What A Tripp!

Wedding Gifts and Maternity Pics

I had a bridal shower and wedding reception to attend this past week, and was pretty pleased with what I came up with for their gifts. Partly due to where we live, and partly due to my nature, I have a hard time buying off of a gift registry or giving gift cards and the like. I much prefer to create. For the bridal shower I made this awesome hostess apron and matching hand towel.

As their wedding gift, I hand crafted these awesome, monogrammed (used my wood burning tool) roasting sticks with a bag to keep/carry them in. Even my kids all thought the gift was super cool.

Oh, and the end is even reinforced with the denim to prevent the sticks from wearing through the end as easily. If I had more time (and thought of it before Justin suggested it), I would have monogrammed the bag as well. Since the whole thing was quite inexpensive, I did include a little cash with the card. They are both students, so I figured I could at least spring for the marshmallows, chocolate bars and graham crackers

Justin suggested I make them and sell them online - with custom monogramming, of course. Shipping would kinda be a pain though. I was too lazy to even figure out how to wrap them as a gift, and just ended up tying on a large tulle bow with a big silk flower. I thought it looked nice. Any ideas on how to best ship such long items?

This past week, I also got the opportunity to take a few pics of a pregnant friend. She’s due this month, and I’m amazed at how tiny she is. Some of the pics turned out pretty cool, so I thought I’d share (with her permission).


baby’s name starts with an “L”

Assignment: thematic

Photography class assignment was thematic. I decided to use spring as my theme, but also chose to make a depth of field contrast. We were learning about Aperture, so some of the photos make a comparison of a change in depth of field, others have the same depth of field, but change what’s in focus. Enjoy!

Photography Class

I’ve been to my photography class twice, and thought I’d share the pics that I have submitted for my assignments. The first week, we were supposed to take a creative self-portrait and submit it unedited.

This week, our assignment was to submit 6 unedited photos. I decided to do a rainy day study of my cute little Ada Jane. Luckily, she’s always a willing model.

These photos are as submitted for my assignments, but scaled down so they wouldn’t be so huge on the blog. Would love feedback, if anyone cares to share.

Apron Giveaway

So I made this super cute apron as a giveaway for my sister, Emily’s blog Clever Housewife.

Ada can be quite the diva. lol
Feel free to head on over and check out her blog, and enter this super cool giveaway.

Spring Break 2010

While I am focusing for a bit, and Justin already helped me edit pics, here’s a rundown of last week’s busy (National Parks) Spring Break.
Tuesday - I took the kids (along with a friend and her kids) to Bandelier National Monument. Tyghe has decided he hates the wind and freaks out, crying and screaming, when he has to be in it. Not fun. Luckily, he does eventually calm down and really is quite a good little hiker. After our standard hike of the main loop, the kids spent a couple of hours playing in the small river that runs near the picnic area.

Thank goodness it was a beautiful, warm day!

Wednesday, I let each of the kids have a friend over in the morning for a pajama party. They came in PJs, ate breakfast burritos for breakfast, played a multitude of games and made homemade donuts, yum!

Friday, we headed off to Albuquerque. It was quite cold and windy, so we mostly just did some (much needed) shopping. At least Justin and I had a chance to go to the temple as well.

Saturday, we left Abq and drove down to the Trinity Site (Ground Zero). This historic site is only open 2 days out of the year, the first Saturday in April and the first Saturday in October. Funny how it coincides with the LDS General Conference. Not much to see, but we were amazed at how many people were there to experience a little piece of history!

The kids in front of a “Fat Man” replica. Coincidentally, we have one of these (much cleaner) in the local museum.

The back side of the obelisk that marks the site. The other side has a large plaque telling what was done there.

A piece of trinitite the kids found - that we left there. (It’s illegal to take any of these pretty rocks that were made from the sand during the explosion.)
The only other thing to really see is a small mound of dirt with a bit of cement that is all the remains of the 100 foot tower the bomb sat on top of at detonation.

After our brief stop, we were headed on to White Sands (the park is at the opposite end of the missile range from where the Trinity Site is). We stopped for a picnic lunch at the Valley of Fires. A huge area of lava rock, with a nice little path for exploring a bit of the area. It really was pretty cool.

On to White Sands. It was late and we were all pretty tired, so we didn’t do any hiking, just played in the sand. The kids had so much fun. Any ideas on how to get all of the pretty white sand out of my car?

I think Ada was the best at scrambling up the huge dunes.






This was Tyghe’s first visit to White Sands, and as you can tell from the pics, well worth it. He loved it.

Sunday, we visited Carlsbad Caverns. The kids were great little hikers, and as you can tell from my simple pics, the views are amazing.

At the entrance of the Cavern.

Looking back up at the entrance from inside.

Dolls’ Theater

Remains of a National Geographic expedition.



750 feet below ground, at the end of our hike.

That was a LOT of pictures! If you were unimpressed with my photography skills, you’ll be pleased to know I begin my photography class tomorrow night. I’m very much looking forward to learning more and improving my meager photography skills.

Creating

As usual, life has been kinda crazy here. At least enough to keep me from concentrating on a task long enough to actually blog about it. lol Alas, Justin has told me I must, so here I go.
I haven’t had as much focus to create as much as I usually do, but have managed a few projects over the last few months that are worthy of sharing.

First, one of the biggest projects I’ve tackled - a roman shade for the family room. I’m pleased with how it turned out.

