Christmas Eve

This Christmas was going to be different. Scott has family here so we usually stay close to home and spend most of the time with them.
This year they were all going to be away so it was really our first experience doing our own thing. My parents decided to join us this year and I was excited to get some traditions in place with our little family. Scott and I gathered our ideas and decided on some fun and special things. I don't know if they will last, but we have begun!
In November I was visiting teaching my friend who was sharing one of her family traditions of dressing up and acting out the Nativity. She was saying how she keeps intending to invest a little more in simple costumes or props but never gets to it....so I had a little idea enter my head to make that for her as a Christmas gift. I knew people did this but never considered us doing it, and as I gathered everything for her I ended up doing double and making a set of costumes for us to try it out. As you can see, they are very simple, no-sew costumes compiled of fabric robes, belts, sashes and tinsel. I so enjoyed presenting this to her as well. Christmas giving is marvy!
So back to our Christmas Eve.... after dinner we gathered to get into costume and read the story. It was quiet and sweet and the kids liked it. Don't know how long that will last. I think it will be funny to see who wants to be the wise man...just look at that robe Scott has on- who wouldn't want to wear that? It's like the Missoni of Ancient Times! Sadie was a perfect Angel (only in character. Please.), Elliet a sweet Mary and Luke was a piece of Shepherd candy I wanted to eat up.


Next it was time for Christmas Eve PJ's, cookies out for Santa and off to bed.
Earlier in December my parents passed through from CA and while here, joined us on a trip to Costco. My Dad joked with Elliet as we put a clamshell of tomatoes in the cart that it was her present. He was going to give her "Christmas Tomatoes" for Christmas. Elliet hates tomatoes so she laughingly protested. It became a joke between them the rest of that day. Well, Elliet in all her cleverness told me later that she wanted to box up some tomatoes and put them under the tree for Papa. I just laughed at the idea and of course we did it. The kids wanted to do this Christmas Eve, so these pics are the sequence of that. I loved the expressions in each photo so I had to include each one. I don't think this is the end of this joke in our family. :)
The rest of the night was so nice. We were done with 'everything' by 8:30 and relaxed with each other until bedtime. Nice!

Festivities Part Two

We had a very fun December. It was crazy and throughout the month I decided to focus on enjoying all the events we were fitting in. So it's crazy...so what! That's what December is always like. And it's crazy with happy blessings in your life. Here are some of the things we enjoyed during the month:
-Driving through Sunset Park listening to Christmas tunes. Very slowly (Holiday traffic- hooray!) & checking out other local sites
-Watching 'Christmas Carol', 'Elf', 'Merry Madagascar', 'The Grinch', 'White Christmas', etc. Holiday movies are importanté...
-FHE with extended family to decorate cookies
-Making loads and loads of gingerbread cookies (and frosting some with Erica again!)
-Playing my iTunes Christmas playlist a lot and dancing like idiots (My kids are esp. fond of Wham's Last Christmas- Who knew)
-Parties with friends: Beatles GH playoff, book club dinner + gift exchange (I so love my prize from Charles! Thanks, Ang!) and the famous PJ Tingey dinner. YUM.
-Christmas shopping with the kids while they bought presents for each other in the $1 area @ Target, then wrapping and anticipating...
-Gingerbread house making
-Planning Scotts prezzie. More on that later. Yahoo!
-Making Nativity costumes for a friend (+ myself)








Here is just one of the many times we made cookies. I swear, I think I made this recipe about 7 or 8 times throughout the month but they are the best and the best to share with the peeps we love. Luckily the recipe makes a few dozen at a time. The kids are good at this part, it's the frosting I wish they could help with. Clarification: They do frost and have a grand old time licking it off and re-frosting. But alas, I cannot put these on your plate. It's my Christmas gift to you.
As much time as it can take, I confess I love doing this every year. It's a fun creative outlet to sit for a couple of hours after the kids are in bed and I can play with sugar to make these special for the people we share them with.
This year I kept the packaging simple and thought they turned out super duper.

Now I just need an 11 month break from making Gingerbread and I'll be ready to do this again!

Festivities Part One

Throughout December there was a lot going on. I have more video footage of this kindergarten program than I do pictures so this will have to suffice, but it was so funny. Luke, as usual, was very expressive with his moves and as he was on the end of the front row, not one move was missed. Open arms, jazz hands, swaying to and fro, eyes up and down... hysterical.
The kids also had a few school parties, one of which I assisted with where they made gingerbread houses with the 4th graders. What a mess! But so fun.







