Sew Baby Sew!

My white door had outlived it's welcome and it was time to go. I played with many different colors but setteled on Claret. Here it is with the first coat of primer.

It took a week to paint it and we had heavy rains and winds. We slept with nothing but plastic covering our front door for about 4 nights but finally it dried enough to put it back on the hinges. Ahhhhh.... (now for the columns...)

Way back at the end of December Emil found a steal on a '91 Mazda Miata convertible. $1000!!! Since he was using the Yukon to commute to EC 30 miles away we decided to buy it for a commuter car.

Now that the weather has gotten nice it is a lot of fun! I feel like I'm in a wind up toy car every time I drive it. Come on by and I'll take you for a spin!

I've been doing more projects. I decided I wanted a beach bag and had found a tutorial I could understand so I got busy. I found the tutorial on the blog Make it- Love it. My bag is for an adult but I just used her directions and changed a few measurements. Sweet!

In addition I found this chair at our local thrift store. It was the chair I've been longing for from Ikea for about 10 years for only $20! Granted it was pretty nasty with the black cover but I was able to make another one for it with the same fabric I used on some of my sofa pillows another $20 for the fabric and Volia! I love it now. The kids love it and the chair cost $40 total.

This is one of my favorite tee shirts. Except it's not guacamole green. But I think the shirt pretty much says it all. "Yeah, I'm pretty super"

The DIY thing is very empowering!

The tide recedes

but leaves behind

bright seashells on the sand.

The sun goes down

but gentle warmth

still lingers on the land.

The music stops

and yet it echoes on in sweet refrains...

For every joy that passes,

something beautiful remains.

Because of our faith and belief in our Heavenly Father's plan

we will be together forever.....

(Thanks for the poem, Mom)

BYU, Birthday, Sew

Like my wallpaper? It's my sister-in-law, Nikki's design!!!

How do you blog? I pick my photos then go from there.

( Leftover pic from the Eagle Scout Court of Honor. )

Emil Michael decided to go to BYU for college!!!!! Yea!

This whole past week we've been trying to figure out meal plans, housing, majors.....

He will start June 20th, just 10 days after is graduation!! Yikes! Just a little bit of stress here.

This past month Noah had a birthday as well as Emil Michael. So here is the rundown from Noah's Birthday celebrations.

He had his friends, Floyd & David spend the night. They stayed up late playing Wii and talking. They had a great time. I'm so sad they're moving!!!! They are Noah's best friends. (Look at that smile. He's determined not to show his braces)

On the Sunday after his birthday we went to Emil's parents for a family dinner. Auntie Theresa was there and we had some tasty chicken fingers, lumpia, pancit and salad.

We are going over the etiquette of wearing sunglasses indoors and while talking to people tomorrow at Family Night.....

Jess has been busy helping Emil Michael with is book. She is his ghost writer. This is Jess in one of her creative frenzies. She's just a mad blur of prose!

Noah and I went to get a ice cream the other day after his orthodontist appt. and the place had a big chair so of course we had to take pictures in it.

I've been sewing some. New throw pillows for the couch. I used the old pillows and just made new covers. Very inexpensive and wow!!!

I love to do short projects for the house. They can be done fast and make such a difference.

In addition to making pillows I've been making Monogramed hand towels for gifts. I got the idea from my sister-in-law, Melissa. You can use any dishtowels but these are called tea towels and I like them. Aren't they cute? It really is more simple than you would imagine and a nice little gift.

Here are some fabric coasters too. All so much fun and fast

For April 1st I had fun making these spaghetti & meatballs cupcakes for the kids. They look kinda gross but my lighting wasn't the best. The "noodles" is just white frosting piped through a round tip icing bag. The meatball is a Ferro Rocher chocolate candy then you roll it in strawberry jelly and put it onto of the cupcake. The kids loved it and it was pretty fun.

Birthday's and Court of Honor

Emil Michael's 18th birthday was a couple of weeks ago. I can't believe he's all grown up!

This is one of my very favorite pictures of Emil M when he was about 2 years old. He had this Easter bunny that he loved! He took Bunny everywhere with him and we went through several of them.

