Welcome to my personal blog!

Just as I share some of my personal thoughts and views, I invite you to share yours. All I ask is that you keep your comments appropriate. I won’t feel badly about removing comments that are offensive. That doesn’t mean you can’t be honest—I want honest feedback—but I like to fill my life with positive people and positive things. I guess that means that if you have to say something negative, say it nicely!

More than anything, I want you to leave here feeling inspired and valued—and like we've had a nice visit!

 

Tuesday
Dec012009

Focusing on Friday

I’m barely recovering from Thanksgiving (and what a great day and weekend it was!) and it already feels like I’m playing catch up for Christmas. This is a hectic—but exciting—week as we prepare for the TODAY show appearance. My mind is pretty much focused on Friday’s main event, but there’s a lot to do in the meantime.

Call me a little obsessive, but I refuse to leave for New York until my holiday decorating is done; I just don’t want to come home and still have it hanging over my head. So today I concentrated on a special leadership project, but I’m bound and determined to get the tree decorating done tonight and tomorrow night—in between a full day of meetings tomorrow and finalizing everything for Friday.

One of the things that has me most stressed (in a good way, of course) is creating a gift for the TODAY show hosts and personalities. We’re creating more than a dozen hand-stamped gifts that we’ll be presenting to Matt, Meredith, Al, Ann, and the gang. I haven’t even decided exactly what we’ll be doing yet, but I have to know tonight! I can hardly wait to show you. . . .

So with that said, I'm not planning on posting much this week. Last week was a little sparse on postings as well, but I know you’ll understand—and send lots of positive energy my way, right?

 

Friday
Nov272009

The Day After

Thanksgiving has come and gone—it always goes way too quickly!

We had an almost perfect day. All the kids were here except for Sara and Sean and their children, who were with Sean’s family in southern Utah.

We got started fairly early, which meant that we didn’t feel rushed and we had plenty of time to enjoy the whole process. We spent a lot of time in the kitchen, cooking and prepping and chatting; we even sat down and took a break once in awhile. It was wonderful!

 

While we were prepping in the kitchen, there was a football game going on in the great room and Christmas movies being shown downstairs. 

The kids floated back and forth between the two, with lots of time spent helping in the kitchen as well. They loved being little helpers and doing all sorts of tasks and errands.

I have to mention our name card project. Shalae and I had stamped name cards and Zach accepted the assignment to write the names. It was adorable to watch him take such meticulous care in spelling everyone’s name correctly. He wanted the cards to look great—and they did!

Dinner was delicious, of course. And I don’t know if your Thanksgiving is like ours, but after I finished, I sat there and wanted to go back for more—everything was so good—but I didn’t have a bit of room anywhere for seconds. I guess that’s what Thanksgiving leftovers are all about, right?

Today has been as relaxing and wonderful as yesterday was. We’ve played, visited, and just hung out most of the day. The kids did go swimming, and the grown-ups went to a movie. (Grandma got to watch the kids—lucky me!) I love spending time with loved ones, don’t you?

I do hope your Thanksgiving was great and that your weekend will be wonderful!

Tuesday
Nov242009

Thanksgiving Week Begins

It’s been a busy week or so, and I posted a lot of what’s been going on during the last week. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever posted five times in one week before! What I didn’t mention is that we also had three daylong meetings at work, trying to finalize important decisions we’ve been evaluating.

And now, as we head into the Thanksgiving holidays, I’m not feeling like I can slow down much! I’ve still got assignments from last week’s meetings I have to follow up on, and several things I need to wrap up before Thursday.

We started a tradition several Thanksgivings ago where we give the girls a Christmas book, along with a holiday home décor item (or two or three). I’ve found the book already (Christmas for a Dollar—sweet story), and I know what project I’m going to give the girls.

(Daughter spoiler: If you’re a Gardner girl, stop reading now if you want to be surprised on Thursday!) I’ve decided to make them each a Ho Ho Ho banner (the large one I showed last week). I love my new banner and want each of the girls to have one of their own.  

