Ten Things I Am Loving Right Now

I love, love, love my new little bird. In fact, I bought one for my sister for her birthday so now we have matching birds - I think of her every time I look at my little friend!

This scripture is part of my theme for the year in Seminary. "Choose ye this day whom you will serve" - I choose to serve the Lord!

It is beginning to look a little like Fall around here (or as Autumn likes us to say "Autumn") I just love dressing my table!

I have been doing some rearranging of pictures and put together this little grouping just recently. I not only love the pictures but the mason jar I painted to hold my beautiful flowers!

Loving that the kids are all having a great time at school so far! I miss them while they are gone but I am having a lot of fun "playing" while they are away learning all that their little minds can hold!

This little bird flew in one day and landed on my light and I have loved it ever since. Noah has a hard time because it is really a wind chime and I have three different wind chime things hanging around the inside of my house and according to him there is no "wind" in our house - I love him all the more for reminding me of the obvious!

This little gal made an appearance around my birthday this last August. There is a story that goes with her that someday I will write about. But I have to say that Melissa and I now have back in our possessions a part of our past that holds very dear memories to both of us! I love you Missy for knowing the perfect gift to give your "old" sister!

I am so in LOVE with this little butter dish. I have used it for little luncheons I have had with dear friends!

This little antique rocking horse came to me from my mother. I have had a hard time keeping my little grandchildren out of it. It is kind of fragile and I want it out so I turned it into a little bookshelf with some of my favorite books that I have loved reading!

This little find just made my day last week when I found it. I was at the right place at the right time and got it for the right amount of money. In fact, I just could not pass it up. I have another typewriter that I spent a little {lot} more money on (I justify it because that one has a case) and now I consider myself a collector of vintage typewriters!

What are you loving right now?

Forget Me Not

I was really touched last evening by Pres. Uchtdorf's talk at our General Women's Broadcast. I saw something similar to this on another blog and just had to make my own. I am going to print it up and hang it where I can see it everyday. I am sure that there will be lots of things come from his talk.

I am truly grateful for the words from our apostles and leaders. They lift and inspire and motivate me to want to "rise" a little higher. This year in seminary we are going to talk about having the "Courage To Rise" {CTR} and after last nights meeting I know I can do it!

I was especially touched by comments made by Sister Thompson. The question that she posed to us - When people sift through our possessions after we die - will we be seen as a covenant person? She taught us to "cleave" unto our covenants that we have made with our Heavenly Father and that there is joy and protection that come to us when we keep our covenants. I like that she said "our covenants sustain us in good times and bad times. Joy is tied very closely to our covenant keeping - even when we face tremendous challenges our covenants can fill us with joy. I know that to be true! I have felt the joy that comes when I "cleave" to my covenants.

I can hardly wait until next weekend when we get to be taught more from our prophet and apostles and the other leaders!

Seminary

This will be the first I am sure of many blog posts about Seminary. I am now teaching the Juniors and Seniors in our area. I have done this calling in the past and taught for nearly nine years. I have missed teaching the youth but I have had some amazing callings in between time. I have grown a lot and I know that everywhere I have served the Lord has blessed me. All that said I want to tell about an experience we had this morning.

Getting youth to do devotionals is about impossible. I have tried many things to help motivate them and inspire them to do more than just stand up and read a scripture mastery. I have to say I have an amazing group of youth to teach at this time. They are so ready to learn and model all that they see. We talked about what I wanted from devotionals this year and then did the devotionals last week to show them. My gal this morning did one of the best devotionals I have ever witness in all my years working with the youth! I truly felt that we had been taught and I could not add any more to what she taught us. The spirit was amazing and I had tears in my eyes as I listen to a very heartfelt experience that she shared with us. First off, she had been in her scriptures the night before. Second, she had prayed for the right thought to come to her to share with us. Nothing was coming to her she explained but she did have a thought that she needed to invite a friend of hers to church. So while she was reading she decided to text him and invite him to church. She said it was weird but that she felt that she needed to explain to him that she had a prompting to share this with him and wanted to know if he would come to church with her on Sunday. After she was done with that she opened her scriptures and the verse that stood out to her had to to with sharing the gospel and when the spirit prompts you act on it! She told us it was not one that was already marked and she knows that she was led to it and was supposed to share with us her experience. Then she went one step further and reminded us that it was fast and testimony meeting this Sunday and could we as a group - especially the ones in our ward - fast for the spirit to be there so the young man she invited would feel it and then as if that was not enough she added I should say pleaded with the youth to please bear their testimonies! WOW! Can I just say I had a hard time starting my lesson - This sweet young lady like the other youth in my class have had experiences with the spirit and are recognizing it! Not only recognizing it but acting on it! I was really the one taught today and have thought about this all morning long.

