Going off Radar

Okay, so I am going off-line for a couple of days.  Tomorrow and Saturday is my 35th class reunion!  That's right, The Bonneville Bees, Class of 1976! 

Isn't that picture awesome?  Holly Hasegawa Nielson, one of my high school buddies and my college roommate drew it!  She is so talented!   We were a class full of artists, including Greg Olsen, the LDS artist that we all love!  I have his pictures all over my house! And we even have a raffle for a new one!

Our whole committee which includes Melanie Hart Belnap, Terri Curtis, Holly Hawegawa Nielson, Michael Herrera, John Jenkins, Tena Jenkins Looney, Gary Mills, and myself, have worked or so hard and we are excited to get this shindig going!  So if you belong to the class of '76, we'll see you this weekend!

Be prepared for lots of pics next week, along with a serious walk down memory lane!

Chris

New Tricks or Old Dogs?

Okay, so I have knitted since I was 10 years old.  I had a primary teacher who taught me and since no one else in my family knitted, it stuck for me.  Over the years I have been on again, off again when it came to knitting.  But I did know I liked it better than crochet.  I actually found it quite relaxing.  When I was pregnant with my first baby, stuck at home and bored out of my mind, I sharpened a pencil for a double pointed needle, pulled out the only pair of knitting needles I owned and a ball of yarn and knitted a baby sweater from the newest Family Circle magazine.  I was hooked!  Over the years I have knitted dozens of sweaters, tons of hats and scarfs, and even mittens.  I can do fisherman knits, baby knits, all kinds of knits.

But the one thing I never tried, was double-pointed needles to knit socks.  The thought of trying to manage 4 or 5 needles at the same time, especially when they had points on either end, seemed daunting!  A couple of years ago I went and bought  double pointed needles and they have sat in my needle basket.

Then a few days ago I found this book at JoAnns and it made sock knitting seem fairly simple.  So I bought the book, bought a ball of yarn and headed home.  I had to dig, but I finally found my needles.  This was last Thursday.  That night, I sat down with all my equipment.  I cast on, knitted, pulled it out and tried again for about an hour.  Then it took off!  That first night I knitted the top half of the sock!  And it looked pretty good!  I was pumped!  In between all my honey dos, chores and life, I worked on it over the next few days and by Saturday night I had a sock done!  I was siked!  So yesterday, I knitted for about 2 hours and have most of a sock done!  And here they are!

In about a half hour sock #2 will be done!  And what is so cool is that they match!  Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?  I honestly don't remember why I didn't try this before, but watch out, now I am a sock making machine!  Makes me think I can try anything!

Chris

Vintage or Old?

No pictures, crafts or recipes to share tonight, only a random thought.  Yesterday my family was all together to celebrate Chelsea's 19th birthday, which was actually Friday.  We grilled burgers, brats and hot dogs and finished it off with chocolate cake and lots of icecream.  Then Kendall dug out some old fireworks that we had and bottlerockets (probably about 3 years old).  It was still light but the kids had a blast, especially when Kendall started shooting the bottlerockets into the water in the ditch.  The kids said the water was 'burping'!  And because I was enjoying the show so much, I didn't think to grab my camera.  So you just have to imagine it.

Later, Tiffany was surfing Craig's List, which she has taken to doing.  She is trying to furnish a huge house and needs cheap furniture.  Anyways, as she said, she is becoming addicted to Craig's list, because of some of the bizarre postings.  So she's reading through them and someone has posted a 'vintage' chain saw for like $180.  Now as you read further, you find out the chain saw is a 1970's model!  Vintage?  I call that old! Probably a piece of junk they cleaned up and hope to pass off as vintage so they can unload it!

So we were talking about this and I started thinking, if you call it 'vintage' does that make it more special, more valuable?  I know that everywhere you look, they are using 'vintage' to describe things as if it makes them more special.  I was added to the list on Twitter for a furniture company with 'vintage' in it's name.  There have been several varieties scrapbooking and crafting paper that has come out lately, with 'vintage' in their description.  And I even watched an antiques show the other night that used the word quite regularly.

That is when I decided that I live in a 'vintage' home on a 'vintage' farm and drive a 'vintage' Tahoe.  I play a 'vintage' piano and guitar and I watch TV everynight on my 'vintage' TV set.  I don't watch Blu Rays, but 'vintage' DVDs in my 'vintage' DVD player and even occasionally in my 'vintage' VHS machine.  But best of all, these wrinkles and gray hair, aches and pains, and dimming memories that I am acquiring are not because I am old!  Not at all!  I am a thing of beauty and value!  I am "Vintage"!

HaHa!

Chris

When You Need to Create!

Okay, so I found the cutest page today!  Stay-At-Home Artist shows you how to do a homemade stenciled shirt with freezer paper!  It is amazing!  You have to check it out!