A good friend of mine grew up decorating elaborate G-houses and we talked about getting together to do them this year. As soon as the kids were out of school, a few of us got together, helped the kids with theirs and then we got to work on ours. The kids used grahams and we baked our own pieces. Michelle had cool laminated templates and a perfect system down- chilled dough rolled out onto parchment, placed the template and cut with a large, straight scraper (pressing down like a cookie cutter) which resulted in perfect straight edges, then cut out the parchment piece it was on and lifted it right onto the cookie sheet. I'm telling you- they were PERF. No need for those boxed kits- it looked as good as that and tastes better to boot. Too bad mine were already done when I showed up to see her expertise- I was using a half sheet of paper as my template + guesswork and some were crooked, etc. as well as mutantly tall and weird. We were all joking that I had made the great and spacious building in the neighborhood. Frosting saved me on the construction but we have decided this is a new tradition so I'm ready to do it right next year. I'll post the pics of my house in Academe soon so you can feel good about yourself. :)
All the kids had a good time embellishing. I was impressed with the creativity some of the kids used. One had toothpics stuck in swirly hershies kisses for patio umbrellas and Blake (pictured here) made the Costco mega graham house. Nothing like candy and cookies to wax creativity, eh?

Merry Merry

Merry Christmas to all...
And to all a continued respite from my posting.
'Tis the holidays and we have been having a jolly old time celebrating with family and friends. I have fun photos and things to share soon.
In the meantime enjoy this great little drawing Luke did about a week ago of the Nativity. Aw.
Hope you've all had a great Christmas week!

Christmas Card

Yes. This is me. I'm all about high class, you know. I'm all about designing our Christmas card and then not printing enough so I had to mail those to family and email a printable version to friends. Yes. That is what we call classy.
And now I've become a martyr to my own generosity (line?). How can I not share it with you? It's easy, occupies some time and exercises crafty brain muscles.
So if you're bored at work or have bored kids, print and cut out a last minute deco to remind you of what the season is really about.
Merry Merry!

Jingle Your Bells

Phenomenal Handclap Band "15 to 20" Official Video

The Phenomenal Handclap Band | MySpace Music Videos

Has a week gone by already? Man- I should be updating more often.
Forgive?
You will after watching this. Shake that booty of yours while up to elbows in wrapping paper and shiny bows. The video style is sweet- I love all the subtle filters. Enjoy!
(Plus, it helps the kids with their number sequencing.... ha!)

White Hot

Can I just vent a wee bit here....
I have wanted a boss white watch for over a year now and when they all started to crop up last spring there were some that were CLOSE to what I wanted, but enough of something wrong to turn me off: girly swirls, diamond bling in the face, pink accents, plastic, etc....
Well, count on Nixon to release what I want: the 42-20 in white.
It is perfection. It looks like a storm trooper that tells time and I really, really desire one.
Oh yeah, guess how much it is?
Two freaking thousand dollars.


Ugh.

Wrap Up of Lately

So... whew! I know I've been a little MIA from here...hopefully I can get back on top of it. I'll catch up in order of events...
The Girl Next Door show was a great success this year! I couldn't have been more pleased with the results. We had a great variety of vendors and an amazing crowd of friends, family and others to come check it all out. I know it's a busy time of year but we had so many people come by. Thanks to anyone reading this who could make it! You can read more about it on the official site here.
After the show I kind of checked out and slipped into the weekend doing things with our little family and friends, including the Santa Run (see below) on Saturday. Then Monday my parents stopped by on their way home from L.A. and ended up staying until this morning. It was a short stop but so fun to have them here- so I continued to put things off to play with them. We got some Christmas shopping done and while my Dad did some home improvements, my Mom and I made trees for her to take home. They are planning to return for Christmas so we are all excited to see them again. I can't wait!
Such a great time of year. I'm trying to cut back and not stress about a lot of little things. Let's see if I can do it with two weeks left to go. :) Hope you're Christmas season is fun so far. I've been so aware lately of the great family and friends that we have. We love you all so much!

Santa Run 2009

Last Saturday was the annual Las Vegas Santa Run and some friends and I decided to try it out this year. The registration fee includes a cheap Santa suit including pants, top, belt, hat and beard. To qualify for the attendance record (apparently many cities do this, trying to have the most attendees) you have to run wearing all five items. Now that's the Christmas spirit!
Naturally I was interested after hearing that.
Who wouldn't want to run around looking ridiculous in a Santa costume with nearly 9,000 other weirdos? Sign me up!
We were all laughing as we put our gear on... some pants and coats were huge, others were small...the beards shed and the belts fell apart...but it was awesome! So much fun. Look at all the people waiting to go...

Here we are in all our splendor before the start. I love these fun ladies...



After looking at this, I think I may actually be more attractive with a beard...

And off we go! Good times and giggles all along the way. Erica ollied over every speed bump, Jess listened to dirty rap and Catherine kept the speedy pace. (See? Check out those hot pants o' mine- nice!)

