"A" is for Apron

Here is Apron #2. I found the pattern in this book:

"A" is for Apron.

I modified the pattern a little bit by just doing three pleats instead of gathering it at the waist, that's just easier to me. Anyway, If you like to make aprons or just like to sew quick/easy projects this book is ultra fab! You can buy it at JoAnns, Hobby Lobby, and I am pretty sure I bought mine at Barnes and Noble. There are about 22 different patterns and basically how it works is the patterns are in the very back of the book and you just take them to a Kinkos or Office Depot or some place like that and have them englarge the pages to however big it instructs. For this one I took it to our FedEx/Kinkos and had them enlarge the page 400%. It cost me about $7 per page but you can reuse the pattern pieces so it's not too bad. Then you just cut out the pattern and follow the instructions like any other pattern. Bada Bing, Bada Boom...

(BTW Where are my feet? That looks weird. Oh well, I am too lazy to fix it.)

6th File, 6th Picture Tag

Rachelle tagged me soooo here is what you do: open your pictures, go to the 6th file and pick the 6th picture, then post it and tell about it...so here you go:

I opened my pictures and went to my 6th file and the 6th picture was a picture of an Operating Room that Scot had to take for work and I just thought that was no fun so I decided to open my scans and go to the 6th file and the 6th picture was this one. The night this really bad picture was taken was an interesting one.

Some of you may have heard this story, some of you may even have been there (Mitzi Bitzi) and some of you are in for a little treat...So Scot and I were dating and it was the week that everyone was leaving for Christmas break 2003ish (2 whole weeks! Oh to be in college again!). Of course Scot and I wanted to have one last date before we had to part for that eternally long break so I came up with this brilliant idea that I was going to cook dinner for Scot (you know to show him that I was prime wife material and would be able to take great care of him if we were to get married...wink, wink). I called my mom (thanks a lot mom! You almost cost me my eternal future. j/k) and she told me to cook this chicken/rice/broccoli ensemble. She told me it was really easy and everyone likes it, you can't go wrong. So I go to Broulims and by all the ingredients and start whippin' that bad boy out. I'm just goin' along and getting pretty cocky because this is starting to look really good if I do say so myself. Suddenly I realized it was getting really late and I should probably get in the shower and get ready before my man gets there and sees me looking scraggly (gasp). As I was getting ready I was going back and forth between the bathroom and the kitchen, twirling and skipping around. So happy. I should also mention that I decided to make an apple crisp for dessert (I know, I know so Paula Dean of me) because it will be important to the story in a minute. Fast forward a little bit to Scot arriving for the big meal. Scot, Mitzi and I were like the three muskateers so we invited Mitzi to eat with us. We all sat down and said a little prayer to bless the food (little did we know were were going to need that more than we thought) and then we dug in. Well, Scot was the first one to find a big LOOOOONG blonde hair. Mortification! I could NOT believe it. Even though we were all kind of gagging a little we decided to forge ahead because of course there couldn't be more than one hair. We were wrong, Mitzi found the next hair. GAG. Then we get to the middle of the chicken...it was PINK. YAK! I had pretty much had it at that point. Just when I didn't think it could get ANY worse Scot reveals that he doesn't even like broccoli. NICE. OK so when dinner doesn't go well there is always dessert to bring up your spirits right? I opened the oven to check on my apple crisp but the top wasn't turning brown so Mitzi says "oh just turn the oven to broil for a couple minutes." So I decided that that sounded like a good idea so I cranked it over. While we were waiting we decided to watch a little T.V. After a few minutes it kind of started to stink a little...kinda burnt...I went over to check on my delicious dessert and lo and behold it was no longer a golden brown yummy apple crisp but an extremely black and charred apple crispy. That was the end of it for me. I looked at Scot and told him that he could take me for Ice Cream after the movie in Idaho Falls and we left. That's the last time I got ready while cooking. GROSS! Apparently Scot isn't really that in to eating because he still decided to marry me and I can't honestly say that my cooking skilss have gotten any better, don't even get me started on the time that I made sheppards pie...I think I just threw up in my mouth a little thinking about it.

Now I tag: Mitzi, Lisa, Devon and Lindsay

Another Project

So since we really haven't been going on any trips or doing anything involving pictures and we don't have any cute kiddos to talk about I am forced to show you another project.

Right before Christmas I bought this super cutie pattern from this Etsy shop: Little Projects (Love it!)

