Mother's Day

Another Mother's Day has come and gone. So glad that I have to wonderful mothers in my life. I even scored big time in the mother in law department. This year I wanted to make something for Marcia. It took a long time to figure out what I wanted to make her until I had the bright idea of painting something for her. I haven't painted for years and I was super scared about messing it up. I don't know what I was thinking taking on such a big project, I was definitely feeling optimistic.  

After deciding I wanted to paint something for her, I then had to decide what it was I was going to paint. That was an easier decision to make. I had a picture in my head of the Manti Temple and since sunsets are my favorite thing ever, there was going to be a sunset in the back ground.

The first thing I did was to start on the temple and man was that hard. It took me 2 days to draw the temple but, then I decided that it was too big so I started over and 2 days later the outline was finished.   

After I had a rough draft of the temple I decided to paint some trees around the temple. Once the trees were done, I worked some more on the temple.

I took a break from the temple and started on the sunset, my favorite part. I had an idea of what I wanted it to look like, just didn't know quite how to get there. I started adding colors and slowly started blending them together.


I started adding layers and layers and layers of colors. Working with water colors was very tricky because sometimes I would get the colors layered just perfect and some colors would start to run down and I'd have to start over.

I would take a break from the sunset and work some more on the texture of the walls on the temple. It was so hard to get the shadows just right. I would add more colors then take away colors.

A week later I had gotten the temple just about right. I still had to work on some details but at least it looked like a temple now.


I was excited to see that the sunset was finally start to come together. My next challenge was the grass. When I painted it I decided there needed to be some texture to it because I didn't like the lines made by the brush. Also, I decided I didn't like the way the trees looked so I took those off and made some bushes instead.

This little  painting took me a whole 2 weeks but It was made with lots and lots of love  for my wonderful mother in law. I wished I could've had some more time to add some more colors to the sunset but I'm happy with the results.

The weekend of mother's day, Michael's childhood friend was married and we were able to witness their sealing in the Redlands Temple.

One of Michael's best friend flew in from Washington and they were all able to hang out for a bachelor's party the day before the wedding. Mike said he had a great time with his friends racing karts.

After the wedding Matt's friend's, Jill, Tory and Mike and I had a couple of rounds of Scattegories and Wits and Wagers. I've never played so many board games until I married into the Stewart family.

On Sunday Jill, Katie and I set out to make Marcia a delicious dinner.

Man did we cook up a yummy meal!

We made pesto chicken, veggies, salad and desserts.

I made some cheesecake strawberries, chocolate dipped strawberries and chocolate banana dipped  and Jill made strawberry short cake. It was all finger licking good!

Walt and Marcia let the missionaries in the ward come to their house and Skype on the computer with their families. They all had very good things to say about dinner

At night it was time to open presents. I had sneaked Marcia's painting on top of her dresser for her to see after church. I think she was truly surprised and came down right away to say thank you. She brought it down to the living room next to her presents to open.

For Mother's day Katie went out and bought Marcia things for a bathroom remodel. It was a present from all of us and we were sure thankful Katie was nice enough to go get the stuff. Plus Katie has great taste. She loved it!

We had such a great day. So thankful for Marcia and her great example and for always being there to support me and listen to me. She is truly amazing and we couldn't be luckier to have her.