Our Flammily

We are down at my parents house right now, and I just wanted to post a picture of me and my sisters!!

This is just another random picture that I took because I love to take pictures of my baby boy!!

This is a hat that my mom wore when she was little. She brought it up for us to use for Daniel. It is too big for him right now, but I am sure he will grow into it. I just wanted to show you his cute hat. I also love the overalls that he is wearing. One of my friends gave them to us because she didn't need them any more, and I am so glad that she did because I love them!!

We took a new family picture at Thanksgiving. In case any of you wanted to see it. Here it is!

Yesterday, we went to Idaho Falls to visit Grandma Flamm, or to Daniel: Great Grandma Flamm. It was really fun to go see her. She loved seeing Daniel and had fun holding him. We had a good visit with her and I am really glad that we got to go. I think that it had been a while since she held one of her great grandbabies even though, I know she does have quite a few.

We still think that Daniel is a keeper. He is so fun to play with and keeps me busy. I am having fun with him at home. His neck is getting stronger, and I like to put him on his tummy, and them he can push himself up so that he can look around. He is doing really well, and it is fun to watch him grow. When he is awake, he is very alert. Here are a few of my favorite pictures of him looking around.

Last night at about 5:00, Jason and I started home from a day of shopping and visiting family in Idaho Falls. On the way home, we decided that we would make hamburgers for dinner. Then we realized that we didn't have any buns. Which is fine, we would just have bread. But I had been craving a big hamburger like one you would get at Applebees, so we decided to make our own hamburger buns, and make them delux hamburgers! So when we got home, Jason got the dough started, so that we could have our homemade buns.
It took forever before dinner was ready, but they sure turned out great! I was glad that we decided to make them, even though we didn't eat dinner until after 8:00. It was late, but I think that it was worth the wait!

So, while my mom was here after Daniel was born, my mom and I decided to do a craft project. Neither of us had ever done this type of project before, so we thought it would be fun to give it a try. So here is what we did step by step:

Here is my mom cutting the wood. We made 7 blocks-one for each letter in Daniels name.

This is me painting and sanding the blocks. We chose blue paint because it matched the fabric that we used, and of course, he is a boy.

Here I am cutting the fabric to match the size of each block.

Then we glued the fabric on each block, and looked at the ribbon and other things that we could use to embellish the blocks. Even though the blocks were for a boy, I still thought that it would be fun to add a few girly touches to them.

This is my mom cutting out the letters of Daniels name out of the blue fabric. These letters went on top of the fabric that we had glued on the blocks.

Here is what the blocks looked like with just the fabric glued onto them, before we added any of the letters or ribbon or anything else on to them.


And here are the final blocks with Daniel in the picture. I thought they turned out quite nice. Neither of us were really sure what we were doing when we decided to start this project, but we did agree that it would be fun to see if we could even make the project work. I am glad that we tried, because they really did turn out quite well. It was a lot of fun to figure out a new project with my mom. I am glad that she was willing to try something new with me!

We have a baby!! He is absolutely amazing. He was born on Tuesday October 27, 2009 at Madison Memorial Hospital in Rexburg, Idaho. He was born at 2:49 pm and was 8 pounds, 7 ounces and 21 inches long. This is about the same size that I was (I was 8 pounds 11 ounces and 21 ¼ inches long). We brought him home Thursday the 29 of October. My Mom, Dad, and sister Melissa came up to visit on Friday. Dad and Melissa left Sunday night, but my mom was able to stay a week. (She just left this morning). It was fun to have them all here last weekend. Even though my Dad and Melissa couldn’t stay very long, I am glad that they were able to come up, and I know that they really enjoyed it too.

Daniel loves being here with us too. He loves to sleep and even sleeps fairly well at night time. He is doing great, and the doctor said he is in good health. We have another Dr. appointment on Tuesday, so hopefully he will tell us again, how good of a baby he is. Anyway, he isn’t much of a crying baby-which makes me happy. He is very cooperative especially when I change his diaper. Although I personally haven’t gotten wet, I know that the carpet, my mom, and my sister have when changing his diaper. The only time he cries is when he is freezing cold, and then he stops crying as soon as you get him warm. He doesn’t carry on forever! Yeah!

