Sewing Projects

Here are some of the sewing projects I mentioned in my last post.  Enjoy! 

This is the first project, a table runner.

This is Wendy helping me to figure out how to pin the two fabrics together evenly.

This is me sewing the two pieces together.  

This is the finished product with the rickrack sewn on.

 The biggest challenge with this project was trying to make everything evenly lined up.  I learned that being a perfectionist about your sewing will just make your life more stressful.

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This is the second project, a  sort of flange pillow with a velcro closure (which I had to unpick a few times, FYI velcro is NOT fun to pull stitches out of).  I also learned my lesson about putting the presser foot down BEFORE you start to sew.  

Thanks to Wendy for her help on these projects.  I know I couldn't have done it without her help and guidance. She has taught me so much about sewing!  

It's Snowing!

Hello everyone!  I hope that you are having a wonderful fall/winter so far.  We are doing very well.  I hope to have an update with pictures soon, but for now you will have to bear with me.
Cameron is doing very well at work.  He loves his job and will start school in January. (That wasn't really much of an update, but what can I say, his life is boring :) )
I am loving school even though it is crazy.  I have actually sewn two projects (try not to fall off your chair) and am learning to make many new dishes in my cooking class. 
Cameron and I are looking forward to spending the holidays with our families.  We also think it is really funny that we had our first snowfall before Halloween.
That's all for now, hopefully we will have an update with pictures very soon.  You can look forward to pumpkin carving pictures, project pictures and much more :)

Love,


Courtney

First Impressions

I'm sorry for the almost month long break from any posts, but I do have a good reason.  I have been visiting with family for the last few weeks and it has been too hectic to post.  I will do a post about those visits later, but right now I want to talk about my first impressions of the classes I am taking.

Child Development
This class is taught by Sister Olivier*.  She is a very fun lady and very approachable.  The only thing I am worried about is the huge group project we have to do.  I absolutely LOATHE group work and this particular presentation has to be 25 minutes long.  YIKES!

Money Management
This class is taught by Sister Blank.  She is a little older so she has difficulty using technology.  However, she is still a great teacher and gives practical advice for managing money.  Some of the project require a lot of work, but they will be very beneficial in the end.

Old Testament
I am taking this religion class from Brother White again.  (Same teacher, different class).  He is an amazing teacher, as always.

Women's Health
Sister Rickman teaches this class.  She is such a sweet lady, very open and approachable.  I am very excited about this class.  There are a LOT of different project including training for an athletic event and writing a report about four or five different women.  I think that this class will be amazing.

Introduction to Foods
Sister Float teaches this class.  I don't have such a good impression of her.  She doesn't like to answer questions that she might have very briefly mentioned in class.  If a student comes for a clarification she will tell them to look it up or to ask a peer.  However, besides this she seems very knowledgeable and ready to teach.  The work for this class seems very daunting, but split up into chunks it doesn't look so hard.

Home Decor
This class is taught by Sister Pimpernel.  She is the sweetest lady, very willing to answer every question.  She accepts all skill levels into her classroom.  This class honestly terrifies me because I don't know how to sew very well at all.  My first instinct was to drop the class and get the heck out of there, but I am going to finish it no matter what.  There are four or five major project, but class time is set aside to work on them.

How Our Family Has Grown

I was going to write this post for our anniversary but I did not have the necessary inspiration.  So, here goes.
Ways Our Family Has Grown:
1) We no longer live in a five foot apartment.
2) We have learned to use a budget and it has blessed our life in so many ways. 
3) We have turned our "in-laws" into our friends.
4) We had several wonderful house guests, Shane, Landon and Tawnee all lived with us for a short amount of time.  This allowed all of us to become better friends.
5) Cameron's family experienced a great trial, but we were all able to get through it.
6) I was able to get back into college and continue my education.  This has changed my life in so many ways. 
7) Cameron was also able to get into college for the winter semester.  He is so excited!!
8) We got called to be Primary teachers and we LOVE our class.
9) My Dad's side of the family had a bazillion funerals in a row.  Both our great aunt and great grandmother passed away.  It was great to see all of our extended family but I wish it could have been under different circumstances.
10)We have learned to appreciate our families more than ever.  Absence really does make the heart grow fonder.
11) I have expanded my cooking repertoire and learned not to be afraid to try something new.  This has allowed for some variety in our diet.
12) I have grown more in love with Cameron than I ever thought possible. He has been my support, my confidante and my best friend. 

