Apples...

My husband's aunt and uncle are fruit farmers here in Utah and we stopped by the other day to get some of their left over apples.

We took one box and dried them all... and they only lasted a week! They were so super yummy, they went really fast. So we went back down to get some more...

We came home with a trunk full of apples!!!! We've been running 3 dehydrators day and night, and we have bearly made a dent in our pile of apples.

We are swimming in yummy apple treats right now. We figure we'd just make a whole bunch to give away to our families and friends since they are so good and the apples needed to be used or they would have just been thrown out.

So yummy!

 ***My pictures aren't the greatest right now, I'm trying to blog with pictures from my phone, but my phone is craptastic. It's not a fancy Iphone or anything, it's a crappy Boost Mobile phone that has been dropped 15,000 times. But it's what I have right now so I'm trying to make the most of it!***

hat + leg warmers...

I love seeing cute babies wearing things that I made for them.

This is my sisters darling boy... We like our babies chubby in this family!

Getting serious... finally...

I feel like this pig... not wanting to eat my vegetables right now...

I'm starting a diet with my father in law and some of my sister in laws are doing it. It's called the 4 Hour Body in case anyone is interested. I really do have some weight to lose so I'm going to give this a shot and see how it goes. I don't really like diets, but the reason why I'm going ahead and trying this one is because you cut out gluten from your diet. I've heard lots of talk about how cutting gluten from your diet can help women get preggo who are having a hard time. So I figured it was worth a shot, if nothing else to get off gluten for a while to see if it helps me at all. And if I lose weight along with it, that would be wonderful!

Today was day 1. It wasn't so bad. It seems so strange to not eat any bread products. You can have carbs in the form of beans. I love beans so hopefully I can stick to it.

My father in law is super into it. So tonight we weighed in, took measurements, calculated our body fat percentage with his nifty little scale thing. The kicker here... I let my mother in law take before pictures of me. YIKES!!! It was a little brutal. I didn't think that it had gotten that bad until I saw the pictures. Seriously, it was not pretty. The first set of pictures I kept my shirt on but then they (husband and mother in law) talked me into taking them in my sports bra. So yes, it was brutal. My MIL has some good black mail for me that's for sure.

At least I have a pretty face right? That's what I thought when I saw the pictures. So I'm going to put them up on my wall so I can see them everyday to help me stay on track here.

I really just want to feel good about myself again. Something I've noticed since moving to Utah is people are constantly running into other people that they know. It doesn't matter where I am, someone is running into someone. Crap! What if I run into someone and they see me like this? And for the record I have run into two different people that I know and it was a happy reunion and nothing but good feelings and smiles came from that... but still, that thought crosses my mind a lot. I want to feel good about myself whatever the situation and not feel bad about the way that I look now. So here we go! Day 2 is tomorrow...

... and no I will never post my before pictures online so don't ask.

Bedtime snack...

My boy wanted a little snack before bed. A hard boiled egg and orange juice was requested. I got his food ready and then laid back on the couch and listened to my boy and his dad have a little conversation.

"Dad, what does nervous mean?'... Dad replied, 'It means being scared about something or worried about something."

"Oh, I'm nervous about kids not sharing toys with me." A fitting response from a 4 year old.

He ate up his eggs and drank his juice, all while fidgeting in his chair and talking non stop to dad. I just laid back and took it all in. My little boy... saying words like "nervous" and understanding what that meant. Wanting a healthy snack late at night instead of ice cream. Actually being able to sit in a chair for 10 1/2 minutes without getting up. He's growing up so fast.

One thing about having one child is being able to just soak in every moment of him that I can. From the first words that come out of his mouth in the morning to his last mutterings at night. I get to focus on him, for all of it. I'm trying hard to not spoil him, to not let him have his way all the time, to remember that he is a kid and not one of the adults. But he has his dad and myself wrapped tight around his little finger, and we just adore him.

