Barbie houses made by ME!

I am finally done my projects for other people.  Erin and I built a Barbie house for her 3 year old, we built it in my basement, luckily I have just the tools I needed.  She just painted it and is working on getting some flooring for it.  It should be a sturdy sucker.

This one I built out of 3/4" Birch, the wood was already finished but I was changing the color so I had to sand it down to the wood.  I stained it Venetian Oak and lacquered it.  It is a Barbie house for now and when Rylee gets older it can be a book shelf.  It was a fun project.  I also built a Barbie bunk bed, a lovers bed and a table.  I forgot to take pics of those, but I'm building some for Kali too.

I'm glad to get those projects out of my house so I can focus on other things.  Next, I need to finish Kali's Barbie furniture and Barbie tent.

Christmas is coming... am I ready?  Well, no, but yeah.  I keep getting nice things delivered or handed to me in these nice Christmas bags, it makes me think that I have to reciprocate.  I think we plan on making "ginger soft cookies" tomorrow night for Family Home Evening and delivering them, I hope that's good enough.  I hate shopping, the crowds, trying to find the perfect gift or something that my recipients won't hate or have to throw away.


I have been asked to make 2 Barbie houses this year for some friends, when I'm finished I can post some pics. That does add a bit of stress to my life but hey,  I love to do it.  Kali is getting a home made Barbie tent, I will also have to finish it this week.  I'm taking it one day at a time.  We leave on Friday for Edmonton to spend the weekend with my family, but I am most excited to spend time with my little family, I love these two.


Spence and I are going to Chicago in January for an ASHRAE conference, I'm pretty excited to go.  He bought me a ticket for the Chicago Chocolate tour, which I am super excited about, they have a video.  It's a good thing it's a walking tour.  I am quite excited, this will be a great day. 

Merry Christmas, my friends.

Kali is a Good Example!

I saw Kali show some great character last night, I was so proud of her.
She was doing some homework here in Fairmont right before we went swimming, she left all her stuff on the table and off we went.  Later that night, while we were watching a movie, Suzanna, a two year old, got ahold of a marker and drew all over Kali's special star of the week title page.  Kali loves art and takes a lot of pride in her creations.  When Kali saw this she was completely devastated and came and cried in my lap, then left to her room for a while; Suzanna cried too since she must have known she had done something wrong actually she wouldn't be anywhere near me without crying either.   About a half an hour later Kali came up to Suzanna and asked her if she would like to color a picture for her. She took Suzanna to the table and got paper and crayons where they drew pictures of cats. Suzanna was so happy and so was Kali.   I was a proud mama.
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Crown 5

Kali and I are in Fairmont with my MIL, and we just finished playing "Crown 5". My mother in law has been calling me her meanest names on account of me scoring a perfect game. Good thing I was across the table or I would have been kicked or hit.

She said she's never seen a perfect game before, I had to laugh at every zero I would get. Any Torrie would know how much trouble I would be in for beating her by 118 points.





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Primary conducting

I conducted primary today, I'm pretty light hearted and like to help out where I can. Our primary chorister was away so I offered to lead the music... I've never done this before, but figured it didn't matter, the kids don't care. We sang "If the Savior stood beside me" verse 2. Apparently, I didn't realize that I don't know that song and neither did anyone else. I started out the first line then we hummed and La-La the rest. The I don't think the teachers knew either cause they hummed right along with me.

I laughed and laughed.


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I LOVE my little Family

We had some family time this weekend during and in between General Conference.  We went on a hike in the forest by the river and took some family Pics.

 This is the South Saskatchewan River, not too far from our house.

 We were in the middle of the forest here, up and down roller coaster hills and through tall grass.  Not really a white sweater event.

Kali and I.

Sometimes I hate to go on these adventures, but I usually find that I enjoy it once I'm out there.  I like to climb the hills with Spence and Kali as long as I'm not the last person, which seems to happen all the time. Those two are freaking mountain goats.

Summer Strawberries

We picked strawberries with our friends the Wallaces tonight.  They know a sweet spot and have been keeping it from me for four years, I guess we're that good of friends now.  I wish I had a camera while we were picking because there were so many strawberries, little Scotia (2.5) found a frog but refused to kiss it, the kids ate their weight in berries, while I was in something like heaven.  

We got home late and had to get the strawberries ready to freeze. I washed 'em, picked off the green parts, chopped 'em with my new Pampered Chef chopper (I love that thing), and bagged them all while watching a movie.  I can't wait to eats 'em, I think crepes with Nutella and strawberries are on the menu tomorrow morning, if only I can find someone to make 'em.

