Blessing Day

Yesterday we blessed Alison.

These pictures were taken by the photographer I went to last month. I just didn't show you these ones yet :) The bottom one is a 10x20 collage that I framed and displayed yesterday. It turned out so cute! I'm going to hang it in her room.

It was so great having all of our family come (we missed Kyle who watched the triplets so Sunny could come) including Justin's grandparents and my grandpa Galbraith.

Here are some of the things Justin blessed her with that I remember:

That her most important relationships are with her Heavenly Father, the Savior, and her future spouse

To listen to her mother and her father; be close with her mom

To be friends with her siblings

To be patient with the trials in her life; he mentioned that she has already gone through trials very early in her life and that she was patient with those

To have a healthy body and quick mind

To find a spouse with a strong testimony

To find joy in keeping the commandments

Justin gave a beautiful blessing! I'm so grateful that he is a worthy priesthood holder and can bless our lives because of it.

Justin's grandparents

We had hawaiian haystacks and some yummy brownies for dessert

My dad, mom, grandpa Galbraith and us

The Pendleton's

We didn't take any pictures with our family since Ryan and Becky had to leave early and we had a family picture taken at Emery's blessing 2 weeks ago! Thanks to all of our family for coming (especially those from far distances! we were so glad you came!), for bringing food and sharing Ali's special day with us. We are so grateful to have her in our family.

The Good

Lately I have heard and seen sad news amongst friends and family and it makes me feel sorrow for them and the things that have happened. I want to give these people a hug and make them feel better in some way. But it isn't always as simple as that. They continue to suffer and try to get through the pain they are feeling. I want good news for them and for things to turn better. So if this applies to you, I am sorry and I hope you can be happy again soon and know I am praying for you.

I have some good news to share! Molly is sleeping in her big girl bed! We got a bed rail for her bed and put the box springs on the floor so that her bed wasn't too high. She has a fear of heights we have already noticed. When I change her on a changing table at church or at a store, she freaks out. Poor thing. We asked her which bed she wanted to sleep in the other night and she picked her big girl bed and she slept there all night. We are very proud!

Last weekend she went poo poo in the potty for the first time! Now this is really a fluke thing, but we still made a really big deal about it. She had asked about going potty that morning, so I got the seat out and she sat on it for a while. We had to go somewhere so I put her back in her diaper. Later when we got her ready for a bath she wanted to go potty. So we put her on and when we took her off, we couldn't believe it! She went #2! We haven't really done much about it since then because we have been away from home for different things most days, but in the next month I think we will go at it and potty train her! She loves panties and doesn't seem afraid, more that she doesn't quite get all of the concepts yet.

On Sunday we visited my Grandpa Watkins. He is doing quite well for his 93 years. Here is a 4 generation picture of us (Justin took the picture). My mom made dinner and brought it down to his place and ate in his room with him.

He is so cute with kids. He had so much fun watching Molly and playing games with her. She warmed up after a while and would show him things. It was really cute. I am so grateful and blessed to have both of my grandfathers still alive.

Justin said he received an email about an interview for an internship this summer. He hasn't found anything yet, so we hope this goes well! If not, he has a few ideas and hopefully something will work out soon since today was the last day of classes.

little projects

Did I already show you these? I can't remember. I made one for Natalie so I couldn't remember if I posted them after I gave it to her or not.

The ruffle bum is the best! And I think now I am realizing that I already showed you these. Oops! Sorry! Anyway, the tutorial won for the best tutorial in 2009...on someone's blog!

Ok and then I just finished this diaper and wipes clutch today--finally! This is the outside. The pattern has you make a cute fabric flower to put on, but I think the fabric is pretty dang cute and I didn't want to cover up the flower.

Here's the inside with two pockets. Pretty cute!

I saw a really cute tutorial on little birdie secrets about doing a cute rosette with wired ribbon. So I went and bought some wired ribbon and when I went to the tutorial, I realized my ribbon was too wide to do the one I saw. So...I improvised and came up with this! I made it for Molly to go with her easter dress.

