Sweetness

Hey!  How was your week?
Mine was pretty good.

We started out with a visit to Grandma and Grandpa N on Monday, and that is always nice.  We did most of the puzzle that we recently gave to them...but we left the really hard part, so it's ok.

On Thursday I went to what is called a Key Communicators Meeting.  It's something that our school district does.  Usually it's a presentation with a breakfast spread, and it's at different schools each month.  They want two people from each school in the district, so sometimes I'm one of the people from my school.  Anyhow, this time was actually more of a discussion format to aid in creating an Equality Policy.  I had been dreading it, because I don't generally like to share my opinions in a big group.  Surprisingly, I really enjoyed it.  I did share my opinions, and I enjoyed hearing the comments of others.  It was all great.  But the interesting thing was hearing some of the stats.

• 90 different languages are spoken in the homes of students in the district!  I don't even think I can name that many languages!
• Our district is 50% at or below poverty level
• According to the principal of the school that was hosting this month: 92% of her disciplinary work is dealing with kindergartners.  She said that it's vastly different from even 10 years ago.  She attributes it to too much screen access at a young age, which inhibits person-to-person relationships & learning to manage personal emotions.

Ok, anyhow.  Later that night I went to a cookie tutorial night, where we watched "Alison's Cookie Party" about how to decorate cookies.  It was perfect timing because the invitations to Chick's Baking Party were going to be on cookies!  The tutorial had a lot of good information for a newby like me (I may have used royal icing once before....), but the best part of the evening was sitting around after the video and chatting with friends.  It's so nice to get out and visit with other women!  Thanks for hosting, Brooke!!

On Friday my sister was in town, so I broke my vow to stay away from the Goodwill Outlet so that I could show it to her (I did tell Mr. Fox that I was going to break my word...somehow that makes it better).  I ended up getting more than intended, but anyhow....  One of the things that I found was this painting. 

It's pretty rare that I find artwork that I like at thrift stores.  Rare as in: it's never happened that I can recall.  But I did like this one a lot (Despite Mr. Fox's response of: "What is it?  I only see dabs and squiggly lines").  It had a black scrape on it, but I was able to wash it off when I got home, and now it's as good as new.  And the best part is that it cost me $1.30!  Yay!  Also on that shopping trip: brand new looking ballet slippers for my little ballerina's (they had outgrown some, so we only had one pair that fit, and I needed to get another pair)...for 12 cents.  Seriously.  $0.12, and they were like new and just the right size.  Such a nice, unexpected blessing.

On Friday night, after a really delicious dinner of burritos/ taco salad with homemade tortillas, Mr. Fox and Moose went to watch a hockey game where our school choir was singing.  The girls had a movie night at home, and I worked on the cookie invitations.  I'll admit that they aren't perfect (and for some reason I HAD been expecting perfection despite having never really worked with royal icing)...but I was happy enough with how they turned out.  I'm planning to do some practicing in the upcoming months.  (The tray of little cookies were for my Young Womens class at church).

(Before adding the written info)

(These were all experimental, trying out different techniques and ideas)

Saturday was ballet class for the twins, and then HOURS of driving around to deliver the invitations.  It's nice that Chick gets to meet new people because of her schooling situation, but between her school classmates and her church classmates we had to drive for such a long time.  But they are all out now, and I need to hussle along with the aprons!

Today I was released from my calling at church.  I've been in Young Womens (the teen girls group) for over three years, and the past almost two years of that was as beehive advisor (teaching the 12-13 year old girls).  I'm sad to not be in there with them anymore, but it's time for a new adventure.  I'll tell you the new calling next week, when it's official.

Lastly, I'm getting ready to update the PTO bulletin board at school.  It is going to be "Favorite Books on our Shelfies" featuring some of the school teachers, staff, student leadership, etc posing in a selfie with their favorite kids book.  So here's mine:

Family Pictures

Last weekend we went to the Seattle Temple.  My sister and her husband were sealed to their newly adopted sons!  So exciting.  She'd asked if I'd snap a couple of pictures, since all of her family would be there.  In return she took some of my little family.

Here are the pictures of J's family:

 

Here are the pictures of my family:

1

 

2

 

3

 

4

There's a story with this one.  I'm not putting this on to make Grandma N feel bad...it was an honest mistake, one that Fox and I make from time to time as well...but it's just something interesting about Owl. 

