Shop Hop...

My sister in law's are awesome!! I am a lucky girl who gets to have 8 sister in law's on my husband's side and they are so much fun to hang out with.

They like to do this thing every year called the Shop Hop. It's a quilt shop thing where there are 13 shops across the Wasatch front that are involved. There is a theme and each shop gets all decorated and has drawings, free quilt patterns, etc, etc.

So the point of the shop hop is to visit each of the shops and get your paper stamped, and when you get all 13 stamps you get to be in their big drawing. They give you 4 days to visit all the shops.

We did it in one day. Yes, we did.

13 shops from Logan to Springville in one day. It took about 11 hours.

And here are my lovely sister in laws who are always up for a good adventure. Just 4 of us were able to do it plus some of the younger girlies. I'm sure they love that I took a picture of them and am putting it on my blog. Here we are about halfway through the day on our crazy shop hop adventure!

We made it to the last shop about 20 minutes before closing. We totally did it in one day! Crazy! I felt crazy, like the amazing race but quilt shop style. It was a lot of fun. And I got all my stamps...

I wanted to do it so that I could spend some good quality time with my sister in laws. Also, it's nice to see the different quilting stores around and get ideas for projects. Like I mentioned before I'm getting geared up to work on my hexagon quilt and so I looked at all the different yellow fabrics that they had at the different stores and picked up some great pieces.



These fabrics make me happy! They look so fun together. It was a fun day and a long day. I haven't heard if I won anything yet, but it was fun to get out and see all the cute shops!

Silver Lake scavenger hunt...

The mountains were calling me the other day. So I left my sink full of dishes, the piling laundry, and the messy bedrooms aside and drove up to Silver Lake to smell the pine trees. It was such a beautiful day up in Brighton!

This is a great lake to take kids on a walk. The path is paved the whole way around the lake and it's a quick one. We took about 45 minutes to walk around the lake with lots of stops to sit on logs and watch the squirrels play.

My boy is not a hiker. He hates going on walks, so I knew I needed something for him to do to keep him interested and not complaining every step of the way. I printed out this nature scavenger hunt that I found on pinterest and brought a pack of crayons with us. HE LOVED IT! He was so into finding the different things on the list. We would stop each time he found something and he would color it in on his paper. One note, I taped it to a hard board so that the paper had support for coloring.

Next time I think I will make my own scavenger hunt page. This one was more geared for parks, and he was pretty bummed that he didn't find a swing, or dog to color.

Notice his amazing coloring skills. I'm not being sarcastic... we've come a long way! He hates coloring because he feels like he isn't good at it. But he keeps working on it. I love that he picked good colors for all the pictures and he colored the bark of the tree brown and the leaves green. This is great progress people. PROGRESS!! No thrown crayons or a discouraged little boy that day, I'm happy about that.

It was so nice to go and spend time time in my favorite place. The mountains feel like home to me. I love the smell, the mountain breeze, the sound of the aspens swaying. I was much more refreshed when I came home and was able to tackle my chores with a much happier attitude ;).

Fourth of July wreath...

As crafty as I pretend to be the truth is that I'm really bad at decorating for holidays. I really am. I didn't have any decorations for the fourth of July so I decided to try and be a little festive and make this wreath that I found on pinterest. I think that it turned out pretty good. I'm happy enough with it to hang it on my door and then throw it in a box for next year. It looks lopsided in the picture but it's really not... not sure what happened there.

While I was making it I was thinking about crafts, in particular holiday crafts. What is it that turns me off from them? Really what I think my problem is that there are so many cutesy crafts out there, and I really don't like cutesy. Frills, lots of colors and patterns, bow and buttons, cute saying and quotes. It's just really not my style. I like things to be super simple, and not so cutesy.

This wreath is borderline cutesy for me. The different sized random buttons and denim... cutesy. I think what balances it out for me is the rough unfinished edges and burlap. I love burlap. So it worked out, and I like it. Even though the buttons are questionable for my taste... it's just fine and I'm happy with it.



For a long time I did all sorts of crafts and would usually end up finishing a project and really not liking it. It wasn't my style, but I didn't know what my style was until I had already finished! It was frustrating. But I think that in the past couple years I've really turned a corner and figured out what I like and what I really don't. It makes crafting a lot more enjoyable for me. I've settled into my "crafting style" and that makes me happy.

