sew wonderful

i am strangely proud of my less-than-perfect first sewing project- a throw pillow for my bedroom. my fabulous little sister (who has major, ninja-like sewing skills) was kind enough to bring over her sewing machine (i have a wicked old hand-me-down that needs to be repaired), shop with me for fabric, and walk me through the sewing process. i had a lot of fun and in my constant striving to be a better homemaker i hope that i will be able to tackle more projects soon (and that it will get easier)! anyway, i just wanted to share my masterpiece!

decision '08

while i am sort of sick of hearing about this election (and we have 8 months to go!), i do want to come out and support my Guy Smiley, Mitt Romney. in a time where the family doesn't mean much to a lot of people, i'm proud that Mitt has taken things this far. it's an uphill climb from here to score the party's nomination for President, but he can do it. there are a lot of uncertain times ahead for us, and i think that Mitt has a better shot than anyone out there at getting us through unscathed. it's not really my thing to get too into politics, but i really think that Mitt is worth getting behind. i just wanted to put this out there because it's a close race and it's up to us to support who we believe to be our best option and try to shape this race and this country's future.

i'm officially stepping off of my soapbox now. go Mitt!

okay, one more thing. how could you not vote for this guy? his name is MITT for crying out loud. how cool is that?

oh yeah - for those of you who missed the Guy Smiley reference...

a Prophet's testimony

"I hope that all of you will remember that on this Sabbath day you heard me bear my witness that this is God's holy work. The vision given the Prophet Joseph in the grove of Palmyra was not an imaginary thing. It was real. It occurred in the broad light of day. Both the Father and the Son spoke to the boy. He saw Them standing in the air above him. He heard Their voices. He gave heed to Their instruction.
"It was the resurrected Lord who was introduced by His Father, the great God of the universe. For the first time in recorded history, both the Father and the Son appeared together to part the curtains and open this, the last and final dispensation, the dispensation of the fullness of times.
"The Book of Mormon is all that it purports to be—a work recorded by prophets who lived anciently and whose words have come forth "to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations" (Book of Mormon title page).
"The priesthood has been restored under the hands of John the Baptist and Peter, James, and John. All the keys and authority pertaining to eternal life are exercised in this Church.
"Joseph Smith was and is a prophet, the great Prophet of this dispensation. This Church, which carries the name of the Redeemer, is true.
"I leave you my testimony, my witness, and my love for each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

President Gordon B. HinckleyApril 1, 2006, Sunday morning session of the 176th Annual World General Conference

Our Beloved Prophet

my testimony of the Church was formed on the foundation of my knowledge that President Hinckley was called of God to preside over this Church just as Joseph Smith was before him. i love him so much. he will be missed greatly. i am devastated that i will not be able to see him this weekend and i cannot imagine a world in which his quick wit and easy smile can't be found. my only consolation is that he can now be with his wife beyond the veil. i love you, President Hinckley. thank you for the foundation of faith that you have helped to lay in my life. God be with you 'til we meet again.

babies put everything in their mouths

including their cousins apparently...

i hate the tooth fairy

well, earlier this week we found a tooth in avery's little mouth! very exciting stuff... or at least it WOULD be exciting if only she hadn't turned into godzilla to produce it. poor kid. anyway, here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks. she's getting so big!

avery is enjoying having her aunt Mallory close by us in idaho! mallory is an art history major at BYUI and has been down to idaho falls to play with avery lots -- and take a zillion pictures of her! mall's emphasis is photography.

here's avery trying so hard to sit up. she's almost there! a few more training sessions with her baby einstein abs of steel video and she'll be there!

lunchtime! klayton hates feeding avery solids because of how messy she gets. i think it's cute... until she sticks out her squash-covered tongue and blows her food all over me. that's her favorite way of saying "i'm done!"

avery is mesmerised by the camera when we pull it out. she likes it even more when we turn it around and play her video of herself. apparently she realizes how good-looking she is. she gets that err self-confidence from her dad.

guilty pleasures

i've been thinking about guilty pleasures a lot, perhaps because i've been indulging in my 2 favorites a bit lately. to me a guilty pleasure is something that your friends and family would be super embarrassed of you for liking/doing. so, i have decided to break the cycle of shame and guilt. what am i, anyway, catholic? maybe if i share a couple of mine i will feel less guilty. or maybe you will feel better about your guilty pleasures because mine are so lame. :) enjoy this rare insight into my umm dark side...

#1 No Bake Cookies

okay, not so guilty, right? wrong. these may be innocent if you indulge every so often. but, unfortunately, my sister-in-law, mandy, found the perfect no bake recipe and what should be a once-a-month thing has sadly turned once, sometimes twice, a week. i now keep all of these ingredients in my cupboard at all times. other no bake recipes have more chocolate (which is never a bad thing) or things like coconut, but these perfectly balance peanut butter and chocolate, and the dry milk in them makes them oh so creamy. here's the recipe in case your stomach just growled like mine did...

