Friday is Fabulous!!

1. It has been a fairly productive day --- and most of that productivity happened before 9:00 in the morning! I fell asleep on the couch while watching a show with Nels last night. I vaguely remember him trying to wake me up and me telling him to go away. :) I finally did wake up, but decided to take the girls to the toilet before heading up to bed. As I walked upstairs, I realized that it was already 5:00. Hhhmmmm. Sleep and probably sleep in, or just stay awake and work? I opted for the road I rarely travel and decided to stay up. I got 2 loads of laundry done, a new fluorescent light hung in the laundry room (Hooray for not doing laundry by the light of one 60 watt lightbulb anymore!!), stood mostly motionless in my basement bathroom envisioning what I should do with it for probably 30 minutes, and cut out new fabric to recover my rocking chair! Now, that's a fabulous morning!

2. At the D.I. last night I found 3 of the cutest votive candle holders for my bedroom! They are beautiful, very vintage, and, best of all, turquoise. :) See? See how gorgeous they are??? :)

Oh wait, what's that? You only count two?? Oh yeah, well. . . . when I got home I excitedly pulled them out to show Nels my beautiful things. I handed him one, saying, "Aren't they gor-----NO!!!!!!" As it slipped out of my hand and crashed into a thousand little bits of turquoise glass all over the tile. It was sad. BUT, still SO happy that I have TWO! :)

3. I have ONE of my projects to show you! -- I really want to show you my shower curtain that I finished last night, but I can't show you it without showing you the whole shower. And I can't show you the shower until I get the trim hung, which will hopefully be happening in the morning. But, I do have ONE to share! :)

I started this little embroidery project a couple of months ago - and finished it about a month ago, but had decided to not show it to you until I finished it's little friend (same thing, facing the other direction). However, I haven't started that one yet and I'm not quite sure when I'm going to, so here you are. My pretty little birdy! I found a picture of a bird that I really liked (which I actually think is a Stampin' Up stamp) on the internet and then blew it up to the size I wanted and traced it onto my white fabric. I bought a 2 dollar embroidery pamphlet/booklet at Joann's and voila! :) I've never embroidered anything before, so my stitches are a little hodge-podge, but who's looking, right? :) After doing all the inside stitches, I ironed him onto a piece of Heatbond, cut him out, pulled the paper off the back, ironed him onto the blue fabric, and stitched around the edge. (For any of you who would like to make something similar. :) Anyhow, it was relatively simple and lots of fun! 

4. Nels has taken care of dinner and bed for the girls for the past TWO nights in a row - while I went shopping to random stores like the D.I. and the fabric store and such! He is really the most wonderful husband in the entire world! I love him so much! I'll have to make an extra special dinner for him tonight!

5. I LOVE Visiting Teaching and Relief Society. As with any ward, there are times when the R.S. Presidency has to make changes in the Visiting Teaching routes, due to moves and whatnot. The past few months, I have gotten switched twice. (Which mostly has just given me an excuse for not visiting. Sad, I know.) However, I have been really excited to get to know my new partner and thank goodness she took initiative this month and just called ME. We teach four different sisters and she was able to set all of our appointments for one evening, which was nice. At each home we went to, I could feel the Spirit and the love that our Savior feels for those sisters just coursing through me. I feel so thankful for the opportunity to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord and to learn from my sisters. I know that the Visiting Teaching program is divinely inspired and truly a blessing to all involved. 

6. . . six for fun! :) My usual computer chair is across the room, being used to sit on while I've been sewing for the past few days. So instead of walking the twenty feet to get it, I am sitting on my kids rocking horse. I can actually fit on it! :) That's funny.

It's not that cold . . . .

Southeast Idaho is always cold in the winter. That's the nature of where I live. In Rexburg, for college students that live up on the hill, it's really bad as the wind blows across the rolling wheat fields, tunneling right past your apartment door. One winter was SO bad - it seemed WEEKS of blowing ice as you walk to and from school. Then one morning, the wind stopped. It was heavenly. I stepped out my apartment door, just as the sun was about to rise in the beautiful clear sky. It was stunning. I thought, "Nice. It's not that cold this morning." I climbed into the car, turned the key, and the radio comes on --- with it's annoying morning DJ's. ". . . . . it's negative TWENTY in Rexburg this morning . . . . "

WHAT THE . . . . .?!

Negative TWENTY is NOT THAT COLD???

Idaho has killed all my nerve endings. I can no longer accurately feel freezing death! 

Since that time, seven years ago (HOLY CRAP! Seven years?!), I have learned that once you get much past negative 7 or 8 the actual temperature is pretty null. 

This morning, Nels went out to turn on his car before leaving to work as he came in, I asked him if he almost died while out there. He said, "You know, it's cold, but it's not that cold . . . not as cold as I expected."

Well, as I was listening to the news tonight, this morning, Idaho Falls set a new record for January 27th. 

-29

Yeah. It's not that cold.

White Wedding

So Nels and I spent much of last night browsing around YouTube laughing at some videos people have made using a Microsoft program called Songsmith. In fact, Nels did a blog post on it, imbedding our favorite video - a spoof of the Billy Idol song "White Wedding". It is SO funny!!! Go check it out! 

Also, can I just say, that had I been a teenager in the '80s, I think I totally would have had the hots for Billy Idol! :) LOL! :)

Mine.

For Christmas this year I bought Elsie a bedtime CD. It was recommended on one of the blogs that I like to read, so I thought that I'd try it out. I LOVE IT. And what's even better is that Elsie loves it more. :) The first song on the CD is "Baby Mine" which has been a favorite of mine since Hazel was born and I often sing it to my girls. Elise reminds me every time I go lay her down to sleep that she needs "Mine." 

I have figured that she didn't really understand the meaning of such a word --- MINE --- other than being what we call her music. However the past two days, she has proven me wrong -- in the sweetest way. Yesterday Nels was laying (or lying? I can't ever remember.) on the bed and I brought Elsie in to him as I was getting ready to go to the store. I set her down and she immediately snuggled up next to her daddy while I talked to him. When I finished, I asked her if she wanted to take a nap. She snuggled closer to her daddy and said, "Daddy, Mine." I asked her again if she wanted to come with me, while reaching for her. At this point, she swatted my hands away and said, "Daddy, mine. No, Mommy. Bye, bye." Do you think she was clear enough?

Then this morning I went to lay her down in her bed again for a nap. She clearly needed it, but still didn't want to. Holding her, I went to close the door. As I did, she says, "Aant down, Momma mine." I love this little girl. She uses the phrase, Aant -- meaning "I want" -- all the time. Aant shood. Aant dwink. Aant down. I love her. And I love that she calls me Momma, mine. :)

Happy January from Idaho!

We have had a strange January -- however, it IS Idaho -- so what is strange? Winter weather in Idaho is always a little bit weird. We got dumped on with snow around Christmas and since then, we've had almost none. In fact, it's been melting. Last week we hardly had any left on the grass in our front yard. Then this weekend, we've gotten another 10 inches or so. Odd.

Anyhow, usually it is so cold when it snows here that the snow it very "dry" when it comes down. Powdery stuff that doesn't compact very well before it gets crusty and icy. This weekend, however, we've had our first good snowman snow of the season, so I promised the girls that we'd take advantage of it!

Our very cute snowman, named Rex.

A green pepper mouth and broccoli ears. 

(Broccoli ears are what snowman wrestlers get. :)

Elsie's first "real" time out in the snow.

Happy January!!!