I Love SUMMER!!

Summer with friends

We have had a great summer hanging out with our friends.  Here are some pictures of what we've been doing.

We went to the field near our house and played soccer with the neighbors grandkids.  That was a bug net on my head, the sandflies were really bad.  We played soccer the day before and Kali improved so much.

Kali played with these wonderful girls when we were in Edmonton.

 This is our camper van, Tessa and I took the kids to Elkwater provincial park for the day.

 And we got ice cream.

Here are the kids LOVING the van, they had so much fun.

My friend Eliza came to visit Medicine Hat, I loved it.  Her son is so cute. This is at the park by the leisure centre.

 This is my friend Scotia, just downing Spencer's Rootbeer.

Cousin Teagan after his mother gave him a makeover.  It was at our family reunion in Magrath.

I Love Summer.

I love that school starts in 9 days too (but who's counting?).

Spur of the moment

Last night, after dinner, Spence and I were trying to figure out what to do... "Let's go to Havre, and stay over night."  What a great idea, I can't remember whose idea it was, but I'll take credit.  In 10 minutes we packed the car with a sleeping bag, 2 pillows, our passports and some clothes and got on the road; the border crossing closed at 9pm, so we had to hurry. 

Havre, MT is about 2 hours away, they don't really have much there except a bunch of bars and casinos, but they have a Super Wal-mart.  We bought a bunch of junk food, all the neat stuff we don't have here.  I loved the drive, it was 2 hours of time with Spence.  I loved shopping with him, he pretended to be interested in the things I like, I tried to do the same.  We are really cheap, so we found a parking lot and slept in our car, it was just as romantic, I loved it. We walked around the town a bit and shopped at O'Reilly's and BIG R, Spence got the second to last camping accessory he has ever wanted... a small stainless steel camping teapot (the last thing he wants is a MEC double hammock... it's in the mail).   On our drive home we stopped at Elkwater provincial park and got ice cream cones at the old gas station,  I completely recommend it.  For $2.50 we got HUGE cones, I was actually FULL after eating it. 

Tomorrow we go out to pick up Kali, I miss her so much.  Having 4 brothers and sisters for a week is probably doing her a lot of good though.

I love the Farm!

We've spent a couple weekends at Spencer's parents farm lately, I love going there. When you're there, nothing is pressing, there's little stress and we watch movies and play outside. Spencer helped with dinner one Sunday and wore his mothers apron, I had to snap a pic.



This weekend we rode bikes in the prairie trying to avoid cactus, it was a blast. We fertilized and watered Moms trees, rode the 4-wheeler and Kali rode grandpas horse "apple sauce".










Kali is at Spencers brothers house this week playing with her cousins and we are alone. Kali hasn't even called us yet, I think she's having too much fun. Spence and I have had fun together, but we sent this picture to Kali letting her know we are missing her.



The caption we sent her was: "Hi Kali, we miss you lots. Just eating boring sandwiches for dinner."

Can't wait to see her on Sunday.

Side note: I missed Kalis first week of swimming lessons, dang it! I did this last year too.

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Wearing the bangs

I found some pics on my camera from a couple weeks ago.  Spencer's bro and his wife came home from China where they had been living for almost a year; they brought home a headband with bangs attached, we all had fun with it.  It goes like this:

this one was just for fun.  Dad and I dancing to the car.

Busy but FUN!!

We have had a busy last couple weeks. 

I have worked at Wood Visions for a little over a year and have finally learned how to build cabinet boxes, it is so fun.  One day I hope to build some things for our home.

Kali's birthday was this past week and I threw a party for her.  A small party that turned into 10 kids was chaos, but a complete blast.  We played some minute to win it games tailored to 7 year olds, jumped on the trampoline with a bunch of soap on it, the kids threw water balloons and shot eachother with water guns. There were a few who cried when their parents came because they were having so much fun.  I love parties!!


We went camping this weekend with our friends, the Delgados in Cardston at the Lee Creek campground, I recommend it to anyone.  We drove our "new to us Camper Van", and it rocked.  It makes camping so much more fun, and the drive is a lot more fun.  We went to the temple and Spencer's Mom was serving in our session, it was really special to be there with her.  I love the Temple.