Anyway, so life is good. We are enjoying being parents. I am now a stay at home mom, instead of a working pregnant mom. Jason is in school full time this semester and super busy trying to catch up on everything after spending time at the hospital with me. We are all three doing great, and hope that you are all doing great too!!

So, over the past little while I've made a couple of burp cloths. I only have pictures of one of the patterns of fabric, but I thought that they turned out pretty good. I have a couple other patterned fabrics that are really cute...just no pictures. The fabric that I used came from my sister Cheryl who gave it to me when I was in California visiting her. Then I used my new sewing machine--which I absolutely love--to make cool stitches around the edges of the burp cloth. They look a lot better in person, but they still look good in the pictures. Just thought I'd share. They are really easy to make if any one ever wants to make one!

Here is a sample of the cool stitches that I did with my sewing machine. It is not the fanciest machine in the entire world, but for me, it is absolutely perfect!! I am so grateful to wonderful parents who bought it for me as a graduation present. The front of the burp cloths is above and the back is below--the blue side.

So, I was released from my calling yesterday. I was the primary president. I thought this was the best calling that I have ever had. I really enjoyed working with our small 2 children primary and the 15ish kid nursery. I had so much fun! One reason I got released is because before too long, we will have a new baby! The other reason I got released is because Jason is now in the Bishopric. He was called about a month and a half ago, but I got to keep my calling until now. He is enjoying his calling, but I know it really keeps him super busy with school and me :). Anyway, I guess that is the newest news in our lives right now... that I have to go back to Relief Society on Sunday. That will be a switch, but I'm sure it will be good. Hope all is well with you!

As you probably know, Lindsey graduated this past April from college. As a graduation present I got her a print of the Mt. Timpanogos Temple that she had always liked (this is also where we were married). The print looked amazing but the place I got it from wanted about $150 in addition to have it framed. I checked around Rexburg and was quoted even more, about $200!!, to get it framed how I wanted. The print is 12"x36" panoramic which isn't exactly standard, so buying something pre-made wasn't an option either. I rummaged around the internet looking for ideas to get it done on a college budget and finally decided that the only way I could was to make it myself. I have a decent amount of construction experience and doing finish work so I figured it couldn't be that difficult. Anyway, I finally had time to work on it the past couple of weeks since I've been between an internship and school. Here's what I did!


I figured that it would be more work than I wanted to make my own stock so I went to Home Depot to see if they had anything that might work. I found some basic crown molding that had the general profile I was looking for and glued a piece of 1"x4" to the back of it, leaving about 1/4" overhang so that a piece of glass could sit in it. The piece above is pretty close to what I used. Once the pieces where bonded together I got my Father in Law's help to cut them to size on his table saw. Here is a pretty good youtube link for how to cut a perfect frame. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AWVjW-Da3A&feature=related



The next step was to glue the corners and clamp them together. This was pretty tricky because of the frame size. I tried everything from pipe clamps to staples to get it to stick together without any luck. There are special "frame clamps" that are designed for this but they are expensive which would defeat the purpose of me making the thing myself. Anyway, I found a niffty trick on youtube to clamp it together that worked great! Basically I laid it out on a sheet of plywood and used wedges to clamp it down. Here is the link if it doesn't make sense. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2trWWHH9dg



Here it is clamped down.



Here I'm hammering in some corrugated nails to strengthen the corners. This was a pain in the rear because the piece I hammered them into was a hard wood. I cut up my fingers a bit with the stupid things but they made the joints a lot stronger.



After it was clamped together I used some easysand filler to fill in the imperfections and to smooth things out in general.



Here is a finished corner. The picture is a little blurry but you get the idea. Next I primed and painted it with some black spray paint. I tried a flat paint at first but the finish looked like charcoal. Next I tried a glossy spray which looked almost as bad because it was so shiny. I sanded the glossy finish down to ruff it up so that I could try a different paint on it but liked how it looked and decided to go with a "distressed" finish. The finish still wasn't what I wanted but I thought to use some wax on it to give it the right sheen. I learned this from working with stained wood. I ended up just using some black shoe polish that I rubbed in and then buffed. The finish turned out much better than I expected.


Once the frame was painted, I bought a piece of glass for it and used some glazing points to secure everything down.



Not to shabby!!