Week of projects and school

These past two weeks have been pretty busy (Is our life ever not? Is your life ever not?). Last weekend was a wonderful opportunity to hear from our new prophet. "Prophet Hinckley" as our kids call him, passed away and President Monson is our new leader. I miss President Hinckley terribly; he's really the only prophet I've ever known and he was the sweetest, kindest, gentlest, wisest man. Love just exuded from him and it was always a privilege to hear from him. On the other hand, we now have President Monson to lead and guide us and he is an amazing story teller, has a photographic memory (as far as I know), and is clearly inspired and called of God to be His mouthpiece.

Between sessions of conference, Brice put in a garage door opener (YAY!) and I filled our front planter with dirt and flower bulbs (Yay again!). I crocheted a lot during conference and I also did some sewing (you didn't know I could sew, did you! Well, I can, but just barely) in preparation for some bookshelves I've been wanting to make forever. The conference itself was so wonderful. I'd been telling Brice on Friday night before conference about some things I was struggling with with motherhood, and several talks in conference helped to put my mind at ease and make me feel like it was all going to be okay. Ahh, so much better.

All during the week, Brice and I were busy with school--I've had lots of projects due as the semester is coming to a close. We did get to make time for some racquetball, which I love. I'd never played much until recently, which is strange considering how much my dad loves to play it, but it sure is lots of fun, and a good workout!

This weekend I was able to finish my bookshelves! Woohoo! Here they are and I LOVE them! Now I keep the book closet locked and the kids get to have "family library day" and get out a FEW books (not a hundred), so my house won't be so messy! I'm so excited!
And I'm proud to say that I did ALL of it myself (sewing, sawing, painting, and nailing--blogs are for bragging, right?), except for assembling it--too many things to hold for one person to do it alone. And I guess I got a little bit of technical help in figuring out how to find the angles to cut the cross-braces. But it's a good, sturdy, kid-friendly, and hopefully break-resistant piece of furniture.

Brice had some help from our wonderful home teacher and from William (Brice's brother) to get some work done on our fence. Is coming along nicely! I really like Brice's design (he slaved over it for days and days and days and days and days and...you get the idea). Here's what we've got so far and hopefully we'll have an entirely fenced yard really soon and the dogs will no longer be house dogs. At least Pee-Pot-Kira won't be! Haha!
Oh, and my birthday! I forgot. My birthday was on the fourth and I got to go to Barnes & Noble BY MYSELF with a gift card (thanks Mom and Dad!) while Brice made dinner. I also went to Deseret Book and Michael's Crafts (also with a gift card--thanks other Mom and Dad). SO much fun! When I got home, Brice had been SLAVING away (and I do mean "slaving," as you will soon see) in the kitchen just for me. He made me salmon that was fantastic and he'd made Spanish rice from scratch and veggies. It was a great meal, but the best was yet to come. William and Angel and Marcos and Noelle came over for cake. Brice had made an 11 layer chocolate cake that was to die for! It was the most decadent thing ever--a chocolate-lover's paradise! It had two layers of cake, two layers of brownie with chocolate chips in it, two layers of chocolate frosting, two layers of chocolate pudding, a layer of cream cheese chocolate frosting, a layer of chocolate shavings, and a layer of chocolate fudge. Whew! It was delectable! I'm sad I didn't get a picture of it, but there have been numerous requests to repeat the exquisite taste bud titillator, so next time, I'll be sure to document this singular dessert.

The next day, after conference, we went to a park and had a BBQ and played soccer and rolled down an enormous grassy hill. Most of my family was there and it was lots of fun!

Okay, last thing: Here's the picture of William in the tree last Easter that I told you about in a previous post:Can you find him? He's the little brownish dot right between the two trees WAY at the top.