Wadsworth Family Weekend

No post for ten days, I bet you were all shocked!  This past weekend, Cameron and I went to his parent's house for Landon's tae kwon do testing.  We gathered together as a family....And as Brett.  Heidi's boyfriend Brett also came down to visit with us.  He was a lot of fun!  He actually teaches tae kwon do at his own studio.  We went to the zoo, had an epic water fight and helped out (as an entire family) at nursery.  Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I will let pictures tell the rest of the story.

 

It was such a fun weekend! By the way, the reason that I only have a few pictures is because I only had a camera for the last day.  I will have to post more pictures when I get them from Melissa.
Car Update:  Dun da da dun!!  Our car is (FINALLY) fixed!  YAY!  Now we can move on with our lives.  Apparently, the computer in the car was broken, which caused a short somewhere else (side note: this is probably all wrong but it is what I remember him saying).  It makes me so happy that we have our car back (even if it cost a fortune)!

What Shall I Do?

I am going crazy while I don't have school to keep me busy!  Any ideas?
Also, why is it that if one person does something it's totally lame, but if another person does it (who is popular) it is viewed as a revelation and immediately copied by everyone in the vicinity?  I thought this was just something that happened in high school but I've noticed that it is carried on through our entire lives.  How silly is that? We emulate celebrities and feel bad if we don't look exactly like them.  We are always trying to be someone else.  Well, I'm here to tell you:  "YOU are awesome!  YOU are somebody worth being!  There is no one else out there who can do what you do.  You are just as great as anyone, and God loves you!"
Now could someone convince me of this?






Love,



Courtney

How Sweet It Is

Today is the anniversary of the day I married my best friend.  I can't believe we have been married for two years now!  Even though it hasn't been the easiest two years of our life, it has been the best.  Thanks to my family for shaping me into the wife I am today.  We didn't get to do a lot for our anniversary because the car we were borrowing kept overheating.  But, we still had a lot of fun.  Cameron says that he has secret plans that will take place after the car is fixed.  On Sunday Tawnee (Cameron's sister) gave us a very beautiful and delicious dinner.  She made these yummy pudding parfaits with a Junior Mint on top.  They were very good.  I didn't really take a lot of pictures because I didn't want to creep out her roommate.  The table was set up very nicely with our wedding colors and candles.  It was a very fun evening.
Car Update:  The mechanic still doesn't know what's wrong with our car but he is lending us a car to use.  This relieves a lot of stress.  We no longer have to beg for rides or try to use Tawnee's car that will not drive for more than 2 miles without overheating.  Yay!
In other news packing is going very nicely and I am glad to do it gradually rather than in one week like we usually do.
Thanks  for reading!

Love,


Courtney

If I Only Had A Car...

No significant updates for now, our car is still in the shop.  The mechanics have been waiting for it to break so they can fix it.  That sounds like crazy talk to me, but what do I know.  I can't tell a radiator from a Disney character.  But I can tell you this, if I don't get the car back soon I'm going to go crazy!
Actually, I just remembered an important update!  I got my grades back a few days ago, and I did pretty well.  These grades will allow me to get off of academic probation and not have any credit restrictions.  (YES!)  I feel very proud of myself because I know that I did my best, which is more important than any grade.   It has been such a struggle to get back into school and return to my education.  Now that I am finally "a normal student" I can start to reap the benefits.  I know that this will help me to be a better wife and mother.

Conversations in Primary

 Cameron and I teach the six-seven year old kids in Primary and I'm pretty sure we have the most adorable class EVER!  We usually have three or four kids in our class.  They are all sweet and cute, they say the darndest things.  They all have very different personalities but they all bring something to our class.  This post is some of the cute things that they and the other kids in Junior Primary say.  I hope you enjoy!

