Young Women Blocks

Our ward's Young Women presidency decided we would each give gifts to the girls in our ward during girls camp, one gift for each night.  This is what mine ended up being:

Arise & Shine Forth and Good Works blocks
(each block has both sides)

Here's a close up.

Arise and Shine Forth is the youth theme this year, and Good Works was our ward's assigned Young Women value for camp.  My dad cut the wood for me and my mom (in-law) helped me paint the blocks and Mod Podge the designs on them.  I put together the Arise and Shine and Good Works parts of it in Photoshop (not from scratch... I'm not that good!).  I think they turned out pretty cute!

Baby Blanket - Crochet

One of my very bestest friends who I met in college, Laura, is having a baby boy next month and the baby shower was today.  This was one of my gifts to her.  This is the second baby blanket I've done.  This one turned out a little better than the first, but there was still some trial and error going on.  But I figured it out (yay!) and wrote out the pattern so next time I would know for sure what to do.  :)  Because, by the way, I made up this pattern!  It's not too crazy but not too boring either.  :)

 Finished blanket with border

 Close up of a corner

(And I just realized this is the part of the blanket with the
trial and error part with those shell stitches
OOPS
so we need to not look at that in great detail,
nor look at it for reference when making this)

...And so here is my attempt at showing the better corner, which I
cut from the full picture.  Unfortunately it isn't very clear.  Oh well.

Designer & Crafter, and finished product :)

(I wasn't finished getting ready! But I had to get a picture with me in it.)

Pattern:
Yarn: Bernat Baby Sports (1 big roll)
Needle: US G/6, 4mm
ch = chain, dc = double crochet, st = stitch,
To start: ch 120 (I would probably go a little less next time, but it needs to be a multiple of 3)
Rows 1-4: ch 3 (takes place of first dc), dc in each st (119), turn, repeat x4
Rows 5-8 (shell st): ch 3, in next st * dc 3 in same st, skip 2, repeat from * until there are 2 sts left in row, dc 2, turn, repeat x4
(In this particular blanket I did 15 sections)
To end (border): after last 4 rows of normal dc, * shell st another row, shell in corner, skip 1, shell st and keep going in every other hole, repeat from * to finish all 4 sides, end, weave remaining yarn into first row of shell sts to tie it all together

:)

Oh, Just Some Things

Well I wish I had a way of making my life sound more eventful than it actually is.  But maybe it's good that things are calm.  I would rather not have crazy trials and challenges!  The ones I have are good enough!

I have the best boss.  The job isn't bad either.  I work for my mom and my hours are "whenever as long as the work gets done."  How awesome is that, right?  I've always loved sleeping in in the mornings, and I feel bad when I don't get up early.  But my boss doesn't care when I get in as long as I do my job!  Fantastic!  It's hard sometimes though to be motivated in learning new things since I have no desire whatsoever to ever do anything in the mortgage industry.  I could if I wanted to, but I really don't want to.  I hope I don't have to work at all when I have kids (and after Adam goes through school and gets a good job) so I can be a full-time mom.  That is my dream!  I know it's important and so that is my goal.

It surprises me almost at how many missionary opportunities are all around me.  Praying for them really helps me see them.  I hope to make a difference in people's lives one by one.

One of my very bestest friends, Elyse, is getting married!!  I am super duper excited and happy for her!

This is us last year after wedding-dress shopping for me.

(And we found it thank goodness!)

After searching online for the perfect outfit to wear on this special occasion and not finding it, I decided I'm going to make a dress!  I've never done it before and it will be fun (hopefully more-so than frustrating)!  My mom said she will set up my sewing machine on a table and have a place to make projects in the small room being used for storage, which was originally supposed to be a laundry room (excessive explanation, sorry).  I'm so excited and I can't wait to start making projects!

Adam and I and his parents went to the Arizona vs. Washington game with FREE tickets (thanks Mom and Steve)!  8th row, right across from the Arizona bench. Be jealous.

Notice our awesome "White Out" t-shirts:

Guess who was sitting two rows and like 8 seats away from us?? (Lute Olson!)

(This isn't a creepy stalker-ish picture, right?)

Student section: A!!!!!

And we also scored free tickets to the professional golf tournament that was in town last week.  We didn't see Tiger Woods, but saw some other apparently famous players.  Ha.  Players.  :D

Look what we found on the side of one of the courses: (hehe!)

Adam put my cowboy (cowgirl?) hat on my head while I was making dinner the other night and (sneakily) got the camera out and told me to look.  But I suspected what he was up to and this is what happened:

Until next time...  :)

P.S. Happy 9 months to us!  :)

Update on the goals

I'm happy to report that I'm doing pretty well with my goals!

I've been getting to bed around 10, and most impressively (especially if you know me and how I like to sleep and NOT get out of bed :D) have been getting up around 6!  That's in the A.M.!  Last week it was more like 6:20 but this week it's more like 6.  And it feels good!

