Helpin' With Christmas in July

I'm really excited to do Christmas in July for the sweet heart babies and families at St. Joe's. It really means so much to me! I look forward to hopefully putting a smile on the face of a stressed parent and seeing super cute beanies on little heads. Since my last post on this big day I've had several inquires of what help I need or any donations needed. So here's my disclaimer: I am only putting a pay pal donate button on because it was asked for, I feel almost awkward having it on but definitely appreciate the help! If you want to help here are some ways you can:

*donate your moola.


*make thank you cards: I am a rotten scrapbooker and completely lack any sort of creative scrapbooking talent. Somebody gave me the idea of having thank you cards for the parents to write their thank yous. Heaven knows they have many to write and hours to fill!


*beanies: my friend Mandy's sister is an expert crocheter and is willing to teach me and any other gal interested in learning. So come and learn with us OR if you already have the skill it would be fabulous if you could make some!


*bows or flowers for the beanies: the beanies are cute alone but just think how precious they would be with a bow or flower or a ribbon through them! Some have offered to make bows and YES! I'd love it!


*bracelets: My super wonderful friend offered to have some bracelets made that say "Hearts of Hope", they are the rubber ones that Mr. Lance Armstrong started, you know the yellow ones. They will be really cute and a simple reminder.

*socks: sometimes little tootsies can have socks on, socks would be nice; store bought or made is lovely.

*Cd's: my really cute friend is making some soft, soothing Cd's, they will be so sweet and so appreciated, music makes a HUGE difference.

*eye covers: I'm learning how to make eye covers for the parents to wear while they TRY to sleep. Question, would any of your husbands wear these? Mine absolutely would not, much to cool but would any of yours? Should I have them just for the moms??

This is what I have thus far. I'm a bit embarrassed putting this on and asking for help but I've had so many ask what they can do so I've created a list to choose from. If you've never lived in the hospital before how lucky you are but if you have, you know how lovely this would be! One last thing, I can't seem to come up with a name that works to donate this in, I'm thinking something along the lines of: Jersey Wings or Jersey Girl...that's all I've got, again, not creative. Thank you for your help, really, I appreciate it so, so much!

Can You Do This?

Wink and whistle all at the same time? Tater can and she's mighty proud of it!

Shop Chic Boutique

This Saturday is an exciting boutique I get to participate in. I'll be selling hooded towels for babies and young kids, they are super cute if I do say so myself, and there will be many other vendors as well. In November, the last time this boutique was, Jersey was the beneficiary of a percentage of the sales, this time we are donating to Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation in the name of Michelle Hufford. She is a wonderful teacher in our community who is fighting cancer. Come one come all, it'll be a great day with many fun and different things. There will be a drawing for a $50 gift card to any vendor and it's a great way to get your mother a Mother's Day gift! See you Saturday!

Easter Festivities

Easter was fun this year, just like every year. We kept busy with family and egg hunts and yes, Jersey was never far from our minds.

It wouldn't be Easter if there was no egg dying. I wonder how egg dying became an Easter tradition, it seems far from the resurrection which of course is the whole reason for Easter. I'll have to look that up!

It takes a lot of concentration to make a fabulous egg! The finishing touch was GLITTER, they HAD to sparkle!

We went to Grandma and Grandpas for some Easter fun. Tatum admired the distant rainbow and Tucker... didn't seem to notice, he was too busy admiring his giant grapefruit!

All the cousins.

The Easter Bunny came and didn't disappoint, they each got a movie and gum. I think Tuck ate almost a whole pack before church, that's a lot of gum! This is Jersey's movie, it didn't feel right excluding her, if she were here she would have gotten something. I can't decide if it was more for me or for the blondies, either way, it was important for us to acknowledge her.

As tradition would have it, the Easter Bunny hid eggs. Before the 3 egg hunts the blondies and I had to talk strategy: run as fast as you can to an egg, throw it in your bucket and run to find more; you can always look at your pile of eggs later and the treasures they hold!

Silly Bunny thought he could out smart them by hiding a green egg in the lettuce. And yes, if you're wondering, that's the lettuce from our garden. How Mormon are we!

Obviously showing what they found!

The little miss in her new, fancy dress. If I do say so myself she looked darling! It wouldn't be a photo shoot if there were no "sassy faces/poses".

A dress isn't a dress unless it TWIRLS!

Us and our girlie.

