Latest projects

OK, so these are all pretty simple. Nothing too amazing, but it's still something, right! This first one is a cute/cheap idea for a wedding gift. I don't even remember the site I found it on. But it's really simple. Take a #10 food storage can, or something similar with a lid and decorate the outside of it with scrapbook paper and a label that reads - Dates In A Can - or something cheesy like that. Then you print off 35 date ideas that I got off of this site onto different colored card stock. Fold them up individually and stick them into your can. (I did save the ideas on my desk top, so if you want them, let me know and I'll e-mail them over to you) You could also add a couple gift certificates with a couple of the date ideas if you wanted. I did want to, but as you know we live no where near anything to get gift certificates to. So, they probably think I am lame, but they'll thank me later when they have lots of free fun ideas to choose from, right!?! Hahaha. I hope so anyway. :)

I made these for the kids teacher's gifts with a note that said "Thanks a Bunch". I thought they would be a cute decoration for their desks.
THEN, on the Make it and Love it site I found THIS tutorial to make this easy dress. You take a t-shirt that's too short for you girly and cut it off and add fabric to the bottom and a cute waist band thing that ties in the back. She loves it!!! And I love that she loves it. So. Much. FUN! My sister Tiff made one for her baby that is so cute also. That motivated me to get Kaiya's done - Thanks Tiffany!. I did it a little different than the tutorial because I had already made the bottom from a pattern quit a while ago. It was going to be a dress and I just never finished it. So I just took the bottom and added one of her old shirts, Nice.

I wanted a picture of her in it and Katelin wanted in on the picture taking fun. They are such fun friends.

Yippeee, Katelin's THREE!!!

My baby just keeps growing up! She is just so much fun to have in our family. We all just love her so much. She makes us laugh everyday. She is my little talker. She loves to tell me stories and sing, whatever - just as long as there is noise coming out of her mouth she is good. :) On her birthday we opened presents and ate her choice of Peanut Butter Crunch cereal for breakfast. Then we got ready for the day and headed out to Goblin Valley for some climbing fun.

She wanted a ladybug cake. So, I tried. That's all I have to say about that. Hahaha.She got this cute baby that makes all sorts of adorable baby noises.

Katelin and Kaiya have had all sorts of fun playing with this little tea set my mom and Dave gave her. She got lots of adorable clothes from her grandparents too. She loves them too.

Yes, we even brought Sally along and she loved following the kids all over Goblin Valley.
Burke caught this lizard for Kaleb. It was way too fast for Kaleb to catch.

You can't tell by the look on her face, but she really wanted to hold this lizard so bad. She did really well holding it too and didn't squish it to death! So impressed!
Later we went to Hanksville and ate at this place:
It was good. Katelin loved the shake, that's my girl!
While we were there we even saw some flowering cactus's.
And a big rock with a gas station inside. What will they think of next! Cool.

What a fun day with our little cutie pie.

Kaiya's class picnic

I was able to be a helper on the kindergarten picnic this year. We all walked over to the city park for lunch and play time. Katelin and I had fun eating with Kaiya and her friends. It was fun to hang out with them at the park after too and watch them play. Katelin just gets right in there and plays with the big kids. She was the monster and everyone would scream and run away from her. It was really funny to watch.


Katelin the MONSTER!!!


And here she is on her last day of school, last Friday. She had her testing on Monday and now she's ready for first grade!!! Yayeeee!!!

Choir and Art

Burke's classes did their end of year concert last week. I think this was his biggest choir yet. They really did a great job on all of their songs! I really am impressed at what a small town school can do sometimes. Then after that Burke had set up an art show of some of the art pieces the students had completed this year. Again, I was so impressed! He had asked two artists from the community to come and be judges of their work and they put ribbons on the winning pieces before the show. Really cool.

I was going to take some pictures, but the kids wanted to - so here's some pictures they took of the art work.

This one of Jimmy Hendricks is my favorite. I just think it is amazing! And the girl who drew it doesn't like art much and has never even had an art class! I just don't know if I can believe that!!! So good.


Here's a couple more the kids took of Burke's art work from this year. I didn't get the other ones. Maybe later. He also just finished one to enter into the museum for their art show. All of his students are required to enter one also, so he decided to do one too this year. It's fun to see him drawing again. He really enjoys it and is just so good. Something I just don't do, so it's fun to see other peoples work.

Um....hi

Well, still no camera. I've had no luck locating it - so sad! I just feel lost without my camera! My nice mom is lending me her's until I get another one - or at least for Katelin's birthday next weekend. That's what I mainly need it for. So I'll have some pics to share soon.

