Happy Birthday, Lily!

Dear Lily:

We hope you had a very wonderful birthday. Four years old is very grown up! We love you and we hope your year is full of fun things to do, love and happiness.

Love, grandma Peggy and papa Marty

Happy Birthday Steve

May 27th Steve Spencer turned 34.  Steve is a wonderful father, supportive husband and apparently is very good at what he does at Comcast.

Steve and Kerry engaged, 2000.

Steve and Kerry married, September 2, 2000

Steve and Kerry Christmas 2001.

Steve showing off his sympathy belly in December 2003.

















Steve and Sam June 2004.


















Steve and Lily May 2007













 Steve, circa 2008 and....

Steve, Lily and Sam and his new iPad on this birthday.

Steve, hope you had a wonderful birthday!

Love Peggy and Marty, aka other ones grandma and grandpa.

School is In...

I'ts time for our Latin phrase(s) of the week: Today's phrases are taken because it is graduation time.
Congratulations to the seven plus Clifts who graduated or are graduating this semester: Kristin Clift, Jennifer Shaw, Ryan Shaw, Alan Clift, Melissa Aurich, Sarah Clift, BYU friend Karma Kerr, gradeschool friend, Courtney Innes, high school cousin, Darren Clift, and CNAs Aubre Norlund and Amber Norlund.
So we have three Latin phrases in honor of our graduates.
First is: • Summa cum laude--adverb or adjective [literally, "with highest praise"] with highest distinction.
Next is: • Magna cum laude--adverb or adjective [literally, with great praise] with great distinction.
And, of course, • cum laude--"with honor" (direct translation: "with praise").
Good luck to all of you Clift family and friends graduates and remember to "carpe diem" (car pay DEE uhm), [Latin], “Seize the day”; (enjoy or make the most of right now). Have a wonderful week!

Kristin Graduated from BYU

April 22, 2010, five years after Kristin graduated from high school, she graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology with an emphasis in Archaeology. That's five years of very hard work, done mostly by herself, with superb emotional and residential support (not to mention gastronomic) from Kerry and Steve.

High School: Kerry (L), Kathy, Alex, Mr. Johnson (band teacher--Kristin, as drum major, led the senior song), Jon, Katelyn, Joel and Sam is sleeping.

Marty and Kristin, April 22, 2010

Congratulations! We're so proud of you!

Potato Chips, Cookies and Yeast, oh my!

Have you ever bought a bag of potato chips and then had it go stale--or worse, turn rancid? Our tip is to store your chips in the freezer. You can eat them right out of the freezer, the cold "blows your mind" (borrowing from '70s lingo). Since we can't eat a whole package of cookies with the kids gone now, we also store cookies in the freezer, Zingers, Ding Dongs, you name it.

Our last tip comes courtesy of Marty's mom. She told us to store our yeast in the freezer. She said once she did she never had another problem with yeast going bad. We tried it about 10 years ago, and we never have either. Before that it was hit and miss with the yeast proofing. Thanks, grandma Clift, for that great tip!

Diaper/Wipes Holder

I noticed that after a baby is about six months old, mothers don't want to carry such a big diaper bag anymore, especially if just running to the store, etc. I've seen so many people just grab a diaper or two and wipes as they run out of the house.

Fiddling around online I found zillions of tutorials for diaper/wipes covers. I did mine as just a band around the wipes and diaper, and added Velcro and an elastic/button enclosure.

Here are the supplies:

Here is the finished product:

 I guess I didn't get a picture with the Velcro showing. I sewed about 2 1/2 inches lengthwise under the cover (as you would look straight down onto the top of it). I added Velcro so that the number of diapers can be adjusted and the cover will still close.

The cover is five inches wide and 17 1/2 inches long. There are two layers sewn together and then topstitched. The elastic is added before sewing together. As you can see from the first picture, the most colorful elastic I could find was really childrens' headbands. They seem to work great. Marty suggests that the button is sewn on through both layers of fabric for strength, but then the underside isn't so pretty. Kerry suggests making one layer terrycloth or cloth diaper fabric, making an instant burp cloth, too.  Don't forget to throw in a shopping bag for diaper disposal.

Randomness

How's this for random? This is Marty on Halloween 2009. He likes to dress up and then he likes to take bunches and bunches of children trick or treating. This year because of colds and flu he only took about half of our ranch-residing nieces and nephews and Katelyn and Benjamin (Alex was also sick). We usually make clam chowder in sour dough bowls. In the days when everyone was home we would add chili to the menu.  Here are the recipes:  http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AdLiexfJqp9sZHd6aGs4Zl8yZHB6Zm5zZGo&hl=en
Happy Halloween--that's right, belated, we haven't gotten our Christmas cards out for two years, either!  Random is good.