Quote Worthy Quotes
This is by far one of the most inspiring talks I've ever heard to empower me as a struggling mother.  It is 5 years old and I keep going bak to it because it is just that good.

Here is the transcript if you prefer to read her talk
and here is the video link if you prefer to listen while you work

The whole talk is wonderful but my favorite parts begin at the 15 min 30 sec mark (nothing happens in a family unless it is important to the mother), 17min 50sec mark (Julie's 3 lists to prioritize her time: essential, necessary and nice-to-do), and the 26min 50sec mark (there are 3 shifts of a woman's day and you can't work all 3.)

Here is a slideshow I made for an RS activity this weekend.  

The photos and instructions are directly form the original website www.foodstorageandsurvival.com

Survival Bars - Kizoa Video Maker

I have been so glad that my husband told me to bring my sewing machine with me on our adventure.  Since the spring I have been doing a lot of sewing.  I make 3 quilt tops for a friend who was donating Quillows to the Mabuhay Deseret Foundation.  And recently I saw someone post on a Facebook page that they were wanting to donate a bunch of small quilts for babies at a local hospital.  So I got my scraps together and built these beauties

 I LOVE the blue white and yellow.  I might make this again with a border that is more fun.

 Some cute fabrics I picked up when my mom was in town.  And check out the mitered corners!

I'm so glad that some of the extra quilt blocks from Danny's blanket were able to go toward charity.  I actually messed up so badly on the # of blocks I needed for danny's blanket that I had enough to make 3 sail boat blankets this size!

Six sisters rocks

A friend invited me to do their healthy living challenge and it is awesome.  You earn points for stuff like exercising, eating veggies, drinking water, not eating after 9pm, weightless, contacting teammates…  But no point loss, so its straightforward and simple.
Everyone starts by contributing $20 into a jack pot and report their starting weight.  Then every week they report their weight and healthy living points.  There will be 1 winner for the weigh loss category and another winner for the healthy living points category.

I am really horrible about eating my veggies so I've been trying to do better and I found some great veggie recipes on the recipe section of their site.  I'm so excited and can't wait to find more time to surf their website and all it has to offer.

Here are the veggie recipes I've tried and loved

• mushroom asparagus chicken stir fry-I left out the mushrooms
• Garlic and parm green beans
• Oven roasted cauliflower and broccoli

and here is their healthy living challenge.  Maybe at the end of the challenge I will post my points/total weightloss.  I'm still loosing baby weight from my pregnancy, so it will probably look more impressive than it really is.  I'm still really proud of myself for being 1 1/2 weeks into the challenge and I haven't given up yet :)

I think after the holidays I will see if my family wants to do the challenge with me so I can refocus on being healthy after my inevitable holiday junk food binge :)

So I've been doing A LOT of adjusting this past year, hence the lack of posting.  Moving to a new country, going from a huge house in the woods to a condo in the city, and finding out that you are expecting a surprise Baby takes an emotional toll on a person and invades any space in their head for executing anything creative.
But eventually I found my footing again, just in time to make this awesome quilt for the new baby.

And this cute little guy is a fairly big project in and of himself :)

I got my quilt inspiration from a book in our town's library back in Maine.  I wish I had the tittle, but somehow that information has been lost along the way.  Sorry

I had lots of friends help me with the quilting and they all wrote their names on the trim for me like I did for Toby's Quilt