Levi is a Senior!

Levi got his braces off on July 21st. I wanted to do before and after pictures but he WILL NOT look at a camera for me. Between Caytlyn and I we were able to sneak a couple of shots with our cell phones but most of them were just glares. After they were off there was no way he we could get him to smile for us. Probably because it was new to him and he doesn't like to be the center of so much attention. Even though all we get are glimpses, we all adore his metal free smile.

It wasn't until I saw his senior pictures that I could just adore his new look. As it started to sink in that he is really a senior and that at this time next year he might not live here and I won't know where he is at all times I got all teared up wondering where the last 18 years went and how my tender little boy turned into a rock star.

You can view all of Levi's pictures at Levi's Senior Pictures or go to our photographers website at MJ Ray Photography.

Michelle (the photographer) is AWESOME! She was great to work with on a tight schedule, took us to several places to get a variety of shots and was a hoot to hang around with for the morning. So all you local people wanting something besides the standard blue background for your kids school pictures or if you want family pictures for Christmas cards . . . here you go. Her info is all on her website.

"It Tickles"

That was Justin's only comment when getting his cast cut off.

August 6th

As the nurse pulled the cast off we saw how pale and dirty his arm really was. He spent the rest of the afternoon flaking off old skin, washing off 7 weeks of hidden dirt and carefully bending his wrist. He was still quite tender for a couple of days and had a blister at the base of his thumb that was sore. He's a little nervous about doing gymnastics but is getting ready for class to start next week by stretching his wrist to loosen it up and hopefully will have the necessary flexibility to be his bounding self again.

Healing Storms

mother nature is frustrated, fuming, furious

the rain is

pelting, pounding, puncturing, pouring

while the wind

whips and lashes, ripping a path of destruction

thunder breaks in shouting a

pounding, grumbling, booming

prelude to the lightning that

slashes, slices, and stabs as it bridges earth and sky

it was a violent, magnificent storm

~~~~~

the sky calms
the clouds clear
the heat subsides
the earth is clean

earth and nature breathe in harmony

~~~~~

a full moon
a scent of rain
a perfect temperature
the first hour of the morning

mother and daughter
barefoot, wrapped in blankets, hair blowing gently in the breeze
walking, talking, laughing, thinking, forgiving

it was a glimpse of eternal joy

August 7, 2009

There was a terrible storm today. It was a beautiful, hot summer afternoon that was interrupted by wind ripping shingles off, the rain pounding so hard that it destroyed garden plants and the thunder was violent enough that when the lighting struck it shook the house. It really only lasted about 30 minutes but it left an impression both on the earth and in my mind.

Later that evening Erika and I had our own storm. There were angry words spoken, old wounds brought up and feelings hurt. I had an empty guilty feeling as we went our own ways, avoiding each other.

I was locking the house up for the night, turning out all the lights, when I realized it was a full moon. I love nights with a full moon. Especially following a rain storm. I stepped out on the porch to look at the moon and found that the nighttime air had a clean, quiet, sleeping feeling to it. The earlier storm came to my mind. I thought of forgiveness. How the earth felt cleansed after the storm. I wanted that for Erika and I.

Knowing that Erika loves rain storms and late night walks I went to her room to suggest that we go outside. It was not premeditated with an agenda, I didn't even know what I planned on saying. I acted on impulse only wanting to erase the storm we had created.

"Erika, are you awake?"

"Huh?"

"Come look at the moon and the sky."

After a few grunts I left her room and went to my own, not wanting to annoy her further. A few minutes later I heard her door open and she came to me.

"Do you want to go for a walk around the block?" I asked.

"Yeah."

We bundled up and went outside. We were both quiet to begin with but after a few weather related comments we gradually started talking, apologizing and letting go of the hurt. After our walk we stopped at the front door and lovingly said goodnight to each other. It was a much better ending to our day than what we had left it at earlier.

As I went to bed I started thinking of the parallels between the two storms. Neither one of them lasted very long but they were a huge interruption to the day. I laid in bed with words coming to mind that expressed how I had felt through both storms and through the cleansing and healing turn of events that followed. I didn't want to forget the lesson in the day so rather than hoping I would remember the next morning what had been going through my mind I got up and typed it.