What is my crafting style? Simple. Only a few different colors and not a lot of different patterns. I like neutral colors like white, brown, yellow, pale green, off white. Very simple color pallet. Straight lines, unfinished edges. Natural elements like wood and rocks. Crafts with not a lot of added frufru going on.

I hope that now that I've figured out what I like I can be a little more festive around here and start decorating more for the holiday's. My boys ask for it, they think it's fun to decorate (my husband being the biggest advocate of this). So hopefully I can get some more fun stuff going on my walls and on my door.

There you have it. There is my confession. I don't like cutesy holiday decorations. Please still be my friend...

Inspiration...

 Sometimes inspiration comes from unexpected places...

Sidewalk at our hotel...

 Windows at Vikingsholm...

Bubbles in my pineapple juice...

I think that it's time for me to start making my hexagon quilt that I've been dreaming of for a long time. I've spent the last couple days gathering up fabric so that I can get started. Butter, honey, sunshiny yellows... I can't wait!

Half marathon training...

I've always wanted to run a half marathon. The farthest I've ever run before is the 8.something mile race that I did in Hawaii over 5 years ago. So I added this goal to my list and decided to try and do it. I asked my best friend C if she wanted to do it with me and she jumped on board the crazy train with me! She found a race that would fit with both of our schedules this summer and that race is just over a month away.

I started running in March and would do about 3 runs a week. But I was slooooooooow and not progressing very much. It took me 2 months of running to be able to struggle through 3 miles. The beginning of May that was all I could do... 3 miles. I was starting to panic a little. How was I going to add 10 miles onto that and be able to do this race? I noticed that I started having this inner dialogue with myself that the reason it was so hard for me to improve my running is this extra weight I'm carrying on me right now. I've got a good 35 lbs of weight I'm running with this time around that wasn't there 5 years ago. It's like dragging a dead horse behind me, I would think as I slowly worked my way through my route.

C and I had a heart to heart one day. I told her that I didn't know if I would be able to do this race. It was so hard to run and I didn't want to drag her down if I couldn't do it. I told her that I felt like I was too heavy to run that far. It hurt to run. She then told me of a few people she knows who run races who are my size or bigger. They run marathons and half marathons just fine. I could do this.

I decided that I needed to change a few things if I wanted to run better, longer, faster.

1- I needed new shoes
2- I needed to run more - 5 days a week.

I was still running in the shoes that I had 5 years ago in Hawaii. It was time for new running shoes. I found these beauties and I love them! They have helped my feet, knees, legs, back so much. It's a whole new world running in shoes that actually fit and help correct the problems that I have with over pronation, etc.

I then downloaded a half marathon training program that I have been following pretty closely. I run 5 days a week. The first week of running 5 days I could barely do a full 3 miles on Monday. By Saturday I ran 4.5 miles.

Last week, I finished off my week of running by doing a 7 mile run!!! Amazing! It felt so good. I could not believe what I've actually been able to accomplish in this last month. I'm still pretty slow, but I'm moving! And I'm getting better every week.

The runs are getting longer and harder. Every run is a challenge, but I get up everyday and do it. I finally passed the point where each step is a struggle. Now the first mile is a struggle, but once I've made it past that the runs are really enjoyable and feel great on my lungs.  My legs have a constant dull ache to them but I'm starting to see my body toning up again. I'm sleeping so much better at night since doing this and have not needed to take any sleep aids (melatonin) for the past month. That right there makes it worth it to me.

So yes, my life has suddenly become consumed with running. But in a month I will be accomplishing a big goal that I've had for a long time!

Jewelry holder...

It's about time I worked on something crafty! I've been wanting to re-organize some of my jewelry and glasses, and combined these two ideas...

I just painted an old frame and found two branches that I stapled with my staple gun to the back of the frame (the sit inside where the glass and picture would have gone so that they are flush with the back). It was really easy to put together and I love the way it turned out!

I love being able to see everything right there. I never have to guess where I set my glasses or what necklaces I actually have. Apparently I like green/blue jewelry... I need to find something red! 


image 1, image 2

Homemade tomatoe cage...

