Wishful thinking

Sigh.

Doesn't that look wonderful?

I can't wait for spring.

Sew, very old one! Sew like the wind!

I decided that I'm going to get back into sewing - a hobby I enjoyed a long time ago.


I haven't really sewn (except for an occasional item here or there) for quite a few years.
And since most of the subjects that I want to sew for aren't living in my house anymore, I decided that a dress form would be helpful. But the ones you can buy in the fabric stores or online seem really expensive, so after some encouragement from Rachel, I made my own! (Rachel had seen some instructions for making your own dress forms on a couple different sewing blogs).


A roll of brown packing tape and about half an hour later, this is what I ended up with.







Yep, that's Bekah's figure right there. She had fun pretending she was being mummified, and I ended up with a dress form that will hopefully be helpful as I sew for her while she's at school.

So far in my new sewing venture, I've made a dress each for Abby and Megan (no picture), and I've made this shirt for Megan (I've got another one for Abby in process).





Here are a few of my upcoming projects.







In addition to the dress I've started for Bekah, I'm going to sew a dress for Rachel (she's going to pick out the fabric when she's here in a couple of weeks), and one for myself. Then I want to make some curtains and pillows for the house.



That should keep me going for a few weeks.

And it only took me 25 years

I've been making whole wheat bread for... oh, about 25 years. Sometimes it has turned out pretty well, and many more times not so good.

But thanks to Bekah's roommate's family recipe (which I also saw almost an exact replica of today on another blog), I have finally made a light, soft, fluffy, DELICIOUS loaf of whole wheat bread! Yay!!!

Here's a picture in case you don't believe me.

I guess the secret is adding wheat gluten and dough enhancer. Who knew? (Apparently everybody but me!)

Here's a link to the recipe http://hubpages.com/hub/Perfect-Homemade-Bread

2 posts in 2 days?! Crazy, I know!

I just wanted to add a little postscript to my earlier post about Christmas. There were two things I wanted to share but didn't there because my post was getting too long, and also because I was too lazy to continue.

First, Bekah's friend Evan came for a visit from Kentucky the week before Christmas. It was fun to have him here and to get to know him better. We went bowling with them, and I'll have to say, we were all pleasantly surprised at our bowling scores! Maybe NOT practicing is the way to go?! Rebekah and Evan did a lot of other fun things too, and had a great time.

Here's a picture of Evan and Bekah (most of the pictures are on Bekah's camera, so she'll have to make her own post to share those):





Second, this video is one Bekah took on Christmas night when the kids and grandkids were here. Even though there were new toys to be played with, Bekah's old doll stroller was the hit of the night. Preston figured out that he fit in the stroller, and Abby figured out that she had a real-live doll to push around. Needless to say, it was very entertaining!

Christmas 2009 - gone already?!

It's hard to believe that Christmas has already come and gone! It was fun to have our kids and grandkids around. Little children and Christmas are a great combination!

We really missed having Rachel and Jeff here, but it was fun to be able to Skype with them and feel like they were almost here.

Santa Train

Today I took Preston and Abby on the Santa Train (aka the Heber Valley Railroad). They both liked seeing the cows, sheep, and horses out the window of the train.

They were also very excited whenever the train blew its whistle.

Neither one of them seemed to be thrilled with Santa himself though. Preston started crying when Santa leaned over to talk to him, and after Santa had passed us and gone on to the other children, Abby said "Santa is not very nice." When I asked her what she meant, she said "He didn't bring me any presents. He was supposed to bring me a kitchen."

So I guess Santa was a failure.

But they both loved the candy canes.

Giving Thanks

It was fun to get together over Thanksgiving. We missed having Jeff and Rachel with us, but it was fun to see everyone else and spend some time together.

We are so thankful for our wonderful family! What a blessing families are!

All of our married children went to their in-laws homes for Thanksgiving day. We got together the day after Thanksgiving at our ward building for a Field/Baardson/Jones family gathering.








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