Beautiful Night

I haven't sewn or been crafty since maybe July? June? It's been too long to remember. The last few months have been a whirlwind with Young Women stuff, holidays, health issues, and some good books that took precedence over sewing. But I got the sewing itch today and thought of about 50 sewing ideas I want to do this week (before Road Show hits!). I hit up Jenny's Fabric's tonight and then came home and got to work. I kept interrupting Josh's studying to proclaim my love of fabric to him. He was getting concerned. In all my excitement, I got a little hasty in my cutting and snipped off a good 8 inches of the drawstring to my pajama pants. Then I started my hoarse laugh/cough (I'm recovering from the plague), immediately texted my sister, she laughed, which only made me laugh/cough even more. Ahhhhh.....it's been a good night.

Moses

Here's a gem from yesterday...

Bryn was reading this book and said "Whoopsie! Mr. Frumble is falling in the river like Baby Moses in a basket!"

Cinderella

Brynlee always pulls the stool up to the kitchen sink and asks to "do the dishes". She used to dump the water onto herself or the floor, but she's making improvements and the water usually stays in the sink. It's cute to watch her work so hard at it. She says "Rinse it.....then DUMP it! Rinse it.....then DUMP it!" over and over.

Drinking....dish water?

Who needs a Disneyland pass when you could be home doing dishes? I mean, really :)

Best Birthday Ever

I turned 24 this week, and had such a GREAT day! Normally my birthdays are pretty low key, but this year was busy and so much fun. I LOVE these cute little signs that Josh and Bryn made me. Bryn was SO excited for my birthday to come. She burst into my room in the morning and said "Happy Birthday Mom!!! Tada!!!!" Josh made me a yummy breakfast before he left for work, and then I opened a few packages from my parents, sibs, and extended fam. Thank you, thank you! Bryn wanted to spend ALL day with me on my birthday, so she skipped her nap (her idea) and played with me all day. I went to lunch with one of my best friends, and then we bumped into our friend Renee (above), who owns the cupcake shop "For Goodness Cakes" at Bella Terra. While the kids ran around, we chatted and stuffed our cheeks with Renee's delicious cupcakes. Perfect afternoon! And then, just when you thought it couldn't get any better.....my friends surprised me and took me to dinner. As you can tell, it was pretty exciting! It was like Christmas morning. Times ten.

Love Panera. Love these girls.

More eating?? Your birthday only comes once a year! After dinner, my uncle Mark and our friend Dede came over to have my favorite berry birthday cake with Josh and I.

And theeeeeen....the next night Josh and I went on a fancy schmancy birthday date to see Tangled. (Cute movie!). So really, it was the best birthday ever. So fun! Thanks to my family and friends for making it so great.

Winter Youth Conference

Last weekend was our ward's Winter Youth Conference, and it was such a fun few days! It was so great to get to know all the youth better and to see their friendships strengthened.

Above is most of our beautiful young women, plus my wonderful counselors, amazing secretary, and one of our awesome advisors. I love these ladies!!! One of our Youth Conference activities was a Standards Road Rally where we divided into 4 teams and we had to drive around Huntington Beach to different locations and do a "challenge" that corresponded with one of the topics in the For Strength of Youth pamphlet. (The "challenge" above was for Physical Health). This was SO much fun! The last location was the Newport Beach Temple, where we had a little devotional on the beautiful temple grounds. So neat! One of the "challenges" in the Road Rally was to go to Salvation Army and buy a modest outfit. The kids were so funny and I LOVE their outfits. They had to wear their outfits later that night for another activity and it was cracking me up! You just can't take someone seriously when they're dressed like that.

Our lovely beehives

Emily and Sarah representing the Miamaids

And our stylish laurels

One of my counselors put together this awesome "Minute to Win it" competition with the funniest activities they had to do in a minute each. For this one, the youth wore nylons over their heads, with baseballs in the foot. Then they had to swing their heads and knock over the water bottles. It was harder than it looks! This one was kind of like a musical chairs sort of thing. The youth all wore goggles that had been blacked out, so they couldn't see. When the music stopped they had to feel around for a ball to sit on and the person who didn't find one was out for the next round. And we went until their was one winner left. Very entertaining!

Renee modelling the goggles for that game

This one they had to blow up a balloon and try to knock over all the cups with the air coming out of the balloon. Here we have Megan and Jen (YW leaders) demonstrating another one where you have a headband with a pedometer on their foreheads and you have to shake your head up and down for one minute. Whoever has the most "steps" at the end of the minute wins. I'm pretty sure they still have headaches from doing this one!

And no Youth Conference is complete without a little Limbo....

High jump...

Or the funky chicken dance!

Such a fun weekend! I wish I took pictures of the other fun things. I LOVE serving with the young women, and working with my awesome board of YW leaders!

