snow day...

Ok so you may all laugh that they cancelled school for 2-3 inches of snow - but if our neighbor kids had not come over and shoveled our driveway in the morning - we would have been stuck in the house almost all day. Our driveway is a killer. If we lived up north, yeah we would maybe have had 2nd thoughts about buying the house just for this reason. But it doesn't snow here. I mean really dump, ever. So 2-3 inches at once. Big deal! Do they even sell snow shovels here? I don't think I've ever seen one. Of course, my kids don't own boots (do they even sell those here?), and only knit gloves, and not even heavy coats, but that didn't stop them from playing in the snow all morning, building a snowman, and doing snow angels. I LOVE driving through the neighborhood and seeing snowmen on everyone's lawn. Every kid that stayed home yesterday probably made one. So cute. Fun day.

Lily - really not sure what to think about the snow yet.

The snowman or Frosty as Zane has named him. Original, I know.

Snow Angels. Sad. They probably should be called Dirt Angels or Rock Angels, but he had fun!

happy birthday john ... (very late)

John celebrated his 32nd birthday last week and I am just now getting around to posting about it. He got a new Tech hat, some clothes, and the Seinfeld Scene It game. We love you very much and appreciate all the hard work you do for our family!

bead star 2008...

So the time has come for me to announce that I got an Honorable Mention in the Crystals category in the Bead Star 2008 competition. Thank you to everyone who voted for me. You can see the necklace and the instructions in the inaugural Bead Star issue available on Monday. My necklace is an auction item to benefit the American Heart Association and will most likely be auctioned off on ebay in March.

The following is the press release and winners in all the categories.

Bead Star Announces 2008 Winning Jewelry Designs and Publication of Debut Issue

Loveland, Colo., December 9, 2008:

Bead Star magazine announced today the 45 prize-winning jewelry designers in the inaugural Bead Star challenge—an exciting competition that garnered more than 1,000 entries worldwide and was voted on by nearly 10,000 members of the Beading Daily community. The designs are published in Bead Star 2008, the first-ever beading publication composed entirely of prize-winning designs, on newsstands nationwide Monday, December 15. In making the announcement, editor Danielle Fox said, "While on the outside Bead Star may look like any other magazine, it's really an event—an awards ceremony if you will…. imagine resounding applause, cameras flashing, and jewels sparkling as you flip through the pages of this star-studded publication."

The Grand Prize Bead Star winner is Valerie Aharoni, whose project is featured on the cover of the magazine. Aharoni's first-place project in the Seed Beads category was chosen by Grand Prize Sponsor Fire Mountain Gems and Beads among the nine first-place category winners. In winning, Aharoni receives an all-expense-paid trip for two to Bead Fest Santa Fe, March 12-15, 2009, courtesy of grand-prize sponsor, Fire Mountain Gems and Beads, plus a $1,500 gift certificate from Fire Mountain Gems and Beads to be awarded at Bead Fest. This prize is on top of her $1,000 gift certificate from Miyuki for first-place in the Seed Beads category. For Aharoni, an artist from Brooklyn, New York, this win represents a series of exciting firsts: the first time she's created a nonbeadweaving seed-bead project, the first time she's entered a beading contest, the first time she's won any contest at all, the first time she'll travel to Santa Fe, and the first time she'll attend a bead show."The contest was totally no-stress," says Aharoni. "There were no entry fees and the guidelines were clear. Bead Star made it easy for beginners like me who have never entered a contest before."

