coming out of hibernation (welcome back, spring!)

This may look like she is rejoicing over the warmer weather.. however Emma Jane really loves her daddy and was a little worried when he dissappeared into the gas station.. "where'd daddy go?"... as soon as she saw him waking back to the car, she yelled "daddy!" So sweet is a daddy and his little girl.

I have finally done it! I have made some beautiful loaves of bread using my own freshly ground wheat and by kneading it by hand. (The blackstrap molasses I added gave it this lovely color). I loved it. I never had a very good bread making lesson, and though I love to cook and bake (and aren't too bad at it), yeast breads have always been a little intimidating (even though I make cinnamon rolls just fine.. ) we loved the bread and gobbled it up. I'm going to make some more today! (with bananas!!)

I found this great/interesting and different DVD via a recommendation on Netflix called "How to Cook Your LIfe" about a breadmaker in a Buddhist Monistary and he is great and wrote this awesome book :
I HIGHLY recommend it if you are like me and afraid of making homemade bread. It is foolproof! One of my favorite purchases of the year so far.

We had a wonderful Conference and Easter weekend, and I hope you all did too! We watched three of the sessions at the McCraken's home... of course we missed alot of the talks because of the girls.. but it was great none the less. This is Easter morning after Emma found some stickers... she helped Lana get over her fear and hatred of stickers too..haha.. Also, notice the Ariel Barbie in Emma's hand. This is one of her favorite toys lately. She is "Fish."


I set up an Easter Egg hunt in our back yard for the girls. Emma found one egg, noticed something was in it, started eating the candy inside and then could care less about the remaining 30 eggs hidden in the back yard. I persisted though so I could at least get one picture of the hunt. (notice the open egg in her left hand and that she is gripping candy with her right fist.. all she really cares about)...

This is Emma saying "cheese" with all the goods... and just a few remaining stickers..

We got this great set of "Resurection Eggs" from John's Aunt Marie. They really helped us tell the Easter story to Emma along with the Gospel Art Picture book we got from the Bishop a few months ago. This will be our Easter tradition for years to come I am sure.. next year I will add some of those Easter cookies that become hollow when you bake them. I love Easter. Another fun tradition my family did a couple of times was that we had a birthday party for Jesus on April 6th. We would have a great family testimony meeting and I would even make a cake.. Happy Easter everyone!!

Here are some of our hikes we've been doing lately :
Emma ran for about 15 minutes after when we got to this hiking spot (near cuba) about a month ago. She was so ready to get out of the car so we didn't put her in the back pack until we had to.

I found this great stick that made me feel very much like Gandolf. For some reason most of the hikes we do make me feel like I am in "The Hobbit" on a grand adventure- that is one of the reasons I love to hike so much!....

...especially when there are cool rocks that look like marble and crumble in your hands..

This is the on the Albuquerque river walk nature trail. Emma had a great time, especially looking at all the geese and ducks on the water. She loves ducks and birds! (most birds are called ducks..)

Here we are at the Red Rocks just West of Las Vegas, NV. I really loved this area and highly recommend it to anyone traveling to Vegas. . I'm sure it is hot and miserable in the summer though.. It was a somewhat challenging hike for a pregnant one though, but defenitly do-able. . I only felt a couple contractions..

We also did the Hoover Dam tour, which was great.. What was not great though was chasing after a toddler and having visions of her jumping over ledges and falling to her death. She actually wedged through an opening in a wall that would have led to sudden death had we not seen her dissapear into the wall and then SPRINT over to her. Goodness, child!! Notice her body language saying, let me down.. to run around and give you heart-attacks!

This was two Saturdays ago.. we walked for a just a few minutes and then decided that because John had already done a 6 mile hike with the scouts that morning, we would rather do a nice drive and look for the dinosaur bone quarry in the area (this was near Mount Taylor). We didn't find it but John got a sample of some green dirt we found and he had in analysed and found out it has some radioactive minerals in it.. so we are actually going to look into getting the mineral rights for that area..

Here is that great vintage fabric I got at that rare store in Peralta. I am hesitant to cut it all up until I find the perfect project for them.. any suggestions?

Here are some projects I have completed (really easy and quick ones.. but better than nothing). I love this fabric I found for Nina's nursing cover. Click on it to see the little blue hearts.

Another nursing cover for Tiffany's baby shower. She is one of the few having a girl.

Emma fell in love with this "Pooh -Igger" fabric so I bought the rest of it.. it makes a big blanket. All I did was sew satin ribbon around the edges. She loves it.

While I have been sewing, One of Emma's new hobbies is to clean and do dishes! She loves to spill her milk after her cereal is gone and then wipe it all up..

Here she is wiping down her new kitchen we got from the Shaw's. Thank you! She loves it!! Notice her cute apron the neighbor gave her for Christmas. It has tinker-bell on it. Doing the dishes at my mom's in Kingman. (I am 5 months pregnant..)Dishes need washing in Las Vegas too..

and at home..

What have all of you been up to?