Stephanie is Home

If you have been following the Nie Nie story the great news is she is home with her family. What a great thing to hear on the last day of 2008....

Read more here.

http://blog.cjanerun.com/2008/12/be-forgot.html

Happy New Year!

To Share

Well Christmas has come and gone and I find myself thinking about all those things I need to do for the rest of my non-Christmas life. You see I was thinking only about getting to all the Christmas things I needed to do prepare for that one big day of the year. Well we have opened presents, ate and ate more, played, watched all the new movies, had family sleepovers in front of the tv...and now with a few important phone calls I am thinking about what happens with the rest of our lives this year.

And then I remembered our little niece who is being baptized a member of our Church (we are LDS) this weekend and I haven't made her remembrance book yet....I do this for all our little nieces and nephews and her birthday is during the Christmas season so she is up next in our family line.

Here are some glimpses of her book. Since I have 2 boys it is a treat for me to play with girly colors. And sometimes I even find it a challenge, because I am naturally drawn to the blues and browns as it is.....so I'll stop talking and show you what I did last night.

TIme's UP

I figure if it isn't done now..it's not getting done.

presents are wrapped

gifts are delivered

food is bought to make for tomorrow

cards are sent

music is playing

everyone is happy

and now we are just waiting for Santa to show up

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas

and remember to give someone else the camera to take a few pictures of you with all the fun too!

What Holiday Cookie Am I?

You Are a Gingerbread Cookie

You are an organized, responsible person. You value success, and you're likely to get an early start on the day. You are good with both planning and numbers. You have ambitious life goals, and you're well on your way to achieving them.

What Holiday Cookie Are You?

What Holiday Drink Am I?

You Are Hot Chocolate

Your holiday personality is generous. The holidays are your favorite time to practice the art of giving. You enjoy picking out presents, sharing treats, and making everyone's day a little brighter. And you don't even notice if you don't get anything in return.

What Holiday Drink Are You?

Guess What?!

The teacher boxes in the post below...are one of the projects shown on the blog

Cardoftheweek.com

I have never been on someone Else's site for something I have created and shown here!

How fun!

Thanks for visiting if you have come here from there!!

Quick Last Minute Cards

Somehow I found myself without any extra Christmas cards to put on presents for the boys teachers so at 1230 last night I whipped these up.

Just thought I'd share. All the stamps and ribbon are from the dollar spot at Micheal's, but from last year.

Ignore the mess all around the cards. It was late.

Teacher Gifts

My kids go to a Christian based school so this year I used this poem for the gift for all the teachers from the PTA

Snowflake Blessings

Although a simple snowflake is all I seem to be, Please take me home and hang me upon your Christmas tree. I’ll remind you of the blessings that come from Heaven’s way, Just like the little snowflakes upon a winter’s day. Each snowflake is unique in shape, design and size, Just as our blessings differ to fit our needs and lives. One solitary snowflake would hardly make a mound. but when they fall in millions they cover all the ground. One solitary blessing might seem rather small. But God sends down so many, it’s hard to count them all.

We count each of you as one of our “snowflakes” in our lives & the lives of our children. Thank you for all you do for us!
Merry Christmas! from the AHAPA

On the front is attached a snowflake for their trees and inside is chocolate covered pretzels with m&ms. I think I will make these for my primary teachers too!

It turned out really cute. If you want to make these boxes yourself go to

http://inkingaddict.blogspot.com/2008/07/easy-box-tutorial.html

She has a great tutorial and it is so easy just like it says!

Trying to Check Things off the List

Well it has been a good 10 tens since I was here....so sorry!

But I am trying to get Christmas ready over here and then throw in a little bit of the flu (for me) and a snow day (yes snow day=no school even here in VEGAS) so the boys were home unexpectedly and I am just trying to stay on top of it all.

So I will quickly post some things I have finished up around here and some things I wish I could do!

Checked off
teacher gifts for ALL the school teachers at since I am the Committee for teacher
appreciation for the PTA.
teacher gifts for the teachers that actually teach my boys.
Christmas cards sent
most of the shopping for the boys done
gifts sent and finished for my parents, and the brother whose name we had this year.
gifts sent up with my mil for her and my brother in laws family who we had names for this
year

To still finish
making sweets for neighbors and ward members
small gifts to finish for people who teach in our primary
shopping for husband....yes still have to get that done
shop for food for the big dinner on Christmas day
some last minute cards to make
make thank you cards to send out after the holiday (yes i make the boys do them too)
work on my 25 days book.

That's all I can think of for now. So I hope nothing else pops into my head.

They ARE DONE!

I can finally check "Christmas Cards" off the list....well they aren't officially in the mail seeing as I still need to buy Christmas stamps but they are finished, envelopes are addressed and waiting for that one last thing before they go into the mailbox.

I forced myself to decide on a card last night. The funny thing is that when I was thinking about how our card would look this year I was set on kraft paper (again) and wanted to use this huge snowflake punch I got.

Well I couldn't get it to "look right" so i gave up and made two different cards. One red, gold and a bit of tan with a family picture on the front which I think is great...until I tried adding a "happy holidays" or any other sentiment on it and than the card was a disaster. The other card was cute but I didn't love it. SO it was out too. This process took up a week.

Than last night I sat down and was back to my kraft paper and snowflake and it just all came together. Pocket card with pull out family letter that has pictures on it with some traditional holiday colors (red and green) and no traditional (kraft, pink, lime green) and I love them. At first I added some sparkle to the middle of the snowflakes too pictures and called it good. But as I addresses the envies I couldn't stand the plain look so I did add a silver brad to the middle of the snowflakes.

So onto the next Christmas project!!

New York City

You Belong in New York City

You're the energetic, ambitious type. And only NYC is fast enough for you. Maybe you'll set yourself up with a killer career Or simply take in all the city has to offer.

What City Do You Belong In?

That was fun and too funny b/c I have ALWAYS wanted to live there!!

A Christmas Gift

So once again another blog inspired this craft. I saw out in the blog world someone else make a whiteboard out of a frame. And of course this was weeks ago and I can't find it again, but I knew right when I saw it I was going to be making these for Christmas gifts out there. So I know a few of my close friends read this blog so just close your eyes or just don't be shocked if you get one of these from me this year.

I made 4 of these already and this is the only one I took a picture of. It is a love notes one and the other 3 were Christmas wishes themed.

I love them all. But that's why I made them.

They are simply a picture frame with some items "scrapbooked" inside of it and then buy yourself a pack of whiteboard markers. The ones I gave away I literally wrote "this is a whiteboard for your love notes /Christmas wishes to one another" with the marker than packaged it up.

So I hope they get what it is when they open it.

Anyways here's another Christmas idea for you.

Now I am off to try to get a Christmas card designed for my family's Christmas card. I can't seem to make one I really like this year. I hope to have one finalized tonight so I can mass produce this week!!