Winners Selected by the People for the People

The Bead Star contest kicked off back in April 2008 with a call for designs made with simple stringing, crimping, and wireworking techniques. The Bead Star editorial offices received more than 1,000 unique entries, which the editors of Stringing and Beadwork magazines culled down to 180 finalists—20 per category. From there, nearly 10,000 Beading Daily members voted on their favorites in each category, which ultimately made it into this all-star publication. A first-place, second-place, and third-place winner and two honorable mentions were awarded in each of nine design element categories: Crystals, Seed Beads, Glass, Pearls, Stones, Metals, Plastics, Designs Under $25, and Designs with a Heart. All first place prizes are valued at $1,000, second place prizes are valued at $500, and third place prizes are valued at $250. All honorable mentions were sponsored by Interweave and winners received a complimentary one-year subscription to an Interweave jewelry magazine of their choice—Beadwork, Jewelry Artist, Step by Step Beads, Step by Step Wire Jewelry, or Stringing.Information and contest rules for next year's Bead Star 2009 contest will be posted on the magazine's website, BeadStar.com, on December 16.

Auction Items

Jewelry pieces marked "Auction Item" in the magazine have been donated by their designers to auctions in March 2009 to benefit the American Heart Association's women's heart-health initiatives. All auction items will be on display at Bead Fest Santa Fe, March 12-15, 2009. Interweave will host a silent auction for five of the pieces live at the event on March 14 and 15, while the rest of the jewelry will be auctioned on eBay from March 6-16. Look for the symbols "Auction Item – ebay" and "Auction Item – Bead Fest" throughout the magazine to see which pieces can be bid on to benefit this worthy cause.

Congratulations to the Bead Star 2008 Winners:

Best in Show: Valerie Aharoni, for her seed-bead necklace "Gild & reGild," sponsored by Fire Mountain Gems and Beads (Prize valued at $5,000)
http://www.vaharoni.com/

CRYSTALS

Kirsten Salem: 1st place sponsored by K. Gottfried, Inc.

Bonnie Hjerppe: 2nd place sponsored by Step by Step Beads magazine

Tiffany Quint: 3rd place sponsored by FusionBeads.com

Kristal Wick: Honorable Mention sponsored by Interweave

Abi Collins: Honorable Mention sponsored by Interweave

GLASS

Samela Dorey: 1st place sponsored by Beadaholique.com

Susan Shannon: 2nd place sponsored by Stringing magazine

Andrew Thornton: 3rd place sponsored by Step by Step Beads magazine
Erin Strother: Honorable Mention sponsored by Interweave

Patricia Dugmore: Honorable Mention sponsored by Interweave

HEART

Lisa Liddy: 1st place sponsored by Beadwork magazine

Heather Powers: 2nd place sponsored by Shipwreck Beads

Debra Kallen: 3rd place sponsored by VenetianBeadShop.com

Cassie Donlen: Honorable Mention sponsored by Interweave

Tracy Van Voorst: Honorable Mention sponsored by Interweave

METALS

Ann Marie Hodrick: 1st place sponsored by The Bead Goes On

Jennifer Cunningham: 2nd place sponsored by Monsterslayer.com

Ann Marie C. J. Crosmun: 3rd place sponsored by Vintaj Natural Brass Co.

Susan White: Honorable Mention sponsored by Interweave

Melissa Fortner: Honorable Mention sponsored by Interweave

PEARLS

Christopher McLachlan: 1st place sponsored by Merchants Overseas

Steph Kexel: 2nd place sponsored by Beaded Impressions
Mary E Dawn: 3rd place sponsored by Stringing magazine

Heather Powers: Honorable Mention sponsored by Interweave
Samantha Kilgore: Honorable Mention sponsored by Interweave

PLASTICS

Bonnie Hjerppe: 1st place sponsored by The Beadin' Path

Darlene Jones: 2nd place sponsored by Step by Step Beads magazine

Doris Coghill: 3rd place sponsored by Natural Touch Resin Beads
Carina Moreno: Honorable Mention sponsored by Interweave

Amanda Klimek: Honorable Mention sponsored by Interweave

SEED BEADS

Valerie Aharoni: 1st place sponsored by Miyuki Glass Beads
Kelly Jarvis: 2nd place sponsored by Tambrook Bead & Trade
Lola Surwillo: 3rd place sponsored by Jane's Fiber and Beads