1 c. sugar

1/2 c. dry milk

1 1/2 tsp cocoa

2 Tbs butter

1/3 c. water

Bring to a boil in a saucepan. Boil 1 minute over medium heat. Remove from heat and add:

1/2 c. peanut butter

1 c. rolled oats

1 tsp. vanilla

Drop spoonfuls onto wax paper. Cool and enjoy!

**Special Note** if you make these just for yourself, as i sometimes do, they keep super in the freezer for 2 or 3 days. once they are cool (i refrigerate mine so they harden a bit) just chuck them in a freezer ziplock and enjoy for days (mine rarely last that long). :)

#2 Gilmore Girls

i have been made fun of so much in the last little bit for this one that i figured i should just let it out -- I love the Gilmore Girls. ahh, that's better. it's a super silly show and i know that, but i love it. i started watching it after i got home from utah with avery. she slept so much, and would practically only sleep in my arms, so i did a lot of tv watching. they play an episode every day on ABC Family and pretty soon i was planning my day around my show. there are so many things that i don't like or agree with in the show, and yet... yes, addicted is the right word. anyway, it's a show about a mother and a daughter, it's cleverly written, and my own blessed mother got me the entire series on DVD for Christmas. i'm currently in the middle of the 7th and final season (i started watching my DVDs instead of ABC Family from about the 3rd season on). in order to watch it i know have to sneak an episode in during nap time or have klayton play with avery in the other room, but it is still fun. check it out if you're into witty writing and being made fun of by your siblings (mine are merciless on this subject).

so... there it is. will i give these up? don't count on it. my shame is now on display, so i'll skip giving these up for Lent.

update

we made it home safely and have settled in as much as we could in a weekend. there is still a bunch to do, and i am so excited to get all our stuff organized! i know it sounds weird, but i totally find going through all of our things really... i don't know, like, cleansing. haha. that sounds really funny but i can't think of a better word. it's good to purge every once in a while, right? unless it's your lunch or something. that's probably not okay. anyway, klayton started work on re-opening the restaurant today, so i pretty much sent him off to work this morning planning on not seeing him until May. he's going to be consumed in getting things together and has set a prospective opening date for mid-Feb. i left our camera at our in-laws last weekend, but i will post pics of our place and the restaurant and the cutest kid ever (aka avery) as soon as i can.

OH! i almost forgot our other piece of big news! yesterday my mother-in-law called and let us know that my father-in-law (who has been a Stake Clerk in Rexburg for a billion years) got the entire family tickets to the dedication of the Rexburg Temple the first weekend of February!!! no, not tickets to the broadcast, but to the ACTUAL dedication. i'm going to be in the same room INSIDE the temple as President Hinckley! i am so stoked. and my in-laws aren't even going! they are going to watch all of the grandchildren and let all of their kids and their spouses go to the dedication. what a great treat. i'd miss the silly old superbowl any day to rub elbows with the Prophet. we all know that the Pats are going to blow the Giants away, anyway. :) so... if you're jealous and you know it clap your hands! :)

sorry- i've been singing songs to the kid too much lately.

big news

well, we're doing it again. for the second time in two months my little family and i are picking up our lives and moving away. in november, when life kind of fell apart and klayton's parent's restaurant closed (putting klayton, who was waiting at and managing it, out of a job), we decided to move in with my family in las vegas until we could recoup our finances so klayton could go back to school this fall. now we are picking up everything and moving back to idaho. klayton's parents were able to sell the restaurant to a local entrepreneur, and he has hired klayton back to run it. though we both consider idaho our home, we weren't looking for this opportunity, but when the new owner said he'd pay klayton what we asked and worked out some other terms with us, we couldn't refuse. i am so excited to get to go back to idaho, to have my own home again, my own kitchen, my own life. despite being buried in snow this time of year, it really is my home. it's been weird to live with my parents again the last two months, but now i'm super sad as well that we won't be near them. they have been so great to us and we could seriously never repay them for all of the help they've given us. my mom is already getting upset and really bumming me out every time she thinks of not having her grandbaby near. whew, life is complicated. anyway, i just wanted to put this out there. i'm super stressed and tired even thinking about boxing up all of our things again in the next couple of days (that's right, we decided to move on Saturday the 12th, we are moving this Thursday, and Klayton starts work one week from today), so i had to vent some to my little blog. hopefully things will work out. wish us luck!