Kirstin 4 months, Emil Michael 4 years old

(I love those little chubby cheeks!)

Emil Michael 12 years old

What a handsome young man!

15 years old

Blueberry picking Summer 2010

We celebrated his birthday with a quiet dinner which is totally Emil Michael's personality. He's been busy with school and trying to decide where to go to college next year. This weekend we are taking a trip to UNC- Greensboro to do a tour of the school. He has been accepted there and BYU-Provo for the Summer/Fall trac.

This past weekend we had his Court of Honor for his Eagle Award!!!!!!!!

Hallelujah! (I mean that with every fiber of my being)

It was a very nice ceremony. We had a good mix of family and friends and AMAZING filipino food that Emil's Mom & Dad prepared.

It was so nice to see him recognized for effort so long in the making.

Birthdays, Gold Keys, and so much more...

Waaaay back on the 4th of the month Kirstin celebrated her 15th birthday.

How could this be? Just yesterday I woke her up for school and snapped this picture of her and Emil Michael. (It was super hero day.)

OK, well, maybe it was Halloween in 1997 or 1998

Well how adorable are they here? A couple of years later, playing in the back yard.

I love that picture!

Emil M. & Kirstin

2000

It seems like no time at all has past and my kids have grown like they've been fed a steady diet of Miracle Grow. (Who's doing that?)

Noah, Emil M., Kirstin

2002

Kirstin & Kai

2006

Kirstin

July 2010

I just don't like this growing up thing at all. However I will say this, sometimes, she is easier to reason with than in, say, the first picture.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl! I love your style....

Now on to my writer....

Great News!!!! Emil Michael has been awarded the Gold Key Award for a short story, The Court of Angels by the Alliance for Young Artist and Writers.

In their words,

"In 2011 more than 180,000 works were submitted to The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards nationwide. Of these, 984 works from the Writing Region-at-large earned Gold Keys... (Emil M. was one on them!) Since 1923 The Awards have recognized some of America's most celebrated writers while they were teenagers, including: Truman Capote, Sherley Anne Williams, Bernard Malamud, Joyce Maynard, Joyce Carol Oates, and Sylvia Plath."

His work now goes on to be reviewed on the national level by a panel of writers and literary professionals. We'll know how he fares with that part on March 11th. Keep your fingers crossed!

We are very proud of him. This Friday he was accepted into UNC-Greensboro. Yay! We're still waiting to hear back from some others.

Noah got his braces last Friday. The agony! It's been over a week and he's doing well. We've already had to go in to get a bracket replaced. (Totally my fault!) He's adjusting but not loving it by any means. Only 51 more weeks!

I went to the doctor this week to find out why I feel like I've have a lump in my throat the past month. They think it's Globus sensation caused by acid reflux. I've never had heart burn so that puts me in the special category of people with "silent heartburn" you never have any of the symptoms of it or are uncomfortable from it, well with the exception of feeling like you have a lump in your throat because of all the acid irritating your esophagus. They took blood to test and make sure it didn't have anything to do with my thyroid and in 2 weeks I go in for a ultra sound on my throat then back to the GI doctor in a month. They may need to do a scope down my throat. The really horrible thing is what really irritates acid reflux is, get this,

CHOCOLATE!

@#>

I know! How is that so? I had to question the whole medical community when I heard that prognosis. I mean,

really,

we all know I love chocolate and it loves me.

OK there are other things like tomatoes, mint as in Chocolate Mint.

This sickness just gets more and more irritating. Right now I'm on a generic version of

Prilosec (?) to help with the symptoms. On with better things.

Did I mention in my last post that Emil's selling his bike???!!!!!!

It's on Ebay right now so, Gentleman, start your bidding!

Yay for Me!

Now you're all caught up on everything new.

Til we meet again......

After much work.....

and pining, ripping out, sewing and re-sewing....

more pinning.

It's done!

Yay Kirstin! She looks so darling in it and we got it done 2 weeks before the Valentine's Dance!

Emil Michael had his Board of Review for his Eagle Scout Project last Wednesday.

