Hanks Family Pictures 2008

Here are the results of our family pictures from this year. Family pictures are always so stressful for me and so I have been dreading them for months but they turned out just fine.

Project of the year

First of all, if you keep up on my mom's blog or my sister's blog (Debby's), many of my blog entries will seem like old news. This will be one of those entries. But for those of you who don't read theirs - enjoy!

About a year ago, when my Grandma Orris came to visit, we went shopping at quilt stores and found a very cute kit to make advent calendars. My grandma bought enough for our whole family (5) and my mom and I set out to make them. Most of the work was done in our own little sweatshop last summer when Joseph was in Costa Rica for a week and a half. We had to trace each applique piece 5 times (since we were making five of these), cut out each traced piece, iron each piece to the fabric, cut each piece out again, iron each piece on again, stitch around the edges, press the edges of the pocket under, sew the pocket to its background, and then sew each of the backgrounds together. Then it was quilted and finished. Phew!!! It was an incredible undertaking and extremely rewarding. I must say, they are beautiful and a fun quilt made from the contributions of three generations of quilters. I am pretty proud of this accomplishment. They are our Christmas gifts to the family this year but we gave them to everyone on Thanksgiving so that they can enjoy them this season.


I have very fond memories of the advent calendar we had growing up that my Aunt Elna made for us and hope that my children will have many fond memories of this one in the years to come.

We're expecting...

A GIRL!!!!! Can you believe it?! After having two boys, I wasn't sure we would ever have a girl - but we are! We are going to name her Elizabeth. I am due April 10 and am feeling much better these days. Here is one of the pictures from the ultrasound we had yesterday:

Grrr...

Although I have many, MANY more interesting and important things to document here, all I can bring myself to write about right now is my quilting woes.

Being a perfectionist has its down sides, and I have been working on overcoming this weakness in me for several years now. One place where perfectionism is a particular problem is in quilting. Let's face it: quilts are NEVER perfect, even when they look pretty darn close. I have decided that I love quilting enough that I am willing to overlook a certain amount of error in order to be able to enjoy the process and the product. However, the quilt that I am currently working on (see the entry below, a little way down the page) is having enough problems that it is just about outside the reaches of the acceptable margin of error. I do not think it is fixable at this point, at least fixable at a level that I can still have some pride in my work, but I can't bring myself to abandon it either. So I keep (slowly) plugging away... sluggish because I know I'm not going to be happy with it anyway.

My mom, a master quilter, keeps telling me it's fine and that it will never be perfect, but I'm not really convinced on this one.

I am sure that when I am finished, many will say it is wonderful, and beautiful, and blah, blah, blah, but they will either be kindly overlooking the major skee-womp-ish-ness of the final product or will not be looking very closely. I will then have to smile and say thank you graciously while I sigh deeply inside, because no one likes it when you devalue their compliment with all kinds of, "Actually, it's horrible and I didn't want to finish it, but thanks anyway..."

Hmmm... I guess this one I'll have to keep struggling with internally for awhile. Maybe re-reading this post will help me see the foolishness in my ways. Or maybe not.

Priscilla Ahn

This is beautiful. I am not up on pop culture much at all but this is just wonderful...

Priscilla Ahn

Quilting

One thing some people may not know about me is that I LOVE quilting. Unfortunately, time and means have limited my quilting for the last few years. To make up for it, I have helped many other people work on their quilts, and many of these quilts have been successfully completed. I have taken a small amount of pride in their lovely work, but that is not the same thing as having a beautiful quilt finished yourself. Now that my thesis is completed and the diploma in hand, I have really wanted to start again but my love of expensive fabric has still been a limiting factor.

However, my desire to quilt has finally exceeded a reasonable level and this has forced me to overcome a fear that I have had. That fear is a fear of making scrap quilts. For those of you who don't know, a scrap quilt can be made with any pattern, but instead of going out and purchasing coordinating fabric, you use fabric left over from other projects and can make them as coordinating or not, as you please. I have a great fear of this, largely because I am never really confident in the coordination of such random fabric and am worried that I will go through all of the work of completing a quilt and not even like how it turns out due to the fabric selection.

