Basil = Pesto...

It wasn't that long ago when I was first introduced to pesto sauce. One of our friends mom's made the most amazing asparagus/mushroom/squash/noodle stir fry ever that had a pesto and cream sauce and I was hooked. It was divine!!! I really don't think I'd ever had it before, but I loved it. I bought my first jar of pesto afterwards to re-make the meal... and it was a bit pricey as far as sauces go. For an itty bitty jar, I was surprised. So I don't use it or buy it a whole lot, but I wish I did. Ever since I've wanted to grow my own basil so that I could make my own homemade pesto sauce.

Well, my garden pesto was finally big enough to harvest and start making pesto this week!

We spent forever picking it and forever washing it... but my kitchen smelled so good!

I gathered my ingredients. Lots of pesto sauces use walnuts but they aren't very nice to my mouth so I went with pine nuts... toasted that is (brings out more flavor).

Not pictured was the olive oil.

 I threw some pepper in there too, just for fun.

So simple to make! I made two batches (6 cups of fresh basil) which only filled half of my quart jar. Guess I need to get some pint jars for this. I'm hoping to bottle it and have it throughout the year. Look at that beautiful bright green color! It just doesn't look like this when you buy it from the store does it.

I'm going to make Tracey's famous pesto stir fry on Sunday and I'll share the recipe here. It's one of my favorites, and I can't wait to try it with my own sauce.

Sewing cabinet...

When we were living in Vegas I was a spoiled girl. We were living in our three bedroom condo and I had that lovely third bedroom all to myself as a sewing room. It was nice, I'm not going to lie. Being able to spread out my projects and just shut the door when I needed a break and not have to put anything away. That was so nice! I knew that would not last forever, and it didn't. In our little place up here I've been wanting to get a sewing cabinet that I could put all my stuff in. Well... guess what!!! Christmas in July really came this year! My sister in law's parents were giving away some furniture that they didn't have room for anymore and I became the lucky recipient of this beautiful cabinet...

I love dark, cherry wood! It is so big and deep, and perfect for all of my sewing and crafting stuff. It even has double hinges on the doors so that I can open them all the way.

I've got my ruler and cutting board hung up on one door. I think I'm going to put some cork boards on the other door to pin pictures, to do lists, etc on.

Here she is wide open (yes it's a girl...). Look at all that space!!!

I'm starting to get her filled up a little bit. I have lots of fabric to sort into those drawers. The best part... my husband and father in law cut a hole in the front of the cabinet for a pull out shelf to put my machine on so that it's a little more comfortable and there is somewhere to put my legs instead of up agains that bottom cabinet.

The shelf can hold up to 100 lbs. I can use it to cut fabric on, get and ironing matt to iron on. It is so awesome! They built the shelf and the I stained it to match the rest of the cabinet. It looks so great! The colors matched up perfectly. Can you tell I'm over the moon excited about this!!!

It will be so nice to have my own space again besides the kitchen table to work on my sewing projects. Thank you Sue and Kevin!!! Thank you Craig and Trent for customizing it for my needs! I'm one happy girl with my pretty new cabinet...

Beaver hunt...

We went on a beaver hunt the other day at our friend's cabin. My boy has been obsessed with beavers lately (?... not sure why). He keeps saying that he wants a baby beaver for his birthday. We've seen beavers in this area before so we set out on a beaver hunt. Our friend had seen a big beaver lodge on the lake nearby so we waited until it was getting dark in hopes to see a beaver out on the water.

Our first clue, as the boy would say, was this tree. A beaver had been here...

Clue #2... the beaver lodge. This thing was huge!! Set up on the side of the lake, these beavers had been busy building their home .

And just as it was getting too dark to really see anything, we heard a loud splash. A beaver was swimming around in the lake and would whack his tail on the water before diving down. It's really hard to see in this picture but this is the beaver swimming.

It was a fun little hike to see the beaver. I tried to explain to my boy that beavers need water and trees to live, they wouldn't live well in our home and probably wouldn't make a good pet. It was a fun adventure though to see a real live beaver.

