Merry Christmas!

This is how our wonderful Christmas morning went:
7:43 am - Hyrum awakens for his morning feeding. Ryan goes to get him and Malauna follows (in order to nurse him on the couch).
7:52 am - Ryan looks for camera (finds it in the van)
7:57 am - Sabrina awakens; immediately finds "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" and starts reading
8:06 am - Ryan finishes getting camera set up on tripod for the "Christmas Morning Family Portrait"


8:07 am - Ryan starts the final breakfast preparations - mixes the muffin batter, makes the Pineapple Orange juice
8:10 am - Hyrum done nursing; starts crawling around
8:11 am - Malauna gets out sausage and starts cooking it.
8:18 am - Blueberry muffins go into the oven
8:24 am - Malauna starts scrambled eggs
8:32 am - Ryan and Hyrum go to wake up Roderic
8:35 am - Blueberry muffins come out of the oven
8:36 am - Christmas Stockings may now be opened


8:41 am - Breakfast is served
9:06 am - We move from the kitchen table into in the music room, take our "Christmas Morning Family Portrait" and start opening presents, taking turns, one at a time, from youngest to oldest.


9:48 am - Roderic loses interest in opening presents because he has already opened some really cool ones, so he leaves with his Little People Fire Truck and goes to play with it on the couch.


9:53 am - Hyrum follows and plays

Sing a New Song

Last Sunday, when we got home from seeing the MoTab and King's Singers Christmas concert, there were 2 messages on the answering machine from our ward's Executive Secretary. They were both about setting up an appointment for me to see the Bishop. First thought: I'm getting a new calling; I wonder what it will be. Second thought: I wonder if this has any thing to do with this.

I had to wait with those thoughts until Wednesday night. I thought about being a Primary teacher, a Sunday School Teacher, Ward Librarian, or maybe even in the RS Presidency.

So, when the Bishop asked if I'd be the Ward Choir Director, I replied, "Wow. I didn't see that one coming."

I've been a member of the choir in every ward I've ever been in since I was 12. And now I get to be the director. I get to choose the songs. I get to invite (with firm expectations) people to come to choir practice. [that's how Sister Roedel did it, right?] I get to work with some amazing musicians. I think this will be a great adventure. Wow.

Product Endorsement: Shutterfly.com

I LOVE SHUTTERFLY.COM!!!!!

About 10 PM on Friday, December 14, we sent a request to have Christmas cards printed and shipped to us. Their website said we could expect our Christmas cards between Dec 21 and Dec 24. Well, Saturday we got an email (that I read yesterday) that said the cards had been shipped and we could expect them between Dec 19 and Dec 21. Last night, when I got the mail, the Christmas Cards were in them!

Good news for friends and family. This may be the earliest we've ever sent out our Christmas cards! Ever!

High Stress

I have been the Enrichment leader in our ward since October 2004. (Incidentally, I was called 2 weeks before "Super Saturday.") Prior to being the Enrichment leader, I was on the Enrichment board as Quilt Specialist from October 1999-February 2004; and then as Ward Humanitarian Service Specialist from February 2004-October 2004. Basically the whole time we've been in this ward.

The changes made to the Enrichment program effective January 2006 have made my calling a bit easier, only having 4 big activities a year, versus 12 under the old plan. However, instead of planning 12 good Enrichment meetings that over the course of a year will benefit all the sisters in the ward, we have to plan 4 stellar Enrichment meetings so that each one will be of worth to each sister in the ward. Talk about stress.

Well, enough of the background. Last night was Enrichment. We planned dinner and a program. Hurray for a capable helper who was completely in charge of the food! It was delicious: Chicken with peaches, Spinach-Cranberry salad, rolls and pies. I didn't worry about that at all.

For the theme of the evening, the Enrichment Counselor came up with, "Rejoicing in the Gifts; Rejoicing in the Giver." We (the 3 of us on the board) called or emailed every husband to get from them a list of the talents and gifts they felt their wives had. (I've mentioned before my fear of telephones.) If the sister had no husband, we contacted their home teachers or children or good friends. These lists were then pared down to 2 items that were put on a piece of parchment paper, rolled up and put in a gift box. The gift boxes had labels and that is what we used for place cards.

Also with these lists, we found the sisters who had talents that could be shared in a program setting (musical, poetry readings, etc.). We invited the rest of the sisters to bring something that represented a gift or talent they possess to put on display to help decorate the cultural hall. There were wood carvings, Mexican dresses, quilts, scrapbooks, photographs, hand-sewn blessing gowns, pencil drawings, Differential Equations textbooks, lapidary, label makers, flower pots, and boxing gloves. It was really cool to see the talents of these amazing women.

