Surprise! Introducing ... Izzy

Drumroll please .....

Meet the latest addition to our family, Isabella (aka Izzy)! Isn't she the cutest? We've been planning this little surprise for the last couple of months and were lucky enough to find the perfect little pooch this week. We went over and met her family on Monday, fell in love with her instantly and purchased her on the spot.After that, it was just a matter of deciding when to bring her home. We had originally planned on December 18th, but had absolutely no will power and didn't want to miss these precious puppy days ... so we chose Black Friday instead. We picked her up around noon today and had a nice car ride to her auntie's house where she was able to meet her cousins and have a nice bath.It only took the short drive home to get her calmed down again and then we placed her in our lovely gift box. We told the kids we had an early holiday present for them and they all lifted the lid together. I don't know what they thought it was going to be, but no one predicted a puppy. I've been pretty adamant about not having a dog in the house.What can I say? She's completely won me over and I'm undone. Can you blame me? Jut look at that face!And she has been absolutely perfect ALL day. She's very affectionate and seems to love all of us. She is right at home in her crate. She hasn't whined or whimpered a bit and has a perfect record on the potty count so far. Yay!

So Much Fun!

What a day! What a weekend! If I'm not careful I'm going to ruin all the surprises here. Let's see, let's see ... today our family is going to receive a HUGE surprise. I can't wait. Hubby and I are in countdown mode, but it's still too early to spill the beans here. You'll have to check back tonight to follow along.

In the meantime, I'm also so excited to take this class tomorrow with a dear friend. We'll drive out to Heber tomorrow morning where we'll get to meet the lovely Eva and Kirk Jorgensen and their letterpress. I can't tell you how much I love getting my hands into a new craft. I'll admit, I'm a little teeny bit of an addict. (hubby would argue the 'little teeny' point) I just can't help myself. It's completely therapeutic to me and keeps the wheels turning. Besides, I'll get to spend the afternoon meeting some wonderful new people, learn the basics of letterpress printing and come home with 50 Christmas cards that I will have printed all by myself. Yay!After all this, it will be our little one's birthday on Sunday. He's turning seven ... SEVEN? How is this possible? It's like I blink and another year has passed. We'll have a big birthday breakfast for him and a fiesta in the afternoon, complete with sombrero and little black mustaches for everyone.

Now I should really get back to my regularly scheduled morning sneakiness before the other kidlets wake up. Stay tuned for the photo play-by-play and have a wonderful Black Friday.

Ssshhhh ....

I have a secret and it's a good one! I've zipped my lips and no one will know until this Friday. The end.Until then, have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with your families. We're spending the day in Sandy with hubby's parents and two of his sisters. I've been assigned mashed potatoes and pearl salad. That works for me. Cooking the actual 'big bird' still makes me a little nervous. When we're done, we'll come home and set up the tree and other decorations. How do you spend your Thanksgiving?

Ten out of Tenn Tour

Last week I got a fun little email from Katie Herzig (& co) letting me know that she is coming to SLC! She will be on a Christmas tour with the Ten out of Tenn bunch featuring: Butterfly Boucher, Erin McCarley, Matthew Perryman Jones, Trent Dabbs, Jeremy Lister, Andy Davis, Tyler James, Andrew Belle, KS Rhoads. You can find out more about the artists and specific tour dates here. In the meantime, here's some ear candy for you.
If any of you are in the area go get your tickets now. I'll meet you there!

De-Stash Craft: Pillowcases

If you own a sewing machine, then you probably have at least a few piles of leftover fabric stashed somewhere in your house. It's time to dig them up and do a little good. This project is quick and easy and is a great one for teaching your kids how to sew. I made these as sleepover cases, but the next batch will be donated to Primary Children's Medical Center here in Salt Lake.

All materials 45" wide cotton woven
Body - 3/4 yard
Cuff - 1/4 yard
Trim - 2-4" based on preference

1 - Press cuff and trim pieces in half, wrong sides together.
2 - Pin all three pieces together matching raw edges, right sides together.3 - Sew with 5/8" seam allowance and press the trim and cuff down.
4 - Topstitch seam allowance to the body of the pillowcase.5 - Fold in half, right sides together matching side seams.
6 - Sew the 2 unfinished edges at 5/8", zigzag raw edges to finish.
7 - Turn corners and press if you like.The second one I made was flannel from last year's PJ scraps. I cut a front and back for the body that measured 20" x 27" and cut a 14" wide piece to make a 7" cuff, then used some coordinating grosgrain ribbon for trim. Both cases worked out great, adjust the size to meet your own needs. These are great for donations to hospitals and homeless shelters, but would also be perfect gifts for almost anyone. Great for kids to take to sleepovers, or just to have a holiday specific/birthday/camp/get better soon pillowcase. You name it. It would be fun to make a stack for Grandma's house too where kidlets may sleepover. Oh ... the possibilities are endless! :D

A Few Days Late

I really wanted to post these pictures on Veterans' Day, but my scanner was having a fit. And, I have to admit, that after an hour or so of looking at old pictures ... I had a small emotional breakdown. I miss my dad; I missed him a lot this week. He passed away when I was 14 after a long battle with lymphoma. I missed out on a lot with him. Driving. Dating. Graduations. Moving out. College. Marriage. Babies. Baptisms ... Somehow I was reminded over and over again this week of all the things he wasn't here for and it made me just ache. I know I'll see him again. It's just been such a long time already that I needed a good cry. And now I've had one. Wasn't he so handsome though?

