Disneyland

I finally got back to Disneyland a couple of weeks ago! We spent 4 great days there! Robert and I drove down with Amy, Greg, Mason, and Gavin. Jacob and Mary flew down and met us at the Hilton Garden Inn where we stayed for 6 wonderful nights.
I LOVE Disneyland so much! I am such a huge fan of the place and just can't get enough. I counted close to 20 times that I have been there since I was in Jr. High and went with my family. Yes, I know I'm very spoiled! That place has such great memories for me. As soon as I walk through the gates, under the train tunnel and onto Main Street, I feel like I have entered another time period. If there weren't all those wonderful rides, I could just walk around Main Street and enjoy everything all day!
This was the first time I have been there during Halloween time with all the fun decorations. It was great, but I also think it will be my last time going during this crowded celebration!
Robert bought us Annual Passes for the first time, so we will hopefully be going at least one more time in the next year! It was so fun to go with our cute grandsons for the first time. And it was also fun to go with Mary for her first time there.... a lot of firsts! What a fun place!

Fall is Here!

I didn't used to like Fall at all because it meant school was starting again and Winter, with it's cold and snow, was coming soon. I was such a shy little girl that going back to school every fall was very tramatic for me. I would like to have just stayed home with my mom all the time. When my kids were going to school I felt that same scared feeling for them each year, but none of them had a problem with going back to school at all!

Well, I guess ALL of us have grown up now and I've gotten over that scared feeling. Also, the older I get, the hotter I get! The heat of the summer is just too much!

So,I love Fall now!

The apple trees in our yard have tons of apples on them this year. Robert thinks we're going to can applesause and apple butter this year, but we don't have any canning supplies any more. We quit doing that a long time ago. Our smooth-top stove won't handle canning either. But I'm going to see if we can freeze some instead.

I'm loving the cooler weather! And I'm excited to go up into the canyons to see all the colors.

Sister and Me

My sister, Carolyn and I are starting a business together making items and selling them to gift shops. We decided to name our company Sister and Me. We have started making lots of cards that will be sold in sets as well as some other items. We have been having so much fun together that even if we don't sell a thing, it will be worth it!! All of these cards we have made into sets of 6 each and are putting them in decorative boxes. The other items we want to sell are still in the planning and experimenting stage, but we are very excited about them! So much fun!

I Love to Read!

Ever since I learned how to read, I have loved to read! I'm sure my mom was a very big influence on me because she has always been a very avid reader. Even back in elementary school I remember reading a lot after school and on weekends. I absolutely loved summers because I could do a lot of wonderful reading then. I don't remember much about what I read back then other than the book Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. I don't know why I only remember that one, but I found a copy of it at Deseret Book in the discount section a couple of months ago and thought it would be fun to read again.

In Jr. High, my friend Susan and I read lots and lots of Nancy Drew mysteries and traded them back and forth. Since then I have read many mysteries and all kinds of books. I think I have read most of Agatha Christie's books. I have read many series such as The Work and the Glory, Prelude to Glory, Harry Potter, and Twilight. I have read many Church books, romance books, historical fiction, art books, and I love Dan Brown's books, including

The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons. He has a new one FINALLY coming out in September that I can't wait to read.

My motto has always been "So many books, so little time"!

One of my favorite books that I read last year was The Traveler's Gift by Andy Andrews. It is an excellent book that I would recommend to anyone. It is about a man who has everything go terribly wrong in his life and he thinks about ending it. He ends up in a car accident and when he wakes up he goes back in time and talks to many different famous people who give him great advice for his life. He talks to Abraham Lincoln, Christopher Columbus, Anne Frank, and a few others. It is great to "go back in time" with him as these famous people "come to life". The advice they give is wonderful for all of us whether we are struggling or not. Great book!

Card Experiment

These are some cards I made as an experiment to see how many different ideas I could come up with using the Tim Holst stamp set Nature's Discovery. This was so fun to try out different things. As you can see, I was on a red kick!

The Yellow Bowl

When I was growing up my mom used this yellow Pyrex mixing bowl all the time. She used it to mix cake and pancake batter, to mash potatoes in, and make big salads among many other things. When my grandma moved out of her house many years later I was able to get her big yellow mixing bowl, which I remember her mixing bread in. I used it for a long time until a crack started in the bottom of it and I put it into storage because I didn't want it to break all the way and I was very sentimental about saving it. Well, a few months ago there was a commercial on television that showed a grandmother in the kitchen making cookies with her granddaughter and they were using that same mixing bowl! It made me want to find another one to use. My sister Carolyn and I were at an antique store a few weeks ago and she found one there! I was so excited about it and had to buy it! I probably payed three times what it used to cost years ago, but it was worth it! Yes, I'm a very nostalgic person!