We needed to get some tomatoe cages for our little tomatoe plants but I didn't want to spend money on them. So we decided to build our own "tomatoe cage" of sorts. We went to a heavily wooded place in the area and gathered a ton of sticks (over 50). Then we put together this cage and tied the junctions with bakers twine.

It's a pretty sturdy little structure. I love the natural, organic look of it. I'm trying to imagine it with 80 lbs of tomatoes on it... we'll see!

3 years...

It's now been three years since we lost this little baby boy. I still think about him everyday. I try to wonder what it would be like for my boy to have a little brother. But at the same time, I can't even imagine it. I still strongly believe in Heavenly Father's plan for our family and this is part of it. It is a pretty painful part of my life though. I used to wear a necklace with his initials and birthdate on it, have little reminders around about him. But I no longer do, not right now.  I wonder if the sting of losing this boy will lessen or go away when I have another baby. I was told right after we lost him that the best thing to do would be to get pregnant right away and have another baby. I wasn't able to do that, I'm still not able to do that {apparently}. So for three years there has been a hole in my heart where this boy resides. A hole that I have learned to live with.

I didn't want to just leave some cut flowers that I bought at the store on his headstone, so I bought some clay and made some little stones that we carved some words into. I also bought a clay colored pot and a succulent to leave by his grave, much more my style. I always had planned on naming a son Clayton (family name) and calling him Clay. But it seems so weird to give my dead baby a nickname, can you give dead children that never really grew into their name a nickname? I don't know, so we call him Clayton but I secretly call him Baby Clay in my mind. So the theme for me this year was clay...

My son carved his name on the back of one of the rocks. I thought that was cute. I asked Baby Clay at the cemetery if he could send down a sibling for his big brother. He didn't answer me, but I hope that with time he will. I will never forget the lessons I have learned from having an angel baby. I know that some day my pain will be replaced with great rejoicing when I get to see his face again. I'm grateful that I was able to help him fulfill his mission on earth which was to get a body. We sure love you Clayton!

Mother's Day...

I try to get a picture of me and my boy every year on Mother's Day. We were on our own yesterday though so I ended up trying to snap some pictures of us. The one above is the best one I got... the boy was not cooperating very well.

Here's what he does when I say "smile!"

Evil child smile...

Not sure why his hands are in his mouth...

 Husband made me breakfast in bed before he left for work. We went to church. Then we bummed around and watched movies and ate peanut butter cookie dough with chocolate chips. It was kind of a rough Mother's Day. I'm so thankful to be a mother, I love this little guy so much, but I think that so many of us women out there have a little sting associated with Mother's Day. I have a hard time with Clayton's birthday being so close to Mother's Day (it's within two days this year). I decided to go to the cemetery, something I have not done since we moved back up here. I think that next year on Mother's Day I wont do that, it was just too hard. It was hard in lots of ways, one being that my boy is four and asking lots and lots of questions. I tried to explain to him who his brother is, why he died, showed him pictures. It was just very emotionally taxing for me. Then the wonder if this little boy I have will be my only real shot at motherhood in this life. I want to embrace that and be the best mom that I can be to him, but it's hard. I try not to "want what I don't have" but on Mother's Day, I do.

While at the cemetery I noticed that several of my in laws had been there to pay tribute to their mother who has passed away. Another sting of Mother's Day, mom's who are gone, and no longer with their kids. It made me hug my boy tighter and be grateful that I am here, I still get to be his mom. I get to enjoy his laughter and wipe his dirty fingers and face everyday. I am a lucky, lucky mom!! So lots different emotions to deal with on Mother's Day for me this year. I think that women just feel emotions so deeply and personally, it makes "special" days like this a little more delicate. At the end of the day this is what I determined made my Mother's Day a great day:

 - I get to be mom to the most handsome little 4 year old!
 - I got to visit with my own mom and spend some time with her. I'm lucky and thankful to have my mom around and to have a good relationship with her.
 - I thought about all the different women who have been mother's to me. So many of them that I am in no way related to, but they have filled this mother roll for me in different times of my life. Women can mother regardless of who they have given birth to. One of these women is a nurse named Sally that I worked with in Las Vegas. She was my ER mom and I made sure to send her a card for mother's day this year to show my love and appreciation for her.