I got to play my bass guitar in the program. Originally, I was going to play the only song that I remembered from High School, "Baby, I Love You," because I could sing along with it. Then when I realized that every other song/poem/story on the program was about Christmas or Christ, I wanted to get out of it and show a quilt that I've made instead. The Enrichment Counselor said, "And exactly WHEN are you going to get to play your guitar in sacrament meeting???" I told my dilemma to Ryan and he reminded me that I could pull out a tape of a Christmas song that I did in high school and play along with it. And that is what I did. "I'm Gonna Be Warm This Winter." It was fun to be a "rock star" last night. Someone even asked for my autograph.

Have I mentioned that I'm really happy to have that Enrichment meeting over? My stress levels are dropping. I'm ready to decorate the Christmas tree.

Dad is Great; he gives us Chocolate Cake

I made the most delicious chocolate cake for Ryan's birthday. (Is it possible to go wrong when the ingredients include: Chocolate cake mix, chocolate pudding, sour cream and chocolate chips?) Anyhow, last night was our ward Christmas party, and Ryan was too full of dessert when we came home to have any more, so this morning for breakfast we had CHOCOLATE CAKE! Yum, yum.

Happy Birthday Ryan!

I feel bad that the presents I ordered online won't be arriving at our house until Tuesday. I was too cheap to pay the $15 shipping fee to guarantee birthday arrival. (I qualified for FREE super-saver shipping) Thanks for being a good sport about receiving a picture of your present. Its like Fozzy Bear's joke of a guy who was so cheap he put a picture of a worm on his fishing line and caught a picture of a fish.

Their stockings were hung...

When we were newlyweds and I worked for a company that basically paid me to cross-stitch on the job, I started making Christmas Stockings. It took several years to finish them, but by Sabrina's first Christmas, I had 3 completed. Roderic was celebrating his 2nd Christmas when I got his finished.

Now we're approaching Hyrum's 2nd Christmas and cross-stitching a whole stocking is not a high priority. Rather than give up and buy Hyrum a stocking, I decided that I could make a quilted one. Last night I finished it! I worked on cross-stitching his name and "Nadolig Llawen" (Merry Christmas in Welsh) during Roderic's gymnastics class (and also some late nights). At least his will have some continuity with the others. It was a lot of fun to machine quilt this project, thanks to Stacy's description of how to do it.


In case you're wondering, each stocking has "Merry Christmas" stitched in a different language. So far I've used Russian, French, Dutch, Danish and Welsh.

Dank u Sinter Klaas

To celebrate our Dutch heritage, we have decided to start celebrating Sinter Klaas day with our kids. Last night we put straw and carrots for Sinter Klaas' horse into our klompen and this morning they were filled with our favorite candies! Tonight, we get a present and a poem written for each of us. Unfortunately, we won't be having the traditional chocolate initials (I didn't have time to order them or make them, because we decided to do this just a few days ago). Instead we'll have 'Kindereggs.'

I'm it.

Thanks to my Aunt Noelle, I get to share six facts, hobbies or interests. I'm going to stick with the facts and only the facts.

Number of countries in Europe I've visited? 6
Number of child I am? 5
Number of times I've been pregnant? 4
Number of bedrooms in my house? 3
Number of passports I've had? 2
Number of hours I've worked on this post? 1

Adventures with Roderic

While celebrating Thanksgiving this past weekend, we were at my parents house. Roderic was outside with several cousins and Uncle Carson. The rest of us were inside enjoying pie. All of a sudden we hear Roderic's shrill cry and then Uncle Jason saying to the cousins, "And that is why we are not playing in the back yard."

You see, Roderic had been in the back yard - he says getting food for the fishes, Carson says putting sticks in Grandma's pond - and then slipped and slid into the icy cold pond. Thankfully, Carson was there keeping an eye on him and helped him to get out of the pond and into the house. It will be interesting to see how this experience will affect him in going near backyard ponds in the future. (Even Grandpa Gibby has a pond.)



When we woke up yesterday morning, Roderic was so pleased with himself for getting his own breakfast. What will he think of next. (Ryan had it mostly cleaned up when I got to the kitchen.)

New Baby, New Quilt

After returning from Russia, it was apparent that my friend was having another baby. She was 'forced' into sharing her news because her abdomen had popped out. I decided I could make her a quilt for her baby, so I called and asked what her favorite colors are. She replied, "What am I doing with these colors? Wearing them? Decorating with them? Eating them?" I told her, "Cuddling a baby with them." With that information she told me greens and purples because she would find out the sex of the baby at birth. I saw a stripy quilt at Quilter's Crossing that I thought I could do, so I decided that would be the quilt for this baby. It was really easy to piece. And with the help of Stacy's fancy embroidery sewing machine, I was able to quilt it with a fancy loop-de-loop stitch.