She gives you all the steps to complete it!  Totally awesome!

One more page I got from Tim Holtz.  This blog has lots of scrapping goodness on it.  Visit Annette's Creative Journey where you see her Vintage Valise album!  Here are a couple of pics from it!

This is so cute!  Check it out!  She has so much stuff on her blog!

Hope you enjoy!  I feel creativity flowing today!  Hope you do too!

Chris

Grandma Loves!

These are all of my grandkids!  From left to right, Jesson (5), Sarah (8), Conner (8), Tyson (8 months), Bailey (6), Maddie (4) and Sydney (10).  I honestly don't remember them not being a part of our lives!  It is so much fun when we get them all together, a house full of chatter, noise and fun!  So you know this is the pairings of kids, Sydney and Sarah belong to Tiffany, Jesson and Maddie are Jeremy's and Conner, Bailey and Tyson are Kendall's.  Last night, Jeremy's ex was kind enough to bring the kids for us to see, since we haven't seen them for months.  We ate, played on four wheelers, and they built lego everything and played with our train set!  Such a good night!

In the back of our thoughts is Jesson.  He has had seizures since he was a baby, but seemed to have outgrown them, not having one for 2 years.  Matter of fact, the doctors at Primary Childrens, just released him with a clean bill of health a few months ago.  This past week he suffered 2 severe seizures and now has to go back to Primary Childrens for more tests.  They are now thinking instead of being the kind of seizures you outgrow (I had those kind as a little kid), this may be more serious, such as Epilepsy.  Our family is praying for a good outcome, whatever that may be!  If you can spare an extra prayer for Jesson, that would be appreciated!  Can't get too much help!

Love your family today!

Chris

Aprons

My earliest memories of aprons were from my Grandma Sarah Alvey.  Everytime you went to her house, she had a different apron on, always bright, always colorful, and always lots of detail to them.  I loved Grandma's aprons!  She had this huge drawer with dozens of them, and when you were helping her cook, you got to go to the drawer and pick one out!  It was the highlight of my day, made me feel so grown up!

When Grandma Alvey died, we went through her stuff and my aunt let us each pick out a couple of aprons of grandma's.  These are the ones I picked out for me.  The red one was for Christmas, which happens to be my favorite holiday, so that is why I got it.

 The black and white one I chose because my grandma put alot of effort into this apron.  Not only did she sew it on her old Pfaff sewing machine (which I have), but she hand smocked it too!  Look at the detail!

 I never wore aprons too much when I was raising my kids.  Don't know why really, unless it is because I usually was in such a hurry to get things done and didn't think of it.  But lately I have taken to wearing an apron at least on Sunday, to protect my church clothes.  A practical matter really. 

That's it!  Aprons are practical!  Necessary!  But what we do to them is what makes them special!  So anyways, everywhere I turn lately, there are aprons!  Ruffled aprons, Smocked aprons.  Short aprons.  Long aprons.  It is all the rage!  I decided to try making me a couple of aprons. Now you have to understand that the last apron I made was in 1972 in my 8th grade home ec class with Mrs. Crumbaugh.  I make dresses all the time and an occasional baby blanket, but never an apron.  So here it is!

 Please look only at the apron, not at the model.  After all I have been doing housework and sewing all day!  If anyone else would have been around I would have had them model it!  But isn't it cute?

 I put buttons on the straps.............

                                                                       and rick rack on the pockets!

Makes me want to make another right away!  It was really fun and only took about 3 hours to do!  Maybe I'll start an apron revolution!  No dull aprons to be found!  The next one I am making is green and salmon with roses and yes, rick rack. 

And next time my grandkids are at my house, I am going to dress them all up in aprons and do some baking with them!  More memories!

Happy memories everyone!  Hope you find an apron that makes you smile!

Chris

A Baby's Best Friend

Say Hello to Tyson Scott. He is our youngest grandson and is 8 months old. I took these photos a few weeks ago when Tyson was trying to master crawling. Funny thing is I didn't get any of him crawling! But I did get pictures of him playing with balls of yarn and even him and his big brother, Conner, playing with my measuring tape. Got to love my Blackberry for being so handy for pics!

But the best pictures I got that day was when Tyson decided to make friends with Toby, my miniature schnauzer. Toby loves little kids, and he is best friends with Conner, but we weren't sure how Tyson would react to Toby when they were on the floor together.

I guess we didn't have to worry! Within moments, Tyson was pulling Toby's beard and Toby patiently stood there and took it! Grandma just kept clicking! Have I told you lately how much I love being a grandma?

Since these pictures were taken, Tyson is on the prowl, literally! Nothing below 2 foot is safe at our house! And now he is walking along the couch! Guess I better baby proof again!

Enjoy life today!

Chris