Ada got to go to a friend’s princess birthday party, and we just had to make something suitable for the birthday girl. We found a variety of fabrics/lace/ribbon from my stash and made a cute little purse (that held a My Little Pony and lip gloss).

While Justin and Zephram spent all sorts of time building a pinewood derby car, I spent relatively little creating awards for the race. I made ribbons for all of the boys, most of which ended up with a label stating what they “won” for (ie. most creative, best of show, etc). I also made “trophies” for the top 3 race finishers. I cut the blocks of wood, sanded them, glued on hotwheels cars and spray painted them gold, silver and bronze. I forgot to take a picture of all of them together, but luckily Zeph won the silver so I can show you how cool they were, along with his car and ribbon.

Caemlyn made a cute little monster pouch for her cousin Sara’s birthday - with very little help from me.

At last, I made a new bag for myself. A yummy shade of red, with the cutest Alexander Henry birdie fabric lining and accents. This only shows the outside, but the top has a zipper closure and there are 2 pockets inside. Still not what I was going for, but it turned out cute enough.

Any suggestions for what I should work on next…should I find the ability to focus?

Mardi Gras

The kids enjoyed a small Mardi Gras celebration last week. I made a super yummy king cake and the kids made some pretty cool masks. We even had jambalaya for dinner and the kids paraded around the living room with their masks. Well, all but Tyghe. He fell asleep late in the afternoon and missed it all.

I took Ada on a date last week to see Sleeping Beauty (ballet) and she looked so cute, so we had to snap a few pics. She’s really quite the poser.

I’ve also been busy lately crocheting up a couple more blankets for new babies. Since the last one just went out in the mail today, I don’t want to post them here and spoil the surprise. You can see all of the blankets I’ve made here. These last two were definitely more intricate than most of the others I’ve made. I was very pleased with how they turned out though, and hope the recipients enjoy them as well.

another update

The past several weeks have been quite busy, and I just haven’t made time to post an update. So, hang on, this could take a bit.

At the end of January, I took Caemlyn to our local ski hill where she had her first ski lesson. She did great, and we spent the afternoon skiing down the beginner slope together. She was quite nervous on her first run down (and fell several times), but after a break and the realization that she could do it - she had several more good runs. As for myself, I’ve never been much of a skier, but didn’t do too bad after a 17+ year break.

Also at the end of January, the 5th graders participated in a wax museum. They had to learn about an explorer and put together a poster on that individual. Then they got to dress-up like their explorer and had a wax museum in the school gym. Everyone that came to see them got tickets that you could put in their box, which would trigger the student to give a brief speech on who they were. Both Caemlyn and Zephram did an excellent job.

Caemlyn was Rachel Carson, a marine biologist, 2nd woman to work for the Department of Fish and Game, and the woman that discovered that DDT killed not only mosquitoes, but the environment as well.

Zephram was Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite and source of the Nobel Peace Prize.

At the beginning of February, my parents came for a visit. We had lots of fun with them here, and Justin and I even got to use the available babysitting for a night out. One of the highlights of their visit, was a “trip” to a sledding hill at a local park. Everyone (except grandpa) had lots of fun sledding down the hill over and over. I didn’t take my camera, but my parents did and got some great pics here.

The week leading up to Valentine’s Day, we participated in a secret valentine exchange with other families in our ward. We had lots of fun coming up with fun things to give our family. I was particularly pleased with a couple of the things I made.

I crocheted a heart garland and sewed up a love note pillow.

On the last day, we took them a heart shaped pizza (chicken, cashews and green chilies - yum!) and homemade fortune cookies. One of the cookies contained a fortune that let them know everything was from our family. We also gave them homemade sugar cookies, hot cocoa mix and a book.

The kids got a 5 day weekend out of President’s Day, so we took advantage of some temporary nice weather and went on a hike. We headed down to the Cochiti Pueblo and hiked the Tent Rocks National Monument. Perfect day for a hike, but there was still enough snow and ice the higher we went that it got pretty slippery. The kids handled the slippery slopes better than Justin and I, but we won’t go into detail about that.

Before we hit the snow, there was a cool Pinon Pine that had many of its roots above ground. Very cool looking.

The path got quite narrow in some places, and we even had to duck under a huge boulder.

But, we made it to the top of the mesa, and the view was beautiful, even for this not so beautiful time of year in New Mexico. 3 miles round trip, and the kids did a great job hiking. Tyghe even hiked all the way to the top, but got carried most of the way back down.

Music and More

The 5th/6th grade music performance was yesterday, so I got to go and watch both Caemlyn and Zephram sing, play the recorder and dance the electric slide.  Their music teacher is our Ward Choir Director and does a wonderful job.  After I upload the video, I’ll see if there’s anything worth sharing - until then, here’s a pic of each of them.

Pack meeting was also last night, and Zephram earned his Faith in God/religious square knot award. He got lucky and the bishop was able to come and present it to him.

And I just have to share this quick project I just put together. I decided to make these washer key chains for our Primary teachers’ birthdays this year. They’re not perfect, but I’m happy with how they turned out. Of course, this is just the first set - I still have several more to make.

Primary 2010 Theme

While my calling is certainly overwhelming at times, I am looking forward to teaching the Primary children about this year’s theme, “I Know My Savior Lives”. I am thankful for the knowledge that my Savior does live and that He loves each of us. I hope I can adequately share this knowledge with the children, and come to know my Savior better as well.
I think this video is a beautiful representation of this theme.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/YADkd1n_Dfo" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

I hope I can stay focused on this, and not get bogged down by the details.