Sunday Dinner

Aunt Debbie came for thanksgiving this year and brought her son Holden. They met up with Holden's dad, Clint, and they came over for Sunday dinner this week. Clint is a hunter so we got to eat some delicous deer, (venison) apple cake for desert and a very fun game of Gimme That!

All of us except me because I was taking the picture :)
Clint and Debbie checking out their hands

Mi Padre checking his out.

The cards with which we played. Three decks, courtesy of the Perkins! Thank you! Short story: they came over for dinner and we spent half an hour, spent in vain, looking for a full deck.

Mi Madre, the points keeper and the meanie pants sister.

The sticky note from my mothers college days that has the instructions. Sorry it's sideways, couldn't fix it.

We had a wonderful time. This is what memories are made of.

Also, our lights are finally up along with our tree! A few days behind, but we finally made it :)

Attempts at quilting

Last Wednesday we had YW in excelence and it was AMAZING! so pretty and well thought and carried out. There were tables laid out and people put their projects on them. Along with projects were ideas and one of them was by Jenni Warner and it was a super adorable quilt. Well Annelise and I, being the one person in two bodies that we are, we both went over to sister warner and Annelise asked her 'question' first and she took the words right out of my mouth. "Can you show us how to make that quilt?" She kindly agreed and so annelise and I went to JoAnns for fabric on saturday. Here are some pictures of my fabric.

This is with color accent so it, sadly, doesn't look exactally like this. there are more colors. but it's still cool. I was originally thinking about using this as the border, but now I'm not so sure.

I really like this one, and it too has more colors than just the blue.

This is my second favorite. The simplicity and imperfectness of the squares is beautimus :)

This one is the favorite. It's just white and yellow and it looks so fresh and clean. Even lemons remind one of clean.

Here they all are in their natural color, no accent. Sorry, the picture is sort of upside down. Simply tilt your head extremely to the right and it will be the right orientation.

Can't wait till it starts coming together! I'll post more pictures as it gets farther along! Wish me luck!

The Princess Teaparty!

I had been wanting to do one of these for mutual for SO long and finally, in the summer, Tami told me "Jessica, here's a date, plan it... all" and I was SO excited! Tonight it came at last! Here is the evidence of the wonderful time we had!



Stephanie Bush was such a good DJ! Thank you much for letting us use you ipod and always being the one to run over and change the song if it wasn't up to the princess standard :)
Hallie (?) Baumgartener. She and her sister Hannah were Nicole's buddies. she made some bomb cookies!

Some of the princesses cookies. One of the things we did was decorate sugar cookies to eat with our "tea" (more commonly referred to as Hot Chocolate)

We had some extra paper and some time to kill so we spruced up the front white boards with a last minute welcoming poster, which we let the princesses paint while we waited for every one to show up. they are truly artists!

Marci! our outstanding leader who helped me tons! thanks for the "tea cups" (really espresso cups... which i don't actually know why she has them) and glitter! I'm sure the relief society will love the extra sparkle in the room on Sunday :)

Sha-naynay (bailey) and arenia. Arenia didn't invite a girl and didn't really help. but she did decorate the 5 best cookies we had...

Cute Little Jersey Huerta! I loved her slippers. she looked so comfy. she reminds me of the Olsen twins. she is super adorable!

The most important person there! (well, her and Annelise tie for first because without my super duper bestie buddy, this wouldn't have been possible) Natty Perkins was my buddy and we had a blast! this little sweetheart was so laid back and willing to do what ever even leading the music like a pro conductor and showing all the girls how to dance for real. I'm so glad she came. and I way loved her bombsauce shoes! a tad too small, but way cute! brings back good memories...

Nicole's other buddy, Hannah Baumgartner! Her dress was legit. Nicole:"Hannah, how was your day?" Hannah: holds up two fingers and goes back to work she was a silent cutie. she also made very nice cookies and stuck to Nicole like glue. she also has one of the cutest smiles I've ever seen.

Shanaynay and her cousin Jersey. Jersey was pretty quiet, but very cute with her slippers. my favorite part was how bailey made her own crown and left the kids to Marci... :)

Annelise and her sweetheart buddy Leah Broadbent. Leah was so sweet, she even volunteered to give the opening prayer for us. Annelise helped her with it and it was absolutely precious! She and Annelise totally match each other super well. both quiet on the outside, but sugary sweet and a ball to be around on the inside.

