Friday

I knew Friday would be a special day: a trip to the beach with school, a sewing date with friends...

Here is how it started:

A "healthy" lunch packed for Noah by himself.

(I usually try to include more than one food group when packing his lunches.)

A morning at work grading essays, a quick change for Janneke and me (and the student of the week!),

a relaxing lunch at a french bistro, a missed phone call, a fun day catching waves and enjoying good company on the white sands of Jax Beach... one of those waves stole my trusty sunglasses. A quick trip to the Town Center to get a new pair, a blarring warning to enter a store immediately because of the coming tornado,

a frantic drive through pedestrians to find a spot at the packed mall,

a desperate dash into Dick's for safety...


(Good choice because they have so many TVs-- and huge windows, but it's better than being stuck at the Gap for an hour.)

a phone call to Michelle to let her know I would be late for the sewing date, to which she asked, "Didn't you get my message? Erin (our other sewing partner) had her baby." A week and a half early. This baby is as kind and considerate as his mother!

A detour to the Gap,

for an hour,

a quick stop to get those glasses, a late drive home.

Study Hall

Do you want to know what it looks like when Noah studies?

I always hear lots of giggles coming from the office. He acts frustrated, but I know he LOVES it.

Go Team!

The House Across the Street

If you've talked to me lately, you know I love the new house that just went up across from us. We've had a portable storage shed and a dirt pile there for two years (and I honestly thought those were great neighbors!), so I was really nervous when a notoriously tacky builder started construction. There's a "Star Trek" house just one door down, ok? But this new house wasn't too offensive. Then, I came home this week and found the new stucco painted. This is what I saw:

I think it is so cute. Maybe I'll show you when it gets landscaped.

Little Project

I saw some of the burp rags I'd made after they had been washed, and it inspired me to change my approach. I wanted these to match Erin's nursery (http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2974110). Here's what I came up with:

Some bubble fabric and blue ric rac that looks like waves. And guess what?


A fish applique traced from the computer print out. He has a tiny eye. Alicia, do you like this fabric?

And most exciting of all... no fraying! This was Michelle's idea.

I took cute pictures of beautiful Erin during her shower, but considering she was talking in all of them, none of them are very flattering. I'll leave those out as I hope all of you would do the same for me!

Last Day of Seminary

All of you have heard me talk about "Seminary this, or Seminary that..." Here's what I did every day.

My mornings began around 5am depending on how necessary I thought bathing was. Our alarm clock died (ten faithful years) halfway through the year, so snooze was rarely an option. I'd get mostly ready, wake Noah up, finish getting ready and counting down to this magic number:

The whole time I'd be chanting my mantra, "Noah, we're going to be late, Noah, we're..." Off we went to Savannah's house wondering what amazing smells would waft from her mom's kitchen that morning. We'd drive to church (7.5 miles west), taking note of any interesting wildlife (bunnies, turkeys, frogs, spiders and their giant webs), unlock a lot of doors, turn off a strange, repeating building alarm, and rush to get everything ready before the troops came in.

This is how they looked when they were faking reverence:

I think a couple are really reading their scriptures, but many are examining their recent "seminary awards" like "Best Character Scripture-reading Voice" recieved by Brandon below. He hates pictures, so tried to get out of this one. I think that explains the funny face.

This is how they usually look. Notice how many little mouths are open and how many are looking at me/the camera lens.

Look at the sweet angels right before recieving a final feast. Notably missing are a few of our ranks. :(

And in case you were curious about my decorating sense, here's a tour of our room, given by little Brooke (who happened to give me an award for "Best Seminary Teacher" that day and then replace it promptly when I lost it):

Tons of pictures of Jesus around the ceiling. I wasn't technically allowed to put stuff on the walls, but those of you who know how I teach know how long I followed that rule! The blue paper above the door references a 2 Nephi scripture and says, "Now you go. What will you do?"

Those huge family history posters on the walls are not my doing. On the chalkboard you've got the plan of Salvation at the top (pre-earth life to postmortal existence), the seven seals from Revelation, and our "interpretations" of the beattitudes. April made the Scripture Mastery poster to the right of board. Again, I didn't hang that. The table in the back is embarassing. It's got my cereal cup (with cereal) on it. There's usually another table in front of the board for me to put my books on, but that disappeared last week.

