Politics
If you know me very well then you know that I love politics and I get really involved in all of the local, state and national primary and general elections every year. Well this year we had a lot of really good candidates going up against a lot of really bad candidates in the republican party so I got extra involved. I ran for state and county delegate at my precinct caucus. I lost for state delegate in the last round of voting (it is really hard to beat a very beloved Stake President and former City Councilman, so I was happy I made it until the last round) but I won for county delegate. I still attended the state convention in Sandy to volunteer for my favorite candidates. I set up a booth and got to be an election judge there for one candidate, which means I got to watch the votes being cast and counted and made sure nobody cheated.
The night before the state convention at our booth.
Libby and Trevin, Junior Staffers. Dustin was there too but he is always the photographer.
I also attended, set up, and ran a booth at the Washington, Iron, and Beaver County Conventions. They were all in one day! Besides all of the conventions I dragged Dustin and my kids to tons of debates and campaign events, besides listening to everything on the radio and reading everything in the newspaper.
Hiding under a tent at a very rainy campaign event. Libby enjoyed the adventure, Trevin did not.
I really got to know all of the candidates and the people on their staffs at all of these events. I was extremely informed and passionate. Unfortunately the rest of the population did not follow my lead. None of the candidates I supported won in their primary. It was really disappointing and discouraging. Honestly a huge reason why I haven't posted for so long is because I was super angry at the ignorance of our citizenry. Anyway I'm still trying to get over my anger so I will stop talking about this subject before I start ranting and offend someone.
Projects
My first project of last year was helping my cute sister in-law Meagan decorate the nursery for their first baby. She had all of the ideas and picked all of the colors and patterns. I just executed the plans. She has really good taste so I think it turned out really cute.
I sewed the striped drapes, reupholstered the rocking chair and ottoman, and sewed the crib skirt. Meagan's mom sewed the pillows and then we all (including Dustin and Ryan) created this huge alphabet wall mural (not pictured). Later I made three little paper mobiles to hang above the crib. I just stole these pictures from the internet and recreated them out of scrapbook paper. I didn't use the fox though (he's not so cute).
My next project was finishing up Libby's room with just a few little things. I sewed a few pillows, painted and modge-podged some cute paper to a tray, made some butterfly mobiles (the same idea as the animal one I made for Ryan and Meagan), sewed some fabric to the bottom of some store bought drapes (they dont' sell them long enough for our tall windows), covered some books in cute fabric, modge-podged an "L" for her dresser, and last but not least Dustin and I painted this octagonal table from my Grandma June's house and our bookcase green to match Lib's room. Apparently all of the stuff didn't make it into the pictures though.
I also sewed some very pretty Damask fabric to the edges of these store bought drapes for our master bedroom. Our windows aren't as tall in that room so store bought work they just weren't cute enough.
Did I ever mention that in 2010 Dustin built all of the shelving in our closets? Before that we lived out of cardboard boxes on the floor. I love custom closet shelving.
One of our biggest projects in the house last year was Trevin's room. First I made these gray drapes. I sewed a little ball fringe on the inside edges just for fun.
I was never happy with the strange stripe painting I did in Trev's room so I decided to paint over it. Well that didn't really work out and turned into a huge mess of sanding, patching and finally just hiring a very talented friend from work to retextured the walls. I will never use caulk on my sheet rock again.
After the walls were repaired Dustin added this super cute plate rail (he is really talented at trim work). We painted gray above and touched up and added some blue below.
Now Trevin's room is probably my favorite in the house.
Oh ya, I also found this awesome and very bouncy chair at DI for 10 bucks. It was really ugly before so we painted and reupholstered it in fabric that Trevin picked .
For Mother's Day last year I asked Dustin to do a little creative trim work in our main bathroom.
He did all of the cutting, measuring and attaching to the walls. Then he tapped it all off and I did the easy jobs: painting and caulking the joints.
I also talked Dustin into building these shelves. You can't tell in the pictures but Dustin also added these really cute crystal knobs to hang towels on. I saw towels with fabric sewn on one side on a t.v. show so had to copy. Later I painted a painting of some orange and purple birds on a branch and hung them on the bare spot above the trim. I'm still deciding if I like them or if I think they look too homemade.
Another project from last year was the entry way. First Dustin and I made this bench but it didn't really fill up the wall space. The ceilings in the entry way are 13 feet high so it was challenging to come up with something that would fill up the walls but not be so high that you couldn't see it. On an episode of Sarah 101, my favorite HGTV show, she went around town and took extreme close ups of things around her home town in black and white. Then she framed them up for a gallery wall. I loved how hers turned out so of course I had to copy. It was really cheap to do and we get a ton of complements on it.
