beautiful bright snowflakes

I went shopping on Black Friday and I found these fantastic snowflakes at Michaels. They came in pieces and with the pretty brads. They can be put together however you like the colors. They're bright and sparkly and beautiful! I love them. I love the colors so much, I'm going to buy some new Christmas ornaments in turquoise and gold and green. I've got lots of red already. And I'm buying another package of these snowflakes! I think they are from K & Co and they're $9.99 for a kit that makes 12 snowflakes.

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful thanksgiving. Lots of food and relaxing and my brother, Dave! It was so nice to see him. We hadn't seen him for about three years. He drove down from Provo on Wednesday and left to go home on Friday. We wanted him to stay longer, but he had a long paper to write that's due on Monday. We put the extension in the table and the kids set it for us. We had a free-range turkey, mashed potatoes (with sour cream, butter and cream cheese whipped in), sweet potato casserole, homemade cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, rolls, gravy and, of course, sparkling cider. For dessert we had apple, chocolate and pumpkin pie.

I'm so thankful for my family and friends. I'm grateful to have the gospel in my life. I'm grateful for the scriptures and the examples of the people from the Bible and Book of Mormon. I'm thankful for all of the little convienences that we have like dishwashers, washing machines, cars and bicycles, cameras, phones, computers. I'm grateful for doctors, teachers, police and firemen. I'm grateful for the men and women who have and are serving our country and putting their lives on the line for freedom for us and for people not from our country. I'm thankful for a living prophet. I could go on and on. I'm thankful to my Heavenly Father for all of the blessings He has given me and I hope I'm living a "thankful" life. What are you thankful for?

New niece and nephew

My brother and his wife have two new babies. Macie and Zeke join 6 older brothers and sisters. Whew! I'm tired with three! Anyway, they were born Nov. 21. Congratulations Dan and Timani!

Scrappy stuff

I pulled out my scrapbook stuff on Saturday evening and it's now Monday morning and it's still spread out on the dining table and surrounding floor. I don't have a scrapbook room, so I keep it packed away and have to get it out each time i want to scrapbook. Needless to say, I don't scrap as much as I'd like to. But when I do get it out it sometimes stays out for 2-4 days. I've done 14 pages. I had a bunch of photos of each of my kids that I wanted to do something with, but most of the photo didn't warrant a whole page to themselves. So last night I did a sort of collage page for each one of them and we all love them! The kids really liked all of those pictures together. It's fun to see pictures from baby on up all on the same page. The pages were very easy. I chose my photos, then used a 2" square punch to crop the pictures. Then I just laid them out grid-like on cardstock. I filled the empty spaces in with patterned paper, buttons, bling, etc. It was exciting to get so many photos scrapbooked in one sitting and I think the pages look great! I made another quick one (the layout idea came from an online scrapbook gallery) with a pic of our pumpkin patch trip last year. The other page I've posted is also one I made last night. Dallin and two friends were invited to an 80's themed 16th birthday for a girl from church. Everyone was supposed to dress 80's, so these characters went as The Beastie Boys. They thought of some other things to wear, but their budget was small and they couldn't buy suits or HazMat-type jumpers for $10! They looked great and the adults that were there (at the party) knew exactly who they were supposed to be.

Finally!

OK, two things: Did you notice my new pic? I've got a new hairstyle again...it's a sickness. About a week ago, I got it cut and weaved. I got ready for work on Monday and had some time to kill before I needed to leave for work so I took some pictures.

Second, we got a new laptop. Our other one had to be fixed 3 times in about 6 weeks and on the fourth time (all for the same issue) they decided to junk it and give us a new one. Thank goodness we bought the warranty. I like this new one much better. I didn't realize I didn't like the other one until we started looking around at the new ones. And I finally got our desktop out of the box it's been packed in for two years (since we moved here) and set it up at our desk. I bought a network cable and hooked it up to our wireless connection. So now we have two computers that have internet access. I know I'm behind the times just getting two computers in the same house, but it's exciting for me!

We finally got our computer back yesterday. It's been in the shop 3 times in the last 5 weeks or so. Best Buy told us if it happens again, they will get us a new computer. It's been the same problem each time. It won't charge. They've changed the mother board twice. It's good to have it back!

Interesting to watch election night, huh? We started with CNN, switched to a recorded SNL Presidental Bash and then back to CNN. I didn't vote for Obama and I was a little worried at first, but after talking to David, I feel much better. I do think he will be good for the mood of the country. I think he will be good for our associations with other countries. I don't think he's going to make any huge changes. There is too much chaos right now for him to be able to do that. We have a government that is balanced. Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches. All meant to work together and to make sure one branch doesn't have all of the power. I hope he is serious about reigning in the government spending (and I do believe he is). As for his questionable associations: he will not have them in his cabinet. We are going to have some rough years, but seriously, would they be less rough if McCain were in charge? I highly doubt it. The republicans have not done a good job in the white house recently and the people know it. The largest increase in government since Lyndon Johnson? Really? Anyway, I've talked to David and prayed about it and I feel fine! I think it's fantastic that we have a black president. I think it says a lot to the rest of the world. Enough about that!

I'm so excited! I'm finally going to spend an evening scrapbooking at the Red Bee! Yea! We have a design team meeting and then after that there is a crop until midnight. I need to get some recent photos printed. I need to get better about posting layouts.

David's brother Daren is coming to visit for a few days this week/weekend. That will be nice. Not sure what we have planned. I'm leaving that up to David.

Well I've got laundry and a dirty bathroom calling my name, so I'm off!