All the Santa's on our way back to the finish. Almost done!

My awesome photography as I turned around at the finish line, capturing half of the group.

This is DEFINITELY a new tradition we will do every year. We're already talking about wardrobe enhancements. I'm grateful for such silly friends and hope you're all having a fun Christmas season so far. Merry Merry!

Paper Wonderland

If you have some Sunday time on your hands (and possibly don't feel too motivated to put up all your holiday deco's), this was a great time filler I did with the kids two weeks ago. I'm surprised at how much we are enjoying them. They feel really festive and the kids like to discuss them while we eat. Or, rather, while they don't eat.
I kept it simple... we only folded the paper squares twice so I wouldn't have to hear moans about it being too thick to cut. Tie with string and tack to the ceiling. Easy, peasy- frosty, freezy!

Still Hungry?

Happy Holidays, Peeps!
The season is upon us. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I decided to take a vacation myself and thoroughly enjoyed: eating lots of turkey/pie/donuts/oh my, hanging out with visiting family, mt. biking & putting up Christmas deco's with the kids that I didn't take one photo. Not one.
But I'm really not that heart broken about it because it was nice to not care. :)
Alas- it was short lived. I have projects to finish before GND on Thursday.

In the meantime.... I did swipe these clever images from some random site I can't remember and couldn't resist sharing. They are from a fancy fashion show/gallery thing and I loved how great the cake was. Yes- the cake! Do you have room after all that Turkey for some tasty Mies?? I thought so. Looks yummy, eh?

Holiday Girl Next Door show busy-ness

This is why posting has been so slow. Not that it's probably been that missed... :)
The Girl Next Door show is next week!

Been getting the new website up and features posted though they aren't all up yet.
Have a looksie if you're interested.
And if I don't post before Thanksgiving, enjoy you're Turkeys!!! (Family and Non)

Oh Yes I Did

-Small private theater (no line waiting! It's great to be a tag along)
-Tons of fans
-Sharing popcorn/licorice with good friends
- ... at midnight!
-Too old for that, but whatever
-Finally good music (St. Vincent/Bon Iver's is physically melting)
-Slightly better acting
-MUCH better eye candy (Edward should have at least waxed... and some weight training couldn't hurt. He could bench press some giant sycamore's)

This girl gives it two thumbs up! If you're not that into this stuff, that is okay. But if you're not that into it just to rebel against the hype, get over it already and have some fun. A great number #2 after an average #1. And boy oh boy- I need to get me a warm reservation boy for myself!!!!!! Hot Diggity Wolf!

Randomness

Posting will be thin around here for a couple of more weeks. The Girl Next Door holiday show is right around the corner (I'll post more info on that later) so I'm trying to get that organized. I'm also deep into embroidering some scrubs for Scott's staff. And may I just back up a bit? I came home from that Art Weekend with my head full of ideas but needed to figure out digitizing first ('designing' with thread so I could embroider his logo on these scrubs) and locked myself away for a couple of days determined to decipher Windows confusing ways.... so now my head really hurts. Thinking. Ow.
I also whipped right back around and headed to Utar for another short weekend trip. This time it was to join the Leavers for a girl trip as Jennifer invited us all to attend Time Out for Women. Scott's Mom, Mary Jane, and I carpooled to and from SLC together- a great treat for me. Our long visits were way overdue and never tiresome. As usual with these conferences, some things are oozing cheese, and others are amazing- it's the amazing that makes it worth it. I love inspiration and women who will share their stories of pain, change, courage and love. I love my church. I love the great family and friends around me who love me for what I am and that encourages me to be better. Thanks for the great weekend, girls!
What else have I been doing? Not much.... going on Elliets school field trip, mountain biking and doing art projects in between. Hope you're having a fun November!

Art Weekend

Over the past few weeks I have slowly achieved some small organizing feats within my house. It has been so long since I have gone through my kids rooms & playroom and it.was.time. One of the changes I made was I moved all the art/drawing supplies from the playroom into the kitchen area where we do homework. There were too many times we needed scissors, glue sticks or markers to keep running back and forth. Aside from convenience, a new perk is that my kids now draw pictures all the time. And I mean all the time. Also, new problem: I must find contained areas for display. Case in point, Luke has been using his door. This was too funny to not share. Do you like that hot pink school flyer he added?

