Be Mine

Thanks for your comments! Its nice to know who I'm talking to! :)

I have really been getting stir crazy here so I decided rather than get the traditional card Valentine's in a box, I would look up some old ideas in my email that I have saved over the last year or two. There are some good ones that I will wait til Zac can appreciate them more. But I saw these matchbook ones a year or two ago. I originally liked the idea from Sherelle Christensen. Then 2 weeks ago when I looked it up again, I followed the trail and found the paint swatch idea on Embellishing Life. The best part about it was it was FREE!!

I got these paint swatches at a local hardware store. I decided to choose many colors so it wasn't too girlie. Zac picked what color each classmate would get.

Zac was very excited to help out

Scoring the swatch so it will fold nicely and straight.

These are the folded and stapled matchbooks

I had lots of felt left over from the heart garland/strings. It went perfect with the paint swatches!

We did add some candy. Individual bags of conversations hearts. Zac wrote his name on the back for the from and I wrote the rest since the pen smeared on the paper. I'm so glad he loved giving these out!

Show me the love

It is the month for lovers after all, right?  Who's reading this blog? I have fought asking this question over the years, but I just can't resist anymore. My Google Analytics say 24 people have come by today, as of 6:20p and chances are, with the new posts the next couple days will bring more. But who are you? And where are you from?

Maybe the map on the side is wrong, but it indicates 66 views from Ogden...I can't think of more than 3 people I know who live in the area, Logan included. And Tooele, I don't know anyone in that area. Who's in Reno? I know who's coming from the United Kingdom and South America. But how did someone in Greece find my blog?

I think these things every time I blog when the numbers tell me people have come, but no one comments. I'm working on not needing validation from others, and just finding the strength from within. But c'mon, who doesn't love comments?!

I'd love to know who you are

Crafting!

I haven't crafted since long before our move. Part of me has missed it, but part of me was not ready to make the investment. Jon was out of town the other week for work, so to keep myself busy I set to work on crafts. Luckily, back when I was excited about crafts I would email ideas from other people's blogs to myself and save them in a craft file in my email so when I had time, but no ideas I could easily go find something I like. The planning did not fail! :) There was a handful of things that I was excited to make.

First of all, ever since we moved in (with the stark white walls) I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to change our bedding. I decided the colors and bought the fabric I wanted back in Aug/Sept. But I was waiting for the weather to be cold and dreary before I did the pillow project. I finished these in January.

My amazing friend Megan, gave me the clean, white, down comforter and 4 throw pillows to make the smaller decor pillows. I made the pillows cases for the 2 large square pillows (Ikea), and the teal and black ones next are walmart pillow cases. And the four smaller pillows are from Megan's. The green ones are just recovered. But the other 2, I made with batting from the other throw pillows.

I really love the clean, fresh, bright feel in the room. I am thinking about what to put on the walls. I have a print in mind...but the resolution isn't high enough for how big I want the pic to be. So I need to get that figured out.

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These are the things I made while Jon was gone. It helped that the Bunco theme that week was "arts and crafts" there was added pressure to finish quick. Although, I'm not sure they were loved as much as I love them :)

I am pretty good at copying crafts without a pattern. Although patterns are great! I saw a felt watch a couple years ago featured on Dana Made It. (She and another lady do a "Celebrate the Boy" month. Its easy to find cute girlie stuff, but not for boys. So they focus on boys only for a month. I LOVE it!)

So here is the watch I made. The boys love it and want one so bad. It was pretty easy and quick to make. I took the boys to the rec center to ride bikes for about 90 mins and I finished all the stitching. It was my first time really working with felt. I was surprised at how forgiving it was. It was also very cheap to make!

I also made this ruffle necklace, which honestly, I love. I found the tutorial on Ucreate. Its perfect to embellish a plain tee. (I don't even know if its in style anymore. Now that I live in a small mountain town and am home most of the time, I'm totally out of the loop of trends and style :) It was hard to give away. I think I'll make one for my sister too.

