I love finals!

Jared's swamped with finals. So you know the drill. . . .(only 3 years behind! Credits)

Credits

Credits Credits Papers by Summer Driggs, variety of embellishments (if you really want to know ask me)More Summer Driggs:

Credits

Someone asked me the other day why I have switched to digital scrapbooking. Here are some of my reasons:

#1 not messy! I can work for 10 minutes here and there and all I have to do is save and close.

#2 I'm much more productive (I have hard time doing the final glue on a paper layout, digital isn't permenant until it's printed so I can easily re-do. Plus, when did I ever get this many layouts done in two days when I paper scrapped?)

#3 Less expensive (I use a lot of freebies, create my own elements, or watch for sales on coveted kits. When I do rarely purchase I can use the papers/elements over and over and never run out. I tend to be kind of a paper hoarder, so this was hard for me when I was a paper scrapper. I would love a paper so much that I would never use it because I didn't want it to be gone. Silly, I know.)

#4 Back to the not being permenant perk, I love hitting the un-do button if I make a mistake! No more wasted paper because I decide I don't like the design.

The list goes on...

It will all work out

Holly sent me this quote and I loved it so much I printed it out and put it on my fridge. I may even use it in the talk I'm giving in church this Sunday. Thanks, Holly.

"It isn't as bad as we sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don't worry. I say that to myself every morning. It will all work out. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. He will not forsake us. If we put our trust in Him, if we will pray to Him, if we will live worthy of His blessings, He will hear our prayers."
(President Gordon B. Hinckley)

Don't you love how even President Hinckley had to say to himself every morning, "it will all work out." It does always work out if we are doing our best.

Craftiness

Even though we've lived here for eight months I'm just now getting a visiting teaching assignment. I'm pretty excited to meet some new people. We're going to visit this week and here's what I made for the girls:

On Sunday I got another calling (Jared and I also teach the 9-year olds in Primary). The bishop asked me to be in charge of all the ward's bulletin boards! How fun is that? There are three big boards and a couple of small ones. He said, "There are no guidelines, and I know you're crafty." Kind of fun to be recognized for your interests. Not sure what I'm going to do yet. Maybe a new members board because we have a lot of new move-ins (this is a college town). Other than that I'm open to ideas if anyone has any!

Recipe group at my place tonight. Excited. Nervous. You never know what the turn out will be like when you start a new group. The theme is "dips" so I hope to get some fun new recipes. Yesterday I tried out a roasted garlic and red pepper dip. It sounded so good, but we didn't love it. Bummer because it took a lot of time to make! I'm on a hummus kick lately. I like to spread a warm pita with it (I love the roasted garlic hummus) and eat it for lunch. Only one Weight Watchers point for the hummus.

My long Las Vegas update

Finally, the Las Vegas update:

When Jared and I graduated from BYU-I in 2004 we moved to Las Vegas so I could complete my student teaching over the summer. We were able to get good jobs there (Jared was technical writing and I was teaching first grade) so we decided to stay. We had a good income and no kids (and didn't know when to expect them since we'd already been trying for 3 1/2 years) so we decided to buy our first home. The housing prices were insane there and all we could afford was a tiny 2 bedroom 2 bathroom condo (which cost quite a bit more than our house in Idaho for those of you who knew me there).
After living in Vegas for 2 1/2 years Jared's job started laying off all the tech writers. Since the cost of living was so high and we couldn't find another job right away we decided to accept a transfer to Idaho. We also decided not to sell our condo because we figured we'd basically break even by the time we paid realtor fees. So we found a renter and moved to Idaho. When she moved in, she expressed interest in buying the condo. Several months later (after stupidly buying another house!) we were facing another layoff in Idaho so we decided technical writing wasn't stable enough and started looking into graduate school programs. We approached our renter about the possiblity of buying and she was still interested but had just started a new job and wasn't sure she could get financing. We agreed that she would continue renting for a year, and then in May she would purchase.

Things have been going great with her renting and we were gearing up to sell next month. Then a few weeks ago we got a call from her. She had gone to the loan officer to start the buying process and they told her they couldn't give her a loan for our agreed purchase price because the condo was no longer worth that much. The housing market has taken a turn down there and the condo is now worth about $60,000 LESS than what we purchased it for. So she backed out of the deal because she can't get a loan, but also because she could buy something for much less.

