Cold Feet

John had to work all night last night.

This means that my feet were cold. I am a pretty cold person. I like people and all that but I seem to be unable to consistantly keep my hands and feet warm. When I was growing up I used to wear gloves and two pairs of socks to bed.

But when I married John, all my problems seemed to be solved. I acquired my own personal space heater. And I know he loves it every night when I jump into bed and put my ice cold feet on his warm legs. It's his favorite.

The problem comes when he is not there. I've gotten used to sleeping without my socks on and I can't bring myself to go back. So, last night my feet were cold.

But all this reminds me of something that happened to me in college. My first two years of college I lived at home. So mostly I hung out with friends from high school. One New Year's Eve, one of my best friends growing up invited me to her house for a family party. Now Liz comes from what I would consider a pretty conservative family. I don't really remember who was there except for me, Liz and her boyfriend, Steve. Anyway, there were a lot of friends of her family there and we just wandered around talking to random people.

At some point, we were sitting at her kitchen counter talking to some lady. She was complaining about her husband who was perennially cold. She was always warm and was saying that it had caused a lot of friction in her marriage. I naively said that I wouldn't think it would be that big of a problem. I said I thought that the warm person could warm up the cold person.

This lady turned around and said in the loudest voice possible, "Obviously, you've never slept with anyone!!"

All conversation at the party stopped and looked at me. I was beet red and agreed that I never had slept with anyone. Liz's mom quickly came over and took the lady away. And after a couple of shocked minutes, Liz, Steve and I busted up laughing.

Now, looking back and having slept with someone for going on 12 years, all I have to say is she was wrong. (At least from the cold person's point of view)

Oklahoma vacation

At the end of last month, John was generous enough to let me go on a week-long vacation to visit my little brother with my two sisters. He even donated the airplane vouchers to pay for the whole trip, and gave up his chance for a trip. And last but not least, he took vacation and took care of the kids. He is awesome and I love him.

(My sisters and I at the Oklahoma Sooner Monument along the river)

The vacation was really fun. I don't to get to spend tons of time with my sisters anymore because we're all busy chasing our kids, so it was great to have fun with them. I love both my sisters a lot. And we really don't get to see my brother and his family very often because they live in Oklahoma and have a hard time getting up here to visit. His wife is awesome and a great hostess and always kind enough to let us stay with them when we come visiting. And his two boys and little girl are super cute.

(Pictures of the Oklahoma City Sooners Monument along the river with my brother John)

My hope for the vacation was to get in some great sleeping time and not to change any diapers (sorry Jani) and it was all I hoped for. John also took us on a great little river walk they have in downtown Oklahoma City. We played games every night and had a great time over all. So thanks to both the Johns in my life and to my sisters for agreeing to join me. My John says it is my last vacation for about 5 years unless I take him with me. I think the kids wore him out. But they were all still alive and in good condition when I got back so I think he did a great job.

(Top: John, Joshua, and Joseph; Middle: Joshua and Joseph playing the Wii I brought; Bottom: John, Jani and Brooklyn)

Paisley Tag Quilt

My friend is having a little girl that she is going to name Paisley. A few weeks ago she had a baby shower. I love the name because it gives all kind of ideas for design. I wanted to make her a tag quilt. So I got on the internet and had a lot of fun looking at paisley designs to make a little name embroidery to go on it. I found some really cute soft material and polka dot material for the quilt itself. I even found a really cute fat quarter with a paisley print to use as a border on the embroidery.

I love tag quilts because they are so easy to make and they're a little different. Anyway I really liked how it turned out. The only hard part of making it is sewing over all the ribbons with my machine. My machine doesn't really like it. But on the whole it was really fun to make. And it counted as 3 projects: design, embroidery, and sewing.

