Christmas at the Mathatas'

Our Tree is about 12 inches tall

A Nativity my Mom helped me make last year

The Reason for the Season

I can't very well put these giant ornaments on our tiny tree, now, can I?!

Starting a Village

James has 5 stockings, I have 1

A banner I saw on a really cool blog.  So easy and fast!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

My Version of a Refashion Tutorial

I am obsessed with refashions.  I have spent lots of time checking out people's ideas on their blogs, because I think it's so smart to take things you don't wear anymore and make it into something you *might.*  I am too intimidated by all the really good refashionistas to show many of my attempts, but here is a fun little tutorial. 

Have a sweater that you don't wear anymore because it makes you feel short and wide?

(Forgot to take a picture before I started hacking stuff off)

Have a hat that shrunk and doesn't fit your giant noggin anymore?

(which you could you use to trace a pattern)

Have a ball of yarn sitting around that doesn't really match but it's close enough?

With a little time, you too could stitch up a hat and gloves by hand because you're too impatient to wait until you can get to your Mom's house to borrow her sewing machine!

You could also take an awkward "myspace" picture of you in the hat.

Lair o' the Bear

 

Yesterday I was thinking we were working at the temple but James reminded me that it was a 5th Saturday, not 1st or 3rd, so naturally, I wanted to go hiking.  I was thinking we could go hike Carpenter Peak, a 6.4 mile hike, but it only gains 1000 feet.  James wasn't having it, he convinced me to go to Lair o' the Bear, which is a small park near Morrison, CO.  It has a bunch of little trails, and we did find a good one that goes along the creek, but if I was to guess the name of the park, it would be "Lair o' the Bicyclists" because they were passing us every 3 minutes or so.  Most of them said, "On your left," but I don't think I'll go back there unless I have a bike, because it's kind of annoying when you're walking a dog to have to keep checking over your shoulder for them to come zooming by.  It was nice, though.  James got some good pictures of the creek.  I was thinking we would still see some fall leaves, but they are almost gone in the mountains. 

My Quilt

This is the quilt I have been working on (with my Mom's help and fabric).  It turned out so good, I love it.  We have it covering a window in our bedroom that the sun shines through in the morning, making it impossible to sleep past 6:30am during the summer. 

I followed an Art-to-Heart pattern by Nancy Halvorsen that my Mom had. 

Conference Weekend

I forgot I had all these pictures that we took while spending Conference Weekend with Laura and Jeff, my parents and Jeff's parents in Utah.  We had a great time.  We drove there Thursday after work so we got in pretty late.  We got to stay in Laura and Jeff's new place, which is really nice.  If we ever move there and they move away, we want to rent there.  Friday we went to see my old roommate Emily, and got to meet her kids and see her new house.  It was really nice to see her and made me miss old times back in college.  Wish I had taken pictures of that.  Then we went to the Jordan River Temple, which was beautiful.  We are starting to consider ourselves connoisseurs of temples, we keep trying to go to ones we haven't been to before.      

We also went to my mission reunion on Friday night, which was really nice.  We got to see President Foulger and some of the missionaries I served with.  It is weird because I had two mission presidents, and both for about half of my mission.  So the last reunion I went to was with President Banks and I felt kind of young at that one, but at this one with President Foulger, I felt really old because some missionaries had just got home and I've been home for 3 1/2 years now.  Wow, I am old.  Wish I had taken pictures of this, too.

Saturday morning we watched Conference at home, then went to Salt Lake because we had tickets to the afternoon session.  We had pretty good seats and it was a great session.  We really enjoyed the family choir during that session.  Laura and Jeff and my parents both came but Mom and Dad came up separate from us because we didn't all fit in the same car and they had better seats than us.  So I don't have a picture of them.  

 

Working on it

I've been working on losing weight, with some success.  I have lost 5 lbs in 3 weeks!  This is very exciting because most of the time when I try to lose weight, I just don't, or the "trying" period only lasts a couple weeks and I forget about it, or I get sick and stop working out, etc.  I think what's working is I am really trying to make sure I eat less calories than I expend, exercising a few times throughout the day, and I have been (privately) blogging it, which keeps me on track.  If anyone is interested in reading my "weight loss blog," please comment and I will invite you to view it.     

Maxwell Falls

James and I hiked Maxwell Falls on Labor Day morning with some friends, John and Ashley, with their daughter Lindsay, and Aaron and Rachael. It was the perfect day for a hike. It was kind of cool but also sunny and dry. The hike was beautiful, I would definitely recommend it as a nice, easy, but beautiful hike. We got pretty close to the Falls, which weren't huge but nice. Afterwards we ate at Beau Jo's Pizza in Evergreen which was delicious. I am loving hiking in Colorado, especially at this time of year. I can't wait to go up when the leaves start changing!