Life is great, I can't wait for the summer holiday to start for Kali.  I look forward to going to the beach at least every week, doing some geocaching, and playing with friends.  I LOVE SUMMER!!

I love Las Vegas

 The Torries went to Las Vegas for spring break and we didn't go to he77.  It was a super fun trip, we drove and stopped in Logan, UT and Cedar City, UT to visit family.  We really needed a break from the long winter, and found super hot weather and some sun in Vegas.  Spencer served his mission there and got to see some of his old friends, it was awesome, I love Vegas.

We stopped in Salt Lake and had fun checking stuff out at Temple Square.  Kali was super crazy-hyper, it made it a bit difficult to completely enjoy everything.

 

Kali found a large statue of Sponge bob, it totally looked like he was looking at her.  She was very excited.

We went to M&M's world and Kali was yet again SUPER excited, she wanted to buy everything.  We actually gave her an allowance of $5 per day so she could make all her own decisions with her own money.  Her first purchase at the Disney store brought on major buyers remorse, but she got over it by the time we got to the M&M's store.

On our first full day, we went hiking in Blue Diamond, we saw wild Burros and made an inukshuk on the trail.  We hiked up and down and up and down along a nice trail, it was pretty hot and Spence and I got sunburned a little.  We all loved being outside though.

 

On our next day, we went biking at Cottonwood, it was Kali's first time on her mountain bike and using hand brakes.  She did great on the asphalt but struggled on the rocky terrain, it made for some great scars though.  Spence biked from there to Blue Diamond while Kali and I geocached and pet a wild Burro.

When Spence was a missionary he loved biking Red Rock Canyon, this was a hike we did and the Red Rock mountains behind us.

We met up with Spencer's first companion and his family on our last night in Vegas.  It was one of the funnest times, they are the Falks, Jesse is from Airdrie and he just graduated from Dentistry and Lindsey is the greatest girl, I wish we lived closer to them.  They took us to the best restaurant called Robertos taco shop, I just can't get enough of Mexican food.

After dinner, the Falks took us to the Bellagio fountains and Kali made some new friends.  They were giving out free hugs, she loved it, and they let her join them.

At the end of the night we went out for "Luv it frozen custard", it was right near a strip club and a really scary convenience store with the guy behind the bullet proof glass.  The custard was great, the company was fabulous but the ambiance.... was not.

We had so much fun in Vegas, I wish we could have stayed longer.

My Birthday

Kali decorated my birthday cake for me, it says: "Mom Happe Brthday", I had to bake it for my own birthday, can you believe it?  I'm sure it's better than what Spence could have made.  He made some bread last week and missed the yeast... it was a brick.  He invited my friends over for a party but made me buy all the food, prepare it and buy my present.I really liked the party, it was so fun to hang out with some friends.  We ate lots of great food, played some games and found out about some of Trevor's celebrity crushes.  I also loved when Erin came over during the day with a cupcake tree full of chocolate cupcakes infused with buttercream icing.  We played Super Mario Brothers Wii and she helped me pass some levels in the 8th world that I couldn't have done without her, she ROCKS at games.

Yesterday, still in my birthday week, we went to the farm had a roast beef dinner, watched MegaMind and played cards.  I really appreciate Mom Torrie, she is so kind to me, I really love that woman.  Ryan & Tonya came over to with the kids, they made me cards and bought me a huge Lindor chocolate bar.

I love my birthday, it's my favorite day ever.

p.s. I got a new calling today at church:  Second Counselor in the Primary.  I was a little surprised and overwhelmed, we'll see , there are some super great girls that I get to work with.

Cupcakes

I love my chocolate cupcakes with raspberry buttercream icing.  I made a batch the other day and gave some away to a couple friends.  I have enjoyed them and have tried to savor them.  There were 4 left this morning, I had 2, Kali had one and I saved one for after my nap.  When I got up Spence had eaten the last one!!  He said it looked like no one wanted it?!  What??!! I would never say that about a cupcake.  My dear sweet cupcake has been wasted on someone who I don't think appreciated it.  Good bye cupcake, I love you and can't wait to enjoy you again.

Jenn

Sacrifice

We had a lesson today on sacrifice in R.S. and all I could think about was King Julien in Madagascar 2.

I also realized that I suck at sacrifice and I'm a little selfish.  During the lesson, I remembered that there were two pieces of chocolate cake at home and I thought about how I could eat both of them.  Some mothers would give to their husbands and children and go without... not this lady.  My friend Suzanne called me to repentance, so I guess I should try harder.