Haley and Grandma Bonnie in Maine

...Before I go into how what an amazing trip this was for Haley, I have to say how incredibly thoughtful my Mom was with the planning of this trip. Not only did my Mom send her a bright blue (her favorite color) rolling suite case to take on the trip, but when Haley met my Mom in Salt Lake my Mom gave her this super cute tote bag (embroidered with a puffin and Haley's name) full of art supplies, a sketch book, journal and tons of Haley's favorite candies and gum and a big pack of American Girl bath products. My Mom also let the bed and breakfast know that it was Haley's birthday so when Haley came down for breakfast they had a big balloon tied to her chair with a birthday card. Haley felt so special, she knew that this trip was all for her. I swear she came back more confident then when she left.



Haley said that her favorite part of the trip was the Puffin cruise. The head of Project Puffin was on the boat that day and he signed a copy of his book on Puffins for Haley.

Puffins are small birds (like a small pigeon) and because this is a protected wildlife area and they could not get close to the island it was hard to photograph the Puffins. Haley said that they flew over the boat and were in the water next to the boat at times.

Here is one on the water

This is what they look like close up if you are a professional photographer on the island and not on a boat.

Grandma Bonnie and Haley on the cruise

What else did they do besides the cruise- they shopped. Haley came home with an extra large tote bag filled with Puffin stuff. If it had a puffin on it, they bought it.


They ate lobster. Haley said that she didn't care for the lobster but loved broiled scallops.


They went to lighthouses

They went to the lighthouse museum and the Puffin museum, oh and did more shopping.


My Mom complained that Haley reads too much. I sent Haley with one long book and strict rules that she was only to read on airplanes and at night. My Mom ended up buying her 3 additional books through the trip because Haley would stay up late to Read.


Something that I can't leave out. The night before Haley left she asked her Sisters what they wanted her to bring back for them from Main. Ruby said "Look for a fashion dress that only has one strap and then goes around under my other arm. If you can't find that fashion dress, just get me some make up". I told Haley absolutely no fashion dresses or make up. Haley found a "fashion dress" and had my Mom take a picture of it for Ruby.

My Mom said that she fully expects Ruby to want to go to Paris for fashion week for her trip.

Mom,
Thank you so much!
Haley really had the time of her life and will always remember this trip and the time she spent with you.
Thank you for planning it and taking such good care of her!
FYI- When she was pulling out the gifts for her sisters she said "I really had to fight to get this shirt for Lucy, Grandma said that she didn't like tie dye in the 60s and she still doesn't like it" she said it exactly how you said it to her. Eric and I were cracking up. I'm sorry to tell you that it has become Lucy's favorite shirt.

EDIT****Haley said to me today "Mom, do you what to know what I'm going to do when I'm grown up? I'm going to get married and live with my husband on Wickasette Road on Maine. I'm gona have a hedge hog as a pet and my Husband will catch lobsters from the sea and sell them to restaurants.

Happy Birthday Ms. Jenny...Ginny...Jenny!

When we moved down to New Orleans, I was terrified. I pictured us trying to raise our kids while living on Bourbon St. My expectations of the city could not have been more wrong. I quickly realized that moving to New Orleans would be one of the greatest blessings of our lives. I met several friends that taught me valuable lessons that I will love and appreciate the rest of my life. Enter Ms. Jenny...


Jenny lived one door away in the double right next door to ours. We went to the same church and both had little girls and husbands that were never home so we spent a lot of time together. We have a lot in common but could not be more different in some ways which is why we got along so well. I have seen her in difficult situations and always been blown away by her strength.

She is not perfect however, she posted horribly ugly photos of me on my Birthday- not nice. I would never do that to her.



Jenny is super thoughtful. She is ALWAY willing to help me with whatever I need. I could call her at anytime for anything and she would say yes. She heard me say that I loved a particular red and white patterned quilt... and she made it for me! This less then flattering photo was taken super late at night. Jenny had been working on this quilt for along time as a surprise for me and the second she finished it she walked over to give it to me. I love it! I love it! I love it!