My Sister Quilts

A while back my mom and I were cleaning out a bunch of stuff at her house and found a bunch of old flannel scraps from pajamas that she'd made for all of us kids when we were little. We decided it would be fun to make my older sister, Michelle, a quilt out of these. My mom cut out all the squares and it didn't fit together quite the way we were thinking so they got put aside. Then a few months before Christmas we came across the flannel squares and the scraps again when we were looking for some things in my mom's closet. I've had a lot of fun doing rag quilts lately with embroideries so I took the scraps home. I started looking through all my quilt and embroidery patterns and working up a few designs. Then when we drew names for Christmas, I drew my little sister, Heather's, name. So I decided I could make them kind of matching quilts. I focused on Heather's quilt first because I wanted it done by Christmas and then I was aiming to have Michelle's quilt done by her birthday which was January 7.


Anyway, I found a pattern I bought on a quilt shop hop a few years ago. It had embroideries for lots of primary songs. I made a matching pattern for a dedication square, a scripture about music, and a poem about sisters and then I got to work. I made the same embroideries for both quilts. I really enjoyed doing all the handwork. I ended up doing about 17 embroidery squares per quilt. I used DMC pearl cotton embroidery thread that I bought on clearance a long time ago. I really liked how they turned out. I liked the texture.








For Heather's quilt I went and got 9 different flannel prints that corresponded to things she likes. I found some really fun prints so I was really excited. (All of the above pictures are from her quilt.)


And for Michelle's quilt I used the scraps and squares that my mom had given me. It turned out a lot different but I liked it too, very old-school 70's.


I really enjoyed doing them and I counted them for about 40 projects, one for each embroidery and then a couple each for sewing, cutting, and desigining the quilts. I think my sisters really liked them and were very surprised. They both thought they would never get one of my rag quilts since they're not having any more kids and I usually do them for babies. It was really fun.

Quote of the Day

Today Kate, Mary, and Emma were begging to play the Wii while the little girls were taking naps. I asked them if they thought they could play and be quiet and not fight so they didn't wake up the little people.
Kate's calm response: "We are capable of unexpected things."
I just laughed. I hope it's true because I want the little kids to take naps. I asked her where she learned that and she seemed a little affronted. I guess it came out of her own little head. She said she got the words from all the books she reads.

Last Year's Goals and This Year's Too

I decided to do a roundup of last year's goals. I was a little hit and miss on accomplishing the goals, but I think I did much more than I would have if I had never made the goals to begin with. That is the beauty of goals, I think.
Read 100 books this year -- I ended up reading 94 (see my other blog, Tara's Booklist). Not 100, but close and way more than I would have otherwise. It was fun to try and I plan on doing a similar goal this year. I think I'll shoot for 102 this year, up the ante a little.
Index 10,000 names--Finished, and when I made this goal I thought it was way high. This year I am going to shoot for 15,000. We'll see how it goes. I'm excited to get back into my routine of indexing a little every morning on my laptop. It always made me feel like I had accomplished something that day.
Finish my 200 projects by Sept. 1 of next year--Still working on this one. I'm at about 65 projects. I made a couple of big quilts at Christmas with a lot of embroideries that I counted for a lot of projects so that helped a lot. Plus I loved making the quilts. They turned out really cute and my sisters loved them.
Complete the $200 DMBA health challenge--Complete and wahooo. $200 is good incentive and I loved doing all the little challenges because I think they really helped me keep up on exercise and stuff. I have already signed up for the first one of this year and am looking forward to doing it. I'll keep this goal for this upcoming year too.
Post on my blog once a week--I averaged about 1.5 posts per week and that makes me happy. John is looking into how to print our blogs so we'll see what we can do. I'm keeping this goal for next year as well.
Write in my journal at least 5 days a week--I totally didn't do this one. But because of the goal, I've kept thinking about it. I'm going to make this year's goal to write in my journal at least once a week. I feel like my blog is kind of a journal, but there really are some things that you can only write in private and I need to do that more because it helps to keep my mind clear. Here's to getting better this year.
Finish reading the Book of Mormon and D&C by the end of the year--I was sooo close and then I totally slacked off over Christmas break. I'll finish them both soon and I'm not sure what this year's goals for scripture reading will be yet. I think I may tackle reading along with the OT study guide and then the BofM too. I don't know yet.
Get A's on all the beginning level songs on DDR--I actually have gotten A's on all the beginning levels on both I and II except for 2 songs and they are killer. I'm not sure if I will ever get them but I'll keep trying. And I have yet to get A's on everything using the hand markers. They are hard so I might go back and try to do it using them too. But I actually think I am dropping this goal for this next year. I like DDR but I also like Wii Fit and just walking so I am going to stick with those.
Make bags and organize toys--I did make a really cute car print bag for Adam for Christmas. He keeps all of his new cars in there. But my dream of bag organized toys will have to happen another day. This is another goal I am dropping this year. I just don't care about it anymore.
Try to be nice to my kids and have fun with them--I really have tried. I think this year the goal is going to be: Have a meaningful Tuesday night out every week and take someone to Grandma's each Saturday. And then write down something about these experiences so I remember all the good times when I get stressed. I think these things will help me focus on the positive.
And one last goal: Successfully survive having my seventh child in the end of July, beginning of August. I really am going to try to enjoy this pregancy because I think it may be my last and that makes it a little bittersweet. I think I am ready to move on, but it has been a good stage in my life. And I have a bunch of super-sweet kids to show for it.