Conversations in Church

As I’m sure it would be creepy to post the names of people without their permission on my blog (especially kids) I will refer to people by number in order to differentiate.  There is something you must know about Primary kid #1, she is very….enthusiastic.  She loves to answer every question and make sure that she is heard.  This sometimes drowns out the other children, they usually just nod and smile to whatever she says.

Me:  Does anyone know the story of when Jesus fasted for 40 days?

Primary Kid #1:  Yeah, that’s when Satan tried to get Jesus to eat rocks!

Primary Teacher #1:  (Trying to teach an article of faith).  Who knows what a principle is?

Random Primary Kid:  That’s the man who is in charge of the school!

Me:  The chapel doors seem to say to me….

Primary Kid #2:  BE QUIET!

Random Primary Kid:  Please bless us to have a super-de-duper Sunday…

Cameron:  Who are some people that we can share with?

Assorted Primary kids:  Our brothers, our sisters, etc.

Primary Kid #1:  We can’t share with our house because it doesn’t have a mouth!

Random Primary Kid:  I LOVE candy!

Primary Teacher #2:  What is the best way we can show our gratitude?

Random Primary Kid:  Saying thank you is the best thing you can do!

Other Random Primary Kid:  No!  Flying is the best!

Me:  What are some gifts that Heavenly Father gives us?

Primary Kid #1:  I wish I had a piñata so I could eat candy…

A Little Bit Of This, A Little Bit Of That

This post is basically a bunch of pictures that I need to put up from the last few months.  Enjoy.

I think this is when we visited Cameron's parents a few months ago.

Landon showing Cameron some Tae-Kwon-Do moves.

Landon and Tawnee playing with assorted "weapons".

Tawnee and Landon fencing.  

Cameron swinging on these amazing swings they have at Tautphus park.  Seriously, the most amazing park EVER.

These pictures are from Jake's farewell, which was amazing.  He did an awesome job on his talk and I know he is being a great missionary.  Everyone who couldn't be there really missed out.  Unfortunately, I don't have many pictures of the main man.  Sorry Jake!

Everyone playing Balderdash, which is a really fun game.  If you ever visit Wendy and Jeff, you know what I'm talking about.  So.  Much.  Fun.

Gerald's bun mustard face.

Tobie, Wendy and Kaitlin.  You guys all look so cute!

Kierstin keepin' it real.  It was so great to meet her fiance (now husband).

These pictures are from when we visited Cameron's parents in June.

Jenni trying to kill Tawnee.

This picture is from Aunt Anita's funeral. 

Cameron looks so cute!!


These pictures are all kind of random, so I thought I would post them all together.

Car Update:  The mechanic gave us our car back because he apparently can't find anything wrong with it.  (Right...)  So basically we have to wait for it to break down again and then call him to come pick us up.  Okey-dokey.  That makes perfect sense, why didn't I think of that?  Anyway, hopefully our car will break down soon so they can fix it.  Does anyone else think this sounds crazy?

End Of The Semester

I just finished writing my last paper of the semester.  I am done with school...Until September that is.  I can't believe it is already over!  I had a great time and I will miss every one :(  I learned so much from all of my teachers and from the students as well.  Don't get me wrong, I am happy to have a break and be able to wake up at a decent hour, but I will miss my classes.  I just wanted to take a minute to thank my classmates and teachers for all that they do.  I also wanted to take a quick second and review all of my classes for posterity, it will probably be pretty boring, so feel free to scroll down to the end for more updates.

First up is HFED 100 otherwise known as the Essentials for Human Nutrition.  This class was taught by Sister Dollar* who did an excellent job.  Unfortunately, this was her last semester so none of you will be able to take her class.  I really enjoyed learning a general overview of the topic of nutrition.  This class is a good way to get a general feel for the clinical field of nutrition and a basic understanding of vitamins, minerals, eating disorders, nutrition during the life cycle (pregnancy, old age, young children etc.) and how to have a healthy body.  This class had a few projects that were tedious, but most of them were really helpful.  There is one group project that I really didn't like, but I don't like group projects in general.  I would recommend this class to anyone who wants to know a little bit more about how to eat healthy.

