Attitude of Gratitude - Day 17: Talents.

I thank my lucky stars for all my wonderful talents. I know that I have been abundantly blessed with the amazing talents I have. I'm not trying to brag, at all. Tonight, as I was painting some items for a colleague's baby shower, I couldn't help but think of how another colleague just handed me a box of items and basically said, "Work your magic! I trust you! I've seen your skills!" It's way awesome that this colleague thinks I'm just as talented when the whole office knows her as the creative one.

She gave me the colors & theme and I started to go to town. I've got several more pieces, but I love the starfishes! 

I owe a lot of my talent to my Mom! Seriously, I wouldn't be the talented person I am today if I didn't have her challenging "encouragement". She taught me how to sew when I rather have played outside, when I was a kid. My friend & co-worker Tina ran into a bind when she needed some help with her Halloween costume. With her measurements, 1.5 yards of red fabric and black & white paint, I was able to create her costume. Not too shabby for just free handing it!

I guess my colleagues were convinced that I was talented when I came up with the idea for our Halloween decorations: 

I must admit, I loved the lil paper fences and the trees, the best! People thought I bought the fences, but they were just cut out by hand. I don't know where this idea came from, I just drew it up as I saw others decorating their cubes. Everyone loved our decorations and my cube mates really enjoyed it! That made me so glad! I also loved decorating my pumpkin for the office competition :

It was so hard for me to throw it out after Hslloween!! 

I'm glad my talents don't end there! When I became the Relief Society President, a couple years ago, I found myself cooking A LOT! I developed the talent to make soups! Oh how I love that talent and the joy of soups! In the course of one summer, I found myself cooking for a few regional and several ward acrivities! It was hard work, but I LOVED feeding my ward family! I still love to feed people, especially friends and family! I love the genuine gratitude they have when finishing a meal and their "Thank you! That was so good!" that they exhale as their waist band gets tighter!

^Thid was some Tongan food I made on Sunday, it's called Lu Puaka and the Taro root is in the background. Man, it was so good!! Have I mentioned how much I LOVE to cook?!? 

Now that I am married, I've tried to develop my baking skills. This was the first Apple Pie I've ever made:

I've got say, it was perfection!! Seriously, I couldn't have made a more perfect pie! And my husband loved it! That's AWESOMENESS in my book!

So I've gotta say, I'm so truly grateful for the way I can make my little corner of the world a happier, enjoyable and more colorful place to live. I will never cease to thank my God for the way He's blessed my life! My cup runneth o'er!

{Matthew 5:14-16}

"Because I have been given much, I too must give...." 

Christmas Stockings!

I'm getting more and more excited for Christmas!! Today our Christmas stockings arrived!! Way stoked!

I think they are just so dang cute! My Levi wanted stockings that had Mr. & Mrs. Claus, since his parents had them when he was growing up. In my family, we had the traditional red ones, with our names in glittery cursive. I've gotta say, I really like our new stockings! They're a lot cuter than I was expecting! 

Speaking of stockings, we bought stocking stuffers for my family & Levi's niece. However, we really didn't have any stockings to put all their goodies in! Whoopsy daisy!  I don't know what lead me to Google, this morning.....but this was the finished product tonight: 

It gave me a reason to pull out my Christmas present! My new sewing machine: 

(Not sure if I ever mentioned that? More on that later)

I seriously think those paper bag stockings are super cute, creative & earth friendly! There is something to be said about handmade gifts, at Christmas time. I just love it! I think there's a deeper meaning and more thoughtfulness! I'm grateful for my creative mom who taught me the wonderful talent of sewing! I'll never be able to adequately thank her for that. 

Hope everyone is enjoying this Christmas season!!

Memories of Christmas past.

I've been thinking a lot about how joyous and wonderful last Christmas was.  It was heartwarming and full of love.  On Christmas morning, I had everyone I love the most, under one roof.  I truly loved it. 
I loved preparing our lil Christmas tree with handmade ornaments that my Mom & I came up with:

I remember the late nights staying up sewing ornaments together with my Mom.  Sometimes we'd sit in silence, concentrating on the task at hand, and other times we'd have on Hawaiian or Christmas music.  This Christmas, I miss that.  I miss late night sewing sessions with her.  

