Ode to 2012:

Alex is doing well in school. He is a wiz kid on math.  Is kind to all and generally happy.  He is a people pleaser and very helpful.  He is very much an old soul...saying to funniest things...mostly things an old man would say.  Even though he and Dylan are 20 months apart he is just as tall and has a couple pounds on Dylan, oh and has become a man...now I have to buy mens size shoes for him and he is so proud.

Dylan turned 12 in October and was able to be ordained to the priesthood.  He really enjoys passing the sacrament and YM activities.  He has had several eye surgeries starting in August...5 retina, 1 cataract and 2 cornea surgeries.  He has remained in good spirits and handled everything like a champ.  We are so proud of him.  He is doing so well in school especially math and science.

Emma is almost 15...which means driving...she looks at every older car she sees with googoo eyes.  We will see.  She is a freshman this year and doing well.  She got a snake for Christmas and is really enjoying it, more than I thought.  She enjoys anything music related and is in the choir at school...I think she has been in the choir since 4th grade.  She is constantly singing, playing the piano, printing and writing music.

Samantha is still working at the LDS Draper temple although getting burnt out with the schedule.  Still sewing and creating things in her spare time.  She went to England, France and The Netherlands in the spring and had a great time.

Justin is working for GE and enjoying it.  He was in a car accident this year which was scary but wasn't hurt too bad.  He is the "cookie king" in our house...he makes the best chocolate chip cookies.  He enjoys anything outdoors especially ice fishing.

I know my pics aren't in order...I am not very good at this.

First Broken Bone...

We have been lucky so far than none of our children have broken a bone...until now.  We are having camera issues so there are only photos on my phone and I don't know how to get them off.  Over spring break Alex was at home just watching TV and somehow lost his balance and fell on his hand the wrong way and broke the last knuckle on his middle finger, left hand.  Alex is left handed so it has put a damper on school work which I am sure he doesn't mind at all.  Anyway, they had to do surgery on it and I must say yuck!!!  It looks very disgusting.  The fingernail had to be removed so they could make sure the nailbed was still intact and then set the bone.  After which they sewed the nail back on and the DR. said it should continue to grow.  He has been in a splint for 3 weeks and will remain in one for another 6-9 weeks.  He is missing out on baseball and jump team but his spirits are always good about things like this.  When I told him no baseball he said, "yea, I know, maybe I can just go watch my team play and cheer them on."  That is so Alex.  He has such a great outlook.

Quilting

For Christmas Justin got me a new quilting ruler from a quilting blog I love to read. www.sewkindofwonderful.blogspot.com. When I discovered the blogger Jenny Pedigo was creating this new curve ruler I wanted it! I finally had some extra cash to get some fabric to experiment with the ruler. Here is what you can create with it. I am going to put more sashing around it to make it a little bigger but I love it. It wasn't too difficult to get the hang of sewing the curves just took a few tries. If you love to quilt check out her blog.

WOOT WOOT, EMMA!!!

I am so thankful for our church's youth programs! Emma is a part of a Young Womens organization and they offer a program called Personal Progress. In this program there are 8 values which are: Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works, Integrity and Virture. Within each value there are items of scripture study and some type of project to do. These projects are large such as making a quilt...something that would take 10 hours to complete. Emma and I started talking about her attempting a quilt several months ago when I was making a few. I showed her a few patterns she could make with the scraps I had and she decided it was something she wanted to do. At first she was really excited and had a great start. After a few hours of working on it she was tired and we put it away. She got it out several other times and worked on it a few hours at a time. In the end I am certain this took her more than 10 hours...probably more like 20 but she finally did it. I told her at the beginning that if she could piece a twin sized quilt top that I would foot the bill to have it machine quilted. I figured piecing it was hard enough for a very beginner sewer that the machine quilting might be incentive enough to finish it. 192 squares=384 triangles! WOW! I showed her how to make the half square triangles and off she went. I tried to teach her about piecing as she went and she caught on fairly well...that is not to say we didn't have to pick apart several stitches! When she was finished with the triangle squares we picked a fabric for the sashing and I helped her figure that out. I have to say she did 95% of this quilt...there were times of frustration where I stepped in and helped her out. I hope she enjoyed doing it and having me help her. She was so excited when I picked it up from the quilters, she was giddy. I did the binding on it last night and she sat with it for the rest of the night.

She did this for the value of Individual Worth...she has tons of worth!!!

So proud of her hard work!
The whole thing! I am in love with it as much as she is!
Way to go Emma!!! I love you!

Piano-before

This is our new piano...well, new to us. I wish I was better at before and after photos but I always seem too anxious to get started that I don't take the time to shoot pictures. It was a typical 1980's oak piano. It was in good shape but I wanted to paint it so it would flow with the rest of my house. I thought...black, cream, green or blue but since I don't play and Emma and Justin do their vote won out. Black. Here is a pic without the tip piece. I started taking it apart and discovered that all the front pieces either lift off or unscrew and ended up with the whole front bare with just the inside keys and mechanisms showing. I also ended up taking off the harp like piece down by the pedals, I thought it looked better without it.

It was very dusty so I took time to clean it and vacuum out the pianos crevices. I found some interesting things inside...most of the things didn't surprise me like a pencil, paperclip, pennies, whole punches and paper. But there were a few things that I thought were funny...a drill bit, hey, how did that get in there? And dry oatmeal??? As in not cooked, I can just see my in-laws a bit younger: one at the piano practicing and the other stirring a bowl of oats getting ready to cook it and spilling as they are looking over the shoulder of the other at the piano...anyway I thought it was funny.
I took each key out and cleaned it and vacuumed under it. Cleaned the dust off the felts and put it back together. It was so fun! I tried to talk Justin into getting a piano hammer to tune it ourselves but he declined and eventually I will call someone. We do have a sticky key I tried to fix but I think I need a new felt and I don't want to take it apart again and get felt and then have it still stick so when it is tuned then we will get the sticky key fixed.

After pictures...next post!

Piano-after

OK!!! Here it is! I sat for a while in the living room after we put it in the living room and just looked at it. (well, it took me a few days to get it back together but then I sat) I love how it turned out. My in-laws graciously gave the piano to us. Justin grew up playing it. I had been looking for one for a while and never found one I liked enough to buy. When they offered this one to us I said no because they live in Washington but then my father-in-law was coming this way to go hunting and he said he would bring it to us.

I am glad I went with the black because it really fits my house. It wasn't nearly as hard as I thought. With some sanding blocks, tsp cleaner, spray paint (love spray paint) and some polyurethane I was set. As I started to take a few pieces off the piano I realized that most of the front comes off. Once I got everything off and sanded the painting part was easy. We have a lot of construction around us so the hardest thing was keeping it clean between coats. 3 coats of paint and 3 coats of poly and done.

I made this new book stand which I learned is really called a desk. I am not loving it but for now it is going to stay. The original had some cut outs that looked like a t-shirt and then my husband mentioned that the other cut outs where shaped like duck feet and then I really wasn't sure I could look at the desk the same again, hence the new one. I have another vision that I may try later but for now this one is it.
I have been looking at this fabric for a while now wishing I had a great living room chair to recover...but I don't. I was thinking of using it for my dining chairs as well and I think I still might. I thought it would be perfect on the bench to bring in some more green to my living room and it looks great! It is a great shade of green but you can't tell in the picture.

On the original there was a harp looking piece with gold rods running through it down by the pedals that I took off. I thought it looked too 80's and I wanted to bring the piano into 2011's. Now it is just a flat piece that looks cleaner.

Some new vinyl signs...

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