I am pleased with the results.

And once again, I embroidered a tag for the back. Still love my signature in thread! And don't you just love the material I found for the back of the quilt?

Now and Then

my baptism; my first date; my trip to Russia
(yeah, that first date photo should have a blog entry all of its own)

What You Wanted to Be/ Now Are:
age 8: a teacher
age 16: Environmental Engineer or Professional Genealogist
now: I am a mom!

Favorite Toy:
age 8: "Blair Aldo", my Cabbage Patch Kid
age 16: Rollerblades
now: my laptop

Favorite Game:
age 8: Alphabet game
age 16: Celestial Pursuit, not that I was any good. We just didn't own any other games.
now: Ticket to Ride

Favorite Color:
age 8: pink
age 16: forest green
now: I like the variety of colors.

Favorite Movie:
age 8: Condorman
age 16: The Fugitive (and any other movie starring Harrison Ford)
now: Wives and Daughters

Favorite Thing to Do:
age 8: Play barbies, of course I didn't own any at the time. The summer before, my one and only Barbie had gotten run over by the lawn mower (Cortney) because I didn't put it away. My mom wouldn't even let my aunt Luella buy me a new one for my birthday.
age 16: SING
now: sew/quilt, closely followed by reading blogs

Thanks to Heather for suggesting this trip down memory lane.

How to...

add a movie to your blog. (This is for you Heather!)

1. Create a new post.
2. Now you have a screen in front of you that allows you to type in your post. There is the "Edit Html" tab and the "Compose" tab. You need to have the "Compose" tab in the foreground.
3. There are 17 small icons to help you with posting (text size, bold, add hyperlink, center justify, bullets, spell check, etc).
4. Click on the one that is 16/17. It is right next to add picture. Second icon in from the right. The picture is a movie strip. When you put your mouse over it, a pop-up title appears saying "Add video."
5. Follow the instructions on the window that pops up titled "Add a video to your blog post."

I hope this helps you to be able to add home movies for all the world to enjoy.

Jesus Calms the Sea

Last week, Roderic came home from church very excited about a story he was told in Nursery. He has brought it up all week long. Yesterday, I told him that we had a movie that has that story on it (Finding Faith in Christ) and we could watch it. He was disappointed that in the movie, Christ didn't put his arm straight out like he was taught at Nursery, but put his arm to the square instead. (His attention faded soon after that scene because that is all he wanted to watch. As soon as the whole movie ended, he asked to watch it again.)

Tonight, as Roderic was in charge of the lesson, he pulled out the picture "Stilling the Storm" (#214 in the Gospel Art Picture Kit) and told us the story - in all of the glory of one sentence. "The boat is trying to sink and Jesus calms the sea with his arm like this." When we asked what Jesus teaches us by this story he repliled: "Be nice, be cheerful, be prayerful, be a lesson."

So if you're ever wondering if kids are listening during the lesson in Nursery, Susie & Tim, YES Roderic does (sometimes).

A conversation with...

Sabrina:

What is your favorite thing to do each day? Why?
I enjoy doing fun and interesting things during the day like playing with playdoh, reading books, ect.

What is your favorite game to play outside with your friends?
I dont have any favorites . I just like interesting and fun games.

What job do you want to do when you grow up?
I want to be an ASTRONAUT!

What is your favorite song to sing?
Pretty much any song.(almost)

What is your favorite thing to do in school?
Anything thats not discouraging

What do you like most about being 8?
What I like most is having more nolige on what I should do and what I shouldnt do.

What do you love most about your brothers?
What I love most about my brothers is I love and they love play with me.

What was the nicest thing you did for someone today?
During quiet time, I went into Roderic's room because he was screaming for you, Mom, and I played with him.

What do you think you'll be doing in 5 years when you are 13?
I think I will be the same in one way and different in another.

What is your least favorite thing to do everyday?
Unless I have help, I don't like cleaning my room.

What is your favorite toy? Why?
I DONT HAVE ANY MOM!

What is your favorite food?
Lots of fruits, but not dried, except raisins; carrots, broccoli, peas, spinach; brownies, Amish Frienship Bread; and a lot of other stuff.

What is your favorite subject in school?
MATH!

Election Day

I have voted in every election for the past 12 years. I remember being so excited to register to vote in my first election when I turned 18. Those election judges at Whitesides Elem. were so nice to me that night when I went with my Dad and sister. It was really neat to be an election judge myself in May 2001 and remind everyone to make sure there were no 'hanging chads' on their ballots.

