Cute crochet elephant

I have a cute friend that is having a baby soon, and I wanted to try a new type of project for her. I was really thinking of making her a baby blanket, but she has two other children already and other crafty people in her life that I know have already made her blankets.

 

Enter: the baby elephant.

 

I was just browsing through www.redheart.com and saw this sweet little elephant and a few other stuffed animals. I've never done anything like it before so I decided I would give it a try. And I was off on a new crocheting adventure.

 

Well, it turned out great (to my surprise!). I was expecting it to just be ok and I'd make a second one that would be better. But I was so pleased with this one that I called it good. :) I've already got orders for more and for other cute little animals.

 

Elfred the Elephant

I am so grateful for this new talent that I have found. I hope I can keep finding ways to use it for service to others. It is something I love to do and share with others. :)

Closet Curtain Doors

Well we've had these nasty orange wood sliding doors for our closets in our master bedroom - and I've always disliked them. I had been talking to Steve about either painting them, wallpapering them, or getting curtains to replace them - and he didn't object.

 

Well, long story short: One day I wanted to kick and punch things because of those STUUUUPID doors! They were just too much in the way. And I like to see my whole closet at one time. So I'm a diva. Sue me. In a fit of rage, I decided it was time for curtains instead of doors. I asked Steve to remove the doors, and he used his manly strength and did so easily.

 

Well, then I was left with looking at the unorganized, messy closets. Great. I did not think that through.

We got the curtains (white to be safe with future colors). Well they were a few inches too long. But thanks to my trusty new sewing machine, I could easily sew them to the correct length. Holla! And here are the new closet doors that I sewed and put up today. I still need to iron them. And when the rest of the bedroom colors are chosen and finalized, I plan to dip dye these or paint a stripe on them or something. We'll see what Pinterest persuades me to do later on.

Next project: actually organize the inside of the closets.  :)

New Desk

Now that we have a big old house to ourselves, I have been making one of the bedrooms into a crafty space. It's so awesome. And Steve also got me a sewing machine for Christmas, and I was SO EXCITED!!!

 

I used to just pull out all my crafting/scrapbooking things and craft on the dining table. But since I had the sewing machine, I wanted a more stationary spot to put it. So we had been going on somewhat regular trips to the DI to see if they ever had anything nice enough to have in our house and something that would actually work.

 

We FINALLY found it last weekend. I love it so much and it doesn't smell! yesssss. I think I might paint it one day, but I'm loving the retro vibe it's giving off for now. Now I'm on the hunt for a good chair to match.

 

Here it is with the new sewing machine on it! YAY!

Please ignore the rest of the mess around the desk - I'm in the process of organizing/de-junkifying this room.

Snow and ice

This winter has been quite snowy and interesting weather has happened that I don't usually see in Utah. Our new house is really good at fostering icecicles off the gutters...

 

These were on the back of our house and were about 3 feet long.

Here is the front of the house with more 3 foot long ice spears.

Then there was this death ice harpoon hanging outside our front door. Huge! And it got thicker a while after I took this picture.

Then we had an ice storm - which NEEEEVERRR happens around here. I had experienced something similar in Indy, but I don't even remember it being like this. It was IN-SANE. This was the day I was telling myself not to fall down the stairs, and I did anyway ... and the neighbor saw me. But I lived, don't worry!

Ice rink in the driveway

And we got a STINK LOAD of snow. I'm sure Utah has gotten this much snow before, but I was never really around to witness it. But it just seemed to dump on us all at once. A lot of shoveling our new driveway this winter.

 

The snow even hid the mailbox!

Needless to say, this winter was a very snowy and icy one. Our heater was also on the fritz. It would just stop working for a few hours, even though it was still turned on. Awesome. So we called and got it "fixed" on February 4. Then it stopped working for a whole day and they came back and hopefully actually fixed it the second time. We're just hoping we'll have the warranty when the heater actually dies...since it's pretty ancient already.

Happy winter everyone!!

Steve's Eye Surgery

Well I think most of our friends/family know that Steve had surgery on his neck to remove some basal cell carcinoma (sp?). He got it removed with no problem at all. He had a "mole"ish looking thing on his eye and her dermatologist thought it was just a wart. But when they checked it, it was also the same thing. So we had a surgery scheduled for Steve to get everything removed from his eyelid, and then get his eyelid reconstructed. I have more pictures of this process that I need to find.



 

Before:

This was after the first part of the surgery where they just removed the cancer stuff. He had a big crater in his eye for a day.

He had surgery for his reconstruction the next day. He had to go to the surgical center and everything. He was there for a few hours, but he said the actual procedure only took about 30 minutes. But they just kind of folded a little bit of the eyelid above that hole over the hole they dug out.

He had a sweet black eye for a couple weeks, but it's all healed now. For now he's carcinoma-free! But we now know to keep checking on his (and my) skin.

