I want you to know I Care

Happy Birthday, Carrie! Today is my sister-in-law Carrie's birthday. Carrie is really fun to be around and has been a great friend and sister. I stole this cute picture from her blog because it was super cute and I wanted you all to see her cute kids, Bentley and Caroline, and my cute brother, Joe.

Carrie is really fashionable and I can always count on her for the latest celebrity gossip. Carrie is Uber talented and is really good at dancing, tennis, sewing (who knew? She was really fast and did a great job. She whipped up a little girl's skirt in like 5 minutes), and she never ceases to amaze me with her other "hidden" talents. Carrie is also good at blogging and I can thank her (and a few others) for bringing me into the blogging world. What I love most about Carrie is that I think she's a great wife and mother. She's brought a lot of happiness into our lives and I'm glad she was born. Fried ham, fried ham.

Sweet Pictures

Justin's parents just returned from the big island and brought back the most darling little Hawaiian outfits for all of the grandchildren. Yesterday we went out and about to get some cute pictures of the kids in their new outfits. These are just a few I snapped, Justin's dad, Larry, took some probably better pics that I'll post when I get my hands on them.

Confessions of a packrat

My earliest memories of hoarding junk were the semi-annual auctions my brother, Joseph, held in the basement. He would take his junk drawer and start the auction. All of the younger packrats would bid. "who wants this bouncy ball?" We'd all try to get as many things as we could and we'd take our loot back to our room and store it in our own junk drawers.

I've become quite self-actualized and can take responsibility for my own choices, but I will say that my parents probably enabled me to continue packratting because I had way more drawers than I needed in my room. So, while I'm confessing, I want you all to know that yes, I did in fact, have 17 junk drawers in my early youth.

Well, the truth is, I don't really want to be a packrat anymore. In fact, these days I may even have less junk than some of you. It's been really difficult, but each time I've moved (6 times since I've been married), I try to go through things. I can find an emotional attachment to just about anything. It hasn't been until the last year that I could in good conscience, throw away a gum wrapper (I collected gum wrappers for years in hopes of becoming famous). Anyway, the best thing my parents did for me (related to my packrat addiction) was making me take all of my stuff with me when I got married.

Sorry this is so long, I mostly just wanted to brag that I'm becoming more organized, consolidating boxes of stuff, and throwing away a lot of junk. Oh, and now I only have 2 junk drawers (maybe soon to be junk boxes :O). I'd love to hear your best organizing tips or your packrat tendencies.

One year older, and wiser too

Meet Flori, another profi frau (In case you haven't caught on to what my life is like, I'm basically surrounded by domestic goddesses- it's a lot to live up to). Today is Flori's birthday and I just wanted to send a shout out. Flori lives in North Carolina with her husband, Rob, and her four beautiful girls. Flori has always been a great big sister and she just seems really on top of things to me. Flori is a fabulous cook and we always look forward to her visits when she introduces us to awesome recipes. I love to watch Flori laugh. Her laughter is contagious. Flori is really smart, she has a great smile and I covet her gorgeous dark, and curly hair.

It was great to see Flori for the sister's retreat. I feel sad that I don't get to see her more, but I'm glad that she is so wonderful. Love you, Flori- Happy Birthday.

A golden birthday

Hi. Meet Camille, my cute sister-in-law. Today is her golden birthday- she is turning 24 on the 24th. Feel free to share if you have any special memories of your golden birthdays. Anyway, I just wanted to give a shout out to Camille. Camille is such a good aunt and I love to watch Gracie follow her around. Camille is good at basketball, computers, sudoku (she's unbelievably fast), wedding videos, title work, and lots of other stuff. Happy Golden Birthday, Camille. We love you!

Our Easter in an Egg-shell

St. Gorgeous

I've been loving the nice weather down here and especially love my almost daily walks around the temple (we feel so lucky to live so close). This week I've been enjoying the beautiful budding trees and love walking past fragrant trees with blossoms.

My fashion model

This is Gracie wearing the new skirt that I made her. I started it at the sister's retreat and then finished the ruffle along the bottom this week. The waist is a little big, and I think the specific shade of pink might be a little difficult to match, but other than that I'm really thrilled about how it turned out. Gracie loved wearing her new skirt around and I felt like a cool mom for actually having made something that she can wear.

A birthday girl.

Today is Luci's birthday. Happy Birthday. Luci was one of the profis I referred to in my other post. She is a really good seamstress and has crafted such masterpieces as her own wedding dress, my bridesmaid's skirts, numerous cute outfits for nieces and nephews, and amazing prince and princess costumes. Luci joined the family when I was on my mission- she and Jim met just a few months after I left and got married almost 6 months before I returned. It has been a lot of fun getting to know her better. On first impression she is just really fun to be around and loves to joke around. I think she's a really funny person (which is even more impressive that she can be funny in English when it is her second language). Although I enjoy her humor, I've enjoyed getting to know Luci on a deeper level and seeing what a sincere, caring, and thoughtful person that she is. Luci brings a lot of happiness and cheer and I'm grateful that she's a part of our family. Hope you have a great day, Luci.