I will admit that even though I've voted every time, I haven't been a fully informed voter every time. For example, in November 1999, shortly after moving to Boise, Ryan and I went to vote not knowing anything about what was on the ballot. In Idaho you can register at the poll, you just need a picture ID and a proof of residency, so we went to our polling place, registered to vote and then were given ballots with 2 seats to fill and one person running for each seat. It turned out that that election recorded one of the lowest voter turnouts in Boise history with 14.5% of registered voters voting. Wow.

Since then, we have done a much better job of becoming informed, although judges still don't have anything written on them, so I follow my mom's advice and don't vote for incumbent judges (sometimes). Usually, we read the voter guide in the Idaho Statesman, but this year, after reading their trivial amount of coverage, Ryan found a much better guide from the Boise Weekly. We are now prepared to vote. Are you?

Go Vote!

15 minutes

We were on time for church yesterday, even a little early (7 minutes!). A few minutes before the meeting started, the Bishop came and asked Ryan to help bless the Sacrament and of course, Ryan said yes. So there I was with a teary-eyed Sabrina on one side of me, almost ready to nurse Hyrum in my arms, and rambunctious Roderic on the other side. First thought - why me - but happily that changed almost as soon as I thought it. I then thought how lucky I was: to be able to talk with Roderic about the awesome thing his Dad was helping with; Hyrum loved seeing his dad up on the stand and called out several times (Ryan said he didn't hear him); and my juggling of these 3 kids alone would last for no more than 15 minutes. I had such a smile during the Hymns.

We didn't have our "Happy Minute" in Relief Society yesterday, so I'm going to share mine now. My sewing machine came back unharmed from the Elder's Quorum service project of sewing school bags!

She shoots and...

She scores!!!

A shout out to Sabrina and the Blue Dolphins for winning 2nd place in the 2007 Idaho Rush Select Fall Classic! [I was just so pleased that I actually caught this goal on video! The boys didn't come to the game (naptime), so at least they got the highlight film.]

Let him eat cake...

I am so pleased with how cute Hyrum's cake turned out!
I got the idea for a train cake from Family Fun magazine online.

One yellow cake mix filled up 6 mini loaf pans. I made cream cheese frosting and used a lot of food coloring to get the vibrant colors for each of the train cars. I was going for "The Little Engine that Could" and filled the cars with good things for the children on the other side of the mountain to eat. (i.e. pumpkins, swedish fish, buttered popcorn, hershey's kisses) The coal was licorice nibs and the caboose had gummy bears on the lookout. The wheels were mini oreos. The cuplings were made out of strawberry twizzlers.

(after seeing the cake Lindsay made for Sawyer, I decided I could also make a cake for my 1 year old)

Happy Birthday Hyrum!

I think on the one year anniversary of Hyrum's birth, I should publish in my blog the story of his birth. Both Ryan and I typed up a version shortly after his birth, however since our computer crash in January 07, I don't have mine anymore. If you were one of the lucky people who I emailed my version to and still have it will you please send it back to me? For now, the blog will just have Ryan's version:

It was one of those "this only happens in the movies" moments when I actually got pulled over on the way to the hospital. A little background: I've never had a speeding ticket--never. I've been pulled over for speeding maybe 5 times including this one, and every time I've gotten off with only a warning. I'd never been pulled over in Boise before this time. I'm almost always pretty conscientious about only going the speed limit, or at least not greater than the average car in the vicinity. I say this just to point out the irony of the timing of being pulled over under these circumstances.

It took a lot longer to get out of the door and on the way to the hospital than it should have, but until the last moment we didn't think it mattered very much--we figured that we had many hours of labor left, just as we'd had with our other children. But as we were finally getting out of the house, Malauna gave me unmistakable signs that she had definitely already finished the first stage of labor! She had moved into stage two--she felt like pushing, and she didn't think she could make it (and that we couldn't make it to the hospital)! I said a verbal prayer and told her that we were going to make it.

We got out of the door and onto the road with only one contraction slowing us down--getting her into the car had been a huge challenge. We got on the freeway, and then I was finally starting to feel like we'd make it to the hospital with 100% certainty (whereas for the past 15 minutes it had been me saying that we could, but not really being sure). But then there were a couple of loud contractions; that is Malauna was being loud, and complaining of cramps. So I was trying to rub them. This naturally gave me a little less attention to pay to the speedometer (and I'd forgotten to put on the Cruise Control--don't know why on that one. You know how they say you shouldn't talk on the cell phone and drive--well you probably shouldn't be the labor coach and drive, either).