The feeling we started with stayed with us through our lesson and when we were at the end of time and they still had questions - and I might add very good questions - they did not realize that our time was already over with. I know that not every morning will go like this but I hope that tomorrow as I start class and remind them of what they felt today they will want to "Choose To Rise" as they start their day under the protection that the gospel can bring.

Halloween wreath

So I came across a tutorial for this cute Halloween wreath the other day and I just had to make it! But I also did not want to make it by myself. The first person I thought of was Heidi to come make it with me. I did call a couple other people but they did not answer their phones. Heidi called me back and so I set a up a date last Friday for her to come over and craft with me. It totally goes with my "trick or treat" banner I made last year. We had such a fun afternoon. Her kids played with my grandkids and we had lunch (thanks Heidi:)). I think it turned out totally cute! Even though Halloween is my least favorite holiday - I think I could learn to like it a little more with cute decorations like these hanging around my house!

Next I think I am going to make one out of vintage Christmas papers. That also would require me to make a new Christmas banner to go along with it as well. I don't always take pictures of the things I make around here but I think I am going to start recording my crafting a little better. I just finished a couple of other projects and have a few more ready to start. I have to start getting ready for Christmas and our twelve days projects. I hope I can find some friends to craft with me - it sure made the project a lot more fun to do!

All things vintage

I was looking through some old photos today and came across this school class picture of mine. Can you guess who I am? {hint: Do you wonder where my girls get there love for boots? Those "go go" boots were my most prized possession} I have been reading about vintage photographs recently and was surprised that a photo similar to this was considered vintage. That was really shocking to me. I love vintage - kitchen stuff, sewing stuff, furniture stuff - so does this photo show proof that I am vintage? Just wondering.........

Girls camp crafts 2011

I promised a while back to post the crafts from girls camp. I have been so busy with other things that I finally have time this morning to get it done. The only picture I don't have is of our "BELIEVE" banner. They turned out cute but I was so busy helping the girls that before I knew it they were done and my camera was still in my box. A lot of girls loved their banners and had fun using their own imaginations with the creating of it. They had the basic kit -lunch paper sacks cut for the background, a 4x6 scrapbook paper for each letter and the letters all cut already (I love my cricket!) Then they just went to town embellishing each letter with buttons, flowers, ribbon, stickers, brads, etc. Then we stapled a ribbon across the top of the letters for them to hang it up.


These are the tiles we did using words from the 13th article of faith. These girls must be really loved by me because there were 104 of those vinyl sheets for me to "weed" (pull off all the negative-just leaving the words they rubbed on the tile) Then we used binder clips to hang the tile with a ribbon.

You can't see very well but here are all of our bottle cap necklaces as they were drying. The next day I glued the bales on then they were ready to hand out. The girls were so cute with the glitter. It was fun to see some of them just go to town with the glitter and make it very girly and sparkly. We used animals for the picture to go along with our safari theme.

Here the girls are braiding their fabric for the headbands we made. Those turned out cute and it was fun to watch the girls teach each other how to braid. I was a little amazed at how many girls did not know how to braid. It was good for the girls to help each other and work together.

We made these journals the first day. Each year had their animal for the covers and I thought they turned out really cute. I have to always be careful though with what I think is easy. I thought this craft was super simple and that everyone would be finished really fast. I forgot that working with 85 girls at the same time there will be those that do not listen as closely as they should.

All in all it was great experience and I had an amazing time with the girls and loved watching the creativity that each one of them had.