There were a couple failed attempts at inventing the flower before this one came together, but I am really happy how it turned out.

Then I felt like I should add something more to the bunco gift set, so I whipped this up while making and eating mac n cheese.

I made this next one for myself, it is a menu board. I got the idea from Little Birdie Secrets. My sweet friend, Hilary let me come over and use her cricut so I could have the vinyl lettering. In our family, we do a 2 week menu and try to only go to the store every 2 weeks. Often times, my menu is on the back of the grocery list or on some other random piece of paper that gets thrown away or lost, or I write it on the fridge and the boys erase it.  So I really needed something to keep track of it. Thinking of what to make for dinner is more often than not, my arch nemesis.

I'll put the first week on the left side and the second week on the right side.  (I couldn't find paper that I loved, and would not be too busy so I could see the writing. This paper is ok. But the beauty is I can change it whenever I want, for holidays or whatever I feel like!)

I really really enjoyed creating this week. I have missed it. It has added a lot to my joy and purpose. Now to find a balance where I can make sure to enjoy to necessary evils of life (ie dishes, laundry, etc.), and take the personal creative time I need :)

Decorating for Valentines

A couple years ago, my friend Callie and I started to do Valentines crafts and decor to break up the monotonous lasting winter months in Utah. This year, I put up some garland and trim.

Zac really wanted to make some decorations with hearts. So I folded the paper and drew the line and he cut all the hearts out. He did a great job cutting!

(The roses are from our Anniversary. Jon likes to celebrate on the actual day. So he got me roses and a hideous card with a message that made me laugh out loud. Then we went to dinner in Midway. It was a nice relaxing time.)

Then we taped them to the wall. A gust of hearts.

I think it was last year, I saw this tutorial at Made by Rae and I really wanted to make this garland.

I bought the supplies, but I just never got around to it. So I pulled it out this year and put it together really quick. But I don't really have a place to put more garland, so I made them more like garland/strings and hung them from the kitchen light/fan.

It really helped to lift the dreariness! :) (I still love my heart wreath from last year!) I'm not taking valentines down until March, when we'll do green type decor.

8th Anniversary

January 31st was our eighth wedding Anniversary and the weather was just as beautiful as 8 years ago. Well, we actually celebrated on Saturday the 29th.

The last few years we have been going on weekenders to Midway for our Anniversary, but babysitting arrangements weren't going so smooth and we just didn't feel like that is what we should do this year. Instead, we made a day out of it. We were trying to decide what we would do for our day activity. I've been feeling pretty up and down the last several months trying to adjust to this new life. Jon has wanted to take me skiing. I hadn't been in 11 years and frankly, I was afraid. And I didn't want to do anything intense. So I thought maybe snow shoeing. But, I had been working on being more playful and adventurous so the Thursday before, I texted Jon and told him to get me a ticket. He has a season pass through his work and was able to get me a complimentary pass.

This is a huge pipe at Canyons

Jacob and Adam came up for the day and watched the boys, while we took off. I had a great time skiing. I can't believe how quick and easy it came! We did 3 runs on the bunny hill, and I worked on S-turns. Then we did a blue square run that was a bit more challenging, but it was fun and we did that run again. Then we skied down (a lot longer than I expected) to another lift, the tombstone, and we rested for a bit and got some water. My legs were soo tired. It seemed like resting was worse for them, than to just keep going. After sitting for about 30 mins, my legs still did not feel rested.

This pic is from Deer Valley. But this is the kind of day it was. And we rested in chairs like this by a BBQ lunch place at the Canyons resort.

The day was AMAZING! The weather was beautiful it felt like 40 degrees and I didn't even get cold in short sleeves sitting in the sun. But while skiing it was SOOO HOT! I had to keep taking layers off, I was sweating so bad b/c I had my down insert in my coat.

Me resting. We didn't take more pics. And I forgot my camera again! Short sleeves, I had to go in the bathroom and take my thermal off and put it in my pocket it was so hot!