Sterling and Shanna left today for a two-day horseback ride, and I have to admit that secretly I’m looking forward to having the house to myself. I’m planning on working during the day and staying up late at night making the banners.

So, don’t be surprised if I don’t do much posting this week. I’ve got my work cut out for me for the next couple of days, and then once the holiday hits, I’ll be loving every minute with my family. Of course, I’ll check in this week—just not five times!

Saturday
Nov212009

A New Moon Memory

As some of you Twilight fans may know, New Moon broke a few opening weekend movie records, and we certainly did our part to make that happen!

My girls are all huge Twilight fans, so we rented a theater for a screening of the show last night. Turns out you don’t have to be anybody famous or rich or special to rent a theater—you just have to be willing to pay what the theater would make if every seat sold. Well, we knew we could fill the theater with our family and friends, so we set a date and spread the news.

Shanna was in charge of gathering the money and handling seat selection; you could choose your seats on a first-paid, first-pick basis. And in my opinion, it didn’t matter whether you liked the movie or not, just watching it with a big group of people you know was a great experience! Sterling said it best—“It was like watching a movie with lots of people you know in a really big living room.”

We began the evening with dinner at a nearby restaurant with a smaller group, then we walked over to the theater.

It was fun to see our name in lights, reserving the theater.

Since we knew just about everyone in the theater, there was a casual, fun, friendly atmosphere. We called out greetings as people arrived, and when Vonna and her daughters came all the way from Kanab, we cheered.

We got away with a little visiting and a few loud comments that we wouldn’t have in a normal movie theater (my favorite was when Jacob ripped off his shirt, and Sterling’s best friend said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Hold it down, Shanna!”). Everyone laughed at that, especially Shanna!

So it was definitely memorable, and the girls are already making plans for a repeat performance when the next movie is released!

 

Friday
Nov202009

Ho, Ho, Ho

I saw our new Ho Ho Ho On Board (with the messy part—glitter—already done!) and fell in love. I’m a holiday gal and a bling gal, so this product really caught my eye, and I couldn’t resist sharing a couple of ideas with you.

What I liked about this is that it’s really affordable. You can make three banners for under $5 each, and give them away as holiday gifts. (Give the bigger banner to your favorite person, just don’t let the other two gift recipients know. . .smile!)

The key to keeping this affordable is using what you have laying around. . . ribbons and Designer Series papers, different accessories, and stamp sets. Don’t feel like you have to go out and buy anything besides the On Board banner itself.

You know I don’t do instructions, but I did include a close-up photo of each of the letters in the larger banner, so you don’t really need instructions for those. I loved the garland though, and figured you might need a few tips on that.

You just cut a strip of card stock, fold it in half, and run it about three-quarters through the crimper (you want to keep one edge uncrimped so the Sticky Strip sticks to it better). Then you adhere a strip of Sticky Strip (a lot of strips there, huh?) along the edge, and cut the other edge about every quarter inch or so. Next take the ribbon that you’re going to hang the banner from and start twisting the card stock around it, tightly and close together. Finally fray the card stock edges a big to create the garland look.

I thought these looked a lot like pine boughs—if you did them in green, I bet you could barely tell the difference between these and the real thing!

I know the larger banner will take a little bit of time, but it's well worth the time because this is a home decor item that you (or whomever you give it to) will use year after year after year. So it's time and effort well spent!

The smaller banner literally took me minutes to make—it came together so quickly and easily. The pre-adhered (is that a word?) glitter really makes it a snap. I just added some DSP backgrounds and die cut  card stock (the Stampin’ Up! Scallop Square), a few hand-cut accents, and I was done. It was great!

As a bonus, I also wanted to share the card we’re sending out this year to the vendors we work with. It uses the same stamp set as the larger banner, so I wanted to show how you can use one set for several different projects. It’s all about versatility, you know.

So that’s it for now. I wanted to post this before tonight, because I’m heading off to New Moon with a huge group of friends, family, and even a few people I don’t know. I’ll tell you about that tomorrow. . . .