Peekaboo!

The kitchen at the Haven has a wonderful U-shaped layout with cupboards on all three sides. One side has a peninsula cabinet to the dining room, with bar stools along the counter. The cupboards over the peninsula have doors on both the kitchen side, and the dining room side. The idea is, that you can put clean dishes away from the kitchen side, and then access the cupboards from the dining room side for setting the table.

In the last couple of weeks, Emma has discovered these cupboards: She thinks it's great fun to stand up on the bar stools and open the doors on the dining room side while I'm unstacking the dishwasher. She peeks through at me and says, "I see you!!", and it becomes a wonderful game to her.

With natural, built-in fun like this, who needs toys???

I'm just waiting for the day that she discovers the play nook under the stairs.......

Homecoming

What is more classically small town, than the high school's Homecoming game? It's even better when you win the Homecoming game, too.

HOWEVER.........

Um, the Half-Time Show is pretty awesome!!!!

So, yeah...... the football team lost their game. There were enough turnovers to serve a few rounds of dessert. 44-3 is a pretty pathetic game. But we went to see the band play in the half-time show. Alys is a squad leader in the marching band, and she promised it would be good. This is her in the stands with one of her good band friends: When it was time for the show, the band all had to stop and put their hats & plumes one. We LOVE these new band uniforms, and they look really classy and updated. Here, Alyssa gets help with her plume from a purple-haired band kid: (mid-ground in the photo)
Here's part of the show! Alyssa is the one on one knee, third from the left.
Mr. G., the band teacher is truly an AMAZING guy. He has so much knowledge, talent, and enthusiasm, that he makes every performance great. Here, the band is in their "L" formation. Alyssa is in the front row, second from the left.
I have to give Alyssa kudos -- she's only a sophomore, but she said yes to being a squad leader, and has the ability to literally keep the other kids in line. Good for her!!

(So the game was also pretty darn cold. We were all up for a round of hot chocolate after that!)

October Relief Society Activity: Dinner with the Stars!

By request, I'm taking a moment to tell you about our October Relief Society Activity, which went pretty well.

A few months back, our Relief Society President wanted to plan a Visiting Teaching Conference, and asked our committee if we wanted to make it into our monthly activity. I'm not one to pass up a chance for someone else to plan a program, so I said, "Sure!" Our committee only needed to come up with a meal and decorations. The presidency planned the program. Her idea was to call it, "Dinner with the Stars."

In my experience, Visiting Teaching Anythings don't exactly draw in big numbers. Most people hear, "Visiting Teach................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" And that's as far as it gets. So, I decided not to call it a Visiting Teaching Conference at all, and focused on the star theme. I was hoping to get people to come first, and then spring the whole visiting teaching thing on them after they were there. (It worked like a charm!)

We had a food committee, and we wanted to keep it pretty simple, so we did soups and homemade bread. The bread was baked into mini loaves, so it made great at-the-table slices and was served with honey butter. We'd planned some simple bar cookies for dessert; that message didn't make it through to the committee, which was just as well. Most ladies sampled more than one soup, and everyone was pretty full at evening's end.

It took me a while to catch the vision of the theme for decorations, though. I just couldn't get past the STAR look. Once I connected it into a Hollywood version of stars (let's have a big fat DUH!!!)..... then the ball really got rolling. Our colors were purple and black and white. I re-used our black cloths and mirrors from the August Black and White dinner. I found these star centerpieces at http://www.shindigz.com/, on sale from $14.99 to $4.99, and grabbed them up. Then I picked up some purple star garland, silver star confetti, and iridescent snow from Michaels, and voila! Tables decorated!! Then I had two Brilliant Ideas that came after snooping around some party websites. You'd never know, though ... because I didn't use one idea, and adapted the other.

The one idea was to make a big clapboard, like what's used in filming movies. It was going to be out of black posterboard, and using my Cricut to cut white letters that would say, "Production", "Directed By", "Act", "Scene", and "Take". Then I was going to fill in the sections with actual chalk. This idea got shot down, though, so I scratched it.

My second idea was to do a Walk of Fame on the floor, like the one in Hollywood. I created squares with 12x12 black paper, made a 10" circle from purple paper, and a 6 1/2" star from silver hologram paper. I cut 1 1/2" letters with the Cricut, but I didn't do real names. I just knew if I did, I'd forget someone, and their feelings would get hurt. So I did roles of women: Mother, Sister, Friend, Wife, Visiting Teacher, etc.

