Fun in Boise

We had such a great time in Boise! While Nathan and his brothers and Dad were having a blast golfing and attending the BYU game, we were doing all sorts of fun things in Boise. Easton was absolutely enamored with Grandpa Seibel and just had to do every single thing that he did. All day.

We spent our first day hiking in the Boise foothills. Easton LOVES hiking. Since my dad was on call for work we couldn't go hiking in the mountains but he didn't care. But he does want to know where the roads are to get up to the mountains, so Nathan and I are planning on taking him hiking for reals sometime soon before the weather gets too cold. Lincoln loved it too but he tripped and fell a lot and it was pretty hot. Next year I"m sure he'll do a lot better.

Our next day we went to the old train depot in Boise. It has a beautiful view with gardens and a pond with huge koi and of course, an old train. The kids loved it. I LOVEd playing there as a kid so its fun to take them there too.

While Lincoln and I were napping my dad set up his old Lionel electric train set for Easton. Easton was seriously in love. He played with it for about 6 hours. Not kidding. He was so careful with the trains and just loved to watch it go around and around. Now he wants an electric train for his birthday....great. I'm going to be up to my eyeballs in trains!!

Sunday was church and then on Monday while my mom and sister and I were shopping Easton stayed at home with grandpa. They set up the tent in the backyard and then my dad taught him how to pick green beans. Easton wanted to even try the green beans that he picked that night for dinner. That's pretty huge for Easton. He also wanted to try a tomato in from the backyard. He didn't like either of them, but it gives me hope that as he watches us grow our own food he will want to try them more and more and learn that most food is pretty darn good :)

There are seriously so many pictures to go through because my sister is a great photographer and I keep telling her she needs to buy a good camera and work on that talent!

Education Week

We had such a blast at BYU Education Week! It was SO fun to see Alicia and Camille again and to experience BYU again as well. Unfortunately since we keep having babies and you can't take babies into the classes we won't be able to do it every year but hopefully we'll be able to do it often!

I just can't tell you how much I loved being back on campus. We were exhausted every day from walking around so much. I don't really know how I ran 5 miles every day and then walked all around campus every single day. I didn't even do any real exercise for the 3 days we were there but I felt like walking around was enough! We ate some YUMMY food. We ate at the Sky Room - where as soon as we had gone through the buffet and sat down to eat it the fire alarm in the Wilk went off and we had to exit the building. We were starving! We ate at the Creamery on 9th (twice) - super delicious hamburgers and FRIES. And we ate at the Museum of Art Cafe - delicious. Alicia insisted that we eat a Krispy Kreme donut and if you know anything about Alicia you'd know this isn't something she normally does...so we had to document it. I think all the junk Alicia ate on Monday did some damage to her body since she had to stay home the next day because she um...got sick.

We got to walk down past the Riviera apartments where Nathan and I both lived when we met and that was fun for me. I'm a little nostalgic. But it was all to get to the DownEast tent sale at the Glenwood apartments where EVERYTHING was $5. Dresses, tops, you name it! Whoop whoop!!

Alicia introduced us to Plato's closet which I am now in LOVE with. I got some Hudson jeans for $45 that don't look like they've been worn one day and some black boots for $11. Can't beat it!

We thoroughly enjoyed our classes, although both Camille and I fell asleep numerous times becau
se our pregnant bodies couldn't handle the late nights spent talking and the early mornings trying to rush out the door, the walking around, and NO scheduled naps! We were all glad that we couldn't stay for the whole week. We were pooped!

Love this picture in front of the library.

Our last hoorah at the Creamery. Look closely...we are TIRED. The girl on the left is Alicia's sister in law, p.s. :)

Lookin' snazzy at the MOA. Since we didn't get a sleepy picture of her..she gets this one.

Thanks ladies for a wonderful time!!! Education week 2012? Oh ya and hopefully I'm not pregnant since seriously I laid around all day trying to recover. This pregnant girl had WAY too much fun!

Quilt Retreat

I have been meaning to blog about this forever but I still haven't gotten the pictures from April. (hint hint). Luckily I snapped a few on the last day just for fun. We had the first Judd Quilt Retreat at Uncle Charles' cabin. It was a blast! I was lucky enough to even go. My sister called at the last minute and offered to babysit for me since Nathan was out of town. I was tentative to ask my sisters at first but when they said they actually wanted to...I jumped at the chance! So I drove down on Monday night and got there at 11pm. I was fully expecting to be able to go to bed (hello my pregnant self was tired) but as soon as I got there Nathan's Aunt Sharon told me to get a drink, get a snack, and get my sewing machine and get started! Yikes! I think I stayed up sewing until about 12:30 or 1, but I was lucky enough to get a bunkbed in the room where we set up all of the machines and people were sewing until at least 2 or 3. I don't even know. I wasn't able to fall asleep until they stopped and then I woke up at 5 the next morning and needed to pee so bad but I didn't know how to get down from my bunkbed without falling! (i found out there was a ladder at the end of the bed that was covered up with quilt instructions...cool)

Almost everyone was working on either a lap quilt or queen sized quilt that they all started and finished there. I was SO impressed. A few of the girls had never quilted before ever! I made a table runner that was kind of a little side project for the group and I worked on my Book of Mormon quilt and I GOT IT FINISHED!!! WOOHOO!!! I literally worked all day until about midnight until i just couldn't move anymore. I fell right to sleep I was so tired. I found out the next morning that my mother in law and Sharon stayed up til 3:30 or 4 in the morning working on their quilts. Now that is dedication! Anyway, I finished my quilt the next day and it is off to the quilters! I can't wait to hang it up in my house.