I hope that you all had a wonderful Mother's Day this year and can feel content and happy in whatever mothering capacity you hold in your life right now.

Garden...

We really wanted to find a house we could rent that had enough land that we could plant a garden (I know, tall requests for renters). We were so happy to find this house and the landlords were more than willing to let us take up some of the sod and plant a garden. We wanted to get our seeds in the ground pretty quick so this is a run down of how moving week went:

Monday - Emptied out our storage unit and move all of the contents up to the house.

Tuesday - Get all of our stuff out of my in law's house. Clean my in law's basement where we had been staying. Spend our first night in the new place.

Wednesday - Husband wakes up bright and early and maps out where he wants to put the garden. We wanted 3 beds that were 5 x 30 feet. Unpack and put stuff away. That night, rent a sod cutter from Home Depot and pull up all the sod. Fill up our truck and drive the sod down to my sister in laws who can use it.

Thursday - Husband goes back to work. I spend my day trying to get things unpacked and put away.
Friday - Still unpacking. Almost done. Buy all the seeds for the garden.
Saturday - Borrow grandparents tiller. Till the whole garden area and till in fertilizer. Mow the massive lawn (I did this, it took 2 1/2 hours... and I was already super exhausted from everything else. Had my first doubts about moving into this place with the massive yard!). Plant our garden!!!

We were all moved in with a garden planted in 6 days!!! It was nuts, and I was so exhausted by the end of the week! I can't believe that we did all that in such a short amount of time. But we were able to get our garden that we've been dreaming about put in.

Here's what we planted:

Spaghetti squash

Butternut squash

Zucchini

Crook neck squash

White beans

Green beans

Three kinds of tomatoes

Swiss Chard

Beets

Watermelon (not sure if this will grow, but wouldn't it be cool if it did?)

Green leaf lettuce

Spinach

Sugar snap peas

Cilantro

Mint

Basil

Peppers

Pumpkin

Sunflowers!!

Our little plants are starting to poke through the ground now, we are so excited! I hope that some of this stuff grows, that would be so cool!

Charming...

We're all moved in and starting to get more settled. I love this place so much. It just feels good, and feels like home. "Fits like a glove" is something that keeps coming to mind over and over again. This place fits our little family like a glove.

I feel like I'm going to be hit by a truck... because it just is working out so well, it feels a little too good to be true! (My husband reminds me that I do have to wash dishes by hand and I do have to mow the ginormous lawn with a walk behind mower... so it's not too good to be true). Is this really my life? Do I really get to live here? I'm just so amazed that this crazy plan we had really worked out. That we are really home, my husband really found a job, and we are really living in this beautiful place nestled by the mountains. With trees, and grass, and dew in the mornings. I feel undeserving of being so happy. But I also feel like the way that everything has fallen into place so nicely and the people and situations that have been put in our path that we are exactly where we need to be right now. Where we want to be. Where God wants us to be. We've been very, very blessed and I am very grateful for that.

This little home we are in is oozing with charm. So many things to fall in love with here. Here are a few sneak peaks of the charm of this little pioneer home.

Lets start with the doors shall we? They don't make door knobs like this anymore. I wonder if I can get a skeleton key somewhere that will work in these old knobs...

Glass windows above the doors that actually open...

And tiny pioneer sized doors (husband has to duck under this one)...

View through the sky light in the kitchen. Hello walnut tree...

And my favorite feature yet, 130 year old root cellar. It's beautiful...

Walnut shells galore from the walnut tree. I think we are going to have to make some walnut boats with these (and if any of you want to make walnut boats come on over, we have a ton).

Pretty snowballs...

I have a lot to do to get the inside settled more. We need a couch, we are couchless right now. We left our last couch in a dumpster in Vegas, it was time for it to go to the junkyard. I also need to make some curtains, some little book shelves for the boy's room, figure out where to hang pictures, and other odds and ends like that.

But we are here, and very happy to be here. I'm sure I will share more of the pioneer house in the future, since she's quite the charmer...

April showers...

