Needle and Thread Society

I am now an official member of the "Needle and Thread Society". All I had to do was show up and pay my money and be taught :) This cute little house and tree were the result of my first day of class. We learned two stitches and I looked up a third on the Internet to learn to do the leaves a little nicer. I am extremely pleased with how it turned out and I must tell you I just can't wait to learn more. This is exactly the sort of thing I have wanted to learn for ages. I love having some sort of hand stitching to do when I am too tired to do anything but sit at the end of the day. It relaxes me in a way few things inside my house can. 

The class meets once a month and each month we will get 15 motifs  and a small project as well as extra homework for those of us wanting to make a quilt with all these beautiful patterns. I just LOVE it and I really can't wait until the next class. The house is wool felt applique on a wool hexagon and the tree is made entirely of stitching.  Anybody here local want to take this class with me? It's not to late to join. The first "official" class is at the end of March.

Enoch Gives His Life Over to God-A Special Day

March 2, 2013 is a day we will always remember in our family. It is the day Enoch gave his life to the Lord by following in His footsteps and being baptized. We are so very proud of him for making this decision and choosing to follow our Savior on the path to eternal life. 

 Waiting for the baptism to start with family and friends. We were so blessed to have most of the Mecham's come from out of state to be there and many other family and friends who came all the way to Heber to be with us for this special day. We love you all and you helped make this day special for all of us. Thank you.

 Enoch, Ethne, Ellie, and part of the beautiful Merritt :)

 After the services we got a group picture of family and friends.  Front Row: Ellie, Olivia, Grace, Ethne, Enoch, Ezra, Elijah and Jonah. Row Two: Matt, Christine(who is hiding), Merritt, Jess, Chelsea, Mom, Dad, Naomi, Grandmommy and Will. Row Three: Bryce, Greg, Camilla, Grand-daddy, and Mandi. Back Row: David Jr. and Dexter, Neil and Mark. We feel extremely blessed to have each and every one of these people in our lives. They are all such a blessing to our family.

 Enoch said that he felt SO happy when he was baptized and received the Holy Ghost. He said he still felt like the same person but he felt clean and happy and good. We were all so happy for him. Enoch and Ezra played the song "Baptism" on their violins as a part of the service and we were so proud of them for sharing their talents with us and bringing in the spirit with their beautiful music.

 Enoch with the Primary President of the Lake Creek 2nd Ward. We are sort of just passing through this ward and will be in another ward in another 6 weeks or so but she was very helpful in getting everything arranged for the ward baptism.  There was one other little girl baptized from our ward with him. We all met together in the beginning and Grand-mommy gave a talk with a little help from Ethne on Baptism. Then Enoch and Brandi(the other little girl) were baptized by their fathers and after that we split off into two groups and each child had the rest of the service just for them. (we have grand-mommy to thank for that as it almost didn't happen)

 After the service we talked outside for a while and took pictures and then eventually those who had to head home left and the rest of us came to my parents house and had a little luncheon. These are the four quiche's I made and there were two more(not pictured) Camilla made. They were wonderful. The first two are tomato, spinach, bacon and the other two are leek, asparagus. All have a hard vintage cheddar and Gouda cheese as well. Yummy. Camilla's had capsicum, eggplant, cream & cheddar cheese, celery and onion. All were delicious.

 Trifles I made for desert. Imagine layers of pound cake, berries macerated in orange juice and sugar, whipped cream with lemon zest, vanilla, cream cheese, and icing sugar garnished with more fresh berries and mint and you can imagine a little piece of heaven.

 Come and Eat!!!

 Thank you Enoch for your sweet spirit and for being a part of our family. We all love you so much and are so proud of your decision to be baptized  You are such a good boy with so much potential and your parents and grandparents and Aunts and Uncles and  a whole lot of other people love watching you live up to that potential. Always remember this day and how you felt and how it built your testimony of your loving Heavenly Father, your Savior Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost.