Then, out of the blue, while finishing her strongest contraction yet, Malauna blurted out, "there's a cop and you're speeding". Half to myself I said, "No I'm not", but then looking down, oops. I was going around 80 in the 65 zone. The highway patrolman didn't pull us over for at least a mile of catching up to and then following me; and I'd reduced my speed as soon as Malauna said it and so I again thought we were fine. But no--just before we'd be leaving the freeway, he pulled the switch and his rotating lights beamed down on us. The idea of just continuing on was there in my mind, as the predicament seemed pretty severe. But I imagined that the results of that could be much worse than even a mini-van birth, so I quickly began to decelerate and pull to the shoulder.

It seemed like it was taking the officer forever to come up to the car, so I opened my window and was calling back: "Excuse me, my wife's in 2nd stage labor and we've got to get to the hospital quickly--please hurry!" I don't know if he heard, or maybe he didn't fully hear and just thought I was drunk or something. Because it was maybe another whole minute of an arduous 60 seconds or more before he finally came and shined the light in on Malauna's side. So I was fumbling to try to roll down that window too, when Malauna got it, which instantly annoyed me because it was cold. I started right in to explaining to him as coherently as possible. I handed him my license which I already had out before he asked; yet he also wanted the registration and insurance (I was hoping he'd forgo those). I fished that out, and Malauna was heading back into an even stronger contraction, so she started a crescendo of moaning. This added a lot of credibility to the story that I was blurting to him about not noticing that I was going that fast because she was really needing to get to the hospital. I think he didn't want to have to try to help with the delivery, because at that point he let us go right away. But there was no escort--although a lot of people thought that's what should have happened. Maybe that's really just in the movies? Anyway, at the time I didn't think of it. I didn't even take the time to put away my license--just dropped them and safely merged back onto the freeway.

Once we finally got there, it was a very large challenge getting her into the hospital all of the same--getting out of the car took another 2 contractions, and then there was a 30 yard walk (at a snails pace), owing to construction and relocation of the entrance to the labor and delivery center. This required many more progress-freezing contractions. And even then it was still a race against time for the nurses to get her situated. Malauna was fully dilated, as we could have guessed had we tried. The nurses seemed like they didn't want it to happen yet, but they also seemed competent and strangely reassuring--they didn't give me additional reasons to worry. And then her water broke and the whole miracle began in earnest--15 minutes before the mid-wife even arrived.

Once the adrenaline had ended and our beautiful boy was safe in our arms and screaming heartily, Malauna signed the Hospital admission forms and they put their tags on us. I found my drivers license underneath my seat the next day.

Family Home Evening

Conducting: Mom
Welcome to Family Home Evening!: Roderic
Opening Song: "Follow the Prophet" lead by Dad
Prayer: Roderic (said the the quietest whisper)
Talent: Sabrina (played "Musette" by J.S. Bach on the violin with awesome dynamics)
Lesson: Hyrum with Dad's help (October First Presidency Message by President Monson about examples: John the Baptist (humility), Noah (obedience), Abraham (faith), Nephi (obedience and determination), Joseph Smith (courage), President Hinckley (optimism), and Jesus Christ (the Exemplar).)
Activity: Take a walk to Grand Forest Dr. and have pictures taken in the leaves as a family. (The trees and leaves were awesome color, but unfortunately, the clouds were blocking the setting sun so we don't have the golden light to go with.)



Treat: Roderic (ice cream sandwich made with graham crackers)

Science in the Kitchen

Sabrina came home with a science project on 10/8, due on 10/15. She needed to come up with an experiment that she could do following the scientific process. The question she came up with was, "Why do we need yeast in bread?" So, Sabrina mixed up 2 batches of bread dough - one with no yeast and one with yeast (originally we were thinking of doing another batch with double the yeast, but we ran out of time).

More Amazing Music

My mom sings with Mountain Jubilee Chorus, a Sweet Adelines Chorus from Salt Lake City. This week, they are performing in an international competition in Calgary. You can see the competition on a webcam here.

I really enjoy barbershop music. Watching this competition has made me want to sing in a barbershop chorus here. (I'm a member of KMMS, a quartet with my sisters, but we don't perform much anymore.) Unfortunately, the chorus in Boise, Treasure Valley Showtime Chorus, only practices on Monday nights and that is when we have Family Home Evening.

Amazing Music

Did you watch the General Relief Society Meeting Broadcast on Saturday night? If not, you're in luck because the audio is now available online at www.lds.org on the broadcast page.

I don't usually rave about women's choruses, however this chorus of Relief Society sisters from South Jordan, Utah had some amazing arrangements. They sang a most uplifting arrangement of "Hark, All Ye Nations" that gave me goose bumps. Click on the link above, select the English 16k audio stream and then fast forward to minute mark 24:58 to listen to that song. I enjoyed it so much. Then, when you're done with that song, fast forward to 1:13:48 and listen to a wonderful arrangement of "The Lord is my Light." Enjoy!

