Happy Mother's Day

Aloha! My mom is in Hawaii this week, on the garden isle of Kuaui.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! 

I should be there too, but this just wasn't the year.

This photo was taken last time we went together in 2007. . . fun memories.

I am coming to another crossroads in my life again. I'm ready to give up blogging. Not that I do that much anymore, but it just feels like something hanging over my head.
Whenever I get that feeling, I know its time to make a change.

I still think its important to record our lives for those that come after us. I think its important for us to record our lives in any form, whether its journaling, scrapbooking, blogging. . . its all good. I guess for me its just overkill. I already have a scrapbook. I changed the way I do that to keep things simpler for me. I have been working with my children on setting goals lately and I realized blogging just isn't part of my goals. In some ways blogging is a distraction and looking at other people's blogs is the same. Do I love to keep in touch with people that I love and seldom see? Yes. But there are easier ways to do that. Its easy to send emails and attach photos. Perhaps I'll do that a couple of times a year besides Christmas. Perhaps I'll find an easier way to communicate as time moves on. Its important to me to connect but right now in my life it needs to be less public and less frequent. 

I have three church callings right now. Two keep me fairly busy. I have three children living at home right now. Even though two are adults, I find myself doing more cooking, more cleaning, more listening, and having to be more flexible because of their schedules. They all help, but with more at home there is more to do. Reduce and Simplify continues to be wise counsel I need to follow, and this is what has been crossing my mind at different times in the past month, and then this morning, it was clear. Time to be done. 

Its been four years. You've gotten a good glimpse into our life. The move was big. The creative projects along the way have been fun. I think, one of the most creative things we can do in our life, is to forge ahead in a new direction. That's what I feel like I am doing here. In good times and bad, I have continued to document. The children have all changed and grown up in so many ways. Yet, they are my biggest subjects and not always happy to be photographed. I respect that. Its their life.

I am grateful to my mother who taught me how to love unconditionally. I realize not all children have received that gift, and that I am most fortunate to have it in my life still. My mother taught me not to feel sorry for myself on Mother's Day.  I remember her clearly saying, its not about us, its about the gift of motherhood. We all have one. My grandfather lost his when he was ten. In the last year of his 89 year old life, he told me that was still the greatest tragedy of his life - losing her. I think of the new baby born this week to a mother who passed away giving him birth or the teenagers who were kidnapped and lost out on ten years of their lives with their mothers or those whose mothers never knew how to mother, and those who have passed on.  

Life isn't fair. It breaks our hearts sometimes, but there are different gifts that come to us along the way, and if you have a mother who loves you, who kissed your ouchies and got up with you in the middle of the night and told you as you were crying, that things would get better, or just listened and said, I'm sorry. I want to help you but I don't know what to do, you are most blessed. I know I am. 

Hiking at 9400 Feet

We live next to the Rocky Mountains. That puts great hiking within less than an hour of our house. A week ago Saturday, when Cowgirl was with us, we ventured to a place we'd never been before, Mueller State Park. Located just minutes from a town called Divide, because it is where the Continental Divide actually is, it was easy to access, and the views were spectacular. Usually we see Pike's Peak to the West of us, but here, the majestic mountain is East. As we are looking West in the photo below, those are the Sangre de Cristo mountains far away, but we literally felt like we were close to the top of the world.

 They had a lovely visitor center and we received some good maps. There were forty-four hikes available, and we selected two this Saturday, both based on the fact that herds of elk had recently been seen nearby. The first one was still somewhat snow-covered. Of course it had snowed by our house just the Tuesday before, but when its 72 degrees back home, we forget its still in the 40's and 50's in the mountains, and no, the snow hadn't all melted.

 We saw some deer or elk tracks in the snow on the other side of this pond, but none here. The boys climbed on top of some nearby rocks to get a better vantage point of the area. Because of the hike itself had been somewhat snow-covered, we opted for another trail back to our car, and definitely easier than going uphill where we had just come downhill.

 The second hike was called the Schoolhouse Pond Trail. We never saw the school house, though we did find this bench. Maybe in the wilderness all you need is a bench to start taking in all there is to learn. Still rather small, it was pretty and the hike much less snow-covered.

 As we walked all around it, Mike found the remains of a deer. Everyone was excited to see it, until they realized the other parts of the remains was a few feet away. Our guess is a mountain lion pounced upon it when it came for a drink. This hike was easier in some respects and more difficult in others. I am not used to hiking at this altitude nor am I as young as I used to be, so while the kids walked ahead Mike held my hand and a few times pulled me up some of the steeper parts of the trail but I made it.