So I made one...

and then I couldn't stop, so I made three more...(That dark grey one looks funky just cause the brim is folded under, come to think of it they all look sort of weird but they are really cute on)
and I have the yarn and buttons to make about 4 more...

There we go with the self control thing again. I have come to the conclusion that I like multiples. That's probably why I ended up in Colorado Springs. Did you know that Colorado Springs has 9, count them 9 Wal Marts, 3 targets, more churches than you ever though could have existed and 2 malls (3 if you count the Promenade Shops at Briargate). That my friends is nutty especially for the size town it is...but I like it. OK?

More Obsessions

OK so remember when I posted about my magazine obsession? Welllll I have a couple of other obsessions. It's like when I find something I like I want a bazillion of them.

I really like headbands. I don't really even wear them but when I see someone wearing one or I see them in the store or in magazines I want it because I do think they look cute...they just don't look cute on me...anyway here is my collection of headbands that never get used (besides, have you ever worn one of those elasticy ones? They squeeze your brain practically they are so tight. On the few times I have worn them they leave an indention on my skull for a couple hours. That can't be healthy):

Along with being obsessed with magazines and buying headbands, I also ALWAYS feel like I need to buy lotion. It's like when we are in the lotion isle at Wal Mart for some reason I always think I am out and I better buy some because if I don't what if we get snowed in to our house and I don't have any lotion to use and I get all scally and dry (that would totally suck) or when we walk past Vicki's (Victoria's Secret) or Bath and Body Works the smell sucks me in and I buckle under the sales signs and talk myself in to thinking that 7 for $35 is the best deal of the century (it is a pretty darn good deal though) and fork over my credit card.

I have no self control...let's face it.

Best Dealio EVER!

***BEWARE...Potentially boring post ahead, proceed with CAUTION***

OK so on Saturday we needed to go to Lowes for some wood for a project that Scot is working on (more to come on that). So we walked in and went straight toward the one thing that we look at every time we go to Lowe's no matter what we are there for. The fake fireplaces. We have been eyeballing those bad boys for a really long time because it is one of the things that we really really wish we could change about this house. So we went over and there was a big old sign on top of them that said they were 50% off. We couldn't believe our little eyeballs. I was like that's it we're getting one. So we looked around and found the one that we have been wanting...and OF FREAKING course they didn't have that one in a box, just the floor model. So I was like OK let's go down to the Lowes that's closer to our house and see if they have it. So we get in our car and drive ALL THE WAY down to the one by our house (It's really not that far, I just felt like making it more dramatic). We looked around by ourselves for a little while but we didn't see the one we liked so we pressed the help button and this guy with a faux hawk comes strutting up to help us and let me tell you, he was wearing the teeniest tiniest little blue shirt I have ever seen folks. He must have washed it in hot water or something. ANYWAY he couldn't find it, he had never seen it, it didn't exist according to him. So then all of a sudden my brain walked back in to my head I guess and I said to Scot "DURRR why don't we just go back to the 1st Lowe's and see if we can take the floor model. They will probably give us an even bigger dicount"...SO WE DID AND THEY GIVE US AN EVEN BIGGER DISCOUNT just like I thought. Party!!! How could we pass it up? So to end a REALLY LOOOOOOOOONG and somewhat boring story...here it is...

That's a pretty craptastic picture but you get the idea. It matches our other furniture and everything. BOO YA! By the way I LOVE mantels. Aren't they the best? I haven't decided what exactly I want to do with this one yet but I am soooo excited to get some cute decor up there. Any ideas? Maybe some vases or lamps or SOMETHING. I will have to think about it...Oh and for your viewing pleasure,I told Scot to go and do a sexy pose like he was on a bear skin rug in front of a roaring fire and here is what he came up with...

Ain't he sexy? I sure think so...

So bottom line I just want you all to know, Lowe's is the bomb, faux fireplaces are the bomb diggity and guys with faux hawks in tiny blue shirts are no help!

MacCabe Out...(sorry, too much American Idol)

Crochet Ear Warmer

Call me an old lady if you want but I love to CROCHET. It's so theraputic and relaxing. Seriously, you should try it...For reals...I'm cereal...

N-E-WAYZ...While we were at my parental units house in California over Christmas I finished a couple crochet projects. One of them was this nifty little ear warmer that I thought I would share with you all. I found the pattern in one of my mom's Crochet Today magazines. I'm not sure which issue it was in but probably the November or December. The magazine is pretty much awesome and has tons of really super easy projects to try. You can also download projects off their website. So here is the finished product...