After "resting" we took the lift up to a couple double blues. That wasn't the greatest idea for me.... they were a bit steeper and longer. And my legs were done! I kept slipping b/c my legs wouldn't keep my edges. At one point after I fell, I decided to just let myself slide/fall all the way down the steep part. I was head first and I just lifted my skis so they wouldn't get caught. It was easier than getting my legs to conform! Haha In order to get back to the lodge and gondola we had to take the lift up again and go down a different way. Luckily, was a more mellow.  But I had a great time and I want to go again this year!

We made arrangements for Jacob to take the boys miniature golfing for an hour while we came home and got ready to go out for the night. That way it wouldn't be like we're home...but not really.  We left the house about 3:30 and we were STARVING! We hadn't eaten much.

I had really been wanting to try a new restaurant, La Jolla Groves. (There are some new really good fresh, local, high quality restaruants coming around, and they are FANTASTIC! Pizzaria 712, Communal, and La Jolla Groves.) We went to La Jolla Groves in Provo.

This is the main dining room. Unfortunately, there was a wedding luncheon going on so we didn't get to sit there. But the food was real good-not fantastic, but I do want to try it again.

Then we walked around Riverwoods for a while and window shopped at a few places, and checked out Provo Beach Resort. (I took the boys there last weekend while Jon got a hair cut. It was a pretty fun place.)

Earlier in the day we had tried to get tickets to some different plays going on in Utah Valley, but they were all sold out. So we got tickets for the BYU Contemporary Dance concert. It was interesting. I don't know much about dance or art for that matter. But this is not what I expected. It was very....earthy, I guess is a good word.  Very artistic, which to me took away from how technical dance can be. I guess I like the regimented, precise, structure of dance. And this didn't have much of that. (Watch I bet if Jon was writing this he would say something completely different.) There were some really fun or good pieces, but most of them were over my head I suppose.

This dance was hilarious!  It was a waltz and the "women" were blow up dolls rigged up to razor scooters. It was great entertainment!!

Then before we headed through the canyon to go home, we decided we'd grab a snack since it was about 10:45 and we ate at 4. We stopped at Los Hermanos and got chips, salsa, appetizer and specialty drinks-my kind of snack!

We had a great day; it was really hard to get back to normal life :) We love talking about how the last year went, and what the next year holds for us and how happy we are and how much we've grown individually and together. We have a lot of goals this year and are optimistic to have a successful year.

Shrinky Dinks

Sometime in early January we pulled out a craft for the boys. Shrinky Dinks! Do you remember doing this as a kid?

We had robot ones and car ones. They had a great time coloring (Max not so much, you had to push hard with the colored pencils). They loved watching them shrink and them playing with them afterward.

The robots were fun b/c they had 3 sections you could choose from.

"Shrinkage!" ;)

Major size difference

Their robot figures

One, One at One

January 1st at 1:00p we started a tradition last year of sledding with family. I forgot my camera so I used my Mom's and I was waiting to get those pics so I could post. But its kind of an ordeal to get the pics from her camera to my computer and I keep forgetting. So I'm just using pics from Rachel's camera. But maybe I'll post those other pics sometime beacuse there are a lot more quality ones of the boys.

We went to Rock Canyon Park, but I think next year we are going to try and find a place in the Heber Valley or go to Soldiers Hollow tubing park. We had a LOT more snow than Provo did. But it was a great time nonetheless.

Jon, (Cali-the Dog), Lex, Max and Jake

I love this pic!

The boys LOVE Jeremy and Rachel. I am so glad they could make it to play. And they brought blow up tubes, which are WAY more fun than sleds!

This pic is blurry, buts its the only one on Rachel's camera of Max in this sled. He LOVED it! I was so surprised because of how last year went. We started little by little, but after a few runs Max was going down the whole hill by himself in this little chair sled.

 This "tube" was my favorite to sled with. Lex and I went down side by side.

Pulling the boys up the hill.

Rachel and Max-he really did have a good time!

Until next year! We hope your New Year was great.