Sunday Shenanigans

 

Tyce sat with me all day in church again. Being in the primary presidency I can't really do too much with him so I try to just ignore the behavior. One of those times I wish I could just take him to Tarl and have him go sit in class with him. So halfway through church he turned his shirt around and left it that way the rest of the day.

 After church we finally got to frost our rainbow cupcakes. 

(I learned that if you use the tub of store bought frosting and beat it for a few minutes with your mixer it'll double in size. Turns out, it totally works.)

 Oh these kids make me happy.

 Trying to keep us all entertained I told the kids if they straightened the living room I had a super secret awesome project. They did, so we brought out my sewing machine and made bean bags. (Some for the kids and some for Kaly to use as her Faith in God award to give to the primary classes--though she was taking pictures and not in many.)

 Makayla taking a turn.

 Very. Carefully.

Everyone filling up the bags with beans. 

 

Made a good pile. The kids' bags were being played with and not pictured. :)

 Makayla's favorite part of family night is doing the game/activity. 

(Also notice Tyce's pj bottoms are once again only through one pant leg the turkey.)

 Today in Primary the sharing time was a question and answer game. I LOVE that she enjoys church so much that she comes home and is excited to create her own games for us. 

After I had put all the kids to bed I was coming out of the bathroom to sit at my computer to update the blog. This kid had snuck downstairs and did this to me! (I made him recreate it so I could show Tarl.)

Yep. Helllllo Clarice. 

Edgemont Energy Recital

At the end of the year Kalyana's clogging team had a recital for the parents. They showed us their dance they took to competition and also their second dance they'd been working on.

Also there is something they call 'free-style' (they have these in competitions also) where the kids get to dance for 30 seconds or so.

After the recital my kids showed off on stage. Just for fun.

*If you are reading this in an email, log in to see the videos posted.*

Finale Cake

My friend Brie and I signed up to take Cake Decorating II this month. The entire month we made flowers and then saved them to put on our final cake. The last class we learned the rope (on top) and the basket weave (around the sides) and then added the flowers we'd made the other weeks.

I gotta admit I'm not really a fan of flowers just because they're pretty time intensive but I do like my cake and it was SUPER fun to take another class with my pal Brie!

Springy Fun

I saw this fun idea and thought I'd try it out. I love these fun fabrics!! It's been so much fun using my sewing machine again.

Puppet Play House

After making a playhouse for my sister-in-law my mom and I started making a playhouse for me and my two sisters. Today we finished the one for my kids. We changed it up a bit to personalize it some. Here is what we did! (Click the pictures to enlarge them.)






You might have noticed hands sticking out of the mailbox in that first photo. We thought it'd be fun for them to be able to put in real mail. The flag is also on Velcro so they can stand it up or lay it down. The windows also have ribbon on them so they can roll them up and tie them in place.

Makayla has affectionately been calling this her puppet show house because when they use the one at my moms house they do a puppet show out the windows.

A Compilation

There's a thing in blogger land called "Wordless Wednesdays" and instead of posting any words the idea is to just post a picture you've taken. I usually do this every week on my CF blog but wanted to have a compilation of my photography here for those that dont see it. These have all been taken in the last year or two.

Play House

I had one of these cute little houses growing up and thought it'd be a fun, inexpensive gift for Christmas, so I convinced my mom it'd be a fun project to work on with me. (I only had to buy 5 yards of fabric for the walls and ceiling. We used scraps for the rest of the decorations.) No really, it was fun though!

I made this for my in-laws Shantae & Chad who have three little girls. It ended up taking us a few days of all day cutting and sewing, since we were basically just figuring it out as we went looking at the one my mom had as a model.

We had fun doing it and decided it wouldn't be that bad to make them in 'bulk' so now we're making one for me and my two sisters. They're looking so great and we're adding other things to make them personal. Like a train track instead of a road or a princess castle instead of a mushroom house. (I'll post pictures of that one when it's done.)

This is the one I made for my in-laws:

Photo Contest & Pizza Picnic

I heard about a photo contest our city library was having so I thought I'd run out and snap a few pictures. The kids were good sports and rode around in the car watching a movie while I drove them all over town looking for some good photo spots. I took well over 100 pictures and came out with a little more than a dozen I'm proud of.

