Tis the Season

The Christmas season is approaching and I just wanted to tell everyone how grateful I am for wonderful family and friends. I look at my life and believe I have been very blessed to know each of you. Life is so wonderful. There are trying moments and joyous moments and each moment gives us opportunities to serve and love or to be served and loved. Thanks for the love! Thanks for the wonderous moments!

Baby Shower for my Cousin

The above photo is of my cousin and her daughter. The last shower I went to was her's and now she helped throw this shower for her little sister. (I just have to add here that I love getting together with my aunts and cousins. There is something very awesome about family and being part of a large family).

My cousin in the red and black shirt is the reason for this celebration!

And this time I did get a photo of myself...and Mom!

There's Grandma and my cousin and her daughter...and the same baby as from above. I know that most you of you don't care about who is in the pictures...and that's okay. I do want to add that I have very talented cousins. The cousin in the gray shirt has an amazing house and one of her many talents is quilting. She makes the coolest quilts and quilts them herself.

This was a gift given by the sisters of the celebrated cousin. Luckily they let others help tie the quilt and be a part of that. I remember spending hours helping tie different quilts in the family. I loved the time listening to everyone talk and share. It's amazing the bonds and memories that are formed while tying quilts.

Thanksgiving 2009

This year for Thanksgiving we went to my parents house. It was a small gathering and lots of fun. It's been six years since I had Thanksgiving with my family. SM decided he wanted to cook the turkey. I just had to take this picture of SM and the turkey...this is before the oil was hot enough to deep fry the turkey. Somehow I missed the moment when the turkey was cooked and brought back into the house.

I just love this table decoration. I am not a very decorative person but love to see what others do for decorations. I guess that is why I felt compelled to take pictures of the decorations but you'll notice I didn't get a single photo of myself...or really any adults. Only the two youngsters!

There is something about fresh, hot rolls from the oven!

And more decorations!

We had a great meal. Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, dressing, rolls, froy-eye salad, green beans with mushroom sauce, fresh cranberry salsa, fresh veggie tray, apple crisp and pumpkin pie! Thanks for all the great food and time together! What a great Thanksgiving!

(I love how my SIL does my niece's hair. She always looks so cute!)

Girls Luncheon

Last Friday my sister set up a "girls family lunch." It was so fun to see my cousin (in the picture with me) and to have lunch with my sister and two of my sister-in-laws.

I have such an awesome sister...Thanks cute girl for getting us all together. I think we all enjoyed an opportunity to dress up, get out of the house and enjoy each other. I can't wait until next month when we do this again.

New Scarves

I have been knitting some scarves lately. SM has been encouraging me to sell them since I love knitting them but I don't wear them very often. Finally I decided I'd see if they could sell.

I asked my sister if she'd be willing to see if any of her co-workers would be interested in buying a decorative scarf or two. So, she took them to work and sold three...yipee!

And so I am very motivated (by money now) to continue knitting scarves and seeing if my sister can sell a few more scarves. (Thanks to my cousin for being my scarf model).

Austin Texas

SM and I spent the weekend in Austin Texas with our friends. We were able to be downtown at the State Capital of Texas. Wow! What a huge building!

Look at how tall that dome is...it made for lots of stairs but a place to put all the pictures of former govenors of the state of Texas.

Look at those cute girls sitting in the sun and enjoying the beautiful weather...and it was gorgeous weather. We were excited that the weather was so warm and inviting. Very different than the cold, snowy weather that we left.

I loved that the hinges of the doors in the capitol had this inscription and decoration.

This is where politicians tell the public about the decisions that have been made. I wanted to go up behind the microphone to make my own declarations but chickened out at the last moment.

This is a photo shot from three or floors above this atrium. I actually couldn't look over the edge and so SM had to take the picture. It just was too high for me to feel comfortable looking down.

And this last photo is looking up towards the dome. It was so ornate and beautiful and I'm so glad I was able to go see the Capitol of Texas and our wonderful friends.

Halloween in Austin Texas

We were lucky enough to be with our friends in Austin Texas for Halloween. In the above picture, the dog Phoebe is wearing her Halloween costume for a few seconds...it's a mullet for dogs. Below, check out the biker chick with her friend...me, and my costume is really scary. I'm the lady with the spider on my shoulder!

