Tradition

We love Halloween!! Each year the family gets together for dinner and pumpkin carving. This year I had the little boys over to make sugar cookies and help me get ready for the party. They really are so helpful, Jake is so grown up and knows just what to do, Josh is two steps behind big brother.
I sure love my little guys.

They love to pile as many treats on one cookie as they can.

I can't leave out little Sam.... he gets cuter every day. He is on the move, crawling everywhere.

SIDE NOTE
Did you notice my black eye? Meg popped me a good one...I had the camera around my neck and she went to pull it off and knocked me in the eye. My first Black Eye!!! It is a perfect purple line across the top of my lid if only I could make the other side match!!


PUMPKIN CARVING.....




This is our traditional picture with all the carved pumpkins......

Each year we take a picture pulling crazy faces...

Stay tuned for Halloween Costumes coming soon.....

Quilting Getaway

Two Quilting events in one month...how lucky am I? Does that mean I have too much time on my hands? I took two of my friends up to the cabin this week to quilt....Pat and Kathy.

We had such a great time! Everyone brought something different to work on which was fun. I had bought a layer cake of "Recipe for Friendship" that is a Moda line, my quilt is a real easy pattern I thought would work up pretty quick. I had my rows all lined up to sew together and could see that the quilt was too small. DANG!! I decided I needed to buy another cake, so I was at a stand still with nothing else to do. I love these...they are Mary Englebright prints..alot of personality and color to the patterns.




Kathy was machine quilting a project and it captured my attention. This is something I have always wanted to do. She had taken a class and had a hand out and some good information on the "How To's". This will be the next technique I would like to try and master. There could be money saved by machine quilting your own projects.

$$ SAVED!!

We went for an early morning walk after breakfast enjoying the crisp morning air and the beautiful mountains. They had each brought a meal to fix, they are great cooks.....as usual we did not lack yummy food! We had some great discussions on food storage and decided we were going home to focus more on getting prepared. We all took an assignment to research and bring back to the table....alot of great ideas and suggestions. There is something wonderful about quilting with friends and ...something great always comes from a day of quilting.

**Quilting Tip...If you find it hard to thread the needle in your machine, put a finger behind the eye. The flesh colour will show behind and make it easier to see where to aim the thread.

Nothing But Time

I've got TIME ON MY HANDS!! A few days ago I was let go, fired, given my walking papers or whatever you want to call it! YIKES!! I have been working for my sister at LIFETREE CLINICAL RESEARCH. This came as somewhat of a surprise. Alice's company has recieved several awards....19th out of 50 for the Fastest Growing Company in Utah and she was also nominated as one of the top Business Women in Utah to watch! She started this company from the ground up and has put endless hours making it a thriving business. The Economic Crisis has hit home and she had to let 30% of her employees go. I believe she had something like 80 employees. That is a big number to hand walking papers to!! This gave me a BIG reality check, I feel like I need to tighten my spending belt. I am a shopaholic for sure! I love to buy what I want and it has been so nice to have that extra money that I don't have to answer to anyone for. It's gone just like that.......

However...this could be a good thing...I have TIME.... TIME for all those things I should be doing. Cleaning, shopping, organizing, playing with grandkids, shopping, reading, blogging for sure, visiting teaching, service, shopping, and focusing on the important things in life. This seriously is a scary time for me....and I'm sure for everyone. I'm not really worried about the money lets be honest, I am fine and Mark provides very well for us but who knows what will happen with the economy. People are loosing a ton of money in the stock market, consumers are not out spending, employees are being laid off, the WAR, the upcoming election etc. The world seems to be quite unsettled. Hopefully things will settle down and I can go shopping again and get my job back!! Until then I will be an at home mom 24/7.

Negative Vs Positive

Today I had an interesting conversation......I will just say with a neighbor. I was driving in the driveway coming home from the grocery store and saw this person across the street....she was out for a walk. It had been quite some time since I had conversation with her, so I made the effort to say hi and this began our conversation. With no exaggeration this person did not say one positive commment the whole time we were talking. She dove right in, telling me her husband never does this...blah blah blah and if he doesn't move this out of the house soon blah balh balh and then she went on about how her bedroom was so small and never enough room for this and that blah blah. Point taken...everyone has a bad day and needs someone to vent to I understand but this was one in many other conversations like this.
I began feeling quite uncomfortable, answering with comments like...Oh really, gosh, I'm sorry, Oh, Oh, and again Oh. I tried to change the subject and mentioned that I was anxious to get going on our yard next spring etc. She dove right in again.... I won't bore you with the detail of her next round of negativity. This lasted for 30 minutes. I wanted to end the conversation and run away. I excused myself and said I needed to get the groceries inside. I wallked away exhausted, this conversation took so much out of me. Have you ever had such a conversation?
This little episode got me to thinking about how negative comments affect others and how important it is to find the positive in life. I know I can work on being more positive in my life. Shortly after that, Mark came home.... we were going to lunch. As we walked through the garage to get in his car I noticed how messy the garage was. Mark had come home from the hunts and pretty much left everything out for the next hunting event. I wanted to say..."Oh my gosh this garage is so messy with your stuff, you should clean it up!!" I quickly caught my tongue and just walk to the car without commenting. I'm sure our little lunch date could of began with a lot of negativity back and forth had I thrown that comment at him. Lesson learned!!

"Attitudes are contagious. Are yours worth catching?"
~Dennis and Wendy Mannering~

Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.
~Francesca Reigler~

Quilt Fest

How lucky I am to have such an incredible mother that taught us to love sewing......Who would of know that years later we would enjoy sewing all together! Thanks Mom!! Well it was that time of year again where some of my sisters and mom gather and sew for days at a time, some of us into the wee hours of the night. We watch movies, eat.... I feel like endlessly, laugh, enjoy visits from other family and create a treasured quilt. I have amazing sisters and a mother that I love to spend time quilting with.

