Back to School Feast

The girls started school on Wednesday August 25 so we had our Back to School Feast on Monday night. Does anyone else think that when you have children time seems to move at warp speed? Bronwyn started 5th grade, Brooklyn 2nd grade and Bella in her last year of pre-school. I still remember my sweet girls, dressing them in pink and the happiness we felt at just being together. A trip to the park was adventurous and when we went shopping it was blissful, no one asking for anything. Kids grow up, times change. I am am full blown into tweendom and on the verge of the teenage years. Things are different. They definitely want to dress themselves and pink is not seen so much. They want to be with friends all the time, parks are ok on occasion but they would probably rather do something else and don't even get me started on the shopping.......So why am I going on do you say? Because our Back to School Feast reminds me of those simpler times. The girls still love doing it, still get excited and still love to be with just us. I cherish these times, even as I see them slip more away. It makes me realize how important our time is together, how we need to eat dinner together every night and how one night together can still be magical.

Here's to the new school year. Let's make it a creative one!

Ingredients for a Successful Back to School Feast

1. Their favorite foods. This year we had fried chicken and salad. I always get a fun dessert and my girls love donuts!
2. Decorate the dining area. I don't mean you have to go crazy, but I try to make something special each year. This year I made a floating centerpiece with birds, and a quote I love about birds.

3. Make something special to commemorate the occasion. I always make crowns. At the beginning of dinner I crown them an official 5th grader, 2nd grader, etc.. I also made them a special notebook that they loved.

4. Talk about the upcoming year, this year I let them take the birds from the centerpiece and write some goals down. We also talk about rules and expectations (especially about grades and reading.)

5. We add a spiritual aspect to our dinner, and Nat give's them each a father's blessing. This is always a special time for our family.
Some pictures:

The Move

We have had a really busy summer. So busy in fact that I have had no time to blog about all our adventures. I'm going to take the next few weeks to catch up on everything we did, and post a few pics too.

First big accomplishment this summer was.....WE MOVED!

Yes we finally moved from Lehi to Orem. Basically about 20 miles south from are old house. A few things about the move. We found a house we really love. It is much more our style and personality. When friends come over they say this feels more like you.....and it does. Also it is a gem of a neighborhood. We have fallen in love. It is a really well established neighborhood with 3 beautiful private parks and a neighborhood pool. Our neighbors are all lovely and so welcoming. We really feel blessed to have found the house. The other thing is it is 3 miles from where Nat works and about 8 minutes to BYU. I feel our quality of life has improved immensely because we are not on the freeway (which they are tearing up) anymore.

So as a lot of you know I love to decorate and so I'm showing off so pics of the new house. First up is kitchen and living room. We just really like this layout. Also being the collector I am our "stuff" fits really nicely.

I love this room. Great for reading. I'm loving white a lot right now. The coffee table is an old bench that I found. This is also a great room for all my vintage white pottery.
We have this great wall in our living room that I can put all my vintage gold mirrors. Most of these mirror were thrift or consignment shop finds.
Most know I am a major vintage dish and glass collector. Now we have a great clean way to access them. We use this stuff all the time. Again we painted the wall white so all the wonderful color would pop.
My beloved bench with that new Utah pillow I picked up from Frosty Darling at Craft Lake City. Pretty cute.

I will post pics of the dotter's rooms soon. We painted and decorated and they turned out really cute. Also did some fun things in the family room. More to come......

Craft Lake City

Just finished Craft Lake City on Saturday. It was the first time I had done this show. It was sponsored by SLUG magazine (Salt Lake Underground) so there were a lot of interesting people there. Sometimes when I do shows I love to people watch and this show provided plenty of interesting people. Saw lots of really fun artists with such unique items. One that stood out was lampshades made from old photo slides slides. I think I would have bought one if I had a place to put it. My booth was next to Gentry Blackburn who owns Frosty Darling in SLC. I had heard of her before but it was nice to meet her and chat throughout the day. I bought a "darling" pillow from her that says UTAH in felt and fur. I will post a picture of it. Thanks to my friends who came to visit. Sold a lot of junk charm necklaces, definitely my most popular item, got a lot of great response and compliments from people. Craft shows are so good for the EGO! One other fun thing is a Salt Lake Tribune photographer came by and took pics of me and my booth. My picture was in the SLC Tribune on Sunday with the article about Craft Lake City.

Go here to read the story.

(Not the greatest pic of me, but a least I'm mostly covered by my jewelry.)

Here are some other pictures that SLUG mag photographers took:


Do you feel Summer is disappearing and you still have so many things to do........that is my life right now.

I am looking forward to catching up on friends blogs, as I've been super LAME this summer. I hope you have all had a wonderful and creative summer. Back to school.........

Oh Summer...where have you gone?

Has summer flown by for anyone else but me? I can't believe I am shopping for school supplies and school clothes! A lot has happened and I have a few blog posts planned. In the meantime I have a show coming up this Saturday. CRAFT LAKE CITY in Salt Lake. I wanted to let my local friends know about it. It is a really cool show (much like the Beehive Bazaar) and I would recommend going. I wasn't a vendor last year, but applied for this year and got accepted. I have made some new fabulous crowns, cuffs and junk charm necklaces. Come check out all the cool vendors and stop and say Hi!