Rupert on the River, Twin Falls Temple, and Backpacking...

....So I WAS going to blog about our trip over to the Rupert / Twin Falls area, but my camera batteries have died and I'm charging them up... because tomorrow morning Andy and I leave to go backpacking and I definitely want to bring the camera. So early next week I will have a ton to Blog about. :)

I was expecting to have a baby this weekend.

So far my distraction plan has been working out wonderfully.

The day before we left for Rupert I was REALLY having a difficult time. I was feeling so depressed, and very emotional. It seemed like every where I turned, even the smallest little things had turned into huge reminders of my lost "born still" baby.

It's been like poster board signs that said, "Your BABY DIED!" posted all over my life.

While we were in Rupert and Twin Falls I was able too.... well, not forget, I never forget... but I was able to be distracted and more functional. I hope I can continue to avoid the funk of depression. I get a little crabby when I'm depressed. Hopefully Andy can tolerate me... If he abandons me to the bears you'll know why. Not that the bears will have a chance... If I'm crabby, they better stay clear.

Memory Tag

Several of my blog friends are doing this tag. I like it and I'm finally ready to give it a shot myself. Can't wait to hear from you....

1. As a comment on this post, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

Rapunzel, Rapunzel...

It's haircut time.

The boys had their haircut on the same day, just minutes apart from each other 6 weeks ago. Aaron probably could have gotten by for another couple weeks, But Noah's beginning to look homeless, and Jennica's bangs are so long she has to part them so she can see.



And the after... Jennica's hair is getting so long, she just loves it!

Watch out for Aaron. I think he's trying out for the Twilight movies.

If we could only all look so good.....

My lovely sister in law, Kat Serra, made the cover of Muscle and Fitness Hers Magazine


She's amazing! Can you believe she had a baby in January of this year?

Way to go Kat!

Who Has The Biggest Brain?

I soooooooo wish I had blogged about this yesterday.

You see, yesterday, I completely slaughtered my good friend Ali on Facebook's Who has the biggest brain game.

Now my shoulders are all tense... and I'm stressed, and annoyed. My leg is asleep from sitting too long, I have carpel tunnel syndrome.. did I mention I'm annoyed.

72 stinkin' points and I haven't been able to beat her... I'd like to say, that I can accept losing and that I am going to go do something else, and just try again tomorrow, but that's just not true.



Excuse me please, my pride is calling.

PS. If you facebook add me to your account and come play! Unless, of course, you beat me... then please remove yourself from my facebook and shut yer trap.

Love ya!

Not again!

This morning at about 9:15, Aaron came in while I was getting ready. This was our conversation:

Aaron : Mom can I have a Popsicle?

me: A Popsicle? You need to have breakfast first!

Aaron: But I already. (had breakfast)

me: You did! What did you eat? (knowing we're out of milk, and a bit curious...)

Aaron: Cheese!

me: Really? But Aaron, are you suppose to use knives?

Aaron: No.

me: Well then how did you cut the cheese?

Aaron: With my hand. (As he shows me by holding his hand like it's a knife.)

Me: Oh really....

Here's what I found in the kitchen...

What a stinker.

Fairy observation #1

I've been sitting for a bit trying to decide what to write about today. I've had two things on my mind. One, the lovely fairy paper piecing I just finished, and two, today I sold the baby crib.

I'm just going to write for a minute about the baby crib.



A few days ago I saw a listing on Craig's List for someone needing a crib so I emailed her. I hadn't really thought about selling the crib, and I'm not sure I was totally ready to sell it. I'm a lot more upset at seeing it go than I thought I would be. I probably could have gotten more for it, but I didn't want to have to go through trying to list it and everything. Well, what's done is done.

On to the Fairy.. Now that I have Jenn's approval that it looks good : ) I can post about it.

I had this idea about catching a fairy who was trying to paint her wings so she could fly around and be a little less conspicuous. Although, I think she will probably find that the weight of the paint makes it to difficult to fly.