joseph smith study

i am so stoked to study from the new Joseph Smith manual in RS for the next two years! it's going to be awesome... if only avery would give me 10 minutes of peace in the third hour of church... but that's another post. one of my goals for this year is to look over the lesson before church (and, no, checking it out during sacrament meeting does not count). this way even if i'm in the hall with a fussy kid during the lesson i won't miss out. i have such a strong testimony of Joseph Smith. i have been to the Sacred Grove and to the upper room in the Kirkland Temple and to Carthage and the School of the Prophets and Nauvoo and i have walked where he has walked, and my testimony of him comes from the spirit that i have felt in those places and the spirit that i feel when i sing Praise to the Man and the spirit that i feel when i read the Book of Mormon. when i look around at church or attend a baptism (like i was able to this weekend -- congrats Bolk!) i always think of the First Vision - a 14 year-old kid exercising faith and living up to his divine purpose in a grove of trees - and how far-reaching the consequences of that encounter have been. it's incredible! and i am so grateful for the prophet Joseph Smith!! anyway i just wanted to share that and hope that everyone is joining with me in getting prepped to pay some serious homage! my grandma clark even got my copy of the JS lesson manual spiral bound so it's easier to flip through and read and mark (thanks so much grandma!!), which i highly recommend since we'll be digging into this thing for two years. this week's lesson is on the First Vision- check it out...

http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=da135f74db46c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=a0e720596a845110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&hideNav=1&contentLocale=0

me and junie b.

i just have to recommend these amazing books to everyone! klayton introduced me to these books when we were newly married. he would read them to me at night (doing all of the junie b. voices) and i got such a kick out of them. now as i look forward to avery getting bigger and have friends with little school-age girls, i just wanted to let everyone know about them. they are by Barbara Park and they are just amazing. they are like chapter books with training wheels. each book is either Junie B. Jones or Junie B. First-Grader. they have a few black and white pictures inside, but mostly they are for new readers (and make great bedtime stories!). Junie B. Jones ones detail her year in kindergarten, while the first-grader ones are... well... from her year in the first grade. so good. please, check them out. with names like Junie B. Jones and Sneaky Peaky Spying and Junie B. Jones and Yucky Blucky Fruit Cake how can you go wrong?

top 5 days of 2007 in pictures

the past year has been a whirlwind. the past few months whenever i have spoken of the year 2007 in general i have pretty much deemed it one long suck-fest. but when i took the time to actually look back on my year, it has been a huge year of firsts, and one of the best years of my life. i apologize to anyone that i have verbally crapped on 2007 to. yes, i had my struggles, but i have never seen the hand of the Lord in my life more. i am so blessed, and as i looked at my family photos this year i felt the need to count my blessings and thank my Father in heaven for my wonderful husband, our beautiful little girl and our family and friends that mean so much to us. and in that vein i would like to share with you the greatest moments of my past year. enjoy!


#1 - Meeting my baby

two days in the Rexburg hospital, two days on bed rest, a trip back to the hospital, an ambulance ride, a plane ride to Salt Lake, another ambulance ride and a few hours in pain and surgery (not to mention tens of thousands of dollars) later my little Avery was born 2 lbs 1 oz and twelve weeks early. this makes both the top 3 best moments of my life as well as the top 3 scariest moments of my life. now at 7 1/2 months old she is already the strongest person i know and has enriched my life in countless ways. i call that money well spent.


#2 - Pumpkin Patch Fun
this was just one of those perfect days that has turned into a perfect memory that i will treasure. it was beginning to get cold outside, the leaves were falling off of the trees, the holidays were approaching, and we got to go to the big red barn pumpkin patch with our little baby for the first time. klayton's family joined us on this outing and i got to sit back and enjoy hot cider, my nieces and nephews, and some Halloween (my favorite holiday!) fun. this day also included a trip to the Farmer's Market, the Library and an evening with a good friend (hi Maria!!) shopping and watching movies. life doesn't get much better than this.


#3 - Halloween!

my favorite holiday, my first time dressing up my kid (the littlest mermaid!) and taking her trick or treating with her cousins! so fun. we went to my old workplace first, Melaleuca. they spend tons on decorations and candy every year and make their entire office a trick or treat path for kids young and old. then we went up to rexburg for some good old fashioned freeze your buns off door knocking. klayton and i dressed up as our favorite couple from our favorite movie, rocky and adrian (not pictured).



#4 - Surprise!!!
my love of surprising my husband is rivaled only by my love of cooking and throwing parties, and on this occasion i got to do both! klayton turned 25 on October 25th and this is a snapshot from his party. i got three of his four best friends in the world to fly/drive in for the night, as well as my mom, klayton's family and many of our friends for the party and he was shocked (even elmo made an appearance... apparently...). klayton went through some rough times this fall with his restaurant closing, but i hope that he will remember this day when all of his friends and family came to tell him how much they love him. he is an amazing person and an especially amazing husband and father and i love him so much! plus also i got to plan a menu and make a ton of food! such a great day.

#5 - Blessed
getting avery blessed in las vegas was a great day. klayton's parents came down as well as mandy and her family (which was a total surprise and so fun). my mom threw a little party at her house afterward and i got to see many of my family and friends. avery is perfect and beautiful and having her properly blessed helped me remember all of the blessings that she had been given up to then, and how Heavenly Father had heard our prayers and watched out for our baby, and just the blessing that being Avery's mom is to me.