Making it Up As I Go

Bread is kneading in the bread maker. I haven’t used my bread maker in way too long,  my attempts at  “handmade”  bread have all failed, and I am totally one for accepting my limitations (especially when it comes to kneading), so I got it out to love it some more.

Tiny is walking around carrying a giant Nemo over her head and saying “Rella cake? Rella cake?” over and over.  Apparently she thinks the bread maker is going to make her a Cinderella cake. She will be disappointed.

Z is sitting at the table coloring. She recently figured out how to draw flowers. She’s excited about that.

My cleaning schedule says that I’m supposed to clean my living room today. I should get on that.

I’m loving the words of a hymn we sang in Relief Society yesterday (Tiny went to nursery! Woo hoo!) – it’s hymn 285, God Moves In a Mysterious Way, and the second verse reached out and smacked me:

Ye fearful Saints, fresh courage take

The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy and shall break

In blessings on your head.

Isn’t that SO lovely? I don’t remember ever hearing the hymn before, let alone singing it. We should sing it all the time!

Tiny is now dancing and singing along to All is Love from Where the Wild Things Are. We love that song around here.

Speaking of dancing, you should check out Miss Z and the moment she decided that the stage is her life . The girls did such a great job, and were SO excited. All of the kids at the talent show were so confident and happy, it’s really so cool that kids so little have these opportunities to get up in front of people and perform.

I have a bunch of things to do this morning, and really all I want to do is lay around and finish Hamlet. I’ve decided that I’m rereading through Shakespeare’s plays this summer, and goodness, I’d forgotten how very much I love them. The language is just so gorgeous, (or “gorgois” as Mia Michaels would say) and so dang funny, even in the midst of the tragedies.

I totally love my Zutter Bind-it-all. Zoe just came over to me and said she wanted to make a book of the pictures that she’d just been drawing, and 2 minutes later:

I LOVE it.

Tiny just declared “Everybody Came” by Ambrosia Parsely her “fa-bit, momma! Fa-bit!”. Of course, 2 minutes ago she said the same thing about “I am a Paleontologist” , so what can I say, the girl has good taste.

I am going to go get my morning moving. We have an appointment at a  bounce house  later today. And no, that’s not some euphemism us losing our minds. I may have just sabotaged that intent however, because the Glee version of Alone just came on, which reminded me of Will and whatsername’s dance to it on SYTYCD, and now I MUST go watch that.  Here is is, watch it now!

What’s going on with you at this moment?

I couldn’t post anything about this project before because it was a surprise for my friend Jessica, but she got it in the mail today, so I can reveal it to the world!

Jessica is one of the best seamstresses I know, as well as an incredible photographer, and so when I saw this paper I decided I had to make an album for her with it. This is how it turned out.

The back looks like a record, because she and her husband love music.  Don’t you love that scissor paper? Too cute! And the paper with different kinds of stitches? I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture of the paper with little dress patterns all over it, seriously.

Anyway, I love the way it turned out, and I hope it gets put to great use holding lots of Jess’ gorgeous photos!

I’m in somewhat of a icky mood -I have a weird post nasal drip throat hurting thing happening and my children WILL. NOT. STOP. WHINING!

Ahem.

So I decided to post an “Of good report” post to get my mind back on the positive. So here we go.

Tiny loves to hide in this space and read. For a long time. Seriously.

A car Zoe made out of a box and 5 plastic plates.

A picture Zoe took. I love the composition. It seems symbolic, somehow.

Zoe's first journal. She and I made it yesterday. Each day she'll draw a picture and then dictate.

Z's split lip is finally healed. I don't think I posted a picture before. If I didn't- this is what happens when a face meets the edge of a piano.

I finished both Lectures on Faith by Joseph Smith and Suffering is Optional by Cheri Huber. Both were fantastic. Both very eye opening.  Now I’m back to My Life in France by Julia Child, which is similarly eye opening. A running theme through all of them is the pursuit of joy,  which is of little surprise, seeing as my Personal Progress goal for two weeks is trying to have more joy.

I have such wonderful friends. The comments to my last post made me so happy.  I love the support great women can give to each other.

The girls are up from their naps, so I’m going to go try to have a more positive outlook in our time before B gets home.

What’s making you happy today?

Oh, one last thing – if any of you have excellent inspirational blogs that you frequent (like I linked to in my last post), would you put a link in the comments? Thanks!

I guess that’s the up side to having a sick kid? More time to post? At the moment she’s having a little surge of energy and is playing in her room while Audrey hangs out/plays/gets used to her crib. Audrey is so delighted by Zoe, it’s so cute.

So, the reason for this post- I just thought I’d post a picture of my new little scripture study journal and state publicly (so I’m more accountable and all) my intention to actually study the scriptures each day vs. just reading them. So now that that’s stated, here’s the little book:

It’s a little 4 by 6er, which, in retrospect is a little small. But, whatever.

And just for good measure, some pictures of the playing:

And Audrey getting into crawling position:

I’ve actually been working on this one a while, but just finished it yesterday and gave it as a gift today, so now I can post it.

This is a recipe book I made for Liz- my daddy always referred to the meals he completely made up on the spot as “old family recipes”. The actual color was much darker than the pictures show- and the cover was more distressed and aged looking. The last 2 pictures are much closer to the real color. Each section had preprinted recipe cards so that she can write in her own old family recipes.

I’ve been meaning to post these pictures for a while, since my Auntie wanted to see the quilts I’d made. So here they are. The first one is the first I ever made- for Zoe. The second is the quilt I made for Bruce for Christmas. I don’t have pictures of the quilt I made for Lizzie for Christmas, I’ll have to have her bring it up next time she comes so I can take some.

Zoe's quilt- there are stars on most of the fabrics.

B's quilt

And my project of the morning- I’m starting Personal Progress over again (the program of goals that the Young Women of our church do) so I cut the PP book and journal apart and bound them together so I wouldn’t lose them and they’d look cute.

After I made the notebook for Liz, I whipped a couple more last night. They’re really pretty easy and fun to make, and I figure they’ll be a good starter item for my etsy store. That’s right, I’m opening an etsy store. Once it’s up and running, I’ll post all the info. But in the meantime, a taste of things to come.

I whipped this up this morning for my most loved sister who recently redid her “home office” in blue and brown. I figured, with a stunningly organized new space, she should have a custom note pad; don’t you agree? It’s reversible, so either side could be the front.

So the item in the previous post is already spoken for- I made it with someone in particular in mind, BUT, seeing as I’m still practicing and am always looking for inspiration………..

If you want a journal or photo album, post a comment telling me what you want, and a point of inspiration- a theme, color, item, etc. I will pick one and see what comes of it, and if I like how it turns out, I will send it to you.

Ready, set, GO!

This is what I’ve been working on this week. It’s actually a present for someone who reads this blog, (could it be you?) so I won’t post any more pictures yet… just a preview.