The 12 Dates of 2013

This year for Christmas we set a rough budget to spend on each other. After I felt I had spent enough I wanted to think of a gift for Steve that was something that wasn't a "thing." I had been on Pinterest (because I'll be honest and say that I am obsessed) and saw a few different ideas I liked:

http://followinginmyshoes.com/life-as-i-know-it/wifedom/hubbys-gift-a-year-of-date-nights/ 

http://www.thepoefam.com/2012/01/year-of-going-out-by-staying-in.html 

www.thedatingdivas.com



I love the dating divas - they have so many cool ideas for date nights, that include going out or staying in. And you can adjust the ideas to whatever suits your time and liking.

So I just chose 12 of the dates that I thought sounded fun, adapted a few, and made a book out of scrapbook paper. I made little tickets for each date and then I added any explanation for the date on the page for the month. I made sure to leave room for any pictures we took on the date. Then I left the inside of the page open like pockets and used brown paper bags at pockets for pictures. Then I can also write details on the bag. I looooved it! And Steve enjoyed getting it. It was a really nice and cheap way to make sure we have at least one date night a month in our busy schedules.

Here is what it looked like:

Here is a picture from our first date in January to the Jazz Game. (This one was technically another one of Steve's Christmas gifts, so that was easy to plan.)

New year : New goals

I thought I'd share my "New Year Resolutions" with you. I tried to make them easy things that I can easily add to our daily lives. And I wanted to build on good things I've already started doing. I'm hoping this will help me feel more positive about my goals and not feel like a failure for forgetting something.

So, here are my goals for 2013.

-Keep a cleaner/more organized home. I'm not looking for perfection, just better than I'm doing already. I don't have a ridiculously messy home or anything. We are still unpacking/organizing certain parts of our house. There are just certain areas that are cluttered, and at times when our life gets a little busy we neglect our home a little bit. I hate when that happens because then even when we come home it's not a peaceful haven from the world. However, I am thankful that I even have a home to make a mess. ;)

-Make more lunches at home for us to take to work. A couple months ago we noticed that we had been spending a large amount of money on lunches/breakfasts at work. It was killing our budget. We discussed what we could do better. We basically came up with the idea that we needed to exercise more self-discipline. We also just needed to remember. About half of the week we would bring leftovers for lunch. The other half I would simply forget to grab something as I ran out the door and then I was starving at work. So we were already doing it half the time, just needed to work harder to remember it. And we've been doing pretty well so far.

-Keep doing the dinner meal plans each week. This is something we started in like Septemer or something. I can't remember. It was quite a while ago. But before that we'd get to dinner time and say to each other, "what do you want to make for dinner?" After a good 1/2 hour of "I don't know, what do you want?" we would finally decide on something. Then we would look at the recipe and wouldn't have any of the ingredients. So we either had to start the process over or go buy ingredients. So I started planning the next week's meals every Saturday or Sunday night. The Saturday before (or Monday night if we procrastinated) we go out and get the ingredients we'll need for the week if we don't already have them. This has decreased our stress soooo much and I'm so glad we did it. We can plan nights to go out, to eat leftovers, and try new recipes when I know I'll have time to care. The best part is that we've been doing it for months. So my goal is simply to continue doing it!

-Follow our stake goals: 1, 10, 15. Our stake presidency told us about some goals they wanted to work on as a stake. The number 1 stands for doing 1 Christian act per day. The number 10 stands for leaving for church meetings 10 minutes before they begin. (Out in Utah it seems that many people have problems coming to church on time, even though they live 3 minutes away or less. Drives. Me. Bonkers.) And the number 15 stands for reading/pondering/studying the scriptures for 15 minutes everyday. I'm excited about these goals and I think it will make a difference in what we do each day.

-Steve and I have taken the 15 minutes of studying scriptures each day as another goal together. We used to read together right before bed. Then, again, when it gets crazy with meetings and homework we would forget and go straight to sleep. So we are trying to find other times to read so we won't forget. We've been doing okay with it so far. We're still getting in the habit.

-Do something active to help me feel healthier. It's not a secret that I hate very much dislike exercising and eating right. Ew. So my secret is to find something I like, no matter what it is. Once I find something I like, it motivates me to do other things better: like eating less bad things, drinking more water, etc. So I started yoga this last week and I loved it. Last year it was zumba. It's more important for me to enjoy doing something than seeing results. Results are obviously awesome, but if I don't enjoy what I'm getting results out of, I don't even care. Steve and I are also going to start doing Just Dance on the Wii for a little activity each week. We are nerds, deal with it.

Aaaanyway, I think that it will be interesting to see how I feel about these goals. I could say that I'll update you about them, but I'll most likely forget to do that.

I hope you enjoyed setting new goals for the new year with your family. I'm hoping for an eventful year of 2013!!