If you were wondering where Tucker was during the photo shoot he was having a melt down about his pants. He thought they were too long, and they weren't, so he was hysterical all the way to church. We had to wait until church was over to photograph him and even still, this is all we got. Nice pants!

We simply had to visit Jersey Girl. Easter this year, and I'm sure every year from now on, has a different meaning; my heart has a tender spot for this day. It's no longer dresses, hunts, and candy but a day we get to celebrate Jersey's future resurrection, our chance to once again have her in our arms, our chance at perfection and forever.

Upon deciding it was time to leave we said good-bye to our little peanut and headed to the car. Tatum wasn't satisfied and ran back to Jersey, kissed her hand and rubbed Jersey's dirt with her kissed hand. "Bye Jersey, I love you. I miss you." she said and my heart broke all over again.




Off to Nonnie and Papa's for dinner and another egg hunt.

Conference Weekend

I was lucky enough to go on a last minute trip with my friend Liz to conference. Our weekend in Utah was quite memorable!

We met at a restaurant 2 other mommies with angel heart babies. We showed up to the restaurant and 5:15 and left at 10, there was much to be discussed! We shared our stories and surprisingly there were no tears. Liz and I couldn't come without gifts so we brought for them necklaces with a charm of a picture of their girlie. They turned out really cute, we hope they love them! Liz surprised me and made one for me as well. The waiter probably thought we were a little strange matching. Whatever, we had fun! Pretty sure we're all new best friends!





One bed, two girls.

Friday morning we went to a live temple session. It was different but good, we'd never done a session in any temple other than Mesa. The art work was amazing and I loved how the floors creaked when walked on. What sacrifices must have been made to build such lovely, intricate art!







These are our other new friends we met this weekend. Unfortunately Mindi, the cute one with the purse, is also a heart mom. We met her through the blogging world and were so anxious to finally meet her in person. Her girlie is Libbi, who is doing well by the way. This family was amazingly sweet and accommodating to us. We love them and are already planning road trips to hang out again!






This is what we woke up to Saturday morning, snow. Yuck! It must have snowed 3 inches while we were snoozing and continued to snow most of the morning which made waiting in line for conference absolutely freezing! We're from Arizona, who has clothes for the snow? I certainly don't! My 2 pair of tights, 3 shirts, and jacket wasn't enough to keep me from shivering.

Saturday afternoon we had killer tickets, we were on the 15ish row on the floor! You know those huge projection screens for most of the people who aren't close enough to see the color of the speakers eyes? Yeah, we didn't need those, we were right there!

Liz and I found it no coincidence that we were there in person to hear Elder Scott's talk. We're pretty sure he had us in mind while he wrote it! We decided we simply HAD to meet him and nothing would stop us. So at the conclusion of the meeting we pushed our way to the front where some security dude told us there was no way we were getting passed him. I even pulled my Jersey card but was unsuccessful. We decided another route to the very front might be more productive and it certainly was! After waiting for half an hour we got to shake his hand and get a squeeze from him. We didn't do much talking as we were to busy crying, we briefly explained we too had heart angels and that's about where our talking ended. He was so sweet and said, "The pain lessons and the memories become more vivid." It's no coincidence Liz and I were there together, sitting up front for this talk, and that he's the only apostle that mingles with the crowd enabling us to meet him. We think Jake and Jersey definitely had a hand in this! :)





Sunday morning we were seated in time to watch The Spoken Word which is mostly the Tabernacle Choir singing. Lovely!

It finally quite snowing and being wintry on Sunday. The view from the second floor of the Conference Center after the morning session. I love the crowds of people. It's so much easier to stay at home in a warm house, in pajamas to watch conference but thousands of people brave the frigid temperatures and long distances to see and hear the prophet speak. An older sister missionary told us of one lady who saved for 25 years to make this trip!

We didn't have tickets for the Sunday morning session so we made this fabulous sign and held it high. It worked, we got tickets! People couldn't resist our pink, sparkly sign!

So, I'd very much like to do a Christmas in July for all the sweet heart babies and their parents at St. Joe's hospital but I need some help coming up with fun, inexpensive, creative things to do/bring. The only thing I can really think of is eye covers for the parents, it's so bright in those rooms and it makes sleeping difficult! For the babies I could only come up with beanies for their little heads. Does anybody know how to crochet/knit those? I need to learn! They can rarely wear socks, clothes, or hand covers and they already get several blankets. If you have any brilliant ideas or not so brilliant ideas please let me know! Times ticking and I should probably get started soon!

Thanks friends!!