Hardware Ranch

This year for President's Day, we changed our normal plans and instead, went up to Hardware Ranch with Brian's family. Gramps has been trying to take us for a few years. We were excited to go.

At Hardware Ranch, they feed the elk to keep them from migrating down into the valley. This is a picture of the elk from the visitors center up on the hill. I believe they said that there are over 300 elk there.
We got to take a sleigh ride out through the elk. This is the sleigh driver. He had a funny handlebar mustache. It made me giggle a little.
It was fun to see the animals up close. This one felt like there were too many other animals in her space.

It was a good time. Thanks Gramps for taking us. We enjoyed it!

District Science Fair Awards

After winning 3rd place in the school science fair in November, Amber had the opportunity to participate in the district science fair. Last week was the awards and....
Amber won 1st place in the category of Environmental Science!! We were super excited and very proud of her. Now she gets to continue on and participate in the region science fair!

Happy Birthday Les

Every year, Les struggles through Amber's birthday knowing that his is only 5 days after and yet he is getting nothing. As always though, it was worth the wait. He got exactly what he had been asking for....

Some cowboy boots from his grandparents,

New rollerblades that fit!

And a pocket knife. He was so excited. He went out immediately and cut a branch off of the tree so that he could start whittling.

Les has been asking for a pocket knife for about 3 years now, and I refused to get him one. But the last few months, he has shown a lot of maturity, and I gave in.

You win Buddy.

I hope you had a great day! Happy 9th!

Behind on Blogging

I don't remember the last time that I blogged Christmas. By the time it has come and gone, I am exhausted and by the time I care enough to post anything, Christmas is too far in the past to worry about.

So for now....onward and upward!

(P.S. We had a great Christmas)

Amber's Quilt

I met the designer of this quilt, Natalia Bonner (from Heber) at a conference that I went to with a friend in November. When I saw it, I knew that I had to make this for Amber.

It is done with a Moda Jelly Roll. If you aren't familiar with the Moda Bake Shop pre-cuts, they are essentially a pre-cut dimension of fabric that comes in a collection with one piece of every fabric in a particular line of Moda's fabric. In this case, the jelly roll was a 2 1/2 inch by 44 inch strip of every fabric. So for the smaller squares, I was able to get 2 squares out of every strip and for the larger rectangles, I only got one. So no piece of fabric is in the quilt more than twice. For the flowers, I cut and sewed the strips together, and then cut the circles. It was SO EASY. It is tempting to never cut quilt pieces again, although I know I will eventually.

Natalia has a tutorial for the applique flowers on her blog that made doing the flowers just as easy as the rest of the quilt. It is an applique that doesn't use fusible and you don't have to do any turning. I'll definitely use it again!

This quilt was both fun and easy to do, and I love the way that it turned out.

Amber's Birthday Surprise!

This year for Amber's 12th birthday, I decided to surprise her by redoing her room.

We bought bedding for her when we moved to our house 10 years ago, and otherwise we have never done anything else for her room. Her bed was a $10 yard sale find, and her dresser and desk were both hand-me-downs. Her room drives me insane, so when I saw a quilt that I wanted to make in November, I knew that I had to do it.

Here is the before picture of her bedroom. You can see why it drives me crazy.

What a MESS!

And here is the after!

I love the way that it turned out. And I have to brag that I am also very proud of the way that the quilt turned out.
I still am going to replace her old dresser when I find one that I like and can afford, but otherwise, it is done.

Now, we just have to "fight" over what things she gets to put back into her room and what gets to stay on the walls.

And here is here face as she walked into her new room and realized what was going on.

But even better, here is the look on her face 10 seconds later when she said, "Where's all my stuff!"