It was seriously so fun yet SO exhausting but I loved every minute of it. I went running with Cheryl in the mornings with beautiful scenery to keep us going, we had AMAZING food (hello those Judds can cook) and awesome company. I hope they do another one!

I can't figure out how to separate and arrange the pictures better but here is what it looked like in the basement, the beautiful sunset view from the cabin, more sew-ers, and a sample of the quilt tops people did. Everyone's fabric was so different and it all came out looking awesome. I couldn't choose a favorite.

Something I love about Utah

It's really happening...

Last night I got together with some friends to say good bye. I hate goodbyes and I hate parties for me...I hate being the center of attention...but it was so great to see everyone (even though there are still people I want to see but I don't know if its going to happen). I have been blessed with so many amazing friends here and I will miss them so much. Hopefully I can find new friends that are at least half as awesome.



I bought these items for the piano room for our new house. I love the colors! Now if I could only figure out what else to do with the rest of the first floor!

Cousin Fun

Sunday was Nathan's 29th birthday. I am a terrible wife and didn't make him a cake. But I had gotten home at 4:00 the day before, and that is hardly enough time! I made him whatever dessert he wanted though for family dessert night and to celebrate. He chose this one. Totally yummy, totally sugary, and a lot of preservatives, but who cares! Its delicious!

I'm sad that I didn't get a picture of him blowing out his one candle. Yep. 1 candle. Since he only has one year left til he turns 30. I can't believe it! I love Nathan and I'm so glad he is stuck with me forever. He is the icecream to my cobbler...er or whatever metaphor you want to use! :)

We always have fun at family dessert night. The cousins have a blast. Here's a shot of them playing on the starfall website. It was too funny. I love that Lincoln wants in on the action. I'm not sure how long we'll all live by each other and I'm so grateful that we do. It is so fun!

this is for my mom :)

So my sister in law is a master at altering clothes and adding cute embellishments on them...so after getting my sewing machine I wanted to try my hand at it. PLUS since I don't have girls I need to learn how to accessorize myself, something I am not good at.

I love this one. I burned the edges on it to give it the curled look.

This is my first attempt at a gathered flower

For this I bought a large tank top from old navy for $2. I cut it down to my size and used the scraps to make the flowers.

It's definitely addicting and fun! It's cool to create something unique and totally yours. I'm excited to keep learning this!

Oh and here is an example of the Book of Mormon quilt I am doing. It goes from this

see how there is an outline on this star?

to this:

All of the edges are tucked in

FUN! although maybe I'm doing too much at once?

back safe, home again!

We got home from our 2 week vacation last night. We had soooo much fun and we are so sad that it's over. I guess it can't last forever though because then it wouldn't be fun and exciting!

Here are some pictures of what we did (BRACE YOURSELF!):

We had the traditional gingerbread making house contest "dream house" style. Boys against girls this year. It was so much fun.

The Boys Gingerbread Dream House.

The Girls (a.k.a. the WINNERS)


Inside our gingerbread house

I got all pictured here for $1 - Yes ONE DOLLAR total - at Old Navy. I have never ever heard of a 10 cent rack in my life! There isn't really a lot I can actually wear here, but I'm hoping that I can use my nifty new sewing machine alter some of them so that I can wear them, or just use it for fabric!

Santa Claus even made it to St. George to visit the kids. Easton was freaked out at first, but then he was bouncing off the walls and thought Santa Claus was hilarious. He asked him for Cranky the Crane (the only thomas character that I think we didn't buy him...oh well we told Easton that Santa Claus ran out. hehe)

Elizabeth made her famous Christmas Candy Cane pastries on Christmas morning

Easton got a whole bunch of Thomas stuff. He is in Train Heaven

Lincoln got a tricycle, although Easton thinks its his

This is exactly what it says it is. How cool is that? My father in law somehow got a piece of the granite from the Salt Lake Temple when they were making it earthquake safe. Sow now we each have a piece!

I was so thankful that at least one of his cousins wanted to play trains with Easton. Thanks Grace!

Grandpa and the cousins playing with a racetrack

Nathan surprised me with a one night stay in Vegas at the PLanet Hollywood. It was soooo nice to get away just for a short while and enjoy time without the kids. We were able to go to the spa, eat at Pink's Hotdogs, walk around the strip, window shop, and eat at a delicious buffet before heading home in the morning. I love Nathan.

Inside the Bellagio hotel. If you've never seen it, it's beautiful. They had it decorated for Christmas. Everything is always made out of flowers.

Nathan had never seen the fountains before, it was pretty cool, although I thought the songs were lame. I was wanting it to play Clair De Lune.

Dinner was Pink's Hotdogs. I've been to the original one in Hollywood and although the atmosphere was totally different, it was still delicious food!

When we were walking around the hotel I spotted 3 guys in black cowboy hats on the level above us. Planet Hollywood has the "America's Got Talent" show going on right now and I instantly thought that it had to be the "Texas Tenors" from last season. So we go up there and there are like 5 different contestants from last season. I was too embarrassed to get a picture with them, Nathan almost got a picture with Jerry Springer, but I was just too embarrassed! So here are the two we did get though:

this guy


and this guy (the overall winner)