family

this is nick posting this time and i recently found out that i wasnt able to get thanksgiving or christmas off from work this year. im feeling pretty bad about that because i know that even though she wouldnt tell me lindi's pretty dissapointed about not being able to go home for the holidays and i am as well. i wish there was something i could do - i guess well see what happens. but just in case we dont end up goin home i wanted to let all our family know back in wyoming and nebraska how much we love appreciate and are going to miss them this holiday season.
im sure this happens to everyone this time of year but good memories and fun family traditions are starting to come back and stir up feelings that make you want to be home and around family. you miss things like tubing on the mountains, putting up the christmas lights and tree, staring at and working on a puzzle for hours, playing with nephews and nieces, driving back and forth making sure we spend equal time with all our family, sitting around the living room and just talking and telling stories, taking

turns making fun and getting made fun of, playing games, and watching the old classic christmas movies. i hope everyone knows how much we love them and that family will always be our number one priority.

even though we cant go home we are excited to spend the holidays here together and continue our family traditions with eachother and make some of our own traditions. were so thankful for the family and friends that we have here in las vegas. they have been life savers. were so grateful to them in reaching out and always inviting and including us in family get-togethers and activities. it has been a great opportunity to get so close to our family here. it really has been a blessing to have them here for love and support.

we hope that everyone has a happy holiday season and we hope to be able to get back home to see everyone real soon.

Halloween Happenings

Our Halloween weekend was fun, but also a little unusual for Halloween. :) We had a bunch of plans originally, but life happens and things don't always go as planned. We had awesome costume ideas, but we didn't even end up dressing up. :( We had planned to go to a Halloween party in Boulder City with Nick's cousins, but it didn't end up working out... which to be totally honest, was kind of nice for us because I had SOOOO much homework this weekend. (hence the reason I have not blogged forever) SOOO our plans changed to staying home friday night carving pumkins together and watching Halloween movies. It was a lot of fun and a very relaxing night together. On Saturday, I again did homework all morning, Nick took me to the temple, and then we met up with some friends for dinner and then headed to Jamie Johnson in concert. (ya, we didn't know who that was when we were asked to go... he sings "Should Have Seen It In Color") We only knew a few songs, but it was still fun to go and hang out with some good friends.

There were some pretty "interesting" costumes at the concert. Or as Nick would say, lack there of. While were walking through the Casino towards the concert, I mentioned to Nick that it was very easy to mix up peoples costumes with how they dress everyday. That's Las Vegas for ya!?!?! NOT my favorite part about this place. It truly is amazing what people go out in public wearing and even worse, they think they look good.

So like I said, not a usual Halloween for us, but it was still very fun and just what we needed... TIME TOGETHER!! My husband has been a very patient loving guy... he lets me leave to Wyoming for a whole week, then I get home and have basically lived at the school ever since. I keep telling him that I've been the worst wife lately because I'm always running back and forth to school and home and feel like I'm never home to do the things I usually do for him. I hope school slows down a little soon, so that things can be back to normal for us.

Hope you all had a happy Halloween!!

___________________________

This is for Jerry and Terri... The shirt that Nick "designed" online...

For all you who know the movie "it's a Wonderful life"

Addie Adele's Arrival

Addie Adele Weber was born on Wednesday, October 14th 2009, at 11:46. She weighs 6lbs 4oz and is 19 1/2 inches long.

Yesterday, I flew into Casper, Wyoming for the week to be with my sister, Dani, while she is having her baby. You probably noticed it was an "I" not a "we". Nick wasn't able to come with me :( due to work and school. It will be a lonely week without him, but we're both staying postive. He is missed dearly by my family and I. Yes, I am also missing a full week of school which is a little stressful, but I turned in a lot of my work early before leaving, so that helps. Unfortunatly, my teachers weren't too happy with me leaving either (we won't EVEN go into that story), but family comes first in this girls book. :)

Today we finished putting baby Addie's room together and I have to say, it's my favorite room in the house. It turned out just perfectly!! We all made a group effort to finish the room, take pictures, and post it on mom's blog. We decided to ALL copy that post and paste onto our blogs. :) Don't mind the silly inside jokes as we were all wired and being silly as always when we get together!! :)



Hi!! This is a shout out from Dani's house in Lingle, Wyoming. Katie and I headed down to Lingle yesterday and picked Lindi up at the Casper Airport as she flew in from Vegas for the week. It only took us 2 hours longer to get to Dani's house from Casper because of the WONDERFUL roads, which were covered in ice... BLACK ice that is... did you know that black ice is like the devil?... It's true, you can't see it but the evil is always there! Anyways... back to the story... we made it to Lingle SAFELY around 12 am. :)

As you can see, my daughters and I are having a good time creating this post together and you will see the same one on all of their blogs as well. NOW... the reason why we're posting...

