It's a....

After four sweet little girls, Erin and Brian are having....another girl! They'll have their own girls' basketball team. Or if they invite their mother to play, they can field their own volleyball team! What a lucky family! We couldn't be happier. We look forward to October!

Pictures From This Week

Here are some pictures from this week's (and maybe some of last week's) posts.

Matthew playing baseball

Blackberry freezer jam

pretzel making

Scripture Journal (visiting teaching handout)

Camp Lo Mia clean-up supplies (Mark's project on Saturday)

This Saturday is National Scrapbooking Day, so I'll be spending a couple of days at a crop. Hopefully, I'll get a lot accomplished!!

Pins and Needles

Today is another pins and needles day. Yesterday it was waiting for Makenzie's surgery to be over. She did well. The tumor looked "nasty" according to her Dr. It bled as soon as he touched it and he had quite a time keeping up with the bleeding. He said the initial pathology report came back as a "low-grade" cancer, but he's thinking it's more than that. It will take a few days for a more detailed report. But he thinks he got it all. She will have to undergo more chemotherapy. She was awake enough this morning to have a bite of breakfast. They're keeping her well sedated to take care of the pain as well as keeping her quiet so she doesn't accidently tear the lining of her brain where they were working. But so far, it looks like the only slight problem might be a little weakness on one side, but they can take care of that with physical therapy. Thank goodness.
Today's pins and needles is waiting for Erin to have her ultrasound to see what the gender of their new baby is. After four sweet girls, Erin feels a definite need to know so she can be "prepared" either way. But here's hoping for outdoor plumbing this time around! I'll post as soon as we know.

Busy, busy, busy!

I'll try and catch up with the past several days' events. Thursday I spent grading papers and returning them to Brian. I also helped take in a meal to a sister that I visit teach. We had a baby girl last week. Friday Jan and I spent from 10 am until midnight at Scrap Happy working on various projects...finishing up a couple and starting another one. Then on Saturday, Mark and I picked up our Bountiful Basket and I went to teach a class at Scrap Happy. Mark donated blood at the stake humanitarian service day. He picked me up and we went to Erin's. Erin and I then bottled 28 jars of blackberry jam. Yummy stuff! Today Erin and I had a bread session. She was out and I was almost out. Thankfully, Brian took two loaves off our hands since I didn't have any more room left in the freezer! Tonight I've been formatting photos for a Mother's Day project I'm working on. But I must go back to this morning. We were supposed to bake bread about 9:30 this morning. However, her neighbor needed someone to watch her two boys at 11:15, so we ran an errand that Erin needed to do, which we had originally planned to do while the bread was cooling, but we had to be back to watch the boys. So we started off at 9 am and headed to Phoenix Children's Hospital. A friend of ours has a daughter who is having a brain tumor (her second one) removed on Wednesday. The first one is inoperable because of its location on her brain. They've managed to keep it at bay for almost three years with chemotherapy. But last month they'd been watching what they thought was a cyst...and is not considered a tumor. They'll operate and remove it tomorrow in a rather lengthy surgery. She's only 10 years old. And such a trooper. She has one of the best dispositions and attitudes of any child I've ever met. We pray that they'll be able to get it all with no complications and that it will indeed be a cyst rather than a malignancy. Anyway, Erin was picking up some vouchers that they can use in the hospital cafeteria. The people in the three adjoining wards near them have all rallied together to support this family. They've collected a myriad of items to be taken to the hospital tomorrow to help Terri pass the time as she spends the next ten days in the hospital with Makenzie. Anyway, that was first on our agenda today.
After we got home from that errand, the boys soon came over. They were only supposed to be there for about an hour, so we decided to wait until they left to start our bread session. When that was done, we delivered the items for Terri and Makenzie. Then it was time for Erin's older girls to come home from school. About that time, the school called and their ride forgot to pick them up. So we headed to the school to get the girls. Erin and I didn't sit down all day! Whew!
Then I came home and got things ready for tomorrow.....Erin and I are going to attempt to make soft pretzels. I know...call us crazy! Then I spent the rest of the evening grading some papers and getting the pictures formatted and sent to Costco. It's been a busy day....and I don't see any relief in sight!
But like Erin and I keep reminding ourselves....we got a lot accomplished!