I know this picture is not that flattering of me but the other ladies are adorable! It was fun working with the women in our stake - they are awesome and they have such sweet spirits. I hope I get to be involved again with girls camp - I always learn so much while I am serving the youth!

What a great week - what a great day!

Today was such a great day! The first week of school is past now and the kids are settling in with the routine of things. I had a great run with Toshia this morning. (I have been waiting for a long time to run again and it felt wonderful!) I had a great morning at bead class and great conversation and creating with lovely ladies, I made a fabulous pink lemonade pie and turkey pesto sandwiches for the ladies, I remembered to pick the high school kids up and they did not have to wait today (yeah for me!), we had pizza for dinner (the kids favorite), I had game night with the ladies and we had such a great time. All day I kept thinking I should be taking pictures of all of this and all day I did not have my camera with me. I hope the kids had as great a week and day as I had. They seemed pretty happy.

Just a funny side story - Autumn has had a hard time lately with the "no spending the night" rule. She is just not understanding why. So here is a conversation that we had yesterday after school.

Autumn: "Mom, I just don't get it. Why don't we spend the night anywhere again?"

Mom: "Well, remember we talked about how it is better to wake up here with us and have scriptures and prayers in the morning. And that sometimes the kids don't make good choices when they are with other people. And sometimes you could be in a dangerous situation. And we learned at conference that we shouldn't do that?"

Autumn: (thinking for a few minutes) " Mom, no offense but Aundrea and Kelly (our neighbors and who she desperately wants to spend the night at) are way stronger than you and dad. We would be way safer at their house than here if anything dangerous was going to happen. Have you seen Kelly's man boobs? They are so much stronger than our dads! So, I really don't see the problem."

Mom: (laughing silently to myself - if that is even possible) I'll be sure and put Kelly on speed dial if anything happens over here - you're still not spending the night -"

You just gotta love that little one. She is always one step ahead of me. I hope I have the energy to keep up with her as time goes on.

I am happy that I get to have these conversations with her and that the others get to share with me about their days and adventures. I love the times the most when we just talk about stuff like this and their personalities come shining through. I am one happy mother of eleven as I go off to bed tonight!

Beach Vacation

Look at these guys! What a beautiful day at the beach - in fact, the whole week was so nice. The morning fog would burn off by noon and then it was all afternoon down playing in the sand and water. We had a great baseball game on the sand - we split up into two teams and hit a tennis ball - the kids were quite surprised I could get a hit. I was even more amazed at how far David can still hit a ball into the wind! He made me run a lot - my legs sure felt it the next day. That said Noah, Autumn and I still beat David, Taylor and Hayden.


We found a new place to search for agates. I thought we knew all the little places but we had never gone this way before and boy was it agate heaven. David went back two more times at low tide and came back with just a huge find. These will all get polished up over the winter and into some new projects I have in mind and also added to the already large collection we have. If you look really closely in the background of this picture are sealions. That was the added bonus to this rock finding expedition. We found out the seals hang out here all the time. We are sure going to make our way back to this little hideout!


One of our favorite places to hang out is at the park. I can't believe as I look at this picture that the kids were just babies when we started coming to this place.


The tire swing is always a favorite with these guys. This time they had to wait a little because there were some other littler kids taking a really long time on it. Finally when it was left alone they ran and grabbed it and played for quite a while there.


This is such a cool picture of Adrian just before the sun set. We had a fire going this night on the beach and roasted hot dogs and smores. We stayed until dark - the kids played while the bigger people stayed by the fire. What a great time we had!


Look at these two cuties - not much more needs to be said -


Jonathan was so cute sitting by Chad and waiting for the fire to get to the point where we could roast things. He loved playing with the kids and then back again to wait.

This "staycation" for us was so relaxing and great time spent with the kids. I love that we get to see the coast during all the seasons and enjoy the many faces of the beach and ocean. I love exploring and finding new "hideouts" and visiting old ones. We are so blessed to have each other as we share these experiences. We did travel like usual this summer and it was kind of nice not having the stress of the long car ride somewhere. Now that we are back and getting ready for school to start and all that goes with that I am glad we choose this last week to hang out by the ocean!