 We were a little sad to have seen no wildlife on our hikes, but as soon as we got back onto the main road, we spotted a whole herd of elk back in the park. We parked the car and walked closer.

 By the time I got there, the elk were starting to head back over the hill, but I caught a few on camera. That made our day. Then our dad decided to stop on the way home to get steaks and ice cream. We started up the grill for the first time this season, made a salad, baked some french fries and finished off the day full and content. Its not often enough that all six of us are together, and we truly made great memories this day!

Three Recipes

Correction:  On my Post Easter post, I misspelled Kate Spade's last name twice. That has been corrected. She is not Kate Space or Kate Spain. She does work for Moda and I do love her fabric choices!

I keep getting requests for this frosting, so here goes. Thanks to my friend, Kristen, who brought some cookies to my house last February, with the best frosting on them. Last week, after MyGirl and I made 2 dozen pints of jam, we had some strawberries left, so I sent my friend an email and asked for the recipe, and she shared. Now I share with you. 

These are mini strawberry cupcakes, and notice they were disappearing quickly! The frosting I threw on super fast, so sorry it looks so messy, but they sure were tasty. They didn't last two hours at my house. Also, my cream cheese and butter weren't beaten until fluffy , but when my friend brought them over, they were lighter and fluffier, and I would do that next time. I was in a hurry to get them done before movie night, so that's how it went at our house, and they still tasted terrific!

Strawberry Frosting

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 stick butter, softened

1 tsp. vanilla

8-9 strawberries, mashed with a fork

powdered sugar 

Beat the cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add vanilla and strawberries and mix well. Beat in enough powdered sugar to reach desired frosting consistency.

Variation: Fold in one tub of Cool Whip for a mousse-like frosting. (I didn't do that.)

Note: This makes a lot of frosting. I had enough to make 24 small cupcakes, frost a 9" cake, and still there was leftovers. My friend often halves it. 

The second recipe is the meal MyGirl requested for her birthday. 

I will tell you how I season it, but know that I don't measure anything except for baked goods, so I can't say with exactness what I've done. I cook to taste, and keep a tasting spoon next to the stove.  I use the spoon I'm cooking with to put a little on my tasting spoon as I'm going to see how the seasonings are working.

Mexican Haystacks. 

We served it as a buffet, and everyone helped themselves to the following:

Lime Rice (we mix brown and white together and squeeze half a lime on top) Can add cilantro here too.

Black Beans

Chicken or Steak, seasoned well 

     In the order of which spices I used the most:

          Chili powder, cumin, taco seasoning, salt, white pepper, garlic powder, chipotle pepper, juice of a    

           whole lime

Lettuce

Tomatoes

Cheese

Avocado

Cilantro

Salsa

Sour Cream

We had chips on the side, but they are not part of the Haystacks. It all sure was good.

 The last recipe I have no photo to share. Its a Creamed Spinach I served for Sunday dinner.

Creamed Spinach

2 pkgs. 10 oz. cut leaf spinach

1 T. olive oil

1/2 yellow onion, chopped fine

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 heaping tablespoon flour

2 T. butter

12 oz. can fat free or lowfat evaporated milk

1-2 Skinny Cow cheese wedges

handful part skim grated mozzarella cheese

garlic powder, salt, and pepper

Add a cup of water to the 2 packages of spinach and cook on stove top until hot and pliable.

Drain liquid in a colander and put back into pan on stove top. Add to the pan olive oil, yellow onion and garlic.Cook until onions are transluscent. Next add 1 heaping tablespoon of flour to the spinach mixture. Stir to blend throughout. Add butter and let it meld with the flour/spinach mixture. Add the evaporated milk and bring to medium-high heat, until it becomes thick. Add cheese wedges and a handful of part-skim grated mozzarella and let them meld with the thickened mixture. Season with garlic powder, salt, and pepper to taste. Serves 8.

My Girl

My Girl is having her birthday today but yesterday we had our celebration. Cowgirl had to leave in the afternoon so MyGirl planned some fun activities we could all do before she left. Grandma and Grandpa came, Daddy took off work, and LittleBuddy even got to play hooky from school. Then after we dropped Cowgirl off at the airport, we came home for the dinner of choice, which was Mexican Haystacks, and this cake. For two weeks she kept on showing me this cake on Pinterest, so I gave it a go, and it turned out. Yeah! (I've not always been successful  - no more homemade ice cream cakes.)