As I said, my desire to quilt has forced me to overcome this fear and my mother has shared her library of scrap fabrics in order that I might once again enter the world of quilting.

So here are the fabrics that I have chosen:


And here is the pattern that I am using (it is a quilt my mom made recently):


When it is all done, I will post a picture of it for all to see. And then you can be a judge of how you feel about scrap quilts...

Hey!

Last night, Joseph and I were sitting in our room talking when Austin walked in and, with his hands on his hips, stated loudly, "Hey!" trying to get our attention. We continued talking and did not immediately acknowledge his attempts to talk with us. Growing impatient, he yelled loudly, "Hey!" Once again, we were mid-conversation and continued talking. Finally he yelled, "Hey old man!"

Wow. We're not quite sure where he learned that one. Needless to say, it stopped our conversation right away because we were laughing so hard.

Small house or long cord?

So, the other day I vacuumed my entire house without unplugging the vacuum. I never had to move the plug from the outlet and I got every nook and cranny in my house clean. As a note, the outlet it was plugged into was not in the center of the house. It was in one of the corners of the house.

Hmmm. Does that mean that I have a very small house, or a very long cord?

Birthdays!

Austin's birthday was last week and I still need to upload pictures to post, but here are a couple of pictures from my birthday yesterday. I had a great day and Joseph got me a coconut cream pie for a cake and gave me the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook for my birthday - which I have wanted for a very long time!

More graduation pictures

These pictures are from our convocation on Friday morning.

This is me and my graduate advisor:

The graduating graduate students and a couple of professors from our department:

The graduating graduate students:

Joseph and me at a reception held by the Math Education Department:

Graduation

Well, this is about a month over due, but here it is:

Last month I graduated from Brigham Young University with a Master of Arts in Mathematics Education.

Here are many, many pictures. I don't really feel like learning how to make one of those slideshows right now - it is enough to finally get this posted - so I will just post many pictures.

Here is what the graduation program had listed for my accomplishments:

p. 14 of the Spring Commencement Exercises under the heading Master's Degrees,
Audrey Linford Hanks
BA, Brigham Young University, 2003
Major: Mathematics Education
Thesis: How Eighth-Grade Students Estimate with Fractions

Say woo! It actually all feels like a dream already (some parts of it a nightmare...), probably in part due to the fact that I spend my days busily chasing after my two boys and can't remember when my life was much else.

A "Special Treat"

So, the other day I am riding in the car with my husband and two children when Austin, almost 3, says to me, "Mommy, I have a booger," and reaches forward to "hand" it to me. I took it from him and as I was finding a tissue in which to deposit the said booger I commented, "Oh! What a special treat..." Austin replied, quite seriously, "It is not a special treat, Mommy. It is a booger."



**Updated note** It has occured to me that some of you may be concerned with the casualness with which I addressed the fact that my son was, in fact, handing me boogers - I mean, shouldn't I have at least been disgusted or mentioned something about the foul nature of that event? On the contrary, I am resigned to the fact that most children do pick their boogers, so I am actually extraordinarily pleased that he is choosing not to eat them.

Austin

And here are some fun pictures of Austin on the deck of the house we just moved to...

Matthew

Here are a couple of cute pictures of Matthew. I have many stories to tell, but I don't really have time right now.

Maybe one day I'll get my act together...

I never thought this day would come!

I finally did it! I passed my thesis defense yesterday! I have to make some revisions in the next two weeks and then get it checked off by my committee, but I passed. With all of my other hurdles to graduation completed, this was the last thing to finish so I will graduate this April with my Master of Arts in Math Education.

I appreciate all the encouragement and support I have received and the many hours of babysitting so that I could actually get some work done... Thanks!

"My Best Friend"

Today my mom gave Austin a scrap piece from a quilt that she's working on and after she handed it to him, he declared: "I so happy! It's my best friend!" It was hysterical and my mom and I were trying not to laugh out loud. He proceeded to carry this 5"x5" square around with him all afternoon, chastising Matthew when he touched it ("Man-yew, don't touch it, my best friend!"), announcing when he dropped it ("I dropped it, my best friend!"), and hugging it and caressing it ("It's okay my best friend..."). I have no idea where this best friend stuff came from, but it provided some supreme entertainment for the afternoon!