And who are these good looking guys? They are our handsome husbands. Both of them had a great time in their costumes. Because we were attending a church function, some of the ward members were surprised to see these guys on Sunday morning with totally different hairdos.
We had a great time with these friends.

Hot Sauce

The Fall time has arrived and so has a lot of work. It's time to gather in all the harvest and do something with it. I had to take a picture from mom's deck to show the leaves changing. It took less than a week to have the leaves change colors. We haven't had the hard frost at our house that my mom has had at her house but look at the colors. Wonderful!

Peppers from Mom's garden before we cut them up to put in the hot sauce. We also cut up onions from her house and garlic that my grandmother grew. Just need some vinegar and salt added to all those yummy veggies and Ta-Da...hot sauce.

Yesterday we bottled it and canned it. Now it's in my food storage. Yum!

Service Day

Last Friday I made some puppets out of felt with my sister-in-laws. My mother-in-law organized a service project for us to make...she was unable to attend since she was at work but we had so much fun with these puppets. This is not all the puppets we made but they show the different puppets that we made. We traced them, cut the, decorated them, and sewed them. Phew! It took most of the day but we are very excited to send these to an orphanage in Uganda. Hopefully they will also enjoy them as much as we did making them.

Friends from High School

Earlier this month my friend N emailed and invited M and myself to her house for lunch. It had been many years since we'd all been able to be together and so we were very excited to get together. M brought her two daughters and N had her two youngest home with her and we had a great lunch.

I had to post a picture of this dresser. N painted this dresser herself. She has so much talent. I loved having the tour of her house and seeing her touch in every room. She is a very talented woman and amazing mother of five kiddos. I hope to see her one more time before we move out of the state.

N, thank you for such a wonderful afternoon. You are a very gracious host and I loved being able to catch up on our lives.

Fall Weather

The weather is cold today. Yesterday we were almost in the 90s and today we are in the 40s...that's quite the change in weather. Looking at the nearby hills, I see a dusting of snow and when I breath out, I see my breathe. So different from yesterday's shorts and T-shirt weather. The following photos are of me yesterday. Because we knew the weather was going to get cold...we knew that the onions needed to be brought into the garage so that they could continue drying and not freeze. Here are some photos of my mom's onions this year. They are huge. She always grows wonderful onions but this year she used some new dirt that had a lot of nutrients in it and the onions loved it and grew and grew. Now she's trying to figure out how to dry them because she knows she cannot eat all of them.

The photo above shows a small black wagon full of onions...she had a total of three wagons of onions. My guess is around 200 onions. We also dried four buckets of peaches and made pear sauce (like applesauce) out of four additional buckets of pears. It was a really really busy day.

A Fun Trip South

We went south to visit SM's sister and her family this last weekend. They decided to take us for a hike. We decided to hike up a rock...I guess you could call it a hill or if you are from the East you could call it a mountain. It was very pretty and kind of slippery.

As you can see, I didn't make it to the top of the rock. I was a little bit scared of how steep it was a decided not to try. SM's sister stayed with me while the two guys and two little girls made it to the top. What a sight at the top!!

This part of the rock was a natural walk way...or during any rain, a natural water way. Not the best picture of the back of us...but a cool picture all the same.

Behind me is the rock we went up...and down.

Doesn't that just look cool? Thanks to SM's sister and her family for a great time!

Family Pictures

We had family pictures this week. Enjoy!!

Still keeping busy

As you can see from these following pictures, I am still working on my crocheting. I love keeping busy in the evenings while I watch TV. This burp cloth actually has a new edging that I made up. I took an edging pattern that I've used a whole lot and then I added an extra row of stitches and I love it. I'm not sure I'm the first person ever to do this...but nobody showed me how to do it...I just tried it.

The asters are out! I absolutely love these flowers and they make the backyard so beautiful.

Cucumbers anyone? My mom only wanted to plant one or two cucmber plants but I talked her into planting a half a row. Well, the consequence has been too many cucumbers. Sorry Mom, I just love cucumbers and thought you needed more plants. I forgot that you are the only one in your house that eats cucumbers.

As you can see, these are not typical cucumbers...I think they are called Armanian Cucumbers. They are my mom's favorite cucumber...and very yummy. They also get very large but don't get bitter so you can eat lots of cucumber. The dark green cucumber is a Japanese Long cucumber...and SM actually planted this type in our own garden.