Thanks a bunch Mom for helping me with the stitching on the side and also a big thanks to Aunt Pam on getting that pom pom maker to work!! Love you guys!

Crickey, Just Call us the Squirrel Hunters

I guess it would actually be squirrely not cickey...but anyway that is not what's important here. What IS important however is that we FINALLY caught our squirrel!!

On New Years Eve Scot came home from work in the afternoon and saw a squirrel eating some little berries off one of the bushes in our front yard. So he got a little closer to investigate. That freaked the squirrel out and he climbed all over the side of the house and right in to a little unforseen hole on the side of the house. As I was driving home from work that same afternoon I called Scot to talk to him while I drove because that's how I roll. All he said to me was "there's a squirrel in our house." I was like "what?" OK actually I was more like "WHAT!??!! Curse word, curse word (j/k about the curse word, well the 2nd one anyway). Then he was like "I can't talk right now I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of this thing." So we hang up and I am just kind of driving in a fog at this point. Finally I snapped out of it and thought to myself Scot is such a joker, he is totally yanking my chain. This is so like him to get me all worked up. So I immediately call him back and was like "hahahahaha that was a good one, N-E WAYYYZ let's get this new years eve, we have the day off tomorrow and I am so happy party started." All he said was "I'm serious." No laughing, no giggles, no heavy breathing trying to push aside a laugh. I knew this was serious. So I got home and I am again IRRITATED. I finally get a day off of work and now I get to deal with a freaking squirrel. Perfect. So we read up on all of these awful ways to get rid of squirrels and learn all kinds of interesting facts. Such as:

* You can't just let a squirrel go in a field right across from your house after you catch him because they are smart little turds and they will just come back. Oh no you have to take them like 30 miles away so that they can't find their way back.


* There are lots of repelents for squirrels none of whichyou can just buy at the store, oh no you have order it off the internet. Ya right like I am really going to give some dude in Arkansas my credit card number so he can send me a bottle full of water and bleach. I will make my own concoction, thank you very much!


* Finally an average squirrel treatment by a professional averages from about $500 - $1000. Quite a large range if you ask me...

After learning these among other interesting things we decided to put some thin mesh up over the hole just to make sure that the squirrel really was living in our roof and sure enough two times the mesh was torn. So we knew we had to take some action. Finally in a last ditch effort we called a guy that we now like to refer to as our hero and he quoted us an extremely reasonable price AND he will fix the hole for us. Sign me up! So last week he came buy and set this trap...

by this hole...

Everyday we came home and checked our trap that is out on our roof for all to see. Now, I'm sorry to anyone out there who thinks this is inhumane but until you have a squirrel burrowing and probably making and having babies in your roof...I kinda don't even want to hear it...K? Anyway Finally by Friday I decided we had a pretty smart freaking squirrel on our hands. Our "hero" told us he is pretty sure that someone from down in town probably caught him and let him go in one of the fields by our house because this is not squirrel territory so he knows the drill. On Saturday again our "hero" came by and set another trap on our porch. This really did kind of freak me out because can't you just see the neighbor kids daring their friends to stick their hands in there or a cat coming by and getting stuck? Oh well it was a risk I was willing to take. Today however, today was a new day. I came home for lunch as I usually do fully expecting to see both trap doors open but lo and behold we finally out smarted the little turd. OH YES folks I smelled the sweet smell of victory. Here he is in all his nasty, little, furry, rodent glory. He's a feisty little guy too. He's chattering and really trying to get out of there. Too bad. He will not feel freedom until our "hero" gets back here sometime between and 2-4pm to take him out east and releases him 35 miles away out in the wide open countryside!

Oh the joys of home ownership...

We're still here...I promise!

So far 2009 has proven to be an interesting one. On January 2nd Scot's sweet mom was admitted to the hospital with a very serious case of pneumonia. She ended up on a ventilator to help her breath for 10 days and had to be sedated during that time. We spent every minute we could there with her in between work and on lunch breaks. It was an extremely scary and difficult time. Eventually on Monday she was well enough to be taken off of the ventilator, which was a long awaited happy day! She progressed really well after that and after a long 17 days in the hospital she was released to go home the following Monday. Oh happy day!! She still has a lot of healing to do but we couldn't be happier that she is home and on her way to a full recovery! We love her very much!!

We are so grateful for the gospel and for the strength that it brought us and continues to bring us during this difficult time. We have turned to the Lord for comfort, guidance and strength and feel his love around us continuously.