Austin's best friend:

Quick Update

Well, I have been grossly negligent in my blogging duties as of late. I have all kinds of things I want to document here but due to my thesis, our sad camera and resulting pathetic pictures, and my perfectionism, I haven't done much. Here is an attempt to get a few things up. It is not remotely representative of the last few months but that's just too bad right now.

Matthew is walking and getting faster by the day! He eats more than I do and is catching up in size to Austin very quickly. He and Austin play a lot more these days and it is fun to watch them play in addition to push and shove. At least Matthew's getting big enough that he can almost hold his own. We don't have lots of pictures of him right now because he moves as fast as he can away from the camera or directly at the camera, depending on his whim. As this is the case (along with the slow response time of our camera), almost every photo attempt ends with a blurry picture that captures a few moments too late.

Austin is really funny as he begins to mimic us more and more and parrot what we say. He calls me "Waudrey" often as he hears Joseph and my parents call me that. He tries to be grown up and bosses Matthew around, but he also tries to help "show him the ropes" as well.

My thesis is nearing it's completion. I have to turn in my manuscript in three weeks and then am defending it a week later, on February 29th. I am sure you will all hear my shout of joy if I pass, no matter what part of the world you live in. I am thrilled to be graduating in April and am really enjoying the class that I teach this semester.

Here are the boys at the model train show they went to at Thanksgiving Point with Joseph during Lucy's bridal shower last Saturday. They had a pretty good time. I can't believe how quickly they are growing up!



Austin wanted to go swimming and it wasn't really a good time.

This is what we call the "double barrel" stance...

Once there was a snowman!

Although this title has been used recently by other bloggers I know, it still seemed appropriate for this entry. We have been getting SO MUCH snow lately. My mom is starting to think that perhaps it rivals The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Anyway, with our day off of school for Martin Luther King Day last week, Joseph and Austin went out to the front yard to make a snowman with the new 15" of snow we received the night before. Notice the extreme temperature genes that my husband has as he built the snowman in shorts when the snow was up to his knees. I was almost surprised he even put shoes on - I'm not even joking. Austin didn't get all of his genes, just most of them. He stayed outside for about an hour before getting too cold. He went back out once the snowman was finished for a close up look. As a side note, Austin just learned the song "Once There Was a Snowman" in nursery. It is his new favorite song. Maybe he has a greater appreciation for it since he has helped build his own snowman...

Lions and tigers and bears! Oh my!

A couple of Saturdays ago we decided to get out of the house with the boys and go somewhere fun for them. Unfortunately, it was really cold and they had runny noses already and so it greatly limited our options. Luckily, we remembered one of Joseph's favorite activities - exploring the Bean Museum at BYU. So we drove down and the boys had a great time. I was reminded of when we took a very small Austin there a long time ago. It was a nice excursion and although the pictures aren't that great to show it (see my update entry to see my complaints about our camera and my excuses of my perfectionism), I thought I would give you a glimpse anyway.

Here are Joseph and the boys - they loved this moose and Matthew kept making a break for him anytime he got loose



This is one of my all-time favorite pictures of Austin! This "growl" wasn't an imitation of the jaguar, it was actually what Austin did right after he said, "Smile! Take it da picture!"

This is an uncooperative Matthew with his mother in front of the bears. At least the bears are stuffed so they didn't have any choice but to cooperate...

Christmas Pictures 2007

More user friendly!

We decided to make our blog more user friendly by changing one or two color elements. We hope that this increases your reading enjoyment. I must say that I still probably like the old version better from a design standpoint, but there must be a balance between style and utility. Hopefully this an appropriate balance.

By the way, if any of you are using standard blogging templates and are possibly interested in changing yours, I have a word document that I can send you to teach you how to do it. This is not a suggestion that yours is not good enough, only a resource for you if you already had aspirations for a change.

Happy reading!