Can you believe it!?

Yes, I'm actually posting something after all these months. I think my problem is that I enjoy looking at everyone else's blogs and postings that I run out of time to do my own....that's my story and I'm sticking to it. So here's a brief recap of the last 5 months. YW camp was....interesting. When I got there halfway through camp, things were NOT good, but they picked up and by the end everyone was happy. That is not to say that I was the answer to all their problems or even that I caused anything to change, but only a few girls cried after I got there....that' s a good sign right? Oh well, when people ask me how camp was, I sum it up by saying "it was rocky at first, but it ended well, and I hope that's the part the girls remember." Here are some pictures to show you they are actually smiling, and how the blankets turned out. Because there were two pieces of fleece tied together, the girls undid some of their knots and wore the blankets as dresses. It was pretty neat, and I have to say, the blankets turned out beautifully....even if I kind of went insane making them:

Let's keep going, Connor had his first birthday on July 8, 2009. We threw him a party and had some people from our ward and some of Spencer's family came up. We had a bbq in the backyard and everyone almost melted. It was SOOOO hot. Spencer was making slurpees for everyone and they were a hit. I seriously don't know what we would have done without them! Here are some pictures of the party, and at this time of year, let's remember how hot we actually were:


The rest of our summer was pretty tame. We didn't do too much, just worked on our garden a bit and drank ALOT of homemade slurpees with country time lemonade powder, water and ice. However, September was very fun. First off I turned 26. I am now officially closer to 30 than I am 20 and it sucks. Oh well, what can you do, right? Anyways, the day after my birthday we flew out to Las Vegas with our friend the Hall's. We dropped Connor off with Grandma and Grandpa Williams in Raymond, then flew out of Great Falls, MT. We stayed at the Trump hotel and had an absolute blast! I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to enjoy myself as I'd be too worried about Connor. Well....I wasn't worried at all and had a fabulous time. Either that means I trust my inlaws and wasn't worried about Connor, or I'm a terrible mother....I'm going with the first. The 4 days we spent there was so great, and even....not long enough!
Come on down....no, we didn't get picked.
Let's fast forward to October. I don't know why, but it seems as though our lives have been so busy. I love it, but it's nice to take a break every now and again. Halloween came, and Connor dressed up as a little Monster. He was very cute. We went to our wards Halloween party/dance on Friday and I had a super fun time dancing. I really miss going to dances as a YSA. That was probably the best part of being single. Anyways, Saturday we went out with our friends the Loewers, and Alita and I took Connor and Sam up and down our street. Sam is 2 weeks younger than Connor, so we're making them, I mean trying to get them to be friends. They were very funny carrying around their sack of candy. They kept trying to go inside the peoples houses, and we had to hold them back. They raked in a good amount of candy, so mommy and daddy are extra happy. We had a good time, and so did the kids, and that's what counts right?

Spencer said those pajamas made him look gay....I disagree completely!

A recent fall day photo....my little man.

My Husband is in Trouble!

What happens when you let your husband go golfing for 4 days in Montana, and because he get's rained out for one of the days he spends the day in Great Falls, and then when he get's home from his trip he brings you home.....nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. He get's a huge guilt trip and I get no guilt when I go shopping in Las Vegas in September! Maybe this will work out to my advantage after all.....

Young Women's Camp

Ok guys, so it seems that I've procrastinated/been let to believe otherwise. I have mentioned before that I am the Young Women's President for our ward and we are going to Stake YW Camp on June 30-July 3. I say we - but I'm planning on coming until July 2. Planning being the key word. We recently found out that we are being paired with two other wards in the Stake being that our ward and theirs have few numbers. I was under the impression that we would be doing some of our free time activities together, but apparently they have already planned everything to be done with only themselves, and I am now (frantically) trying to prepare some free time activites for 8 young women ages 12-15. We have no Laurels going :( So, here's where my trusted blogging friends come in handy....if you have any suggestions of activities we should do, let me know. What did you enjoy doing at camp when you were that age?? Come on people, I'm T-15 days......

Wow, another post so soon?

I know, I know, I JUST posted on Sunday, and now here's another. But it's that good I could resist. I came upon this blog with a bunch of cute crafty tutorials and ideas etc. BUT I had to show you this one tutorial RIGHT NOW because it's baffling! So go here to see this amazing idea that I'm sure I would not think of in a million years. I love stealing other peoples ideas.....

