My New Passion!

My friend, Dawn, came and spent the day last week and showed me how to use Photoshop!  And although I still have so very much to learn it is consuming my time.  I found the templates for these pages on Pinterest. I never just pin, I always go to the page where the pin is from, because so often I just find that it was a page full of advertising and no valuable content.  But these are amazing and so very easy for me to do. (Even as a beginner!)


It took me an entire day to do the three pages, and I didn't do anything for "B" yet due to the fact that my granddaughters don't have any brothers, and I am not quite up to changing the template yet.

The template was designed and shared by Holly, by clicking on her name it will take you to her blog so that you can download your own quiet book and begin working on it yourself! I am so grateful for talented people you are so willing to share their amazing talents with the rest of us.  It made creating these pages so easy for me.  I will try and add more as I get them done.  The template makes a 4x6 book perfect for my granddaughters to take to church with them.  Hopefully, it will help them to remember their family, as we are scattered all around the world!. when Holly created the book she used Smarshmallows, available from The Shabby Shoppe, which is a wonderful kit. the cost is $6.50 but well worth the money! I can see myself using it for other things! Living in China, I am so grateful for the internet, it allows me to still do some really great stuff for my family.  I hope that these will bless them for many years to come.  The Shabby Princess has some wonderful designs that are free as well and I recommend checking them out.  The one that is featured right now is a great back to school questionnaire. What a great way to record the changes as your child grows. My friend also recommended Summer Driggs for scrapbooking papers.  She has some wonderful things as well. I think digital scrapbooking is a great way to bring the family history to life for my grandchildren.

By the way,  I don't get any kickback from the owners of these website, I just found them useful in my foray into digital scrapbooking.

Zion's People

Tim, Liz, Daniel, Tricia and Cecilia after Tim was set apart 

Recently, during a sunday school class, the teacher was discussing how he didn't know how to be of one heart or one mind, (Moses 7:18) he had been married 30 years and didn't even approach that with his wife. In the mean time, I was sitting there thinking about Christmas 2013.

Our first day at the beach

 Our family had gathered together in Destin, Florida of a holiday celebration.  We had rented a condo in Destin so that we could spend time with Dave's folks, Allan and Judy Koespell. It was a 4 bedroom condo about a block from the beach.  All of our children except Tim (who was on a mission) and David (who was in China watching my silly dog) were with us, as well as our two wonderful sons-in-law, 2 beautiful grand daughters and Dave's folks.

Lizzy and I, at the Harbor, in Destin

It was an amazing time for me.  We had just gone though all the stressful events of Cecilia's birth, nearly losing Tricia to drug induced Lupus (caused by Macobid) and were desperately in need of a vacation. We cooked


together, did the dishes together, if a baby needed anything, someone was there to change, cuddle, sing to it. We explored the Destin area, with Grandma and Grandpa taking us to some of their favorite spots. This experience give me a glimpse of Zion and also a glimpse of just what the Celestial Kingdom will be like. Everyone working together, striving together to bring joy and happiness to those around them.

Grandpa with Liz , KC and Audrey

We spent many happy hours shopping at an amazing outlet mall, playing on the beach, listening to Mike and Liz sing. And eating great food, that's the thing about going home, you just miss the food you grew up eating.  China has some great food but it's not the stuff I grew up eating so when I get a chance to eat "real" food it makes me very happy.

Mike singing his Super hero's song.

I even found a yarn shop.  My kids thought it was funny that even on vacation I could find a yarn shop!  It's called "Destin Yarn Shop" and was on the way to the outlet mall, how could an avid knitter miss something like that? They had an awesome selection of yarn.  I was able to pick up some to knit my mother-in-law some knee warmers.  I also picked up some yarn and patterns for knitting my grand daughters some sweaters. I recommend stopping in when you are in Destin.

4 generations together!

But the best was seeing Grandma and Grandpa with their great grand children.  It was a priceless time for me.  They are such caring and wonderful people.  I am so blessed in both sets of my in-laws, but then I guess when you marry a man like Dave that is only to be expected, he had to learn it from someone.  We attended Christmas Eve services with Grandma and Grandpa, it was a magical night.  There was a BELL CHOIR!  So beautiful.

Christmas Morning, Presents!

Christmas morning was a special treat for me.  I was able to hold Audrey and snuggle her.  I don't get to spend much time with her since I live in China so the time I am able to spend with either of my grand daughters is extra special to me.

Mike and Grandpa

Grandpa and Cecelia 

Grandma and Stephanie

Cecilia 

I read something this past Sunday, "The family is the most important organization in time or in eternity."(Joseph Fielding Smith) Moments like the week of Christmas 2013 help me to realize that the true joy in life comes from spending time with our families. Nothing else I have experience in my life has brought me the same level of joy.







