The Last 3 weeks in review....

Once again I have fallen behind in my blogging - I have to say I've spent so much time in front of the sewing machine lately I've let my computer obsession fall to the wayside! So here's a post of a lot of different happenings with our family in the last little while...

My latest "crafts" - baby shower favors for my friend Tiff's shower (I also made the invitations but forgot to take a picture of one of them). I made 125 invitations and 65 favors. She's a frog lover so there are baby gummy frogs in the little bags.

Then I started making purses, diaper bags and table runners (along with my rag quilts). I participated in a craft fair the weekend before Thanksgiving and have been working on orders ever since!

Chuck E. Cheese - birthday party for cousin Jaron's 10th Birthday Party on Saturday the 15th..






My favorite part at Chuck E. Cheese - the sketch booth! Even Daddy got in on the picture this time!
Then Disney on Ice on Sunday.....Hailey really liked it - especially the characters that she knew.











Thanksgiving at the Mortensons. Hailey had so much fun playing with her cousins for the long weekend. They slept over at Grandma's with us and they played and played. It brought back some wonderful memories I had as a child in Colorado at my grandma & grandpas house playing with my cousins. I walked into the "back bedroom" and they were all playing in there and dancing around I had a flash back to playing in the "middle bedroom" at grandma's!!! What great memories!

The picture of Darren filling his plate on Thanksgiving cracked me up! It looks like a redneck Thanksgiving (no offense Karma). We had it out in the heated garage - which by the way is cleaner than my house - but something about this picture with the Elk in the picture had to make me laugh!!! (The best part of the whole thing is that used to be hanging in my house when we lived in Salt Lake - I'm just glad it hasn't made it's way back to my house)!!!It was a wonderful day with wonderful food spent with family!

And last but not least.....a photo of my cookies for the recipe/cookie exchange we're doing to work tomorrow....

Cricut Cartridge Giveaway

I found this giveaway on a friends blog that looked way fun for any one who has a Cricut...check it out!

Christmas Cartridge Giveaway!!
Check out TheScrapbookingCricut.com!

.....The rest of the Halloween activities (and more)!

More Halloween fun included......a Preschool party the CEU Carnival


....making cupcakes with Nana....













A quick day trip to Salt Lake to visit cousins Molly, Lincoln and Ruby in costume....











Trick or Treating with Mom, Dad, Nana & Papa in Mom's old neighborhood....












And a great finish to a long Halloween week....a beautiful Sunday playing in the leaves with Dad. I was inside sewing and looked out the window to see Dad making a big leaf pile for Hailey. She played in that pile of leaves for over an hour - she was having so much fun and was so happy! Pure Bliss! Thanks for making Halloween so much fun Hailey!!!

Halloween Fun.....So Far!!

Okay....before I begin with the Halloween festivities I have to say that my computer finally went out and I had a REALLY LONG 8 days without a computer before I got my new one! I thought somebody had cut off my right arm - not only no Ebay, no paying bills, no checking my account balances - but worst of all - NO BLOGGING! Only you fellow bloggers will understand this addiction!!! So now I am trying to catch up - not only on posting - but reading others that I have missed out on.

I guess the good news is that it gave me more time to spend on my newest sewing obsession....Halloween bags. I made these for some co-workers. They are a lot of fun - but more time consuming than I thought....especially since I am just learning!
I just love FEET JAMMIES...we bought these new ones at the store and she couldn't wait to put them on....so she was in her jammies at 4:00!! Oh well - at least she was comfortable (and warm).Last Saturday we went to the Halloween Spooktacular event on Main Street in Price with Nana & Papa (Dad was in Mount Pleasant). We weren't really sure what we thought of the whole thing - but Hailey had fun. She liked wearing her costume and when she had about 10 pieces of candy she kept looking in her bag and saying "I have tons and tons of candy!"
Tonight we had a family night of carving pumpkins! Hailey was so excited and had so much fun. She dug out the stuff and then drew faces on her little pumpkin. After they were finished and we put the candle in and turned the lights off she was so cute dancing around. She didn't want us to turn the lights back on. We finally did and finished the night off with banana splits....yum!


We can't wait to for more fun Halloween activities in the next couple of days!

Happy Fall......literally!