Apple Pie

What's more American than Apple Pie in September?

Two weeks ago I took a drive out to Williamson Orchards in Caldwell to buy 6 boxes of peaches (22 lbs. per box) in order to put up peaches with Susie. [We wanted Elberta peaches, but they were sold out for the season, so I got Snow King peaches instead, which have white meat. In the jars, they look like pears.] We each wanted to have 30 quarts of peaches and according to the Ball Blue Book, we'd need about 120 lbs. of peaches. After one long day of canning, we had 56 quarts (3 jars had broken), and 2 full boxes of peaches left. We were out of "Fruit Fresh" and energy, so we resolved to finish the rest the next week. Little did we know that my boys would get sick, family would come into town, and "Fruit Fresh" was sold out at every store in the vicinity. Before we got back to them, the peaches were rotten. Susie says she has pictures she'll post to her blog. Here they are.

Anyhow, while I was at the orchard, I also bought a box (22 lbs.) of Gala apples. I was intending that our family would eat them, but we haven't been doing it as quickly as needed, so yesterday I decided to put up apple pie filling so that we wouldn't end up with a half-box of rotten apples. This morning, I canned 6 quarts, 1 pint, made 2 Dutch crumb apple pies (thanks to Susie for the pie crusts), and one apple crisp for Ryan to take to the scout campout tonight. Yum!

Now I have to go make the Amish Friendship bread that my sister Milaka sent to me with my mom last week. I have 2 starts to work with because my sister, Shanda, didn't take hers home with her. Can I interest anyone in a start?

Ohio Star

I've now attended the 3 classes in the first session of beginning quilt making. The instructor was very helpful. For my quilt, I've decided to make 6 blocks. When I'm done, it will hang on a wall in my bedroom.

For homework after the first class, I had to go shopping for fabric. I'm glad I had Stacy there with me to pick out the fabric. The next step was washing, drying and ironing! I had no idea that ironing was such an important part of quilting. This was the first time I ironed fabric right after pulling it out of the dryer.

At class 2, we learned how to cut the fabric. Rotary cutters are my friend! The homework for this class was cutting out the squares and triangles needed. Happily, I got this done in class, so all I needed to do at home was clip the corners of the triangles. With the corners clipped, the sewing should go smoothly.

Laying out the fabric--just to see.

Yesterday afternoon, when I layed out the fabric in the Ohio Star design, I couldn't see the star. I thought I might need to change out the fabric to make it more dramatic. But there was no time to do that before class, so I decided that I'd sew one at class and then change the fabric for the other 5.

However, after sewing and pressing the one block at class, I am able to see the star and I think it looks pretty good. Our teacher gave us some awesome hints on how to sew triangles without pinning them. I am so glad I'm taking this class!

My first completed Ohio Star block.

Now, to get ready for the second session of beginning quilting class, I need to sew the remaining 5 blocks and then purchase sashing and border fabric. Can I get this done by Oct. 23? I plan to.

Do you agree with these 'scientific' results?

And there you have it, my kids look like me!

8 Things

My sister-in-law tagged me to blog about 8 things that most people don't know about me. Lucky me.

1. Telephones. I am scared when I need to call people I don't know on the telephone. In high school, I wouldn't even call for pizza delivery. I did not mention this during my interview with Delta AirLines when I was applying for a job being a phone reservation representative.

2. Christmas Stockings. I have cross-stitched designs for Christmas stockings for myself, Ryan, Sabrina, and Roderic. I have not yet started on the one for Hyrum. On each of the stockings, I have 'Merry Christmas' stitched in a different language. Mine is in French, Ryan's is in Russian, Sabrina's is in Dutch and Roderic's is in Danish. I'm thinking of having Hyrum's language be Welsh.

3. Suspended. In 9th grade, I was suspended from school for 2 weeks. The reason for my suspension? Measles. My mom did not have me vaccinated as a child. At the start of every school year, she would sign the release form that I could attend school and that they could keep me out if my health were in danger. Well, that spring there was a measles outbreak in Davis county, so me along with several other students, were called out of class and told to go home and not return for at least 2 weeks, or if we got sick, we could return when we were no longer contagious. I was looking forward to the break from school, but the next morning, I had red dots on my torso. Measles! Our family was quarantined (my sister in 10th grade had to miss school - she had been vaccinated, but we had no record to prove it) My 3 little brothers got sick and my oldest sister got sick, even though she had had German Measles as a baby.

4. Tree of life. I started my formal schooling at The Tree of Life School, a private school in Ogden, UT. I was the only person my age in the school. There were a total of 15 students, K-12. I was able to work at my own pace, and after attending there 2 years, I had completed work for Kindergarten, First and Second grades. However, the next school year, when I transferred to Lincoln Elementary School (a public school), my age indicated that I should be in the second grade. After one quarter, a demanding Mom, and testing, I skipped to 3rd grade. From then on, I was the youngest person in my grade.

