6)Middle school open houses.

7) New earrings. My ears are sensitive, so I've worn the same pair everyday for 14 years. I bought some sterling (less than $7 at Claire's) and they don't irritate. Finally, variety!

8) The girls helped me plan the dresses I will sew this year. Caitlin agreed to wear the existing baptism dress, so a new one isn't in the plans.

9) Hilton's Oatmeal Raisin cookies. BEST EVER!!!! Even better because I didn't bake this batch.


10)Treadmill at the community building. Has a room with glass windows for the kids to play in while I walk/run. Ed asks, "Mom, can we go to the workout room, please?" One of his most willing trips.

Goings on

REPAIRABLE.
Nathan's car. He and Andrew were rear-ended two Saturdays ago. Andrew was fine. Nathan has lower back pain--but had x-rays that show no bone or disc issues. Today we found out the car is repairable. Still not expecting things to go quickly . . . and we both dislike paperwork and phone calls, but we are thankful that the injuries were not worse.

SCHOOL started.
5th grade
4th grade
2nd grade

DENVER will be hit with a media blitz showing "I'm a Mormon" ads starting in October. As a result, we've been watching a lot of Mormon.org profile videos. This one about Erick was particularly moving. (And it shows a trans-metatarsal amputation--a surgery Nathan performs). Honestly, I have watched all of them and I like them all. I feel happy to be associated with these people. I would like to meet them in person.

Here is the link to Nathan's profile: click HERE
I am working on mine still.

BIRTHDAY coming up on Friday. She requested cinnamon rolls again.

TACKLE
Andrew joined a tackle football team this year. He is VERY excited about it. His practices for the first two weeks are Monday through Friday, 5:30 to 7 p.m. This is a huge change in our schedule, I am sad he won't be at dinner with us most of those days. On the upside, he looks great in his uniform and the practices are so close he can ride his bike. One more reason to love our neighborhood--he's the only one who rode to practice. (Also the only one who turned up in sneakers--I need to buy him some cleats. SOON).

FAMILY CAMPOUT
Last Friday night, we joined members of our ward for a campout at a ranch the church owns. If they were giving awards, we would have earned the "LEAST TIME SPENT AT CAMPOUT" award. We arrived at 7:15 p.m. and left exactly 12 hours later. We squeezed setting up two tents, cooking dinner, making peach cobbler, chatting with friends, playing with friends, a little bit of sleep, realizing we need bigger tents, and making it back in time for football practice all into those few hours. I took three photos, this is one.

SEWING
Most of my sewing is happening on my other blog, if you want to know where to find it, email me.
BUT, this month I ventured into something new, pattern testing. A lady wanted some volunteers to try out her pattern before she began selling it. I raised my hand. It was really fun. The best part was, she took some of the suggestions I made, and changed them in her pattern. Here's the latest finished garment, a baby shower gift for last Saturday.

5K/Running
One more coming in the beginning of October.
My next running goals include a treadmill, run MWF for a month, and train for a 10K in 2012.
This summer I learned to enjoy taking 5 children out on their bikes for a run with me. One day, we found this grasshopper.

(We didn't have the camera on the day we found the frog). We stopped at the BMX course every time to appease the masses.

Phew!!!!!!

A few months ago one of "how many" was the price of my garbage/recycling service . . . but, I was wrong.
It is not $54 per month, that price is for 3 months.
So only $18, which is a happier number....

Alumni Love

We have this thing about the BYU alumni magazine . . . . . we LOVE it.
(And have a hard time taking turns with it). We find great things in it each time it comes.

Enjoy this little video from BYU students breaking a world record this summer.
They took it away from the University of Kentucky on July 23rd and filmed this:



(Then Kentucky took it back a month later with 30,000 more balloons)

If I had a million dollars . . .

I might pay someone to round brush my hair everyday.
The salon where she works is called "Fountain of Beauty" and she has clients that drive from Dallas every 6 weeks to have HER do their color.
(That's over 2 hours, folks).