Sunday, October 13, 2024

September Cookies

 A friend that had purchased the promise of "2 dozen cookies for an upcoming event" at a ward auction cashed in and had me do them for her son's mission gathering.

Designing cookies for an English mission that isn't London turned out to be a challenge!





    


The tie gave me a lot of issues!
I really wanted to do a big flag on the tie.  I knew piping it (far right tie) would be hard and I would end up with craters and/or bleeding so I tried watercoloring first (the first three ties).  However, it was hard to get the colors right and I had some feedback that they looked like I had used a marker on them (which I did not take as a compliment :)  I tried over and over to make it look right using different techniques (eventually giving the piping a try just to see what would happen) but I just couldn't come up with something I was pleased with.  So I gave up on the original idea and did a more classic tie with a tiny flag at the bottom.

Here are my cute little transfers before I stuck them on the cookies


I wanted to send some Alaskan themed cookies up to Abby and her crew before she came home.  I realized I had better get a move on in case they took a long time to ship or something so I did feel a bit rushed on this set...wished I could have experimented a little bit more but I just had to go with it.



The northern lights cookies were what I mostly wished I would have had more time for.  Trying to figure out how to get a dark sky background but light colors on top and then trying to get those light colors to move the way the lights do was a challenge.


I really wanted to do something with the totem pole look and the Haida art that is typical of that area.



Aside from not getting the northern lights looking as good as I wanted, I was not loving the colors of my water color cookies next to the colors of the other designs.  The set did not look cohesive to me :(
Abby appreciated them though which was my aim.

I don't know if I have posted these this year or not but these are the birthday cookies I have been giving out this year.  I thought I would snag a picture of a big batch I did.





September Flowers

The Moshers from our stake showed up at our house one Sunday evening with this beauty of a bouquet.
Apparently, she had brought the flowers to display in Sacrament meeting and a grasshopper had been stowing away and decided to jump out in the chapel.  Andy grabbed it and took it outside.
They gifted us the bouquet as a thank you for saving their ward from the grasshopper :)


It was crazy beautiful and was such a lovely addition to our dining table for a few days!


Andy and I had decided our front beds needed some color after spring had faded so finally, in the fall, we cleared out the beds and bought a ton of new flowers that will hopefully give us a bright display in the late summer/fall in the coming years.

This is the scabiosa plant and I loved this little bud so I had to take some pictures :)

Homecoming week for the two south end of the valley high schools meant lots of hours at the new studio.
These were some of my faves I created...





We got a picture of all six of us working on the 200 orders we had for that weekend.




I had a couple of friends with birthdays coming so I put some bouquets together to go with some cookies.
It amazes me how I can never seem to get a good picture of a bouquet!  The picture never looks as good as it does in person!  Maybe it has something to do with how a bouquet is such a 3D experience and when an image flattens it all and loses the depth it looks sad :(






September Odds and Ends

 The Institute had their opening social and since Josh was working and Matt was doing something else I decided to take Ben up.  I would not have done that had he not been in his wheelchair to keep him contained.

As I was getting close to the stake center on campus where the activity was being held I was seeing the streets lined with cars and wondered what the university had going on that night.  As I turned the corner and pulled into the parking lot I realized all the cars and all the kids were there for our activity!!!  The two food lines were crazy long and there were students everywhere!

I got Ben in his chair and found Andy.  They were in the midst of ordering more food since they were going to run out fast.  The turnout was really incredible!





It was Luau themed so I got a picture of these two cuties!


Ben was a good sport and just got a little hangry as we waited for the extra food to come.
They had ordered an extra 100 pizzas and an additional 80 servings from Mo' Bettahs to feed the remaining crowd.
They told everyone to stay and wait and that the food would be coming.  It took a while and I'm sure we lost a few but when the food came it all got consumed pretty fast.  We were sure to snag a piece of pizza for Ben :)

Here he is as we waited...I found Julie Delgado and Rachel Orr hiding at the back of the parking lot.  We had a good chat.  They are two of my favorite ladies :)

Andy said they usually have between 600-700 students come to the opening social and from those that counted, it was estimated we had between 1200-1400 that night!  Incredible!  It was a fantastic evening and I'm super glad I, very uncharacteristically, to throw Ben and his chair in the car and attend.



A couple of weeks later, President Susan Porter came and spoke to the YA of the valley.
As we were on our way to the spectrum a writer for the Church News called Andy.  They had actually worked together when Andy was an intern for Church Public Affairs so it was a fun verbal reunion.  Trent wanted to let Andy know he was coming to cover the devotional.

It was a lovely evening.  Sister Porter and her sister who joined her were delightful.  I actually ended up having an in depth conversation with her sister after the even about our children and loved ones with disabilities.

The blue arrow points out Andy in the church news.
(I'm on the cover of a magazine! - Mike Wazowski)

And Josh sang in the devotional choir for the first time.  They sounded amazing!
He really did make it into the news :)
Interestingly, he's in a very similar position in this picture to the one that he was in the last time he was in the church news which was on his mission...very upper right hand corner.



A couple of years ago, I had asked my dad if he would be willing to build something for me for my new laundry room.  I had seen a hexagon shoe holder on Pinterest years before and had held on to the thought, thinking it would be perfect for my bee themed laundry room.  He agreed that he and Jo could do it for  me.  After he looked more in depth at the plans he realized he didn't have the necessary tools and he and Mom decided Uncle David would probably be able to do it so they approached him and he agreed.


He built the boxes, I stained them black and then he came back and installed them.  Somewhere along the way, he had presented an idea to me that we both really liked.  He asked if, instead of stacking them in a boxlike shape and possibly putting sides and top and bottom pieces on, we screwed them right into the wall and let it climb in a more organic way.  I thought it was a fantastic idea and played with different configurations (getting lots of input from other people) until I was happy.  I would have preferred it not be so symmetrical but I was limited to two cells wide which made it hard. 




I seriously love it!  I love having my shoes that I use multiple times a week handy right by the garage door and not cluttering up the floor somewhere.
And I love that this pattern created little places too put more plants :)

Matt had his first improv show of the year!



"Murder Murder" is always fun!







It is a smaller troupe this year so that means he ends up being in more of the games which is fun.

Trying to keep Ben entertained by showing him himself in the camera :)








Bro flexed his fancy yoga pose on stage.
(Sorry, I'm sitting here typing, listening to my three semi adult children playing Minecraft and throwing slang so that sentence just kind of emerged)

After the show, we learned that Matt had invited Brother Condie (both of the boys' seminary teacher since Matt is a peer tutor in the special needs class) to come to the show.  He and his wife came and stayed for the whole thing.  They dropped by our wheelchair accessible seats afterward and said hi to Ben (and us).  So kind of them.

The Monday night after Homecoming Matt was asked to Sadies!


And just a couple of Abby's Alaskan BeReals from September...