Take Me Away!

I have been wanting to disappear, to escape all worldly responsibilities, to just get away. Away from tv, phone, computers, school, work, doctors, insurance companies, everything. Where would I go to really be "away"? I haven't been able to figure out this feeling until I was looking through the pictures that were taken in Peru, specifically Machu Picchu. That's where I want to go.

I realized that I never did blog about Machu Picchu because I just don't know the words to describe such a wonderful experience. It was more beautiful than I imaged nature could be. It was peaceful, like being on sacred ground. It was not overcrowded. There were no electronic distractions. I was with family. And I felt I was with God. Yet, we were hiking. How could I feel such a sacred feeling on a mountain in my grubbies? I've decided, how could I sit above the clouds in such a marvelous natural setting and not feel close to God? I have only felt a similar peace in the temple.

Here are some of my favorite shots. (You can look at all of the pictures here: Machu Picchu)

As Kellie stated in her post - it looks like a National Geographic picture and there we are in it! We covered nearly every area that you see here. Stairs, stairs and more stairs. I have never had such a great time doing stairs!

This was our first view, at sunrise, of Machu Picchu. As we took the bus up the mountain we couldn't see the city at all. We parked at a building, headed on a path and as we took the corner this was our morning greeting. I just stood there for a moment in complete awe at what could be built at the very top of these mountains, how much work it must have been, how hidden and protected it was. It was truly "away" and I wish I could take my whole family there.

After my time here I decided that the Rocky Mountains have nothing over the Andes Mountains. The Rockies have that name because they are, well, rocky. The Andes are green and lush all the way to the top, clear above the clouds. Gorgeous!

I wish I could share this experience with all of my kids. It is fun to sit with Levi looking through the pictures and sharing the memory.

I would love to sit on one of the terraces to think, rest, pray, feel the breeze and sun, listen to the birds, and just be. Oh, how I wish it didn't take a 16 hour flight, a train ride, a bus ride, and a tour guide to get there.

Thank you Shawn and Kellie for giving us the opportunity. Thanks Kellie for letting your big sister tag along on your adventures. Thank you, Shawn, for doing all the translating to make the arrangements and for covering so many of the costs. Thank you Brendan, Jeremy and Andie for sharing your laughter and love with a mommy who felt a little lost without her kids. Thanks, Levi, for being willing to leave behind cell service and your girlfriend to hang out with mom for a week. With all of you I share some of my most adventurous memories.

The Totally Fab School Bag

Erika Jo and I had a wonderful Sunday afternoon together. After going to church, making lunch, getting dinner in the crockpot and making rolls we cut out all the fabric and interfacing for her school bag. Then we ate dinner, went on a walk around the temple with Grandpa and Grandma, got the kids to bed and sewed it all up. It came together quite fast. This might not sound like a day of rest but it was one of the most relaxing and rewarding Sunday's I've had in quite a while.

We got her a silver permanent marker that she is going to use to have friends autograph her bag in the black area. It should look pretty cool!

The bag has a full lining so that no stitching is showing and it is also lined with a sturdy interfacing that helps it to hold it's shape.

On a previous trip Erika picked out the fabric that she wanted. We tweeked a few things to make it just the way she wanted and she even free-handed the curve for the flap (since we were to lazy to go upstairs to find a lid that could be our guide). She didn't want the pockets under the flap (that were shown in the pattern), she did want the back pockets but we were short on fabric so made the pockets the size she wanted, and we did one medium pocket on the inside. We also lengthened the strap to made the bag sit on her hip where she wanted. And since the medium size was going to be to small for a binder and the large seemed a little too big we did an in between size to fit her stuff in perfectly. With Erika choosing her own fabric, designing it the way she wanted and sewing a good part of it on her own, all of her expectations were exceeded. She loves it!

Modeling her new school bag . . . and her outrageously priced Hollister hat (that we got for $4).

I realized about half way into the project that Erika was pulling the same trick on me that I had pulled as a teen with my piano teacher and my mom. Most of it is due to lack of confidence, some is credited to laziness, but I caught on. The deal was that she was going to actually sew her bag up but since she hasn't sewn in a long time she was using "just show me this step" and asking TONS of questions (which gets the adult to just do it themselves rather than taking all the time to explain the same thing over and over again). It was all a ploy to get me to do all the sewing but eventually I did catch on and she finished it up. She is a bit of a perfectionist so I can tell you that her sewing was immaculate.