The next class is FDREL 122 aka Book of Mormon 2.  This class was taught by Brother White*.  He is an awesome teacher!  He is one of my favorite religion teachers on campus.  He is pretty strict about cellphones, but his expectations are very clear.  This class did not have any tests, the only thing I had to do was do the assigned reading and write in a journal about it.  That's it.  I loved this class a lot!  It is a required class on campus, so I would recommend this class to everyone!

The third class is HFED 112 or Nutrition and Young Children.  This class was taught by Sister Chef* who was a great teacher.  She sometimes would get distracted by random tangents but overall she was a pretty good teacher.  We had to do three or four discussion boards, which I hated, but they weren't too bad.  There were a few projects that were a little ridiculous.  For example, we had to write out a menu according to CACFP regulations which included writing down the price of EVERY food.  Yeah, ridiculous right?  But I learned a lot from her lectures, if not from the projects.  Sometimes she was a little disorganized when it came to certain things, which was confusing, but everything worked out.  I would recommend this class to future/current mothers, it teaches a lot about children and mealtime.  Overall, I liked this class a lot, but it was a little crazy sometimes.

The next class is FAML 300 or Marriage.  This class was taught by Brother Soupfreckle* who was an amazing teacher!  One of the best things about this class was that he allowed the class to do a lot of the teaching through comments.  He also had panels of people come in to discuss topics like being married with young children and marriage after ten plus years.  The assignments consisted of keeping a personal journal with the reading, three or four short papers, enrichment assignments and one big ten hour project with a presentation.  The enrichment assignments were sometimes hard, but totally worth it.  The focus of this class is to be able to use the assignments to improve your life in the future.  I would recommend this class to everyone, married or single.  I think the teacher made a big difference in the effectiveness of this class, and he did a really great job.

The last class (I heard you say hallelujah) is FDSCI or Science 101 taught by Brother Rooster* who did an excellent job of keeping the Spirit present during class.  This class was really difficult for me but that was because I'm not really that into science.  The students in my particular class would purposely drive the discussion away from the topic at hand and more towards random subjects.  This made it so that we did not always cover all of the material in class.  There was a class prep due every morning that usually required a bit of reading and sometimes very long videos.  It was a lot of work for a class preparation assignment. The tests were also pretty hard, but not so hard if you use the study guide he sometimes gave out (on the last day the test was up...)  If this class wasn't required for graduation, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.  This teacher was pretty good, but sometimes disorganized. I think the students were really the ones who made this a bad experience.

All in all I had a great semester and I have really learned that you get out of a class what you chose to put into it.

Car Update:  This update is not really an update but an expression of frustration that a shop cannot even find out what is wrong with our car!  I am so grateful to all the people who have helped with our car, you have been awesome.  I just wish our car would get its rear in gear and start behaving.  That's all I have to say about THAT subject.  

I think this is all I will be able to write for today (because my brain is fried) but I wanted to give you a few posts to look forward to:
1.  Conversations posts, little funny snippets we hear around us in church, at school and anywhere else.
2.  More picture posts from the holidays that I need to catch up on.
3.  10 or more things I learned this semester
4.  Breakthrough/Epiphany Post

Thanks for reading my blog and congratulations for making it all the way to the bottom!

Love,

Courtney

*All names have been changed to protect the innocent, if you really want to know the name of the teacher you can email me.

Easter 2012

Here are some pictures from this Easter.  Cameron and I went over to his parent's house.  Melissa, Heidi and Jenni were there, but we missed having Shane.  We had lots of fun!  At the end of the day we watched Ben-Hur, I hadn't seen it since I was little.  

The Boise Girls :) 

Tawnee and her bunny ears.

The bunny twins!

These are the most beautiful dyed eggs in the history of Easter.  I wish we could have been there for it!

CUTE!

The Easter baskets before the egg hunt.  We watched Tangled while Mom, Dad and Melissa hid the eggs.

