Last weekend Jim and I ran out to Doug Jones' sawmill and picked out a piece of wood for my weekend project. I'd been hearing about Doug Jones for some time now and was really interested to meet him. He was exactly what I'd pictured him to be with neat white hair and teeth, flannel shirt and jeans. He spoke slowly with a deliberate drawl, in a smokey, gravely voice, warn from years of smoking. It was like meeting a cowboy from way back when.

So I spent Saturday and Sunday, sanding and polishing and my old piece of wood turned into my new bench. The legs were salvaged from an old coffee table I found at the Salvation Army.

Instructions: Readymade mag Feb/Mar 2010
Wood beam: $10
Legs: $2
Paste wax: $7

Sunday, I took a break from sanding and helped Jim set up the kids new trampoline. Eden has been relentlessly begging for a trampoline. Jim was adamantly against it, but she finally wore him down and he agreed to pay for half if she could save up the other half. I think he didn't think she could do it, but in less time than you'd think she had amassed $150 and we had to go to Sams to buy the giant, bouncing monstrosity. Our backyard isn't that big and since we already have the swingset, it's being overtaken by kid stuff. (We start out parenthood so idealistically, thinking that our kids aren't going to mess up our design style, and then one day, we wake up and our lives are filled with brightly colored plastic crap that makes casino-like noises... such is the life...)

I think I will always remember the moment that the trampoline was finished and we all climbed in for the first time, hysterically giggling and bouncing to our hearts content.

(I started writing this way back in early January, and everything I wrote was lost, so here we go again!)

• I made bath bombs, eye makeup remover, candied citrus peel & daily shower spray.
• I painted my kitchen - finally a color I like.
• Carrie and I took an amazing trip to NYC. I need to live there for a couple of years at some point in my life.
• Eden turned 7.
• I remodeled the living room which required a long weekend camping in March and ended with us sleeping in the basement with towels stuffed under the doors so we could escape the oil paint fumes.
• The poker night dudes "broke in" my new living room floor and I cried.
• Jim started playing in the band, the Pineapple Crackers.
• I learned how to quilt... And then took a quilting class and then took it again so I could hang out with some friends who wanted to take it.
• Jim turned 34.
• We found out that my sister was pregnant.
• I sewed a bag from a pattern for the first time! And several smocked dresses for Eden.
• Jim, Caleb and I built our pergola.
• I planted a garden.

• The kids and I had a crazy summer:
- We went on a week long camping trip with Brooke and her kids up at Vega Lake. (The week turned into 4 days, but still...) We saw a porcupine for the first time on that trip.
- We went to Glenwood Springs for the day on the train with Mel and her kids.
- We discovered the local rodeo where one time we saw the Flying Angels parachute from WAY up high into the arena.
- We spent so many days at the lake, baking in the sun. Or at the pool for swimming lessons.
- We spent the day at the fair in Meeker and enjoyed their new rec center.
• I participated in a training exercise for our local Search and Rescue team.
• We went camping and the truck broke down just as we were pulling back into town. (I yelled at the dealership owner who sold us our truck.)
• We found out that my sister was pregnant with TWINS! Then she moved to Denver.
• Eden lost her two front teeth.
• Amy and I made a LOT of jalapeno cherry jam.

• Honor started Kindergarten. Eden started 2nd grade. Jim and I reveled in our freedom.
• I turned 28 and with my 28th birthday started collecting Fiestaware.
• I became obsessed with Fiestaware.
• I chopped off my hair.
• I didn't like my hair.
• Honor turned 6.
• I canned tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, pickles and peach jam.
• Carrie, the kids and I went to Denver to visit my sister and her husband. We went to the zoo, Casa Bonita and did lots of shopping with a kid-distracting trip to Build-a-bear.
• We got the swine flu. I had it the worst - 16 days total. It was SO bad.
• Jim and I celebrated our 10th anniversary - but I was still sick with the swine flu so it wasn't terribly exciting.
• Pure Knits came out and I was officially published.
• I went to Denver to help my sister who was placed on bedrest.

• We finally got to pick up puppy Dexter. The kids and I drove to Craig to get him. On the way home I experienced a "mommy moment" involving children pooping on the side of the highway. (Don't ask.)
• My dad came over for Thanksgiving. We ate on my new Fiestaware. (still obsessed.)
• For Hanukkah we made a gingerbread town with Carrie. (Carrie and I were more into it than the kids.) We had a fun 8 days of book shopping, going out to dinner and building new crafts.
• Jim, the kids and I took a little trip to Denver to shop and have some fun.
• The morning after we got home from Denver, my mom and I went right back because my sister was in labor with the twins!
• The twins were born - Silas and Elias. They were perfect.
• The mountains got so much snow that I ditched my mom in Denver and rode the train home.
• I fell in love with train travel.
• The year and the decade ended and with it I realized how different of a person I have become. 2009 taught me so many lessons and made me a better person, even though there were lots of hard things... but lots to be thankful for too.