My Dash

I have attended more funerals this year than I'm really comfortable with. Is this the stage of life I'm at? Will I keep losing people more and more frequently? I hate that thought. I hate goodbyes. But I have to admit that there is something about the services that makes me walk away and do a quick audit of ... me. I've heard the poem "The Dash" by Linda Ellis read a couple times this year and think it's a good reminder. It begins like this:

"I read of a man who stood to speak
At the funeral of a friend
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
From the beginning to the end

He noted that first came the date of her birth
And spoke the following date with tears,
But he said what mattered most of all
Was the dash between those years

For that dash represents all the time
That she spent alive on earth.
And now only those who loved her
Know what that little line is worth."

How am I spending my dash? I need to slow down and meet more people. (I have wallflower tendencies) I need to build better and stronger relationships. I need to serve more. I need to give more. I need to love more. I want to make a difference in someone's life. November is a season of plenty and thanks, now ... I may not be excelling in the 'plenty' department, I am more than capable of giving thanks. Tomorrow the youth in our ward are making stockings to send to servicemen overseas. We've been invited to write thank you notes to put in them. I'll start there. How are you spending your dash?

Trying to Recoup

I know. Nothing interesting here lately. Sorry. I've been in training at JetBlue all last week from 7:30 pm to 1:30 am. This means I've been running on 4 hours of sleep a night 5 days in a row. Ick. Napping during the day has been useless; it's just not the same as getting a full night's sleep. I feel slightly more normal today, but start up again tomorrow. I have one week left. Bear with me. I do have a list of projects that keeps growing; gifts, tags, notebooks, baby blankets, cards ... there will be fun things here soon. I'm working on a shop update as well. Stay tuned.

Ten for Tenn

More great music just for you. Ten songs by ten different artists.

As posted on the Ten our of Tenn website, "Nashville. Music City USA. Most people think cowboy hats and honky tonks. However, those who really know Nashville know it's one of the best emerging artist scenes in the country. A community of artists making their own unique brands of diverse, organic pop music in the shadows of today's slick commercial country music industry. At the forefront of this community are ten artists who have banded together to form Ten Out Of Tenn, a collective of incredibly talented friends who, as individual artists, have released over thirty albums, had song placements in countless television programs & films and shared the stage with musicians such as REM, Sarah McLachlan and John Mayer."

Something's Not Right

OK, what's wrong with this picture? Honey??? I'm gonna need some help here. Sweetie? Dearest?
Yesterday my washing machine went on strike and completely pooped out on me. Now, if there's an appliance that's allowed to go on strike in my home ... it certainly doesn't reside in the laundry room. We have seven bodies here. SEVEN! That means that even if I spent the entire day doing laundry, every single piece of it ... washed and dried, folded and put away ... at that very same moment there would be at least another 42 pieces getting soiled. Believe me, I've done the calculation several times to try and figure out how it is that, no matter what, I always have 3 loads of clothes to be washed downstairs.

Luckily, the dryer's still got my back. So, I packed up the car this morning and spent some time at the Swishy Washy. See these first three machines? The Maxi's? They're all full of our dirties. I had a double load running in the next row too.

Once everything was done, I loaded it all back up in the car ... wet and HEAVY to be dried at home. Then I made a quick run to the bread store to restock the cupboards; we go through bread really fast too. I stopped at Harmon's to ship a night light to Fargo, North Dakota, and then went to the bank to file an affidavit of forgery for the whole debit card mess. Joy of joys.

On a side note, today I learned that if you keep loads of wet laundry and bags of bread in a warm car for more than ten minutes it starts to smell an awful lot like beer. Weird.

Operation Nice and Toasty

Nothing gives me 'warm fuzzies' like seeing people be truly generous. This Sunday I had the privilege of participating in what I called 'Operation Nice and Toasty'; it was an opportunity to donate warm clothing items to several families in our neighborhood who were in need of winter wear. They are beautiful and humble people and it was a treat to see how happy they were to receive these things. Lots of the items were gently used or outgrown, but many were brand new with tags still on them. We donated everything we could find in our home and then I destashed my fleece supply by cutting it up into scarves for them. We got about 20 from extra fabric I had tucked away in a box downstairs. It was fun to watch my kids' faces as our items were chosen by the families ... just like Christmas in reverse and much more fulfilling.

Monster Mash was the Bee's Knees

All dolled up and ready to PAR-TAY!

After cleaning up the baby shower and sewing until 3 am Saturday morning, we actually pulled this shindig off. The gals looked great ... and I LOVE that my girl helped design the most modest-glitzy-fun flapper dress ever. She even made the headpiece herself. We played a mix of Big Band songs in the background all night and they toasted each other with Baby Bellini mocktails. It was a riot. The guys were great about going all out with their costumes too.

Go Daddy-O!

The kids made their own pizzas for dinner that hubby grilled while I baked garlic bread in the oven. They ate and answered the door for trick-or-treaters at the same time, then ran through the neighborhood for their own candy booty. It took two cars to get them to the dance where they were given specific safety instructions courtesy of hubby dearest. We had 3 hours to wash dishes, clean up and take a breather before picking them up. They were all present and accounted for, thank goodness, and we brought them home to finish up the night. They were served Shirley Temples with ice cream and brownies and then went downstairs to watch a movie ... with bowls and bowls of popcorn and movie candy.

Oy! The night wrapped up around 2 am with me passed out in bed and hubby driving the last guests home. It was a blast, but I'm sure glad it's over.