BEN AND LISA ENGAGMENT PICTURES

Lisa has been like part of our family for a few years now. Finally Ben has convinced her to make a commitment to the Ballstaedt name and stay in our family for good. We are very blessed to have her! The big event happens on April 17th! Isn't she a doll? Isn't Ben just so handsome! What a darling couple! There are more pictures on their website.

I PROMISED - SO IT'S SETH'S TURN

SETH turned 30 years old last month.

I cry when I look at his darling baby pictures, they just grow up too fast and now I'm old.

He has two beautiful daughters, one looks like her mom and one looks like her dad.

Can you see where Sienna gets her good looks?

Sometimes Ben and Seth liked to jump off their beds and dressers when they were little and it resulted in some stitches.

What heartbreak it was to see beautiful curly hair on a guy who grew up to be bald!

After his first haircut, the beautiful curls were gone. Our cute little Seth turned into a real boy.And he did a lot of boy stuff....he was pretty good at football, piano, and other things. He was honored as all-state in Football his senior year
He served a mission in Brazil, came home and married Cairen. Started a Painting company. Graduated from BYU, graduated from law school
We are so proud of him and we love him and his cute little family!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

My youngest son and my youngest daughter celebrated birthdays this month.

It was a milestone for Seth, he turned 30! Yikes.

Erin turned 24.

She has been the baby of the family for 24 years, and now she is the mother to two beautiful children.

She always thought she got bossed around too much, but I dug up some pictures to prove how much she was the center of attention!

(Seth you're next, I just haven't found the pictures yet)Can you see Stone and Leah here?

Such a sweet little girl

Always entertaining her siblings!

Seth was such a cute protective brother of her -

Amber would even go to jail for her if necessary......

the center of attention in every family photo

Two years old, and I wasn't gray yet

She was always first in line to see what Santa Claus brought

Always got teased by her siblings

Always worried that she was doing everything well! She wanted to be just as great as her older brothers and sisters

Always beautiful!

We love you Erin!

CHRISTMAS MEMORIES

Christmas Eve - We love our family!

I didn't have my camera rolling, so these pictures are borrowed from Lisa! Thanks Lisa. The regular chaos of Christmas Eve and opening the presents.

All of us hanging out on the couch

Passing out presents

opening their new quilts

lots of horse play

Trying out her new quilt

Holding the new babies

Looking forward to a new family being created

Getting a good shot for his mom

Grandpa and his funny game of throwing out money to the kids

You can't always get a smile from Ryder, he only wants his mom

River trying to anticipate where the money will fall

New Pajama bottoms for the big boys - (missing the other 6 boys in the picture)

Well, I made them open the quilts one at a time. These little boys probably don't care much about the pink ones.

I am not sure what game this was but look at the cute girls and cute grandpa

Lisa likes to take shots of J.J. (or Stone) (Jordan Junior) He loves Lisa

We couldn't decide who would be Samuel the Lamanite in the Christmas story, so we had three, they are up on the wall prophesying

Ben has decided Leah is his new little buddy

Sienna is so shy, she just doesn't see us enough to remember us. Ben likes to tease her a little

Cute daddy daughter shot

MISSIONS, BOOKS, AND TRIVIA

My Brother Randy, (not pictured) is a wonderful sweet guy. He has always been very thoughtful, reflective, and caring.

He is also a talented artist and writer.

He is also the Bishop of his ward which meets in a building that he designed as the architect.

He and his wife Bev have 3 beautiful girls and one handsome son.

This week they officially become empty Nester's.

The two older girls are married so they left home already, but this month they send a daughter to Poland on a mission, and their son to Argentina on a mission. This is RJ at his farewell. (Notice in the background the adoring girls - I don't know them).
Here is Lindsey, Susanne with her husband Nathan. Lindsey's husband was still visiting his family in Seattle for the Christmas holiday.
Sister Angela with her Uncle.

