pool pals

These pictures are a few weeks old now, but I've been meaning to post them for those of you who are far away. Here's a little summer-time treat.

the big race

I can't believe I forgot to post about this! Whitney ran her first race on Memorial Day morning at the Stake Fun Run. It was a 1-miler for kids which looped once and a half around a big pond. Unfortunately, she grew tired of waiting for the big kid race to finish, so I told her she could play on the playground till they called for the little kids. And as soon as she reached the playground, they called for the little kids. 

Typical.

Here she is at the starting line, looking longingly at the playground. 

Look at that stride!

This is us feeding our dust to some lesser competitors. They had no idea what was coming. (Except when I was all "track!" and Whitney was like "meep meep!" And then we high-fived as we cut in front of them and sent them flying into the pond.

Na. That didn't happen.)

This is where the playground came back into sight and suddenly Whitney's legs felt tired, so we cut it short after one loop of the pond.

Here is "Cuncle" Mark helping my little winner rehydrate as she crossed her finish line, after which we toweled her off and massaged those aching hammies and shoulder blades.  Na, that didn't happen either. But if there'd been an available picnic table, I totally would have done it just because I think its a really funny idea.

QUILT POST SCRIPT:

Amelia reminded me of an important note I forgot to make in my quilt post. I did not use an embroidery machine. I used the mom machine. That was, in fact, my first quilt. And my good mother, who happened to be in town to take care of me for my tonsillectomy, taught me how to cut, piece, embroider, bind, and everything in between. I would never have been brave enough to dig in without her there to hold my hand those pivotal first few days. Mom, you are a master enabler! (The good kind.)

It is finished!

Our stake started a quilt raffle at Girls Camp last year that was apparently very popular, so they're doing it again this year and I was tricked (by my good friend the assistant camp director) into volunteering to make the quilt. And here it is! The theme for camp is Camp CSI (Courage, Strength, INTEGRITY). (My understanding, if you're interested, is that every girl gets one raffle ticket upon arrival and can be awarded additional tickets for showing integrity throughout the week.)

Here it is modeled by Stuart's bed.

I embroidered the word Integrity in the lower right corner and a quote from Joshua 1:9 across the top: "be strong and of good courage," which I managed to misquote even after looking it up to double check the punctuation and reference. (It should say "be strong and of a good courage.") How embarrassing. Oh well. I'm guessing it'll be years before the recipient is well enough versed in the scriptures to even catch it.

Here's my happy accident. I was immediately displeased with the look of the quilt binding once I had it attached to the front of the quilt. So rather than blind-stitching it down in the back I top stitched it down with this super cutie leafy-vine decorative stitch that matches the quilt perfectly. Its my favorite detail.

And, foolishly, I opted to hand quilt the thing. In retrospect, I should have just used the machine and stipple stitched, but I love the look and process of hand quilting. I've just never done it on this scale before. But it also turned out to be a happy mistake because it forced me to accept help from two fantastic friends when crunch time rolled around. And now I have hours of happy memories logged away of sitting on the floor quilting and chatting and laughing with Lindsey and Tara while the kids played happily in the backyard. I love you guys! 

thank you Target

Hey Kristina, check this out. This is the third post in three days. And I know no one appreciates how cute my kids are more than me more than you. Cheap crappy Target got something right this summer. How cute is this swimming suit! Especially with that cute red ponytail. MMM! I could just eat her!

testing, testing, is this thing on?

I finally took the time to figure out why my editing toolbar doesn't have a video icon. So this is my practice attempt at uploading video. This clip is almost 2 years old, but it was the first short one that came to mind.


Uh, if this works, it took almost half an hour to upload 30 seconds of video. So, I won't be posting the 6 minutes that I took of Whitney and Stuart singing primary songs. :(

Happy #2 Stuart!

I can't believe a year has passed already since the last time I did this for my sweet little guy. We had a few friends and family over on Memorial Day to help us celebrate Stuey's birthday. Good weather, good company, good food! It doesn't get any better than this.

(Such a dorky ice cream face. I love it!)

He sang Happy Birthday to himself for about 45 minutes in bed before he fell asleep.

sigh.... :)