I hope that moments like this are what he remembers about summer. The fun adventures that we try to go on. Learning about the world around us. Seeing things in nature that are amazing and beautiful.

Sewing...

My cute friend C took this picture of me the other day without me knowing it. When I saw it I thought, yep... that's me just doing my thing. Wearing yellow (almost always), sitting at my machine, sunlight coming in through the window. This picture makes me happy. This is what I love to do. This is me. Thanks C for the picture!

And I'm working on something super important... a veil for my friends wedding. It's going to be so pretty!

Lake Mary...

 #1 on my list was to hike to Lake Mary. This lake/hike means a lot to me. I have so many good memories there. 10 years ago I worked as a counselor at Brighton LDS Girls Camp. Every week we were to take our campers on a hike. Every week that summer I chose Lake Mary (there are several hikes in the Brighton area but this was my favorite one). The last week I had campers that summer I wanted a change of scenery, I wanted to go on a different hike. But when the morning came to assign hikes, I was forced to hike to Lake Mary. My directors assigned my hike LAST, and Lake Mary was the only open hike left. I was so upset I cried a bit. Totally frustrated. What I didn't know (that they all did) was that my sweet boyfriend was waiting by the dam of Lake Mary to ask me to marry him.

It makes me happy that I was able to spend that special day with so many friends that I had made at camp. The memory of this hike is so fresh in my mind. Standing in front of the dam and seeing Trent with a bouquet of flowers... It was pretty great.

So here we are, 10 years later, standing in front of the Lake Mary dam, where this whole thing started.

To be totally honest, the day we did this hike last week was a rough day. We'd been arguing all day about something. The day was really tense. We weren't super happy with each other. I hate days like this. We've been married nearly 10 years and still argue, still don't agree on everything, still have some rough days every once in a while. In an effort to save the day I suggested that we go on this hike at 4 PM, so we did. We hiked in silence most of the time. Letting the trees and birds and mountain breeze slowly work over us. I thought over our years of marriage, especially the past few that have been so hard, and was reminded of the little 18 year old girl who fell in love with this 22 year old boy. Sometimes I need to focus on just us, and not all the rubbish that creeps into our lives and gets in our way of really enjoying each other.

And how we have this sweet little guy to hike along this life with us. We are so blessed.

We saw two big bull moose by the lake, eating dinner. Such beautiful creatures!

I love this beautiful mountain lake. I wish I could live up here. We had the lake to ourselves in the early evening sunlight. It was such a healing hike for me in so many ways. this is the first real hike that I've done since finishing chemo. I keep getting better and better and that is so nice! I think it was healing for our relationship to go on this hike together, even on a bad day, reminding us of our beginning and our commitment to our relationship and life together. I think all couples need that reminder every once in a while. I can't wait to get back up there someday!

Two months into the garden...

We planted our garden 54 days ago...

and it is doing so awesome!!! Check out all this lettuce...

My tomatoe plants are dripping with green tomatoes. Some are starting to turn orange.

The whole east side of the garden I planted big sunflower plants and they are all growing so tall! No sunflowers yet, but they are coming. Even without the sunflowers the leaves follow the sun throughout the day.

My herb garden is sparse. This is the one area that didn't grow so well. I'm going to re-plant them pretty soon here. But we have some cilantro and basil growing, just not as much as I wanted.

Basil leaves are so pretty...

And the yard is full of the most beautiful day lillies...

A few days after I took all those pictures (I'm a slow blogger) we went out and gathered a bunch of stuff to make a salad...

Snap peas.

Cherry tomatoes.

And lettuce coming out my ears!!! Anyone want some lettuce? Come and get it!

Growing this garden has been one of the most fun and rewarding things that I've done. It's so nice to come out in the morning and check on my plants. They are doing so good! I can't take too much credit though, this soil here is amazing. I think about all the hands that have worked this ground for the past 100+ years. There are very few rocks, the dirt is dark brown. It's a pretty cool thing to be a part of.

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.