 Lemon cake with raspberry jam filling, vanilla buttercream frosting and raspberries on top. Yum!

 We had three stops on our day's itinerary. Even though this brother didn't love this stop, he loves her a lot and still made the most of it too.

 One was the Celestial Seasonings Factory Tour up in Boulder. It lasts 45 minutes and they don't let you take pictures inside, so here are some outside pictures.

 Zinger Lane was cute. We learned that Sleeptime is their number one selling tea, with Chamomile and Peppermint coming in at 2nd and 3rd. The smells of peppermint was almost overwhelming. It has to be kept in its own double steel plated room so its smells don't contaminate the other teas. We saw how they mix the teas, package them, and wrap them for shipment.

 They give you these lovely hair nets right after they tell you no pictures on the tour, so this is as much as I could get inside. Like I say, the boys were good sports. . . haha. Afterwards there is a nice gift shop with boxes of tea that are much cheaper than at the grocery store, so we stocked up, and I was happy to be able to pick up some Gingerbread Spice, as that is usually only found at the holidays, but its wonderful for an upset stomach so I like to keep it around.

 Another of our stops was the National Center for Atmospheric Research - NCAR. It also has a free museum and was very interesting. Here Cowgirl shows us how clouds are formed.

 BigBuddy looking at how tornadoes are formed.

 I wish I would have taken a photo of the largest size hail they have found. It was larger than a grapefruit and quite jagged. . . fascinating . . . found in Kansas in 1970. We ate lunch at their cafeteria which was tasty before heading to our next adventure.

 In Westminster, Colorado, is a Butterfly Pavilion. However, they also have other areas. One is an aquarium. Clown fish are MyGirl's favorites.

She also enjoyed touching a starfish.

 Only the boys were brave enough to let a tarantula climb on them. Her name was Rosie.

 Both boys were excited for the opportunity. . . the girls on the other hand - no money would have convinced them it was a good idea, nor their mother!

Truly the highlight, though, was the butterflies, and we spent quite a while in this humid environment.

 They would land wherever they wanted, and crawl onto fingers or shirts.

 There were a large variety, some coming from as far as Sumatra and Malaysia.

 Of course, sometimes it wasn't too fun to have them land on your head, but others close-by would fan them away.

 BigBuddy managed to attract two at a time.

 I just love their colors and variety.

 MyMike giving one a free ride.

 This butterfly loved my mother. He would fly around her and then come right back to the same place.

 I also loved the beautiful vegetation.

 Not often we get to see a hibiscus in Colorado!

 Unique shapes.

 These ones were the largest and most prolific of all we saw.

These were my favorites. Loved the coloring and how nicely they posed for my pictures ;-)

My girl loved her day.  Hard to believe she has grown up so quickly! She went to Young Adults for the first time two Sundays ago. . . ready to make the bridge and find more friends her age. We wish her every happiness always!

Genetics

My mom and dad came over this afternoon. We were looking at some old video tapes they are going to convert to DVD's. It was fun to see all of my grandparents again in those tapes. We all started commenting on ourselves and particularly our hair colors.

This craft project was made in 2007, only six short years ago, but my hair is not this color anymore. Wasn't it a nice brunette color?

This picture was taken six months ago. . . how much more gray!

But as I looked at my grandparents on video I saw my relatives who were in their seventies and eighties. One had white hair, one had black hair, one had grey hair and one had more brown than gray left. So, I know which ones I will be more like. And you know what? I'm okay with gray hair. I loved them for who they were. MyMike has been gray for a long time. . .  now we match more. :-)

Honey Lemon Soother

My friend left the following at my front door last week:

this white mug, a whole lemon, a jar of honey, and some cough drops.

It was all wrapped up cute and had a tag attached.

 Here is what the directions said:
Boil water. Wash lemon and cut in half. Squeeze juice from lemon half into mug and place juiced peel into the mug. Pour a generous serving of honey over the peel. Carefully pour boiling water into the mug and allow to steep for ten minutes. Remove lemon peel and seeds. Stir to add honey to taste. Feel Better.

I made it twice last week and it was wonderful. What a sweet friend and I'm glad to be feeling much better this week than I was. Being compassionate is always a creative act, and this week I was the blessed recipient of a sweet friend's thoughtfulness. I'm going to remember this and do the same for someone else. The best creativity should be passed on, don't you think?

