Pay it Forward

Thanks to Linsey for passing along "Pay It Forward." I am now sharing the love with you!

Rules: Be one of the first three bloggers to leave a comment on this post, which entitles you to a handmade gift! (Make sure I have access to your blog)

Winners: You must post this challenge on your blog, meaning that you will Pay It Forward, creating a handmade gift for the first three bloggers who leave a comment on YOUR post about this giveaway!

The Gift: The gift you send can be from any price range and you have 365 days to make/ship your item. This means you should be willing to maintain your blog at least until you receive your gift and have shipped your gifts.

Remember: It’s the Spirit and the Thought That Count!When you receive your gift, feel free to blog about it, sharing appropriate Linky Love♥♥♥If you are not one of the Top Three to comment on this post, you can still play along. Please start your own 'Pay It Forward Chain', and encourage your blogging friends to do the same.

Now on to "PAY IT FORWARD!"


Thanks Linsey!!!

Confessions....and more

My friend Linsey told me about this lady, The Pioneer Woman, and her blog and her Marlboro Man. I'm hooked. I'm addicted. I find myself turning Paul into my own Marlboro Man. If you have time, go check out her website www.thepioneerwoman.com and read the story Black Heels to Tractor Wheels about how she met the Marlboro Man. Read about her Lodge Remodel. Read about her Homeschooling tips. Read all kinds of stuff! It's way cool. I feel like she's my friend! I know, I'm weird!


Paul and I got to go see Lion King on Saturday in PHX. It was AWESOME! I cried about three times...and that was just in the first 15 minutes. The costuming, the dancing, the singing, the percussionists....all AWESOME! Next up WICKED? Anyone want to go? Let's do a big group deal!


And Taylor has officially learned how to say "NO" correctly. Right now it's still cute, but we'll see how much longer. But she also says Peekaboo, which is way cute, so then I just have her say that after and I smile.

And I will also be watching Confessions of a Shopaholic this weekend. Can't wait! With my big tub of popcorn! That's right, I said it!

Disneyland Withdrawals!!

We had a great time!!!

It was wonderful to spend three great days at Disneyland. And as much as you think I'm crazy, I'm ready to go back! The kids were great! It was fun to have almost the whole family there, and I'm grateful my parents were there to help me out!

Steph - I missed you taking pictures! So I didn't do a very good job, but I did get a few!

And just a tip to you all: if you can, it's totally worth it to take your kids out of school and go at the end of January!!! Tuesday and Wednesday were so empty! The park wasn't even handing out fastpasses becuase there were no lines! It was awesome to run up Space Mountain and get on right away!

2009.....

Well I hadn't posted in a month, and was chastised for it. So tonight I got in a blogging mood, and posted a ton of stuff!

Another thing I noticed was that I had some drafts saved and so when I deleted them, it turns out that I did NOT have 100 posts! So I did a premature "100th post" post. So I apologize for misleading you in my posting numbers. But now I have passed my 100th post, so if you're that weird about it, you can go back and read it!

I am ready for 2009. I went back and read my goals for 2008. Yeah....basically I have the same goals for 2009. Basically...just be better. At A LOT of different things. This Monday for FHE we are going to set our goals as a family. I have been thinking more about my goals this week as well, so maybe on Monday I will post a more definite list of goals.


Here's to a sublime 2009....uhkay!!!!

Happy Birthday Ryan and Reagan!

Edna's girls had their Birthdays On December 20 and January 9!

This is a video of Ryan quoting "Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas" Absolutely hilarious. And if you don't get it...you need to netflix that movie! And then you will KNOW it's hilarious!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8dzWJtME3Q - check this out...just the first few seconds to compare Ryan to the actual character...which right now I of course can't remember his name!

Happy Birthday Girls!

Random

I have rediscovered how good these are:

And how much my kids love these for breakfast:

And Chris reminded me that she looks like Steve from Blue's Clues:

Baby.....

Linsey and Dean were over at our house this last week. Taylor loves to see the baby. Well they left behind a pacifier which Riley and Taylor found. Taylor immediately pointed to it and said "baby" and put it in her mouth. Of course when I wanted her to take it at 3 months old she wouldn't, but now at 20 months she wants to have it. I let her have it long enough for me to take this picture and then put it up. Although this last week she had an ear infection and wouldn't take her medicine, so I got the "baby" and let her suck on it while I put medicine in her mouth so she would swallow it! Most of me is annoyed by this, but a small, small part of me thinks its cute, mainly because it means she's still my little baby!

Craft Project

Before Linsey had her baby, she and I picked something we wanted to get done. She wanted to do a Car Seat Cover and I wanted to do a topiary tree. So I made her car seat cover and she made my topiary tree. We brought all of our supplies and got to work! Linsey punched all of the circles out and individually glued and tacked each circle onto that styrofoam ball with a brad. I know there are over 100 circles on there, but don't have an exact account. At a much later date, I painted the pot and the dowel black and added a ribbon. For the pot I used some floral styrofoam to hold the dowel in place with some glue and then used white and black river rock to hold it in place. I need to mix up the river rock a little more. And then tied a white ribbon around it. I feel like it needs something else, so any suggestions are welcome!