Susan Shannon: Honorable Mention sponsored by Interweave

Carrie McMahon: Honorable Mention sponsored by We got the Bead

STONES

Ann Marie Hodrick: 1st places sponsored by Lima Beads

Wendee Brandenburg: 2nd place sponsored by Zarlene Imports

Meredith Duers: 3rd place sponsored by Cherry Tree Beads

Marcella Austenfeld: Honorable Mention sponsored by Interweave

Edna Lucille Hendrickson: Honorable Mention sponsored by Interweave

UNDER $25

Myra Fierro: 1st place sponsored by Beadalon

Christina Rondeau: 2nd place sponsored by Step by Step Wire Jewelry

Darlene Jones: 3rd place sponsored by Beading Daily

Erin Beutel: Honorable Mention sponsored by Interweave
Lori Mendenhall: Honorable mention sponsored by Interweave

Web sites:

http://www.beadstar.com/

http://www.interweave.com/

firsts....

Lily attended nursery at church for the first time today. She made it through the whole class without the teachers having to retrieve us. Hooray! She only had a few minor upsets they said, but was easily distracted. The real test will be next week, when we drop her off, and she knows what to expect....

And now it can also be known that I did in fact win a prize of Honorable Mention in the Crystals category of the first annual Bead Star competition! I just received the issue in the mail yesterday - so run out to your local craft store and pick one up. The magazine is called BEAD STAR (duh) and I am on page 17! I was under a confidentiality agreement not to say whether or not I had won until publication - so now it's out - go buy it!

Also, I posted a couple of my latest projects on my other blog, check it out if you're interested.

christmas cards...

If you would like a christmas card - leave me a comment with your address. I won't publish it, so noone will see it. Yes, I'm actually sending out christmas cards this year. It's a first I think.

thanksgiving and such...

*warning* picture overload!
Our Thanksgiving was great and relaxing. Perfect trip. We took the plunge and drove out to New Mexico to visit John's family. We spread the driving down and back over two days - so it wasn't too much for the kids. I almost think Zane's favorite part was getting to stay in hotels on the way there and back. Zane and Lily had sooo much fun playing with their cousins. We will miss them. We survived the trip with only a minor illness which I think is just fabulous.

After playing outside all bundled up. There were a couple days where it was quite chilly. We're not used to the cold weather!

Baby Trent and cousin Savannah. He's getting so big already! So glad we got meet him.

The newest cousin - Ava - and aunt Charity. Just a week old in this picture. What a beautiful little girl!

Cookie decorating at grandma's house with the boys. Grandpa was quite the artist - very impressive. Such a fun tradition.

Decorating with the girls turned into more eating than decorating. Yum!

Time away from Rock Band, and other video games to just visit. The best part of the trip.

Silly Lily's squishy face. Who knows where she got this - but she does it all the time. Too funny.

Zane and Grandma and the binoculars he played with the entire time we were there. Even slept with them a few times. Hmm... christmas present idea?

Lily studying baby Trent. She was so cute around the babies, and really didn't have too much of a problem with me holding them either. Very good to know! She will be a sweet older sister I'm sure.

Totally zonked out on the way home. Zane had a fever, and wasn't feeling well. Zane never ever takes naps - so you know he must have been sick!

We are all home, getting over the sickies, and trying to get the house back to normal so we can decorate for Christmas. Can't wait to see more family over the upcoming holidays. Love you all!

family photos...

guns up!....

Here's what I call the alien picture.Nice profile.
Get your guns up! Yup, we have a Texas Tech fan in utero!

It was very very obvious that he was a boy.

However, I will not share that picture because it is a little indecent.

Enough said.

bugged...

Well I have these cool ultrasound photos that I've been trying to upload all day long. For some reason my computer has decided it doesn't want to upload photos. Anywhere. Blogger. Facebook. Nothing. It's quite annoying. I would describe the photos to "you", but somehow I don't think that would really work...

It's A....