Our cute little sister Cari has joined the quilt group.

Glasses now REQUIRED at all times!

I have this neighbor that is an amazing quilter.........Cody Mazuran. Debbie and I ran into seam problems and ran across the street to get an experts opinion. She solved our problem and our seams laid perfectly flat~ Thanks Cody!!

After many hours of nothing but sewing we took a well deserved break and where did we go? Yep off to the quilt store....Material Girls.....I could spend hours in this store and be happy!

My girls always love to come over while we are sewing to visit. They know there will be great company and good food. Nicole is a very good cook and brought us over some hot apple crisp one night for dessert! YUMMY! "Blessed are the children of the piecemakers, for they shall inherit the quilts" Katie was having a baby shower for her friend and came over for a quick creative chat! What to do for a centerpiece? Each of us put in our ideas and came up with a creative construction zone! Kind of a cute idea for a little boy...

All in all we had a great time quilting, creating and what? Blogging? Some of us had a hard time focusing and couldn't quite keep ourself on task......hmmmmm not sure who that was....

After hours and hours of sewing the finished product is always gratifying. So here you go....

Prairie Blossoms



Another treasured quilt!

****Quilt Tip**** Each time you unfold a quilt, fold it back up in a different way avoiding the same fold lines. This will prevent your quilt from forming the unwanted deep fold lines.

LDS General Conference

I look so forward to Conference time.....The talks are always so powerful and seem to give me that little nudge I need to keep moving forward. This year I was gone, having no access to a television. I felt so bad, I knew that I was going to miss some amazing messages that I needed to hear! I was literally in the top of the mountains hunting with Mark. Lucky? It rained and rained all day! You know that means you should be home watching conference! Someone must want us home watching and listening. Because it rained we hopped in the truck and drove the roades looking for deer. We were able to tune into the afternoon Saturday Session of Conference. I was so touched by the words spoken we sat in the same place and didn't move so we would not loose reception! Such great talks and messages! I loved the childrens choir! They were angels, I couldn't wait to get home and watch them online! It always makes me so happy to hear the little primary songs! Love them!! Megan had been given an assignment in seminary to take notes on conference and then to write 20 one liners. As I sat with her and read her notes and her one liners I was inspired!! I would love to get them printed up for her and hang them all around her room. What a great assignment! I have made a huge effort to get online and listen to the talks I missed. Here are some one liners I heard.......

Nothing is as constant as change Our one and only chance at mortal life is here and now. Find joy in the journey NOW! Come what may and love it!(one of my favorite) If ingratitude be numbered among the serious sins then gratitude takes it place among the noblest of virtues. For it is by Faith that angels appear and administer unto man. Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved! If you pile up enough of tomorrows you find you collect alot of empty yesterdays! Be grateful for the abundance that is present. Take heart, be filled with faith and remember the Lord has said he would fight our battles. In the stregnth of the Lord I can do all things. Viritious women and men possess a quiet dignity and inner stregnth. If records had been kept of prayers answered the world could not contain the many volumes. You be the one to make a stand for the right even if you stand alone..have the moral courage to be a light for others to follow.

These simple thoughts are right on. Life could be so easy if only we could stay focused daily. WOW!! Thank goodness for the Semi Annual Conference I love the words of wisdom!

Oh BABY!!!

31 Years of love, friendship, commitment, happiness, togetherness, fun times, lets be honest trials and sorrow too but mostly just being in love!!

Oct. 4th was our 31st Anniversary! Wow I am still thinking that I am only 31 years old. Where has the time gone? Ok, I dug deep and pulled out these pictures from the Wedding Album! I thought we might all get a little chuckle from them hmmm.....how times have changed!

Mark proposed to me on a lake up in the Uintahs......(which I should write a whole separate post on someday) we actually won the Great Engagement from OC Tanner which gave us $300.00 to spend in their store!

I thought this invitation might give Amy a fresh new idea for designing some Wedding Invitations.....ha ha ha.

What did we do for our anniversary? Well.....

A Hunting We Will Go! Yep, I married Jerimiah Monsen!

If you know the Monsen's it goes without saying that October is the month of hunting no questions asked. I am pretty much a hunting widow during the month. Hmmmm...not sure how we picked this month to get married. Mark is usually so good and arranges to be home for our anniversary but this year he drew out a special permit that started on Oct. 4th. I decided to suck it up and go with him on the hunt. It is always fun and exciting, the mountains are absolutely beautiful and full of color! However, the weather did not fully cooperate with us...... it rain and rained and rained some more. Did this stop us? Nope, Mark just kept going and going. He did have me prepared for anything......before we left on the hunt he took me to Cabela's and outfitted me in Camo. He was being nice I'm sure, but also in years past when I have gone with him you learn real fast that you have to be sneaky....very sneaky! My levi's would swish as I would walked and often he would turn around and give me that BE QUIET look! So the new camo really helped.

I have learned to tip toe ever so softly through crunchy leaves and brittle sticks. This year I was prepared...my pants did not swish, I was Camoed out and I was SNEAKY.... VERY SNEAKY!! he he he! The night of our anniversary it had been raining all day, we were soaked to the bone. We left our clothes by the wood stove to dry and went into town for dinner. How about that...A Steak Dinner in Delta Utah on our anniversary!! You spoil me Honey! he he he I really am married to an amazing person that I love and cherish very much! He is a wonderful Dad, Grandpa and Husband! I couldn't ask for a better eternal partner!!

Love you tons Mark!!