Joseph Fielding Smith also said, "Far more important than the question of occupation or wealth of people is the question of how their family life is conducted. All other things are of minor consequence..."

Audrey in her Christmas jammies. 

Sabbath Day

"if thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then salt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 

Isaiah 58:13-14

Hot Chocolate from the Ryma Cafe in Hangzhou, China

     An important day for me to rest from the cares of the world, study the word of the Lord and renew my covenants by attending church. By keeping the sabbath day holy, my life is refreshed and it gives me the strength to endure. Endure what you might ask? The daily events in my life that causes me to reach to the very depths of my soul to see the events though to their completion.  It can be as simple as finding the courage to move to a new land and learning how to function in a foreign society to watching your beautiful, brave daughter struggle to breathe and to live.

     I enjoy the beautiful hymns sung in church. They lift my soul to Heaven and instill in me a belief that this struggle is worth the effort. They also bring me peace and joy. I find a life without peace and joy a very depressing thought.

     I love watching the children at church. I wish I had,been more appreciative of my children's joy and innocence at church when my own children were young.  I was so overburdened with callings, responsibilities, trying to learn the gospel and "fit" the mold of a good LDS woman.  If I had it to do over again I wouldn't have allowed myself to be burdened down with the expectations of others. I would have cherished the moments in my life with my children at church.  I write this so my beautiful daughters may learn from me, cherish and rejoice with your children as you enjoy the great blessing of the sabbath.  I love the gospel, I love the things of the Spirit and so often I wasn't able to convey that to my children

    How I miss sitting with my beautiful babies! I loved our family nights when we would sing song after song. We would each choose a song for singing time, that meant we would sing at least 9 songs during singing time for family home evening.  "Nephi's Courage", "Follow the Prophet", "Book of Mormon Stories"were some of my very favorite songs. The children would sing these so enthusiastically, using hand gestures, they would pump their arm into the air with "I will go, I will do, the things the Lord commands" (in fact, one time during sacrament meeting, for some reason we sang "Nephi's Courage" and there was Dave, up on the stand with the bishopric, singing along, pumping his arm in the air!). 

    One particular family home evening, when Tricia was twelve years old, she taught the lesson. I still remember sitting on our king size bed, all the children gathered around, KC had just had surgery, so she was snuggled up against her mom and the Spirit filled the room surrounding us with all the warmth and joy associated with it.  These are such excellent memories and ones I hope will be recreated for my grandchildren.   

    

Audrey's Fan Hat and Booties

It's an exciting time for our family. We found out this week that our second grandchild will also be a little girl!  So, we are expecting Audrey in August and Cecila in November. It's so wonderful that the cousins will be close in age.  I hope that they will be the best of friends.

I have been working on several projects in anticipation of the newest members of our family.  The first is the Baby Jane's a free pattern on Ravelry by Valerie Johnson.  It's an excellent pattern and took me 1 hour to make a bootie and probably a half hour to add the buttons and the flowers.  I love the way they turned out.

I purchased the buttons at the Textile Mart here in Hangzhou.  I purchased 14 pearlized buttons buttons for about $1.03 USD.    I was able to use the wonderful peach coloured ones for one pair of booties and the centre of the flower on the hat.  While at the textile market I was also able to purchase 3 meters of suit fabric so that I can have a suit made for my son Tim.  It cost $20 USD and will make a great suit for his upcoming mission. I also purchased a canopy to go over a crib.  It's so cute with embroidered flowers and cost me $10 USD.  Lots of fun finds at the Textile Mart this trip.  It was worth enduring the horrible heat and humidity to find them.  I also felt great physically, living here in China has really helped my endurance.

The fan lace baby hat is a newborn size and also was an easy knit.  I love the pattern of the lace on the hat.  The flower also came from Ravelry. The blog for the flowers has a tutorial as well as the pattern.

I love the free patterns on Ravelry. I purchase a lot of patterns so I always appreciate the ones that are free. Especially ones that are as well written as these three were. I would like to thank the designers for making them available to me! I wanted to add flowers to the booties and was searching for some small flowers to add.  The ones that I found were in a book called 60 Quick Baby Knits, I was so excited to see that I already had the book on my shelf.  I am always disappointed when I can't download the pattern.  It's one of the difficulties of living over seas.  If I find a book I want I have to wait until I return to the USA to purchase it.  So much easier if I can just add it to my computer and begin reading right away.

The yarn for this project came from Knitpicks.com, CotLin, in Island Coral and also Swam.  For the french knots at the centres of the flowers I used some left over sock yarn, in a variegated green.  One skein of the Island Coral made the 2 sets of booties, one in size 0-3 months and one in size 3-6 months, as well as the newborn size Fan hat.  I had about 9 yards of yarn left when I was finished and I think it will make a great flower on some future hat.