Sledding with the Jacksons

It has been so nice to get a little snow and have the weather turn a little warmer. I was getting tired of the single digit temperatures we had last week. Nancy and her family came for the weekend and just in time it snowed several inches overnight and we had a perfect day of sledding on Saturday. We are so lucky to have a sledding hill just up the street from our house. It is big enough to get a good ride, but not so big that the little kids can't make it up by themselves. Even Sydnie dared to go down by herself this year, although one of us would have to run down the hill after her and carry her back up.

Hayden and Kaylee ready to have Nancy push them down the hill.

Brianne and Sydnie getting ready to go down on the tube. Brianne was a die hard. She would sled down walk up the hill and go right back down again. She must have gone down the hill at least 20 times.

After awhile everyone got tired of going up and down the hill and we stopped to make a snow fort.

Nancy snapped a few shots for our Christmas card. I decided to post it here just in case I don't manage to get cards mailed to everyone this year. They turned out good, but I was disappointed in the quality of the prints I got from Sam's club this year. It wasn't the photo. I checked the resolution on my computer. So it must have been something weird with the uploading or printing process. I am going to send them out anyway. Oh well at least I tried.

Later that night we made apples we made around 80 apples it was quite the production line. I think that is the most we have ever made at one time.

Reflections contest 2009. Beauty is...

The schools in Utah participate in the national PTA art competition called reflections. Each year the kids are given a theme to model their artwork around. This years theme was Beauty is....
Both Kaylee and Brianne did very well. They both won first place in three dimensional art for their school and got to go on to the district level for judging. They also won second place in the category of visual arts with their paintings of peacocks. They were in different age categories Brianne competed in age K-2nd and Kaylee was in the 3rd-5th grade group.
Then we were excited for Kaylee when we found out she had also won with her three dimensional art on the district level. She now gets to have her artwork judged on the regional level.
We are so proud of our two little artist. We have been blessed with two great artists in our family, and Sydnie is sure to be a third, she is already watching her sisters and working on her scribbles. But with two artist as parents they can't hardly help it.


Brianne and Kaylee posing with their trophies for the three dimensional art, they also won medals for their pictures.


Kaylee posing for the newspaper, with her plaque she won for her three dimensional art on the district level.


The girls with their winning artwork, and awards. Click on the picture to get a better view. They both won second place for their peacock paintings, on the school level. Brianne won first place for her hummingbird sculpture on the school level, and Kaylee won first place for her swan sculpture on both the school level and district level. Good luck to Kaylee! Keep your fingers crossed that she will win on the regional level.

Writing things down before I forget

Sometimes your kids say or do something that you just have to write down before you forget them. So, here are three funny things that each of my kids have said recently:

Brianne:
I just got some new pajamas on a black Friday sale. I wore them on Sunday, even though technically they are suppose to be Christmas presents. Brianne looked at my new pajamas and said, "Suzanne(my friend and neighbor) always looks cute in her pajamas." So I said, "do you not like my pajamas?" Then Brianne replied very honestly, "Mom I really like these pajamas, but the ones you usually wear are really ugly." She was talking about my garments, I guess I need to start wearing my cute pajamas more.

Kaylee:
I was talking on the phone to my friend Audrey, while I was doing Kaylee's hair for school. I was commenting to Audrey that it sounded like Sydnie was saying the sh__ word. (although since then I figured out what she was saying, and luckily it's not that.) Anyway, I was telling my friend that I didn't think she learned it from me, since I don't use that particular swear word very often. Sadly, I do occasionally use other words. Then Kaylee piped in saying, "I think she learned it from Dad, he says it all the time when he is down in the basement." We just got done finishing part of our basement, and I'm sure that word, among others, were used quite frequently.

Sydnie:
Sydnie is learning so much lately. She is learning new words daily, and is starting to recognize shapes, numbers, and colors. Today she said something that made me smile. I got some oranges from the grocery store today, and she was trying to ask for one, so she pointed to an orange and said "I want yellow". Well at least she is starting to get the concept that things have colors, that is a pretty big step.

Christmas Craft Show

My favorite show of the year is here again I can't believe it! There is something about Christmas decorations that make it a little funner to get ready for. I don't know if it is the colors or the glitter, but I always find myself singing Christmas tunes while I work on my crafts. I focused mostly on my Holiday stuff this show and came up with a few new ideas, as well as repeated a couple big sellers from last year, my Christmas countdown calendars and blocks. I didn't post a picture of them I figured you could look at last years pictures if you really want to know what they look like. Like every show I am excited to have everything set up and my work is done. Now I just have keep my fingers crossed that things will sell.

Digital Scrapbooking here I come!!!!

