Projects

It's getting toward the end of the year, so I thought that I'd do a quick recap of some of the projects that we've been working on lately. (And by lately, I mean over the past 6 months-year.)

Window Seat

This is a project that has been a long time coming. When we first build our house in 2012/2013 we fell in love with the idea of putting a window seat in this stairway. We used our money to pop out the landing area to make room for a window seat, but decided to put the seat in afterwards. I'm SO glad that we did. It took us over 3 years, but I love the way that it turned out so much more than if we had just had the builders put their standard one in. We went back and forth between open shelving and built-in-shelves and I love the way that it turned out. (The shelf across the top was a last minute addition, and I'm so glad that it happened! I absolutely love it.) It's taken a long time (months and months) to fill in the shelves, but it's really starting to come together. I have some shelves that I think are perfect and I wouldn't change at all and a few that still need work - but overall I'm really really happy with the way that everything turned out. 

 Things still on my list to finish with this project: 

-Make padded cushion for bench-seat (with matching pillows)

-Adjust a few shelf decorations to be more balanced/personal.

 Powder Bathroom

I have to admit, this project was all from my brain. David was such a champ to go along with it, because I don't think that the bare bathroom walls bothered him the same way that it bothered me. As soon as I got the picture of what I wanted it to be - I just couldn't. let. go. He humored me and basically let me just create what I wanted in my mind. We used peel-and-stick wood flooring for the wall (which turned out amazing!). I traded babysitting with a girl in my ward and she built the shelves for me. She had asked if I wanted her to teach me how to build them, and although I'm sure I could have - I honestly didn't want to. I just wanted someone to build them for me. Ha. They turned out wonderfully! I bought a Command-brand towel bar and put it below my sink so that the kids could have a towel that was their height and they'd stop pulling my hand-towel down. And I installed a glass shelf to keep the area by the mirror from looking so bare. (The glass shelf was supposed to be an easy project but there ended up being something behind the sheetrock in that corner. I accidentally drilled through it, then spent a few hours and about 8-9 test drilled holes to try to figure out what it was. I couldn't ever figure it out, so I just patched everything up and I'm hoping that it's just... fine. I really love the shelf there though.) Oh, and the Daniel Tiger Print? I designed it and I love it. 

 Things still on my list to finish with this project:  

-Put velcro, or a button or something, on the hand-towels so the kids stop pulling them down.

-Grab a few more decorations for the glass shelf/lower wall shelf. 

-A colorful rug to balance the navy/green color scheme going on plus some colorful hand towels to match.

-Eventually (like, way down the road) a new light for above the mirror. (Maybe a new mirror?)

 Sewing Projects

I've already written about some of the sewing projects I've been working on lately. Aubrey's baptism dress, Lydia & Austin Halloween costumes, some personalized pie-iron bags as a gift, even a few smaller projects thrown in as well. But I haven't ever written more than just very vague references about my two biggest projects because they were both top secret gifts. I'm updating this post before we print our blog book, so it's safe to post details now - even though this post is dated for December.

The first was a quilt that I was making with my sister. This quilt has been in the works for years, literally. Jenna started cutting the brown squares out at the beginning of 2014 (maybe even 2013?). If you look closely you can tell that each brown piece was cut out of my dad's brown Wrangler work-pants. Those pants have been on many adventures, 4-wheeler rides into the mountains, planting new deer habitats, airplane rides to count wild animals, and even the occasional moose-chase. (My Dad is the Habitat Manager for the Northern Region of the State of Utah with the Division of Wildlife Resources.) Okay, these pants have also seen countless days sitting at a desk in an office, but regardless - after they were worn out they went into a pile. Jenna and my mom decided that it would be really neat to make a quilt for my dad out of them. Jenna asked for my help in finding fabric to go with the shade of brown, but we had a really hard time - we just couldn't find anything. Last year (2015) we finally found some fabric that looked really nice and started sewing things together, hoping to have the quilt made by Christmas 2015. It didn't happen, so we said "Father's Day 2016". Obviously, that didn't happen either. We knew that we had to put the pedal to the metal (or to the linoleum, in our case) if we were going to make it happen for Christmas 2016. We really got serious and it took us a lot of crazy sewing days with four kids 4 and under, but we finished it! It turned out awesome. We even did some neat hidden pockets (where the pants pockets extend into the quilt so you can have a pocket for a remote or whatever). I think my Dad liked it, and I just hope he knows how much we appreciate all the work that he's done to provide for us though our lives. 