He asks everyday when he's going to have a sibling. We can't see a baby without asking if we are going to be able to take them home with us. Someday my boy, someday. But I'm rather enjoying our threesome right now. There isn't much I can do about it so I'm going to enjoy and savor every moment of "us".

We are in a time right now of no diapers, no waking up at night, no more help with socks and shoes, no more say in what he wears. But with this phase comes more time to focus on other things, and I'm excited to see him grow and learn more everyday.

Seeing my boy sit tall in his chair, carry on an adultish conversation, and munch on his egg, made me so grateful that I get the privilege to see him grow. It is a privilege, and I am one thankful mama for this moment tonight.

The Barn...

For the past few months we've been trying to find my husband a job, him being a brand new nurse and all. It's proving to be a very difficult task. We knew that it would be, but it's so frustrating, really. Who wouldn't want to hire a 6'4", strong, handsome male nurse who graduated the top of his class? I know that it's a very competitive job market, but we are really hoping that something works out soon. So our days right now consist of filling out applications, going to interviews, and trying to fill in the rest of our days with something semi productive. You know that saying, "Work like everything depends on you and pray like everything depends on the Lord." Yup, that pretty much sums up what we are trying to do right now.

After Christmas ended and life wasn't so full and festive anymore, I decided we (okay - mainly he...) needed a good project to fill up some of this time we have on our hands. We decided to make the barn I've been dreaming about for quite a while.

We are lucky in that we are staying with my in laws right now (they are so so great!) and my father in law had most of the stuff we needed in his garage. All of the lumber we used is stuff that he had sitting around. We used scraps from the canoe he built over the summer for the trim work and fences and the main structure of the barn was made out of a piece of plywood he had leaning against the wall. The only stuff that we bought was the red paint ($3 sample can at Home Depot) and the hardware. It came to less than $20 to put this barn together.

And here it is...

There is a barn that we drive by a lot out here that has a ram skull over the door and I love it! Husband found this bull skull that is suppose to be a ceiling fan pull. My boy was scared of it until I told him it was going to scare all the Gremlin's from coming into the barn (yes... my husband let my 4 year old boy watch Gremlin's and life has not been the same since). Now he's okay with it.

We made it as a tri-fold where the sides open up at the back. The back wall is all open windows. The windows on the side work really well as handles to move this big barn around.

I also love the roof. The shingles are not individual shingles glued down, but rows of faux shingles that my husband made. But I love that we got the look of individual shingles without the hassle of doing it that way.

Here is the inside when the barn is opened up.

I thought about painting the inside but then husband pointed out that barns are never painted on the inside. They are usually left just raw wood. So I just painted the fencing that we did to make it stand out more. I actually like that you can see the black stamped words that were on the plywood.

We did three stories. Two with stalls and then an upper loft. Some of my favorite features are:
- The hoist in the center to pull the animals up to the second level.
- Real tree branches that we used as support beams for the different floors.
- Rope with little hooks to keep the animals in their stalls.

We had a great time making the barn! I absolutely love it. It was a lot of work, but so worth it to have this awesome barn for my boy to play with. We need to gather some more barn animals and little hay bales for it but that will come with time.  We are also going to build some little fences that can be used on the outside of the barn.

I found myself staring at it on the floor the other night, so happy with how it turned out. It reminded me that if you work really hard at something that you can make your dreams a reality. That may sound corny, but I have been dreaming up this barn for a while and now it's here. We are fighting hard to make another dream of ours a reality. We aren't giving up on our dream to live back in Utah with our families again yet. We've given up a lot to try and make this work. I don't know if it's going to pan out the way that we want it to, but we aren't done fighting for it yet! Fingers are triple quadruple crossed that someone will take a chance on my sweet husband. I mean, the man made a beautiful barn out of scraps of cast off wood. He is such a great hard worker. He works hard at everything he does, and whoever hires him will be so lucky that they did, I'm 100% sure of that. Until then, I need to figure out a new project for us. Or just enjoy playing with my my son's new barn for the time being.