Honey, this is simple, really.....

Ok, so what started out to be a "small, easy project" (as told to my husband) has turned into something of a disaster! Disaster is the wrong word, because the final project is turning out great, but it's only taken me 2+ weeks of my living room looking like a tornado went through it....














(Yes, my husband is watching Sportscentre in the background...this is one of the 3 channels he knows, TSN and CBC being the other 2)

I REALLY want a craft room in my dream house. Anyways, what am I talking about? Well, I am the Young Women's President in our ward. This year is Stake Young Women's Camp and we were told that each girl needed a fleece camp blanket with fringes around the edges. Easy. Well, I didn't want MY girls to have the standard grey fleece blankets that everyone else would have. Oh no, that wouldn't do. So, being that I have a fancy sewing machine, I thought, why not get creative. Oh yeah, I guess you should actually KNOW HOW TO SEW before you get into major projects of designing and sewing SEVEN fleece blankets. All I can say is, I've learned alot about sewing, and my machine really is awesome. I also have really enjoyed making these blankets, even though there were times that I wanted to scrap the whole thing. So, without further ado....here are the pictures:



These are just 2 blankets, but basically I have 3 colors of fleece, blue, pink and green, and each blanket will have a back side of fleece (well, the girls need two colors of fringes, don't you think?!) then I bought some minky fabric. I cut out a million circles in 3 different sizes with the minky fabric and the left over fleece and then, did a zig-zag stitch for the stems and sewed on the circles and some blocks of green minky for grass. If you look closely, you can even see that some of the flowers have BUTTONS for their centres. What YW wouldn't want these home made, drenched in their YW Pres. sweat and tears blanket? Really, not that hard, but that was NOT my original idea. I have to give credit to my YW counsillor Kati who has helped me with some sewing. We're about half done, and we have till the end of June to finish, we'll be fine....At least they'll look original, right??


On one final note, my son is 11 months on the 8th of June, and I'although he is pretty smart in some areas, he has not mastered the art of listening when I tell him that THIS is not a good idea:


....we have one of those high chairs that clips onto the table. This is his newest trick to try and get out....Yes, if you flail yourself out any more, you WILL land on your head. For all you mothers out there wondering why I'm not RIGHT THERE ready to catch him, I'm wondering, if he does fall out one day, will he learn that it's a bad idea to hang partly out of your high chair? Gravity does not work with you son.

What?? A whole month!

I can't believe it's been a month since I've posted. It's kind of like scrapbooking or journalling, you just get so far behind you don't know where to start. I guess I'll write about our trip to San Francisco. This was our first time and it was pretty cool. The weather was awesome and we got to do some really great shopping and sight seeing. Here's the problem with every trip Spencer and I take - he hates shopping, and I hate golfing. Put those together and that can equal a pretty miserable trip. Luckily, this time my mom came with us and so I had a buddy to shop with and Spencer didn't feel guilty leaving to go golfing. I can already see myself being a golf widow this summer....
San Francisco is an interesting place. I kind of think it's one of those places that lives in it's own little world. There are alot of young people that live there, and on the Sunday that we were there, there was a walk/run event, and all these young people (when I say young, I mean my age +/ - 5-10 years) were dressed up in some very weird clothes. I'm talking really weird. Guys dressed up in cow costumes with utters in their manly regions, girls wearing tutu's, fishnets, spandex.....it was insane.
We went to the Golden Gate Bridge, the Oakland Temple, sat on a beach and watched people catch crabs, went to a MLB game,took a street car, went to Fishermans Warf and took a tour of Alcatraz. We also ventured out and took public transit (C-train) since there is very little parking in the city, and if you do park it's like $70-$80 per day. Taking public transit was probably the most entertaining part of the trip, which might sound sad, but it's not. Our hotel was the furthest south stop that the train took, and the further south we got, the weirder the people got. I have to tell you all about the crazy lady and the smelly man. The Crazy Lady was telling me all about her dog (which she had with her) and how the dog had a $300 coat and eats gourmet food, and how she spent $1500 on it's first birthday. Then I sat down and a black guy got on. There wasn't much room on the train, and she was taking up 3 seat what with her dog having one, her and then her purse on the other. The guy MUST have said something to her, because man oh man, I have never heard a freak out like that. In the next 15 minutes, no kidding she probably dropped the F-bomb like 100 times among all the other swears. She was telling him that he was lucky that her son is in prison (J-Rock was his name) or else he'd come after him and kill him. She went nuts. Beyond what you can imagine. The poor guy just stood there and took it, and told her she was crazy a few times. It was actually a little scary, it was night time and we were in a strange city, but looking back on it now, I can laugh. The other funny event was the smelly guy. Some of you may or may not know, but I have no sense of smell, so this didn't bother me, but still funny. The train has two cars attached, and at one stop this homeless guy gets in and immediatly everyone starts to cover their noses and turn their heads. After about 10 minutes, everyone had moved to the other car, including us. It was THAT bad. Ok, so maybe you had to be there, but seriously, it was funny. Here are some pictures to end this, I would recommend going, but seriously consider using public transportation, it's like $1.50 each way.