Of course we are pretty stressed. But after lots of talking we've decided to keep renting it and wait for the housing market to pick up again. Everyone tells us it will. It's a buyer's market right now, but it will be a seller's market again. Unfortunately because there are so many people trying not to foreclose there are lots of rentals available right now. So we have to ask less than our mortgage payment in order to keep a renter. We placed an ad and just yesterday after a few weeks of searching we have someone who is interested in renting long-term. That's a blessing since we live so far away.

We're planning on going down at the end of the month to move the current tenant out and move the new family in. We're relieved to have a new renter, but still stressed because they will be renting for about $300 a month less than our mortgage payment. So that's why I'm feeling such pressure to get some Piggies and Paws business. Really $300 is one good gallery a month, but since I've been having such a hard time getting bookings, that seems like a lot. (My gallery last week had 2 attendees and $0 sales.) Jared is going to be teaching a class over the summer, will continue working at the writing center, and is going to try to do some private tutoring. He's also said he will deliver pizzas or work as a bagger at the grocery store if he needs to, but I feel so bad having him do that because he's already so busy with school and his thesis. I know I "work" too as a mom, but I feel a little guilty because I feel like I should be contributing to the finances as well. I've had this internal conflict since Ryan was born and I have been an at-home mom. Does anyone else ever feel this way?

Right now we're just saying lots of prayers, and paying our tithing and fast offering, and having faith that something will come up. It always works out, it's just the unknown that's scary.

Been gone

I've been out-of-town for a few days and I have a lot to update on.

The first, which is probably the most exciting is that PIGGIES AND PAWS IS GOING TO BE FEATURED ON GOOD THINGS UTAH!! It was the best news I could come home to. We're jumping up and down with excitement! May 13th is the day we will be on the show. Details haven't been worked out yet, but most likely Jennifer Thomas will be the one to do the segment because it is her business. And of course we are all totally fine with that. We just want the exposure and free advertising! And to be on TV! I was starting to get a tiny bit discouraged wondering if the Expo was really worth the time and especially money we spent because for me anyway I have only been able to get one booking from it (although I think that gallery will go really well because the lady is totally excited about it). But even if we didn't get a ton of bookings at the Expo, we got our name out there and impressed the boss of the show enough that he wants to feature us! Yeah!!!

This weekend my sister, Chelsea, came down from BYU-I. We celebrated Emery's half birthday with half a cake (tradition I started with Ryan). Can't believe our baby girl is already six months. (Don't you love it when clothes in your pictures happen to coordinate! Makes scrapbooking so much easier.)

Chelsea, the kids and I went to visit my grandma for a few days. We had fun visiting, making strawberry jam, and getting our hair cut.
Ryan was thrilled to feed grandma's chickens and collect the eggs. Since Easter was a few weeks ago he thought once he found the eggs we were supposed to hide them and he could find them again. It took a couple of days for him to realize the chickens laid the eggs.
I've been tagged a couple of times and I still need to update on our condo in Vegas. I'll have to try to get on later to do that. I have a P&P gallery tonight (my first in Utah! Wish me luck!) and I need to run a bunch of errands and get caught up from being gone for a few days, so I'll have to post more later.

Enrichment Groups

I'm starting a recipe exchange group for enrichment. I'm always looking for new recipes and love any excuse to have a get-together, so I'm pretty excited.

Baby Animal Days

Jared's in Boise for the weekend at a Writing Center conference. He's presenting a workshop tomorrow. The kids are in bed. So you know what that means? Dishes sit in the sink and I sit at the computer!

Yesterday I took the kids to the Baby Animal Days Festival. It was basically a big petting zoo with baby farm animals. Ryan had a lot of fun. He got to ride a pony and pet many different animals (ponies, calves, chicks, ducklings, bunnies, lambs, goats, pigs). We also rode the tractor-pulled wagon ride several times. It was quite cold out, but we had a good time and I kept Emery bundled in the stroller. I'm longing for warm weather.

Here are some pictures.

(If you want a closer look click on the image in the slideshow on the right. Staples are from Shabby Princess and the twine swirl is from Natali, everything else is my design.)