The second quilt that I made was actually for a birthday, not Christmas - but I told myself that I had to finish my Dad's quilt with Jenna before I could start working on this quilt. (We finished my Dad's quilt in October, which gave me just enough time to finish the kids Halloween costumes and start working on this quilt that needed to be done at the end of November for Sue's December 2nd birthday.) David's mom, Sue, is so incredibly talented at sewing and she's always so selfless with her time, energy, and money. Among many other blankets and sewing projects that she's done for us and others- When Lydia was born she made the softest, nicest blanket (out of minky fabric) and when I was pregnant with Austin, I asked if she'd make one for him too, because I loved it so much. She did and both kids have loved those blankets. She made Wendy, Amy, and I all our own adult-sized blankets of the same minky fabric. The blankets are so warm and soft and we all love them. We started talking about it this year and decided that we wanted to make her one of her very own. So we picked out fabric together, Amy came down one day and helped cut it out, and I sewed it together. It's not nearly as perfect as the ones that Sue makes, but it turned out beautifully and I think she loved it. 

Cal's Book

 Last year around Christmas-time, Sue started talking about a book that she wanted to put together for Cal. She wanted to include pictures from his life and letters from all his kids. Nothing ever happened with it, but around August/September this year she started talking about it again. David and I volunteered to help her with it and ended up being very involved in the whole process. We started by going through all of the pictures that they've taken in their 43 years of marriage. We uploaded all of the photos that they had on their computer (which was a lot- thousands and thousands) and went through them one by one to pick out the best pictures that were representative of their life. Then we moved to the printed photos and did the same thing, picking out the best photos to be scanned in. Sue would come down and we'd spend hours going through photos together! I joked that after spending so much time going through photos of David and his siblings growing up, I probably remembered their childhood better than they did. David and I spent many nights scanning pictures together. After compiling all of the photos it was time to put them together in a book. Again, Sue would come down whenever she was able (and I went up there a couple of times, but we had to time it so Cal didn't know what we were up to) and we'd work on putting the pictures together into a book. (I used Mixbook online and it worked really well for what we were trying to accomplish.) I don't even know how many hours went into this project. Easily over 100 hours. Toward the end, when we were nearing the deadline of being able to get it printed by Christmas, there were a lot of late nights working on this book - but we were committed and knew we had to get it finished! In the end, it turned out wonderfully. Maybe not perfect (like, I forgot to include my name and our wedding date on our wedding page?) but I think that it gives an incredible vision of the wonderful life that Cal has lived as well as what it was like to grow up in the Peaden Home. There are pictures, letters from each child/spouse, memories from everyone, including grandkids, and more pictures! About 333 pages worthAnd so I give you: The Life and Legacy of Calvin Peaden. 

 

 Primary

Remind me to always always always bake cookies and take them around to the Primary Presidency toward the end of the year/switch to new classes for the rest of forever. It is so much work and so hard to keep everything straight. Luckily, we have a great computer program that we use - and that helped me a ton. This picture was taken just after two o'clock in the AM because I'd had to stay up late to try to get all of our binders switched over so I could drop them off to a counselor of mine so she could finish them up and they'd be ready to hand out at church on the last Sunday of the year. I think it's always a challenge to switch over classes, but adding the fact that we have just called 28 new teachers who will be starting in January makes me feel a little overwhelmed. The Hymn "Be Thou Humble" has been a blessing to me and I frequently find myself thinking about the words:

"Be thou humble in thy weakness, and the Lord thy God shall lead thee,

Shall lead thee by the hand and give thee answer to thy prayers." 

and 

"Be thou humble in thy calling, and the Lord thy God shall teach thee

To serve his children gladly with a pure and gentle love."

Being the Primary President has been challenging and also rewarding, but the thing that has surprised me the very most is how different it has been from serving as the Secretary or as a Counselor. (The two callings that I was in right before this one.) It's not even that I'm more busy - because I was busy with both of those callings as well. It just feels more... heavy. I feel such a weight of responsibility for the people in the Primary organization, both children and adults. I've been putting in overtime in this calling with our Primary Program, Fall Festival (that the Primary was in charge of), calling 28 new teachers and getting their binders ready for the new year. It's definitely a blessing to be able to serve the Lord, and I'm gaining a testimony every day of how much He loves me and how he truly will lead me by the hand if I humble myself enough to ask for His help. That is a blessing to me. 

Project Baby

Did I mention I'm building a baby? That's right, I'm so crafty - I make people. Ha.

(This is actually a 30 week photo, taken the first week of January - but I couldn't resist adding it in at the end of the "project" post.)