Addition: Today is fast Sunday and Enoch is fasting one meal. He prayed with Garrett and I to open his fast and although he is really hungry he feels good about doing it. He prayed and is fasting with us for some big family things and I am happy to have a son who is a part of that this month. He also wrote down his testimony this morning so that he can have the courage to bare his testimony in sacrament meeting today. He said he thought he could do it if we got there early and sat in the front so he didn't have to walk all the way to the front :)

Grateful For a Loving Heavenly Father

I am feeling very blessed today. I have put a lot of thought and effort into making sure that tomorrow, Enoch's baptism day, is well thought out and special. I want a day that is full of the spirit and not stressful so I wanted to plan it all out way ahead of time and have everything done so that tomorrow is spent thinking of the ordinance and not the extras. I'm not going to pretend I don't like the extras, but they aren't whats important. The important thing is that Enoch is giving his life over to the Lord. He is following in the footsteps of his Savior by entering into the waters of baptism. I am so happy and so proud of him and I just want everything to be the best it can be.

Sooo, I ordered two quiche pans and a few other things for Enoch's baptism luncheon tomorrow and the default address in Garrett Fry's Amazon account switched to an address here in UT that we haven't lived at in years. I should have double checked the address but forgot to in my haste to get these things ordered. The pans were delivered Wed. and I found out where they were delivered yesterday. When I found out what had happened I was sick with thoughts of-what am I going to do now? And well I hope those people are honest and don't just keep it all. I told my mom what had happened and she said My dad and brother Neil were in that area right then and I should call and ask them to go by. I called and texted and they ended up driving by the old address for me and the package was just sitting on the porch with G's name on it, so they brought it home to me :) I am so glad to know someone was looking after the little stuff for me. I am so grateful it didn't get sent to one of our last addresses in the states because my pans would have been in CA. I am also grateful the package was on the porch and not inside where they couldn't get to it. So many things could have gone MORE wrong than they did and I am grateful Heavenly Father looks out for us even in the little things that mean a lot to us. Tomorrow would have been just as special without quiche pans, but the fact that we have the quiche pans, and therefore should have beautiful quiche, just makes it all the more sweet to me.

Enoch's 8th Birthday

Sunday the 3rd, out oldest child turned 8 years old. He is such a great kid and we love having him in our family. He is super excited to be 8 years old and be getting baptized. He is a little nervous but also really happy about it. For Enoch's birthday dinner he wanted Sushi. I spent an entire day cooking and preparing sushi for this boy. I must love him a whole lot :)

 Cucumber and green onions

 Chicken strips with Panko bread crumbs-fried

 Sushi rice-lots of this

 Finished product included-spicy mayo, teriyaki chicken rolls,

 Philadelphia chicken rolls, CA rolls, teriyaki salmon rolls, tempura sweet potatoes,

 tempura shrimp and bacon rolls,

 Strawberry and tangerine spiced salad with lime and orange zest

 more shrimp tempura rolls

 tempura sweet potatoes

 People-Uncle Dave and baby Dex

 The cute Anderson family with Ethne, Lacey, Dave and Dex

 Ezra and his sweet little face.

 Uncle Neil

 My beautiful Devils Food Cake cupcakes with chocolate ganache, toffee and meringue caramel buttercream frosting-these bad boys are more than just a cupcake. They are 5 recipes in one cupcake. Amazing. Not as beautiful as Jacquie's(she taught me) but they sure did taste as good.

 Enoch opening gifts-money!!

 beautiful Camilla who is leaving for her mission next month. We are going to miss her.

 Linkology game-Fun!

 Brothers-reading card from Aunt Amber and gang. Yea for more books to read.

 Eating cupcakes which Dex called Dinner :)

 blowing out matches since we somehow managed to loose the only candle we found in Grandmommy's house.