I miss sewing ornaments for a Christmas tree.  I don't know how to describe the beauty of homemade Christmas ornaments.  I see burlap Christmas ornaments and wish I could make them with her, but I think I'll just wait til next year when I have a sewing machine of my own.  
As I've been reflecting back to last Christmas, it made me miss having all my nephews & niece together.  I wondered how my oldest two nephews would spend their Christmas away from home, living on their own. 
It made me miss them more. 
Then I received the wonderful news that my oldest two nephews would be home for a visit.  That cheered my heart so much! I miss having them all under one roof.  I can't wait to see this again;

 These boys...I love them so much!! Them, along with their sister, are the joy strings of my heart.  
This is just what I need to make this Christmas so much better (than it already is, thanks to Santa Levi---more on that later)

Mahalo Mom!

This past weekend was Mothers Day.  It's also the weekend I became more appreciative of all the sewing lessons my Mom gave me, growing up.  I whipped out 3 skirts in under 5 hours and I was pretty dang proud of myself.  While I stayed up from 1am to 6am, early Saturday morning, my Mom would pop her head in just to see how I was doing.  {Little did she know that I had HeMan & SheRa to keep my company! Who knew they still showed that on TV?!?!}  She really liked some of the little touches I had added to some of the skirts.  
On Sunday, at the last minute, I decided to attend my family ward with my parents.  There is nothing I love more than being able to sit next to my Mom at church and singing the hymns alongside of her.  I really enjoy her alto voice, which happens to blend well with my soprano voice.  Usually, by the second verse of the hymn, we switch it up because I want to try singing alto with her, but then she jumps to soprano.  Sometimes I wish she'd just sing alto along with me, but perhaps she leaves me to do it all my own because she thinks I can handle it without her help. It's still such a blessing to sing with her at church.  I love it and cherish those moments.
I know my Mom and I haven't had the best relationship, these last few years, but I couldn't be more grateful for the gift of music and the talent of sewing that she's abundantly blessed my life with.  

Thank you Mom.

Crazy ideas! Midnight sewing!

Late last night, after talking with a friend, I decided it would be nice after all to have a lil shindig at Extraordinary Desserts for my birthday tomorrow night.  I need something to wear because you just need to feel and look special when celebrating your birthday.  Somehow, I figure that means making a dress for the occasion.  I'm kinda excited for this dress I'll be making tonight. {Some of my best creations come with sewing at midnight}  I bought the fabric to make a skirt, but it's actually wide enough to make a dress.  There's just something about sewing that I love.  I don't know if it's the sense of accomplishment, knowing the dress I'm making is quality made, the fact that I MADE it with my own two hands, or that it is totally couture!  Maybe it's all of those reasons.  Alrighty....I better get started on my Friday night plans.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY WEEKEND TO ME! 

Oh April! Surprise, you're already here?!

Wow, it's already April?!?! CRAZY, how fast time flies!! 
It was General Conference weekend. I'm not the biggest fan of watching it.  However, I did watch the Sunday afternoon session.  It was really good and, as always, I enjoyed the choir. That's always my favorite part of General Conference...that and the Prophet's closing remarks.

I've been spending a lot of time with my sister's family and thoroughly enjoying it. Oh I love them so! I especially love taking photos of my very photogenic nephew & niece.  The light, on Sunday, was exceptionally wonderful! Loved it!

I'm so glad that they're such happy and willing subjects! It makes it so much more fun to photograph them!  They've always been that way, and I'm grateful!!  

I've been juicing A LOT more lately. Oh I love it!! It's so much fun!! And so dang tasty!! I LOVE fresh juice!! It makes me think twice about what I put in my body. 

On Monday, I went biking with my niece & two cousins. Oh man, my niece is a riot! I love that girl!!  She's seriously so funny!! I had fun with her and I was SO proud of her biking the 20 miles round trip!! No complaints or anything!!  She was quite the trooper! She's never biked long of a stretch before and she was fast too!! That's my girl! :) I can't wait to bike with her again!

Alrighty, I'm off to run an errand.....but man, am I itching to go for a bike ride!! I seriously love biking!! Especially biking the Strand!  On the Strand, you have the SD Bay on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. Seriously, it's beautiful! While I was out and about yesterday, I came across a bike path in Chula Vista and I started to get giddy with anticipation!!  I NEED to try it out!


