Our little visitors

Reed and his family came to town for a Halloween party. They stopped by to show us their Halloween costumes I didn't get a picture of Tyler before he took his off but they looked cute!

baby news

I really have nothing to say I just want to beat my best month which is March with 15 posts now it will be October with 16! But since I am here I thought I would announce that I am going to the doctor soon.. and we should find out what we are having. So I have created a little poll (too the right) and you can vote until Friday evening.. this means that we might announce what we find out at the ultrasound on Saturday!

to clear the rumors

I've been really busy... so I've been meaning to clear the rumors about our small apartment (I should be doing homework right now).
1. I made curtains less than two weeks after we moved in and they make the closets look better (not really good but much better). We do have a 'door' to our bathroom but it is a pocket door that doesn't shut all the way and I would not use if we had a guest over. and it doesn't lock so no hiding.
2. We have never had fish heads in any of our kitchens let alone in our toilet.
3.We do have a vacuum that doesn't get to hide, but at least we have one.
4. Our apartment is very bright with white walls and light cabinets, we do however have a black tub, it's larger than a normal tub but it's black.
5. I really do love my spouse, good thing.


Oh and if you didn't the rumor about taco bell, you should be able to get a free taco between 2-5pm tomorrow at your local Taco Bell. because of the baseball game or something.

LESSONS FROM A small APARTMENT

So Liz and I went from a spacious two bedroom apartment to a small studio apartment, and after three months of living here I feel ready to give some advice to those who are thinking about renting a small space. Before signing the lease:

1. Make sure that you have doors. An empty closet looks good when it is empty, but when you put your items in it you may discover that you wish they were hidden. Do not commit if there is no door to the bathroom.

2. If you only have one sink shared between the bathroom and kitchen--look for a disposal, if there is none try flushing a large wad of toilet paper down the toilet. If it flushes fine then there will be no problem getting rid of potato skins, fish heads, and other byproducts of the kitchen.

3. Look for storage. Things like your vacuum, broom, etc.. that you usually store hidden away when not in use look bad when you are forced to keep them under your kitchen table.

4. Avoid dark colored cabinets and walls or even bathtubs. In a small space dark walls seem to creep in and strangle you no matter how many lights you add to the room.

5. Make sure that you really love your spouse.

There you have it. We love our small apartment, and will have lots of stories to tell our grandchildren some day.

grandma and grandpa s

This past weekend Ryan and I went to Utah for some work stuff. We stayed with my grandparents and they gave us our wedding present-we were suppose to get it months ago, but.. Grandpa gave me a copy of my family's coat of arms. He made one for all of the grandchildren and gives us our coat of arms when we do something great; like getting married in the Temple of the Lord or graduating from college or going on a mission for the church. It was an enjoyable stay and I'm glad we got to stay with them.

Wonderful Idaho

On the way home from Utah we pulled off after Malad pass by the reservoir and went up into the Caribou National Forest. We did not want to spend a lot of time in the mountains, so we followed the road until the first campsite and then parked and went on a walk. (By the way---you can tell Liz is pregnant in this picture)

The site was great, no trash, people, or atv paths. We found a small river and followed it up a ways, across an old pipe and to an area where there was a recent landslide where large trees had fallen across the river making some cool bridges. We played on those a while, and took a few pictures.



Then I spotted some nice moss growing in the river and crawled down the incline and got some for our fountain I am making and also filled my water bottle with water to put the moss in when we returned home (when I got home I discovered that I also got a leach, some snails, and a small fish in the water.)


Meanwhile Liz was laughing at my obsession with moss and lichens, and decided to play with a stick she found. She loves this old Disney cartoon where the bears pick up trash singing a song, so she acted it out.

Brandon and Taryn

On Saturday night we stayed with Brandon and Amanda. Brandon was my accomplish in crime all growing up, and we are still great friends and hang out whenever we can. He now is a dad and here is his little girl Taryn. He named her after me---taryn ---ryan t.

I was doing homework

I get bored sometimes and then I want to read blogs. So when I was doing my homework I found out that I am just like Winnie the Pooh. Angela posted a link to a pooh-test and I took it.


Take the 100 Acre Personality Quiz!

