I'm convinced...

that boys are harder to potty train than girls!(It really does depend on the kid but in my experience, Paige was not bad) I'm in the middle of my 3rd go-around with this potty training garbage and I'm so ready to be done! I've been watching my friend's 2 1/2 year old daughter today and she's been newly PT, she's doing great. I was hoping her example would motivate Heston but he walks in and sees her on the potty and tells me, "Neat" and walks away. I've even bought some more toy cars (he LOVES them) but that's not doing the trick. Bottom line? He's not ready. I need to be a little more patient. I will continue talking about it and continue bribing and he'll eventually come around...

We're going to California next weekend for my nephew Ian's baptism. Alisha asked me to give a talk at the baptism, I'm so honored that they asked me!:) It'll be fun!

Happy Birthday Aubree and Alisha

Happy Birthday to my sweet little niece Aubree and my sis-in-law Alisha! One of my goals for 2009 is to send a birthday card to all my neices, nephews, bro and sis-in-laws. Here it is February and I'm already a slacker! I also haven't sent my nephew Ian's card yet so I'd like to give him a late b-day shout out from crazy Aunt Kris and Co.
I love my nieces and nephews so much! Each and every one of them are just the coolest kids. I'm so thankful for them and for my bro and sis-in-laws, they are all so good to me! :)

I really love orange, red and blue...

Thanks for the great ideas on the school papers and projects! I need all the help I can get trying to organize stuff.

I was able to do 2 more digi layouts last night when everyone went to bed. (I love having some quiet time with no interuptions) I used the All Star and A Boy kits from Little Dreamer Designs. I don't see the "A Boy" kit there anymore!:( These were some of my first digi purchases. I love them and have been able to use them a lot...they've been perfect for my boy pages.

this school year is flying...

I have Parent-Teacher conferences today and it made me realize how fast this school year has gone by. I did this layout a couple of weeks ago. I need to put together something for them with their school pictures/papers. I have got to get some of the school keepsakes under control. If you have kids in school, you know exactly what I'm talking about. What to keep, what not to keep... I think that needs to be my next project. Nothing fancy, I just need something that is organized! If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them!

I hope everyone is surviving the winter! I remember this time of year in Utah very well. You just want the snow to be gone and spring to come! Hang in there!

I wanted to share with you this link to 40 sketches that were on the Creating Keepsakes website this month. I love these sketches, it helps so much!

Love is Entirety

Aaron got back on Wednesday after being in Taiwan on business. He was gone 9 loooonnngg days...those longs trips are hard for me! He brought the kids some DVDs (that haven't been released yet and they were only 50 cents a piece!) and usually he brings back a t-shirt for the kids. On his last trip, he brought back this Hello Kitty shirt for P. In honor of Valentine's Day, I wanted to post it because it cracks us up everytime she wears it. The translation from Chinese to English didn't go over so well...

Happy Valentine's Day!

The top picture is her inviting you to the "gun show" I don't know where she comes up with this stuff...

2008 Year in Review

Just finished up my 2008 Year in Review album. It was so fun and easy to put together. I was starting to feel a little overwhelmed with all the pictures I had and wanted to create something with some highlights of the year.

Photobucket Album

You...you are awesome!!

This video is about 15 minutes but it'll make your day!

Our weekend trip to Tombstone, AZ

Last weekend, we took a trip to Tombstone, AZ. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the shootout at the OK Corral all happened here. It was fun to just look around and take pictures. I was blown away by the craftsmanship inside some of these buildings, you just don't see that everyday.
After we left Tombstone, Aaron took B&P (I stayed behind with H) to the Kartchner Caverns that are about 30 miles away. They all said how cool it was, we'll have to go back when Heston gets bigger. It was nice to get away and just spend some time together as a family. Before we know it, our kids will be teenagers and they'll want nothing to do with us! :)

Elvis' birthday bash

My grandma and Uncle TR were in the Vernal Express a few weeks ago. The care center celebrated Elvis' birthday with dancing, music and peanut butter and banana sandwiches (I guess they were Elvis' favorite). There are 2 things Grandma lives for: dancing and music. I know she had a blast, even in her wheelchair.