INTRODUCING... (the FINISHING touches)... ADDIE'S ROOM!!!!!!!
Note: The colors in the following pictures don't show their true hue.

I picked out fabric for pillows to be made for the nursery and was hoping to find someone to make them. I hit the jackpot when I thought of Brenda, she did an AMAZING job!! The pictures don't do them justice, they are adorable and we all LOVE them!!!!...




















































The above pillow turns to the other side and it is pictured in the second picture in the rocking chair...they are all so cute and absolutely perfect!!!! THANKS Brenda!!!!!

The following items were made by Michelle and the ribbons were added by Lindi today. The ribbons are the same ones that were used on the pillows and we wanted to tie them into the room...



































(I couldn't edit any of the pictures, because I don't have my computer...hence not soooo good...)

The following decor was provided by the talented Lindi...


















Lindi made the name...addie...








































Lindi helping...























The expectant mother, anxiously awaiting the big day which is this Wednesday!! In this picture, one can see that she is carrying Addie on the left side and in real life she looks a little funny!!! But she's always been a little special and we still LOVE her!!!























I'll keep you posted on the excitement from Lingle!!!

For Addie!!

My sister, Danielle, is having her FIRST baby on October 14th (unless that little sweet thing decides to join them sooner). It is the first baby on my side of the family and mom & dad's first GRANDCHILD... that sounds very strange. But they are going to be the BEST grandparents ever. I wanted to do some FUN things for Dani and their sweet "baby-soon-to-come", Addie. Since some family members have asked to see, here is what I did... I decided to first, make a couple of things for the nursery.

Here is a picture of the nursery so far. My mom helped Dani to make this corner super cute.

I'm showing you that, so this makes more sense! :)

They have a large blank wall on one side of the nursery where we planned to put these:

Simple frames with baby Addie's name and coordinating paper and ribbon inside. :)


Danielle had mentioned to my mom that she wanted a picture of the Logan, Utah temple in Addie's room. I used the same paper and ribbon for this tile and used modge podge to put it all together. It will sit on an easel in her room.

The next thing has nothing to do with baby Addie's room, but something I could NOT resist doing. When Dani had her baby shower in Utah, the one thing she did not get enough of were "Hair Things." SO... I did some simple research I tried my best to come up with a few fun hair things for Addie.

Here are the headbands... 9 different colors.
And here are 7 different flowers (with clips attached to the back of them that attach to the ribbon on the headband.) They're ALL made to mix and match so if the white flower matches the pink headband because of Addie's outfit, she is set. :) There is also 6-7 bows that also attach to the different headbands. These were SUPER fun to make and way easy. I already have a bunch of new ideas to make some more. ( I know there's probably enough as it is right?)

Dani just got this package full of goodies in the mail last weekend and was thrilled. I hope you like it all Dani, and that the frames will look good in Addie's room. Just comparing the pictures of the room next to the frames, it looks pretty good!! Let me know how it all turns out!! We can't wait for the arrival of Addie!!

It's a GOOD Crazy!!

Once again the blog has been put on the back burner and I have a feeling that it will remain that way until school is over in December. So there will be far and in between posts from now on I am sure. Nick and I just finished the 3rd week of this semester and it has been a very big adjustment... one that we still are trying to get used to. With Nick working full time, taking 3 classes (working towards receiving his Fire Fighter I Certificate), and working one day a week at the temple is crazy enough in its self. He pretty much works, works, sleeps, studies, goes to class, and then works again. As you can see, sleep seems to always be the last thing he takes time for. ;) I don't know how he does it all?