The Best Things About Fall

My Favorite Things About Fall/Late Summer

1. Peaches!!!
2. Wearing sweaters
3. Sweat pants to bed
4. Particularly Crunchy Leaves
5. Aspens changing colors
6. Cool, crisp air

Okay, my list was longer and more cool when it was in my head a couple days ago.

James' Birthday Cake

I made James a Modern Warfare 2 cake for his birthday, as much as it pained me. Just kidding, it was kind of fun, they were just the ugliest icing colors I have ever mixed. I did replicas of some of his favorite guns from the game on the side, which I was the most proud of and kept asking James if they look like the real thing. It was all done with buttercream, if I knew how to do fondant it might have looked better or been easier, I don't really know.

P.S. It was a confetti cake mix with the confetti canned frosting for filling.

James has abandoned us

Last night while I was sleeping (at 10pm on a Friday night), James decided to go rogue and start his own blog. I guess the brown and pink title and all the posts about cakes and girly emotions didn't really make him feel like it was a safe place for HIS feelings. James said you can expect his blog to include NO cake decorating, NO scrapbooking and NO updates on our life. Sounds exciting, eh? There IS the potential that he will update more than me, though, Mom, so that's a plus.

Patience

I have trouble (to put it lightly) with patience. When I want something, I want it now! If it's a good thing, why should I have to wait?

The reason I am writing this post is for those who have felt this way for any length of time. I want to share what has helped me. I feel strongly that my Heavenly Father wants me to learn patience at this time. Because I struggle with this, I have gone looking for help. Here are some things that have helped me to see things in perspective.

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk from last priesthood session is very helpful, he talks about having patience when we don't understand why Heavenly Father is withholding a particularly good blessing from us.

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin gave this talk a couple years ago which reminds me that we should enjoy life while we're experiencing it, and not only look forward to tomorrow.

I love this Mormon Message from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. I tear up pretty much every time I watch it.

Last of all, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave a talk about how blessings for others doesn't lessen the blessings we have received or will receive.

I hope this post is helpful to someone, sometime. I think we often struggle alone, thinking we are the only one who has felt the way we do.

P.S. One more article that is helpful is "But if not..." by Dennis E. Simmons.

Build them a cake or something

I made this cake for my brother-in-law Jeff, my brother Mike and my sister Laura for their birthdays. It made sense to do 3 in 1.

My one regret is that I didn't do the color flow balloons back-to-back so you don't see the white blobs holding the balloons to the sticks. Otherwise I really love this cake!

This Week's Menu

One of the missionaries altered our weekly menu for us. He's from North Carolina.

Castlewood Canyon Revisited

We went back to Castlewood Canyon with some friends from our ward and some friends not from our ward. James took some good pictures. It was a beautiful day!

Wilton Course 2

Here are some pictures from Wilton Course 2. We did a lot of different royal icing flowers ahead of time and then assembled the cake with a basket weave on the side and decorated it with the flowers. I think royal icing flowers are much easier than buttercream flowers and they usually turn out better.

I made some cupcakes for my work Luau with the extra flowers I had. Pineapple cake mix with vanilla buttercream and coconut. Pina colada? The pineapple wasn't as prominent as I was hoping, but they still looked beautiful.

I have really loved taking cake decorating classes. It is one of the most fun things I have ever done! I will probably do the fondant course after the summer is over. Its a busy summer.

What's your favorite song right now?

There is a game we used to play in college, called, "What's your favorite song right now?" (Hopefully some of the readers remember this game because it was pretty awesome.) James and I play it occasionally. Some of my most recent favorite songs, with (1) being most recent and (3) being less recent, are:

(1) Airplanes-B.O.B. featuring Hayley Williams of Paramore

(2) Hey, Soul Sister-Train

(3) Bulletproof-La Roux

What's your favorite song right now?

The Cakes (Wilton Course 1)

I have been taking a Wilton cake decorating class at Michael's (the most fun thing I have ever done). Here are some pictures.

This one says "BABIES!" because I took it to work. There were 6 or 7 ladies at my work who were or still are pregnant (some have delivered since then).

These cupcakes were for my friend Karla who moved to Chile.

These cupcakes were practice for lots of different little things.

This was the finale cake. The icing has tons of crumbs in it and the roses are jaggedy looking because my icing was too stiff, but at the same time I kind of like the way they look. Overall I was glad with the way it turned out.

Some Things I Been Making

Here are some cards I've made recently.

Soon to follow: my first attempts at cake decorating...