He project was accepted and he is an Eagle Scout now. There will be a Court of Honor which is a ceremony to recognize and give him the award him but all the paper work and requirements on my, I mean his, part are done. (Can I just tell you- I feel like I've completed a marathon. As far as accomplishments in life go.)

This is my new friend Maxine. She is very large. 5.2 cubic something or other.

She's an LG and she definitely uses more water than my last friend who use to live in this location. How much more I don't know yet and I'm afraid to ask. But she's pretty and shiny and entertains people at random when she works. I found Noah watching her wash the other day. Noah... a almost 11 year old boy watching clothes being washed. She's bewitching that way.

This week I've discovered 2 new craft sites that are awesome. I added buttons at the top of my blog. It's made me want to craft. This time of year is so blah! weather wise here. Everything is brown, gray or black and I just need to make something cute. Here's what I did today. I repurposed a denim bag my sister had made and given me. From this

to this.

I know, nothing life changing but Noah has been home sick for the last 2 days and I have been limited on what I can delve into time wise.

The cookbook is still coming along. So far it's 72 pages so you can see why it's taking me so long. I'm about 80% complete.

No braces for Noah last time. It was just a check to get molds done. His official date is Feb 11th.

I must go.... Maxine calls.

Stitches, Washers old and washers new

January is always a catch up month for me. I like to be organized so I like the idea of a fresh new year to plan for and begin anew. I've done my fair share of lazing around this month and we only had a few things newsworthy going on.

A few weeks ago I got a call from Emil M.'s art teacher, Ms. Rubino. She is amazing and I love her. "Emil's had a little accident," those words strike fear into my heart, especially when followed by "but he's awake and coherent now."

Apparently he was in the art room headed to the studio and there was a chair in the path of the doorway. Rather than just walk around it or move it he stepped on the chair and jumped off to go through the doorway, he forgot how tall he's become and banged his forehead on the frame of the door knocking himself out and fell back to the concrete floor giving himself a goose-egg on the back of the head while bleeding from the gash on his forehead. Thankfully she didn't tell me about the gash just that the EMT's were there and they thought he would be fine. I rushed to school to see him sitting on a chair surrounded by teachers, the EMT's, assistant principal and principal. Blood streaked through his hair holding an ice bag to his head.

We headed off to Patient First to get 6 stitches. He did great but we learned that he has a high resistance to pain numbing medicine. They gave him 2 shots and he still felt every stitch. Poor guy! He got the stitches out last Wednesday and it was much easier than staples he informed me. (The staples were from his concussion at scout camp one year) So he is well and I am grateful. Sadly, no pictures. When your kids get to be almost 18 they don't want you documenting every moment of their life with a camera.

My beloved washer died this week on Tuesday. It served me well for 9 years but Emil had to replace a bearing in it last year and it wasn't the same since. Finally on Tuesday it gave up the ghost. We went out looking for new ones that night and found one we liked. I picked it up yesterday. And did several loads yesterday and today. It's top loading and I can fit a lot more in it but I'm afraid it uses much more water. It's suppose to be High Efficiency but it has a glass lid and I can see exactly how much water goes in. (It seemed like a great feature in the demo) I'll have to get online and check the stats between this one and our last one. However I don't know what I'll do if it does use a lot more water. Emil say's he's not worried about it because he's not hefting another washer up the stairs. (Sigh) I guess I'm stuck.

Kirstin and I are working on sewing a dress for her. She is doing it as a personal progress goal. She picked out a hard dress and a difficult fabric. I'm not the best at sewing clothing. I think I'm going to have to call in some help from my friend Jovita who is a wonder at clothing. I hope it turns out well. She's worked really hard and I want her to be successful.

Noah gets braces this week. He is not happy about it but it should only be for a year so he can survive it I'm sure.

I've been redoing my cook books (and laundry). It's a very big project but I will appreciate it when I'm done.

Emil's been busy working on cars. After Christmas he picked up a commuter car from the for sale board at work for $1000. It's a cute little '91 Mazda Miata convertible. It was in good shape for it's age but he's been getting it in better shape tweaking this and that. It's getting twice the gas milage his Yukon was so I'm all for it and I'm sure it'll pay for itself in 6 months if he drives it to work everyday.

That's life here at the Mosters....