Then I am taking 20 credits and spend a lot of my week at the school working on projects. So about the time Nick gets home from work in the morning, I'm already at school. When I get home from morning classes, he's sleeping or I have to do homework, then we both go back to school at night (on different campuses), so as you can tell... things are very crazy and our schedules are the exact opposite. Just the other day we were joking about how we had to adjust by getting to be together every day during the summer because I didn't work. And now... we're adjusting BACK to never seeing each other which is far more difficult. I know, I know... everyone goes through this and there are plenty of you right now that have even more on your plate. We realize we are SO blessed to be able to do all of this at once and are grateful for the things we are learning... we are just a little wore out right now... so its a good thing it's friday!! :)
So even though things are so crazy... How are we dealing with it?? well... Nick likes most of his classes. He's learning a ton and doing all he can to better qualify himself for the fire department. He is one hard worker and I love that about him.

My design classes are amazing... I'm really enjoying them and am really impressed with my teachers (minus one of them), and the program overall. CSN just recently got a new Interior Design program director that is revamping the entire program. He, himself, is an architect and all the teachers in the program are some type of designers that work for different firms in Vegas. I have learned so much already and am excited to continue with the program. Just last night we had 5 different designers from different firms come to our class and critique the projects we're working on. WOW... very intimidating but what a great opportunity to meet so many of them and get professional advice on our own work. They're each coming back for the final presentation next Thursday!!! I get butterflies just talking about it. ;) BUT... I got some VERY postitve feedback from them and some great advice on some changes that need to be made to my design.

We also get to go on "feild trips"... like we're in kindergarten. We get to go around to different places/stores in Vegas that are GREAT resources for interior designers. We get to go back as students whenever we want and use these amazing resources for our own projects and needs.

So even though things are crazy... its a GOOD crazy with many amazing opportunties!! :)

Fun Birthday Gift Wrap Idea

I found a VERY cute Birthday gift idea online and made it for my sister, Dani, as a birthday gift. Click HERE to see how you can turn these simple items into a CUTE gift, like the one shown below.

This is how the finished product will turn out...

Let me know what you think!!

Family Tree

On Monday, (8/24/09) Nick's parents, Jerry and Terri, celebrated their Anniversary. (CONGRATS!!) Nick's sister, Kim, called me about a month before the occasion with a gift idea for them. Kim is very creative and talented. She explained to me that she wanted to do an "Anderson Family Tree" for her parents, but she wanted my help to make it happen. She gave me A LOT of freedom on this project and pretty much said, "I thought it could be done on tiles. Maybe you could use a tree and have the family names on it. Then maybe you could do 5 smaller tiles with us kids' family members." Very creative idea huh?? I would have never thought of that. So... after much thinking and researching for ideas, I tried to make it as simple as possible.

(surprise, surprise... I didn't get good pictures of it ALL TOGETHER on the easels, but you get an idea of how it would have looked all together!!) :)

The MAIN tile (16x16)... Family Tree
And the 5 smaller Tiles (6x6)...

Since Kim didn't have an EXACT way of how she wanted it done, I was REALLY nervous on wither the final outcome was what she wanted or how she wanted it. I told her that I think I stressed Nick out because I wouldn't stop talking about how worried I was. LOL! However, when Kim got it in the mail, she called and said how much she loved it. Jerry and Terri also called once they received it from Kim and Lindsay on their anniversary, and expressed their gratitude and love for the gift. It was such a relief to know they liked the gift and it was somewhat like Kim had in mind. ;) Thanks for trusting me with your idea Kim... Happy Anniversary Jerry & Terri!! Hope you had a great day together! :)

The Final Project

{NOTE: This post is mainly for my family due to them asking about my drawings. It's also nice to journal because of the hard work and things that I learned. I will warn you that the pictures are HORRIBLE and you will have to click on them to really see whats going on. Have you ever tried to photograph drawings? Not easy!}
As some of you already know, I took a summer class and just finished 2 weeks ago. The class I took was called Introduction to Drafting Theory. This was one of the first of many drawing classes I will have within the next 2 semesters. :) I LOVE to draw and after getting my Associates of Fine Art from Powell, WY, I slowly started to stop drawing. I just didn't make time for it and taking this class made me realize how much I really enjoy it and how much I miss doing it.
Of course this class was a different kind of drawing from the ones I've done before, but it was still drawing. :) Drafting Theory is all about drawing floor plans of a specific building for constructors to use. Even though this class was only 2 months long, I cannot believe how much I learned.

