1 year Pictures

Once again, our amazing photographer friend Laura came by and took some awesome pictures of Brady and Jackson. These are officially Brady's "1 year" pictures. Can't believe how big the boys are.
Here are my favorites:

Do you love the hand in the pocket? I do.

A Little Piece of Happiness.

My neighbor was cleaning out his garage and brought by an old (1930's?) Pfaff sewing machine. The kind that is attached to it's own little desk. He had shown it to me once before, and while I was not crazy excited about the machine itself, I was intrigued with all the amazing pressure feet it came with. So I did not hesitate for a minute when he offered it to me for free. I figured that even if I didn't use the machine for every day sewing, I could use it when I needed to use one of it's specialty feet.

So we lug it into the kitchen and I start playing with it. Only to be disappointed and find that it does not work. I was really bummed because I have a Kenmore sewing machine and Kenmore no longer makes sewing machines which means that you can no longer buy pressure feet for them!!!

But after sadly looking through the box of fun pressure feet one more time, I had a thought, just a whim really. I tried the pressure feet on my own sewing machine and guess what!?!??! They fit!!! I consider it a miracle and have been spending all my free time playing with them.

I want to talk today about the one that I love the most (ruffle foot being close second.)
Say hello to this beauty:

That's right ladies (and gentlemen??? probably not.) A narrow hem foot. Do you know how badly I have day dreamed about this foot??? How many hours I have spent hemming chiffon prom and bride's maid dresses???? This little foot will literally save me hours and hours of annoying hemming.

And not only will it cut my hemming time in half, but the finished result looks SOOOO much cleaner. I am in love.

You can really see the difference on the back. The old way I did it involved sewing a tiny hem all the way around, trimming off excess fabric, folding the first hem over then sewing the entire thing again. The end result was two rows of stitching and double the work. The new way does it all in one pass and it looks so beautiful I almost want to cry.

Oh yes. I'm sure. Also, I have no idea who Lady Wishes is. I just stole this picture from google.

GIRL'S CAMP!!!!

So, I might have just had one of the most fun weeks of my life guys. Last week I went to Girl's Camp and it was pretty much AMAZING!

I won't go into details of what I did every single day but I will say that the YCL's were on top of everything so I didn't have to do hardly anything and that the cabins were air conditioned. It was a good week.

I got to know the girl's in my branch much better and got to be followed around by tiny horses. What could be better?

I will probably do another post with more pictures from the stake photographer later but for right now, here are a few!

 This was a weird initiation they did for the first years where everyone lined up and then they bounced the first years down the line. I won't lie, it actually looked kind of painful! Also, notice the tiny horse? Cute but deadly! They kicked people.

 Look at these lovely Aurora Branch ladies!

 All the first years!

 What I had waiting for me when I got home! That and a clean house. I can't decide which one I liked more.

Happy Birthday Brady!

Has it really been an entire year?! YES! I cannot believe how quickly time has gone by. Brady is still so small, how can he really be a year old? Weather I want to admit it or not, Brady had his first birthday on Friday!

We had a picnic lunch because it was so nice out.

 Brady's first experience with Doritos.

 The family cake.

 Brady's smash cake! I don't believe in giving one year olds full sized cakes to smash. The waste of cake makes me too sad.

 WOOOAAAHHHHH. Fire.

 Happy Birthday!

 Oh man this is good.

 Going in with the spoon!

 Contemplating the meaning of life.

Happy Birthday Brady! I still can't believe you are 1! I love you!

5K Run!

For the last several months I have been training to run a 5K. I realize that some people can run 5Ks in their sleep but for me this was a big deal! I finally ran my race on June 1st and it was HARD! I was not expecting so many hills. Either way though it is done and I ran the whole thing and best of all I got a t-shirt out of it!

This is our "Before" picture

 Coming up to the finish line!

 33 minutes and 39 Seconds!!! Huzza!!!!!!

 Sarah even came out to watch me!!! I felt so loved!

 I am a runner!

I have to mention that the most important picture is the one not taken! Ike took all these pictures for me. He, Jackson and Brady all waited for me in the cold to finish this race! I couldn't have done it without Ike's support!

DIY Cheese Crackers

So I admit that I am not one of those moms who won't feed her kids anything with artificial coloring or preservatives. If I wasn't afraid of Diabetes and Obesity, I would eat nothing but Twinkies and Ramen. Almost all of the food that I make homemade is made that way because it is cheaper, not necessarily because it is better for you (That is a nice bonus though.). But that aside, I do have a few particular snack items that I really just can't stand because they do taste so fake. Cheezits is one of those. I really just can't stand them. I don't think they taste like cheese at all. And I love cheese. Like LOVE it. So if I buy something that is supposed to have a cheesy flavor it better taste like cheese gosh darn it.

So the other day I was looking through my new favorite book ever.


And was intrigued by her recipe for Cheese Crackers. I made them and not only were they super easy but guess what? They were SOOOOOOOO GOOOOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I mean it. I made an entire batch and we ate them all as soon as we could get them into our mouths without burning out tongues.

They didn't taste anything like Cheezits, they tasted like cheese! So you know you are dieing to make them yourself.

Cheese Crackers
1 1/2 Cups flour
1 1/2 Cups (6oz) Shredded Cheddar Cheese
1 tsp Salt
3 Tablespoons Cold Butter cut up into cubes
3/4 Cup Water
2 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp mustard or mustard powder

Mix water, vinegar and mustard in a glass measuring cup or bowl and stick in in your freezer to get cold. Leave it there for no less than 10 minutes. In the meantime, mix flour, salt, cheese and butter. (I used a food processor.) When your liquids are really cold, using a mixer or food processor, combine liquids and dry stuff by pouring the liquid in a little at a time. When you are done you will have a very moist ball of cheese dough. Don't be scared by how moist it seems.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for a minimum or two hours. When it has chilled, dust your counter with flour and roll out your dough between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick. I liked mine closer to 1/4. Then you can either use a pizza cutter or a tiny cookie cutter to cut them out. I would HIGHLY recommend lining your pans with parchment paper, but if you choose not to just make sure you spray them with Pam or something.

Cook them at 325 degrees for 20-30 minutes. Check them every three minutes or so after 20 minutes because they get brown very quickly. Also, rotate your pans after 10 minutes. This helped me huge because my oven tends to cook things unevenly.

Enjoy!!!!!

Feeling HOT HOT HOT!

You know during winter when you are like, " Oh man I can't wait for it to be 100 degrees outside!!! I miss the heat SO MUCH!!!!!". But then when summer comes you are like, "Oh man I wish it was winter I hate this heat SO MUCH!!!!!".

Well, that is us my friends. All winter I wined like a baby about how cold it was and how I just wanted it to be summer and now that summer is here I have to stop myself from wining all day about how uncomfortably hot it is!!!!

One nice thing that summer has over winter though...POOL DAYS!

Sometimes you just need to get wet.

 I feel like you can read Brady's thoughts in these pictures.
Brady: "Wow this purple ring is awesome!!!"

 "I still love this purple thing, hey mom what are you doing?"

"Why does Jackson have my purple thing?"