I wanted to add something else cute I saw from Pinterest . . . love that site a little too much, I do.
This sums up my entire quilting experience:
                        Keep Calm and Get The Seamripper

I'm working on the design for a new quilt this week. My mom doesn't understand why I don't want to use a pattern. I do have some patterns I really want to make, but this idea is just under my skin and I'm compelled to create it. . . . When I get the design finished and start the cutting and sewing I'll show you. First, though, I've got a zipper to put into a pair of capris that have been sitting in my basket for too long, and MyGirl's scrapbook to catch up on. . . so many projects, so little time, always! A creative mind is never really at rest.

Post-Easter Post

I hope everyone had a nice Easter. As I reminded my children yesterday, Christmas is so special because it made the events of Easter possible. Its such a holy day and it was a good day. I really felt the spirit at church and was able to participate musically in every hour and that was good to be able to serve too. We went to my mom and dad's for dinner after church. It was lovely and we enjoyed staying and visiting afterwards for a while. Having them be here the past year and a half is All Good! SOOO love not having to fly to be together for special holidays!! And Mom and I will be together again today.

 This photo was taken over a year ago when we ate lunch inside of an airplane restaurant. Since I just downloaded the photos from my phone last week for the first time EVER  (I know - be shocked!) I thought I'd highlight this one today since I didn't bring my camera to take pictures of Easter. Sorry its not the best picture, but I love these two so much, they always look wonderful to me! 

 Did I tell you about our Stake's Holy Woman project? Probably. We were to choose something in our lives to make more holy, and I chose my first hour upon waking. I added reading an article or two to my to-do list each day. Well I'm almost finished reading the last Conference issue and what a great blessing that has been in my life. In all the other areas I'm working on, just having these talks to review and ponder each morning has blessed my entire day, every day. I've also added an 18 minute exercise program to my morning routine that's caused me to lose a full inch from my hips thus far. . . gonna keep that up. Anything helps!  I'm looking forward to hearing more counsel this weekend. They help me want to be more holy and keep those Christ-centered thoughts in the front of my mind.

 I also saw on Pinterest, about a month ago, that one woman was doing "testimony eggs." I didn't really read the whole blog post, but immediately knew that was something I wanted to do with my children this Easter. They didn't want their early morning photos posted, but this is the remains of the activity when we were done. I had asked different people who have been in our home in the past five years to send their testimonies to us. Then I printed them off, rolled them up and put them into these plastic eggs, which I hid on Saturday night and Sunday morning, the first thing they did was go on their egg hunt. I had my son open one of his first, and it was his Grandpa's testimony. The next one, as my daughter opened it up, and saw it was another rolled paper, exclaimed, "These are testimony eggs," and broke into a smile. She, too, had seen the idea on Pinterest and was excited to be experiencing it. It took us a while to read all of them, to discuss some of the things we read, and the last one read was Bigbuddy's. It just happened that way, yet I know there is Divine efforts going on all around us I'm not aware of. BigBuddy has had a challenging past year also yet his testimony is strong and powerful still. He also has a great influence on his younger two siblings. He is good to call them both every week and make a point to just talk to them and they love that. Then after we ate breakfast, I asked them to write down their own testimonies. I told them, its in the sharing of our testimonies of the Savior that they are strengthened, even if you are just sharing your own with yourself. Littlebuddy wrote both sides of a notebook paper, and I was grateful he knows what he knows. MyGirl hasn't shown me hers, but she did tell me last night that one thing she knows for sure is how holy the temple is and how much she loves it. I was grateful she shared that with me.

The night before I made Cream of Asparagus soup for dinner. Costco was having a great sale on it, and normally its so expensive, so I bought two packages. We used one for the soup on Sat. and I'll be using another one tonight. This time I'll roast it. . . sooo good!

Cream of Asparagus Soup

One package of asparagus, ends trimmed and cut into thirds.
Place into a pan with 2 cups chicken broth, one minced garlic glove, 1/2 tsp thyme, and 1/2 cup water. Bring to a boil, then cover the pan with a lid, and reduce heat. Let simmer for 15 minutes.
When asparagus pieces are tender, put into a blender, or use an immersion blender, and purify this mixture.
In another pan, make a roux with 2 T. butter, 1/4 cup flour, and 2 cups 1% milk. When thickened, add the asparagus mixture into it, and season well with salt and pepper. Add one lemon's zest to the pan right before serving. Serves 4. I loved it more than my family but they all ate it and said they'd eat it again.

 Leftover ham that we brought for Easter. The best part of the preparation of big dinners is how easy it makes life later, don't you agree? This also came from Costco and was delicious!