Flannel...

The other day I went shopping and spent an hour looking through the women's section and didn't find anything that I liked. Then I spent 5 minutes in the men's section and found this flannel shirt. I'm in love. I was giddy walking out of the store. I've always wanted a flannel shirt. Nevermind the fact that my father in law was wearing almost the exact same shirt today. I hope that my husband doesn't mind this slight step away from femininity... cause I might be living in this from now on. I've always secretly wanted to be a cowgirl or a lumberjack... now I can at least look like one.

It felt appropriate to wear it while working on the barn today. We didn't get it done for Christmas like I had hoped, but we started it just after. It's coming together so nicely! The walls are up and the roof is ready to go on.

Golden 2012...

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I decided that 2012 is going to be an amazing year for me. The last 3 years have been so hard, and I'm soooo ready for an absolutely fabulous year! Now that I'm back home and no longer working full time, I'm really going to try and make every effort to have beautiful experiences this year for me and my family.

Something else that is happening this year is that I will be celebrating my Golden Birthday, which means I will be turning 29 on the 29th of September. So I want to make it great, and really enjoy this last bit of my twenties.

I've decided that instead of making resolutions this year I was going to make a list of 29 things I want to do before my 29th birthday. Many of these things are projects that I've already started and are half done, or things that I keep saying I'm going to do and then never do. Here's the big list:

1- Go on a hike to Lake Mary (where husband and I got engaged)
2- Make a hexagon quilt
3- Make a quiet book for my boy
4- Run in a race (5K or half marathon... either way!)
5- Grow my own basil and make homemade pesto from it
6- Make an apron for myself (I've honestly never done this)
7- Lose 30 lbs or get pregnant (cause if I get preggo I probably wont be losing the weight this year)
8- Do all of the temple work for 5 ancestors (I'll explain this better when I do it)
9- Find a great lipstick shade
10- Add 5 new items to my Etsy shop
11- Participate in a craft fair
12- Finish the quilt for our bed
13- Organize and re-label all of our files
14- Build a toy barn for my boy
15- Go on a date to The Little Acorn, where I first met my husband
16- Do a 30 day sugar fast (I'm anticipating this being the hardest thing to accomplish on the list. Ummm... just kidding, #7 will be the hardest.)
17- Organize all of my recipes into a binder
18- Take my boy to see the Buffalo's
19- Take a yoga class
20- Write more consistently in my personal journal
21- Get some house plants, and not kill them
22- Pay off all my medical bills
23- Learn how to use different saws and get more into woodworking
24- Organize a "command center" for my home
25- Go to Yellowstone for our 10th year of marriage (this is where we honeymooned)
26- Finish the stupid Santa cross stitch that I've been working on for the past 8 years!!! - and frame it for Christmas
27- Exercise at least 4 days per week
28- Organize my pantry better
29- Do my hair in different ways other than straight down at least once a week

Honestly, if I could accomplish half of this list I would be super happy about that. The whole list would be amazing! I'll post the items up here when I get them done. Here's to a super fun and productive year!

Christmas...

Christmas this year has been so fun. We've had family time, family time, and more family time. It's been wonderful. We had our family Christmas party my hubby's side a few weeks ago and we were in charge of doing the food. We decided to go all out and do Mexican food. It was so yummy!

Not super traditional for our family, but it was fun and everyone seemed to love it anyway. Lots of fun visiting with cousins etc. My boy loved playing with his little baby cousins, in the middle of the baby blanket (and yes, the striped babies are triplets).

Wisemen in the nativity...

I'm going to try to be a better blogger. However, my camera disappeared at a family Christmas party so that may put a damper on things. I'm sure it was mistakenly tossed in the bottom of someones diaper bag by accident, but never the less it's gone. So I stole all these pictures from my brother in law's fb account, and I'm grateful to have family members who like to take pictures of my boy so that I can have some!