She's been through so much since August. I was really worried about her being at the care center and not at her house. When I saw her over Thanksgiving, I felt so much better. The staff there are taking such good care of her. I can honestly say she has always been one of my closest friends. I spent my entire childhood following her around and watching baseball games together.

This picture was taken on my 5th birthday. It's not the best quality (it's a scanned Polaroid) but it's priceless to me. Ma, Grandma, Mom and me. Grandma has always had this killer blonde afro. Back in my dancing days when I would perform, I could always see her out in the audience :)

Monday

Wow, it has been awesome weather here the past couple of days! It got up to 80 today, it was a perfect day to spend some time at the park. The kids go back to school tomorrow and I've got to get some stuff done. We're taking a little trip this weekend down to Tombstone and Tucson. I'm looking forward to it.
I'm sorry I'm so boring today!
The kids wore me out :)

Thursday

It's been a pretty good week so far. I've been able to catch up on some much needed housework and projects. I needed to do a little touch up paint in the living room. I had to dig the paint can out of the garage (not the easiest thing) and I got out my brush and went to town. I've been putting it off for a while, it felt good to get it done. I left to run errands and when I came back, I saw that the paint does not match! I don't know if being out in the hot garage has changed the color or what but, dang! So now I've created another project for myself...yipee.

On a positive note, I found a really cool thing that's helped me get a little more organized. It's a set of household planner templates. There's 60 different lists that you can print out or customize. I didn't want to pay $10 for them but they were on sale for $4 over the holidays. I'm sure they'll go on sale again. Here's a link:
Andrea's Household Planner Templates

digital scrapbooking

You are all too good to me! :) Thank you for the compliments.
I wish there was a way I could sit down at the computer with you (like Karin did with me, thanks again! You helped me so much) and go over just a few things step by step. I’ll do my best to share some things with you to get you started and share with you what works for me. You can always call me, too. I'll talk your ear off!

There’s so much to learn with digital scrapbooking and the possibilities are endless. It's easy to become overwhelmed, just take it one step at a time. Once you get a few of the basics down, you’ll be good to go.

The program I use is Adobe Photoshop Elements 6. You can do all kinds of stuff with this program. I’m still trying to find my way around but that’s the one I use.
There are some good tutorials on digital scrapbooking out there. The ones that have helped me the most have been by Sande Krieger on 2Peas in a bucket. She starts with the basics and then teaches different techniques from there. Here’s a link to Lesson 1: Getting started

I have all of my favorite digital scrapbooking sites bookmarked to the right. Almost all of these sites have sales on certain days and quarterly sales that offer 30-40% off. The great thing about digital is once you buy something, you can use it as many times as you want. If you need to get pages done quickly, templates are awesome! This is one of the first templates that I bought. I got it on sale for around $1.50 and I’ve used it several times. I didn’t change the template at all, I just put the pictures in and called it a day. This template is by Katie P. at Designer Digitals.I hope this is somewhat helpful. I’m no expert but it’s fun to find a new way to scrapbook and to preserve memories. I love the no mess factor and also the fact that you don’t have find places to store your stuff. It’s all there on the computer and if you have a laptop, you can do it anywhere! And the glorious Undo button…it's life changing I tell ya!
Let me know how it works out!

being Present

Aaron took B&P over to our friends house last night to watch the BCS championship game. Heston didn't get a nap and I knew he wouldn't last so he and I stayed home. He went to bed early and I got to sit down and do some digital scrapbooking. These are a couple I did last night and some I've been working on for the last little while. I cannot get enough of the vintage frames. I know I use them on every every page I do but I just love them! My goal for 2009 is to learn how to take better pictures. There's so much to learn but I'm looking forward to it.

Each year I chose a word to focus on.

My word for 2009 is PRESENT.

Being present in every moment and just soaking it all in.

