For fun: A GIVEAWAY

So when this idea first popped into my head it was last Wednesday night and I was brushing my teeth. I got so excited by the idea. Silly I know, but it just sounded fun! I started planning it out in my head and “mental” blogging it. Then it kind of left my mind until last night when I started plotting and planning in my head again. Then I asked myself this question “would this be fun for me if I saw this on a friend’s blog?” Would I enter? Then for some reason those questions took the wind right out of my sails and I thought maybe it really is not that cool or maybe I shouldn’t do it.

But I’M DOING IT ANYWAY!
So a little background on what inspired the idea. I order a lot of supplies off of Etsy or other sites to make jewelry for myself. They have so much cute stuff on there and it is lots cheaper to purchase the supplies and make your own. I guess you cut out labor costs. It also always makes for a pretty unique item.
Anyway it is usually a bulk order of a bead or whatever I am buying so I have lots of left overs and they end up just sitting in my bead sorter collecting dust in storage. There are lots of things like that. Like makeup I get for free and makeup that is still unopened, in package, brand new from my days as a makeup artist at Nordys.
Bottom line is I love my friends and family and whoever else reads this blog and I want to do a fun little thing called a giveaway once or twice a month ! These things will come from me and will probably mostly consist of jewelry but there might be a couple random in the mix.

To make it a little more fun here is how it will work. I have created a form in google docs to allow you to enter your name and address without anyone seeing it except me. So to enter the contest you just fill out the form and click submit. The information goes to a little spreadsheet into my google docs where only I can see it (I probably have most of your addresses already from weddings and babies and such but enter it anyway). Then once the giveaway is over I will use a random generator to select a winner and then send your goody off. You will not know if you have won until a sweet little package arrives at your doorstep! A fun twist.
To be honest I have no experience with giveaways and so don’t really know what to expect so maybe this will be awesome and tons of fun for everyone or maybe it will flop.
I am not doing this to attract readers to my blog or gain followers and you don’t have to jump through hoops and do a double super triple side bend back flip to enter the contest. But with that said we do tend to not appreciate things we haven’t put forth any work or effort for so how about by entering this contest you give  your word that the day that little package arrives you will be on special look out to brighten another’s day, lighten another’s burden, and give some of your time and abundance!

After the giveaway is received I may ot may not announce it on my blog. I haven’t got that far yet. I told you I’m pulling this all out of thin air!

Okay so for the first giveaway….
These little darlings. They are not FLOWERS, which are awesome but I know are plentiful out there.
They remind me of waves so of course I LOVED them.
Okay, okay they look like flowers and in the cabochon listing it specifically said "ruffled flower" but I say they are "ruffled waves".  They are size 18mm and a sea green/mint green/ turquoise color.  Take a gander.

click to enlarge...in case you didn't know :)

 Anyone can enter the giveaway! Friends, family, friends of friends, perfect strangers!!!(pssss you don't even have to have a blog to enter) hooray I'm so excited!
Giveaway will be closed Friday!
Please enter below.  

Spring has Sprung!

The title of this post is a big joke. Since really it is still freezing outside and there is a chance of snow in the forecast every week! But we are so happy for the good sunshine days that come along!

 Then when its cold we do things like this....

 And pout a bit....

But Donald Duck can usually cheer us up or Milo & Otis.

Saturday we went on our first hike of the season with some friends. SNOW! Tons of snow. Z and I both wore sandals and the entire hike was up hill in snow. Dan was the smart one and luckily wore some sturdy shoes. A bit slip and slide but it was beautiful still. No pictures of any of our weekend adventures , I left the camera behind every time.  Just imagine it k?

It took 24 years to learn this lesson...

...always keep an extra pair of WEARABLE shoes in the car.


Zealand I think was born to be a farmer/cowboy. He might grow out of it, but this boy has got a passion for all activities that are classified under farming. From the animals, to cultivating, planting, and harvesting the crop. When we are driving in the car and pass a field of horses, bulls, or cows he starts shouting ride! ride! ride! in a panic. Cowboy. In fact if given the chance to shovel some manure, I’m sure he would do it in a hot second he is just that passionate about it.

Saturday we had a whole strew of tentative activities so we decided to ditch nap time for the day and squeeze a select few in. Zealand patiently entertained himself while I cleaned until about noon and then we showered, pulled on our boots (actually I pulled on my sandals and he pulled on his boat shoes) and we headed to The Farm (hee haw farms).

Once we arrived we paid, and within the first step onto the grounds one of my flip flops broke. NOoooooooooooooooo. I was about ready to throw the towel and Zealand back in the car and call the whole day off. Instead I thought to myself I can walk around this dirty farm with no shoes its fine, really it will be fine. Well after about 50 feet of dirt and rocks I was still holding up until we came to the petting zoo. I was not going to walk in poo filled hay in bare feet!

We headed over to the red barn where you purchase tickets and I asked if they had a staple gun. They did! Yes! I was saved, the day was saved! So I took the rope strap part of my sandals and stapled it to the sole, slipped it back on and walked out the door. I was not even five feet before it busted again. I asked for tape this time (really??) so I taped it down and it seemed like it was going to hold…I made it 3 feet.

All the while Zealand is about ready to pull all the red hair right out of his head because he could not wait a second longer to ride the pony!

So I told Zealand we were going to have to go back home, but just then I remembered I had a bag full of clothes in the trunk waiting to be taken to DI. Surely there had to be a pair of shoes in there. And there was. I had a choice of 5 inch bright purple heels that had been a part of a Halloween costume or a pair of 5 inch strappy wedges.

