A few more Tammy originals

Just a few weeks ago I finished a jewelry making class. It didn’t fill all my expectations (the teacher was extremely unreliable), but I did learn some valuable and helpful things. I’m still not feeling like I’m a very talented jewelry maker, but it did encourage me to experiment a little bit and here are some fruits of my labor. I hope you enjoy.

I made this one in class:

These are the pieces I made for my sister-in-law for her birthday.

This I made for myself. I fell in love with the brown beads several months ago but didn’t want to use them to make a watch. Thanks to the class, I finally figured out what I wanted to make.

Last summer I took a class to learn how to make bracelet watches. It’s really fun and surprisingly easy. These first pictures are watches a couple of the watches I’ve made for myself.

Last weekend I made (and in one case fixed) these watches for my mom, two of my sisters and my niece. Aren’t they fun? I LOVE the polka dot beads on the last watch for my sister who’s just older than I am.

Finally, I also learned to make hair flowers, in my jewelry making class of all places. Yes, I know it’s kind of funny. These are the two I made, and I’m proud of how they turned out. I lost the headband one the other day, and I couldn’t be more crushed about that. Hopefully the pictures show you why.

Out with the old, in with the new

When your trampoline looks like this, it’s probably time to get a new one.

After purchasing the new trampoline, the first step is to take the old one down as much as possible. Secondly, you should get all the pieces out of the new one and put them together. If your uncles who aren’t so technically inclined are helping you, it might be more of a complicated process than you think. But, never fear, it’ll still get done, especially when little girls get stubborn/insistent about it and threaten to do it themselves.

It might even be a family effort and your aunt will run around the trampoline strong arming the springs in. It’s harder than it looks! But luckily there’s a tool that makes the process a little easier. Yes, I realize these pictures don’t actually show her doing it, but she was the main one who did. I sure wish I’d capture it on film, but, alas, I did not.

And if the process makes you a little crazy, well, that’s just to be expected.

Once it’s finished, everyone should climb on and bounce like crazy. It doesn’t matter if the old trampoline was only cool occasionally. The new one is so much better!

Then you have the adult trampoline

and the kid one.

Aren’t new toys great?

Part of that family

It's been way too long since I wrote in here, especially since my last post was much less than cheery. I keep meaning to do it and somehow don't get around to it. Sorry about that!

I wanted to share an experience I had tonight. I had the opportunity to spend the evening with a good friend and her family. They hadn't seen Tangled (as soon as I heard that I knew I had to fix it immediately!), so we watched that and then I was literally running through the house with her three-year-old son and two-year-old daughter. I thought they were going to be tired since it was near bedtime, but they had energy and to spare, and I kept up with them easily enough.

But the part that touched me was watching these good parents striving to teach their children. Although the kids are young, they're still making the effort to read the scriptures, just a small portion to fit their attention spans, mind you, but they're doing it. And then they had family prayer. I don't know that the kids retained any of this knowledge, but I applaud their parents for making the effort to do what they know is right and truly teach their children.

I was grateful to be part of it. It made me feel a great hope inside for the future. Although I'm not anywhere close to being a mom myself yet (I have to find a guy first and let's not even get me started on that), it made me realize this is something I want to do with my own kids someday. I know it's going to be hard and there will be plenty of things to dissuade me from doing it, but if I persist, it'll be well worth my while. Not to mention I'm going to be held accountable for how well I teach my children someday.

Kudos to this good friend and her husband for setting a great example for me.