A New Etsy Store - Grass Roots Home!

I have the best news! My amazing and creative daughters (all four of them) have opened an Etsy store. I'm in on it with them, but I feel like I just sit back and watch as they come up with idea after idea. It is brand spanking new, and has just barely become stocked with the first few items. It will continue to grow and expand as new items are designed and developed, but they have begun with some real stunners! And can I say how much fun it is to see the girls all working on a family business together? For a long time, the men in the family have worked hard together in building up the cable and metal shop, and now it's the girls' turn to work shoulder-to-shoulder to create their own business. So much fun!

You need to go to the store and check it out. It's called Grass Roots Home, and you can get there by clicking here.

The store has some gorgeous metal products, which are made right here in good old Draper, Utah, at our own metal shop! I've highlighted a few of the products below.

We have a couple of different large metal signs with awesome phrases. We've got lots more in the works, too.

These birdhouses are amazing! They're cut, bent and welded in the shop, and then sent out to be powder-coated in this perfect mint color! I've got a few of these in my own backyard. Soooo cute!

I'm already thinking friend gifts with this Joy sign...

And talk about the perfect neighbor gift, or Christmas tree ornament!

The metal is heavy-duty and I love the way it looks. We are so excited about these products and the others that are in the works. We've got a good stock right now, so it's a great time to order for Christmas. I can't believe I'm talking about Christmas gifts (and maybe feeling a little bit panicky about getting my own Christmas shopping done!).

Early Fall Ramblings

I still can't quite believe summer is over and we're well into fall. How does time seem to fly by faster and faster with each passing year? I can honestly say I feel like we packed about as much as we possibly could into summer, though, so I don't have any regrets. Just trying to keep up, though, kept us hopping. I think we both lost weight over the summer, because we just didn't have time to eat a regular meal on some of those busy days. I love looking back at the photos, and thinking about the treasured family time we had.

And it seems we're just as busy now that it's fall!

How can you not smile with so many babies around. This photo was taken after our family pics a few weeks ago, so the kiddos were tired out, but still as sweet as can be. We can't get enough of them. Arms full of babies... what can be better?

The surroundings up at the cabin are gorgeous and fall-ish. We did our annual maple leaf cuttings, and brought them home to decorate with. (By "we", I mean Bob, with me pointing out just the perfect colored leaves to cut).

There is always wildlife to be seen at or around the cabin. This porcupine was just a few feet away from us, and didn't seem to mind that we were there at all.

Lots of family dinners. This picture is totally representative of what they're like. Babies everywhere in high chairs and walkers and laps.

What you don't see in the photo above, is to the left of that picture is the kid's table, which Grandpa was at, helping to get food down the older grands.

We had the perfect amount of apple-pears this year. There was a bit of a freeze in the late spring, which thinned out the harvest quite a bit. Towards the end, we just picked all of the remaining apple-pears and boxed them. We delivered them all around, and ate plenty!

A perfect specimen. (That goes for the hand holding the apple-pear as well as the apple-pear itself)

Of course pumpkin harvesting had to happen so that we could set the pumpkins out on the porch to decorate. The grand kids helped harvest the small crop that we had this year.

Such perfect times. I can't imagine not having photos to remind us of the sweet, happy moments in life. They have a way of slipping away from the forefront of our memory if we don't have the photos to look back on. Or is that just me?

It Is Well With My Soul

This is what we woke up to this morning.

A beautiful, cold spring storm. We need the moisture, so we can't really complain much.

And somehow there is something so lovely, peaceful and quiet about this storm. Especially after yesterday's wind that brought the storm in.

It means that the outside chores will have to wait for today. And that I can get a few things done in my house, all while enjoying the quietly falling snow through every window I pass.

The only downside to the day is that my babysitting gig for the afternoon had to be cancelled because of the weather. For those of you who are keeping count, the last of our grands was born on March 19, and now all seven are here safe and sound. The last five all came within 2-1/2 months of each other, so we've got a lot of new wee babes around here. We're lucky enough to live fairly close to all of them, so we get to see them often. And whenever I can, I get to tend them here and there throughout my week. This afternoon was my time to spend with the twins, but with the weather being so bad, and the roads to their house slippery and icy, we had to postpone. 