I bottled her in a patch of clover with a book on butterflies and her paints.

Around the bottom of the jar is written:

Observation #1 Fairies can paint their wings to resemble butterflies.


She is not removable from the jar. I took some pictures before I bottled her because it's so much easier to photograph the details.

Except for the girl, everything else is hand drawn and created from paper.


Notice she has not finished painting her wings on this side.



I would like to create a whole series of fairies in different observations, but I'm having a hard time coming up with ideas I love... If you've got some, please let me know. Here's some I was thinking of. I'm not sure which ones I'll use

Fairies love to get their hands on anything that sparkles...

Fairies do not like to get wet...

Fairies change color when they are angry...

There is no such thing as a gay fairy... (I love the idea of this one, but it might be a bit to controversial... No hate mail please... My concept would be a boy and girl fairy kissing it up, the boy fairy clearly the pursuer...)

Anyway, let me know what you think!

Boulder Lake

Vincent's due date is right around the corner. About 2 1/2 weeks away.

I am completely dreading it.

I'm getting a bit more emotional every day. I just absolutely do not want to be sitting at home thinking about how I should be going in to the hospital to have my baby. I don't want to be reminded that my baby was stillborn, while everyone else is having their beautiful healthy babies.

My official due date was August 15th. In my past two pregnancies I have gone into labor at least 1 1/2 weeks before my due date... Since I have scheduled c-sections, I'm not suppose to go into labor at all, but never fail, I always end up having an emergency c-section 1-3 days before my scheduled c-section. So this time I was going to push to have my scheduled c-section a full two weeks early. I wanted an August 1st or 2nd delivery date.

So now, to keep us distracted, Andy and I are going to go away for a few days. Gas is so expensive we didn't want to go far, but I really wanted to be able to be distracted, so I suggested backpack camping..

Andy is not an avid camper, although he did do all the boy scout camping trips. I have only been backpack camping once, when I was about 17 years old. Here we are 14 years later... We're going to Boulder Lake near McCall, Idaho, which is actually the one place I've been backpacking before.
I found this picture here. The picture was taken at the summit. I'm not sure we will hike that high, but it is absolutely beautiful. The picture was also take in June... There shouldn't be any snow in early August.

I'm a little nervous about the trip, although if we do forget anything it won't be THAT big a deal. We aren't that far from civilization. The hike to the lake isn't a bad one. From what I remember it was about 45 minutes... Maybe it was 45 minutes down?? Regardless, I know we can handle the hike. There is a nice lake there with decent fishing.

Does anyone know of any good meals I can plan for backpacking, or tips that make it easy... I really don't want to be stuck with MRI's...

I'm looking forward to the trip, and I suppose, the more things that don't go as planned, the more distracting the trip will be.

No, We're not taking the kids. They're going to have Grandma and Grandpa time.

This is so sad, it might just make you cry...

Today Jennica was going over to her friend's house to swim. Aaron REALLY wanted to go too, but I wasn't going to let him tag along on Jennica's play date.

He was sooooo upset I wouldn't let him go. It was so hot and sunny outside, and Aaron loves the water so much.

Usually we have a decent sized, blow up, pool for the kids in the summer. Last year the pool developed quite a few holes, so we threw it out at the end of the summer. I've been planning to get a new one, but haven't gotten around to it. I've also kind of been putting it off because it always damages the lawn so much.

Anyway, Aaron was so upset, I told him we would look when we got home and see if we had an old pool I could fill up for him.

Poor kid, this is all I could find. He insisted on a floaty too.

I've been tagged!

My friend Sara has tagged me. ((Thanks Sara)) I love being tagged. Now to come up with 8 facts about myself...

1. I love to get comments on my blog. I am a bit socially insecure, and comments mean a lot to me. Tells me you actually care what's happening in my life.

2. I love 8:45 pm, because that's when KID TIME ends, and ME TIME starts.

3. I wish I was better at gardening and landscaping.

4. I am most embarrassed by my crazy, uneven, lopsided hair.

5. If money was no object I would build an impenetrable safe haven for abused women and children. (and go to Australia about 4 times a year...)