Oh yeah, I came across two pretty patterns yesterday. One's for a dress and the other's for a trippy bohemian top! I can't wait to make 'em. Before then, I've got a pretty sundress pattern that I wanna try out for my niece.  I love sewing! Well, I love creating!  Can I just say how much my creativity thrives in fabric stores and any other arts & crafts stores?! When my niece and I last walked on the beach, we came across several cool shells with holes in them. Luckily, I had them in my purse yesterday and bought some silk cord to string them up as necklaces. I gave them to her yesterday and she loved them. I'll take a picture of them and post them a lil later. 2 cool & unique necklaces for the low low price of 39 cents! Love 'em! Ahhhhh, I just wanna create something NOW!!!

Ok, but right now I really have to run an errand.... kinda near the beach.....hmmmmmmmmm.....

Happy Wednesday-ing! :)

Birthday Dress.

I woke up in the middle of the night, so I decided to finish watching "The Secret Life of Bees".  Something I didn't quite notice the first time I watched it were the dresses.  Most of the women in the movie wear dresses/skirts the whole time.

It fed into my need for wearing dresses and skirts.  I have no idea where this desire to wear dresses & skirts more often has come from?!  But I like it.  They also wore very lovely brooch pinned to their dresses. LOVED it!!


Then it made me think of my birthday dress.  Since my birthday will be on a Sunday this year, I want to make a church appropriate dress....styled after the 50's.  I want to make this:

Isn't it just so snazzy!?  I love it!! It's actually a cocktail dress from the 1950's.  [So in essence I'm making a cocktail dress for church ;) ] I already have the shoes and necklace that I want to wear with it.  I'm trying to think of the color and fabric I'd like to go with.  I'm thinking Seersucker, because I love the way it feels.  I like textured fabrics, like last year's birthday dress that I made: 

It adds a lil bit of fun for me to enjoy while wearing it.  I just like those lil touches that I know about.  Something my Mom use to point out to me after she made me something to wear.   Hmm...maybe I'll go with the fabrics found here and here.  I want something nice & classy but nothing ostentatious.   

I can't wait to make this cocktail dress!!

Free Friday!

Today I woke up and wanted to wear a skirt.  Particularly a green pencil skirt.  I don't own one.  I would need to make it.  I want to make one this weekend. I've had the sewing bug lately!

I think handwritten letters are so wonderful.  Especially when they're received in the mail.  I got the coolest mail yesterday.  Alllllllll the way from Egypt from a dear ol' friend.  She read my blog post about my birthday party idea and sent me a pattern for papel picado, as well as a store to check out for folk Mexican art & Dia de los Muertos materials.  I can't wait to check out that store! I'm grateful for my friend Ana.  We met in the oddest of ways.  I will post that story for her birthday in a couple months.  But I'm thankful to have a friend like her.  

Oh, and I want one of EVERYTHING from here....  LOVE IT!!

p.s. It's about 5:55pm on a Friday evening.  I've got about 6 homework assignments that I need to complete before tomorrow night 11:pm.  My whole family is out on the town...and I'm home.  Working on homework. On a Friday night.  I feel a lil laaaaame.  I need to finish my homework quickly and call up a friend or something SOON!

Let the weekend begin!

YAAAAAY! Beautiful San Diego weather for the weekend! I love it!! Also, I got to talk to Ash! this morning! Man, I love this girl! Who knew that we’d ever end up as friends?? She’s seriously too awesome for words!

So I didn’t think I’d be staying over at my friends’ place while I was dog-sitting, but since my friend insisted that I just sleep over, I figured “Why not?”. I love their house! It’s sooooooooo beautifully decorated which makes it so warm & welcoming. Hello Mr. Jacuzzi, we‘ll be spending some time together this weekend. Ok…so the reason why I’m staying over is because, well…other than getting a big beautiful QUIET house ALL TO MYSELF & Baxter, it’s because I have another lil quirk. I don’t know where it came from or how it started. I promise, I’m not a freak--eek!

In the last 10 years, whenever Saturday night would roll around I would feel this ‘itch’ to make a skirt for church the next day. By “night“, I mean usually around midnight. I don’t know why that hour, but it’s always after 11pm. Sometimes I’d feel bad because there I was making a ruckus in the kitchen. Thankfully it only took about an hour to make, so the ruckus wouldn’t be that long at all. This is all great timing because I’ve been longing to sew lately. [a couple aprons, several skirts, finish Mom’s drapes & some shorts] Ahhh!! I’m so stoked!!