Heritage Doll

In Abbie's bedroom I hung a shelf made out of an antique window. It's really cool because you can see up through the shelf and yet it provides great space for those items that really are supposed to be played with day to day. We gave Abbie a doll for Christmas that is really special and won't be played with day to day. It's a heritage doll. The doll was made by my good friend and coworker, Jenny Fulwilley. She is amazing and made this one-of-a-kind doll just for me to give to Abbie. She tea stains everything and stuffs the fingers using hemostats. These dolls she makes in her free time. The jewelry is what makes it so unique. Abbie was named after my mother "Georgia" hence the name Abigail Georgia. The jewelry is from my mom when she was a little girl. Some of the peices she collected clear through high school. She collected jewelry with her initial "G" on it. So, she gave a couple peices to Abbie to put on her heritage doll. The earings are clip on's and it matches the necklace in the grouping on her lapel. The little locket I am going to put pictures of my mom and the other side of Abbie. I will take pictures this weekend when we are together and put them in. I will have to print really small pictures. The teddy bear is wearing costume jewelry that my mom let us play with when we were little. The little pearl and gold necklace is from her dad(Grandpa Willard that has passed away) that he gave to her from one of his trips when she was a little girl. I think it is so special that Abbie gets to have a peice of her heritage as a reminder in her room. Thanks Jenny for making the doll so special for me, you are a great friend. Thanks mom for helping me make a really precious doll that Abbie will remember you and why she was named after such an incredible mother!! Love you MOM! Cassy

Entryway Painted

BEFORE, MIDWAY DONE, and then the COMPLETED ENTRYWAY. I finally got some paint in my entryway. I wanted something fun and to add a little more color. I wanted it to look like a damask wallpaper. But, not wanting to spend so much on a wallpaper...plus the fun of putting it up...I went for a pain staking project with A LOT of measuring. To get it even I had to measure everything. I really like the gray-blue color. The Damask stencil I had to cut out myself because I couldn't find what I liked (surprise, surprise!)and them used four colors of paint to get the variation I wanted. It took about five hours to get it all stenciled then I washed with a blue, gray and then a white ivory wash over the top to soften. I like how it turned out. What do ya'll think? I think it definetely looks better in person than in these pictures.

Dirty Trick!

Reed officially got the best of me. My family has a tradition of doing a puzzle for new year's. I wasn't going to be with them so we decided to do a puzzle. It ended up being my puzzle....real surprise that the kids weren't real helpful. Kaden was definetely a helper taking puzzle peices OFF the puzzle. But, it ended up being a project to say the least. I would spend twenty minutes here and there when dinner was cooking and so forth. I had to pick up peices here and there that had fallen off or had been spread around by my helpers. It ended up taking me days and days to finish. I finally get all the peices put together and I am missing two puzzle peices. I couldn't believe it...all these days of work and I couldn't finish it. I searched under everything...even wondered if the dog had eaten a peice or two. But, Reed finally gets home from work and I show him my masterpeice almost finished. He was acting really funny and then went over to his coat....and my mouth about dropped to the floor. He thought it would be really funny to take a peice of the puzzle to work with him so that he could be the one to put the final peice in. So it was a little struggle to see who would put in the last peice. He put it in and then realized that there was still another peice missing. He got thinking and he had played that trick on me when I started the puzzle. He found the last peice of the puzzle in his wallet!!! I couldn't believe that he would do that. He definetely played a dirty trick on me. The funniest part about it is that he played the trick kinda on himself because he had forgotten that he played the trick on me earlier that week. So, he thought he would get to put the last peice of the puzzle in..just to get my goat but he ended up letting me put the REAL last peice of the puzzle I had spent days on. It was supposed to be something fun to do together but, I don't think I am going to put another puzzle together until I am with my family again for new year's. They can crank out a puzzle (huge ones) in no time at all. Maybe next year.... Reed, you got me good with the puzzle peice but, I'll get you back sometime. If anyone has great ideas...send them my way.

NewYears Snowmobiling

Happy New Year!! We celebrated a little differently this year! We went snowmobiling at my aunt Patsy and Uncle Larry's Cabin. Thanks for the invite!! It was so much fun! Isaac had fun helping uncle Larry drive the snowmobile. He is learning Larry's Need for SPEED!! Both Isaac and Abbie were brave enough and wanted to ride behind the snowmobiles in sleds. Even after getting dumped out a few times they kept getting back in, which surprised me, because I thought they would just want to get on the snowmobiles and ride instead. We snowmobiled over to a really great sledding hill and the kids loved it. The best part is that you slide down this really long hill...then we would snowmobile after them, pick them up and bring them back to the top to go again. The kids thought that was great! We even brought a few tubes to go riding in. Isaac talked aunt Patsy into going with him. Such great memories. Unfortunately we weren't able to stay clear til' midnight when they have a bonfire because Reed had to work the night shift at the hospital. So, we only got to see Shannon, Chris and their group for a little while before we had to head. We need to plan to go all up together. After we got home..the kids had a nice warm bubble bath and fell asleep....trying to stay awake. It was hard staying awake, even for me, after such a fun filled day. Thanks again Patsy and Larry, for inviting us to go snowmobiling. We had such a great time and loved spending time with you at the cabin.

Christmas Tree Hunting

When we went to Vernal over Thanksgiving, we went Christmas tree hunting. We found a 14 footer that we fell in love with. We had to cut two feet off the top and three feet off the bottom. That didn't bother me....I used the extra limbs as pine bowes for decorating with. Each of the kids took turn helping Reed cut the tree down. Sorry that the family picture is sideways, I must have missed turning it rightside up. Oops! We had so much fun and the tree was so much fun having a fresh Christmas tree for Christmas. I hope we can continue this tradition. The kids love being in the outdoors and hunting for the perfect tree was fun. It was cool that it started to snow while we were hunting...the first snow of the season. Magical!!

Abbie Warrior Princess

The kids loved Christmas. Our family room was a mess of toys for days. I loved watching the kids enjoy their toys. It seemed they just went from one toy to the next. They even let each other play with their toys. Isaac was showing Abbie how to use his play bow and arrow from Christmas. Then they go running back into their bedroom and come out as warriors. This was the funniest picture I got of them playing with their Christmas toys. Isaac and Kaden all took their turn being Rambo.So cute...warrior princess!