6. I would like to publish my designs into an acrylic template design book for acrylic or chipboard scrapbooking.

7. I want to go to college, get a nursing degree, and work with infants or children.

8. I wish sleeping and eating were optional so I could get more accomplished in a day.

Okay, so I’ve tagged Stacy, Michelle, Amy, Dee Dee, Heather, Breya, Amber H. and Lisa.

THE RULES
1) each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2) people who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
3) at the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4) don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

For Keeli Jo!

My good friend and ex PFOP member , Lisa, is running a special ebay auction right now to benefit her niece, Tiffany.

Tiffany had a baby girl on June 5th, 2008 and named her Keeli Jo. She was born very premature at 1 lb 9 oz. and is still in neonatal care. There is no family housing at the hospital Keeli Jo is at for parents who's children are admitted, and so Tiffany has to travel a couple hours each direction to be with her baby. With gas prices as high as they already are, and her mounting medical bills, not to mention the added stress and worry over her little baby Keeli Jo, Lisa has taken it upon herself to ease Tiffany's burden by helping raise some money for her.



The auction is posted on eBay, however since Tiffany is not set up as an official charity with eBay, Lisa cannot mention in the listing that 100% of the proceeds are for Tiffany. That just leaves word of mouth to get the word out.


The auction looks really good. It includes:

1 12x12 layout designed by Amber Halversen (DBA), a well known scrapbook artist, known for her unique original handmade bears, and great use of bright happy colors.

1 12x12 layout designed by Lisa Hodges. Lisa has been selling premade scrapbook pages for a couple years, as well as teaching classes in her local scrapbook store. Her Sweetheart layout has plenty of sparkle and Prima flowers.

Leah Fung has contributed a 6 1/2 x 12 inch chipboard scrapbook album with stitched baby boy papers, and a beautifully embellished cover.

Leah has also added a SIGNED copy of the brand new book from Making Memories.....Baby Love Moments and Memories. It is filled with ideas from Leah herself as well as other top designers.

One more from Leah! An 8x8 Making Memories baby girl paper kit with 1040 total pieces!

Shipping is also free!

Here's the link to the auction again. If you decide not to bid, please do Lisa a favor by adding it to your eBay watch list. simple click the button on the top right had corner of the auction titled:

Watch this item in My eBay

The more people who watch an item on eBay, the more the item is promoted within eBay, which will help it to reach as many buyers as possible.

Good luck!

What I'm Working On

My sister in law, Jenn, got me hooked on the idea of little paper pieceings in a bottle. I've been working on my first one tonight. It's not finished yet, but here's a sneak peak.

Happy Birthday Jill!

Today is my sister, Jill's, birthday. Last night we took her out to dinner at this great restaurant in Nampa called Copper Canyon. The ambiance was great, the service was alright, the food was FAN-TAS-TIC. It was so yummy. In typical Camille fashion, I forgot to pull my camera out till after one guest had already left. Sorry Julie... Maybe next year..

My sister is so great! (that's her on the left). I can't tell you how many times she has come over and helped me when I was sick or pregnant, or just had a baby. Way more times than I have been out to help her. She's so compassionate and always takes time to serve others.

Right now she is home schooling her kids. Just last night she was saying she feels like, because of her pregnancy, this last year she didn't do all that she needed to with her kids. I don't think it's going to matter. He kids are so far advanced. Her little boy, Ethan, isn't suppose to start kindergarten till this fall because he has a late birthday, and yet he reads SOOOOO much better than my child who will be going into the first grade this year. When her kids were in public school they were always getting awards to student of the month and citizenship, etc. I know it's because Jill, and her husband, have done such a fine job teaching their children respect for others, how to be a good friend, and how to work hard.