My Christmas Card...

This is my cute little family. I don't like to send out Christmas cards, so I don't. But I do like to take at least one picture a year of my family, trying to look cute, to give to the grandma's. I also like having a picture every year so that we can see how we've grown and what we look like.

I love the one that I got this year. In front of an old wooden cabin with a rock fireplace. Darling. And my boy who still lets his mom hold him... even more darling.


I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas today! Mine was spent surrounded by family and those that I love. I'm a lucky blessed girl.

Mr. Claus...

I think my little dude is excited for Christmas this year.

 And I'm excited that he asked Mr. Claus for a $15 pterodactyl toy... yes, that is totally doable little man.

We are going super low key this year. All of our Christmas stuff is in storage, so no tree or decorations for us. But we have lots of Christmas excitement going on with this little guy. Kids always seem to make holiday's more fun don't they.

Being yourself in a marriage...

Marriage is when a man and a woman become as one; the trouble starts when they try to decide which one.

- Mae West

I love this antler/flower picture that I found on Pinterest. In a strange way, it reminds me of marriage. Where you take two totally opposite people and try to meld them together to become one.

My darling husband and I will be celebrating our 9th year of marriage soon, which sounds like a super long time when I type it out. We've been through a lot together in our 9 years... a lot (but who hasn't though... right?). We have overcome some pretty terrific obstacles, gone on great adventures together, and seen each other at our best and absolute worst.

We are also very, very different people. Somewhere down the road of our marriage I started to change. I started not wanting to try and compromise over everything and so I got used to saying, "Whatever you want to do honey." Which is a very great thing to say really. But I noticed when I was trying to piece my life back together after cancer that I really didn't know who I was anymore. I had lost a piece of myself along the line somewhere and was trying to figure out how to get that back. Who was I? Other than {husband's name}'s wife? What did I like to do? What was I passionate about? I was pretty lost on those questions.

There is lots of compromise that happens in a marriage, but one that I did that I really regret doing was compromising myself... Now, just for the record this was something that I did entirely on my own. I have a very loving and sweet husband who doesn't have a mean bone in his body. He would do anything in the world for me and our son and I love him to pieces. But I started to push my own desires and wishes aside to do or be whatever I "thought" he wanted me to be.

Until one day I had a realization. HE FELL IN LOVE WITH ME!!! He didn't fall in love with who I thought he wanted me to be. He fell in love with me. Part of my problem may also be that the "me" he fell in love with was 19 years old. At that point in my life I had not much experience past highschool, I had not gone through anything horribly terrific in life that had really molded and shaped my soul yet. While I'm so grateful to have met my husband and gotten married then, I realize now that I still had a lot of growing up to do. And instead of doing that growing up on my own, I've done it as a married girl with a husband by my side. A lot has happened since then, and we've both changed an adapted in our lives.

But I know now that I don't want to be anyone other than myself, because I don't seem to do that very well. And I really missed doing the things that I was really passionate about because it was like I had buried my soul in the closet because "it really wasn't that important." Come to find out it was vitally important to my happiness, and I'm now trying to dust off the cobwebs and try them on again... and it feels really good.

Something that I've been paying a lot of attention to lately are couples who are very strong individuals but also have a beautiful relationship with each other. Couples who are very different yet they respect their partners and let them be who they are.

So my question is, what do you do to maintain your individuality in your marriage or relationship? And how do you let your spouse maintain theirs?
And just for the record... I'm planning on rummaging through my brother in law's unused antler collection (yes... he has one) and recreating this display at the top. I'm thinking of making the flowers out of clay and then painting them. I'll post it up when I'm finished!

November {30}

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Today was a beautiful sort of day...

 - Woke up and got my place picked up and straightened out.

 - Did some dishes.

 - Grabbed spinach and bananas at the store.

 - Went on a drive through this {smallish} town that we are in with my two boys.

 - Saw lots of barns for some good inspiration.