Sew Fun!

This last weekend was a total blast. My sisters, sisters-in-law, and my mom all came to St. George for a sewing/crafting retreat. Many of us are new seamstresses and there are a few profis (professionals) among us. It was fun to learn, and to see all of the cute and creative things that everyone was doing.


We ate yummy food, laughed, fought over the iron, and did a lot of sewing. I would highly recommend this to anyone. We had a great time and we all learned together. We made fun hair clips, got lovely pedicures (from an anonymous donor), and we made bags, aprons, and little girl skirts.
The Smith's (Carrie's parents) generously let us use their nice home and a special thanks to everyone who came and made it a huge hit.
P.S. I'm sure I'll have more pics later. I just stole mine from Krista.

Tapestry.

"We may not know what contribution our small thread makes to the great tapestry. We may not understand the pattern that our lives make as they intersect, connect, separate and intersect again, but God does... we never know how far the effects of our service will reach. We can never afford to be cruel or indifferent or ungenerous, because we are all connected, even if it is a pattern that only God sees."
-Chieko N. Okazaki

Happy Birthday Jeff

So, my brother in law Jeff shares a birthday with my brother John. Jeff is multi-talented. My first date with Justin started with watching Jeff in a Triathlon at Echo Lake. Jeff brings new meaning to the word ENDURANCE. He has run a ton of marathons (I'm guessing 10), has competed in 2 iron man triathlons and countless other tri's. He and Justin could work and have worked all day long in the hot sun for 12 hours a day. He is a hard worker, he's really generous and kind, and is a lot of fun to be around. Happy Birthday to you.

Happy, Happy

A happy birthday to my brother, Johnny. John is two and a half years older than I am and has been a great brother to me. I've always admired his public speaking abilities, his testimony, his mad acting skills, and his amazing musical talent. John is as silly as they come and a lot of fun to be around. Some of my best memories of John are- him teaching me how to do a backflip on the trampoline, him pushing me off the cliff (tjk), hanging out all the time and working together when we were at BYU, getting letters from him on my mission, and introducing him to his lovely and fabulous wife, Krista. Johnny is really talented and I'm proud to claim him as a fellow social worker, although the rest of the family is more proud to claim him as an advertising genius :) Thanks for being you. We all want to be just like you.

P.S. A note from my last post- I think I made the librarian sound meaner than she was. She's about 70 yrs old and was totally joking around, I don't think it even crossed her mind that I'd think twice about it. :)

Almost Offended

So, I realize I already posted about church this week, but I've just been dying to share something that someone said to me. I took Gracie with me into the library with me to return my chalk/ crayons from primary. The people behind the counter took one look at her and said, "Oh, there's no taking her in the sun" I responded, "Yeah, she's pretty fair" to which they responded, "Yeah, I guess there's no taking you in the sun either!"

Sad. How am I so white that people can say such a thing and totally get away with it? While we were talking, I didn't think much of it, but afterwards I thought, "Ouch, that's kinda mean". Oh well, if you know me then you aren't surprised that I would encounter comments about my pasty white skin. Justin got a big kick out of this too. Woe is me, bring on the self tanner or the pocahontas colored nylons.

When's the last time you had this much fun?

We've been frequenting the park almost daily this week and have had a great time. Gracie loves the slides and hates the swings (I think swings and the vacuum are her only fears in life).
She learned how to climb this little ladder thing so she can climb up to the slide and go down by herself. It works great unless other little kids are trying to go up the ladder.

This is Gracie in an outfit from last summer. I was so happy on a very warm day last week when I tried it on and it still fit. Last summer I thought she'd for sure be too big for it, but sometimes little girls don't grow very fast.

Mister Gardner

I teach the CTR 5 class in Primary. There's a sweet little boy in my class who prays for robots almost weekly (I only have 3 kids, so they all get a lot of turns praying). Every time he asks me a question it starts out, "Mister Gardner?" I can't tell you how many times I've tried to explain that Mister is a phrase reserved for MEN and I am a WOMAN, but after a five minute lesson about my name being Sister Gardner he'll say "okay" and turn around a few minutes later... "But Mister Gardner..." I think it's more funny than bothersome but it makes me laugh every week.

As for Gracie, church (at least sacrament meeting) went really well this week. We sat on the chairs in the back and were surrounded by other kids her age, which kind of helped. The week before we were a minute late and so our seating definitely added to the bad behavior. Anyway, I'm glad that there are so many smart moms out there. Thanks for your advice. I also wanted to comment about the "circle of treats" at church. No matter what I bring in the way of treats, Gracie always seems to be more interested in someone else's treats and begs people around us for food. I'm a little embarrassed, but am glad that other people are willing to share. Because I have a little beggar, I like it when other little beggars come to us and think we have great treats (marshmallow mateys). There were a couple of little boys who helped Gracie eat her snack this week. Is it weird that it gave me confidence that we had food worth begging for?

Introducing...

BLOGGY! I found the coolest new blog. My little brother Bobby has recently entered the blogging world. Click here to get to know Bloggy LeBaron a little better.