I think it is totally like me. I need good food, I love having fun, and I crave attention (AKA I talk a lot and don't like to be alone). Oh and I totally am slow. Slow at eating, walking, making fake trees for preschool, I like to say I do things the best way- which takes longer. :)

HGTV

Ryan and I are nerds. We pretty much only watch HGTV, DIY, and Food Network. These three channels make me hungry for a house and a nice kitchen (one that has food in it and room to make yummy food). Anyways today they showed the following room. I thought that the picket fence towel/coat rack behind the door was really cute. I also thought Momma would like it.

Preschool Teaching Day 1

I am in the Preschool Class this semester. I did my first teaching assignment on Seeds. My concepts were that we harvest seeds in the fall and that we can eat some seeds. I focused on Sunflower, pumpkin and corn kernels. I think that my lesson went well. Here are some pictures before the children arrived.


Look at my beautiful sunflower heads! Grandma and Grandpa J gave them to me for the class to harvest sunflower seeds. The other table has glue and seeds for the children to make seed art.


Sorting pumpkin, sunflower, and corn kernels.
We had other fun things but they arn't pictured.

Baby Names

So Nicci posted names for our little baby. Check it out! She's funny.

Ceramics and Fire

I just saw my wonderful wife's post and decided to add some details. Some may think that ceramics is unmanly, but listen to this. So I made the vase, and then put it in a 1800 degree oven for about a day. Then after cooling I used some industrial sanding paper to smooth out some of the corners. Afterwards I put it back into a kiln (thats a ceramic oven) and heated it until it was 1500 degrees, pulled it out red hot, put it into a metal can filled with sawdust, and made a fire so hot that you couldn't get close without loosing some hair.

The sawdust box was then covered so that the lack of oxygen would cause carbonization of the clay turning it jet black. After it was removed from the can it was dropped in a bucket of water, which it actually caused to boil when left in the hollow of the vase. Talk about heat. So yes I really enjoy this play time I get.

For my next project I want to use some iron wire and melt it into the clay for some fun. If you have any ideas let me know.

FHE Activity

Last night I wanted to do something fun. So instead of going to bed early and getting up early to do homework, we made up a game using the elements of Settlers of Catan--one of our new favorite games. The game is designed to be a 3-4 player game we changed it up a bit and attempted to make a fun 2 player version.. and it worked. We played two games each with different rules.


We used the tiles from both Settlers of Catan and the expansion game Seafarers of Catan to create our boards, we also used a dresser drawer to create a nice space to lay out the pieces (since we have no table in our apartment bigger than a dinner plate)

The Rules: We each had a side of the board and we raced to the other side of the board to one of two gold tiles (where a house is worth 2 pts instead of 1). The first game we used the robber as a blocker, hindering road building on the tiles he touched. The fun was that we discovered the land--i.e. flipped tiles--as we progressed, and could cut off the other with our roads. In both games the winner was named at 10 points.

Presents for Me from Him

Ryan brought home this beautiful black vase. Arn't I a lucky girl I am just so excited for all the other creations that will soon come home.



This is a view of Ryan's signature. pretty cool huh?

We are gonna have a baby!

We've told some people and haven't told others, so if your just finding out don't feel unloved. We are going to have a baby boy (50% sure about that). I am due March 20th and currently have seen the baby in an ultra sound and heard the baby's heart rate. We should find out Nov 1 if it is a boy or a girl. We are way excited. Luckily I haven't been that sick during these first few months and am grateful for that.

Here is our baby at 12 weeks.

When the World turns White;

You wake up and everything is bright.
You turn on the TV and nothing appears.
Your boring window scene becomes beautiful.

Apparently the weather channel is wrong,
because it is NOT 65 outside.

That's Art?

So this week in my ceramics class we have two projects that are proving to be really hard for me. Up to this point everything I have made has been smooth and clean--rounded borders, 90^ angles, and flows. I would define myself as a messy minimalist or a modern antique art lover.But now I have to make something that defines entropy, texture, and provokes curiosity. I never realized until now how much I dislike disorder and randomness in art.
I have also been working on making a fountain. I plan on having it have three rocky tiers and the water flowing out of hidden cracks in the rock. Once finished I will put some moss and lichens on it to make it look real.
Stay tuned for pictures (assuming they survive the kiln.)

Update: here is a picture of a vase and a pitcher.