There really isn't a science about it. I just pulled the wire on one side and played with the ribbon til I liked it. Then I took a needle and thread and did a few stitches up and down to keep it where I wanted it. Then for the middle I squished the ribbon til I liked it and glue gunned it! Simple simple.

Sweet Alison

We had some pictures taken of Alison a few weeks ago and I got them back today. They turned out so darling! Thanks to April for taking them!

Feeling smart!

Do you ever have moments where you figure something out and feel so smart?! Ha, I do! When it comes to crafts, a good amount of the time I can figure out how people have done something, or I find a free tutorial (no, that's not what I feel smart about). But I love it when I can't figure it out and look around on etsy or google something and viola, someone tells you what to do!

Well I just got a call from the dry cleaners. Justin dropped off his jeans to have them altered. I know you're thinking-- that I could/should do that for him. But, I don't know how to do it without them looking like they've been altered. See what I mean? Well the guy asked if I wanted it done with a regular hem (you can tell they have been altered) or an original hem (with the original hem showing). Mind you the first option is $5 and the second is $25. I'm thinking he definitely wants them to look like they haven't been altered, but I'm cheap and don't want to pay $25 especially if I know I can sew (and when I know what he paid for them)! Well the guy is really nice and I told him I wish I knew how to do it! He said he talked to the alterations lady once a long time ago and she said that it used to be a secret how to do an original hem, but now the secret's out. Well I said I'd talk to the hubby and find out what he wants to do.

Then, of course, I google "original hem". Lo and behold there are like five tutorials/explanations on how to do it! I feel so smart! Although I'm totally not! I use google like everyone else. Thanks google! I think we should have a national day to celebrate google. Don't you?

http://www.daciaray.com/?p=38

Here's the link of how to do an original hem in case you wanted to know the secret too!!

Easter

We had a great Easter. Molly woke up and found that the Easter Bunny had left her a trail of eggs!
Yay! She found her basket :)
Notice the cute pink sandals? Well we put them on her but she said they hurt...so we gave them to her cousin and hopefully she will like and wear them! It's a bummer because they are so cute!

The Easter Bunny also left baskets for mommy and daddy ;)

We enjoyed conference and what I got was two main themes: parenting and teaching/raising children and Easter messages on the Savior and his resurrection.

We had the rest of the family over (minus Zack and Emily) later for dinner and a treasure hunt for the kids.
Molly was anxiously awaiting the next clue!

Mitt trying to read the clues!

Yay! They found the baskets!

The three girls all got nightgowns. I love this picture of the girls. They are great friends (most of the time!).
This is how I found them a bit later...

I was happy to see that Molly didn't look like the instigator on this one! Look at Shay's face. She was just loving getting into trouble! :) They were pouring the salt into the cups.

I am really sad that I didn't get a picture of Alison! She had the same cute little dress as Molly. Every time I thought about taking a picture she was sleeping. And I wanted a family picture too. Isn't that how it always goes?!

The Concert

So, the concert was so fun! Michael Buble is certainly an entertainer and doesn't disappoint! A group called Naturally 7 opened and they were very good. They are 7 black guys from NY and they sing a capella and do all of the percussion themselves. The guy that did the bass noises was amazing. His voice was sooo low!

The opening of the concert was quite dramatic and everyone loved it. The curtain was up and you could see through and see Michael directing the band and the music was super dramatic so it got everyone soo excited. I wasn't familiar with that particular song, but it was cool. The place was packed.

He is pretty funny. He does like to swear here and there which kind of caught me a bit off guard since his songs are so clean...anyway, he was really personal and talked a bit about his life, how he's engaged and how having bad stuff in your life when you have such a public life "sucks, hardcore." He said he was inspired by the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Michael Jackson. He sang Billy Jean as if he were Michael...pretty funny.

He sang probably his 5 most popular songs, walked through the crowd and sang at the back of the E Center on a small stage and was very gracious and thanked the crowd several times for spending our "hard earned money" to come and see him perform. He sang Freedom for his encore (that was one of 3 songs he sang), which is Justin's favorite. It was a really fun night!