Anyway, happy goal making to all out there. I think goals are great and they help me not be as lazy as I would be otherwise.

The Big Unveiling--or What My Girls Made for Christmas

A lot of people have asked me what my girls made for each other for Christmas. I couldn't really say until after Christmas but here it is.

Kate decided all by herself that she would make pillowcases for the other kids. She picked out all the fabric and did all the sewing by herself. Grandma and I helped with the cutting and pressing. She did an awesome job and it only took us about 4 hours one day (and probably another 1/2 hour at the fabric store picking out the fabric). Way to go Kate! The girls loved them as pillow cases, but Ruth and Lily have also been using them as loot bags and potato sack racing bags. Who knew?

Mary decided all by herself to make little doll/Webkinz blankets for her sisters. She wanted to embroider them with their names and a small picture. So I helped her set up the embroidery patterns on the computer and print them out. I showed her how to trace them on to fabric and she did all of the actual tracing. She also did all of the embroidery by herself. She did an awesome job too!! She picked out all of the fabric herself too. Grandma and I helped with the cutting, pressing and sewing. (Mary tried to do the sewing but I think I was being a little intense that day and she ended up just wanting me to do it.) She helped with a lot of the turning and prep work for the sewing. We also picked all of the fabric out of my stash of extra fabric and free shop hop fat quarters. It was awesome! And the kids all loved them.







Emma decided all by herself to make everyone origami frogs that she learned to make in Chinese class. I have to say that I kind of handicapped Emma because I convinced her to use some scrapbook paper and it wasn't as easy to fold as origami paper would have been. But even so, the frogs turned out great. She folded them one day all by herself at my mom's house. Me and my mom were in awe of her perserverance. And even if they aren't as durable as some of the other gifts, she has had a lot of fun helping the other girls refold theirs when they have come undone or gotten smashed. Good work Emma!!

I had to come up with some ideas for Ruth, but she decided to color pictures, glue them on to construction paper and make place mats (which I would like to start using more at our table). She did an awesome job. She picked out all the pictures herself and did all the coloring, cutting, and glueing. She colored all the people black and when I asked her about it she said, "You know Mom, some people have that color skin!!" I did know and thought it was great. I got them all laminated for a whopping $1.35 at the BYU place. They turned out fantastic!! Good job, Ruth!

Lily, I helped too. John and I decided that she could draw pictures of everyone and we could frame them. On one of the Kmart Thanksgiving Day sales I found this great picture frame that is matted for about 30 4x6 pictures. So we had her draw the pictures on index cards and stuck them in with the real pictures. It turned out really cute. She also helped John pick out and put the other pictures in the frame on Christmas Eve. Good work Lily!! (Notice the big hair, little body on Adam. Hilarious!!)