A string of scripture mastery scriptures. Student-drawn depictions of things okay to do on Sundays... I did put those up. Don't tell.

Behind Brooke are some worksheets based on Romans 1:16 "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." The worksheet says "For I __________the gospel of Christ: for it is ______." I got some pretty great responses on that one.

And our final stop-- some interpretations of the symbols in Revelation. And the nook back there was used as an art gallery, candy inspection shop, study hall, pantry, and various other things. I could point out the bug that showed up in the light fixture the Friday we talked about how even animals recognize Christ as their Creator and God, but we'll just say that little bug had a bad weekend.

The other day I was looking through my seminary things, marveling at the detail of my early lesson plans, and found something surprising. I had asked the kids to write their testimonies, and they got into it, so I sat down and wrote mine, too. The surprising part is how elegant it is for so early in the morning! Here's what I wrote:

"I know that Christ is the Son of God, my Heavenly Father who loves me. I know that He died for me, and, more than that, He suffered for all my sins, sorrows, and afflictions. I know that becauseof this Atonement gift, I'm able to repent and be forgiven of my sins, and I'm able to live forever in His presence. It's up to me to use this gift. If I'm lazy or forget, I'm wasting Christ's life and mission. Because of this gift, I can live with my family forever and eternally progress. Heavenly Father has given us a prophet to guide us on the earth. We also have the Holy Ghost to help us make good choices. If we pray, He will hear and answer us. Basically, my testimony is that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have given us everything we need to succeed-- it's just up to us to do it!"

Okay, so it's not as elegant or complete as I remembered, but this testimony is part of what got me up each day to teach these great kids.

I'll be wearing pants tomorrow.

What's That?

Let me know what you think.
I'll tell you what it is and the story behind it later.

Seminary Graduation

My Seniors:

Mariah's (center) not really mine, but I got to "borrow" her a lot.

It proved impossible to get everyone together for one picture.

One of my juniors, and my freshman girls. Three of my boys didn't make it.

I know, I know. At this point you're thinking I mixed up Seminary Graduation pictures with some supermodel casting, right? But these are really my kids, believe it or not. Evidence: I'm holding my scriptures; who would take those to a supermodel casting? AND there's a picture of Jesus behind us. So there. I can honestly tell you three things about this group:
1) They always look this good-- even really early in the morning after staying up to study, or text, or do whatever crazy (not too crazy, mind you) things they do.
2) To further prove this point but make a new one that has fascinated (and troubled) me all year-- I have the most zits out of any of these kids.
3) They are even more gorgeous on the inside. They are brilliant and kind and amazing and... They make me crazy lots of the time, but I can't help but love them and imagine that maybe I feel a fraction of what Christ feels for each of them.

Only 2 days left. :(/:)

Can't Resist

So if I give you a sewing post, I'm going to make you look at my cats, too.

Sweet face.

Look at that air!

New Dress

I'll spare you my face here. I think because we slept in, Noah was standing at a funny angle, or maybe just one of those days, I looked a little bit like a troll today.

This is based on Simplicity 3835. I lengthened it, changed the sleeves up a bit, and added a velcro closure belt with the ubiquitos flowers. There are no darts in the front, and that's why the belt makes the wonky wrinkles there. Maybe it's the way my arms are. There are two darts in the back AND a zipper. Wow. I put it in and was so pleased that I got it matched up right and straight and everything, that the little bubble that had formed at the bottom inspired me to think outside the box and rip out the skirt seem instead of doing the zipper again. I'm still pleased with that stroke of genius. Next time, I'll just pin the skirt until the zipper's in.
This pic is actually upside-down; I took it while I was wearing the dress. Ha!

Noah gets an award for going with me on a "quick trip" to the fabric store. We looked at solids for more than an hour! I wanted 1) something bright for the accents and 2) a plain color for the body of the dress that wasn't too see-through and wasn't the same color as my skin (so I wouldn't look naked!). Guess what-- on the way out I saw the fabric color was called "flesh." Creepy, yucky, ironic. But I love the mix of simple pink and vibrant yellow. I ended up having to line it in muslin so it wouldn't be scandalous. AND I used my new blind hem foot for the hem. It was sort of stressful, but it really is blind... invisible. Hems don't have eyes, right?