She also has fabric to do a makeup bag . . . maybe next Sunday.

The Sugar Affair

I've been having cravings lately . . . very tempting, hard to resist cravings. Milk Duds, Peanut MnM's, Bridge Mix, carmel popcorn, fudge, pecan pie, DQ Snickers Blizzard, McFlurry, pretty much anything that wouldn't be good for me. I have been doing my best to resist because I know that the one night stand will turn into that annoying pocket of fat that peaks out over my jeans, the headache that could go on for who knows how long, guilt, pimples, more cravings, pretty much nothing good for me.

The treat isn't good for me. The results aren't good for me. I know this. I want it anyway!!

LeRoy has been complaining lately that he is getting a belly. I really feel little sympathy for him. He has had an ongoing affair with Little Debbie for 19 years. Not just a weekly affair but a daily, 5-6 times a week affair. And there is his morning ritual of drowning some simple carb in thick, sticky syrup, which, admittedly, I have enabled. His activity level in the past could keep up with this constant consumption of processed, preserved, high fructosed junk but it is starting to catch up with him. (I'm beginning to formulate an FHE object lesson in this - eventually your transgressions will catch up with you, hehehe). Now that he is limping and moving at snail pace compared to the energizer bunny pace that he has always known, Little Debbie is demanding her profit.

Still, his belly is nothing! When he gains 40-60 pounds in nine months, six times over, and denied himself any sugar for at least a week then we will compare sob stories. Until then, I will secretly glare at him for all the years of sinfully sweet indulgence that he has enjoyed, and I have denied myself.

And I'll probably give in to the Milk Duds that Caytlyn left in kitchen. No stop! Don't do it! I can't resist. I need it! Just once won't hurt. It's not worth it!

I'm Dilated!

I never thought I'd say that again!

Yesterday the optometrist put drops in my eyes to dilate them so that he could do a test. He did it in the afternoon so that I could "sleep it off". When I got home my kids started laughing and telling me that I look like Puss in Boots from Shrek. My eyes are not actually that big but wearing my soda pop thick glasses makes them look so much worse.

Erika even begged me to put my hands up under my chin and pout. I did, they wanted a picture, I allowed it, took one look and deleted it. A picture close enough to show my eyes shows far to much of my wrinkles, age spots, blemishes, pimples, and the bags under my eyes, and I think there was a hint of grey in my roots.

This morning the sun seemed fluorescent and I could hardly keep my eyes open. I looked in the mirror and saw that I still have huge pupils. I could be mistaken for a druggie! I called to see how long this should take to wear off since I had been told that I would sleep it off. It could take up to 24 hours!

Erika in Wonderland

Erika spent a week in Washington with my sister Kate, her husband Mike and their two boys Korben and Logan.

Though I've heard of the many adventures that she had I have a hard time matching it all up with the pictures. I wish I could tell the story with as much enthusiasm and drama as Erika and Kate could but I can only give you a teaser (and hopefully link it to Kate's details after she posts it). The most fun stories included:

* a boy stalking her because she is so darn gorgeous and evidently there is a shortage of hotties in Washington (hey, Kate said it, not me)
* searching the haunted house for Kate's contact so that Erika wouldn't have to drive in Portland - they found it!!!

The Enchanted Forest in Oregon

Playing with the boys - lovin' em just like she does her baby brothers.

Hiking Multomah Falls with Kate

Visiting the Portland LDS Temple

And her new love: the ocean

Somewhere in here they also visited a war reenactment, a super long bridge and a shipwreck. It's always fun to hang out with the Harrisons!

And it wouldn't be an Erika post without a few silly faces, "rock on" signs and an occasional tongue shot.

Sew Crazy

About 4 weeks ago I was sitting on the couch watching Kellie cross-stitch. I felt a little twinge of "I need a project" and I happened to say it out loud. While Kellie was out shopping she found me a project, one that I had been eyeing at the local craft store, so I was excited to get started.

