SAR Fundraiser Dinner...

The St. George Rotary Club holds a fundraiser dinner every year to raise money for Search and Rescue.  Merril and I went last year dressed in casual clothes.  On the drive over, Merril wanted me to look up the address on the invitation on his phone.  I started reading the words, "You're invited to An Evening of Elegance!"  I turned to Merril and said, "Are we supposed to be dressed up????"  He and I were both in nice jeans and casual shirts and the other attendees were in tuxedos and evening gowns.  I spend the night hiding my jeans under the tablecloth.  

This year was going to be different.  Merril and I clean up nice, real nice.  We were going to knock it out of the park.  

So....the dress:  I found this dress at a consignment shop that was going out of business.  I paid $6 dollars for it.  The sleeves were coming undone and they weren't great to begin with.  They didn't cover enough for me to feel modest.  So I went to the fabric store so I could make new sleeves. 

I purchased an additional $6 of fabric for the sheer fabric and liner.  This one sleeve is pinned on and it's coming together nicely.

It took some creativity because I was working with a side zipper but it turned out great!

We wouldn't look like fools 2 years in a row.  In fact, some of the other SAR guys said Merril was making them look bad.  

I ended up spending $12 on the dress and as I was browsing the auction items by myself, an older gentleman stopped me and told me that I looked "exceptional" that evening.  Daaaaannnnngggg!  I did feel exceptional.

We both did!

Backyard excavator...

We rented this little excavator for 24 hours and started leveling and digging sprinkler line.  The kids all wanted a turn driving the little thing. 

I looked at it when we were done and can not believe the amount of time it saved me.  We dug out some of the hugest rocks.  I did most of the digging and moved some of them but Merril was the one to haul the big ones to the rock wall and patiently and slowly positioned them so they wouldn't go tumbling down into our neighbor's yard.  He did really great!  I was pretty freaked out about doing it myself.

Now that all the trenches are dug, it's time to lay sprinkler pipe.  It would help immensely if I didn't keep changing my mind or realizing I didn't have all the parts I needed.  I must have run to Ace a billion times.

My yard was relatively flat when I started and I feel like I just messed it up completely.  Why did we have to dig sprinkler lines?  It's a process and I know it'll come together but it's such a gigantic mess right now.  I've been getting up early at 6:30 a.m. to work on the yard.  It's been cold but working hard is good exercise and it's nice to be outside first thing in the morning.

This is going to take some time but I'll get there.  Let me just say that this is my project, this is my baby.  Merril isn't really helping me with it and that's my choice.  Occasionally, I really don't know what to do and ask for help.  To be honest, I kind of don't want him helping.  Merril could have my backyard banged out in a week but I'm a tad on the perfectionist side.  I don't just want it done, I want it done my way.  I've been thinking and dreaming about this back yard for 11 years, and when it's finished, it's going to be great!

Easter Weekend...

Winchester egg hunt.

Justin and Rachel have exchange students for the year, named Clara and Alima.  They hunted in the older hunt with Maxine.  Poor Maxine didn't find a single egg.  That's a stinker.  The older division hardly had any eggs. Everyone else make the usual killing.

I saw a couple of kids with 2 or 3 but that was it!  Maybe they're trying to keep the older kids from hunting eggs by killing their Easter spirit. I think it was cheap. Whatever, we always have lots of eggs on Sunday morning.

Mark was excited!

Sunday morning had its usual Easter fun.  

A picture with everyone.  Time for hard boiled eggs for breakfast!  

Colt Stampede...

 We went to help at the school because it was walk-a-thon time!  The walk-a-thon was renamed as the Colt Stampede, which I think is adorable.  Mikayla's face, not so adorable. Unfortunately, I didn't take very many out on the track.  I didn't get a single one of Julie.  :(

Mark and I eating lunch.

Mark's face is just so happy and I'm having a good hair day so there you go!

This is unrelated but Merril went for a ride out in Moab on the White Rim Trail.  He went with Wade Beatty, Darryl Zitting, and Jake Mortensen.  They went out for Thursday for Easter Jeep Safari but only went out for the day since they didn't have time for any more.  Darryl brought his Jeep and made it up Potato Salad Hill.

This is Juliet's end of year program!

Next year she'll be the big kid in school as a 5th grader!

New backyard patio!

We hired our neighbor's construction company to install the cement back patio!  Today is the day for cement!  Yay!  It looks so big.  They built this little ramp on the North side of the house and wheelbarrowed the cement into the back yard! Here it comes! 

This is Scott, our neighbor.

 It came out so slick and so nice!  I'm super pleased with it and it cost way less than I thought it would!  I'm so glad this part is done!

I just tossed these extras pictures of Mark in because it's so cute that he wants to fix the Jeep.

Mark the bike riding shark...

The total bonus of having older children?  They can teach the younger kids life skills so I don't have to.  Bwah ha ha!  Example?  Jack and Mikayla wanted Mark to try his bicycle without training wheels and he took off!  To be fair, Mark has had a balance bike for about 6 months and that has helped a ton!

Mark is so comfortable with the way the bike feels when it leans because of the balance bike. 

I wish we had had balance bikes for all of my children!

He already looks like a pro!  Go bubbies!

Conference quilt...

Not that I need another project right now, but I got a hankering for a warm quilt.  My kids take all the warm blankets downstairs to watch TV with.  That leaves me upstairs, freezing when I watch TV.  I purchased some clearance flannel a long time ago.  I have quite a lot of navy blue, tan, and this peach color.  I was trying to do a quilt on the cheap and I had an old mattress pad/liner that I was going to use for the batting, and browsed sheet section for a quilt top. 

I counseled with facebook to see whether using a sheet as a quilt top was okay.  Everyone agreed and said they do it all the time. Sweet!  I found something that matched well enough and away we went!  Mikayla and I got it all prepped for conference weekend!  Eeeee!  I LOVE CONFERENCE!

I pinned the quilt and then used my free-hand-quilting foot to make heart shapes.  Mikayla controlled the foot for some of them. 

Some of the hearts have an M or a J next to them but most of them are just hearts.

Then I got crazy with the free hand foot and did a dragonfly.  It's not too bad for a novice.  It's harder than I thought it would be to do a big pattern because it's hard to see where you're going.

I normally machine stitch the binding but conference weekend gave me the perfect opportunity to sit and blind stitch the binding by hand.  Kids would snuggle up next to me under the quilt and listen to conference.  

It was finished on Sunday and everyone wanted to lay on it.  

Now if I can just keep it upstairs and keep my kids from thieving it, I'll be a happy camper.