I'd planned to cover each square with clear Contact paper, with enough to overlap the edges and thus protect it and hold the whole thing down at once. But then I was worried that with people walking on them, they'd stick a little TOO well to the wood floor, and I'd have a mess of cleanup afterwards. So it was a small thing to change "WalK of Fame" to "WalL of Fame", and instead of going on the floor, it went behind the lectern, on the wall. I think it worked:

Here's the laugh-about-it-now kicker: I was busily gluing these squares together, and I was three-quarters of the way done, when I read the writing on the back of the hologram paper I was gluing. It said, "Self-sticking Paper". Oh yeah. I'd glued them ALL, and just now realized they were peel-and-stick!! Another lesson in reading the instructions, I guess!


The purple velvet was some we'd bought for a Home Show display for Welenco. It was therefore FREE for the borrowing, and worked perfect for our lectern table with a few more stars, black cloth and some silver star garland:

I'd also thought to pull out the big spotlight that we have in the church building. It never happened, though, and nobody missed it, either!!

The program was NOT long -- a key element, I think. There were three ladies that spoke for a few minutes each about their own experiences with either being a new convert, or an inactive person, and how their Visiting Teachers were a key influence that helped them and did not give up on them. The final speaker was the Relief Society president, who talked about how we all can be the stars in someone else's life.

At the end of this, there was a slideshow presentation, which was photos of as many Relief Society sisters as we could get, trying mostly to get them in a shot that was an example of their life, talents, job, family, etc. One sister's photo was with her motorcycle, another was sewing, and another with her dogs, etc. It had a music background and turned out quite well. (A lot of the photos were also ones that we had taken at some of our past RS activities, too!)

We closed with handing out the newest edition of our RS directory, and also some Visiting Teaching magnet cards for the VTers to hand out to their sisters.

You could really take off with this Hollywood theme, though, and do a red carpet and paparazzi, and have everyone dress up, hand out sunglasses, etc. It would make a great dance theme, too! Oh, the possibilities!

How Much Wood could a Woodchuck Chuck?

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck
If a woodchuck could chuck wood?
He'd chuck all the wood that a woodchuck could
If a woodchuck could chuck wood!

Or, he would chuck all the wood he had to.........

So, the current house at the Haven has three (count 'em) fireplaces. One of the three, we converted to gas. The other two are still woodburning fireplaces, one with an old Welenco insert, and the other with a new Regency Hampton insert. During the winter, like so many other Northern Idahoans, we use the wood inserts to do a good portion of heating the house.

A few days ago, Todd had the chance to buy some more firewood that looked pretty darn good.... and so he bought it and had it delivered. The guy was nice enough to bring it right into the back yard and unload it for us. At first glance, it doesn't look like much, peeking out from around the camp trailer.

The camper needs to be winterized and parked, but we just haven't gotten that little task done yet. When you walk out a bit further, you can see there's a bit more wood there......

But ACTUALLY...............

It's a pretty darn big pile of wood!!!

And while most of it still has the bark on, it is mostly in rounds and looks great. It will also be a great source of heat for us on those cold winter nights. We love the feel of wood heat, and you can't beat the cost savings. I do foresee a bit of a project for Cameron and Todd to split and stack it all.....

Time Flies --- When You're TWO!!

Can it really be two years since Emma was born? We sure love our little girl! She has her own personality and favorite things: she loves waffles for breakfast, Mickey Mouse, and jumping. She loves to sing and dance along with her favorite videos. She wants to climb up into the Suburban and her car seat ALL BY HERSELF, thank you! She picks out airplanes and flags and colors when we're out with her. She likes to go shoppin', and when we go to see Dad at work, she walks in the door, throws her arms out wide and cries, "Hiiiiiii!!!" If she doesn't see Todd right away, she'll say it again when she finds him. She loves to do her nesting/stacking cups with Todd while she's there.

We had a family party for her last Monday, and took the opportunity to spoil her a little. Here are just a few photos from that evening. Starting with her showing off her "twos". She can't quite yet manage to maneuver her fingers to show "two," but she can hold it, once we help her to it. She looked a little like Richard Nixon as she showed off her "twos"!

She's one little girl that even enjoyed her birthday cards about as much as her toys. Here, she's showing some cookies she got while sitting on Grandpa's lap:

Cameron gave her a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse train set, which she loves. It's handy to have some hard surface floors that it can run on, too.