So having them make their own presents turned out really fun. It was a little more work and I don't know that it was a lot cheaper. But the girls were really proud of what they gave to each other and I had a lot of fun helping. They already can't wait until next year.

Blog Funk

I just can't seem to get excited enough about anything to write about it for my blog. But we have been doing stuff. Stay tuned for the awesome unveiling of the gifts that the girls made for their sisters. They have now all completed them and now have only to wrap them. I also made a blanket for my sister that I forgot to take a picture of. It was pretty time intensive, but turned out well. And John and I had a great little getaway to Salt Lake thanks to Tom babysitting. And Kate had a great little choir concert. Emma also had a great little play of The Gingerbread Man. She was a dog and a great dog at that. Unfortunately I've also fell into the bad habit of never taking my camera anywhere so there are no pictures. Oh well. We can always hope for Christmas. Don't worry, I'm gearing up for some really great blog posts in the future.

Reading--It's What We Do

I had a friend tell me the other day, "Every family does something. The Paynes do reading." (Not an exact quote) Her daughter babysits for us all the time and she had commented to her mom on how well Emma reads for just being in first grade. The mom's response was something like "That's all the Paynes do is read. Of course she's a good reader." I guess there are worst things we could be known for. And I have to say, I think we do other things (I can't remember for sure because I'm in the middle of this great book. . .), but it is true, I do love to read. And we do own a lot of books.

In that spirit, I decided if that's all we do as a family, we might as well embrace it. So last Sunday we had a full-fledged read-a-thon. My favorite days in elementary school were always the read-a-thon days. A couple of weeks ago I was talking with Kate about how I needed to read a lot of books by the end of the year to get to my goal of 100 books and just laughingly said that maybe we should have a read-a-thon. Now you have to be careful what you say to Kate because she takes stuff and just runs with it. Pretty soon I heard her telling her friends that she was so excited that we were having a read-a-thon and that maybe she could invite some friends. She geared her sisters up and it wasn't long before Mary was asking me when the read-a-thon would be so she could get ready. So on Sunday I caved. I really wanted them all to go and take a nap because I was tired, but when Mary asked me if they could have the read-a-thon I thought, "Why not?" I told them they had to read quietly in the back room. I popped some popcorn, filled a few paper cups with pretzels and m&ms for snack food, and sat back to read. And I have to say, "Our read-a-thon was AWESOME!!" It was so cool I had to use capitals. It was one of those happy accidents in parenting. The girls all, even Ruth and Lily, sat for like an hour and quietly read or looked at books. There was no fighting or whining or anything. For part of the time Ruth and Lily colored with markers at the table and loved it. It was so peaceful that I was able to read quite a bit of my book. The hilarious part was that Kate, Mary, and Emma all brought out about 10 big books to read (like they were ready for the long haul). Unfortunately, our read-a-thon was interrupted by dinner, but I have to say it was the quietest, most relaxing Sunday afternoon we have had in a long while. I knew I loved read-a-thons. And we're going to have more. Because "Reading is what we do."

Christmas Around the World

John's parents took everyone in his family that live in Utah to Christmas Around the World on Friday (Super nice--Thanks, Pam). I don't think I've been to see it since I was a little kid and I loved it then. And I have to say that it was just as good as I remember it. The dancing, costuming, and music were all phenomenal.

But the best part by far was sitting next to my four year old Ruth. She was so appreciative. Everything was ooohs and aaaahs and "That is so beautiful!!" as only Ruth can say it, in hushed tones. She loved it all, especially all the "beautiful" dresses.

With each number they would put up a design symbolizing the country the dance was from. Several of them were quilts and when Ruth asked about the pictures I explained what they meant. She said, "I hope they put my quilt up there soon." So cute.

It was totally enthralling. I wasn't sure if the kids could handle it (we took them all and it was about an hour and a half long) but they all loved it. Even Adam couldn't take his eyes off the dancing. And as a bonus we were pleasantly removed from anyone else, so the seats couldn't have been more perfect for us. I loved it and so did the kids. I was super glad that Pam thought of it.