Boy!!
Pictures coming soon....

ducks, drives and parent teacher conference...

Last Friday, Zane was dying to go to the park. So on the way, we decided to stop and 'feed' the ducks at the golf course by our house. The second we pulled off the side of the road to park - the ducks SWARMED our car. It was quite hilarious. They know what happens when someone stops apparently! Zane and Lily had soooo many giggles and screams feeding the masses of ducks. I actually took a video, but all you can hear is ducks squaking and bad camera work from me trying to help Zane avoid being eaten by the ducks that were swarming him to get at the bread in his hands, with an occasional squeal by Lily. Sounds amusing, but it's really not. We will definitely have to go again soon. (and don't tell me how bad it is to feed them in the first place, I already know)

On Saturday we decided we were in the mood for a drive, and we have been wanting to head out to the Mt. Trumbull area. It's just a neat area, and if you keep going you can actually drive to Tuweep a point on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon that you can pretty much step right out to the very edge of the canyon. No rails or anything! (We won't attempt that until our kids are much older - and when I have forgotten how terrified of heights I am). Of course, we knew we wouldn't make it all the way out to Trumbull - it's 60 miles on a gravel/dirt road - which translates to almost 3 hours of driving. But we made it about 35 of those miles! We came to a meadow like area with some really huge cows standing right on the side of the road. So fun. One day we will make it the whole way.

(Just noticed that Zane is wearing the same shirt he did the day before - probably slept in it, and I didn't care enough to make him change on Saturday.)

Today was our first parent teacher conference with Zane's teacher. We are all so lucky that he has such a great teacher. She understands that he may not appear to be listening because he already knows what they are talking about. She said that she will give him a special spelling list once the other kids are working on their words so that he can work on words that are a little harder, and learn the "spelling rules" and things like that. Also, we can request he be moved up on his reading level anytime. He needs to work on his writing because he tends to get "sloppy" (because he gets bored with it I'm sure) and "creative" and he tends to visit too much to finish his work. Great job Zane! We love you!

twinkle twinkle...

Zane participated in the school's storytime festival last night. He chose to do the nursery rhyme "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Yeah, I know he was aiming high. Of course, he didn't recite it, he sang it. If I'd thought about, I should have had him do "Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat" from Alice in Wonderland, very entertaining!
It's sort of hard to hear him in this video, but enjoy!

evolution maybe?...

Zane and I have very interesting conversations at bedtime. After the usual, story, prayers, songs, the conversation went like this:

Zane: Did we used to be gorillas?

Me: (totally taken aback) What? Where did you hear that?

Zane: Spongebob (his answer for everything - he watches it a little too much I'm afraid).

Me: Well some people think that we started out that way. But we know that Heavenly Father made us to look like him. Do you think he looks like a gorilla?

Zane: Yeah, he started out like a gorilla, and now looks like us.

I never thought I would have a conversation about evolution with my 5 year old. No more Spongebob (ha!).

ni-night lizards...

I walked outside on Saturday past a bucket that holds various outdoor toys. I heard something shuffle around in there. It sounded MUCH to big to be a bug, so it definitely freaked me out. Of course, I made John look to see what it was.

Poor little guy must have scaled the house and then fallen in and couldn't climb back out. Who knows how long he was in there.

Lily is starting to use words more and more. We love to play this game with her.

Zane: are you ready for ni-night? Lily: (shaking head) noooo

from zane...(he typed this himself)

i want to be a chef everyday I HAVE A COLD ANd I AM scared of monsters IM Done

trick or treat...

What a great Halloween! I got Lily's costume finished at 11:30 the night before, yay me! I was worried she wouldn't wear it, because when she tried on the hood she was pretty upset about it. She doesn't even keep a ponytail or clip in her hair and throws a fit when I try to brush it, so I was pretty nervous. By the afternoon all dressed in her costume, she wore the hood just fine! Zane was an awesome Ironman - and loved to flex his muscles for everyone.