She loved her cake. After having all our family's September birthdays, she knows all about cake and loves it. So to have a cake that was hers was pretty fun. We also used the clown candle holder I painted ages and ages ago (Bad shot of it in this photo -- sorry!):

And she had a big smile at the end when she showed off her gifts!

I love how she got excited about each and every gift. She snuggled into her princess pillow, wore the Cinderella shoes, and stopped to read her new book right away. Maybe that's a lesson to me to enjoy every moment and revel in it. She teaches me so much all the time.

Happy Birthday, little Em!!

Happy Birthday, Emma!!

We pause now to wish our sweet little Emma Jo a very happy 2ND BIRTHDAY!!!

It's hard to believe it's been 2 years already, and she's half-grown. (Mental note: measure her today and let's see if the half-your-height tale will hold true for her.)

So Todd took her out in the front yard after church yesterday, and snapped a few photos of her. She had long-removed her pretty white headband that went with the outfit, so you see her hair "au natural": She crouched down so much, Todd finally had her sit on one of the rocks, instead!

She loves to sing her songs. Her current favorites are, "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe", "Mr. Snowman", and this lovely rendition of, "Mr. Sun" :

I also grabbed a quick shot last night of this tongue action as she got to clean the beater from the snickerdoodle cookie dough:

(Yes, a bath was the very next item on the agenda!)

Emma's favorite foods are: hot dogs, waffles, McDonalds Happy Meals, TV dinners (salisbury steak), and ice cream. Yeah, that's nutrition.

She loves to go "shoppin", and to go see Dad at work. She walks in the door, throws her arms out wide and says, "Hiiiiii!!!!". If she doesn't see Todd at his usual chair, she moves on to the next office, and then proceeds through the building looking for him, saying, "Hiiiii!!!" at every location she thinks he'll be. She enjoys rides on the four-wheelers, and seeing all kinds of animals on our walks.

She also loves Elmo and Abby from Sesame Street, the Disney Princesses (and can name them all) and Mickey Mouse & his friends from "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse". She has not discovered Dora, Handy Manny, Calliu, or Bob the Builder. I think we'll keep it that way for a while, at least.

We're so excited for her party tonight, and we think she'll be thrilled with her gifts. It's so fun to buy little girl stuff again. However, let me just say now, that like her two sisters, she is more interested in balls than dolls. Should be interesting to see how she grows up!

We love you, Emma!

It was SEW Easy

There's always an excuse for why you haven't blogged much lately. So since you've heard 'em all, I won't bore you with it. Insert un-original blogging excuse here.

Instead, let me show you my project I just finished. Promise you won't laugh when you get to the end of the story. Actually, I'd appreciate it if you didn't laugh at the beginning, either!!

So I had some old sewing notions that were my mom's, and I thought it would be fun to gather them together into a shadow box of vintage supplies -- to hang in the new craft room. One of those theme-related decor items. I had thought to wait before showing it to you, but I'm sure a little sneak peek wouldn't hurt.

There are two kinds of hand needles, some old Singer machine needles, metal snaps, pins, wooden spools of thread, and my mom's old tape measure:

So on a recent trip to Michaels, I found a little 8x10 shadow box -- which I used at 25% off coupon on, thank you! And then last Sunday, during our church's General Conference broadcast, I sat and arranged it all. I didn't want to damage any of the items by using glue or the included Velcro attachments, so I decided to sew each item down the the back board.

So when you see a few strands of black thread here and there, that's why. I'm thinking I don't entirely like the thread showing, but I couldn't figure out a better way to do it, with the arrangement I chose.

I know it looks like the tape measure is upside down at first, but if you look more closely, you can see the brown base with the words, "How Will I Measure Man?". That's an interesting question to ponder one of these days.

The project didn't take long to do, and it's ready to hang in the new craft room........ except for one tiny little detail.

When I was diligently sewing along to mount these treasures, I neglected to notice that the back of the the board has pre-mounted hangers. In my own defense, the hangers were taped over with foam, so they didn't exactly show up. And, you guessed it, I mounted all my sewing notions UPSIDE DOWN.

The positive spin on this, is that (as Todd logically pointed out) my shadow box is not really evenly weighted. So, even if I HAD mounted it right-side-up, I would still have probably needed to add a sawtooth hanger to compensate for the off-balance box, so it would still hang straight. And all's well that ends well.

Watch for this shadow box to show up on a wall in the new craft room -- in some future post when I get it finished enough to show off. In the mean time, I'm off to the fabric store to get some fabric for curtains, desk front and wall decor!