I was super happy with the paper! I used a damask, a circle, a black with gray pinstrip, and a flower paper for my project. I think it was a good mix and I love it! Thanks Linsey for your help! You'll have to check out her blog sometime for pictures of the car seat cover. I'm sure she'll be posting them.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas was busy, crazy and fun! Just like all of our family activities. Paul's family was all here, and most of mine was in Yuma as well. Which makes ALL of our holidays quite hectic! So we started Christmas Eve at the Nelson's House. We did our own re-enactment of the Nativity Story, complete with Samuel the Lamanite (thanks to President Eyring, I'm sure there were a lot of families who were throwing aluminun foil rocks at their Samuels!) Riley was Mary and then Hunter played a dual role with Joseph. Our baby Jesus didn't have a manger, but he did have a shoe box! That works!

Taylor was just excited to jingle a jingle bell! She's a natural!

Then Santa took some time out of his busy schedule of delivering presents and stopped by. It took Hunter some time to want to get on Santa's Lap, but refused to tell him what he wanted. He just kept saying that we had mailed him a letter. Riley had a death grip on Grandma and wanted nothing to do with Santa AT ALL! And you can see how Taylor felt about it! She wasn't the only grandchild who felt this way!

After Santa left, we headed up to my mom's house and Santa was just leaving there. Poor Chris missed the whole thing because he had to run to the store.

Here is a picture of the grandkids, Taylor and Kyle are missing. Taylor didn't want to sit on anyone's lap, and Kyle wasn't in Yuma yet. We enjoyed some tamales! Yum! Then headed home! I of course was the one that woke up at 4am wanting to wake up the kids. Paul told me to go back to sleep. Then I got up at 6am and Paul told me to go back to sleep. Then at 7:30 he said I could go get them ! Yay! I was much more antsy then they were!

Here is what Santa brought the girls! Taylor sat in the car and just watched us open presents! She wouldn't get out! She loves it!

Hunter got all the things he asked for! Including his Nintendo DS and the Nerf Gun that shoots 3 darts per second and has a 25 dart ammo belt! (He recites the commercials for everything he wanted!) Riley got some more princess stuff and was happy!And this is what I got! I have been wanting a gemstone ring for some time now. I think they are just so cool! Paul totally surprised me and got me the one I wanted! Yay! I just have to get it sized now. Thanks Paul! Don't worry, Paul didn't do so bad himself!

Edna and Chris got us this picture of the temple that I have been wanting for over a year! I LOVE it so much. If you aren't familiar with his work, check it out! His name is John Raymond and I just love his work.

And to the rest of our families and friends that got us gifts....Thank you So much!

Christmas was fun! And I'm sad that it's all done. Riley literally cried when we took the tree down. And cried even more when we took the outside lights down. She wanted to know why Christmas had to be over. I wondered the same thing! Merry Christmas!

Project One down.....257 to go!

I have been needing/wanting to for the last 10 years to organize my music. I have tons! My biggest problem is my loose music. I just had a STACK of loose music and any time I needed a song, I had to go through my huge stack and 3 magazine holders to find whatever I was looking for. So I went through and organized alphabetically all of my sheet music. I only stacked them by letter, not by title alphabetically. But that is a HUGE improvement. My ULTIMATE goal for my sheet music is to have it all indexed by title, genre, performer, author, and topic. I would love to include every song have even in all of my books! I know that's a huge task, but slowly but surely I will get it done! I filled 6 magazine holders with all of my music.

I also went through and cleaned out my living room and my family room. Down to every last drawer! That only created two more projects: 1. organize pictures 2. transfer all VHS and home videos to DVD! A project that has been on my list since last year, when Paul got me a portable DVD recorder!

I cleaned ALL of the carpets in the house as well. A project that was also 2 months overdue. So slowly but surely I am going through the house. I want to do my closet next, the kitchen (every drawer!) then the garage! But first I need to finish the office, which I have been "working on" for a week (that means I really worked on it for two days and then has sat there the rest of the week.) I'll post pictures of that project when I finish. It will be quite shocking!

But in the meantime...I start lessons again on Monday, so back to life and back to reality. I will have to put off my projects for Thursdays and Fridays. Mondays - Wednesdays will be dedicated to maintaining the regular stuff like the dishes and laundry! Ladi-freakin'-da! (does anyone else feel this way?)

**Note Why is it when I am working on a project, everything else gets neglected and then the house looks worse, and then Paul wonders if I get anything done! So then when I finally get the house clean, the project I was working on is messed up again! And the cyle continues!