Book Club--The Secret Wife

I went to my first book club this afternoon. It is a group of ladies mostly from Alpine that have been meeting for years. They don't have a name, which I think is sad!

Velyn chose The Secret Wife by Gill Paul. It was a great choice, as it was a historical novel with a very complicated love story. There was lots to discuss afterwards. I enjoyed it very much!

I also enjoyed seeing Maureen's beautiful home with all the fantastic kinetic devices made by her husband.

She prepared some great snacks, and demonstrates here how to eat them! She is so fun to talk to because her English accent is so beautiful!

Snow Walk at Little Mill

I joined the hiking ladies this morning for a beautiful walk in American Fork Canyon. We parked at the Sawmill picnic area and walked in packed snow with our boots and poles up to the Little Mill campgrounds.

It was flat and pleasant, following the American Fork River. The only danger was the packed ice, which caused Kathy to take a tumble. Fortunately, she landed in the dirt, rather than on the asphalt! No harm done!

The weather was sunny and crisp. If we hadn't been in the shade the whole time we would have been hot!

Across from the Timpanogas Cave parking lot we stopped for Janis to show us the "eye of the needle." It is a hole at the top of this mountain! With Julie's binoculars we were able to see it clearly!

Apparently, this is more commonly called the "devil's eye." I found some nice pictures of it at this blog, in case you want to check it out!

http://www.bogley.com/forum/showthread.php?41199-The-Devil-s-Eye

Clementine's Blessing Day

We all attended Brittany and John's church this morning, for Clementine's blessing. She wore the heirloom dress now worn by Brittany, Amanda, Crystal, Abby and Mabel. (Thanks, Aunt Annette, for sewing it!) Mabel looked cute in her bear hat!

Clementine was give a beautiful blessing by John. She slept through most of it!

She did wake up later and give Grandma Nuttall (the baby whisperer) lots of smiles!

They had a houseful for lunch, including baby Calvin, Eli and Lacy's son and Mabel's second cousin!

We enjoyed a Mexican fiesta, complete with Mexican wedding cookies. We stayed and visited until the cookies were gone. After that we couldn't find any excuse to linger longer!

Clementine's First Bottle

Brittany and John trusted us with the girls today while they went to a movie. We were pleased that Clementine had no problem drinking from a bottle, as it was her first attempt!

After Mabel's nap she amazed us by showing us she knows her colors! It is especially fun hearing her say "purpo!"

The cat is a real glutton for attention. When he wasn't crawling on the babies, he made sure he was right next to them!

More Crafty Fun

We finished knitting our hats and thought we'd show them off this morning! We were very proud.

Look who crashed our party! My brother Jon! He heard we were going for a walk this morning, so came down from Salt Lake with Sara. It was nice he was in town today! Ed and Coda also got to walk with us!

It was fun to have them with us to take some more sisters pictures in Lambert Park. We walked for about a mile and a half, picking paths that were free of snow. This was the one activity Mom begged out of!

When we got home we did Barbara's paper craft she created with her Silhouette machine.

She did all the cutting beforehand and we just had to glue the pieces together to make little animals with treat bags.

We each made 6 really cute animals!

We had a great lunch with soup and salad.

We ended our extravaganza with Joan telling us about our great Grandfather James V of Scotland. Ed wondered how we could have fallen so low!

Mom then told us more about another great grandfather, Martin Luther. When Joan told her son we were related to him, he asked her if we were part black! It is an easy confusion to make!

The party is over and we all had such a good time that we are determined not to wait another 20 years to do it again. Annette has promised to show us how to make butter mints next time!

Brady Crest

We had a little fun with the Brady crest yesterday. It has a picture of a hand pointing at the sun.

I made a simpler version of it out of vinyl and put it on the back of individual water bottles for our party.

Then we had fun making up mottoes to go with it.

I loved the suggestions:

Flying too near the sun.
Make hay while the sun shines
La vía del sol.
The sunny path.
Look to the light.
Follow the light. 
Follow the Son.
Choose the right.
Happy is the soul that reaches for the light.
Nourish. Inspire. Grow.
The Giver of all things.

We picked La Via del sol for its conciseness and because it sounds Italian! The real motto is "The right hand is clear." What does that even mean! Joan says it is a Scottish war cry. Keep your right hand ready to smite your enemy dead! She'll have to try it out on her trip to Scotland this year!

Brady Girls Craft Extravaganza

The Brady sisters and their mom are having their second craft extravaganza. We had one about 20 years ago, and it was so much fun we decided to do it again!

Here we are having a little fun--Judy, Annette, Barbara, Sara, Verlene, Norma and Joan. Sara is our sister-in-law, and therefore the only one who's last name is Brady now! We missed Rachel, our other sister-in-law!

We started first thing in the morning with a painting craft Verlene taught. She is the real true crafter in the family, so it was fitting we started with her.

We were thrilled with our Christmas decorations that light up! They all turned out beautiful! Can you believe she fit all these in her one small carry-on suitcase?

Then we moved on to knitting hats on round looms. I taught this since I'm the expert. I had already done three of them myself! It was a fun project, because we could pick them up in our spare time and keep working on them!

Annette is the quilting expert in our family, so she led us in the mass production of some hot pads! She brought her fancy machine with a walking foot to go through the thick layers of batting.

Barbara and Sara ably manned the cutting stations!

Mom ironed and Joan trimmed and poked out edges with the little purple "thang."

Verlene and I pinned and sewed. At one point I "caught a fish" on Verlene. We used to say that when we finished our job ahead of the one behind us. (When the person drying the dishes had no dishes to dry because the person washing or rinsing was behind.) We wondered if ANYONE besides the Brady family has ever used that phrase in that way!

We were smugly pleased with the results of our efforts!

We popped over to the Blue Lemon for dinner. They had a table big enough for all of us!

We ended the day watching Moana in the basement theater room. A fitting ending to a fun day!

More fun to come today!