April is coming quickly to an end! Great things are in store for us in May... I can hardly wait! But here is what is going at the end of April.

:: I'm loving the weather this month in Utah! Beautiful sunny days mixed with cloudy rainy days. I keep saying "April showers bring May flowers" as I enjoy listening to the rain when it comes. I've missed the rain a lot. Nevada... not a lot of rain there. Makes me think of my days in Hawaii where it rains everyday.

:: Before I forget, I did have my cancer scans done this month and met with my new oncologist. I LOVE HIM!!! Such a wonderful change from my last doctor. He isn't having me do PET scan's anymore, just CT scans which is so nice! And the scan said that my lymph nodes look great! Pretty happy about that.

:: WE MOVE TOMORROW!!!! I can't even begin to express how excited I am about this. We got the keys on Thursday and will be unloading our storage unit tomorrow. I'll show some pictures of the charm of this place soon. I love it more and more each time I go up there.


:: Speaking of our storage unit... we fit all of our stuff in a 10x10 unit for the past 6 months. We really don't have very much stuff, but what we do have I have really missed! I'm mostly looking forward to finding my box of shoes and sleeping in my bed again.

:: Running a half marathon is in the works for this summer. My best friend Corinne is going to run it with me. We've found a race that will work with our summer plans and drove the course last week. It's going to be hard, but I've always wanted to do one... now is the time! I'm on the lookout for some good running shoes. I think I might go with these ones, but I need to try them on in a store before I order them. Somehow in the middle of moving next week I need to get some ordered... the long runs are getting closer and closer! I can barely do 3 miles straight right now so it's going to be a challenge.

That's about it for now. I might not have internet for a little while when we get things set up at our new place. Excited for this fresh start!

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Home...

I've always daydreamed about living in a little quaint cottage somewhere in the mountains. I have a pinterest board dedicated to the cute little homes that I find. I showed them to my husband once and said, "I want to live in a little home in the mountains someday like these." His response was, "Do you realize how little those houses are? They are really really small." Yes, yes they are. I don't know, I've never wanted to be in some huge house somewhere (mostly because I don't want to have to clean it). There is just something that draws me to these little cottage homes. So cozy, so cute, so homey.

Well, I have some rather exciting news!!! (It's exciting to me anyway). We are going to be moving in about 2 weeks to a cute tiny home!! It's not up in the mountains, but it's right next to some mountains, and we are so super excited about this. It's much closer to my husband's new job (he's been commuting about 75 minutes to and from work each day) and it has a large yard with fruit trees and room we can garden. The house is pretty tiny, under 1000 square feet. And it's almost 130 years old! It was a pioneer home built by some of the Mormon pioneers in the late 1800's. It's been updated since then (no outhouse mind you...  but still no dishwasher) with big windows that let in the light, still very tiny. And cute. And perfect for our small family at this time in our lives. Nice and cozy but with a large yard that we can spend time together in the great outdoors. We are so excited!!!

I'm going to have to buckle down and get pretty organized so that we can fit our stuff in there, but it will be a good move for our family. I can feel it. It feels good to be excited about something like this. Time to start packing up my stuff at my in laws and start fresh somewhere new!

Home 1, 2, 3

Night in the desert...

Beautiful blue skies

Cows in every shade of brown imaginable

Quenching their thirst in the desert

Colorful Philly cheese steak sandwiches with orange and yellow peppers

Dutch oven style of course

Good friends

Good conversation

Perfect evening

Easter...

Two egg hunts made for a very happy little boy this weekend.

I love this orangcicle shirt that I found for Easter Sunday. He looked so darling in it if I do say so myself. Favorite find in his Easter basket? Silly putty. Hasn't stopped playing with it since.

And just to keep it real... right after I took these pictures he dropped his silly putty and it rolled down the driveway. He dove for it and ripped a big hole in his church pants... but saved the putty!! So my favorite gray church pants of his went into the trash and he wore black ones instead. I  try not to get mad at him for just being a little boy, but sometimes I'm sad at how fast we go through clothes around here.

Beautiful holiday... one of my favorites. I love the spring smell that is in the air right now. Reminders of life are all around us this time of year. Which is really what Easter is all about right? Life... we will live again. I truly believe this.