TGIF, have a good weekend!

our New Years trip

After Christmas, we decided to take a little trip with the kids. We headed up north and stayed in Cottonwood and rode the Verde Canyon Railroad. The weather was nice and the kids thought the train was fun.
We spent New Years in Sedona and on our way home, we stopped in a little town outside of Cottonwood called Jerome. I loved the old buildings and houses, they have so much character.
The kids went back to school today and now I’ve got to get everyone back on a schedule.

our new Christmas tradition

I've been meaning to post this idea for a while now and I just didn't get around to it. I love Christmas advent calendars. I wanted to create one that would be meaningful, inexpensive and wouldn't take a lot of time. (I love to sew but I didn't want to get into a project right before Christmas)

So I searched online for some ideas and came across this idea from Martha Stewart. I changed some things here and there and I'm happy with the way it turned out.

I bought 12 pairs of baby Christmas socks, put numbers on them and hung them on a ribbon, that's it!

Aaron and I wrote things that we love about each of our kids. It worked out great because they each got 8 turns each so we had no fights there. We put all the little cards in a Christmas tin under our tree and I will put them in our Christmas journal to keep. You could put scriptures, stories, candy, activities for each day in December to do as a family...lots of ideas. You can do something different each year if you wanted to. I'm looking forward to this new Christmas tradition!

Materials I used:

-the numbers are digital brushes from Ali Edwards that you can find at designerdigitals.com.

-the ribbon is red and green polka dot May Arts ribbon

-I used those Contact hanger things from 3M so I wouldn't have nail holes

-I got the socks from Old Navy. They range in sizes from 6 months to 3-6 years. You could do a mix of kid and adult socks as well. Now that Christmas is over, you could score some good deals right now for next year.

-I thought about using mini clothespins to hang the socks but I just used some mini bulldog clips I already had. These are Tim Holtz ones I got at the scrapbook store but you can get these at Staples.

-I downloaded the "What I love about you" cards for free from Oprah.com. You could make your own in Photoshop as well, that would be really cute! I just stamped the B, P and H on there.

Merry Christmas!

Just want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!
(this picture is from last year)

Tuesday

So how’s everyone doing? It’s been a while since I’ve blogged. December gets a little crazy every year. Aaron has been in China on business and got home Sunday, I’m so happy to have him home. He brought us all back some goodies...the DVDs and knock-off designer purses are always a favorite!
The kids finished their soccer season and team parties up last week. I’m always happy when soccer season starts and I’m equally happy when the season ends. I found this gingerbread kit at Costco last week. The kids had a lot of fun decorating it (even though in the picture it looks like they're being tortured)We're looking forward to spending some time together as a family.

teacher gift idea

I was browsing all my favorite digital scrapbooking websites last night and came across a really cute Christmas gift idea for teachers. The great thing about it is you can personalize it with whatever you want and it doesn't cost a lot of money. (and come on, who doesn't love chocolate?! After dealing with our children 5 days a week, these nice people deserve a treat and then some)

You can download this for FREE here

One of B&P's favorite things to do at Christmas is to make their own handmade cards and letters for their teachers so we'll include those with the chocolate. I wonder if their teachers enjoy Diet Coke as much as I do...I need to look into that...

our Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving and I hope all of you did too! I did the same thing that I do every year, I ate way too much. We spent Thanksgiving at my brother’s house again this year. It wasn’t quite the same without Mike, Linda and Company (Linda is my mom’s older sister) but it was still good. My cousins and I could tell you stories about my relatives and our past Thanksgivings that would have you laughing and then asking, "Is that really true?"
When Jeff Foxworthy does his ‘You might be a redneck’ stand-up routine, everyone laughs because it’s funny. I laugh because I have relatives that are exactly like the people he talks about. Good times…

I posted some pictures this summer of the kids on my Dad’s tractor. He put the backhoe attachment on it and let B&P give it a try out in the garden. Braden LOVED it! He would dig the hole and then put the dirt back in and pack it down. That’s one of the things that I love about going home to Vernal. My kids get to experience and do things they don’t normally do. Paige and Heston found leaves in the back yard and enjoyed raking them up and jumping in them.

I know it's totally cheesy but I love the shape of this tree.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!