So Owl is a thumb-sucker.  Otter started out as one, then Owl joined her, then Otter stopped.  So Owl is our only thumb-sucker now, and the only one that did it really for any long amount of time.  She's a comfort-seeker in general.  She likes to be cuddled up with a parent, or a blanket.  She likes to sleep and suck her thumb.  {Otter fights sleep, and will cry about her non-comfort.  Owl soothes herself}  Owl might need more soothing in general, since she's naturally a little more shy and she plays with her hair when she gets nervous about things. 

Ok, so Fox put Owl down for some of the pictures, and I think Grandma (I could be wrong about who) thought it'd be cute if Owl and Otter held hands.  Owl was sucking her thumb, so Grandma unplugged the thumb and tried to help the girls hold hands.  Owl started crying hysterically, and that's when this picture was taken.  I'm curious what Otter thought of it all.



all better.

 

I'm leaning towards #4 for above my fireplace.... The lighting is admittedly a bit wonky, but it was very backlit to start out (I photoshopped it to lighten it up).  What do you think?

 

Double the Blessings

(the coordinated pacifiers were just a happy coincidence)

Owl and Otter were blessed at the end of September.

 

To be honest, I was pretty stressed leading up to it, because I'd procrastinated making the dresses mostly.  I also had planned to have a housecleaning service come clean the house for me, and then wasn't able to get them scheduled in time.  Also I got sick the week before.

 

All that said, I think that it was the nicest blessing day of all of the kids.  The stress continued up until we got to church ...late... and they had to switch around the meeting to do the blessing after the passing of the sacrament rather than before (with all of our visiting family looking around anxiously..."where are they?!"). 

 

But then the blessings were beautiful, and after that I enjoyed everything.

 

A funny thing about the blessings.  First of all, I can hardly remember any of either one...trying to remember one blessing is sometimes hard enough...two is too much for my tired brain!  But I had my sister tape it for me (hopefully she hasn't taped over it, since I haven't gotten it from her yet).  I know some feel that taping a blessing is taboo, but I'm ok with it in this situation.  Anyhow, the funny thing is that during Owl's blessing Fox called her Julia.  It's her middle name, but there's never been any discussion about CALLING her that, and he's never called her that before or since.  He denied it and says he doesn't remember calling her that...I think he just likes to give people something to wonder about ; )

When Mr. Fox saw this he said that he looks old and tired. 
I will admit that these few months have helped us both to FEEL old and tired,
but I still think he's a handsome devil.

Anyhow, then we finished out the meetings and everyone headed to our house for a luncheon.  There were Grandma and Grandpa J, Grandma and Grandpa N, my sister Laura, Fox's uncle Mark, and my sister Judy + family.  It was a much smaller group than for the others, but the food was delicious, the conversation interesting, and the happiness abundant (at least for me).

LOVE this picture of Owl with my goofy nephew Ben : )

Grandpa and Grandma N

Grandpa and Grandma J

Anyhow, the dresses.  I completely revised my plans for the dresses, because I'd procrastinated sewing them.  I decided to go with a simple shirred-top dress style.  I didn't use a pattern, and I made the dresses from an eyelet bedskirt that I'd bought at a yard sale for $1.  I love repurposing : )  Anyhow, I am happy with how they turned out, though they weren't as quick and easy as I'd expected.  And they aren't even the same, because I did one and then tried to improve upon it for the second.  There are things that I like better in one, and things that I like better in the other.  But I am happy with how both turned out.

Dresses with matching headbands and booties.

matching booties that didn't stay on well,
but were super adorable anyhow.

I know this isn't the best picture, but it shows Otter in her dress.
I love the sweet, innocent feel of white eyelet.

A note about the colors for the dresses:  I love both colors.  I kind of felt like the peachy color was more "Otter" and the bluer one was more "Owl"...but I don't want to type cast the babies before they've even had a chance to say what they like...so when it was time to get them dressed I just grabbed a baby without looking to see who it was, and I grabbed a dress, and that was that.  But it was contrary to how I had originally thought to do it...so I was confused for a lot of the day trying to remember.

 

It's enough to have to identify someone based on their clothing, but to have to go through the thought process of "that one is wearing peach, which I had in mind for Otter but today they are switched, so that is Owl" ...well, it's exhausting.  And I'd stayed up late making baby booties and headbands, and was recovering from being sick, so my thought process was a bit sluggish anyhow!  Long story short, I need to hurry up and get the babies' ears pierced, and when I do it, I need to make sure the earrings are what I really think fits that baby and not worry about it! sheesh.