 - Also saw about 12 deer off the side of the road in a herd like above... they were beautiful.

 - Cleaned and vacuumed out my car. That's been on the list for a while.

 - Went out with my best girl for a little girl time.

 - Ate at a great restaurant downtown called Eva's. Not a bad replacement for my favorite tapas restaurant in Las Vegas, Firefly.

 - Saw My Week With Marilyn... it did not disappoint. At all. Surprised by the rating, it was much cleaner than most things on TV now days.

 - Now I'm daydreaming about full, stained lips and quite possible embracing my curvier body instead of always wishing it away...

Not a bad day at all.

Good night November.

Trees for Christmas...

I've listed three of my trees that can be ordered this holiday season in my shop!

If you like the summer family tree order soon because I only have enough supplies for a few more, this one has been my best seller. And once it's gone, it's gone.

I'm trying to clean shop because come the new year, I have some great new designs I'm super excited to share! They will be different... I'll give you one clue... a lot more wood and a lot less fabric.

To say thanks to all of you great friends I'm offering free shipping through Christmas if you use the code Christmas2011 at checkout.

Good luck with all your shopping. I still haven't started mine... yikes!

Leaving Las Vegas...

Leaving the desert...

Everything that I hold dear... my sleeping boy, and my hubby driving all of our stuff behind me...

About 7 days ago we packed up all of our earthly belongings and moved back home to Utah. This is a move that we've been hoping for and anticipating for a long time, and quite honestly we really just picked a date and made it happen. We have a lot that needs to "work out" and happen before we are settled here, but one thing's for sure... we are no longer in Las Vegas. More on our decision to move back home later, right now I want to talk about Las Vegas.

If someone would have told me that I was going to spend four years of my life living in Las Vegas I would have never believed them. We are not city people. We just aren't. We are outdoor loving, mountain people. We love rivers, fishing, hiking, camping, and spending our days out in the trees. So Las Vegas was a different type of experience for us. I had never even been to Las Vegas until we went to check it out before moving there. Our reasons for moving to Vegas dissolved soon after we got there, but we decided to stay... and I'm so glad we did. Vegas really grew on me...

 Las Vegas is where we became parents. It's where we also became grieving parents. It's where we fought and won cancer. Las Vegas means a lot to me, it's where I feel like I grew up to be an adult. The people that we met and associated with in Las Vegas are some of the finest I've ever met in my life. It was really hard to leave that place.

The wonderful ward that we lived in the last three years we were there really became family to us. They carried us through the hardest time in our lives. I could never have made it through cancer without them. So many people were so supportive and kind. I learned how to serve others there by being served myself. It was really hard to leave these wonderful people.

It was hard to leave my job. I loved my job in the ER. I never have wanted to work outside of the home but I had to, and it became one of the greatest joys of my life. I looked forward to being at work because it gave me something to do besides sit at home and feel sorry for myself and my current situation. It forced me to get out there, make friends, see what I was really made of. I was so worried about going back to work after being sick for so long. But I'm happy to say that I thrived at work, I worked hard and became very close to many of the doctors and nurses that I worked with. It gave me a piece of confidence that I had lost, and I am so happy about that. Leaving my job was hard, but now I get to be home with my boy and I am so grateful for that.

It's hard to leave a place that has been so good to you. I left a piece of my heart in Las Vegas, and I will always treasure the time that we spent there, the lessons learned, and the friends that touched our lives.

 So long Las Vegas. Thank you for being so so good to us...

Cowboy...

Speaking of barns... my little dude was a cowboy for Halloween. We went pretty low key and borrowed most of the outfit from my sister in law. The vest, bandanna, belt and chaps are from her. It's nice having sister in laws who sew... I have to say.

We got his hat from the dollar store, boots from Savers for $5, the shirt he already had. We borrowed this stellar horse from a friend...

He was a cute little cowboy. He loved it! I like it when they love their costumes and try to play the part.