More Style

I know several of you appreciated Bryn's style tip last week of pairing her silver dress with the neon orange hat. So today I'll give you the next installment of her style series:

This week's tip is that you can never wear too many bracelets at once. This is a familiar look for Bryn lately. She puts them on one at a time, proudly walks around the apartment, looks at herself in my full length mirror, looks at her self in her own full length mirror, asks me to take a picture, then shakes them all off and starts over.

Daddy Daughter Time

This past weekend was my ward's Winter Youth Conference (more to come on that later), so as you can imagine it's been a very hectic few weeks trying to get everything planned for it! Josh has been the best husband and dad ever! He and Bryn had such a fun time this weekend while I was gone. They went out for frozen yogurt (where Bryn sampled flavors and picked her favorite yogurt and toppings. I love that so much!), played at the park, went to the beach, got lunch at Wahoo's, built towers, ran in circles...all of her favorite things to do. I love Josh. I love Brynlee. And I love that they have such a cute relationship!

Yummy Recipe

We love homemade pizza around here! I usually try to make a healthy wheat crust, but tonight we bagged my recipe and tried this simple [pizza dough recipe] from smitten kitchen. (LOVE all of her recipes that I've tried!) It was the easiest pizza dough I've ever made and it was super yummy. I doubled the recipe, since we love us some homemade pizza, and it was a great amount for the three of us plus leftovers. If you're looking for a pizza dough recipe you've got to try it.

And that's all.

(image via smitten kitchen)

Style

If there's one thing Bryn's got it's style. She's becoming more and more opinionated about what shoes, clothes, and accessories she wears. It's always a challenge to convince her to wear something matching and normal. Sunday she was adamant about wearing this lovely bright orange cap with her church outfit. She was still pulling it tightly to her head as we walked out to the car, but we somehow slipped it off her before we made it into church. I love this funny stage!

More Christmas

The best part of Christmas was hanging out with my whole fam! Jord missed the last two Decembers since he was on a mission, so it was wonderful to have the whole family together this year! This is going to be a big, rambling post but I only see my fam 2-3 times a year, so I'm allowed to have a long, wordy post. Within two minutes of arriving at my parent's house, Bryn had already discovered the dress-ups and bins of toys. She was in heaven the whole trip with so much attention and so many new things to play with! We always look our finest on Christmas morning Santa brought Bryn a new stroller for her dolls, and it was a big hit. My Dad's birthday is on Christmas day and he turned the big 5-0 this year. Please note that Marie is mid-punch during this picture. Caught! My brothers were gifted several lovely (old) sweaters from my Dad's closet, as well as this beautiful set of striped pajamas that my Dad wore throughout our childhood. Jae was a little sour he wasn't given the jammies, but he doesn't have the hair for them anyway. This might be my favorite memory of the trip. A hungry hawk snuck into the coop of my Dad's beloved homing pigeons and had a nice pigeon meal. Then the hawk got stuck in the coop and couldn't get out. My Dad pulled out his thickest work gloves, goggles, and wellies, charged into the coop, caught the hawk, boxed him up, and drove him to Uncle Shayne's house for a late Christmas gift. Once again, Bryn enjoyed Logan's ever-growing glasses collection. Dinner and games with my Clarke grandparents We had a little scone party with friends. Actually we made scones twice in 5 days. But who's counting? (My Mom's scones were 10 times lighter and more delicious than the thick and heavy scones I made for my Young Women and leaders three weeks ago. Ugh....embarrassing. Wish I would have used my Mom's recipe!)

Logan is the best uncle to Bryn. He's the older brother she'll never have.

And this is what I'll miss the most: Bryn having one-on-one time with Grandma! Bryn got so attached to my mom and followed her around the whole trip. It was a teary moment when we left to drive home and Bryn and my Mom said their goodbyes. What a great trip! I have the best family and it was such a treat to be with them. To watch home videos, play games, laugh at each other, eat one great meal after another, hear funny stories of my sibling's latest break-ups and crushes, testimony meetings and hearing counsel from my Dad. I loved every minute of it, and I can't wait to see my family again....when they come to visit us this Spring (hint hint!).

Christmas with the Hawkins

I always love getting together with Josh's family when we're in Utah. I especially love Bryn having time with her cousins! She's been talking about her cousins every day since we've been home. Wish we lived closer to them! We all got together on Christmas Eve (minus Jen and Jake's families who we missed!!!) Grandpa played songs on the guitar while the kids danced around. The cousins acted out the nativity. Like last year, Bryn refused to participate. Bryn got a cute doll from the gift exchange...perfect for her stroller she got the next day! The cousins sporting their new pajamas with my wonderful in-laws. We also got together with Hawkins for a trip to the Bean Museum at BYU. They had a great Nativity scene with lots of wild animals looking at the baby Jesus. So great! And Bryn was in heaven with all the animals. The best times with the Hawkins over Christmas was the temple sealing of little Cora to Becky and Hema, and the big Luau to celebrate Cora's adoption and sealing. We're so glad we were in town for those special events.