Also, I've been working out every day during the week.  And this week I started running in the mornings (yikes) to train for the 5K I decided to do which is in a month.  (Why?? I don't know.)  I switch off days running and working out on the Wii.  Gotta build those muscles!  So don't forget to let them rest.  :)

My current book of the month is House of Learning: Getting More from Your Temple Experience by M. Richard and Kathleen H. Walker.  It is such a wonderful book!  I'm really loving it.  I definitely recommend it, whether you've been "through" the temple or not.  It's a short little book and I'm getting through it pretty quick so I may be able to squeeze another into this month..  Or I may start reading one that is more lengthy and read it through November..  I haven't decided yet what the November Book of the Month will be but I'm thinking The History of Joseph Smith by His Mother by Lucy Mack Smith.  I'm not going to buy any more books for a while till I at least get through the ones I own, and I also want to utilize the great resource of the library more.  That means I'll need to get my hands on this Joseph Smith book by way of persuasion...  Either someone close to me or the library...  Dun dun dun!  I actually sent in a request on the Pima County Library website for them to get it.  We'll see if they do!  They have other LDS material.  We shall see what comes of it.

For the last four days I've written in my journal EVERY DAY!  Aren't you so proud??  (We're allowed to say that we're proud in this sense, it's not being prideful.  President Uchtdorf discussed this in his priesthood session talk this past General Conference.  Very good talk.  I recommend you take a gander.)  I'm trying this out, writing every day.  It definitely makes journal writing less stressful when you write a little each day instead of having to "catch up" and write tons of things you've been meaning and wanting to write about but hadn't found (or made) the time.  Thumbs up on this one.  It makes me feel good!

My craft of the month is a continuation of something I've been working on for, well, a long time.  I started crocheting a UofA colored blanket for Adam almost a year ago...  Wow, a year ago??!  ALMOST a year ago.  I think I started it last December.  I haven't touched it in most of that time since...  So there isn't much to show for it and I still have a long way to go!  To be honest I put off the making of it because I'm intimidated by it.  I want to try to put a big University of Arizona "A" in the middle of the blanket.  But I'm scared I'm going to screw up and that it's going to be BUTT UGLY since there are so many yarn changes and measuring and yikes!  But I finally decided that I'm just going to go ahead and DO IT.  I'm pressing forward, saints!  Hopefully it all works out okay.  He's going to love it no matter what I'm sure, so I guess it's not really that big of a deal.  But I want it to look good, especially since he's probably going to keep it around forever.  By the way, I'm thinking about giving it to him as a Christmas gift...  Which means I can only work on it when he's not around...  This may be tricky.  Or maybe it just won't be a surprise.  Hmm.

Speaking of crocheting, this makes me think of the time at good ol' EAC when my roomies and I all got out our crochet projects and had a crocheting party in our little living area.  Good times.  :)

Shout out to Becky (soon to be Brimhall), Cheyenne (now Shepherd), and Stormy (now Garner).

Yeah for craft parties!!!

I'm doing pretty good on the other things as well (remember we're talking about goals here, I almost forgot too).  Haven't started the memorizing stuff yet.  I'll get around to it.  Lol!

Look at me being crafty!

First let me show you my fall decoration.

TADA!

Cute, eh?  I'm proud of it.  I bought each piece separate and put it together!  I confess that my mom helped a little.  I'm not much of a decorator but I want to learn!  And while the cash ain't rollin' in just yet, I'm going to keep it small and simple.  Which is why I went to the dollar store.  Three of these items were $1 and two were $.50.  :)

And I wanted something Halloween-y so I got this (for a dollar):

Being festive is fun.  :)


Alsoooooo...  The Mia-Maids (14-15 year-old girls) in my ward (church) asked me to be on a dating panel for them for mutual (youth group).  Cute huh!  The lesson is on the law of chastity and being clean to enter the temple and stuff.  This is something that is SOOOOOOOOOOOO important, especially for the youth.  And especially in a world that right now is so vastly wicked and sinful.  Because we have to be clean to be able to enter into the Temple, the Lord's holy house, which is where we are sealed to our families and to the Lord forever!  So not only have I been fervently praying to be able to share my thoughts and feelings and to be able to know the things they need to hear, I wanted to make them something.  This is what I came up with:

A picture of the Mesa Arizona Temple with the 3rd verse to the Hymn "More Holiness Give Me" underneath which says: "More purity give me, more strength to o'ercome, More freedom from earth-stains, more longing for home. More fit for the kingdom, more used would I be, More blessed and holy, more, Savior, like Thee." and the scripture from Proverbs 31:10, which you should be able to read in the picture so I won't repeat myself.



It's real simple, and I feel a little silly.  But I hope they like them.