The Worth of a Sole

The theme this year for Young Women in Excellence was- "The Worth of a Sole" and it was a very nice program with each girl taking a moment to share about what one of her shoes represented about her. Hayley and I were in charge of the refreshments and thanks to my very talented sister Tanya, the cake was a huge success.

Hayley spent a lot of time on this grass hill for the temple and it turned out very well. The pictures don't capture all the details of the shoes and how great everything really looked. We tried to have different shoes to represent how different we are all and yet how we are all moving in the same direction. Tanya did an amazing job on the shoes.

The Latest Project

For a while Buck has seen this idea in landscape magazines and has wanted to test it out. Bill and Marianne were kind enough to allow him to experiment in their backyard. I think it turned out quite lovely and some of our cute nieces make it even better.

A picture says a thousand words...

A picture says a thousand words, or so the saying goes. After several races, 10k's, half marathons, 5k's- I realized I didn't have a single picture to prove that I had participated, so I purchased one from the last race on October 24th. This was right after I had crossed the "start" line and my i-pod stopped working. As I ran past the restrooms I was sad the line had been so long and I hadn't been able to go, and I was wondering about all the time I took off from running in August and if it would really matter- which I found out soon enough that it did! However, soon enough I was crossing over the finish line and was on my way home. It will be a while before I will participate in a race again, so I am glad to have this picture to remind me of those races.

A busy Saturday

This was at the park celebrating Charlie's birthday. We took our camera to this party and then never took it out of the bag, so I am glad Marianne sent these pictures over. It was fun to be all together and the weather was very nice. His older sisters seemed to enjoy his presents as much if not more than he did!

Food, Food, Food!

The picture is a little blurry because I was in a hurry. This was the last event on a very busy Saturday. The same day as the last half marathon, a nephew's birthday party was our ward chili cook off and our class had a booth to run, plus I had offered to bring a few pies. I will confess that I did buy a pumpkin pie from Costco and was delighted to see that many other people had also purchased pies. The pie above was the winning pie in the pumpkin pie contest and I got a cute apron to prove it!

This peach pie wasn't entered, but I had fun with the cookie cutters that my mom gave me for my birthday.

In between General Conference sessions in October I made some cupcakes. They were white chocolate cupcakes with chocolate cream frosting. I had seen these little turkeys in a book I have and on several cake decorating sites. I only made 2 as I found them to be very time consuming and not easy at all. They tasted delicious, though I am sure that was a week's worth of sugar intake!

These bugs were much easier and much more rewarding and looked fabulous on the cupcakes. I do enjoy Halloween!

Our winner!

Buck's e-mail to me simply said- "yes, I am a winner. Regards, Buck"

Ashley, Buck and co-workers at University of Phoenix

A new nephew

This is our newest nephew Jack. We went to Texas for his blessing. Tanya looks radiant and Ella is smiling, I don't really know what happened with my hair, Amanda looks great. It was a tender experience to be at the blessing. I now treasure this picture more that I thought I would at the time it was taken. What I didn't know at the time it was taken was that a wee baby was growing inside of me. So small that there was no "baby bump" as it is called these days, nonetheless, there was a little life. Sadly, this baby could not stay, we didn't get to keep them. So, because it was a miracle for us to even conceive, and perhaps in my life I will not have that blessing again, I love this picture- bad hair or otherwise, because it capture a moment in time when I had the distinct honor of carrying another life inside of me.

What a handsome bunch! Brian gave a beautiful blessing and Jack was quiet. Thank goodness he has such strong uncles as he is quite the linebacker, even in his infancy.

The beautiful family

Watering the Garden Summer 2009

Brielle and Anabelle water the garden- they are very helpful and often it seems they choose one plant and that is the recipient of all their water.

Uncle Buck caught a great picture of Brooke- who was the youngest out on this day and carried the largest watering can.

Aunt Nadia has sole possession of the hose. One day they will get a little older and it might not be so easy, but for now we enjoy our time in the garden.

This is the hard time- they can't carry a full watering can, but they don't like to leave with it only half full. Sometimes the majority of the water ends up on them instead of the plants, but in the summer in Arizona, I think all living organisms- plants, flowers, little girls- everybody could use some more water.

Is your gardening crew this cute?

Birthday Cakes

A birthday cake for my friend Haley- my mom gave me a cake decorating book for my birthday and this monogram technique was taught. In the book they use a "0" tip- the smallest I have is a "1" and that takes so much pressure to push out, I cannot imagine trying to use a "0". I thought it gave a neat look to the cake and I love the color blue that came out.

A little cake and a niece's birthday. I had to work and missed her party- but it was fun to deliver her a little cake and present.

Cakes

For a birthday party- the birthday girl had the idea and the box for us to copy- I think it turned out great.

This is not the finished picture- but I made this cake for New Beginnings as the theme was "A lighthouse in the dark" and during the lovely program the lighthouse fell over. One of the young women saw it leaning and motioned to another young woman who went over and caught it- but was then left with her hands full of this cake lighthouse. It tasted delicious- snickerdoodle cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting and filling- and the Bishop tied in the parable of the wise man and the foolish man, so it didn't distract too much from the evening.

A lesson on homemaking for the young women. The title of the lesson was "Homemaking" and so as I rarely- maybe twice in my years in the young women- have brought treats, I thought it was an appropriate lesson to include them. The hangers that are falling over are with some of my homemade fondant, which never quite hardens enough.

Curly Girlies

Family Pictures January 2009

Three generations of beauty

Family Pictures Jan 2009

Growing so fast...

I put Scott in the picture for scale :) She is growing so fast!

The joy of the Cardinals making it into the Super bowl, and the equal joy of juice.

Sweet angel face