Nicole and her buddies, with Leah checking out the balloons with the cookie stealer, stealing some cookies in the background. good times :)

Natty and I working on her crown. she put so many jewels on it, it really was a princess crown. color coordinated and everything (red (her fave color) and white) she was such a sweetie!!!

And the grand finale. it was a success and they all had fun (from what i could tell... you judge for yourself from this picture) a real princess here.

thank you SUPER much Annelise for running around shopping last minute and coming early with all the things i forgot to help me set up.

thank you Jenni Warner for helping me blow up balloons while you were waiting for the meeting to be over. I owe you guys some sugar cookies or something... be ready :)

thank you Marci for bringing the "tea set" and for the fun decorations only a cool aunt like you would have.

Finally, thank you to mi padre for all the gnarly photography. I very much appreciate it! and thanks to all the girls that dressed themselves up and came and all the big girls that helped!

(A little bit late) Birthday post!

It took me a while to get the pictures for this post, but now that I finally have them here it is! Annelise and I had talked last year about filling our seminary room with balloons for Sister Tice because she is just awesome like that. Well things didn't work out for us to be able to do that, so I forgot about it. Annelise, being the super wonderful friend didn't forget and so after I came home from taking the PSAT and getting lunch with my mom, there she was with some of my other friends (Kaile, Arenia and Katelan) and my room was filled to my knees with balloons and she even painted a poster! Annelise also got me a mini scrapbook, a teal stamp pad and pictures from our trips together. I'm so glad we're friends! she is just so amazing.

After that, my mom and I went shopping and then saw Where the Wild things are. At GAP, I got a black and white wrap dress that I wore to the dance that was that night. The dance was super fun, I danced with the person I wanted to so it was all wonderful. All together, I had a super fun 15th birthday! Thanks guys!

Thanks for CTRing

In English, all of the sophomores had to make a nonverbal power point presentation. It is a show all about you and it is set to a song of your choice that you feel best represents you. My honors classes arn't pure, they're blended so there are core kids in them. You can tell the differemce between a Core kid's Presentation and an honors kid by not only the look (matching fonts, coordinating colors, lots of family pictures ect.) but also by content.

The Core presentations are really sad. Some things I saw were that they had no family. they lived in foster homes, were homeless for a while because the foster homes were so bad. moving all over the country, from one relative to the next. Broken families. No father, no Mother, or neither and all siblings. Some said that kentwood was their home, their family.

Polar opposite of that were the Honors presentations. Talking about all their family members, the places they've been, the instruments they play, the things their interested in, religion. It really is an eye opener to see theses kids and the kind of lives they've had and the circumstances they come from. homeless!?!

Now, Some things that have been going on in my extended family lately, have made me more aware of what an awesome life I have! There were some not so great choices made that involved a child and now it is causing lots of arguments and things.

That made me think that it is so wonderful that I was born to two people that love eachother and are commited to making things work and doing the darn best they can. Not saying that we don't have problems, that is so not true. But the problems are not as bad as they could be because of the choices that my parents have made. So thanks Mom and Dad for Choosing The Right and doing the best you know how. I am so lucky and grateful that you have done what you have done.

Inadaquacy

Do you ever have days when you just feel inadequate, but you really arn't? Today has been one of those days for me. Sorry to be a downer and all, but this is life, right? last night Annelise spent the night and so in the morning I finished all my jobs quick, took a shower and then went on over to Guy's Eagle Scout project. It was in the middle of nowhere Maple Valley, and we were planting native bushes, where previously they had ripped out blackberry bushes. So we did awsome for almost the entire time until the last 10 mintues, when we started "murmuring." In retrospect I am so disappointed in myself for complaining. It's not like we were flagrant about it or anything, just a few disguised comments here and there, But it feels, now, like it was. When we were done and everything was put away we were standing under a canopy they had set up near the road to put the food under, I all of the sudden remembered a show that my mom had shown me about the first presidency's families. Sister Monson was on it and her daughter said that that she "could not remember Mother complain, ever." Yeah, my toes had never been so cold in my life, and I had never been so drenched, but i still felt like i had failed. we had made it so far... It was really fun, up until then, and we had done good. I just wish that when I do good, I would feel at least a little good about it.

All of this reminded me of some scriptures:
D&C 50:3 "Satan hath sought to decieve you."
D&C 132:57 "Satan seeketh to destroy."
1 Thes. 2:18 "Satan hath hindered us."

So isn't it Satan who makes us feel like this? He does a darn good job at it. So I hope that I have a better day tommorrow and don't let anyone make me feel less than I am.