That photo makes my heart happy. It reminds me of when I was little, and would line up my dolls along my bed. Oh, how I love those sweet seven! And we find our lives rotating around them. Thinking about them. Talking about them. Hoping and planning for them. Wanting to spend time with them so that they will always know how much we love them. We are slightly obsessed with them. Okay.... more than slightly. But can you blame us?  It is well, it is well with my soul.

Some really, really big news.... times 5!

I mentioned in a previous post that I got caught up with my first two grandbabies' baby quilts, which is awesome and makes me feel so very good. But then, we got this photo over GroupMe...

Shoes: Daddy's, Mommy's, Big Brother's, and Baby-To-Be

Woohoo! Our daughter and her husband are expecting their second child!

And then, our youngest son and his wife told us that they are expecting. Yay!!!! We were beside ourselves with the excitement.

You're going to need to sit down somewhere in this story. Probably now.

Our other daughter came over a few weeks after that, and as we were holding her little baby, we happened to read a little sign hidden under her bibdana.

Yep. She is going to be a big sister... only 13 months older than her little brother or sister!

Seriously. If you haven't found a seat yet, find one. It just keeps getting better. Just when we thought we couldn't contain any more excitement, our oldest son and his wife gave us the amazing news that they are expecting.... twins!!!!

So, if you're keeping track, that means ALL FOUR of our kids are expecting babies!  All five babies will be born within about three months of each other! Can you believe that? It makes me smile so often throughout the day. Really, really smile. I love thinking about those babies joining our other two grandbabies. Oh how we love our grandkids around here! They are the light of our life. There is no other way to say it. We are so thrilled! And the mommies are all darling and so ready for these babies. I love to think about the five little cousins growing up together. Fun times ahead!

I realize that there are a plethora of exclamation points in this post, but can you blame me?

And now, since I've got five more grandbabies coming, and they'll be in dire need of a baby quilt, I've got to get crackalacking on some quilts. I've started working on them for the first two babies (expected in January and February), who we know are girls. Remember in a post a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I had decided on a simple quilt idea for the two grandbabies we are lucky enough to have so far (click here to see how I made the jelly roll jam quilts). And now you can understand why the quilt pattern needs to be simple. :) I'll be posting the finishing instructions for the quilts (binding and label) in my next post, so check back for that.

Til then, you'll find me smiling....

Family Reunions. You Gotta Love Them

We always have more than one family reunion to go to every year. There is the annual reunion of my grandpa and grandma's descendants. We love going to this reunion, as it is held in beautiful Logan Canyon at a tiny little cabin that my grandparents built a million years ago. My grandparents have been gone for a long time now, and only half of their daughters are still living (including my sweet mom), but the tradition lives on, and we all love to gather and remember the wonderful couple who started this family. We usually get a few of my kids and their spouses tagging along, which we love. It is always a truly lovely day.

And then there is another annual reunion that is even closer to home in more ways than one. It is the reunion of my parents and all of their descendants. Since they had 6 daughters and 33 grandchildren, and oodles of great-grands, this is a good-sized reunion, and always lots of fun. Most of us live within an hour of each other, so we do see each other throughout the year at different times, but there is still something special about getting together specifically for a reunion. We haven't had this one yet this year... it is coming up on Monday, and I'm sure a great time will be had by all!

And (drumroll, please) this year was the first (of many) reunions for Bob and I and our descendants. It seems strange to have a reunion with our names at the head of it! There are only 12 of us at the moment, with 2 more on the way, but we knew we needed to start sometime and this seemed as good a time as any. We wanted the grand-babies to grow up knowing we've held the reunions since they were born. Now, some may wonder why we would need a reunion, because we all live within 30 minutes (some as close as just down the street) from each other, and all of the menfolk in the family work for Bob, and see each other many times a day. But as I said above, there is something special about getting together for a reunion and celebrating being a family. We played together, and talked and laughed and ate together. It was a sweet moment in time for Bob and I.

