Wordless Wednesday - The Fair

The Fish Hatchery.

Happy New Year!  I thought for the new year I would try and blog more.  Yeah, I said try.  I hope everybody had a nice new year weekend.  I sure did.  I drove up to the snow with my sister's family this weekend and it was really fun.

The snow was too dry to make a snowman, but we did have fun throwing rock hard ice balls at each other.

And Jasmine got to bury a flag she had made with our names on it in the snow.

Christy and the kids were hoping for snow to actually be falling from the sky, but it has actually been pretty dry here lately.  It all worked out though because Ken can make it snow.

Then we headed out to a fish hatchery we had seen on the way up the mountain.  I enjoy a good fish hatchery and while it was kind of off season there were still some fish in there and it was fun to actually be out and about on the weekend instead of on the couch.

There didn't seem to be anyone around so we wandered through the buildings and used the heated bathrooms which were surprisingly nice.

Then we went to another hatchery!  Who knew there were so many so close together?  This one wasn't very fun.  It was completely fenced off.  I took a nice photo of Christy's family though:

Jasmine got a souvenir frozen stick.

Mikey got a rock.

And Christy got a headache.

We had fun though and plan to go up to Bonneville Dam in two weeks to take some dam pictures and go to the fish hatchery.  I've been to that one a few times before and it is always a good time.

My birthday is on Thursday.  I'm turning 30!!  I have the day off from work and Christy and I are going to hang out and go shopping.  I'm also going to see Black Swan this weekend which I'm really looking forward to seeing.  And of course... The first of the year diet.  Which I will immediately go off for my birthday.  Ugh!  It's so inconveniently located.

Anyway, I hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas and here's wishing for a wonderful 2011.

Wordless Wednesday: My sister's baby.

Crafts in progress.

I thought maybe I would do a post about some yarn and embroidery crafts I am working on.  I think I have posted before about the bags my folks and I are making for the pregnancy center at Christmas time, but if not here is a re-cap.  We are putting together some small diaper-like bags for under-privileged new mothers at Christmas time.  My job is to get the 10 bags (5 girl, 5 boy) and make baby hats.  As well as some monetary contributions for clothes.  My mom is getting the clothes (about 2 sets for each bag) some small size baby toiletry items, a toy and a few diapers.  We also want to put a little something in there for the moms, but are still working on that idea.

I wanted to start working on my embroidery so I decided to jazz up the canvas bags.  I decided to do a small design as well as the word baby in blue and pink.  Be kind, as this is my first real needlepoint project.

I got the designs from a small starter packet I bought at a cute craft store in NE Portland.  They are created by Tigerpup Embroidery which is a business located here in Portland.  It comes with the designs on large sheets of paper you can cut out as well as a large sheet of carbon paper.  It costs about $4.50 and the designs were super cute.  I had intended to get some Jenny Hart "Sublime Stitching" patterns as I saw her on She's Crafty and fell in love, but I thought Tigerpup designs were way cuter and were actually a little cheaper.

I think my favorite so far is the rocket and I will probably end up doing another one of those.  I have to admit, the boy designs I got are a little bit cuter than the girl ones.  I have some cute girl ones, but they are either really large or really detailed and I don't know if I can pull that off.

I am also still working on those apple hats.  I actually decided to make red apples for the girls and green apples for the boys.

As you can see I haven't quite finished any of the boys hats yet.  But I am working on them!!  I'm making slow progress, but progress none the less.  I think I am going to take a couple days off from work in October to finish up this project and also finish the kids Halloween costumes.  They want to go as Garfield and Odie this year and I'm a little afraid I'm going to have the some problem as last year with keeping the ears standing straight up.

We ended up using skewers and that worked pretty well.  And I'm a little worried about how we are going to keep Garfield's tail standing up.  Something to ponder.  All I have is the yarn right now which I just bought yesterday.

The lady at Joann's asked if I had a coupon and I told her I forgot them and she said she would throw a couple extra in my bag.  I just went through my bag to take this photo and boy howdy.  She sure did throw in a couple extra.

If anybody needs some coupons for next weekend, I'm your girl!

Labor Day Weekend.

We had a big family BBQ on Sunday.  I can't remember the last time all twelve us were together and it was really nice.  Although I had to eat too much and then hole up in Mikey's room reading a book, but that is just a normal holiday for me.

Oh that would be funny if it weren't so darn true.  I don't know how many Thanksgivings I have ended up in the back bedroom taking a nap.  I have no self-control.  I'm already stuffed to the gills on snacks before we even sit down to dinner.  It really is a nightmare.  But really, I can't wait until Thanksgiving.

I am gonna pig out!!

Wait.  One celebration at a time!!  We had a BBQ.  I didn't get any photos of the food because... well... I seem to have lots of photos of food.  And I don't want to be one of those people.  Well I guess I already am one of those people, but I don't really want other people to know I am one of those people.

I was going to post some photos of food I had, but as I was scrolling through my archives I came across this photo I took of my belly a while ago.  I took this photo with my belly completely sticking out (no sucking in!!) as some sort of motivational tool to lose weight.  Now every time I see it, it just makes me sad.  I remember this one time my friend Forrest said that every time we wanted to eat we should just go look at ourselves in the mirror naked.  Theoretically that sounds good, but put into practice it is just a giant hassle.  Who wants to take their pants off every time they want a sandwich?

BBQ, right... It was fun.

We played some Wii:

Took a family photo:

I wasn't actually going to post this photo because I took it so I had to run over and crouch down in what little room was available so I didn't have time to make myself thin (yes, it can be done, look how thin Christy looks, hiding completely behind Mikey.)  But I emailed the photo to the family and Katie posted it on facebook, so I figure the jig is up.  Is it jig or gig?  Well, whatever.

I made the kids take photos with me.  Mikey couldn't stop looking at the game being played on the tv screen.

Anyway, you remember when I was telling you I ended up in Mikey's bedroom reading a book.  I didn't actually bring a book because I like to pretend I'm not the person who goes and hides out at a family function, so I ended up having to find something in Jasmine's room to read.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is surprisingly delightful.  And it is a super quick read.  I'm half way through the second book.  I'm just waiting for the next family function to finish it.

Wordless Wednesday: Niece.