Not pictured are all the adoring young men that were there. (All I can say about them is....well, I better not say what I was thinking, just something about them being loosers if they haven't caught this darling smart amazing girl yet...)

(Sorry about the picture quality - a cell phone picture in a church doesn't take glamour shots so well).

Lindsay with her mom Bev

GOOD LUCK ON YOUR MISSION ANGELA AND RJ!

We will miss you!

In other trivia - some books to recommend -

I just finished reading the first 3 books of the "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" sweet, fun, fast read with some fun twists and turns. Much better than the movie. I especially enjoyed the second book of the series because it reminded me of the many years working in YW and the similar challenges of that age group of girls. It made me want to do a "Traveling Quilt" with my friends. (JK - I don't really have any friends.)

Also, 3 books by Lois Lowery - "The Giver", "Gathering Blue", and "The Messenger". These are youth books, so you can read all three in one day. The first book is something you will never forget. The second one was good, but the third one will make you cry and get goose bumps and wonder at the imagery as if it were maybe really written by C.S. Lewis.

GREAT MOVIE

WE LOVED THE MOVIE "INVICTUS"

HERE IS THE POEM:

INVICTUS
"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul."

William Ernest Henley


We were wishing it was a little less about Rugby and more about Mandella himself, but we thought it was a very inspiring and uplifting movie. We also rented the movie "Hotel Rowanda" this month, so our education about Africa is improving.

We had dinner last week with our good friends who have been called as Mission President in Uganda, they will be on their way the end of June. They have just completed a 3-year mission in S. Africa. They left us that evening with their testimony of the Gospel and told us they will work till they go down,that they will loose themselves until there is nothing left of themselves to give. We were so inspired by them. My what difficult challenges people choose to do and look at all the good they do in the world!

AURORA (late 14c., from L. Aurora, the Roman goddess of dawn, from PIE *ausus- "dawn," ) OR THE 20 QUILTS

AURORA - It was sleeping beauty's name, real name before she was "Sleeping Beauty" which was a nickname after she fell asleep.AURORA -Is a suburb of Denver, CO where my two little granddaughter's live, and who I visited during the Christmas holidays. And that is where my story begins actually, with my daughter Amber.
AURORA - Is the name of my sewing machine. She worked very hard the last few months and I am very proud of what this aurora accomplished so I am going to share it with you.
And she lives up to her name, Aurora, meaning the 'Dawn' or 'burning' because this little gal started every morning at 4:00 a.m. and burned all day until Christmas. (except the days that I actually went to work...) So the story begins when Amber came to visit and happened to look at my stash of unfinished sewing projects and piles of fabric. "NO MORE MATERIAL FOR YOU!" she said, "UNTIL THESE PROJECTS ARE COMPLETED!"She grounded me from all material stores until my projects were complete. Like the obedient mother I am, I started working really hard on that goal. This machine has a little feature called a BSR which helps free-motion the quilting.My first project was a T-shirt quilt. Not for my husband, but for his best friend Keith. He has run some very impressive marathon races in the last 32 years with Rock. He has been Rock's inspiration all these years, as well as his good friend. I made it for him for his 70th birthday in November.
(This was the only one where the Quilting was done by a long-arm, not the Aurora)

This little princess quilt is for our 3-year-old princess SIENNA. It was a panel which I put lots of little 2 1/2 inch squares surrounding it.
The quilting was difficult because I tried to go around all the little figures which is hard to see in a photo.

This is the COWBOY RYDER quilt. (he actually has more interest in Sponge Bob and Thomas the Train, but his brother had a cowboy quilt so he wanted one too.)

This is the RIVER quilt, or as I lovingly refer to as the "MOTHER BEAR QUILT" because quilting free-motion on your sewing machine is like fighting a bear. This one was like fighting the Mother Bear, it was so hard to manipulate. River also loves outer space.

The fabric with the outer space pictures was a panel which I cut up into squares, and I had three of them for the 3 oldest grandsons who always like to be alike.