We love this family! Number 1 and 2 grandbabies didn't want
to hold their own signs, but you get the point...

We started the day out with a grand kids treasure hunt. Since only one of our grand kids is actually walking, we had him put a treasure in his bag, and then one in his cousin's bag. It was darling, and fun to think about the future years when we will have lots of grand kids running around our trails.

And is a reunion really a reunion without the "guess how many candies in the jar" game? I think not.

While the kabobs were cooking, we lazed around on the deck. There were coloring pages of each member of the family strewn across the tables with crayons, for kiddos and anyone else who felt like coloring. We had some real masterpieces that I wish I had taken photos of! I also put one of each of the coloring pages into a "coloring book" for each of the grand kids to take home and color later on (or when they are old enough to actually know what a crayon does).

We also had my niece come up and take some real photos of our family. Can't wait to see how they turned out!

That night we played a family quiz game to get to know all of the members of the family a little better. It was enlightening and lots of fun. And for answering correctly, you got to have a ticket in the raffle with your name on it, which is all good, since it upped your chances of winning something at the end of the night. Each couple ended up winning at least one thing at the raffle. Yay! 

Our first ever reunion wasn't fancy or elaborate, but it was exactly what I had hoped. And it gave us a great jumping off point for many, many years to come!

Yep... it is ALWAYS worth the time and effort to go to family reunions. You definitely have to love them! 

The Thank You Experiment

So, I'm in the sixth month of my "Thank You Experiment". It has been such an interesting thing for me to do. Just to explain what this is... way back before 2014 began, I decided I was going to write one Thank You note or Love note every single day of 2014. The one rule is that it had to be a mailed note... not an email. I have sent plenty of email thank you's, but for this, I wanted them to be hand-written, received-in-the-mailbox notes. Did you know how many darling Thank You notes and cards there are out there? I think Target is my favorite for an incredible selection and great prices. It makes it even more fun to write the notes when they are on pretty cards.

I had no idea who I would write the 365 notes to.  As one friend wrote to me, "I don't even think I know that many people". You'd be surprised at how many people affect you as you go about your life:

-Family members. We have oodles and oodles of family members. And we rub shoulders with them often. There are always a few who, after the gatherings are over, stand out to me and have done something kind or noteworthy. Or who have touched me deeply through the years and need a proper thank you from me.

-Friends. So many good friends, both from the present day and from way back when. They continually love and support and I find many opportunities to write a thank you note for.

-Church friends, acquaintances, etc. We belong to a church with a very strong community, and there are so many experiences that I have found in which I can and should write a note of appreciation for. People are so good and do so many charitable things. And with my husband being a bishop, it seems we are the recipients of kindnesses over and again. And on another note... I have never (until now) written a thank you to a speaker in General Conference about a talk that touched me in a particular way. I've never even thought about it. But, after General Conference, when I was thinking about who to write a note to, I kept thinking about certain speakers who stood out to me. So, I wrote to them about how their talks were particularly meaningful to me. And do you know what? Some of them even wrote back! That is pretty amazing!

-And SO many others. Everyone else who touches me in such a way that I feel compelled to write them a note of gratitude.

Now, since January 1, I have learned a few things. I have learned that there are definitely things every single day to be thankful for. And many of them have to do with specific people in my life. Why not thank them? Why not let them know just how much something they said or did, meant to me? I'm surprised at some of the responses, and I'm even more surprised that there are some people who WRITE BACK to a thank you note (have I ever done this?... No):

"...I have never received a note like that about my singing. It was such a sweet surprise!"

"What a wonderful surprise greeting me in the mailbox after work..."

"The note meant so much to me... it made my week and I want to frame the note!"

"Receiving the note was such as sweet surprise and it made me cry."

"Just wanted to thank you for the kind note. It warmed my soul. Kind notes like that are examples to me of what can make one's day."