I have been thinking of converting to digital scrapbooking for about a year now. I didn't know a whole lot about it other than it sounded cool, and there are places to go that you can subscribe to a service and pay for layouts and embellishments. But I'm a do it yourself kind of person, and while I don't mind getting ideas from other people, I don't like to be stuck to a certain template. So, when our ward had an enrichment activity on digital scrapbooking, I was really excited. My excitement turned to pure elation when I got there and the girl showed us how to digital scrapbook for free!!! And just when I thought things couldn't get any better it was super easy! All you need is Photoshop elements software version 5 or newer to get started. I had to order a new version of Photoshop before I could get started, my software came Friday and I have spent most of the day today playing around with it. Here is my first attempt at digital scrapbooking.

Pretty cute for a first attempt right? Click on the picture for a close up view. You can read my explanation there, or for those of you to lazy to do that, I will explain and give my sources again here. Most of the cute embellishments and paper I found on these two websites: shabbyprincess.com and freedigitalscrapbooking,com. I also taught myself today how to scan my own ribbon and embellishments into Photoshop. The brown ribbon on the tree was my own scanned in creation. I also learned how to back my photos using colors extracted from my picture, you will notice how the blue backing is exactly the same color as Brianne's sweater! I also learned of a great site for handwriting fonts, kevinandamanda.com. You can download their cute fonts or send in a sample of you own handwriting to make you own personal handwriting font!

I would love to help anyone out who is interested in learning more about digitalscrapbooking. I don't know a lot yet, but I know enough to at least get someone started. I am still learning about printing options. I know that Costco does a 12x12 photo quality print for $3.00 but I am looking for other options. So far I have found a site with pricing between $3-and less than a dollar per page depending on the paper quality. I welcome any suggestions!

Happy Halloween!!!

We had a great Halloween this year, but I was pretty horrible about taking pictures. I kept forgetting my camera or running out of time. Halloween started on Friday for us. The kids have a Halloween parade for all the parents at school, then I helped out at Kaylee's Halloween party at school. Later that night we had trunk or treat at the church. Shaun surprised us by painting his face like the Joker from the latest Batman movie. I am just sick that I didn't get any pictures, he looked just like him. Then on Saturday we carved pumpkins and went trick or treating. Sydnie loved trick or treating. We had really mild weather and she was able to go with the older girls and Shaun for almost an hour. There was no prying her candy bucket from her hands, and she has been walking around with it all day today. She must be excited to have a whole bucket of candy that is her own(although mom and dad keep stealing pieces of candy from it).

Brianne the witch, she insisted on the green face, Kaylee the baby and Sydnie the dog. She wasn't fond of her costume especially when the hood was on, so this picture was as good as it gets.

Sydnie loved being one of the girls when it came to pumpkin carving, she even dared to stick her hand in and get a few seeds out herself.

Brianne and Kaylee cleaning out their pumpkins. Shaun is in the background making carameled apples for the adult Halloween party that we went to later that night. We went as a prom couple from the eighties/early nineties. I was able to fit into an old prom dress of mine and did my hair with mile high bangs and wings, Shaun wore a mullet wig and pegged his pants. We looked Awesome!!!! Once again we were so late to the party I forgot pictures again.

The Results
I have to say I had a ton of fun decorating this room. I had to try and control myself from going overboard, and decided it was time to be done when Kaylee said "Mom! When are you going to be done making things for our room?!?!" I did make most of the things in their room. I always have been one of those people who think, "why buy it when you can make it?" The list of thing I made included: pillows, the fabric covered headboards, curtains, a chalk board, several frames, magnet boards, and some really cute trees on the wall that matched their bedding. I have a friend who one of her most embarrassing moments was her husband walking in on her when she was pretending to host a cooking show. That probably would never happen to me since cooking is something I do to get the job done, not for fun. But I have to say, when I am standing at my power tools for hours working on craft shows, I often day dream about what it would be like to host my own decorating show. Sadly, this is about as close as it will get, but a girl can dream, right?



As much of the room as I could get in one shot. I actually completed the room a couple weeks ago, but had a hard time finding a time that I could take pictures when their room was actually clean. P.S. the Halloween decorations are not part of the permanent room decor, although they do sort of match.

White Wall Challenge

So, those of you who watch HGTV's Design Star will know what a white wall challenge is. For those of you who don't, it is a show where Designers compete in several challenges to win a show on HGTV. One of the most famous challenges is the white wall challenge, where they take a white boring room and transform it. I am excited to say the girls room is finally done!!! I'd like to consider myself an armature interior decorator, so I thought it would be fun to show you the before and after of the girls room. The pictures below are of their room with just the white primer on. In a few weeks I will have their room completely decorated and show you the afters. I have already started and am excited about how it is coming along so far! P.S. Shaun did a great job with all the finish work, everything looks great.

Go Strikers!

Kaylee had her last game for fall this last Saturday. She has been playing on a competitive soccer team, and has had fun. It has been fun going to all of their games and cheering their team on. Competitive soccer is much more exciting to watch than rec league they actually play positions and know somewhat what they are doing, and its not just a big jumbled mess like rec league. Kaylee has improved a ton since she first started playing. She is going to play indoor soccer to keep her skills up over the winter, and then her team starts regular games again in the spring.

Kaylee "number 6" going for the ball.