Post-Egg Hunt

Landon's treats

Sister Birthday

My wonderful sister turned 16 (a few months ago…but we don’t talk about that) and I wanted to dedicate this post to her.  Here are 16 things that I love about her…

1.        She can make me laugh no matter what is going on.

2.       I know I can always count on her to tell me the truth about how an outfit looks or my hair.

3.       We can stay up late laughing about things that don’t even make sense.

4.       Our inside jokes can make us crack up and not stop laughing for several hours and no one will understand why we are laughing.  Please bless the food….   Girls, girls, the pool is closed…  And so many more.

5.       She is real with me.   I can talk to her about anything.

6.       We can have fun no matter where we are or what we are doing (black Friday).

7.       She is the master debater and I cannot win an argument with her to save my life.

8.       Midnight Wal-Mart runs and other things that are more fun after midnight.

9.       Her visit to Rexburg last year.  It was epic.  Scraping up change, egg fights, wii games, milkshakes and late night karaoke, need I say more?

10.   She always takes my side.

11.   She has so many talents!  One day we will show the world how crafty she is!  She is also an amazing dancer and she tried to teach me one time when we were playing Just Dance…That didn’t work out so well.  She is also a champion debater as I mentioned before.  She is also a great cook and so many other things.

12.   I know that I just mentioned talents but I think that this deserves its own number.  My sister is an amazing photographer!  She does such a great job, no matter what her subject is.  I wish I had some examples to show, but I can do that in later posts when I can find my SD card.

13.   How she is able to make my hair look good no matter what.

14.   She always looks fabulous.

15.   *Blink* *Blink*

16.   She always puts me before anything else when I come to visit.  She makes sure that she is home with me and that we are able to spend time with each other. 

I am so grateful for my sister.  Writing this list has made me miss her even more than I already did.  You are the best sister in the entire world.  No person could ever take your place in a bazillion years

Back Again, Back Again, Jiggity Jig

I have been putting off posting for a long time because I am so far behind.  But I am tired of waiting to catch up, so you will have to be patient as I put up holiday updates and other updates as I can.  How often in life do we do that though, put off things because we feel like we are too far behind to catch up?  I can only speak for myself, but I do that quite often.  Why do we do that?  It only puts us further behind and leaves us more overwhelmed.  Cameron said something that I think really applies to this scenario, “Any journey can be accomplished even if you only start out with baby steps.”  What an encouraging statement!  Even if we are only taking baby steps, we can still accomplish something.  Another quote that I really like is, “Even if you are moving slowly, you are still lapping the people on the couch.”  How true! 

Okay, preachy Courtney is going away.  Now for some news:  Our car is broken.  Yay….I really, really don’t like car problems because I feel so helpless.  I literally know NOTHING about cars so I can’t really contribute to their repair at all.  Oh well, we can’t know everything, right?  I hope you are having a great day!

Randomness or I'M STUCK!

I thought I would post some random pictures and also a few things I've been thinking about.
**Warning** **Warning**  **Possible negativity coming up** **Warning**
I have been contemplating where my life is.  I feel like I am not moving forward.  My life has become stagnant and I don't want it to be that way.  Does anyone else feel this way?  Anyways, ahem, sorry about that.  Here are a few pictures of things that have been going on in our life.

Yummy cupcakes we made for Valentine's Day :)

Aunt Kathy's Brownies :)  Y-U-M!  Except a messed up a teeny bit :)  Added twice as much buttermilk as it needed... Whoops!

Cameron wearing a crown.  :)  We went to this really fun party store just to look around :)

Our new entertainment center!  Ignore all of the clutter on top :)

Navajo tacos!  They ended up having waaaay too much salt in them!  I need a new recipe!  Any takers?

That's what's been going on in our life!  I hope that you are having a great day!  

Love,

Courtney 

Time Flies

I can't believe that time has flown so fast!  So many things have passed the "year mark" and I just can't believe it!  I just wanted to share this with you, I know it is quite random :)  I don't really have anything to report, so have a great day!