5. Kisses. The first time I kissed my husband was over the altar in the Salt Lake Temple on our wedding day. All of the times before that, he was my boyfriend. Interesting enough, I have only ever kissed Ryan.

6. Doll Collection. I started collecting dolls in 1988 when my sister, Shanda, came home from England with a doll dressed in a ceremonial guard costume for me. Now I have dolls from all over the world.

7. PDQ. One night when I was working at the Delta Center (on the suite level on a night when most suites were empty), I started compiling questions for my "Prospective Darling Questionnaire." [I was 18.] There were 50 questions in all ranging from favorite color, to favorite scripture to favorite General Authority to what they were studying at school. It was quite an exhaustive list. I only gave it to one boy, and surprisingly enough, he took the time to answer each question thoroughly. It's no wonder I married him.

8. Chain letters. I do not forward chain letters be it by mail, email or blog (I consider tagging a type of chain letter). If you were to send me a chain letter about recipes, for example, I would send a recipe to your friend and one to you, but I would not send the request to anyone else. So, I've done my part in sharing 8 things about me, but I'm not going to ask anyone else to do the same.

a·rach·no·pho·bi·a (ə-rāk'nə-fō'bē-ə)

I have a fear of spiders. Not cute spiders like Charlotte's Web in the movies, but of big spiders. Once, when I was about 10 and reading Charlotte's Web in my bedroom, a spider was crawling on my wall (far away from where I was) and I had to go get my big brother to kill it. That spider had nothing on the one I found in my garage yesterday.

When I came home and opened the garage door with the remote, I saw this large black thing run across my garage floor. I parked the car on the driveway and got out to investigate. I saw the biggest spider you've ever seen. I went over to my hero's house (more on her later) and asked her if she could come and kill a giant spider for me. When we got back to my garage, there was no sign of the giant, so my hero left. I got the two boys out of the van and we went into the house via the front door. I did not want to be startled by a spider with my baby in my arms.

A few hours later, when Sabrina went out to the garage to go to soccer practice, she eeked due to the spider. She had almost stepped on it. (I told her that would have been a good thing.) I calmly went in to grab my camera so I could photograph the giant (leaving Sabrina to put on her helmet alone). The spider wasn't gone when I got back, so I snapped a picture. I'd love to have posted it today but this explains why I can't. I called my hero to come and kill the spider and she came quickly. We discussed the best way to do it: I suggested a flyswatter, but my hero thought that wouldn't give enough force, so she used a metal snow shovel found in the garage. She swatted and got it, and then a bunch of baby spiders were on the shovel, so she smooshed them with her shoe, all while I was frozen at my garage door.

Using my photograph and the internet, I have come to the conclusion that the offending giant spider was a wolf spider, which according to the University of Idaho Entomology Department, "Wolf spiders run after prey and catch it. They do not employ webs to entangle insects. They have one large eye on each lateral side of their head for better vision. Adults will carry spiderlings on their back for a while. Some of our largest spiders in Idaho are wolf spiders."

Today, looking at the picture on my camera, typing spider in my web-browser, and reading all about them have caused my heart rate to elevate. I have a fear of spiders.

I'm so excited!

Earlier this year, my mom recommended a series of books for me to read because I was nursing a lot, so I had a lot of reading time available. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about these quilters and so I started looking into taking a quilting class in the spring. I found several stores around Boise that offered beginning quilting classes, and decided that was for me. The reason I couldn't start then is because I nurse my babies, and this one doesn't like a bottle. I even told Stacy that she would need to sign up with me to take the class (although her husband now refutes that she would even like to learn how to quilt). Long story short...

TONIGHT IS THE FIRST CLASS!!

In the first 3 meetings of the class, we're going to learn about designing and drafting a quilt, color, fabric selection and machine piecing. That seems all fine and dandy. In classes 4-6, we're going to learn how to set them, add borders, determine and mark quilting designs, quilting techniques and attaching binding. Its the last 3 classes that I'm most excited for, but in order to get to that stuff, you need quilt blocks, and that is what we make in the first 3 classes. All things must go in order.

Food, Glorious Food!

On Friday night we ate dinner on the "Pannenkoekenboot" (translation: The Pancake Boat). We got a tour of the Rotterdam harbor and ate all the pancakes we could eat for 1 hour. The pancakes are thin like crepes and you put on them any kind of topping you want: meats, cheeses, boiled eggs, chocolates, syrups, fruits, etc. It was delicious.

Ryan eats one last pancake before the boat docks.