What was going to be a simple project for me, and a nice scripture bag for Kellie, turned into 11 bags, 6 of which brought in a $200 donation to the family missionary fund at our family reunion auction last weekend. That $10 pattern and $40 worth of fabric had quite a return!

Oh, and I got a new sewing machine out of this project as well. My old one (which really was only 9 years old) was a piece of junk. I was getting so frustrated with it breaking the thread and skipping stitches and the worst was the annoying sound it would make. It sounded like it was repeating over and over "I'm mad, I'm mad, I'm mad" as I would sew and it bounced around so bad that it seemed to be trying to run away. As I was sewing at the table next to LeRoy, the thing threw the whole needle part at me. Not just the needle, the whole needle part. It broke off and was thrown in my lap. The grumpy thing was throwing a temper tantrum.

We couldn't figure out how to fix it and LeRoy had seen me getting more and more frustrated as I worked so he called a place in Idaho Falls, we made a trip, they took a trade in (ha!) and I came home with a new sewing machine. Though it is a top brand machine it is at the bottom of the sewing totem pole but still, oh, sew nice for me! It hums as it sews and sits calmly in place not rejecting its calling in life at all. I am shocked at how fast a project can come together when you don't have to rethread the bugger every 4 inches!

Had I been stuck using the old machine this post could have been about 1 bag. Instead I can't quit . . . you'll see.

I am terrible at reading sewing instructions, even the ones with diagrams, because I need to see it hands on. That's how I was taught. I decided to do a practice bag using flannel scraps that I had from my pajama making days and I came up with these 2 bags.

It was very helpful to do a cost-free, guilt-free-if-I-mess-it-up practice run so that I could learn how to do the outside pockets, inside pockets, handles and lining - none of which had I done before. Kellie's daughter Andie gets the lady bug one and the green and pink one was sold at the auction for $25.

After a grueling decision process in the fabric department (choosing the fabric is the part that I DON"T like about sewing), purchasing 8 fat quarters, 2 yards of fabric, and 3 yards of pelon, I managed to come up with these:

I followed the exact pattern with these, even down to color choice and fabrics.

I still had so much fabric left that I decided to do 2 big ones just to use up the fabric. They turned out nice but I was realizing that I don't really like patchwork for a bag. My personality wants something a little more simple. Still, they were practical, useful, new and fun to put together.

With the final scraps from the material that I had purchased I created my own designs. These were my favorite so far:

When I was taking pictures of them to send to Kellie so that she could choose the one that was to be hers (since she bought the pattern and gave me the project), I realized that I had pieced together enough squares to make a small quilt:

Three days worth of sewing (and I still managed to feed my family, go to a jewelry making party, take kids to the dentist and keep the house somewhat tidy) and this is what I had to show for all the thread and corner scraps scattered all over the floor:

While I was cutting all the fabric Nathan kept trying to take off with Andie's bag and asking when I was going to make him one. I explained that these were bags for girls, to which he stated matter-of-factly: "then make me a boy bag". I couldn't resist.

I took some of the blue pajama flannel scraps and made him a bag. He packed it around for 3 days straight and now uses it to grocery shop with our pretend food in our pretend kitchen.

By the time I had the 7 bags made from the fabric that I bought, I was actually kind of tired of looking at it and couldn't decided if I really even liked the bags. I decided to try one out during a quick trip to Idaho Falls. I got 2 compliments on the bag so I figured it must not be too bad. Somewhere in that trip I decided to do a bag with my own idea, not the pieced look, and with a neutral colors: black and white.

I have my favorite of these 3 also but overall I like them better than the colored bags. However, it seems that I will be doing more bags with a variety of colors: Erika wants one with red/black/white and one with multi-colored fabric, Caytlyn wants orange, (they want the large bags so that they can use them for school).

All of this because I thought out loud. Thanks for the project Kellie, I've had fun!

Word Association

Sometime last May:

Nathan: Where's Daddy?
Mom: He's still in Montana.
Nathan (with a quizical look on his face): Hannah Montana?


Sometime this week:

Nathan: Where's Daddy?
Mom: He's in Indiana.
Nathan (with eyes wide open in amazed wonder): Indiana Jones?