By far our biggest project of the year was our front yard. We started out with nothing. One of our neighbors told us how to prep our dirt for grass. We borrowed a trailer from another neighbor to pick up like a million loads of bio-solids (ya it's gross but it makes for a very green lawn), we traded one of our neighbors trim work in their basement for a sprinkler system in the front and back, our home teacher helped us pour the curbing with his curbing machine, the whole neighborhood turned out to help us lay the sod, then another neighbor told us about a great sale on trees. So basically we had no idea what we were doing but our neighbors made it happen.
We still have a lot more rock to lay and planting to do but it sure looks better than plain dirt!
We also planted a very successful garden. The squash plants tried to eat Libby. They were huge.
For my mom's birthday in May we booked a trip to a resort at Wolf Creek up Ogden Canyon.
The resort is right on a golf course so my parent's brought their clubs. We could watch them play everyday from our back deck.
When my parents weren't on the course we tried out the tennis courts,
but we spent most of our time at the pools. Our favorite was a little hot tub right by our room. We were the only people who ever used it. That poor thing didn't have much water in it after we left. Have you ever seen someone cannon ball into a hot tub? Well we did, a lot!
We left Sunday morning planning on going to church with my Aunt Susie, but we were really late and missed it all!
Our other vacation of the year was a week at Lake Powell. I've never stayed that long and was afraid it would be too much heat and sun but it wasn't. We had a great time. My little sister Jessie and Dustin's little brother Kenny are good friends so Jessie came along too.
Libby and I spent a lot of time floating in two inches of water in the shade. She's not a lover of deep water.
Trevin spent a lot of time gathering shells. He had quite the collection by the end of the week. He now proudly display them in his room.
Nobody else would even attempt skiing except for me, Dustin and Trevin. The ski's ended up being too heavy for Trev but at least he tried!
Everyone else stuck to the tube.
Jessie, Trev, Kenny
Ryan, Kenny, Dustin
Trev riding solo. We tried to let Libby ride with him once but the tube sank. I had to jump in and swim them both back to the wave runner. Not one of my best idea's. Good thing we never take our life jackets off.
Me and the beginnings of the best sand castle ever!
Libby and Emily, how they both prefer to ride in the boat.
Right above where we docked the house boat was a really steep rock. One night we decided to see how high we could climb it.
Dustin's mom came with us.
The view from the top was pretty amazing. The house boat on the left was ours.
The rock across the lake is called Cookie Jar (because it looks like a cookie jar with a lid). Trevin still remembers the name and says we should go back there this year.
In March I threw a baby shower for my sister-in-law Meagan.
Baby Kai was born in May
Trevin graduated from pre-school.
Trevin and Libby took swimming lessons for the first time.
No one can seem to remember what we did on the 4th or 24th of July and we don't have any pictures of them so we'll move onto August.
Trevin started Kindergarten. His teacher is Mrs. Langford and he loves school!
We started out riding the bus to school but we soon found out that it takes a really long time for the bus to actually get to school. So we decided it was faster to get dropped off and picked up.
Skip to October - Halloween
And we got a new cousin! Dustin's brother Bryce and his wife Shelynne had a baby girl, Brylynne, in October. Sorry we don't have any pictures. We got to see her in December when she was blessed, she is soo cute, but I really stink at taking pictures lately.
Skip to December - My little brother Heath got married! He married Amberlee Barney. Thier wedding was so pretty and we just love Amberlee to death especially Libby.
Libby and Laura were the flower girls
Trevin held Amberlee's train
Also in December - Trevin lost his first tooth.
Our camera starts to really struggle around this time so the picture quality is very poor.
Trevin turned 6!
Our camera only produced two half way decent pictures of Christmas so here they are.
Trevin playing his favorite present: Mario Brothers for the Wii.
Libby loves princesses.
In January Trevin had way too much fun with the sled my parents gave him for Christmas. He went off a jump and landed face first. He had a pretty bad fat lip and some road rash.
In February Libby turned 3!
Trevin was really excited to give Libby a present. He bought her a toy tiger and it was a hit!
Also in February Trevin got to make a special box to keep his valentines in at school. Of course we went army themed but next year he wants a sports one.
On the last day of March the Easter Bunny found his way to our house. Trevin and Libby loved following the trail of eggs to their baskets.
And this concludes the longest blog post in history! I really can't think of anything else we did last year. I'm sure I forgot something but it will just have to be lost in time because I am not looking back. I hope I will post a little more regularly this year!
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