Yummy and Easy!

Today Erin and I tried our hand at making Strawberry Freezer Jam. Can I say....Yummy! We set out to make about 25 jars of jam, but ended up with 49 jars! The recipe we used made more than it said it would, and we were very pleased. It's so simple to do. Messy, but simple! I'm getting some blackberries in my Bountiful Basket order on Saturday, so I'm thinking I see some blackberry jam in our future!
And it didn't take nearly as long as we'd originally thought. Except for the two hour outing midway through the project to get more jars, pectin and lunch, it only took about two hours from start to cleaned-up finished. Erin's girls had fun helping and especially enjoyed the Sonic run for sodas and Wacky Packs.




I've also been working on a couple of class projects that Jan and I will be teaching at Scrap Happy Sisters in the coming months....an accordian book, a chipbaord flip book using summertime papers and a purse book that is designed for younger girls as a fun summertime project.

Weekend Events

I'm catching up on the events of this past weekend. Saturday we had three soccer games; one at 8, one at 9 and one at 10! Then we went to Matthew's cub scout pinewood derby. Matt had a sweet car that he and his dad built. While he didn't win a medal, he did well in all of his races and had a nice looking car. Also, he was a great sport and didn't get down when he didn't "win". He and Dan are already looking at things they'll do differently next year and are already planning something "better". After the races, they wanted to come up to the valley to do a bit of shopping. We went to Deseret Book in Chandler. Mark and I had Matt and Emma with us, so we made a quick stop for a photo shoot. It went well, but the sun was in a bad spot at that time of day and it was hard to not get a lot of shadows. Oh, well. Then we all went to Mimi's together for dinner. It was a good day.

Happy Birthday, Mark!

Today is Mark's birthday. He's 57....much older than me! He got to go to Glendale Airport today and watch some vintage WWII aircraft land. Then we met for lunch. I had picked Abby up after school today and after we dropped her off at Kamille's work, we went to Claim Jumper for dinner. Yum! Then I left him home hulling strawberries while I went to book group. Erin and I are making strawberry freezer jam tomorrow and Mark did the washing and hulling! What a way to spend your birthday!!
Book group was good tonight. We read Sheri Dew's book, The Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't Be So Hard. It's a good book and we had a wonderful discussion. We talked a lot about things going on in our world today....financially, politically, socially, etc. and one point that Sister Dew makes in her book is that no matter how bad things seem all around us, if we are righteous and united, we can withstand anything. That's my fervent hope and prayer.

Photo Session Giveaway

The following is from a good friend's (Claire Waite) blog...she's having a photo session giveaway for a lucky winner in the west part of the Phx. valley. You can see some of her work at http://clairewaitephotography.blogspot.com/
Here are the details:

Spring Fling Giveaway!

Its April, my most favourite month of the year in Arizona!! {Most any place else, October is my fav, but in AZ, October is still hot, hot, hot!} In honour of my favourite month and to celebrate Spring, even though it only lasts a few weeks here, I want to host a little contest!! Here's how it works...

* The Prizes

I will have two drawings, one for locals and one for the out of towners. You need to let me know which drawing you want to be entered for- one or the other please! :D

For the locals, I am giving away one free photo session with yours truly! This includes 1 hour of my time at a location of your choice in the West Valley. About 4 weeks after the session you will receive a CD with images from your session. Session must be booked by the end of June and used by the end of July.

For the out of towners, I will be giving away vinyl from Urban Lettering. The vinyl quote up for grabs is pictured below. It is 24" long and 5" tall. It comes in your choice of colours. This can be shipped pretty much anywhere.



* How to Enter

There are several ways to get an entry (or three!) into the drawings.

