Young Women's Winter Retreat!

Can I just say, I was NOT excited when our Young Women started begging that we do a winter retreat again this year. It sounded like a LOT of work and time that I could be spending doing something else. However, I am so glad they talked us into it. It was WONDERFUL!!! I had such a great time. Our YW president works for Wasatch state park and has a great job there. She was able to get us a cabin that they use up there, free of charge, We all enjoyed being together and being up in the mountains. I can't wait to do it again next year!!!!!

We had LOTS of good food. They made their own pizzas on pita bread that were amazing for dinner Friday night. We had just had a workshop on some of the values we need to incorporate into our lives, so we had service sausage, charity cheese, honest olives, patient pepperoni, sacred sauce and modest mushrooms. Then after dinner we had a short workshop on Sabbath day observance and had ice cream Sundaes for dessert. We had French toast and scrambled eggs for breakfast and sloppy joes for lunch right before we left.

I was in charge of the craft project, Lani found this fun idea that she did with her girls. It is this years Mutual theme cut in vinyl and put on wood. The girls had a fun time doing them.

The finished product! They all turned out GREAT!!!! (Thanks Lani for the fun idea)

There was a fun hill right outside our cabin, that the girls went sledding on.

We played lots of games. We played, Uno, Pig Mania, Apples to Apples,
"I have never," and Pit. It was so much fun!!!

We ended the day, with a team building activity, where each group was given tinker toys, and they were to build the tallest free standing tower that they could. Then we talked about how important it was to have a strong foundation for their tower in order for it to stand. We related it to testimonies, and what you can do to build a strong foundation for your testimony.
 

March Birthday Celebration!

We have lots of Springtime babies in our family! Mackenzie, me, Emily, Ric, Chandler, and Ricky. We try to get together, on the months that we have birthdays, to celebrate them with a birthday dinner. Our "Big family" has gotten so BIG, that we no longer fit in my kitchen, even though I thought it was fairly large when we bought this house. Now, we have to eat in my family room when we have the Big family over for dinner. I had two 6 ft banquet tables, and would have to borrow 2 every time we got together. It got to be kind of a pain, so I decided to spend our Christmas money from mom and buy 2 more. I started setting up for our March birthday celebration, and realized that we still needed one for the food. Holy cow, how many banquet tables does one family REALLY need. I thought that I must have something else I could use. I then remembered that I have a ping pong table, that the boys had just been playing with last weekend after dinner. I keep it in our utility closet downstairs. I brought that out and WALAHHHHH, we could fit 14 around it. I felt like Robynn with her table top that she can fit a ton of people around. It worked perfectly!!! I was so excited. 2 twin sheets fit just right for table cloths and we were all set.


We had 30 people here, I think the only one missing from our Utah Birks group, was Cierra, who has a calling in her ward that she needs to be there Sunday evenings. Here are a few shots of those who were here.
Mom and Dad

Chandler

Aida, Krista and Matt

Jeff and Ric (Sorry I didn't remember to say "smile")

Kathy, Chip Elycia and Lani
3 goofy girls, Libbie, Hailey, and Molly

Josh, Merijane, and Katie

Jamie, Emily and Abbie

Mike and Laurie

Chip and Elycia

Stacy and Pierce

Jamie and Jordan

Our final cute couple, Chase and Morgan,will be married in about 2 1/2 weeks!!!! So exciting!

Last week, I had a day off, and went over to mom and dad's to help them go through some of their decorations in their storage room. Ric, Kathy, Chandler, and Carissa, had been over on Monday and brought them some awesome shelves to organize their storage room. Mom had lots of fun decorations, that she made years ago, and hasn't used for a long time, and wanted to get rid of. I knew we were having a family party that weekend, so I loaded them up and we had a Garage giveaway after dinner.

More fun stuff! Some of the kids, (mainly the ones with more room for storage) went home with quite a few treasures, and others with just one or two things. It was lots of fun, and I hope they will enjoy having something that mom made in their home.
 

Come sew with Grammy!

Saturday was the day we got together to make the little girls some fun spring dresses. The first picture is the dress Krista bought for Hailey from Old Navy, for $20. She hated spending that much on a little summer dress, and they didn't have a matching one in Aida's size, so she wondered if she could make one for less. We went shopping and found very similar fabric, for $10 a yard. Luckily, I had a coupon for 50% off that started the next week, so we waited until then and went to buy fabric. When Merijane and Emily saw the Old Navy dress, they really liked it too, so I came up with the great idea to buy enough fabric to make all 6 granddaughters dresses. (4 yards to make 6 dresses at $5 (with coupon) = $20. With the fabric for the slip/lining and the band/straps/flowers, I think it was about $30 for 6 dresses. NOT TOO BAD!!! Luckily, Krista already had a pattern. I planned a sewing day and invited them all to come.


We wanted a little wider strap, and a little closer together so they wouldn't fall of their shoulders like the original one did. Walah!!!!

We started our project at about 11:00, and sewed until we ate lunch at about 1:30. We had the 3 big girls dresses almost done by then. We had rigatoni for lunch, cleaned up our mess, then went back to work. I had the big girls dresses all cut out, but didn't know what size to make the 3 little ones. Krista and Merijane measured the little girls, and we were amazed, that they were almost the same size as the big girls. (a few inches shorter, but not much difference around) They got their dresses all cut out, and began sewing. At 4:00, everyone was tired, and we had just hems and bands to finish, but we decided to clean up, since I have the Big Birks birthday party here tomorrow. Josh and Merijane, stayed and helped me get all set up for that. Here are a few pictures of our fun day! Everyone did such a great job of sewing, and the little girls were WONDERFUL!

Katie and Aida played for just a few minutes, then went down for their morning naps so their moms could sew like crazy!!!

Katie loves rocking in my rocker. I was so excited to see she has enough hair to do tiny pigtails!!!

The big girls had a fun time playing games with Opi. We felt bad that Molly had a cough, so she missed out on all the fun.

Abbie played on the floor with toys, and when she got tired of that.......

she liked helping her mom sew.

The little 1 year olds had fun playing in our play house. It is just the perfect size for them!

Krista took her girls dresses home to finish, but here are the other 4. We just have to hem the babies and add the polka dot band to them.

Here is a close up of Molly's dress almost done! All we need to do is make the flower to go on it. We were really tired, but happy with how they turned out
 

A trip to the Dinosaur Museum

Just as I was walking out the door of school today, Jamie called to invite us to go to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point with them. Josh and Merijane had been wanting to take their girls too, and were also available, so off we went. Unfortunately, he had not been able to get ahold of Krista, so she'll have to take her girls with them the next time they go. We had a great time! That place is amazing.

There was so much to see.

Everyone enjoyed trying to uncover dinosaur bones in the large sandpile

Playing in the wet sand was even more fun than the dry sand

"I wonder what this button does?"

Katie had fun looking at all the things and watching the girl play

Abbie was a nice girl to take to the museum.

Abbie and Emily

We found a room that had a HUGE stuffed dinosaur body and all kinds of heads and body parts to build a dinosaur. It needed a nice big tail!

Jamie helped add some legs to the dinosaur.

All Done! It was quite the creation, with lots of legs, so we named it Legasaurus.