The Newest Tradition~ Girls Crafty Day

We have a new "tradition" in my house~

Girls Craft Day..

Once a month the girls of my family

(that live close enough~

sorry Kira :( but in May

we'll have a super duper one

for you!)

anyway we get together and get 

crafty!

We've held a few now and made

fabric banners with painted lettering.

Fun and easy!

to see more go to Lisa's site~

Stubbornly Crafty

We've made paper flowers~

Clem Bertaux taught us how to make

these cute flowers!

Clem is awesome~ she's Grams VT partner

and thinks she's a teenager. She's got more

energy than any kid I know! She's in the 

red shirt.

Sarai taught us how to make cake and

cookie pops. Sorry I don't have a picture 

of the finished product~ they were too 

good to last long :) 

We also made candy corn flowers~

Mag's and Mal had as much fun

making them as eating them :)

We used all the crafts that day and

made Valentines with them.

Don't judge my house!

We were crafting. Get your priorities straight 

people.

Our last project were aprons.

Ashley came up with an

original pattern for us

to use. She's pretty darned amazing.

Sarai made one for herself and one for each

girl. So cute and extra useful since her

fabric is vinyl so therefore wipe offable :)

She got her fabric at IKEA, I never would

have thought of shopping there!

Sophie's adorable.

And her apron is too!

Here's Lisa.

Cutie patootie.

Here's the finished products.

So much fun!

(wish I were as photogenic as these

girls are :( oh well, I have sweet spirit.)

The fabric I used was Eddie's Grandmas.

I got a stash of her fabric and love the vintage

look. On the selvage edge was the year

(that's why the close up picture)

It says 1961. I really love that about it!

Don't know if I'll wear it a lot or just display it,

either way they were quick and fun to make!

Can't wait for next month. Not sure

what we're making, but I don't even care;

just so fun to be together.

Guess I better show that Sierra

is usually with us too. She's one

of my girls too *heart heart*

Strawberry Days and Reunions (finally)

I don't want to hear about it-

how I'm so slow in getting

Strawberry Days stuff posted.

I realize I'm the last one to get this done,

but I've been busy- really :)

Every year our family sits in the same

place to watch the Strawberry Days

parade ~ the one SD event I never miss.

I'm not so good anymore with the carnival

or rodeo- can you imagine dragging

Gram around those places?

SD festivities for Eddie and Wendy

amount to getting up early (or going

at midnight) to set up chairs to 

mark our spot. We sit right in front of the 

antique store on Main. Next door is the

printing shop~ look! Sophie and Tommy's

announcement was on the front window!

 I set up 3 nasty old chairs and six nice

newer green chairs- when we arrived, two

nice chairs were missing! Amazingly enough,

on the corner were two chairs just like mine

but on the back in big black sharpie marker

was written "GRANDPA'S SO-IN-SO'S CHAIR"

and "GRANDMA'S......" on the other. 

What a coincidence! 

The people who had them were too

creepy to approach, and I really couldn't

prove they were mine or theirs, so

what the heck. I hope they enjoy them chairs :)

Gracie and Andy started the day

out right with the world's biggest donuts!

Gracie admitted to me later

that she had a tummy ache :)

Livvy enjoyed from her stroller

Grammy had a blast! 

Watch for her in some of the next pictures~

she waved to everyone in the parade and

clapped and cried some.

A successful parade for her :)

We sat by the Naugles' and extended family.

Lance and Amber and their cute kids.

Chantal, Andrew and Pep ~sorry I didn't get AnDee :(

and I'm sorry I didn't get pictures of Andrew

doing some awesome ninja moves

when the Karate school kids went by.

He demo'ed how good he was.

Made me laugh pretty darn hard :D

Sierra and Stevie looking all

paradey.

Brad, Ash and Mags sitting

in anticipation

watching for the horribly

noisy fire engines

(possibly my least favorite part :)

Tommy and Sophie ~

so cute 

(notice gram in the background :)

Lisa and Josh made it! 

possibly the best picture ever taken.

Andy looking a little Nacho Libre to me.

Bank of AF handed out these

pansy masks to the kids ~

Andy managed to get everything

possible that was handed out.

Brad and Will

Mags had a fireman from the Firehouse Carwash

come all the way through the crowd to give him

this super cool fire chief hat!

and a tattoo

(which was still on his arm as

of Saturday when I watched him :)

he loved it.

It was a great day, even with the great chair

heist :) We, along with half of the city

ate at Taco Amigo and felt very

community involved :D

Last Saturday my aunt Faye had a party

to celebrate her 90th birthday.

It was pretty neat that all my mom's surviving

siblings and most of their spouses could be there.

We took tons of pictures of them 

and ate good food.

In this picture is-

back row- Uncle Lynn (NaDeans husband), mom,

Aunt NaDean, Uncle Eldon, Aunt Jeanne and Uncle Neil

Front row- Aunt Vera (who is also 90) and the 

birthday girl herself- Aunt Faye.