1 entry- comment on this post and tell me how you found my site and which prize you'd like to win
1 entry- become a follower of this blog (using the link on the sidebar)
1 entry- become a fan of my page on Facebook
3 entries- blog about my giveaway and email the link to your blog post to clairewaitephotography@gmail.com

(If you are already a fan on Facebook or a Follower of this blog, just send me an email reminding me to get those additional entries!)


Good luck to everyone who enters! This giveaway ends next Monday, April 20th at midnight. I'll announce the winners on Tuesday morning.

Good luck!

Wrapping Up the Week

Wednesday was an early release day for the school kids. Erin had a Dr. appt. and asked me if I'd be willing to pick her girls up after school and keep them until she got home from the Dr. I was more than willing. So I offered to take Abigail when her school got out, too. She was more than happy to come along. So I picked up Abby, Eliza and Libby after school. We decided to go to lunch. Of course, they wanted different places to eat. Two wanted Subway and one wanted Paradise Bakery. Libby LOVES their pasta salad! Anyway, we stopped at Subway and picked up two lunches and headed to Paradise Bakery for the other orders and to eat. The girls were so much fun! They giggled, laughed, talked and giggled some more. After lunch, they wanted to go "window" shopping. Of course, they wanted to buy once we got there. So they did! It took them about two hours to decide exactly what they wanted!! Yikes! Then I took home Erin's girls and Abby and I drove to meet her mom so she could take her home after work. By the way, Erin was finished with her Dr. appt. in plenty of time to pick the girls up after school....but I wouldn't have missed out on the fun with the girls.


Today was Abby's field day at school. The first four events were water oriented events. And, brrr...., it was cold to start off the day. But the wind finally stopped blowing and the sun shone down warm and soon, the kids were all dried off. Then the next three events were tug-of-war, an obstacle course and a kangaroo hop. Abby had a ton of fun! She has lots of friends at school and she does an excellent job of cheering on the other kids when they're performing. Lots of the kids weren't paying any attention until it was their turn, but Abby was good to cheer on all of the other kids in her line. What a good sport she was! They she asked us if we'd stay for lunch and we were happy to. I forgot to say, Mark was off today since he had some training this week and put in all of his hours in four days. It was a fun day and I'm so glad we went.




This afternoon I spent with Jan working on another class project. This one will be oriented to a beach/water vacation. Perfect for summertime.
Tonight I've been grading papers, but that's done now and I'm off to work on some project in my workroom. Gotta stay busy, you know!
Tomorrow is three soccer games, an altered apron show at Mystic Paper, which I participated in, and a Pinewood Derby for Matthew! Whew! I'll be ready for bed tomorrow night!

Pictures, Finally!

Someone, who shall remain nameless, reminded me today that I still needed to post pictures from our Easter Party on Saturday. So here they are!


























Sunday was my day to teach Relief Society. I taught the lesson, Valiant in the Cause of Christ. I thought it went well, but I had very little time. I felt bad about that, but what can you do?

Monday was a day! I started out at 7:30 am driving to Deb's in Gilbert. We, along with our youngest sister, Alison, made cinnamon rolls. Deb has been wanting to learn how, so decided to invite Alison in on the fun. It went well. From there, I headed to the opposite corner of the valley to pick up Abby from school. I got to take her to the Dr. to get her stitches out. I was a little worried about how she would react to the procedure, but she giggled the whole time! She said the PA was tickling her toes! Whew! I was more than ready for bed by 8 pm that night. I didn't watch Medium....I waited until last night. And for me to miss Medium, I MUST have been tired.







Yesterday was Luke's 2nd birthday. These are pictures we took from our shopping trip for his gift and our Build-a-Bear outing with him (and Dallin and Abby). As you can tell, he loves his new puppy.

Today I graded papers. And I made homemade soup. We had the ham bone left from our ham on Sunday, so I decided to use it to make a soup. I added several vegetables from our bountiful basket from Saturday. It smells yummy! I can hardly wait for Mark to get home so we can have dinner. Tonight he has YW Camp Kick-Off and I have a Relief Society Enrichment committee meeting.