This week was good fun. I had YW on Wednesday - oh, yah - I'm the Laurel's advisor now and just love it! We are planning camp and so that's exciting. The girls are just so crazy and fun, I love being around them and watching them grow. Such fun/loud energy they have. I forgot. :)

Thursday I took Kaleb to the dentist. He had to get a couple of fillings and his retainers came in that we had been waiting for. And he HATES them! It is SO hard to make that boy keep those in. He's already misplaced them a few times and we thought he really lost the top one today. That was really stressful. I just thought "really? We've only had them for 3 days!!!" I was pretty upset, but decided to calm myself down (Burke was gone Home Teaching - so he was no help - hahaha) and make a teaching moment out of this. I asked the kids to come over to me and I asked them if they thought Heavenly Father knew where the retainer was and they said yes. Kaiya sounded the most hopeful about it all and wanted to be the one to say the prayer. So she did. We went and searched and searched and nothing. Then later Kaiya went into her room and came out with a big smile - she had found it in her room! We were all pretty happy about that and said a Thank you prayer. It's really neat to have those moments and have my kids teach me again about faith when mine is lacking.

On Thursday was Bunko, which is always fun. Lots of laughs with the ladies. Good therapy for us all. Amazing what some girl time can do for you. Also amazingly much funner then the dentist was. Ahhhh!

Saturday Kaleb's cub scouts had a Day Camp with the Stake in Moab. I helped out with rides. Before we left we noticed our van had a flat tire! Of course. So we went over and filled it up with air and the guy there said he could still hear it leaking so he fixed it even though their shop wasn't even open yet. Such a blessing. That could have been really scary. The Day Camp was really fun. The boys had a great time learning about camp fires - and cooking a little hot dog in it, doing a scavenger hunt, making up a story and then acting it out, making finger print animals and playing some other games. We then ate lunches we brought from home. It was really fun to go and watch Kaleb have fun being a little scout.

Anyway, it was a good week over all. :) That's all for now folks!!

Women's Conference

Last Thursday and Friday all of us sister's and my mom were able to attend Women's Conference together. And boy was it good! Except for that I lost my camera there!!! So I stole these pics off of Juli's blog. Thanks Juli!

I loved it when all of the ladies met together in the Marriott Center. Talk about cool, hearing everyone sing together = AMAZING. I loved it.

Look at that sight -
Thursday night they had a concert for us all with Hillary Weeks as the host - she was so funny - I had know idea. And my bishops son, Dallin Bayless, is an amazing singer and he was there to perform too along with Alex Boye, Michael McClain and Mercy River. And the Fab Five clogging sisters from America's Got Talent were there too. We loved watching them on that show so it was fun to see them in person too. That was awesome.

We had fun at the hotel too. Laughing at who knows what!
Here's a pic of Robyn thrown in here to prove she was there since she missed the group shot! Hahaha, sorry Robyn. :)
Found this cute picture on my sister Tiff's blog from our fun time also. Here's the cute girls again:
Some of my favorite things that I learned or re-learned this conference were:

• Julie Beck reminded us that even if everything else isn't working out for us that day, we still have our smile.
  
• During the talk "Joyfully living within our means" I felt empowered as to my role in the home! I felt excited to try harder to save money doing whatever I can. That is my job and I look forward to doing much better in that area. Also she said that we are responsible to cloth our children, not decorate them. Meaning we don't need to buy the most expensive thing, not that I do, but when they get older she said that she tells her kids how much she would pay for something and then if they want something more expensive then they can pay the difference. Great idea! Then the professor that spoke after her had a bunch of great websites that I need to go through and then I'll post them later once I make sure they are right. They sound really helpful for finances and other things and they are all free. Really cool.
• During the class on Healthy Eating and Exercise they said there is no such thing as a good food and bad food - just good diets and bad diets. Quantity and frequency we eat things is what is important. They also talked about exercising in groups which I do! Some girls in my ward and I have been working out together at the church every morning for the past year after we drop the older kids off at school. The little ones play together and we work out. It is great!
• One sister talked about how we make excuses for ourselves because of hard times in our lives. She said that we are not the exception, but the plan. We can't go around our trials, must go through them. We need to stand up and DO! Not wait for the perfect things to happen in life. Let the Lord help us.
  
• Giving kids the gift of work - Take time to show them how. 3 P's of teaching kids to work are ' Partner up, Positive and Patient. My WORK and my Glory. Part of becoming like God is to work. He shared a story about baby chicks and how when they were hatching someone tried to help them a long by cracking the eggs a little bit so then could push through easier. Once they got through they were crippled. They weren't able to work hard and push with their legs to strengthen them fully. With kids it is also so important to let them work to strengthen themselves and teach them valuable lessons in life. "Work is the antidote for anxiety, an ointment for sorrow and a doorway to possibility."
• My favorite quote from Sister Oaks in the closing session was "Sometimes we focus more on counting calories than counting our blessings."
  

There was so much more too, I'm so grateful I was able to go and be re-fueled as a mother, wife and individual person. It was much needed!