And here's the kicker... I know that I am not doing anything grandiose. This is what I should have been doing all along. I should always be showing gratitude to others. I have received much more from this little experiment than others have. I am sure of it. It is quite a thing, each night, to sit and reflect on my day, and my feelings and ALWAYS come up with someone to write a note to. I've wondered if it would be hard, as time goes on, but it hasn't yet. There are some people who have received more than one note from me throughout the months, but that doesn't matter. If they continue to stand out in that way, they should also continue to be thanked and noticed. It has made me think much more deeply about people and the services they do, and the time they put in to things. And how important it is to let them know my feelings of thankfulness. Why haven't I always done this? I mean, I've written the obvious thank you notes for gifts and such, but why haven't I written a note to someone who has worked so hard to do a musical number in church that touches me in such a beautiful way? I hope that I am bringing about change within myself... that I will ever more have that desire to let others know how grateful I am for their time, their service, their kindnesses.

Happy Mother's Day!

I think you all know how I feel about my mother. She was and is the best. Last year, I wrote a post about her (click here to read) and the many amazing things she does. Since I was just tiny, I watched her loving being a wife and mother, and I wanted that more than anything when I was a grown-up. And now that I'm an adult, I do thoroughly love being a wife and mother, and grandmother. It all feels so natural to me -- like I was made solely to do these things. And I love it all. Still, so very many years later, as I'm doing laundry and folding and sorting, I sometimes have flashbacks to when I played "house" for hours and hours with my friends and sisters. Strangely enough, I even like things like doing the laundry and the dishes, and cooking. I know, I know... that sounds like nothing but crazy talk.

Can I tell you about something that I never even considered in all of those years growing up, and even in my adult years... until just recently: my daughters are incredible mothers! I mean, I always knew they both had the same desire to be mommies all through the years. They played dolls and house and loved those "babies" as if they were their own flesh and blood. There is something about watching a little child be so gentle and nurturing to a doll... it gives a little glimpse into what they might be like as real mothers. Just look at these two darling sisters, a few years back...

And now... I LOVE watching them as mothers. They are sweet and patient and oh-so-loving to their little ones. They ooo and ahhh over them and it is plain to see that they are certain they have been blessed with the most perfect children in the world (and they have!). I never worried about what kind of mothers they would be, but I just never really pictured the reality of it. It is a lovely thing to see. Truly. (And.... I am absolutely sure of the fact that when my daughters-in-law become mommies, they will be equally as amazing!)

And so, my girls, celebrate this Mother's Day knowing you have been blessed with wonderful, sweet babies. And through this, you are blessed to experience the best of all callings in life: Motherhood. Love every minute of it. As my mom used to tell me: "They grow up so fast... you'll blink and then realize they have all grown up". Don't shy away from enjoying Mother's Day. Use the day to reflect on how blessed you are because of your husband and children. Without them, you wouldn't be what you are today. It is the perfect day to celebrate for you and your family.

Thank you both for being truly beautiful mothers. Happy Mother's Day!

A baby and a wedding... all within 12 hours!

Oh boy. This past week has been one of those, "Hang on, or you'll fall off the train" kind of weeks. We spent the first few days of the week preparing for our son's wedding, which was last Friday. There was a fair amount of running around and getting things crossed of my list, but I felt like we had a good handle on it. Then came Wednesday evening. We went to the temple with my son's fiance in preparation for their wedding. While we were there, we joked that "Lindsay is probably going into labor since we're all here, and she can't get in touch with us". In reality, her due date wasn't til March 17th, so we felt pretty safe. As soon as we got back to our phones, we realized that our joking matter was a reality. Her water broke while we were all gone! Thankfully, it turned out that she had a while to wait for baby to arrive, so things were somewhat in control. She was just starting to get panicky, though.

She didn't really start labor til the next day, but we were still sleeping lightly and checking our phones all through the night, in case we had somehow slept through an important call from her. That next day, Thursday, I had about a zillion things to do -- all of those pre-wedding things that have to wait til the last day to get done. So, I set up for the luncheon at the reception center. I was pretty fragmented in my thought process all day long, so I forgot things, or decided I needed to add this or that... I was going back and forth from our home to the reception center to See's (not a bad stop... they gave me a sample every time I dropped in) all day long.