Our first "big" assignment was to draw a Kitchen Floor Plan using 4 different scales on Vellum that was 18"x 24". This assignment was given to us so that we could practice and get used to using different scales that are used in drawings. You can see from the drawing below that drawing in different scales will result in a smaller or larger overall drawing.
This drawing is just on Vellum, using pencil, colored pencil, and marker. The final drawing had to be ran through a machine, with another piece of paper, to create a "blue print". This process was referred to as "running blue lines".

After passing that assignment, we stared to work on "THE Final Project". :) Our final project consisted of drawing 6 separate plans drawn on 18"x 24" Vellum paper. These plans would construct a Library. The 6 drawings were:

(Remember, clicking on the photos will help to see what's going on ;) )

1. The Main Floor Plan
2. The Reflected Ceiling Plan
3. Exterior Elevations
(These two may be the only 2 drawings where you can tell whats even going on because they are the how the outside of the building will end up looking, and how the inside of the 2 bathrooms will look.)
4. Interior Elevations

On the Interior Elevations we only had to do the womens and mens Restrooms. Thank goodness for that. I can't imagine having to do the entire Interior Elevations for this assignment. :)

5. Wall Sections

Wall Sections show the materials needed in order for the walls to be constructed correctly.

6. Building Details

Building Details consisted of 4 smaller drawings. These were simply the details that the constructor would need to know that could not be found of the coordinating plans.

We also had to "run blue lines" before this project was complete and bind all of the plans together.(You'll notice the red marks on this drawing. This is the graded complete project. Now you know why I didn't want to take pics of the blue prints... TOO many red marks :) )

This may not look like much, but believe me, when your teacher marks off points for a line overlapping another by 1/32 of an inch, or if the measurement of the line is off by 1"... it becomes a big deal. :) With the time restraint it was very stressful and many longs days were spent finishing this. :)
It was an interesting class and MOST interesting of all was the teacher. Let me explain why... This course was 8 weeks long. Well Nick and I went to Wyomng for a full week right in the middle of this course. My teacher warned me, that skipping one full week of the summer semester, is equivilant to skipping 2 full weeks of a regular semester, but assured me that together work it out. Ya, probably NOT so smart to miss that much, but we still went to Wyoming and I had to work by buns off to catch back up and finish on time. When I was finishing up the very last day of class and about to turn in my project, my classmates informed me that the teacher would MOST definetly be impressed because while I was in Wyoming, he told the entire class that he gives me 2 weeks before I drop the class because of the work load when I return. Well, there were PLENTY of words I wanted to say to that man when I turned in my final, but getting an A was good enough for me! :)

Successful Antique Shopping

A couple weeks ago Nick and I spent hours in this Antique Mall, looking for a specific gift for a friend. Well, I just had to take this opportunity that Nick took me to an Antique Mall and look for ideas for our condo. :) It's not very often we go to Antique Malls... my husband REALLY LOVES to shop! ;) SO after looking around for a while, I found this window back in a corner...
Some of you may be looking at this saying, "okay, why did you want this?" Then there are people like my mom who are saying, "that has some potential!" :) Those of you who have seen my mom's house understand her obsession with old doors and windows and why she would say this piece has potential. :) So thanks for the idea mom! Of course I had to pay a little money for mine, while most of yours are found in old houses for free. But, the lady was very nice and gave us half off, so ended up paying $25 for it.

So I took this thing home and chipped off all the old loose paint. I sanded it, and then washed it down with soap and water trying to get all the loose dirt off. Then I painted it black. Here's how it turned out.
I used a painting technique that would result in it looking older. I didn't want to loose ALL of the old paint, so it would add to the layers and worn look. Now what right? Still needs a little more work until it's finished. AND where is it going to go in our condo you may be wondering.

Well, Nick and I have these gorgeous wedding pictures and even though it has been over a year since we had them taken, they're still beautiful. AND... there aren't very many in our living room, the room where most people would be able to see them. Plus, there's this big wall that our couch sits against that looks kind of bare because there aren't very many things decorating it.

This is the BEFORE picture:

SO, with a little redecorating and bringing in our wedding pictures, this awesome window was a success.

The window with wedding pictures from the field and some ribbon added.

And the finished product...After adding more frames with more wedding pictures, and some mirrors, the project was complete. I also added coordinating ribbon to some of the frames to tie it all together.
What do you think? Is it too much?
This was all possible with the help and patience of my husband. Thanks sweety! :) And thanks mom for the inspiration!
I'm excited for the next trip to the Antique Mall!! :)