New Recipes

With all the company here, I have been trying LOTS of new recipes.  I thought I would share some of my favorites.  The first one is a recipe from a certain Italian restaurant I'm sure you are familiar with.  This is a recipe for their fettuccine alfredo here.   I originally got this recipe from an unnamed source.  I also added about a cup of mozzarella cheese, per instructions from said source.   Another recipe that I really enjoyed was for a white chicken enchilada casserole, you may find that link here.  The first recipe is a little harder because you have to stir it constantly, but the second one is easy peasy.  It was written as a crock pot recipe, but I just put it in a casserole dish and baked it at 350 for about 20 minutes.  Thanks to Alyson for giving me the ever so helpful tip about allrecipes.com.  Also, to Rachel for telling me how to do the link thingy!  Thanks as well to that unnamed source (you know who you are).  Finally, thanks to my family for being very brave guinea pigs!

Love,


Courtney

Guests

Right now Cameron's parents are here!  YAY!  It is really fun to have them here.  I have been expanding my culinary horizons and trying new food with them here.  They have been mostly successful :)

Love,

Courtney

Blessings :)

I feel so happy and grateful when I look back at the last few years.  Things were rough starting out but they have improved so much thanks to Heavenly Father's loving care.  I can't believe I have been married for over a year and a half!!  Life has gone by so fast!  Today we are going to get some new bookshelves for our house, and hopefully a shoe organizer.  Needless to say, a trip to DI is in order.  So many exciting things are happening in these next few months.  I get to have a visit from my cute cousins.  My Dad and family are coming to visit (I wish Mom was coming sometime too :()  I can't wait!!  I hope everyone has a happy Valentine's Day tomorrow!

Love,



Courtney

Yikes!

Hello everyone!  We finally go all of our stuff out of the unit (yay!).  Now it is all around our house with no place to go (boo!).  Oh well... It's been really fun finding all of the stuff we haven't seen in months! :)  I love it!  I can't stand this place being all messy though, so  I need to get cracking!  Yay for cleaning.... :D

Love,


Courtney

A Festival, a New Year and a New Start :)

Hello all!  I just wanted to post a quick update.  This week we get to have Jenni, Cameron's sister, stay with us. We are having a LOT of fun doing nothing.  Later on in the week we actually have quite a few fun things planned.  On Sunday we are celebrating our very own holiday, we are calling it a Winter Festival.  We are each in charge of making a dish, and I'm sure they will all be very delicious.  We will also each be reading a fairy tale of our choice and later on we will watch The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe.  It has been really fun creating our own holiday and I can't wait to see how it turns out!  On Monday we are going to celebrate Chinese New Year by watching the Disney classic Mulan.  Also, on Monday we are going to empty (hopefully) our storage unit.  We can finally have all of our stuff OUT of there!  YAY!  I can't wait!

Love,

Courtney

Politics

I normally don't get involved in politics because they usually lead to arguing etc. etc.  So if you don't like politics either, you can skip over this post.  Anyway, there are two bills gong through the House and the Senate that seriously undermine our first amendment rights.  These will completely change the internet as we know it.  Basically it will make it so that any website that is hosting "illegal" content will be blacklisted by the government.  I know this sounds like a good thing, but this means that search engines like google and yahoo will be shut down.  It also means sites like youtube and pinterest will also go down because they will have videos/links that are being used illegally.   This could be something as simple as using a picture from one of your favorite movies or a video of someone singing the happy birthday song. Today a few sites (such as wikipedia and mozilla) are shutting down to protest this bill.  I don't have a website to shut down, so I decided to do my own protest by sharing information about this.  What do you think about these bills?

Questions.....

I am trying to find some new recipes to try out.  We are getting tired of eating the same old thing every week.  Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Courtney

A Post (Finally)

I hope that everyone had an amazing holiday break.  I know that we did, besides a few little mishaps with our heater, it was lovely.  Cameron's sister Tawnee is living with us right now, and we LOVE having her!  Right now we are doing a winter reading program at our library and that has been really fun!  This program requires you to expand your horizons in the reading department and it is fun to learn about new things.  Nothing else new is really going on in our lives, but I thought I would post this little update.


Love,

Courtney