These are the MCKAY quilt and the HUNTER Quilt. Two the same. They share a room and love outer space things.
(aside to any quilters out there; fabrics that go well with outer space are the Christmas fabrics. Something about the twinkling genre goes well with planetary motifs. And what a good time to buy Christmas fabric on sale right now! That is if you're not grounded from the fabric store.)Butterfly MEIKA quilt. I made two quilts of the same pattern but different material. Thanks to my daughter Brooke who embroidered all the antennae. (a reminder that I only could use my stash, so this is really scrappy. Every piece of fabric in this quilt had butterfly's on it to keep the theme going...except the solid purple.)

This is the KATHRYN quilt. All the fabric is Batik which I bought while working at Elaine's quilt store years ago. I don't know if any other quilt shops even carry it. Most of these are orphan blocks from a similar quilt I made for her sister years ago.

Batik is beautiful hand dyed fabric with very unique designs on it which is hard to see in this picture. Thanks again to my daughter Brooke again for embroidering all the antennae.
The LYDIA Quilt. This was a fun project! The circles were appliqued on very simply by just zig zagging the raw edges. I used a little stitch-witchery around the edges to keep it in place, but you could use glue stick too. If I had been allowed to purchase fabric I would have used more solid colors which I did not have in my stash. (This is definitely a quilt that looks better far away and not close up is my opinion.)

The HAYLIANN quilt. This was fun to do, and she is a TEENAGER - YIKES. So she needed something a little girlie! I admit I had to sneak a few hot pink fat-quarters from the fabric store..(shhhh..) This quilt is made with only 2 different square patterns.
The ALYSSA quilt was actually put together by her mother after I sewed all the half-square triangles, years ago. So, this was always ear-marked for Alyssa. It had just been resurrected from a pile of unfinished projects to show up bright and merry on Christmas day! (note to quilters; the half square triangles were done unsing a pre-printed paper roll that you just sew over - really fun and easy. In fact, i will need to make another quilt with these because I have tons more orphan rolls.)


These are the ADALYN and the MYLEE quilts. They are 11-year-old cousins, just a few weeks apart by birth, but they think they are twins. Addy's has a little more blue tones, and Mylee's has a little more of the green tones.

the GINGER Quilt. She is just two-years-old, not sure she is even in a bed yet, but I only had one layer-cake (10-inch square packet) so I had to improvise on the borders to make it big enough. The back of this quilt is cute, a flannel with purple hearts. Flannel is really had to get through the finicky Aurora so I didn't try it again.

This is the EMMA quilt. This was made from lots of orphan fabric and blocks that i had used to make 4 other quilts just like it for some of the other girls in years past. I used part flannel too. The flowers should fray with washing.
These are the Brianna and Bethany Quilts, two the same. They share a room, and they love purple. (keep in mind I wasn't allowed to go buy material and had to use what I had on hand.)

This is the KAYLA quilt. It is a project that had a bunch of orphan squares from a different quilt I made many years ago. I didn't love the muted colors, so I picked a really happy fabric for the border to liven it up a bit. I backed it with a really bright yellow fabric probably from the 1970's stash, and I thought it looked terrible, but KAYLA loved the bright yellow on the back and decided to use the quilt up-side-down. So you never know people's preferences I guess.

The JAYMA quilt showed up a few days after Christmas. I had to take my Aurora to the city of Aurora to get it done.The HALLIE quilt didn't show up in time for Christmas either, but here it is finally done. Amber actually bought the fabric.

And yes, this time I remembered to put the tags on.

(Was that 20 quilts?) Anyway, I enjoyed sewing them, and I hope my grand kids enjoyed opening them on Christmas Eve. They all seemed happy about it! i told them that if they wanted to know how much we love them to count the stitches because that is the thing about sewing, you do put all your love into every stitch and you think about that person the whole time you are stitching!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Thanks to my husband for tolerating my obsession!