 All together-This is what Birthday's are about. People you love getting together. Missing those of you not here, but not gonna lie-we had FUN without you! ha ha-just teasing. At the end of the night we played Enoch's new Linkology game and talked and laughed and really enjoyed each other. Happy Birthday Enoch, We love you lots. You are one special boy and we love having you in our family.

It's Been An Ethne Morning

This morning has been full of Ethne quotes. She has really been cracking me up.

Ethne: Mom, how do eggs blow on dey self?
Me: They don't. Why do you think they do?
Ethne: Because I blew on my egg and it blew back. How does it do that?

Ethne: mom, this food is yumalicious.
ME: What is yumalicious?
Ethne: It's food dat's good and not bad. It's healfy food. They want us to jus eat healfy food dat's good for us.
Me: who does?
Ethne: Jesus

Ethne: why do people bring der stuff dat's not real to de zoo?
Me: what stuff?
Ethne: stuff dats not real like babies and stuff?
Me: You mean like dolls?
Ethne: Yes.
Me: They just bring it because it's fun and they like it. Would you like to bring baby Camilla to the zoo?
Ethne: Yes.
Me:  :) I thought so.

Ethne: mom, who's in ya heart? Mom, who's in ya heart?
Me: who is in my heart?
Ethne: JESUS
me: oh, guess who else is in my heart?
Ethne: who?
Me: you
Ethne: but how did I get inside your body cause I'm right hea-uh....

Ethne: mom will you get me some mor-uh sireal?

Me: in just a minute I am trying to get this squash cut up and in the pan

Ethne: um, mom we-mem-buh I like it wraw?

Me: yes but I am making butternut squash pancakes so I need to cook it

Ethne: ew

Me: it's not really a proper pancake it's more like a savory crepe

Ethne: what?

Me: it's not really a proper pancake it's more like a savory crepe

Ethne: WHAT?

Me: Ethne, I just told you

Ethne: Yeah but my ea-uhs are tie-ud so I can't he-uh yo

Swim Lessons in Coogee Australia Term 3

This post is dedicated to our favorite swim instructor Bob. This was the boys last term with Bob as their swim instructor. We were so so sad that he was not going to be teaching anymore and we missed him greatly that last term. He taught the boys so much and he was so good with them even though they were a huge handful for him. Enoch wasn't so difficult but Ezra as per usual gave him a run for his money.

Enoch as you can see is doing much much better than before. He has really learned a lot and improved.

His breathing is good and his arms are straight but those legs can't seem to keep from bending :)

Ezra with Bob. I love the smile on Bob's face here and the lack of emotion in Ezra's. Quite the juxtaposition.

Ezra is doing really well also. He can swim all by himself but he still has a style all his own that Kept Erin and I laughing every week. Here he looks like a frog but usually he looks like a sea lion.

Kicking hard

Almost there

Home Safe

Working on strokes. Gotta get them just right and timed with the breathing.

Looking good buddy

Cheerleader's Ethne and West like to cheer everybody on and stick their hands, as well as toys, in the water.

Dorth be sure to show Craig the support we lend to his emotional health by dressing our cheerleader in a shirt with an alpaca. I know it does his heart good to keep the memory alive :)

Encouragement and instruction. Bob was so good at this.

He also had the patience of a saint. I never could have made it through all those terms, especially in the beginning when they cried every week, without a guy like Bob. 

Big breath

pretty good arms there buddy

Enoch's turn and for some reason Ezra was worn out and needed a little support from Bob.

Ezra-"In the arm's of an angel...." Wish I had a better picture of that instead of Enoch's head. Not that it's not a pretty head, it's just that it was a sweet picture of Ezra and Bob. 

Floating on their backs. In the beginning of term 1 this was something I wasn't sure I would see for a very long time without tears. It scared them both and Ezra refused to stay on his back and would panic and roll over.

As you can see though they are doing awesome now. So proud of my boys and good ole' Bob.

This post is old and making me realize I better find them some swim classes here soon so they don't loose ground.