Life is good, we are happy and we are looking forward to a blessed 2009 with our family and friends!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! We just got back from our fabulous Christmas vacation to Sacramento, California although we didn't really spend a whole lot of time there. We had a great time and enjoyed spending time with family and friends! So here is how it alllll happened...

Part 1: San Fancisco with Jared and Jenni

On Tuesday we were able to spend the day in San Francisco with our friends Jared and Jenni. They were great tour guides and took us to all kinds of cool places that even I haven't been to in all of the many trips I have taken to San Francisco which was really awesome.

We started out by going to Union Square and looking at all of the stores that I will never be able to afford but love to admire in all of my magazines such as Betsy Johnson, Tiffany's, Dolce, Prada...OK you get the idea.
Then they took us to this great pizza place in Little Italy where we had by far some of the best pizza we have ever eaten. Here we are walking down to the restaurant...


After we had stuffed our tummies we went up to a place called Coit Tower. It was built as a memorial to the firefighters and was designed to look like a fire hose. You can get some really great views of the city from this point.
If you look closely you can see the Golden Gate Bridge to the upper right of the picture...

We also went to Baker Beach which was really fun. It was pretty cold though so we didn't stay there too long.

Here is Scot with "The Thinker"

Another really cool place they took us is called the Sutro Baths. It used to be a public indoor swimming pool built right on the water but it burned down so now all that is there is what was left after the fire but it was pretty neat to see.
And finally we went looking for Uncle Jessie and Michelle but we didn't find them so luckily we were able to stop by their house...
And that was pretty much our trip to San Fran in a nut shell. Thanks guys for being awesome tour guides! We had a great time!

Part 2: Christmas Day at Aunt Pam's

We had a wonderful traditional Christmas Eve at my Aunt Pam's house where we ate clam chowder for dinner, visited and opened up Christmas jammies. Yay! Here are a couple pictures of my dad and Scot playing pool.


Part 3: Christmas Day at Grandma and Grandpa's

So we really didn't take very many pictures on Christmas Day which wasn't very smart. We did get a couple of shots with my cousins though...

Christmas Day was wonderful of course. It was great to be with family and catch up.

Part 4: Dillon Beach and Bodega Bay


As part of our Christmas gift this year my parents booked a beach house at Dillon Beach in Northern California. We had a fabulous time relaxing, playing games, working on projects (I will post those later), walking down by the beach and just hanging out.

On the first day we got there Scot wanted to go down to the beach and put his feet in the water so my dad and I went down there with him. Scot loves the ocean. He loves looking for cool things on the beach and getting his feet wet. We all warned him that the water was going to be freezing but he still wanted to do it. As we were walking back to the house a sneaker wave got him all the way up to his rear end and I think that's when he finally realized we were right, the water really was cold!
I just like this picture...
There were some really cool rocks to explore...
The next day we drove in to Bodega Bay just up the the road from Dillon Beach. If you have ever seen the Alfred Hitchcok movie "The Birds" this is where that is filmed so that is Bodega's claim to fame I guess you could say. There were TONS of seagulls there (HUGE ONES) dive bombing us which I absolutely hated. I had way too many poopy run ins with seagulls in high school so I don't really like those birds too much. Here we are at "The Tides"...
And you always have to get your picture taken with the whale head at "The Tides"...
We went back down to Dillon Beach later that day to explore some more. Scot found his very first sand dollar. It was a whole one which is fairly hard to find so I was impressed...

And finally here is a group shot in front of our rental house. It was just a cute little funky old beach house built in 1940 and we loved every bit of it.
We are so thankful for this time of year that we have to celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. Even amidst all of the crazy and tragic things happening in the world at this time we still have so much to be thankful for. We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and we wish everyone happiness in the New Year.

Buttons, Wonderul Buttons...

Here is my button tree creation that I finished up last night. I saw the idea in a magazine a while ago and decided to try it out. It is just a styrofoam cone that you find in the craft/floral department at craft stores or Wal Mart (the green kind are the best). Then you need straight pins from the sewing department and a bunch of buttons (probably around 600ish varying upon what size you make)! I got my buttons from Archivers which is a scarpbook store. Most scrapbook stores sell bags of buttons.

I had so much fun working on this little guy. It was very theraputic and we all know I need a little therapy once in a while...

So if you are looking for something fun to do when it is so stinkin' cold outside (-9 degrees here in The Springs this morning...BRRRRR) try this! It very easy and goes pretty fast!

P.S. The lighting is pooptastic in these pictures and they are super grainy, maybe if I knew how to work the camera I could fix that but since I don't...