I need a vacation!

It's been a busy month and it's only the 20th!

Randy and Becky were Married on April 2nd, which happened to be the same weekend as Easter, Michelle's birthday, General Conference, and two family Easter dinners. Then My birthday, Steven's birthday, church meetings, job interviews, optometrist appointments, gardening, and plenty of other things happening that have been keeping me busy!

I've got loads of pictures I need to upload, organize, edit and eventually post, so it will take a while. I'll go in batches to keep myself sane.

I'll start off with Steven's birthday.


Preparation for Steven's birthday started way back in (dare I say it) .....December. See, I had this grand idea to make an 8bit (translation: pixelated) quilted pillow of one of the characters from the video game called "Legend of Zelda". I estimated this project taking a day or so. Silly me, oh SILLY me. What originally started at a CHRISTMAS present, ended up as an April birthday present. Lets just say this thing has become my nemesis.

Long story short, I finished the pillow (with some last minute help from Rachel *THANKYOU*) the morning of April 17th, which happens to be Steven's birthday. Here are some progress pictures and then the final outcome.

My homemade "pattern" of sorts. Maybe I should make copies and sell them? Who knows.

The character is "Link" by the way. Hopefully he is discernible to fellow video game enthusiasts.


Steven and his loot from me. I took a chance and got him an original Zippo lighter with his name engraved on it. Months ago he mentioned he always wanted a Zippo. Hoping he still wanted ones 4-5 months later, I got him one. Lets just say I've created a monster. The three days he's owned it I don't think it's been separated from his body. And when I call I hear the clicking from it in the background. I guess I did good :)

Oh, on Valentine's day I decorated Steven's room (I like decorating ok?) with another "thing" from Legend of Zelda. I made the hearts that show your health in the game, but a life-size version to put at the head of his bed. He thought they were so cool he decided to leave them up.

It's now April and they are still up. I guess he wasn't kidding. Oh well, it gave me a chance to get pictures of them because I forgot to in February. Here's the note underneath:

One of Steven's 3 birthday cards. You know when you just find too many that just "fit" the person's personality? Yeah, that happened this year, so I bought them all! I had a little fun with this one and practicing my calligraphy skills. I LOVE calligraphy!

So, Happy Birthday Steven! I love you to pieces!

Becca

Do you smell that?

I can always feel the change in the air, like Mary Poppins is coming or something. Can you feel the atumn air rushing in? All the leaves in my garden are turning yellowish like they're closing up shop for the winter.


My parents went to Oktober fest tonight with Michelle and Lema. They also went to take family pictures in the mountains. Michelle brought me back these leaves to press. Do they not look freakin' fake?!?! The colors are amazing!! Mother nature is constantly amazing me with what it comes up with.

Tonight I butchered my garden. Well, part of it anyway. All the sunflowers were leaning down to the ground and drying out for the season. Everytime I walk in the garden I get sunflower spines in my legs. Feels like I rubbed a sheet fiberglass over my legs at the end of the day. So, down came the sunflowers. Our back yard looks like the carnage after a war. But instead of bodies, sunflower stalks and heads.

Yesterday I finally did my sewing(I sound like Cinderella there) . I know how to sew thanks to my mom's homemaker-ing efforts as a child. And because of it, I have to fix and alter my own clothes whenever sewing is involved. When my sewing pile gets to about 3 feet high and I have to do the spilts over the pile of clothes to get to my bed, I guess it's time to get busy.

I get everything set up all nice and organized, my machine nicely threaded, oiled and dusted(it's been a while since I used it) start sewing, and BAM. thread breaks. I pull out the bobbin, and the stuff is shredded. I have no CLUE what happened. I tried adjusting the top thread tension as well as the bobbin tension (which is a royal PAIN to do, taking apart the whole stinking machine) and it worked a bit better. It kept skipping every third stitch and still shredding the thread. I finally switched over to my mom's machine because I was about to strangle someone with frustration. I just don't want to cough up the $50-70 to have my machine checked out. It's more expensive than a car basic diagnostic test. I love my machine. It was one of the first computer/electronic model in the 90's. My grandpa got it for my mom for $800. It's like the Mercedes of sewing machines.

Not sure why I wrote that all. Just to get it out I suppose. I'll let you know the ending one of these days once I decide what to do with it.

I have to go shower and prepare my lesson for church tomorrow. Also vacuum my floor. Somehow under the sewing pile, a chunk of deodorant materialized and was crushed into the carpet. It must have been one of the countless times I dropped my deodorant and it shattered across the floor. No fun kids. No fun.

Enjoy the fallness rolling in everyone. I'll probably go in the mountains sometime this week with my family to enjoy it myself. Night!

Bec