This morning the wind was blowing like crazy......Hailey & I were hanging out in the scrapbook room when Daddy came in and said "look out the window - do you see something wrong in the front yard?" I looked out the window (the blinds were already open) and couldn't believe what I saw. I guess the wind really was blowing hard. Good thing it didn't fall over the other way or we would be TRAPPED with no way to get out since the bridge to the left of the downed tree is the only bridge over the canal. A day at home with nowhere to go sounds good to me (scrapbooking, sewing, playing on the computer) but DARREN would go crazy. I guess he has a lot of work to do to cut up that tree! He said he's going to wait until it's not so windy!!!

Vote for Obama???

Can you guess who this is????? We couldn't stop cracking up when my brother put this mask on that my Mom had bought for him for Halloween!! We couldn't believe how real he looked - and he did an imitation of him that was unreal! My brother the democrat!!!

My New Sweet Little Niece Ruby

We finally got to go to Salt Lake on Friday and meet my newest neice Ruby Kay! She is my only brothers newest little baby girl!! She is named after my grandma on my Mom's side - whose name was Ruby Dooley Hills.

She was born on Monday, October 6th & it was a long week waiting to meet her! She is just beautiful. I can't believe how tiny she is. I know every mother says it - but I can't believe Hailey was ever that small!

There aren't any pictures of Hailey meeting her newest cousin because on the way up there her nose started running and she said her throat was sore so we dropped her & Daddy off at her Grandma and Grandpa's house in West Jordan and just me, my Mom and Steve went and spent the afternoon with them. Hailey was really sad!!!

Molly & Lincoln came home from school and we got to see them for a little while too! Molly is now 9 and Lincoln is 6! They just love their new baby sister!

Invisible Mom....

I received this e-mail and thought I would share it with you....I thought it was a wonderful reminder of how important it is to be a Mom - even though we do feel "invisible" sometimes! Have a great day!


It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room, while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?' Obviously, not.

No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this?

Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books, and the eyes that studied history, and the mind that graduated sum a cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going; she's going; she is gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.' It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: 'To Charlotte , with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'

In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And, I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.' And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.'

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.'

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride.

I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.

The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime, because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my daughter to tell the friend she's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours ,and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want her to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, 'you're gonna love it there.'

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right.

And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

Great Job, MOM! Hope this encourages you when the going gets tough, as it sometimes does. We never know what our finished products will turn out to be, because of our perseverance.

Our crazy, busy fun September!

September was a busy month for our little family.....

The first week of September Hailey had her broken arm and cast as well as bronchial pnemonia and breathing treatments every 4 hours for 2 weeks..... not much fun at all!

The second week of September Hailey started Preschool and we went on our annual trip to Snowbird....lots of fun.

Darren's parents share their timeshare at the Iron Blossom every September with all of the family....we've been going every year since we were married and Darren's been going since he was a little boy with his grandparents. We did puzzles, cooked steak & crab (our tradition), swam and played on the new playground that was just built. We went down to Salt Lake on Sunday for our nephew Blade's 1st Birthday party and then came back and stayed Sunday night too! We had a great weekend!

Daddy was so good - he swam around with Hailey for over an hour holding up her cast wrapped in a garbage bag while Mom finally finished her book - Breaking Dawn!

The third week of September we went to Salt Lake for the Scrapbook Expo. It was a blast hanging out with my friends - visiting, eating & scrapping. I actually got quite a bit accomplished.

When I came home I decided to go through and try and organize my scrapbooks in my scrapbook room....While I was POTTY TRAINING & moving Hailey to a big girl BED!

Don't be too fooled by this picture - she fell asleep on my bed & then I put her in her bed.....until about 1:30 when she woke up and started crying and having a fit that she didn't want to sleep in her bed. After about 1 1/2 hours I finally gave up and let her come to our bed. (She's doing much better with it now!)

But I do have to report that she is finally POTTY TRAINED!

This past Saturday after I went to a very sad funeral we left for Salt Lake and had a super short but nice visit with my brother, sister-in-law & my niece & nephew Molly & Lincoln. My sister-in-law is pregnant with their 3rd child and we are SO excited for RUBY to get here!

My sister-in-law Becca

A rare family photo of us all dressed up! (Taken by Molly - thanks Mol!)

We went to Darren's cousin Amy's wedding in the Avenues. It was so cute - Hailey asked her Daddy to dance with her and he did! Considering he has only danced with me once and it was on our wedding day I was quite surprised that he said yes! On Sunday we went to church to watch my niece and nephew Tenille & Jaron in their primary program & then to Olive Garden for the never-ending pasta bowl! It was a fun-filled weekend!