Dec
20
Posted by Emily in Uncategorized
Christmas is my absolute favorite time of year, and there are so many activities to do. I love Christmas crafts, and this year I’ve really crammed them in! Here’s what Christmas at my house has been like.
I put up the Christmas decorations right after Thanksgiving so I could enjoy them for as long as possible. I love my cozy little living room all decked out in Christmas decor.
We bought LED icicle lights for our house this year. It was quite an event of get them all put up. The lights didn’t turn out quite as I had expected, but our house looks festive.
Every year I try to make as many paper snowflakes as I can. It’s an absolute essential craft for every year.
Last year I crocheted some snowflakes but didn’t stiffen them to put up for decoration. This year I finished them, six in all.
I did yet another snowflake craft (I love anything that has to do with snowflakes!). I made a quilled snowflake ornament (tutorial found here). It was quite intricate work and it took me an hour to make just one small ornament, but it was a lot of fun.
I’ve been admiring the many ornament wreaths I’ve seen online this year (see here, here, and here), so I decided to make one myself. I followed this tutorial. It was a little more difficult than I thought it would be, but I’m pleased with the results. I didn’t buy enough ornaments to make the wreath really full, so I filled in the bare spots with tiny ornaments and tinsel. I used about 30 large ornaments and 45 small ornaments for a 14″ wreath.
Making cloved oranges is also another must-do Christmas craft. I love the smell and it reminds me of the cloved oranges we had at our wedding reception.
This year I made sugar cookies by myself. I’ve never done it by myself before, so it was a little bit of an adventure (burned cookies and runny frosting), but they turned out pretty tasty.
By far, my favorite activity this Christmas season was making a gingerbread (graham cracker, not real gingerbread) house. We made gingerbread houses for activity days this last week, and I had some leftover supplies, so I made one myself. I spent a few hours on it and got to bed really late that night, but I had so much fun making it.
More pictures of the house:
Wow, this Christmas season has been filled with so many fun things. I can’t wait until next year!
Dec
18
5 years
Posted by Emily in Uncategorized
Happy anniversary to my dear husband
who gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning,
who makes me smile every day,
who inspires me to be the best person I can be,
who I can’t imagine spending my life without.
I love you.
Sep
14
Waite Family Fun Days 2009
Posted by Emily in Family
I’ve got a lot of catching up to do! We’ve had some great times this summer. First up - Waite Family Fun Days 2009.
Doug and I were in charge of Waite Family Fun Days this year. We camped at Guinavah Malibu in Logan canyon. We really lucked out and got a pretty spacious campsite, which was fantastic considering we had to accommodate 29 people (we also had two other campsites, but we congregated at the biggest one). We hung out, had a treasure hunt for the kids, ate yummy food (and lots of it), talked by the campfire, had a few skits in honor of Randy’s/Dad’s/Grandpa’s 60th birthday, and went canoeing at Tony Grove Lake.
I don’t usually remember to pull out the camera at family functions because I’m too busy having a great time, but this time I was determined to snap at least a few photos.
Carly - just chillin’. and eating something…
Nathan, Hanna, and Hailey hanging out.
Lindsay and Lucy went everywhere together.
They made a house out of a tree and played in it a lot.
Brandon, Carson, and Creighton built a house of their own. Pretty impressive!
Despite the very busy day at Tony Grove lake, we were able to find a nice secluded picnic area near the lake where we had lunch, canoed, and played around.
It was the perfect day!
Coming to shore after a ride on the lake.
The kids had a great time playing in the water when they weren’t canoeing. I’m simply amazed at Lucy’s flexibility!
All the activities were great, but it was so nice to just sit and talk and take in the view. I had a great time! I love my family and am so grateful that we all get together every year!
Jul
19
Flower Boxes
Posted by Emily in Gardening
Every time I walk into a nursery I get so excited by the seas of colorful blooming flowers and yet so overwhelmed by the all the decisions I have to make. Shade or sun? Tall or short? Pink or red? When does it bloom? How much water does it need? How many should I buy? Despite all these questions swimming through my head, my love of plants keeps me from being discouraged and running out of the nursery. A trip to the nursery is more of an all-day excursion than a quick trip to the store for me. I love learning about plants I’ve never seen or heard of, so I thoroughly read the tags of all plants that are new to me. After scanning the entire nursery, I try to weed out the plants that fit my needs most. Eventually, after long and careful consideration, I end up with a selection of plants that I will come to know and love - plants that will become a part of my life for months or years to come.
My last trip to the nursery resulted in 5 beautiful hanging boxes - 2 on the front porch and 3 on the deck in the back. Get ready for a slew of pictures!
In the front boxes I planted shade-loving plants - impatiens (white/pink flowers), new guinea impatiens (bright pink flowers), wishbone flowers (yellow/purple), fuchsias (red/white flowers), and rex begonias (dark red foliage). I am amazed at how well they are doing!
The flowers in the back are sun-loving flowers. I chose sweet alyssum (small white flowers), verbena (purple trailing flowers, cascading petunias (pink and white flowers) salvia (dark purple flowers), and gazanias (beautfiul muli-colored flowers - I highly recommend these!). The gazanias will only open up in full sun. They close up when they’re in the evening shade, which is a bit of a shame because they’re absolutely stunning!
All of these flowers bring me so much joy. Who can look at them and not be happy?
On another note, I just had to share this picture from my rosebush. Doesn’t this bouquet of roses look like a heart?