Steven's Wedding

Friday July 3, 2009 was Steven's wedding day at the Draper Utah Temple. It was a wonderful day from the Temple ceremony in the morning, to the lunch at the church, to the reception that night. Steven and Katheryn are such a great couple and they look so happy together. Steven has a cute little package thrown into the union- 3 year old Sammy! He is her son from a previous marriage and he is such a cutie! That means that we have 5 GRANDSONS now! Someday we might get some granddaughters! We are so happy for Steven that he has found such a great love. We love Katheryn dearly. She is such a sweetheart and is very beautiful! We hope their life together will be wonderful. They started it out the right way- sealed for time and eternity in the Temple!

ATC's

These are the Artist Trading Cards that we made in the class I taught a week ago.

You can't tell that I love birds and trees, can you?! I have so many tree stamps that I decided to do a series of tree ATC's with different tree quotes that I have collected. I also love old movie stars, so I'm going to do a series of those, too. And, yes, that is a RUBBER STAMP of Elvis! The third photo shows the inside of the second ATC which opens up. These were very fun to do and we had a big class making them.

Roses

I love the climbing rose bush in my backyard! The ROSE has always been my favorite flower. And even though our rose bush is terribly overgrown, I love it. The only bad thing is the roses don't last very long and then we just have the green leaves for the rest of the summer. I decided I had better take pictures before they are completely dead and gone!

I love summer! I love to be able to sit out on my back deck at night and listen to the birds, enjoy the fresh air, and see my roses!

A couple of days ago, Steven found a dragonfly on our front sidewalk not moving. He picked it up with a stick, which it managed to cling to. It was barely alive. We had to take some photos of it because the wings were so pretty. I took the first photo and Steven took the other one with his really good camera.

Stamp Club Card

I actually finished 10 of these cards a few weeks ago for Stamp Club which is tomorrow morning. I did them early before I started tending an extra baby since I didn't know how much time I would have to stamp!

I'm starting to figure out watching two little babies at the same time! It hasn't been too bad. Thank goodness for the swing-- I would never survive without it!!!

Baby Duty

Today is my first day to watch TWO grandbabies! Cason is now six months old and Logan is about 7 weeks old. This morning they ate at different times and both slept a lot. This is Cason's dad's day to come home early so I only have Logan until 5:00. I should survive today! We'll see how the longer day tomorrow is! I love these little guys lots! Hopefully we'll get a good routine down taking care of both of them. Robert keeps reminding me that I wanted to do this! When they get a little older they'll have lots of fun together-- we just need to survive til then!!

Stampscapes Inchie ATC

Well, since I had my mind on inchies, I decided to see if I could get some good little scenes out of my Stampscapes stamps and put them on an artist trading card. It's amazing that you can find a nice little 1" scene in these big stamps. The background is a glossy black cardstock. So fun!

Inchie ATC's

I decided to participate in an ATC challenge with the Inchie by Inch blog for the first time. The challenge this week is "bling". Inchies are 1" squares decorated in any way you want. I have put 6 inchies on each of these two artist trading cards. You wouldn't think you could get much on a 1" square, but you really can! These are very fun to make!

Interactive Artist Trading Cards

These are the Artist Trading Cards that we will be making in my class in a couple of weeks.

The first two are interactive. One has a wheel to be able to change the dress colors, and the other has a pull tab to see the owl peek out from the tree stump. These are so fun to make! The third card has an embossed velum overlay. The fourth card is double embossed and colored direct to paper. The last card is made with the Spellbinders die cuts. These dies are absolutely beautiful and I'm having so much fun using them. I wish I had discovered them sooner!

So many fun things to make and so little time!

Nancy Drew

When I was in Jr. High School my friend Susan and I read lots and lots of Nancy Drew books. We loved them and traded them back and forth. I loved mystery stories and still do. I loved trying to figure out "who done it" and how the story would end. I enjoyed reading about the small town that Nancy and her friends, George and Bess, lived in. I could be sure that nothing TOO drastic or gory or scary would happen. And everyone always lived "happily ever after". I still have a few of my old books, but wish I had saved them all. Every once in a while I look in thrift stores to see if I can find any more old ones, but they are hard to find.

My two daughters love Nancy Drew, too. But they like to play the computer games, which are pretty amazing. You can travel from room to room and building to building, clicking on things to open to try to find all the clues to the newest mystery. They are both very hooked on the games and are always excited when a new one comes out. They trade them back and forth, too!

Nancy Drew has been around for a very long time and she never even ages! She always gets updated to the present and still always solves the mysteries!

Stamp Club Card

This is the card I made for Stamp Club yesterday. The background is double embossing which I learned how to do on the Cuttlebug Challenge website. I love that technique! The punched edge is my new favorite border punch from Martha Stewart.

New Blog Site

I started a new blog site to tell the stories and show photos of my ancestors. Thanks to Colleen and Shaunasee for the great idea! The first ancestor that I chose to spotlight is my great-great-grandfather, Ephraim George Holding. This is a photo of him standing on a spire of the Salt Lake LDS Temple. He was the first electrician in Utah and installed all the electric lights in and on the temple and many large buildings and homes. This photograph is hanging in the South Visitor's Center on Temple Square. If you would like to read more about him you can go to Windows in Time.