As is blogging tradition here are 32 things I love about Jenny!
1. She is capable of anything
2. She is honest
3. She is creative
4. She wipes out her refrigerator everyday!
5. She mops her floor naked (so she told me)
6. She is thoughtful
7. She is a great Mom
8. She is a great gardner and even mowed our lawn on occasion
9. She listens to me complain
10. She makes cinnimon rolls that are so good you would slap your Grandmother for one.
11. She has the cleanest "Mom car" that I have ever seen
12. She has seen me at my worst and still loves me
13. She eats peanut M&Ms by the jumbo bag
14. She makes great Strawberry pie
15. She has a great sence of humor
16. She is beautiful
17. She eats chips ahoy cookies with milk almost every night
18. She taught me how to make Gumbo
19. She exercises regularly
20. She has helped me with all my Blogger questions
21. I think she is the only natural blond I know.
22. She is the best person to be with at a Mardi Gras parade
23. We both don't have the greatest math skills.
24. I have never laughed harder then the 3 hours I spent in Sam's club looking for her keys (with my eyes dilated).
25. She loves to dance with her kids
26. She never excludes people
27. She drinks Diet Coke by the gallon
28. She is kind to everyone
29. She used to start cleaning my kitchen when we were just standing there talking
30. We had a blast together at Gulf Port
31. She never complains when my husband calls her Ginny.
32. She makes me laugh so hard it hurts
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNY!

Haley is home

Haley is finally home and had a great trip. I sent her with our old digital camera and she took 74 photos... 3 of the more interesting photos are posted below. As soon as I get the photos from my Mom's camera I will post about all the fun stuff they did.

Lunch with Dad

Eric had to work Saturday from 8am to 10pm so we went and had lunch with him. With Haley gone, Ruby and Lucy have become buddies. Ruby picked out "matching" outfits and did Lucy's hair and asked me to do her hair the same.



I think the highlight of the day for them was talking into Eric's voice recognition head set and seeing their words come up on the screen (even thought they couldn't read it).


This picture was taken by Ruby who took about 15 photos of Eric at the desk. She kept telling him not to look at the camera and pretend that he was working.

The Birthday Quilt

I have had so many people ask for the pattern to this birthday quilt so here is the info. It is from Eleanor Burns book Ice Cream Cone Quilt from her quilt in a day series ISBN#1891776037.

You can buy this book from Half. com Here , or you can get it Here from Barns & Noble or Here from Amazon.

This quilt is a birthday tradition at our house. You wake up with it on your bed on your Birthday and you get your photo taken in front of it each year so that you can see how much you have grown. It stays up for a while so everyone that walks in the front door asks who's birthday it is. My girls really look forward to it. The night before their birthday they say "Don't forget to put the quilt on my bed tonight".

Ruby's 4th birthday

Ruby's 5th birthday

Ruby's 6th birthday

Haley's BIG trip

So my Mom has offered to take each of her grandchildren on a trip of their choice. The only rule is the place they choose needs to be educational or historical. Last year she took Weston to NY because he wanted to see the Statue of Liberty. Haley requested going to see and learn about puffins- at the time she announced this I had no idea what Puffins even were. Haley has known about this trip for 6 months and been talking about it and planning it everyday.

Well today was the day. I took her to the airport and she is flying all alone to Salt Lake and then she and my Mom are flying to Maine together. Haley is so excited she is beaming. I am a nervous wreak. When I watched her walk away with the flight attendant I started crying. I know that they will both have a great time, but I can't help feeling so worried.



Since Haley will be in Maine for her 9th birthday (Thurs), she woke up with the birthday quilt this morning and we took her photo in front of it before she left.


I can't believe that I have a 9 year old and I can't believe that she is traveling across the country without me.

Edit- 8:36 pm I just talked to Haley in SLC and she had a great flight and loved looking at all the little towns and streets below. I can breath now.

Lessons on swimming... and life

My car is at the dealer getting fixed so we drove Eric's (non-mini van) car to the pool today. We had all the windows down and the sunroof open. The girls were going crazy screaming and holding their hands up like it was a ride.


The pool is normally uneventful, but today not only did Ruby have a near death experience but all three girls had a life changing experience.

After swimming lessons Ruby went to jump off the high diving board. She walked to the end of the board, turned around and said "I'm going backwards" and jumped backwards. At the same time she jumped the like guard said "no jumping backwards". It was too late, she had jumped and did not clear the board. Something hit, but I could tell that it was not serious...the lifeguard on the other hand screamed "OH S___", blew his whistle and jumped in. He was so panicked that he jumped way passed her and couldn't find her because she was already at the side of the pool. When he swam up to her she said "I'm fine, I just scratched my hand on the board". He was visibly bugged and embarrassed. I was just glad that Ruby was ok and Haley didn't ask what he yelled.