I suppose it fits that Otter had the more watery color
and Owl had the more tree-ish color.  Right?
How much can I read into things?
wanna come over-analyse things with me?

 

Anyhow,  lunch was very nice and low-key, and then it was over and everyone left and I got to take a nap : )  and we ate leftovers for dinner.

the end.

Otter Pop.

Owly.

The Freaky Friday Birthday

My Mother was born on Friday the 13th.  Obviously, she's never considered that a bad thing.  So on the years that her birthday falls on Friday it's an extra special birthday.

Like this year.

My sister cooked up the idea to have a Freaky Friday dinner out. 

We all were to dress up like my Mom.

Judy, Mom, Aunt Diana, Me, and Marlene. 

My brother, Mike, deserves extra points, because he went with a vintage Halloween costume look that not only took lots of guts but also lots of planning and preparation.

Me and my Dad.

Some people gave Freaky gifts to go with the theme, but I had already decided what I wanted to give to her.  I made her this bag.  Each branch on the tree represents one of her children.  The leaves are the grandkids, and the grass squares at the bottom are great-grandchildren.  Each sibling has a different fabric for their kids/leaves.

My machine quilting leaves a lot to be desired, but I think the sloppy look works this time?

Anyhow, the evening was a huge success and we all had a really great time. 

Mike prepared a quiz game, and another novelty game.  He gave each of us a slip of paper with a crazy sentence on it.  We had to then use the sentence in conversation without anyone calling us out on it. 

My sentence was, "I am a space cowboy." 

 My brother Evan had, "Pigs lead a luxurious life." 

My aunt's was "I sometimes wear my underwear backwards."

I don't remember the others.  But all three of those were used successfully.  I had to work mine into an elaborate story about teaching preschool.  My aunt thought it was funny that she could say hers without it seeming at all odd.

The 50th Anniversary Party

Friday afternoon traffic and there was a BUS FIRE on the freeway.

It took us over an hour to get to the Anniversary party... over an hour in a non-A/C car that only has 2 windows that go down, and with 3 kids.  One of whom was nursed part of the time that we were driving (but were only going 5 mph for most of the feeding).  {Think what you will about my parenting, but it beat listening to him scream.  And at least I'm honest.  I told HH that it's a good thing we aren't famous--the paparazzi would have had a heyday}

Anyhow, the party was fun.  We had all of the children/grandkids/great-grandkids there, except for 2 grandsons that are serving missions & the husband of my neice (he had dental school finals).  Family in from Pittsburg, Idaho, Utah, California, & Nevada.  It's not often that we all can get together...I loved it.

My parents looked great.  The slideshow was awesome.  The music was fun (at least I thought so, but then I put that part together so I'm biased).  Delicious food.  Nice decor (my favorites were: the replica of their wedding cake & the huge effusions of flowers used as centerpieces).  It was a nice evening.  I'm excited for my parents to have reached such a big milestone.

I might post more pictures later, when I get pics from the official photographers, but here are my snapshots for now.

Little Man wore his new dress shirt "onesie" and bow tie (click on them for the tutorials).  He'd already had his pants taken off by the time we took these pictures.  They were silly pants anyhow, but stay tuned, because I'll do then next pair right and I'll do a tutorial for them...hopefully).

"I wish I could hunt eggs...I love to hunt eggs"

(That's a movie quote. Quick, what movie is it from?)We had a lovely Easter weekend. On Saturday we had a visit from G&G J (up from Arizona for the weekend). It's always nice to see them, and we got to watch the morning session of General Conference with them.Saturday afternoon included more conference watching, as well as last minute Easter prep.

This is what the blackberry-dyed eggs looked like...And these are the mini cookies in the eggs : )Saturday night we drove up to G&G N's house to spend the night. The next morning the girls found their Easter baskets, which included new sunglasses for Monkey (she was most enthusiastic about the cookies in the egg, though!)...and a leotard & tutu set for Chick (it took her a while to try it on, but she's been dancing for the past two days).

We ate cinnamon rolls (my first time making them. They were yumm-y. I used this recipe)We chilled out with the G's.We watched more General Conference.We played with G'ma's toy stash (I love the juxtaposition of this picture!).We played with cousins.We ate delicious Easter food. My sister made the cookies--aren't they amazing? And, of course, we hunted eggs.Lastly, we watched Monkey give lots of hugs and kisses to the hedgehog. {I had to write about this, because there was some discussion about getting it in writing why G'ma would leave the hedgehog to Monkey in her last will & testament}