I remember when we were young it use to take me twice as long to get ready for school in the morning because I spent so much time watching Jill. She was always so pretty and well poised, and just cool, not to mention thin, and she had really great hair. When we go on trips together I find myself doing the same thing.. Just watching her do her hair or put make up on.

When we lost Vincent Jill dropped everything for me. When we went in to have the baby Jill came to my house with only an hours notice (it takes 45 minutes to get to my house from hers) and stayed with my kids. She cleaned my house (again!) and put away all of my maternity books and maternity clothes so I wouldn't have to do it when I got home. She then took my kids to her house and kept them overnight.. All while she was about 8 months pregnant.

My sister is so awesome and I love her so much. She's someone I aspire to be like. She makes me want to be a better person.

Happy Birthday Jill!

Toothless Princess Camp

One of the young girls in the neighborhood put together a week long Princess Camp. It's the cutest thing!

Today was the first day. "Get to know you" Day. Jennica decorated this lovely wood picture frame, and came home saying her tummy was soooo full from snacks.

I am pretty impressed. This young women put together this camp with her mom and sister. The Mom ran an at home day care for about 6 years, and just really knows her stuff. Each day of camp lasts an hour and a half, and the cost is $4.00 per day, or $15.00 for the week. --With great crafts... and healthy snacks!! I have the feeling she's doing this as a service project and learning experience and not to earn money. What a great opportunity!

Jennica lost her first tooth last week. She is so excited! Now she has a "straw hole" just like her brother! She put her tooth under her pillow for the tooth fairy, and for some reason, in our house, the tooth fairy always forgets to come for several days, and then feels back and leaves extra money!

This one earned her two shiny new quarters!

McMissionaries!

It's official, we have missionaries in the field!

Well almost.

Technically Rick and Anne McClelland are still in the Mission Training Center. It sounds like they pretty much checked in and were assigned as district leaders... but that's what you do when you have as much leadership experience as these two. I believe they depart for Moscow, Russia during this week, where they will preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, teach english as a second language (which will be interesting since they don't know much Russian) and will possible open a family history center.

I'm sure they are going to be a huge asset in progressing the work of the Lord...

Russia's not going to know what hit em.

Love you guys!

The 4th

Independence day was wonderful. We went boating up at the lake with my family. Usually Black Canyon is just packed on the fourth of July. Emmett, Idaho has a predominately agricultural economy. As a result, durring the summer months there are a lot of migrant workers living there. Black Canyon is definitely the best park in the area, with lots of shade, lush green grass, and great swimming for the kids.

This year when we got there, the park was pretty full, but not nearly as full as last year. When our family goes boating we usually go up in the afternoon and then stay till the park closes. Most everyone who was at the park this year had come in the morning and left between 5-7pm. By 7pm the park was almost empty and we had the whole lake pretty much to ourselves. It was great! What Black Canyon use to be like before it became so popular.

Afterwards we went over and lit fireworks at my parents house.

Today I am so sore and my muscles are stiff as can be from tubing. I swear Pete was trying to kill me. Right before I went I pulled him on the tube and I guess it wasn't the most exciting ride.. I'm not use to driving the boat... I told him before he went that it was going to be either extremely boring of extremely dangerous.

After reading my friends blogs all about how grateful they are to our founding fathers for this great nation we live in, I hate to admit it, but I didn't once think about our military, or the freedoms we enjoy, our founding fathers and those who built this great nation. I feel kind of bad about that. I'm completely taking my freedom for granted.

First shoulder rides.

I can't believe my kids are old enough for this.


WOULD YOU PLEASE JUST STOP GROWING!

After prayers Andy and I stay on our knees to give everybody good night kisses. Noah is now taller than me by a bit in this position. Jennica is nipping at his heels. I thought having kids would free me from the short jokes, but I have a feeling it won't be long now.