Speaking of creativity, I had a sweet chance to escape to Salt Lake for the weekend and take some cool art classes. Scott willingly let me go and took care of everyone for the weekend. It was SO nice and fun and very informational. My main goal was to figure out how to do home screen printing (so I could decide whether or not to invest in the Yudu) and it was all worth it. Andy, our teacher, was extremely knowledgeable and thorough. The class was exactly what I needed. I'm so excited to try it out! I also took two additional classes- one on Scherenschnitte ('Sharon-shnita' so says my teach) which is paper cutting and it was fab... check out my teachers site here (I have some more examples of what this is in my art blog-amazing!) and another class on how to make complex patterns in Illustrator. Those were also each really great and fun. I came home with my own paper cutting and am playing with patterns already (note my chevron bird below). Tweet!
Aside from a good creative dipping, I also got to enjoy my family again and the beautiful season, even if it was only for a slice o' time. The weather was so temperate and the surroundings were very November. I stayed with Rich & Randi one night, we checked out Marty & Jess' new place a couple of times and I even got my hair cut. The trip was short but trés sweet. Thanks everyone for feeding me, putting me up and giving me rides.
Now I've got to get crackin' on some projects because GND is coming up!

Halloween Party

Here is a sneak peak of the Dark Circus Bash we had last Friday night. I think this was the first party in years where I didn't have a ton of last minute stuff to do (or care enough to do it) so the day was a good one as we got all ready. I made these spooky flag banners earlier in the month and my treat contribution was cotton candy. I will say, it was some freaky looking stuff because I could NOT make it look good. That takes some special talent to swirl the paper stick in the bin and come up with a beautiful swaff of orange cloud... mine were like wadded Trump comb-overs. Spooky! Scary! Weird! Jess made some delicious pumpkin muffins with tasty cream cheese frosting- I wish I'd taken pictures of them because they were really good. There were some great soups (new this year thanks to a friends idea), "interesting" and funny videos and fantastic company. Our party is only as successful as the attendees effort and what an effort everyone made. We are so grateful for such clever and fun friends! Thank you for your participation, excitement and attendance. It means a lot to us. Hope you all had a great Halloween!

PS-More pics on the party blog for those of you who want more

Halloween!

Hooray for Halloween! It is so fun. The costumes, the pumpkins (I just realized I didn't take any pics of the night we did that-probably because I was the gloop scooper), the music, the movies, the anticipation... the kids are really getting into it which makes holidays the best ever. We had a kids party planned that afternoon and I have to say, I was getting partied out. After that full week of parties (school and otherwise), I didn't have the motivation to do one more thing...like the cupcakes I was in charge of and didn't do. Luckily the friend I planned it with felt the same so we ended up doing a couple of chill games with the kids and just hung out. Then it was off with Jess to the grocery store to make chili and cornbread and get ready to trick-or-treat!
We could not have asked for a better, more temperate evening. It was a perfect 75 or so degrees out and calm. We set out around the neighborhood with Scotts parents and caught the Lords doing their rounds as well so all of us tromped around together. The kids looked so cute in all their costumes running through the orange lit sidewalks in the night... I loved it! Kids make this stuff better than anything else.
We got home, gorged on some candy, sent the kids to bed and the four of us stayed up to watch Mission Impossible 3 on TV. Nice. Hope you all had a great Halloween!
*Could my nephew Graham be any more cute!?!

The Last Week

The busy final week of October. Let's see if I can remember all the shizzle that went down...
I was responsible for a project for the twins Kindergarten class on Thursday and finally committed to making a hinged skeleton the kids could cut out and assemble. It turned out awesome!...for 2nd graders. It was more advanced than they could do (oops) but there were plenty of other activities so luckily my failure wasn't too obvious. I was in their class all morning helping out and it was fun to work with the kids, but man- I was wiped out at the end of that day. I don't know how their teacher does it! This year the school did not do the trunk or treat like last year and instead had a Halloween parade outside (not as cool but whatevs). As usual, the PE God Mr. Shenkberger was the master of fun and lead everyone in Monster Mash dances outside. Look at the dude- what kid wouldn't love that PE teacher? Then it was back inside and this time I went to Elliets class for her class party. I was in charge of cupcakes and have wanted to make those Martha monster cupcakes forever so I used this as a reason to finally do it. Scott helped me do these the night before... I didn't know he was so creative with marshmallows. The kids had a really fun last day of school (Friday off for Nevada Day) so it was a good set up for the weekend ahead.
Marty & Jess decided to come visit us last minute and we were so excited to have them come. They arrived late Thursday night and stayed through Monday. We hung out doing little preparations here and there for the party that night (more on that later) and Jess and I even got in a work out up at Red Rock. The weather warmed up beautifully in time for the weekend and was perfect for Trick or Treating (since I want to keep this post short I'll do those pics next). A good Thursday (and whew, it was done).
PS- If your kids are bored and/or want to give them a busy anatomy activity, email me and I'll send you the pdf for Mr. Bones here. :)