I chose the wedges...

I'm sure I was the actual entertainment of the day at Hee Haw farms.

Especially since Zealand wanted to ride this slide 150 times! I was walking up and down that thing and riding it in those shoes. I still don't understand how I didn't brake my ankles! I'm sure people were laughing their heads off thinking what in the H is that prissy little diva doing here? Except I wasn't "little" I was easily over six feet tall in those things. A 6'2 girl wearing red skinny cords riding down a slide, not something you see everyday. Then when we went over to the big hay bales they were wet and I sunk right in.
 Zealand was completely oblivious to this all. He had the time of his life! He told anyone that would listen "riiidee harse" for the rest of the day! Plus the petting farm was free game. If you could lift it you could hold it! (or not since I saw unattended toddlers tossing poor helpless baby goats onto their heads)
Yes, it was totally worth it.

This is his smile. Two year pictures are going to be fun!

We made it home with  a sunburn, dirt from head to toe, and what was left of my dignity. And what was I thinking letting him go in that outfit? Who knows but it was FILTHY and took about a whole bottle of Oxyclean!
We dusted off and loaded into the car for some Park City Outlet shopping, Mrs. Fields Cookies and a Tarahumara feast.

Two, Dos, Zwei

My sweet, lovey, cutie pie, baby boy turned 2! Fastest 2 years of my life. Best day of his I think so far.

Woke up to the traditional room full of balloons

Found his new tricycle out in the living room and took a spin

 For the birthday breakfast fresh fruit, orange whip cream, and oatmeal pancakes...the boys favorite! Then he got to play all day with his cousins and make cinnamon rolls with Grandma until the festivities started.

Zealand's most favorite thing in the whole world is Donald Duck. We have every Donald Duck cartoon that ever was on DVD and that is all he ever wants to watch.  So I chose that for his B-day party theme. Unfortunately I scoured the planet for anything Donald Duck and all I found was a 30 dollar Donald Duck cake pan online.  So we had to get creative with the cake. I had a picture of Donald Duck printed on fondant at the bakery then I made a coconut cake (Zealand is also obsessed with coconut) and put it on top. The mistake was showing Zealand his cake before we left for the restaurant . The car ride up this is all we heard "duck" "cake" "me" "eat" poor boy had to stare at it all the way there.

Pleased as pie with his "don duck" cake

We ate at The Pie in Fort union. So delicious. The Birthday boy I think maybe licked his cheese bread and that was it. He was too excited for cake!

My Mother in law put the cake in front of Zealand to take a picture and Zealand saw his chance and took it

Trying to get Zealand to sit still for one family picture didn't work out so well

Presents

We went to the new Children's Museum inside of  The Church History and Art building after dinner. It was so much fun and Zealand could have been entertained for hours and it is FREE.99 can't beat that. I recommend that you go if you haven't already.
My party plans were crashed by the weather so I'm happy it all worked out and most importantly Zealand was all partied out by the time we got home.

Oh and my camera had a bad case of red eye and I didn't feel like going through and fixing all them

The Bubble

As long as I am living in Utah county I think it is pretty much safe to assume any new “friend” I make will either have:

A) dated my husband or Brother in law

B) Dated one of my exes

C) Is married to my ex

D) Is the best friend of my exes wife

E) Is the best friend of my husband’s ex

F) Married my best friends ex

G) All of the above (if that is possible)





The list goes on. I could go on forever about the weird bizarre connections I’m always running in to. Not that it really matters, because it doesn't in most cases. It just makes me laugh.
Big happy Happy Valley. Everyone knows everyone!

Graham Crackers & Milk

Strangely enough my boy hadn't been introduced to Graham Crackers & Milk! What???

DIP!

MMM MMMMMM

He loved it. Probably as much as I do. I told him about back in the day when my after school ritual was graham crackers and milk and Saved By The Bell!

I've been wanting to make my own Grahams. Here are a couple recipes I'm considering:
#1
#2
#3





Oh and yes we get full use out of our Christmas pajamas....year round.

Festival of Coolness

After a delicious dinner at my sisters Saturday night Dan and I ventured out to Spanish Fork, UT for the Festival of Colors.  Forever I have wanted to find out what the hype was all about. 
Dan and I didn't show up until about 6:30 pm and as we were walking up I figured out real quickly that we were serious targets. We were the only ones I could see uncolored.  First off this hippie chick sprinkled me with color like she was a fairy or something dancing around in circles and such...you know being free and stuff.  Well the next dose of paint was certainly the kind you don't want!  Dan was running ahead of me to purchase us some color packs and I went to call his name and just as I opened my mouth... BAM some chick pounds a handful of green paint in my mouth. Down my throat it tried to go and up my vomit came. It tasted like crushed up incense. It was terrible and I was spitting up green for an hour. So after that first impression I was a bit worried on how the rest of the night was going to go.
It ended up being okay. We were just in time for the last throwing , so we found our way into the crowd and started throwing like nobody's business. We got a good covering of color, hopped in the photo booth, checked out the menu (that had the potential to be the best part of our night since Indian Food is our favorite but we were full). But after all is said and done I probably won't go again. Who knows?
Made for a good photo op though!

Do you ever sit posing for a picture and then realize you are actually taking a video of yourself? Yeahhh I wanted a before picture of us and got a before video.