Poffertjes. Delicious silver dollar sized fluffy pancakes served with butter and powdered sugar (also whipping cream and strawberries). I bought Ryan a pan that can cook these for Father's Day in 2004. We've made them for dinner a few times and they are tasty. However, from this street vendor, they were heavenly!

Quarter Chicken and frittes. FYI, they eat fries with mayonnaise or with "American Frittes Sauce" which consists of mayo, mustard and dill. Have you ever eaten fries with that?

Stuffed Sol and Frittes.

For lunch most every day, we ate cheese sandwiches - I loved it. Gouda and Edam cheeses are delicious!
For breakfasts, we ate a variety of foods, including bread with butter and sprinkles that you eat with fork and a knife. They come in chocolate and fruity flavors. I've found this online store that will sell them to you if you want to give it a try. Sabrina loves this as an after-school snack.

Dutch Cousins

After our lovely stay in St Petersburg, we flew to the Netherlands (hey, we were in the neighborhood) to visit Ryan's Dutch cousins. Ryan (and his parents) got to go and meet them in March 2004 while I stayed home, too pregnant to travel - I was 32 weeks along with Roderic. Then, in September 2004, Elly, Gerard and Annie came to Utah to stay with Ryan's parents and tour the west. We went down and got to take them to some sights around Salt Lake City.

The top of Hidden Peak at SnowBird Ski Resort in 2004.
Robert, Elly, Dorothy, Roderic, Malauna, Sabrina, Ryan, Gerard, Annie.

Elly loved to hold Roderic and sing him songs in Dutch. Needless to say, I was excited to take Hyrum to visit Elly, so she could sing for him as well.

After a delayed flight out of St Petersburg, we missed our connecting flight in Paris, so we got to Amsterdam about 2.5 hours later than we planned. Gerard was planning to pick us up, we weren't able to contact him to tell him about our delay, he left the airport before we got there, so we booked a hotel near the airport and spent a lot of money on a taxi to get there (and back to the airport train station the next day to go to Rotterdam).

View of Elly's back 'yard.'
Malauna, Hyrum, Bianca, Vivian in Elly's living room.

We stayed at Elly's house in Rotterdam. We got to tour around Rotterdam and Kinderdijk with Elly, her daughter Bianca and granddaughters Charlotte and Vivian on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday and Monday we toured around The Hague, Delft, Zaanse Schaans and Amsterdam with Gerard and Annie.

Annie and Gerard walking in Delft.

Computer woes

As I'm reading my friends blogs this morning, I've remembered that I haven't posted anything in quite a while. This is due to the fact that our computer crashed -silly Vista. Something got corrupted and then made it so microsoft thought we didn't have an "Authentic Copy" of windows Vista. Very frustrating. We are still not back to 100% of functionality. I really need to add pictures from the Netherlands. Maybe later today... Oh, Ryan helped me put a different photo slide show of Carson and the Big Jud. I created it with Proshow Gold software, but then I couldn't figure out how to put it on my blog. This slide show software has a lot more features, and I like how this slide show looks compared with the other one.

Carson's visit

Right after we returned from Europe, my brother came for a visit. A friend of mine told me we must take Carson to Big Jud's for dinner, so we did. (She was surprised that I had never heard of this local landmark.) These are the pictures that prove that we went there, and that Carson earned the top honor at this restaurant.

If you eat the whole Big Jud Special, you get to have your picture put up on the wall of fame. There are a lot of missionaries' pictures on the wall... amidst a slew of other not-so-well-mannered folks' pictures.




Yes, he did eat the whole thing. Then, right after they took his picture for the wall, he went to the bathroom and said he'd puked. Of course now he denies the puking. (There were no witnesses either way.)

Fountains of Peterhof

Peter the Great designed St. Petersburg to be like western European cities. Peterhof, he planned to be like Versailles. When I went to Paris in September 1996 and visited Versailles, tourist season was over, so all of the fountains were off -- a great disappointment. Happily, the fountains were all on at Peterhof.

The grand fountain shows Samson ripping open the lion's mouth, a symbol used by Peter the Great for his naval victory over the Swedes.














More of the Grand Fountain.











At a Fountain in front of the Great Palace.

The Roman Columns (of course there is a pair, but I didn't have a wide angle lens to capture them both).



The Pyramid



Even in Russia, parents let their children play in fountains! This is a "trick fountain" meaning it randomly spits water when people are walking on it. (The Lonely Planet guide book said that kids are always on it, so the fountain is constantly on.)



This fountain spun around, very slowly.

This fountain was on the canal that would bring Peter in from the sea.

All of the water in these fountains are recycled by gravity - a forward thinking innovation designed by Peter the Great.