I just want to take a moment to remind all of you tall girls (Ali mostly.. cause she's likely to give me crap) out there that I am 5' 5". I am NORMAL. I have never had a hard time at a dance because I'm taller than the boys... I've never worried about bumping my head on the ceiling... no one has ever asked me how the weather is down there... I've never worried about wearing heels on a date. I'm compact.. Like the advanced travel version of a tall person. I fit in a geo metro. I can ride in the back seat of most cars. My feet don't hang off an air mattress.

See, I have the advantage..

Baby John

My sister, Jill, and her kids came over for lunch today.

John is six weeks only now. Look at this cutie! He has some great facial expressions.

In this first one, he's not sleeping, but closed his eyes for the flash.

Ahhh, there we go!

Say what?

Jills kids are blessed with skinnyness. Look at those little arms and legs.



I'm going to call this next one the, "The monkeys throw what a people??" look.

What a doll!

Ohh! I love my new nephew.

Where I've been..

I have actually created my first acrylic album!

I know.. those of you know know me, know I've been scrapbooking for years, but I have finally created a scrapbook that I actually made for myself.. that I plan to keep... that I'm not selling..

Shocker, I know.

Well, Okay, I do have plans to duplicate it and list it for sale, But the original I'm keeping.

It's my Texas family reunion album.

I took the pictures in the evening as the sun was setting so the quality isn't the best, but I think you can get an idea.

On the front I have mounted a family picture printed on tracing paper so it's transparent. I had to spend hours on photobucket to fix the pictures so they were useable. Behind the family picture is the Texas state flag... well at least my scrapbooky version.

Here's the second set of pages. There is a lot more to the album, but my camera batteries completely died. I hate that! I was out there for a while turning the camera on and trying to snap a picture really fast before it shut off again... All the while the sun is going down.

Anyway, I'm really excited about it.

Today, in my infinate wisdom... In 102 degree heat... I decided it would be a good idea to go pick up my neices and nephews and go pick strawberries and snap peas at a U-pick farm.

It was a great place.. the directions to get there went somthing like this, " Go 8 miles and then the road you're on will turn into a new road... cross over a wooden bridge and turn right on the unmarked road.."

The little family that runs the farm were good wholesome down to earth people. The husband, ran for public office once and they would not let him put his middle name on the ballot because it "brought issues to the ballot". He said he could have sued because it really is his legal middle name that his parents gave him when he was born, but instead he went through the process of changing his name.. He dropped his first and last name so now his middle name is his ONLY name... his name is now Pro-Life. Bit unusual, but whatever floats your boat..

Really friendly guy. Stayed in the field with me almost the entire time helping me pick. U-pick usually means they are giving you a deal on price because you are providing the labor. I planned on taking pictures while we picked, but Pro-life was a bit distracting and I completely forgot!

The strawberries were so thick. I've never seen such productive plants.

It was so hot out that the kids spent most of the time relaxing in the shade of the van, eating strawberries and snap peas, and drinking all my water. In all we picked about 15 lbs of strawberries. How could I not at $1.00 per pound! If the kids weren't complaining I would have stayed longer. This Saturday, I'll be making strawberry jam.

Thanks Jessie, for referring me to the apparently Pro-life Richardson Farm. It was great!

I've been trying to do a better job of watching what I eat and getting excercise. Tonight was a bit of a slip. At young womens (church youth program) there were all sorts of brownies and cookies and chocolate... I managed to avoid it all. Then the girls made ice cream in a bag.. basically you put the ice cream ingredients in a quart size ziplock bag, then in a gallon size ziplock you add ice, rock salt, and the quart size bag of ice cream ingredients. Then you shake, shake, shake, till it freezes into ice cream.

It was such a warm day that the girls who went outside to shake, shake, shake, had their ice melt before the ice cream was frozen, and we were running out of ice. One of the girls gave up on her ice cream so I ended up taking it home.

Tonight, after I took pictures of the strawberries, I didn't have much of a choice... I had to make this:

It was so good! ((Sorry Ali.)) It is kind of healthy.. strawberries, nuts, milk.. all organic and completely free of preservatives, or additives... It shouldn't even count as cheating!

At least that's what I'm telling myself...