I've been busy lately

This month has been busy with having ladies over to do crafts and learn new things together. We had a group over Saturday and we did gourmet apples for valentines day and then I had some left over chocolate to play with. I saw a great idea on a blog and decided to try it. First you put a layer of pretzels on a cookie sheet covered in wax paper. Don't worry about making the pretzels in a single layer, it doesn't matter if they overlap each other. Melt chocolate, white or dark and get ready to drizzle over the pretzels. Sprinkle valentine M & M's over the top, sprinkles and what ever you have to make it festive. I used mini chocolate chips, a heart sprinkle mix that I got at Walmart and anything else that I could find. Let cool and then break up into pieces and put into a zip lock baggie. So easy and so yummy. Kind of pretty too.
These are dollar store frames that we mod podged over the top with scrap book paper and then put glittered letters in the holes to spell words like Kiss, hugs, xoxo, Love etc. You get the idea. We did these for Christmas and they were amazingly easy and we spelled JOY, NOEL, SNOW etc. Endless possibilities.
This is so easy it's funny how cute they turn out. These are coasters made out of 4 x 4 white tiles that I purchased at Lowes for about 18 cents each. I mod podged wrapping paper to the top of them and then after they dried I sprayed them with a coat of Krylon matt finish acrylic to protect them. If I do them again I would use cardstock scrap book paper because it would be easier to mod podge on the tiles without so many wrinkles. So cute and so easy. What a fun gift for teachers, friends or neighbors at Christmas. After everything is dry you glue felt to the bottom sides to protect your furniture or you can buy thin cork in a roll and put on the bottom. The cork was expensive so I opted for the felt to keep the cost down. Tie 4 tiles together with a beautiful ribbon and there you have it!!
This was another banner that I made to take to Utah for Kandis. We have been making banners since Christmas and this is just one we did for Valentines day. We did one for Christmas and then one for Thanksgiving and now one for Valentines day. Maybe Easter will be next!!

I have to take a break now from crafting to go help Kandis with her new little baby that will be coming any day now. We are excited to welcome Vann Michael Bennion into the world soon. I will take pictures and of course I will post as soon as I can. Nixon will turn 2 while I will be visiting so the big birthday bash will be a blast to do. Again, I will take pictures and show you all how that turns out.

Our stake was split today and they formed a new Lincoln Stake which we are now a part of. All of Loomis wards and all of Lincoln wards are now the new Lincoln Stake. The new stake President is Mark Perez with Pres Brasier as 1st councilor and Mike Schmidt as 2nd councilor. It will be a great time for change and new beginnings. The church is true and we will miss all the wonderful people we have served with in the Rocklin Stake. Rocklin stake now is comprised of 2 Granite Bay wards and all of the Rocklin wards. Roseville stake is all of the roseville wards only.

Home made crayons for a birthday party

These are the bags that my friend sewed for me for the goody bags that will go in galvanized pails for the kids. It will be filled with the crayons that I made and can be used to put special things in when they are done with the crayons.
These are the crayons that I made with the candy molds. Aren't they cute??? Easy for toddlers to pick up. I just hope they won't eat the brown one thinking it is chocolate.


I put the finished crayons in a glassine bag tied with bakers twine and then I will put a little sticker that will say crayons on it. I think they are fun!

I will be going to Utah when Kandis delivers baby Vann and so I have been working on things to put on a 2nd birthday party for Nixon while I am there. We really don't know when Kandis will have this little guy so we are going to plan on having a party with or without her around. The theme for the party is Construction trucks so I made some dump truck crayons to put in with the goody pails for the kids to take home. I used a candy mold that I found on Amazon.com and then you can use old broken crayons or you can buy new ones to make them. Just make sure you get good quality crayons because I tried it with some dollar store crayons and it did not work! So bummed to have a big mess and nothing to show for it. You put the broken crayons in an aluminum backing cup in the oven at 250 until it melts completely. Usually takes around 12 to 20 minutes. Take out of the oven and pour into the candy mold and let set. If you want to speed up the process you can put them in the freezer until COLD and then pop them out. So easy and so cute. Can't wait to do it again for another party some time.