After an hour (I know time just got away from me) we stopped by Little Ceasers and got a pizza and rootbeer and had a picnic in the van. We took out our middle seat a few weeks ago so there was ample room to sit on the floor and eat. I think that impromtu picnic was the highlight of the evening.

Practicing Piano

Kalyana's friend came over to ask her to play and Kalyana was so excited about her new skills she wanted to show her she could play the piano. I thought I'd snag a video since she was performing. This is after one week of piano lessons

The Long Story

*~*~Warning~*~*

This is mostly for my own benefit since this is my scrapbook/journal. Read at your own risk. It's lengthy!! (Also this will make much more sense if you're familiar with Stephenie Meyer[SM], Twilight, The Host, and the fandom websites.)

Thursday

Some of the girls met at the airport to welcome Laura (Pel) from NJ. More of us met at Gardner Village for lunch and fun stories and shopping. Afterwards a few left to get Lori (Alphie) from the airport (coming in from TN) while the rest of us prepared for dinner later that night.

We met at Danylle's for dinner and almost the entire group was there. We got fun stories from Laura and Lori about fans of Twilight, visiting the movie set, running the twilightlexicon and more. After dinner we all handed out our goodies. We all wanted to know more about Laura and Lori so we came up with a list of questions for them. They had 6 prizes so Christie picked her top six and two of them were mine! I won an audio version of Twilight. We got I love Ian/Jared buttons, Lexicon postcards signed by Alphie & Pel, "Sanity" medicine from Emily and our club shirts from Rachel!

We made our host name sashes (Kayla had the great idea to have Miss America style sashes to show our host love) , buttons (mine said 'Ian is my no pain'. Shauna came up with that!) After the party we visited until 12 (some of us until 1:30) and left to get rest for all of Fridays activities. Some good news of the evening was that Nancy announced she had hookups at Thanksgiving Point so we didn't have to stand in line all day Friday like we originally planned.

Friday

Danylle, Christie and Cami were in the studio audience for 'Good Things Utah' where SM was interviewed. After the show Danylle was interviewed by the station as one of SM's biggest fans (she found the books a few years ago and has been to several events over the years that she is now recognized by SM).

Instead of having to stand in line, we headed up to SLC to see Stephenie on TV (UT's channel 2). The studio is in front of huge windows so they panned outside to the fans reactions and I got on TV! We then jumped on Trax and headed over to the Gateway to eat lunch and brainstorm questions.

It was then time to head down to Thanksgiving Point so we took off to gather our books, 'flare' and other girls. We met up at the dinosaur museum and got our 'insertions' (Kayla painted souls on us), put on our 'host name' sashes -mine was "Friend of all worlds" and got the call to meet at the back door so we could get in before the crowd. We were in front and center row 5! While we waited for SM to come out we took pictures, visited with other fans, and wrote questions. After 2.5 hours it was time to start! I videotaped the Q&A but this is Rachaels video because mine isn't downloaded yet.

When the Q&A was over we were called by rows to get our books signed. It took 1.5 hours to get to our row (everyone had stacks! of books). I gave SM a little gift of her favorite drink and snack and she smiled and said thanks.

When our group was finished with the signing we headed over to Shauna's house for our ice cream party. We invited SM's sister Emily to come play and she did! She brought a few of her friends and her cousin Melanie (yup the same one that The Host was named after). It was enjoyable to get to visit with them and they were very sweet! I asked Emily if she'd tell us why SM's husband goes by Poncho (when someone asked SM before she said it was a stupid story and didnt tell it) and Emily said, 'sure' and told us. They told us some fun stories and then left since it was getting late and they had a long drive home.

We gave our 'SLC hosts the Lexicon' gifts to Laura and Lori which was filled with some fun Utah things for them to remember us by. We shared more stories and laughs and we were all starting to nod from our long day so we took off since we had another one the following day.

When I got home I got all my stuff ready for the next day and took care of a few things and got into bed around 1am. After having several ideas and thoughts I got back out of bed and went and typed up some questions, and downloaded my pictures (to clear my memory card for more video). I finally made it to bed around 3am.

Fox 13 had their cameras inside and I was on the news the following day with a few of my friends holding our banner.