 I don't think I've posted this picture taken last December. We had beautiful 66 degree sunshine yesterday, nothing like the fake snow you see here. I wanted to share it because since that photo was taken life has just gotten more and more challenging for our family. In spite of the fun of the Aquarium, this week was really hard again. But, once again, MyMike and I went to church and came out better than we entered. We felt renewed and ready to face the next week with courage, strength, and joy. That, to me, is the Atonement in action. It brings goodness to our lives by just exhibiting our smallest efforts. The Savior enables us to walk in faith, with hope for his eternal plan, and trusting in His promises when we have no indication that anything has really changed, except for the feeling in our hearts that He gives us of peace. Everything will be all right whatever happens. We are still on His side, and we are still a forever family and that's really all that matters.

 In my trip to Costco this past week I had that one photo enlarged to go up on my photo wall downstairs. Those two are so cute together and I'm grateful that I can see one and talk to the other almost every day. Cowgirl had another big adventure this weekend, this time in San Diego. I love her adventurous spirit and her goodness. Littlebuddy had his first teenager party over at our house on Friday and it was a lot of fun for him. We even taught his friends how to play Dalmuti and they loved it. Still working on MyGirl's photo album. The pictures I printed this week are from five years ago. I'm still so behind, but its good to remember our real life. No matter what's going on, we can still make good memories and keep living life, trying new things, and experiencing it all as a family, even if there's a bunch of challenges thrown in there on top of it all.

 I'm also officially giving up being a Full Time Close To My Heart Consultant. I made last quarter's minimums but I won't do it any more. I may be a Junior or I may just quit all together but I'm really Finally DONE. I'd just rather spend my time quilting. Its not that I don't care anymore about scrapbooking. Its just that I have enough stuff, I don't want any more. I just want to use up what I have. All I ever buy anymore is adhesives and the occasional cute paper pack. I don't need more stuff.  But I do need to make more quilts. . . its become a need, yes, because its challenging me in a creative way and I do need that.

Here's the quilt I finished last week. Cuzco fabric from Kate Spade for Moda. A basic nine-patch, with a white center, and two inch sashings and four inch outside border in white, with an orange-pink polka dot binding.

 Its also my first all-over free motion quilting, done all on my mom's Bernina. I bought this gray fabric, not Kate Spade, for the backing, and then just followed the flowers to tell me where to free-motion. Sometimes I did squiggles between the flowers, and sometimes I added more to the insides of the flowers, and in all the centers I did a spiral, and then came out. Its hardly perfect. In fact, its so NOT perfect, I had to constantly keep talking to myself and tell myself it was okay. I am still learning, but by golly, I was having fun too.

I actually love the way it turned out on the front. Lots of flowers of different sizes with this fun modern fabric and this bright happy binding. Its a 46 inch square quilt and seems just right for a baby quilt. I've got plenty of jelly roll strips of Cuzco left, so another quilt is already in the beginning stages. . . I tell you creative projects feed my soul and I never work on them longer than two hours on any given day, and usually its more like 2 hours a week. 

I leave you with this somewhat lengthy quote by Pres. Uchtdorf from the 2008 General Women's Broadcast. His words spoke to me and have still resonated in my soul. There is nothing more worthwhile, in my mind, than the efforts I make for our eternal family unit but creative projects also have their place, as he reminds us, and I know they are part of the peace of my soul as I continue trying to serve my family.

Creation means bringing into existence something that did not exist before—colorful gardens, harmonious homes, family memories, flowing laughter.

What you create doesn’t have to be perfect. So what if the eggs are greasy or the toast is burned? Don’t let fear of failure discourage you. Don’t let the voice of critics paralyze you—whether that voice comes from the outside or the inside.

If you still feel incapable of creating, start small. Try to see how many smiles you can create, write a letter of appreciation, learn a new skill, identify a space and beautify it.

Nearly a century and a half ago, President Brigham Young spoke to the Saints of his day. “There is a great work for the Saints to do,” he said. “Progress, and improve upon and make beautiful everything around you. Cultivate the earth, and cultivate your minds. Build cities, adorn your habitations, make gardens, orchards, and vineyards, and render the earth so pleasant that when you look upon your labors you may do so with pleasure, and that angels may delight to come and visit your beautiful locations. In the mean time continually seek to adorn your minds with all the graces of the Spirit of Christ.” ⁶

The more you trust and rely upon the Spirit, the greater your capacity to create. That is your opportunity in this life and your destiny in the life to come. Sisters, trust and rely on the Spirit. As you take the normal opportunities of your daily life and create something of beauty and helpfulness, you improve not only the world around you but also the world within you.