It's official ...

and it's about time! See Mom & Dad, I told you it would happen :) Erin finally graduated from college. I think my life is on the "take extra long to do things" track. Maybe it's so I make sure I do them right the first time :)

Projects Update 2

the chair

It's finally finished! I was super nervous to do anything with it once I got all the old fabric stripped off - I think I was scared I would just ruin the whole thing. As I figured, putting new fabric ON was MUCH quicker than taking the old fabric off. I got the entire chair covered in one day. I finished the cushion the next day - which took about 3 hours itself ... I was very frustrated ... and painted the rockers the day after that. Not too bad for a used chair and 6 yards of new fabric! I think it will be a long time before, if ever, I tackle this kind of thing again!

16 week appointment

I went in this afternoon for my 16 week appointment! It's always the biggest relief to hear that whoosh-whoosh sound of the little heartbeat :) I also got to schedule the famous 20 week ultrasound. Wouldn't you know it, the ultrasound tech is out of town on my 20th week. Doesn't she know people are depending on her to be there??? Just kidding. So, we'll have to wait an extra week to meet our little one.

new Blindside decks

A Weston Colton original. He designed this graphic and they made about fifty boards to start. They have been a hit with customers. I think it's probably the coolest skate deck I've seen :) There will soon be a huge print hanging in the shop to go along with their release. Check it out if you live in the area :)

Projects Update 1

the crib

After slaving away for hours and hours stripping and sanding the crib, I was finally ready to put on the primer. Weston helped me immensely by doing the spraying (the hard work) while I wiped down each piece (they were obviously covered in sawdust). When I was finished and he was still spraying, I just laid on the lawn and watched him :)

the chair

It took me about 3 days to finish taking all the old fabric off the chair. I never knew there could be so many staples in a piece of furniture! Tomorrow I will get the fabric, but who knows how quickly I'll start work on it! Hopefully it won't be that hard to "put back together." I took about fifty pictures while I was taking everything apart, hoping to provide myself visual instructions as to how to assemble the thing again! I'll post an update once there is something to show for my work :)

baby quilt

Baby Noah Jackman will be born sometime in the next couple of weeks. I made this quilt for him and his mama - one of my oldest friends :) love you, rach!

Nursery Projects

the crib

I always had this idea that I would find the perfect used crib and redo it to make it all custom for my baby. Then I couldn't find anything that wasn't too fancy or too spindly. I kind of gave up and figured we'd just spend a fortune on baby furniture. Out of the blue one day, I found just what I was looking for! So I snagged it - 20 bucks. The only "before" pictures are the ones the seller showed me.

The pictures aren't great, hopefully my "after pictures" will be :) I had my dad saw off the scalloped edge from the head and footboards so it's just straight. It took me about 20 hours to strip and sand the entire thing - BLAH!!! All that's left is painting. Any suggestions?

the rocker

The next, and perhaps more ambitious/crazy, project is the rocker. I found this STEAL for 30 bucks ... don't you just love craigslist? Again, the only pictures I have of the "before" are the seller's pictures.

As much work as this will be, I started taking it apart last night, I am SUPER excited about the transformation that will take place. I'm looking for some sort of white with black fabric... white/cream background with black flowers/toille/SOMETHING. I'll post pictures of the progress and/or finished product!

YW Camp 2007

Where have I been? YW Camp at Heber Valley Camp - so you can't really call it camping :) I went as the assistant camp director and we had a fabulous time. I am convinced that we have the best group of girls in the entire stake! They are just so easy to work with and so easy to love. Here's a quick rundown of what I was doing all week:

Monday - The stake theme for camp this year was Survivor: Virtuous Island. Each ward had their virtue and color, we were Friendship and our color was turquoise. Each day the stake put on a challenge. Our newest beehive, Sierra, is here competing to get our survival kit. It was on Day 1 that we were introduced to our friend, Fat Boy the squirrel. He was constantly in our cabin, eating whatever he could get his hands on. The best was realizing he found the bag of peanut butter filled pretzels - he chewed a hole into the pretzels and would suck out the peanut butter! This was our pathetic attempt to keep him out - it was very unsuccessful as he visited us numerous times daily. Here are a few of the girls in canoes out on Legacy Lake.

Here is the group with our camp shirts and island flowers in our hair. What a cute bunch of chicks!

Monday night's challenge - we didn't win but our girls worked fast and hard!

Tuesday - we lost 1/3 of our group Monday night. We had a couple girls go home and 2 of our girls go on the overnight hike. We were thrilled to welcome back our 4th years Tuesday morning.

This deer was standing about 20 feet from our cabin door - we got to see a lot of wildlife up close. What a treat.

I ran into Heber, which turned into running to Orem, to get some pictures developed for a craft we were doing later in the week. I missed out on the hike, but for anyone who knows me, it wasn't a big sacrifice :) I thought I'd be gone for a little over an hour - it ended up being over three! At least I got all the pictures developed :) Some girls decided to learn how to make friendship bracelets to go along with our virtue.

Wednesday - our ward had bathroom duty twice on Wednesday. Our girls, being as awesome as they are, got in and got it done, without any complaining. They are so great! :)Sister Welch showed the stake what real singing involves - DANCING! She was one of the few volunteers in the entire group who dared get on stage and sing - not to mention shake her groove thing :)

Here is our camp mailbox. The girls wrote notes to each other all week long, especially to their secret sisters. Wednesday night's challenge - a big group effort of scripture chasing.

Skit night! These three skits were amazingly funny - I was literally crying. I couldn't stop laughing for about 4 minutes. I haven't laughed that hard in a LONG time. Too hilarious.

Sister McFarland (YW President) and Sister Welch (Counselor).

Root beer floats for dessert, thanks to Sister Welch and Sister Seagle (Camp Director)

and hair curling for girl time!

Thursday - it rained ... a LOT. We had rain in the morning, which meant we weren't able to go on the challenge course. We were all pretty bummed, but there was really nothing we could do. I finally snapped a picture of our pet squirrel, Fat Boy. The girls made up a song just for him: PD2 (Pacific Drive 2nd ward) has a little problem, Food's been vanishing from our cabin, We've lost our goldfish, MilkDuds, Chips-a-hoy, And that's why we named our pet squirrel Fat Boy. We even sang it for the stake at one of the flag ceremonies :)

Once things started to dry up in the afternoon, we were able to spend some time on the challenge course afterall. Here are a couple pictures of the girls figuring out how to work together to get through the obstacles.Here is our group with our beautiful crafts :) We made pillows. I embroidered each one with their name and a pineapple, the symbol of friendship. We also made "cute cubes" that they could decorate however they wanted. The pictures I got developed in Orem were for the cubes. Our ward flag. I love it because the girls designed and made the entire thing. They did a great job. Here is the flag from each ward in the stake.Bishopric Night! We handed out awards and then did our secret sister presentations. It was amazing. We had the girls make something that had meaning for their secret sister and then present it for everyone to see. They did such an awesome job.

It was such a rewarding week and I just fell in love with these girls. However, I was more in love with my bed once I got home :) I'm still catching up on my rest!