Saturday

I woke up at 6am to feed Tyce and get ready. My kids were staying at my parents house so I'd see them in the morning and be home to feed Tyce at night. (My parents are AMAZING!) I got the kids ready for the day, fed them breakfast and finished gathering my things for the days events. I was a bit nervous with my lack of sleep and energy level but I ended up not getting sick and started feeling better by the time my friend showed up to go.

We took off for Highland High and met up with the rest of our group in line. They opened the doors at 10:30 and we found our seats and started visiting. SM came out around 11:30 to sign books early because they needed to have the venue cleared sooner then they anticipated. They called us by group numbers (we were assigned a group number in the order we purchased our tickets. The morning the tickets went on sale we called in before the store opened. I called in 45 minutes before opening and was still in group 4!)

When I got to SM I gave her the tote bag from our group (the protocol is to give it to Elizabeth her publicist who is standing next to her). I said, "This is from the Twilight Lexicon gals." And SM looked up from the book she was signing of the gal ahead of me with a huge smile on her face and says, 'Oh how fun. That is so awesome. Thank you.'

Then she gets my books and sees the names on the books. (We were able to have our Host books personalized and two of her other books just signed. The protocol was to have a post it note on the page with your name so she could spell it correctly.) She sees my book says Linda (Since I got my book the first day I was able to get others the second day for my mom) and she says, "Are you Linda?" And in an effort to claim the book was mine and be simplistic I answered, "yes". Then she says, "Oh wait, your name tag says Debbie. Are you Debbie?" I say, "OH yeah, well Linda is my mom. I'm getting a book for her because she's nice enough to watch my kids so I could be here to see you." To which SM replies, "Haha, well you don't have to say you're Linda if you're not Linda." Oh goodness! I just lied to Stephenie Meyer and I GOT CAUGHT! Hahaha!!

She signed books for about an hour and then went backstage to go through questions and prepare for her Q&A. While we waited we took more pictures, visited with other fans and told them our knowledge of the extra stuff and facts we found on the websites and I even got to talk to my cousin Jamie and friend Jerusha.

SM came back around 1pm and had some fun questions to answer. My videos are here, part 1 and part 2. You'll notice they get a little shaky because I got a little excited that she answered THREE of my questions!! I say in the video which ones are mine.

After the Q&A more of our group got their books signed and then a few of my friends (Danylle and Shelli) were interviewed by the Deseret News .

We all headed over to Jamie's house for dinner and Host Pictionary. We could all tell the weekend was catching up to us since we were all slouching in our chairs, not as wild as usual and I think perhaps a bit quieter (could that be?!?). We watched Lori being interviewed on Fox 13 and were excited to see she did a great job! We finally decided to end our weekend and get back home to our families.

I got home around 9:30 and just sort of had an emotional overload. It was an amazing weekend full of intense experiences and awesome times with some amazing women who I'm blessed to call my friends!

The Checks In the Mail

I love to be heard! Haha could you tell by how much I write? Fortunately for me, I found a way to also make money at it. I've been a part of this survey company for about 4 or so years. At first I didn't take it too seriously so I hardly ever participated. For that past two years however I probably take a few surveys a month (and get paid for it!!). It's so much fun! To me the best part though is that they actually send me free things and money! Generally I take surveys that are about 1 or 2 minutes long--mostly they're just trying to find out if I do enough to qualify for whatever they're asking about--if so then they ask me to take a longer survey for more money.

Depending on the survey and my answers they might send me things in the mail to try at home and take another survey after I've tried it to tell them what I thought. I've made about $100 so far and gotten free things like laundry detergent, diapers, and hair care stuff. I'm totally not kidding. About 2 years ago they sent us some cologne to try out and I asked Tarl to wear it for a few weeks but he liked it so much he wore it until it ran out.

Sorry to ramble, but I just took another survey and hit $20 mark so I'm looking forward to my little 'bonus' and wanted to record something in my 'journal' today.

Oh and if you're interested let me know and I can send you the info. (Don't worry it's not like one of those places that charges you to start up. This is totally free. They just ask you to take surveys.)

Harvest Time

My sister requested my photography skills (a work in progress) to take a few harvest pictures. Since we had the pumpkins and backdrop out I had to snap a few of my kids too. I'm impressed with people who can take quality photographs of multiple children at once. Our kids weren't bad--in fact they were amazing, but to try to get 4 kids to sit still at the same time was tricky.








We even managed to get one with all the grandkids for grandma.