John took off for a minute from work to head over to the elementary school for the Halloween Parade. Zane was very excited to see us there. I remember doing those when I was a kid - and so I wanted to be there for him.

We started off the afternoon festivities by going to John's office to "trick or treat". Zane loves those little plastic pumpkins for trick or treating but I always throw them away because I hate having them around. I tried to get one this year but was too late, and they were gone. So we spent some time when we got back making treat bags out of pillowcases and some orange cord I bought. Zane drew a great picture of a haunted house complete with a ghost, and a storm at the top with lightning. He wrote "ooooooooo" and "scary scary" on it as well. I was quite impressed. I need to take a picture of it.

Then we headed to the annual neighborhood hot dog/chili dinner. It's a lot of fun to see all the kids (and some grown ups) dressed in their costumes. Then it was off trick or treating around the neighborhood. I'm not a big fan of the t or t-ing here because we have no street lights, and no sidewalks - but our neighborhood is pretty calm and there aren't a lot of kids. Last year we actually didn't get a single trick or treater at our house. Of course, we are up on a hill - and I imagine kids don't want to trek up our driveway. However, I think we might have got a half a dozen last night. And - for all you "northerners" just to make you jealous - I was trick or treating in my flip flops, tshirt and capris and was QUITE comfortable. Love the fall in St. George!

I didn't get a good picture of the pumpkins here but Zane did a Squidward (from Spongebob, his favorite) pumpkin complete with a big nose and of course John did the standard Double T pumpkin for "Lily". Go Raiders! (sidenote: they are ranked 7th and play UT ranked 1st tonight at home - watch it, ABC 6:00 pm MT)

My Ironman and his haul for the night.

An adorable (and somewhat saggy and baggy) pink elephant.

sweet tweets part 2....

Well all I can say is the best part of the trip was not the boutique! There weren't many shoppers, and I was sorta stuck in the corner of the basement. It's all good because we had a very interesting trip: complete with a car accident*, drug test in West Valley in the middle of the night, a beautiful set of nails, and a wonderful spinal touch massage. Oh, and of course, shopping! Thanks Steph for my nails and putting us up, and Heidi for fixing my ankles, holy cow, I owe you!

And hey... check out my display...turned out pretty good I think. All I want to add is a cool folding screen behind to hang my AWESOME banner I made, and possibly use it to display as well.



*Here's the story about the accident (since I know you will ask me questions after my "cryptic" post):

We stopped for gas once we got up north, and as we were trying to change lanes to get on the freeway - we "glanced" off a big truck. No damage to him, just a little to our right front fender. Well, since we were in a company car, we had to wait for the police, and then Sara had to get a drug test. It's company policy that anyone driving a company car, and there is damage to the car (whether or not you are even in it!), you have to get a drug test. We headed over to set up for our show, while we were trying to get in touch with the company to find out where to get a drug test done. By the time that was all worked out, it was 9:30 pm and we had to go clear out to West Valley to meet someone that was coming in specifically to give her a drug test. She had 3 big chunks of hair cut out, and had to do a breathalizer (she passed, obviously!). It made for a very very long day.

sweet tweets...

I'm headed to Salt Lake to be a part of this boutique. If you are in the area, stop by and say Hi. (I can't guarantee I will be there the WHOLE time). Also the ad says it ends at 8 pm Friday - but really it's 7 pm!

in case you were wondering...

kraft american cheese slices + baby hair = not good

silly lily...

This week has been a busy one. I drove up and back to Salt Lake on Friday again to take a friend and her baby up to a doctors appointment. It actually was a lot of fun, and nice to get a "day off". We totally lucked out and were able to have my friend Stephanie do Glitter Toes for us while we were up there. Very nice of her, thanks Steph!

Lily has been making a really funny laugh lately. She makes a real gutteral sound, sort of like an evil laugh. Too cute. I have tried and tried to catch it on video - and this is the best I could do. Enjoy!