little utah trip

a few weeks ago i was able to go to utah for the wedding of my best friend. i left minneapolis and it was a balmy and gorgeous 62 degrees. i flew into utah and it was 30 degrees and snowing! the wedding was beautiful and i was so thankful to spend some fun moments with best friends. i even escaped to utah without my little ladies, thanks to evan (who by the way surprised me when i got home and had painted our bedroom, the entryway, and part of our living room-he is amazing). i also was able to attend a session of conference. so happy i could go with my younger sister carly. simply incredible to sit in the conference center. i miss the opportunity of being able to go to the conference center, now that i live away from it. i also was able to fit in some quality time with my grandma rawlinson, whom i adore. and even some shopping with aunt debbie, the best shopping partner in the world. my mom and i fit in a beautiful 5 mile walk around wellsville and everytime i go home i love seeing the beautiful wellsville mountains. oh how i miss those mountains. nothing like a good visit to home.

and then she became a photographer

my little ladies love to look at the pics on our camera, so much in fact that we have gone through 3 cameras, but they haven't been into taking pics themselves until now. i was flipping through the camera this week and found this beautiful one. love her eyes.

hello again

Evan and I standing with our new vacuum that was used to suck up 800 pounds of dust from sanding closets. The insides of our closets were plastered with a cottage cheese texture. Yum!

My Dad with Maya. She followed him around all weekend while he was here. He gave her the hat she is wearing. She guards it pretty fiercely from Brynn.

Brynn and my Mom.

What happens when I bake bread.

We have had a few things happen in the Fetters household-we bought a house! We had an offer in on this house in September and it finally came through the end of January. What a trip to close on a house-Evan and I both felt like 12 year olds at the closing. In Minnesota there are two types of homes, well I guess 3. 1: Houses we could NEVER afford, these are all in the city or on a lake. 2: Charming, lovely homes built in the 50's but with an unattatched garage. 3: Super ugly split level homes built in the 70's. So we have a little split level. It's all because I wanted an attatched garage. I had two winters of an unattatched garage, and decided that was enough. Our home is not a typical split level, as in it has an entryway! We love the space, and are little by little fixing the inside up. The peach with forest green shutters on the outside will change eventually, but for now we're just working on the inside. My parents came out the week that we moved to help do some work on the house. I am so grateful to them for coming to help us. They did so much from helping with the girls, painting, sanding, cleaning, driving, and the moving! I would not have made it doing this alone. We worked like crazy but had a great time. Thanks Mom and Dad for coming! We are loving our new home. We have learned much about home maintenance in just the month or so we've lived here. We now know a good contractor, plumber, heating/ac guy, and hope that we don't have to use them again any time soon! But we love our home and are so happy to be in it. We love having a yard, and a park within 1/2 block, and I have a dishwasher. I nearly wept using it for the first time. Glory be hallelujah.

More pics to come of the before and afters, because there are PLENTY.

green ladies

i tried to get a picture of my girls with their matching green wool coats; and hooray i succeeded!
just in time for brynn to decide to lick her sister.

it's finished!

FINALLY!

i started this little thing in november thinking that it would be a quick weekend project. no, not quite. it involved A LOT of hand sewing that i didn't even consider. however, i love love love the outcome. i have wanted to make an advent calendar since i've been married and just haven't seen the one that i love. i found this one on inchmark. my mom gave me the red and white buttons that are about 25 years old, which made me so happy to add another memory to the calendar. so now that it's february i'll take it down out of my living room and be excited when i see it at christmas!

happy human rights day

last night evan and i watched 'the rosa parks story.' i'm thankful to many people in the world who have made a difference because they stand up for what they believe in. i found this picture of mother teresa and to me it captures her completely. and martin luther king jr. a happy, optimistic kind man.

Brynn turned 1!

I know it was just about two months ago, but the littlest lady had a big day! I wanted to make something fun for the ladies on their birthdays (birthdays at our house are a BIG deal) so I made up this little banner. I just used felt and scraps of fabric, and it went pretty fast while I watched reruns of the brady bunch. :) Brynn's birthday was a Monday and the Sunday night before I remembered that we had basically no good food to eat-boo. So we ate out for lunch and dinner and it was fantastic. Who wouldn't want to have tres leches at a mexican restaurant when you turn 1? The big hit of the night was the-shopping-cart-that-can-run-over-an-adult-with-no-problem. It's industrial, and the little lady is in heaven.

Moo

The tiniest headlamp lover there ever was.

a mullet by brynn

*notice the ear peeking through-looks like an elf ear. she's also sporting an underbite in the picture. rock on.

little update

We finally took down the Christmas tree today! It was time, the branches were drooping, and the lovely pine smell was no longer there. I loved having our tree up this year, and am always sad to take it down. I love having oranges on the tree and ornaments from my childhood to look at.

When I was little I remember an advent calendar, and have wanted to make one for some time. I found this idea on inchmark.com and it was the exact calendar I was thinking of. The felt colors are not exactly what I wanted, but I do love the way it turned out. I STILL don't have numbers on it, and so maybe for next year I'll get them done! It's been hanging up in my living room for the last week. :)

This is Brynn tonight, she just figured out how to blow the train whistle Grandpa Rawlinson gave us. She was so proud-she was about to smack Dad's head in joy! The lady had to have a little trim over Christmas because she had a very large mullet going on.

Maya Moo on her first day of Primary. She was so not happy to be awake for 9am church, but loved to be going to Primary.