Happy summer you all! It feels like it's finally here!

Swingin in some Sweaters by guest blogger Sierra

Well hello everyone. This is Sierra. Even though i am going to make my own blog one day my mother has decided that i am going to do this post apparently. Anyways, this Saturday me and Ta'merra went to sweater swing. For our day date we went shooting:) 

This is Stephen with a gun. 

What a handsome boy:)

This is me shooting a clay pigeon. 

Dang i am one good shot!

This is Sawyer (Ta'merras date) looking all spiffy in his shooting shirt.

and this is Ta'merra looking smoking hot.

After our awesome day date we went over to Stephens house where Stevies brother Andrew and SIL Chantal had their new baby goats and let us bottle feed them.

they are soooo cute!

Then we took the boys home so that we could get ready. The theme for sweater swing was "opposites attract" so ill let you look at the picture first so you can guess what opposites we were:

ha ha ha yes we went as city girls and red necks:) my favorite part was that Sawyer had those duck calls around his neck and he would do duck calls at random times during the night. 

then we ate some delicious dinner at my house with our sweet little cooker thing. it was an awesome dance and we had so much fun! 

Million Dollar Smile

Sierra has wanted braces for as long

as I can remember. The dentist never

said it was a need, so I didn't ever press

for it. Sierra argued that since she was 

going into the dental field, she should

have perfect teeth. She won her dad over

with that reasoning, so off we went to

the orthodontist :)

Here is her happy before picture.

What a cutie. 

This crazy thing they put on her just

gave me the creeps. It looks like some

torture device from the Nazi days.

It didn't seem to faze her. Still got 

those happy eyes.

The beginning of the finished results.

She only got the top row done for now-

who knew she has a severe overbite

and can't get the bottom row on until that

has been fixed! I guess she really did need

these braces :) She gets to wear them

for a year and a half. She'll be 19 when they

come off.  All the other patients were 12 and

13 year olds, I guess it's better late than never.

Now for a few random Sierra/February shots-

Sierra turned 18 this month.

I'm sure this was her favorite present!

A sock monkey hat from me :)

Sierra and Stevie went to Sweethearts-

Thanks to Sophie and Tommy who set them

up with the dress and tie the night before!

This is a scrub top I made.

It was fun to do. I love time

with my machine :)

Notice her sore mouth now :)

Not so much the teeth as the insides

 of her mouth. Hope she gets 

mouth callouses real soon.

But soon she'll have that 

million dollar smile her sisters have!

My FFA Adventure

 Just over a week ago Eddie and I set out on a

wonderful adventure to Denver, CO

for a high school FFA trip

- I was scared spitless

and Eddie was, well Eddie, he didn't care.

I imagined a trip from H - E - Double toothpicks.

A 9 hour bus ride with over 50

teenagers!

Thank goodness, I was totally mistaken.

What a great group of kids and what

a luxurious way to travel.

DVD hook ups and I-pods made

travelling light years away from 

back in my day!

The ride was blissful :)

I even got to read a book

Sierra and Stevie sat semi-close to us,

but far enough away that I couldn't slap

them every time they "fell asleep" on each other.

which happened a lot.

Each day we were in Denver our itinerary was

chuck full of "educational" things to see and do.

And we started early every morning and went

until late at night.

The advisors wanted to keep those kids

hoppin' to keep them out of trouble.

I got to take a few pictures before my 

camera battery died on me. :( 

We got to visit the

PRO RODEO HALL OF FAME

Here is Summer, Chris (not quite sure what

he is doing to that cowboy poster), Sierra

 and Stevie. It was a fun place to

visit. Thanks to "8 Seconds" I knew

two of the inductees - Lane Frost and Tuff Hedeman.

Eddie enjoyed himself- 

he's an old FFA member at heart.

This is a group shot of the kids from our 

chapter. There was only 12 from our school, 

but we traveled in a caravan of 3 buses with over

140 students total.

In front of the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame.

We spent quite a bit of time at the

National Western Stock Show.

Picture in your mind the state fair in a BIG

building with cows and such in the basement

and vendors and freaks on the main floor-

now imagine the smells all mixing together-

that's the NW Stock Show.

We spent a part of 2 days at it.

There was a bright spot-

we found the Roy Rogers and Dale Evan's

nudie car there.

Not sure why it's called nudie,

but we liked it, mostly because of it's

name, so snapped this picture. 

Then my camera died.

We went to the Denver Museum of Natural History

cool

We went to the Denver Mint

cool

We went to two, TWO, 2 rodeos

(we had the option to go to the 

stock show again- we picked the rodeo)

cool

We went to the Denver Bass Pro Shop

cool

We also went to eat at 

CASA BONITA

which looks awesome

but, wasn't so good.

Especially since this was 

the night before our 

long bus trip home with a ton of

kids (boys) who ate Mexican food.

Over all we had an unexpected mini-vacation

and a wonderful time.

I discovered Sierra has great friends

and teachers. 

I also found out that I still have

the energy to out do the teenagers :)