Five Beautiful Blessings Between Heaven & Earth

We had our family photos taken for the first time since we lost our Beautiful Colette. I think I knew it would be hard but I don't think I was prepared for how hard it would be. I just had my dad take them out int the back yard while we were all wearing our July Shirts. I just was not up to setting up the lights and the backdrops. I'll have to do that eventually but this will do for now. To be honest now that we have had them taking I've been really struggling with the fact that at 31 my family photos will be incomplete for the rest of my life. It hurts my heart and my head to know that we will always be missing our Colette. That there should be two little girls with darling dimples not just one. It just really does not seem fair and I'm having a hard time dealing with the fact that while everyone else takes their complete family photos for granted and their biggest frustration is that someone was not smiling or not looking at the camera. My biggest frustra...

One of the best things about living in Utah is that if you don't have time to fit in all the festivities on the 4th of July you can wait and do it on the 24th! I found this darling idea for red white and blue cupcakes, and just didn't have time to get it done for the 4th so I decided to make them with my kids on for the 24th. And here are my three happy helpers. First you take a white cake mix and mix it all up according to directions. divide the cake mix into thirds, add red food coloring to one part of the cake mix and blue to the other. leave the last 1/3 plain white Scoop one spoonful of each color into a muffin so you have lawyers of red white and blue. Then cook according to directions while they were cooking my little helpers make blue chocolate hearts to go on top of our cupcakes. here are my helping hands making the chocolate. Bridgett didn't get to do as much as the boys did but she still had a great time watching and helping where she could I love thi...

Yesterday was Dad Chadwick's Birthday (yes I'm a little slow on the posts this week) for over 4 years I"ve been trying to make this cake for Dad for his Birthday, This year I just decided to make it especially since Mom had to work till late that night. You can't have to many Birthday cakes right? So I opened my book and was excited to try this new cake for the first time. Double Chocolate Mousse Cake! Here it is right out of the oven. After it sits in the fridge for over half a day you "frost" it with melted chocolate, you place wax paper strips under the cake to catch the drips and then when you are done you gently pull them out, and walaah "You have a perfect cake" at least that is what the recipe book says, to be honest i was nervous about this step but it worked wonderfully! I used some melted chocolate to make the words, wrote them on wax paper, and put it in the fridge until hard, peeled them off the wax paper and placed them ...

Today we went to a friends house for a play date of water fun! My kids LOVE to jump on anything bouncy and apparently if you add water to it it's even more fun! No one wanted to come home for lunch. I finally dragged them home at noon for some food. I think everyone had a great time! This is Aaron Bridgett and Caden on the Trampoline.

I've started working on my quilt. so far I have turned all my fabric into 6" squares. Something tells me that this was the EASY part of the project. But I'm happy to have it started none the less.

For everyone who knows me Green has always been my favorite color. I LOVE GREEN! Right now my room is painted sage greeen with darker sage green curtains and bedspread. Sadly my comforter is not going to last forever and Dusty and I can't find anything to replace it with that we like. Seems that greens are not in right now. What's in ? Well it seems that hot bright colors are in, and while I can appreciate those colors I love that my room is restful because of the greens. So I'm diving into a new project. It won't be a quick one it's going to take lots of time but I'm so excited. I want to make a new comforter for our bed. using .... you guess it! Lots of different shades of Green and cream. and instead of tying it I want to send it in to someone who owns a long arm stitchery and have them stipple it for me. I'm just hoping that when I"m done it will be as good as the vision I have in my head! Am I crazy??? Probably! Any...

Today is Dusty's Mom's Birthday! So we invited her over for dinner and her fav dessert. Apple pie! It's a tradition. Every year on Mom's Birthday I make her and apple pie. So far I have not heard any complaints Hope this year she will think it's as yummy as all the other years! Happy Birthday Mom! See you later tonight :)

My friend Jennifer P. had this amazing quote on her blog, and I loved it so much I also wanted to write it on my blog so i could always remember it. It's from the Church News a couple of weeks ago: "The Lord does help when we go to Him in times of need, especially when we are committed to His work and respond to His will. But the Lord only helps those who are willing to help themselves. President Dieter F. Uchtdort called such work the antidote for anxiety, an ointment for sorrow and a doorway to possibility. When our wagon gets stuck in the mud, God is much more likely to assist the man who gets out to push than the man who merely raises his voice in prayer- no matter how eloquent the oration. President Thomas S. Monson put it this way: It is not enough to want to make the effort and to say we'll make the effort...It's in the doing, not just the thinking, that we accomplish our goals." Isn't that amazing????

Ok so it's the Lord's Plan of Salvation but this is the version that I drew up on my computer. Since we have lost Colette I have been studying the Plan of Salvation. You know, who we are, why were here, where we are from, and hopefully where we are going. It's fascinating really! So much good stuff to study. But while I was studying I could not help but think what fun it would be to have little pictures of each part of the plan, so off to my computer I went and this is what I came up with, and our set even comes with a little spirit body, earthly body (which the spirit fits nicely behind the earthy body) and a resurrected perfected body. Now we have been having a great time printing them on Cardstock, coloring them all pretty, cutting them out and laminating them so they stay nice. Our family thinks they are so great we would love to share them, If you like what you see and would love to do some coloring and cutting to make your own set for you...

Today Dusty and I got to go up to girls camp. The girls in our ward were going to do a service project. They were going to make tiny bracelets to be donated to the hospital for mother who's babies pass away. They made two in each set, One for the baby to be buried with and one exactly like it so that the mother can keep it and always remember what her baby is wearing. I was so happy and grateful when I heard that these girls were going to be doing this. And I was even more excited when I was asked to come up and talk to the girls and share with them a little about Colette and why I spend time making baby blankets and bracelets to donate for other who have also lost their baby like I lost Colette. I was nervous but so happy to do this. I knew that I would not be able to do it without crying but I was ok with that. I had kind of a hard time trying to find a balance, I didn't want to scare the girls so bad that they never wanted to have children of their ow...

We had lots of fun this fourth. We were worried that with the wind we would not be able to do fire works but we managed thanks to my dad! He's the best fire work shooter off er we have! Thanks Dad! Here is Bridgett telling everyone how to do their jobs. She's very good at that!