How do I....???

Does anyone know if you can search blogs, like you would search Google?? For example, if I would like to search blogs regarding a certain subject, can you do that?? By the way, what the *explicit* is with all the snow around here?? Sorry for the language, but could someone please tell winter that it is no longer welcome here, so shoo, be gone, adios, see you later. Winter has definitely become the last person at a party who just won't leave even though you really want to go to bed. I'd really like to put on some capri's, so let's all call out to spring and welcome her into our lives, perhaps she just needs some encouragement.

Finally!

Yeah, so Spencer and I finally picked a place to go on vacation!! We've only been hemming and hawing over it for like 5 months! We are going to San Francisco!! From May 13-19. Spencer has already booked us seats for a baseball game. I pretty much know nothing about San Francisco and will be researching everything I can about it, but if anyone has any suggestions on where to go and what to do, I'll gladly take them into consideration! We are taking Connor, (although I am weening him this month...yeah!!) so hopefully he'll do good. If you can't tell, I'm excited as every sentence I write has an exclamation mark behind it!!!!!!
On a side note, I am going to Time Out For Women on May 1 and 2, and because I am weening Connor, he's NOT COMING WITH ME!! Again, the excitement, I can't even imagine what it will be like to not have him with me. I know, I sound like a terrible mother, but seriously, I am excited for a little break. And I'm also excited to shut down the milk machine for a while. Life is good.....
I bought a sewing machine, my very first one. It's a Singer and I got it from Costco. I haven't used it yet, I'm a little afraid to, but I'll let you know how it goes the first time.
Oh yeah, I really think you should check this picture out as it made me gasp in a want to cry/laugh kind of way. Sooooo glad this isn't my mess to clean up!!
I'm off, time to do some more research - San Francisco.....here I come!!

Mommy Question - Is This Normal??

So for the last month or so, we've been trying to introduce eating solids to Connor. It started with giving him his own food at the end of feeding him cereal and baby food. Well, now the last few days he is refusing to eat any cereal or babyfood, and only feed himself solids. This wouldn't be such an issue except that 3/4 of the food he feeds himself ends up on the floor or in his lap! My only real concern is that he won't get enough "good stuff" to eat. Do you think this phase will pass and he'll let us feed him again??

crafts, crafts and more crafts!

I like to craft. I'm not the best at it, and it usually comes in spurts, but all in all, I like to do them. The last few weeks however, I have tried a few different things I've never done before. First, I got this idea from a website and made ones for my mom, my mother in law, and my 2 sister in laws.
After that, I made this jar for the Young Women. I am the Young Women's President in my ward, and I thought this jar might help motivate them to do their Personal Progress. Hence, the P.P. jar (if these were Young Men, I'd never hear the end of that!)


This weekend, like I said before, a girlfriend came down to visit and we did some crafting. First we did pies in a jar.


Then we attempted making bibs. I will admit that she (Carolyn) did most of the work and I am not great at using a sewing machine. I will say that I did not enjoy using bias tape! I still have a few more to make, but I think I'll wait for my mom to come down and use her sewing machine!


Finally, I attempted to make "cake pops". Ok, so don't laugh. I got the idea from Bakerella, and thought "no problem!" Hold on, big problem. It's ALOT harder than it looks, not to mention I'm NOT a professional. Only the decorating was hard, the making and assembling was not. I eventually gave up and just stuck to easy decorating. So, although my cake pops look NOTHING like Bakerella's - they still tasted great and were a hit at the birthday party I went to.