See's Chocolates for all...
can't go wrong with that!

A glass candlestick from the dollar store,
with a cork in the top. We inserted a paper clip
into the cork, and that was the clip
that held the photos in place.

I finally got all of that in place, and about that same time, Lindsay and Ryan were getting checked into the birthing center.

Bob, Whitney and I all headed there to be the support group. Lindsay did a great job (no epidural... whaaaaatt?!) and we watched so many reruns of Pawn Stars that we saw Chumlee lose weight and grow his hair long all in one night. To make several hours of labor into a shorter story, somewhere around 10:30, Linday was dilated to a 6. A half hour later, she moved to a 9. As the midwife walked past us (we were all out in the waiting room at the time, including Ryan, who was out with us for a bit), I asked her, "You're going to let Ryan know when she starts pushing, right?", and she said, "Oh, yes... we'll start that in a while, and we'll come and get him". We chatted for a few minutes, and the midwife suddenly pops in and says excitedly, "The baby was just born!". Again, whaaaaatt?! Linds literally let out a yell, and the wee one was born. Just like that. Can you stand it?! We all missed it, including Ryan!

And it's a girl! They had waited to find out, so we all had our guesses, but no one knew for sure. They named her Zuma Preslie, and she is a doll... perfect in every way.

We didn't end up leaving the birthing center til 1:30am, and we climbed into bed around 2:00. I tossed and turned a bit, over-excited by the new grandbaby's birth, and also anticipating the wedding events of the next day. I heard Lindsay and Ryan come in at about 3:30 (they don't really let you stay long at the birthing center, so we had offered for them to come and stay at our house for a week or so). I got up and helped them get settled, and then climbed back into bed to try to get a few hours of sleep before the big day ahead.

And Friday was beautiful. Everything went as planned -- the wedding, the luncheon and the reception. It was a lovely, exhausting day, and I couldn't have been more thrilled. Wils is our last child to get married, and he married a gem! We count ourselves the luckiest people in the world to have all of our kids married to truly amazing, beautiful people. We love them all, and consider them our own.

Our family... missing the newest little family of three

These are some of the wedding reception details. I didn't have anything to do with the reception decor, but I loved what they did, and wanted to share...

Vintage bi-fold doors with
lace-filled embroidery hoops

Gorgeous paper flowers strewn across the walls

The "sign-in book" was squares of fabric that the guests
signed their names and a message on, which will later
be made into a quilt

A quilt square waiting to be written on

My grandson's handprint on his quilt square

The beautiful couple!

New Year's at the Cabin

We had a quick, but wonderful getaway up to the cabin for the New Year's celebrations. We started arriving at the cabin on Monday, and by Tuesday, everyone was there. Words can't describe the joy that I feel when our whole little family is all together. Somehow I feel so complete and so indescribably happy. I love the fun-loving banter that goes on, as well as the hilarious laughter. And there are times when I see one of my kids (or kid-in-laws) building up one of the others -- helping them feel better about themselves or a situation. Yep. It really doesn't get much better than those times when we're all together.

And while up there, on New Year's Day, we read aloud the "Memories and Sweet Moments" from 2013.

It's funny how you sometimes forget those memories. It was pretty great to hear each of us around the table read a few of the cards. And then reminisce a little about the memory. It's a really great tradition for our family. We keep the previous years' memories in the jar on a little ring so that we can also look through those if we want.

I so love the new year and January. I love putting away all the Christmas things and gifts and such, and getting my house back to a "clean slate". Sometimes I leave tables bare for a little while, just because I love the uncluttered feeling. I also am in a "purging" state, throwing away and/or donating anything I can get my hands on. I have a secret wish to have a Desert Industries storage pod parked on my driveway for a week or two so that I can just continually march things out there without giving each item a second thought. 

I am definitely in a re-organizing mode. I have closet after closet and room after room that all need an overhaul. Can't wait to get my hands on them!