I'm still stuffed

So much to catch up on, so little time.

Over the weekend we worked on the dressers a little more. We're down to the last of the polyurethane needed to finish the dressers. Once it's all dry, we'll put the last of the knobs on and put them upstairs. I'm very pleased with how well they're turning out. Not bad for a beginner, right? Monday Amy and Mike came over to the house. Because I'd missed the Super Saturday Relief Society meeting a couple weeks ago, Amy brought the plates I'd bought, 3 smaller square plates she'd gotten for the kids to paint, and the paints to do them. We taped the pictures to the front of the plate, then painted the back and coated it with a sealant. Now the plates look cool and you can use them, too! The plates are the same size (12" or so) but the camera on my phone doesn't like to send pictures in the same size. I kept the snowman and gave the penguins to my M-in-law for Christmas. I love the little guy with the hat pulled down over his head! This was so much fun that I've decided to get more of the smaller square glass plates over the year and paint them for Christmas cookie gift platters for next year. That's right, folks, you too could be the proud recipient of my December cookie-baking-bonanza cookies on your very own hand-painted plate! :) If I do this every year, you could start a collection of different holiday designs or something like that.

I took Wednesday off last week for the trip to NY so that we could leave on Tuesday evening. We ended up arriving at 1am Wednesday morning and slept most of the morning away on an air mattress we brought with us. Ugh, my back still aches, but it was better than sleeping on the floor. We took the kiddos to the park and watched a movie or two with Grandma and Grandpa and had G-Grandma and G-Grandpa over for dinner.

For Thanksgiving, I helped Grandma in the kitchen (what she would let me), and we took all the food over to the G-grandparents' house for dinner. There was so much food! I tried to get a little of everything, but I think I might have missed the fruit salad. :( There was even a lot to take home.

We left Friday after taking a trip to Savoia's bakery to get Tim his cookies. Mmmm, tasty. We got home around 6 or so on Friday evening, watched Kung Fu Panda and ate dinner. Tim's mother sent 3/4 of a cherry pie home with us... it didn't last the night.

Sunday I went to the fireside at the stake center where they organized the Falling Waters (Spanish) branch or "Rama de Falling Waters". They asked me to do a cake (or pastel) for the occasion with a waterfall and the stake center and all of the flags of the Spanish speaking countries of the world. I took a picture of the cake, but not the flags (my bad). I had several people ask for a piece with their country's flag on it. This is another "water color" like cake where I painted fondant with food coloring like the Preach My Gospel cake. Over the week (and end) I've been working on finishing the afghans for the mystery crochet-along, but during the trip I started the baby blanket for my B-in-law and his wife. He actually got to see part of it Saturday, but it'll be a surprise for her. :) I'm about 1/3 done. This is the first time I've tried to knit using circular knitting needles, using two colors at the same time, and cabling, so this has been an adventure and a learning experience. I'm using a new yarn that is also very soft, and that's before I've washed the sizing out of it. My last hint about it's look is that it is light blue with a white boarder. Sorry H. when you read this, that's all you're getting until it is done.