Jun
20
My dream vegetable garden - part 1
Posted by Emily in Gardening
Doug and I have been working on building my dream garden that includes raised beds and a drip irrigation system. I envision it to look something like this:
Here’s what we started with - a narrow bed of monstrous weeds (this picture was taken after I’d already dug up a lot of the weeds).
After digging up the weeds we widened the bed by digging up 72 sq ft of sod. Needless to say I’m now pretty skilled with a shovel.
Then we dug up even more sod so we could plant a peach tree in the back corner of the yard. The tree’s so tiny you can’t really see it in this picture. Trust me, it’s there.
Ah, now you can see it. The tips of a couple of the branches started to die at first, but I think there’s still life in it. Little tiny leaves are starting to grow. I hope it will do well.
We had to dig up the sprinklers that were along the fence line and move them to the grass line. Many thanks to Jay and Anna for their help with that!
Well, that’s pretty much as far as we’ve gotten so far. We’ve encountered a few setbacks lately, most of it being weather related. I usually don’t mind rain and I love thunderstorms, but I’ve had enough of it because I’m so anxious to get my garden up and running. Here’s a pretty cool shot of a killer thunderstorm rolling in. We have a pretty good view of the skies from our deck (and a pretty good view of our neighbors’ houses, which I’m not too crazy about).
Next steps for my dream garden:
- install the drip irrigation system and connect it to our sprinkler system
- level the ground to get it ready for the raised beds
- lay down landscape fabric to prevent weeds from coming up into the beds
- build the beds. There will be eight 3′ x 5′ beds with 18″ paths in between the beds. Oh, and the beds will be about 12″ tall.
- fill the beds with lots of soil
- start planting!
Hopefully we won’t come across too many more setbacks. There’s still a lot to do!
Jun
20
Roses are red
Posted by Emily in Gardening
My rose bush is in full bloom and is absolutely beautiful!
The blossoms are a bit bigger than I thought they’d be - about 3 inches across.
The bush is growing so rapidly that it’s spilling out onto our walkway. I cut back every branch that didn’t have any buds and it’s still huge. I’ll have to cut it back a lot, but I’m going to wait until it’s finished blooming.
My hybrid tea rose has about 10 buds on it and they’re just starting to open. They smell so divine - like fresh raspberries! I was pretty surprised to find out that they are orange because the blossoms late last summer were a salmony pink. It’s so exciting to watch my plants grow and flourish because I don’t quite know what to expect.
Jun
14
Fruit Salad
Posted by Emily in Food
kiwi + strawberry + banana = y u m !
Jun
5
Bedroom makeover (sort of…)
Posted by Emily in Decorating
When we went to Ikea this spring we splurged a little bit and got new bedding. We used to have dark blue bedding, which was fun for a while but then I got tired of how dark it made the bedroom feel. The new bedding certainly brightens things up! I love how light and airy it makes the room feel (although the picture I took doesn’t capture it all too well).
The tan design is soft and velvety. Just imagine it without the wrinkles (I was too impatient to put it through the washer right when I got it).
I bought a beautiful (but fake) orchid to also help brighten up the room. Someday I’ll get a real one, but as much as I love plants, sometimes it’s nice to have a plant I don’t have to take care of.
Jun
5
Spring Bulbs
Posted by Emily in Gardening
Some pretty bulbs that came up this spring.
May
31
Sprucing up the front yard
Posted by Emily in Gardening
First on the list for sprucing up our front yard was cleaning up the roses. I doubt they were ever properly taken care of before, so I had a lot of work on my hands. My hybrid tea rose needed a lot of pruning. This is the before shot:
After removing a lot of dead branches and doing my best to cut back a little tree growing in the middle of it, this is what it looked like:
Quite an improvement, I think, but it’s kind of hard to tell if it will do well this year.
My other rose bush just needed some dead branches removed. It’s doing really well and is so much bigger right now than it is in this picture. It should bloom in a few weeks, I think. If I remember right, the flowers are tiny and red. I’m excited to watch it bloom.
This flower bed has been quite a bit of work! When we moved in last August there were so many weeds I couldn’t even tell that there were plants actually growing there. I pulled a lot of the weeds last fall, but there were more to remove this spring. The rock border does little to nothing to keep the grass from growing into the bed. It’s pretty frustrating, but I think next year we’ll fix that.
After pulling out all the weeds and a couple plants I didn’t want to keep, it was pretty bare.
A few daffodils, tulips, and grape hyacinths came up, along with some rapidly growing lemon balm and a few perennials that I haven’t yet identified. I planted some summer blooming bulbs: asiatic lilies, dinnerplate dahlias, and a peony. So far I haven’t seen any sign of the peony, but the lilies and dahlias are starting to come up. The slightly leaning fence has since been repaired by our neighbor. It looks a lot better now.
A few of the annuals I planted in the bed:
Dianthus
Dusty Miller
Ranunculus (these are not doing well at all :( I think they might be getting too much sun).
The bed right in front of the house didn’t need much work at all, thank goodness. We already had 5 hostas in the bed, so I just added a few ferns. The brick border is a little better than the rock border, but next year it’s going away, too. At the time this picture was taken, the hostas hadn’t started coming up yet. They’re looking pretty good right now.
Closeups of the ferns. I really love them!
The yard is definitely a work in progress and isn’t the exactly the way I want it to be, but I think it’s good enough for this year.