Today the locker room was full of naked senior citizens changing into swimming suites. I wish I could have taken a photo of my girls faces as we walked through. Their mouths and eyes were wide open and I had to remind them several times to keep walking. The conversation the whole way home was about what they had seen and why bodies wrinkle with age. They will never be the same.

2 days+ 2 quilters= 4 quilts

Jackie (who seriously needs a blog) and I finally put the tops together for our California quilts.

I did my sashing from fabric of oranges and wood to represent the orange crates. I printed old orange crate labels on fabric and put them in the four corners.


Jackie used woven basket material and a stylized fabric with oranges. She is going to add citrus crate labels around the outside of her quilt too.


Even though we missed the 4th of july, we decided that since we were in the quilting mode we should make flag quilts for next year. This is seriously a super easy quilt to make (like 3 hours).

Here are the photos of the ones we made and I have typed out directions if you want to make one too. These are just the tops, they have not been quilted or bound.




You can purchase the pattern to this flag quilt here.

Maybe I went to far...

My Mom with her 7 grandchildren

It has been 14 years since my Father passed away and I have decided that My Mom needs to try dating, so I signed her up on eharmony.com and 3 other LDS dating web sites without her permission.

She is not very happy with me right now.

However, if anyone knows a 60-68 year old single guy that is really nice, feel free to tell me about him.

The 4th of July

If I had to pick my favorite day of the year, no question it would be the 4th of July. #25 & #26 here explain why.

Growing up, my Grandma "Tutu" (a nickname because she refused to be called Grandma) had a house up at Lake Arrowhead.

( Check out the decorations that Richard put up. The flag was hung between two trees and lit up at night)

We would visit Tutu and her husband Bob often, but I really LOVED going there for the 4th of July every year. The house was full of cousins (all girls). We always woke up to the smell of bacon and headed down to the boat to be ready to water-ski at 6am when the water was like glass. The highlight was always going out on the lake on the night of the 4th to watch the fireworks over the water. The fireworks reflect off the water and the booms echo off the mountains. It really makes it hard to watch a firework show anywhere else after having watched one on Lake Arrowhead.

Long story made short, my Uncle Tyke owns the house now and we still go up every year that we can. This year it was my cousin Kim, her husband Richard, 5 of their 6 kids. Eric, I and and our 3 girls. Tyke and his new wife Bev.

We had a great time and did lots of fun stuff with the kids.

Indoor art projects

They all got to make their own pizza for dinner


But the highlight if the past few days for me was having my kids do all the same things that I loved about Arrowhead as a kid.

Watching my kids in "the Getaway" the yellow boat that I used to spend hours on and learned to waterski behind. Fyi- this boat was named after one of my Grandpa Bud's movies and was purchased the same year I was born, so we are both looking a little old.

Playing on and fishing from the docks and paddeling around in a blow up boat.

Ruby and Grace

Haley and Austin

My cousin Gina, My Sister Tiffany and me as kids.

Me playing on the dock as a kid.
Playing in the "club house". A large storage closet that gets super hot but kids still think is the coolest room in the house. I used to play barbies in here for hours.
Riding up in the old elevator that I used to think was the coolest thing in the world. Now my girls think it's the coolest thing in the world.

Watching all the Blue Jays and chipmonks out on the deck. This year we even saw a LARGE racoon one night.

Ok, so clearly they were not happy about having to pose for this photo, but overall we had a great holiday and a wonderful time bonding with cousins and getting to know our new Aunt Bev!

Out of the mouths of babes...

Some recent quotes that I'm not proud of, but recognize the need to record them.

A couple of days ago, I was waiting for a package that Ups said would be delivered before 5 pm. At 5:45 talking to myself I said "I wonder what happened to UPS today".
Haley said "Maybe the driver got drunk and got into a fight so he couldn't make it."
I said "Holy cow Haley, where did that come from?"
"Nancy Drew" she said.

Driving in the car I mentioned that it was their cousin Cheyenne's birthday and she was turning 12. Haley said "I can't wait until I turn 12 so I can go into Young Womens."
Ruby said " I can't wait until I'm 12 so I can have a baby".
Eric and I both looked at each other as we both stopped breathing.