Thus ends my crafting projects so far, stay tuned for more finished products to come.....

baby teeth makes mommy go crazy!

Connor is teething. This isn't a surprise as he is the right age. It's not his first teeth, he already has three. But for about a week, he's been getting three in at once. The first one has finally broken through, but the other two have not yet and like the title says, mommy is going a little crazy.

I feel sorry for the kid, I'm sure he's in pain, but that doesn't make it any less torturous for all. A cranky-unconsolable-doesn't know what he wants except to just nurse for like 1 hour!-and also bite me while nursing, baby is the pits. I shouldn't complain too much, he's really not like this all day. Just when he doesn't get exactly what he wants, and since he can't tell me what he wants, this happens frequently. Thankfully he's napping right now.

This weekend a girlfriend is coming to visit, and her and are are going to go crafting crazy. Well, sort of. We are going to try and make pies in jars, and make home made baby bibs. She has a 9 week old, and I've got an almost 9 month old, so we'll see how much we actually get done, but it will be fun to have her around anyways. I also made these cute Easter gifts, I will post pictures soon, but I want to wait until my mom gets hers in the mail first. I must say, they are cute though.

I picked up my inlaws from the airport today, they just got home from a Mexican Cruise. It snowed two feet here while they were gone. I'm so mad.

Brrrrrrrrr

Ok, so I had to change my blog background to this because THIS is what it looks like outside! It's disgusting. Of course, when I changed it, it erased a bunch of stuff, so now I'm back to square one of "personalizing" my blog.
I need some help with something though, perhaps someone could explain it to me. I thought that you could use a search engine type thing to look on other peoples blogs for certain topics they may have talked about?? I can't seem to find how to do this. I am a little challenged though.
Lately I've been thinking about some of the inventions I own that I don't know how I lived without. Here is my list starting in last place:
5. Connnor's sleep sac. We use it at least 3 times a day and it's wonderful. No more worrying that your child is cold in the night.

4. My hair straightener. Spencer bought it for me for my birthday when we were first married. Seriously, I could have used it long before then! Maybe then I would have had alot less self loathing when it came to my hair.

3. My Braun hand blender. Need something little blended without making a big mess?? This will do it for you. Want a personal smoothie you can make in the cup?? This will do it. So small and compact, it hardly takes up any space at all.

2. My Roomba. The robotic vaccum. Now I must say, I bought my refurbished and so I can't say that I would pay the full price for one (I think $300). I paid $130 and I love it. It get's used almost every day. I seriously want the Scooba (the floor washer). Now how to explain that to my husband....

And coming in at number 1, quite a ways in front of everyone else is...
The PVR.

TV is revolutionized. It is by far the best thing we have every purchased. I suppose I should say best/worst thing we ever purchased....since it's easy to watch more tv then ever, but it also teaches self control, so that's a bonus right? No more commercials, my husband can rewind that sports play over and over, and I can watch my shows whenever I want. Beauty.

Well, hopefully the weather warms up and melts all this snow...then I can change my blog background to something a little more springy.

How do you do this??

So...I'm blogging?? I'm not 100% sure how to do this so bear with me. I guess I should say that I have been very intrigued by blogging as I've been "blog stalking" some people. I don't know why, but I'm really interested in reading what other people are up to. Plus, I've learned some cool things, like recipes and crafts. I just hope I have time to share with all of you as you do me.
I guess I should let you all know a little bit about me and what I've been up to: My name is Jenine Williams, I'm married to Spencer and we have a little 8.5 month old boy named Connor. They are the joys of my life, and I love them both dearly. I will say one thing though, motherhood is much much much harder than I thought it would be! Cudos to all you moms out there just living and doing the mom thing. We live in Calgary and have been for almost 3 years. Spencer works for an Oil and Gas company downtown - thus we live in Calgary. Our long term plans are to move away, but for a while we'll be here. It's right in between our families, so that is the up side I suppose. We'd love to move somewhere a little smaller - but we can't agree on a direction to go! So I guess for now, Calgary will do.
Connor is the cutest little "toe head" I've seen. He's such a good and happy baby. He love to hear himself scream, and does this every moment he can. He is also climbing on everything, and opening every door and cupboard he can, which means mommy needs an extra set of eyes! He is really alot of fun, and I've enjoyed showing him the world.
Well, that's all folks, for tonight anyways, hopefully I can have something more interesting to write later on.....