Stitch Witchery

I wanted to add some embellishment to our comforter, as Matt puts it I wanted to add racing stripes. Anyway, my mom has this product that is called Stitch Witchery is allows you to adhere one fabric to another with the iron (including ribbon in my case). It's amazing, even if the name is impossibly confusing. I keep wanting to call it witch stitchery or stitchery witchery, but whatever it works well.

Celebrating 50 Years of Marriage

September 8, 2010 was my in-laws (Darl and Louise) 50th wedding anniversary and we celebrated this past weekend with a party. Here is the announcement picture we put in the paper.
The lovely bride.The handsome groom.

Here they are today!

The family photo. Check out Matt in his stylin' plaid suit jacket.

Photos of their kids.

The table decor. I used wrapping paper for the table runner and I'm pretty proud of myself.

Matt putting on the finishing touches.

Yummy whipped frosting.

My nieces and nephew--Lauren, Paige, and Conner.

Friends and family who visited.

We are sure glad everything went off without a hitch, that so many people helped us get things together, and that we had such a wonderful occasion to celebrate. Congratulations again to Darl and Louise!

More Mariana

Just a couple more shots of Mariana in some cute duds and with her little pillow that I made her. Funny the pillow is still bigger than her, but oh well.

Mariana Nicole

Introducing my first niece--Mariana Nicole. Her first name is Portuguese as Jon served his mission in Brazil. She was born yesterday at 4:57 p.m. She is 7 pounds and half an ounce. Mother and baby are doing very well.

Here is the first family photo.
The proud Grandma and Grandpa. We decide we should call them Grams and Gramps.

The aunts and uncles.

This is Spencer's first time holding a baby. I told him there was a first time for everything and he better practice now that he is an uncle. He looks like a natural to me.

We are so happy Mariana made it here safely and can't wait for all of our adventures with her.

House Projects Continue

One of my house projects this summer was staining our railing to a darker cherry color. Unfortunately I forgot to take the before picture. Instead here is our kitchen cabinet which is the same color our railing used to be.
Here is the railing now.

What I learned--staining is much harder then painting, but I love the results. I much prefer the darker color of wood and I think I will be changing the kitchen cabinets in the future.

Foreign Exchange Students

Last week we had two students from China stay in our home. One of my co-workers has a daughter-in-law who is a host coordinator and that is how Matt and I got involved with the program.

Here are the two girls that stayed with us--Sophie and Aimee. They chose English names while they spent their time here and it's a good thing because I can't say their Chinese names.

Monday through Friday they toured with their group from 9-5, but on the weekend and the evenings we took them around to different activities. The next few pictures are from one of our trips to Big Cottonwood Canyon. They couldn't believe the mountains size and structure.

We also went to a minor league baseball game. They didn't really understand all the rules or why we were only cheering for the home team, but they loved all the snacks. I was surprised they liked popcorn; they are definitely girls after my own heart.

Since I had a young women's activity this week I brought the girls along. We made bonnets as our stake has an upcoming pioneer trek. One thing that was funny to me was how much they wanted things that weren't made in China. That is extremely hard to accomplish as so many of our goods are made in China. At least these bonnets were made in America.

The finished products turned out great!

Since I love roller-skating we also took the girls, along with my brother out to do that.

While we were skating the girls ran into some women who had moved here from China. They were thrilled to be able to talk with them in their native language.

It was a really full week we of course did tons of shopping, went out to eat at an Italian restaurant, played American board games, attended church, had them prepare a dinner for us and played Dance Dance Revolution until we dropped. It was a great experience.

The last night we had a party will all the kids in the group. The kids brought us presents and wrote us thank you notes in Chinese. I was once again surprised by how sad they were to go home. They were such beautiful, respectful and fun teenage girls. We hope to keep in touch with them through email.

Girls Camp

Here are the girls before setting off to girls camp.
What do you do with two watermelons? Pretend your pregnant of course!

This year's theme was "What is your gift?" Since Christmas is about giving it became the natural symbol. Here are the girls with our ornament about love for the Christmas tree.

The Service Tree--everyday the girls were to grab the tags from the tree and perform the service written on it.

Massage anyone?

Our big service project was collecting donations for The Center for Grieving Children. The center helps children dealing with death, divorce etc. Once we collected all the items we wrapped them all up as our gifts to them.

Casey doesn't have enough paper for this big box--oops.

Lucy helping out.

Olga decorating the packages.

Some of our cute Beehives.

Kate loves taping up the boxes.

Swimming time!!

Naomi says look out below.

The whole group together.

Two of our leaders, LaVon and Ashley, on pool duty.

I think Michelle fell asleep on the job.

Big smiles from Victoria!

Olga is our fish--she is on the high school swim team.

This is Karina showing off the cute bum pockets on her jeans.

When you ask for a picture these are what you get.

Our craft project was making lanterns out of glass jars. The girls loved them and I think they turned out super cute!

All the ward trees together.

What's girls camp without a little hair braiding?

All in all it was a fabulous time and our girls did great. I love spending time with them and it seems strange now not to see them everyday.