It's COLD outside

Well, it is New Years Eve and it is freezing outside. For the past 2 nights it has dipped below 30 degrees and it is really cold in the morning when I walk with Gayle. Don't I live in California??? It is the end of the year and so much to be grateful for. What a great 2011 to look forward to. We have six wonderful kids married to six great spouses and together they have given us 13 grand kids so far and number 14 will be here the first part of February! What more could a person ask for?? Sid is making changes to his dental office with going digital and he still finds more than enough days to hunt, hunt, hunt and did I mention he likes to hunt??? How much pheasant can one person eat?? Zip has turned into a wonderful companion for him and gives him lots of exercise on Friday and Saturday mornings. I will be starting a monthly craft group to get my creative juices flowing again and I plan on loosing much needed weight to look good for Cancun in May 2011. So grateful for wonderful friends and family. May we all have a healthy and prosperous new year!

A song to remember

A few weeks ago the temple president's wife asked me to sing Away in the Manger for our prayer meeting in the temple last night. I told her I would love to sing but I don't sing solo! She was not surprised and asked me to ask Susan Merrill to sing with me. I quickly sent an email to Susan and asked her to sing with me and hoped she was an alto. She said she would be glad to sing with me and she was an alto so all was going great. The week before we scheduled our breaks at the same time so we could practice in the break room together. We sang it once and called it good until this last week when we were to perform. We got to run through it once in the ladies room before we performed in front of our Tuesday evening shift. When we practiced together we were discussing how we were both so afraid to sing alone and that we were both very nervous to sing at all in front of everyone without a piano. Well, it was finally our turn to sing and we just got up and it was such a high for me to sing with Susan in the temple. The acoustics in that room are amazing and we sounded really good together. So many people were shocked to hear us sing and said we sounded like angels!! It was such an honor to sing with Susan and especially such a wonderful song about our Savior. It was a wonderful beginning to the night of work at the temple. I am so grateful for the talent of being able to sing and share this talent with others. I have truly been blessed in so many ways and thank him for this gift.

Happy News

If any of you have not heard yet, our son Joshua got accepted into Dental school at the University of Louisville!! We are so excited for him to FINALLY get in and get on with his dream of becoming a dentist. It is hard to believe that we have two sons attending dental school at this time. Jacob in West Virginia and now Josh in Kentucky. We are so proud of all of our kids and know they have worked hard in their educational goals. Mike and Christy are living with us while Mike completes his clinicals at UC Davis in Sacramento. He enjoys the experience of working with different people every day and learning new things. We love having the grandkids entertain us on a daily basis. Now that Jack is mobile we have to watch out for everything on the floor that he might get in to. We had a great Thanksgiving in Colorado visiting with Matt and Stacie and seeing our newest addition to the family Tysen. What a sweet and good baby he is. It seems all we did was eat the whole time we were there but we did have a great time. Kandis and Nic were there and Kristin and Thomas were there. Three out of six children isn't bad when they are spread out all over the USA. It was cold and windy but we flew in and out with out any problems. The time just went by to fast! I have not got the Christmas decorations out yet. I have to decorate for the ward Christmas party on the 11th and most of my things will be taken over to the church for that party. I will probably get the rest of the stuff out today and get it done. Much to be grateful for and much to look forward to.

Look What I Did

A while back I bought a hand held sander so I could sand those little benches that were in front of my house. The weather was beautiful so I decided to go for it! The sander is really great and I loved how fast it took care of the work of sanding. These are really old oak benches so they needed a lot of sanding. I think I definitely got my monies worth out of this guy.

A little tricky with all the slats but really fun to use the new tool.

Then on to painting them red! Yes, RED. I love red so I thought they would look better in red in front of the house. I can even think of ways to decorate them for Christmas now!! Anyway, they turned out really cute. It did take 2 to 3 coats of paint. We did not take a picture of the primer on the benches so that was another step in the process of getting these painted.

Finished results. I likey!

One on the left and one on the right. They are different benches but both are antiques and oak. On to the next project. Painting nightstands black. Julie Doolittle gave me some nightstands that she did not want so I said we would take them and someone would want them. Why not add them to the stuff I have in my garage?? Saw a great blog about painting and I am convinced they will be wonderful when I am done. If the weather holds up in the 70's I will tackle it soon.

Photo shoot of grandkids

Looking at something off in the distance
Ava playing hide and go seek
Look at those baby blue eyes!
We bought some cool frames from Ikea to go in the kids room so we needed some updated pictures of the kids to put in them. We dressed them up and took them out front of the house and tried to get pictures of them to put in the frames. After much effort on our part to get these two little ones to smile and look at the camera we ended up with some good ones! We had fun blowing them up to 16 X 20's and putting them in the frames! Enjoy these two little cute kids. Ava is 2 and Jack is 8 months.