CONTEST!!!!!

I have so much to post, but I'm currently suffering from B.D. Countdownitis. Side effects include, but are not limited to: lack of concentration on all things not twilight, constantly staring at the count down ticker, reviewing my pre-order on Amazon more than 2x a day. So, in the spirit of good fun, I decided to have a contest. I would really love a good Twilight-themed T-shirt, but do not like the ones I've seen. Here's my contest: send me your idea(s) for a great T-shirt. I will pick the one I like the best. The winner will get a T-shirt with their logo on it and a treat from me. Post your ideas here, or send me an email.

Helpful Info:

1. I prefer Edward to Jacob

2. Due date: August 13

3. Feel free to include color ideas for T-shirt if important to your idea.

4. I will contact the winner by August 20.

5. If I don't know you, you are still welcome to participate, just make sure I have some way I have to get a hold of you in case you win. :)

My BDC is kicking in so if I haven't covered all the details, post your questions.

Thanks for participating! This should be a lot of fun.

P.S. This is just something I'm doing and not at all related to anything Stephenie Meyer does.

Merry Christmas!

In july that is. 5 months to the big day. (I only know this because McKay keeps asking me when both Halloween and christmas are, I promise.) I still haven't thought of anything clever for neighbor gifts, but here are a couple ideas-

1. Extension cord-Hoping the holiday spirit extends throughout the year. (or something like that. I think Jeff's parents did this one year)
2. Wisk and hershey kisses-We wisk you a merry kissmas!
3. Homemade mint sandwiches (love them)
4. Chocolate covered pretzels and/or popcorn
5. Homemade caramel

As the time gets (much) closer, if any other great ideas come around, I'll post them.

And, as this is the last day of my Christmas-in-July posts, I thought I'd share just a couple of cute Christmas incidents from our family.

One year (I think 05 or 06?) whenever anyone asked McKay what he wanted for Christmas, he always replied: Hot Chocolate. Hmmm...How did I get so lucky to get such an easy kid? Needless to say, Santa left a box of hot chocolate in his stocking for him that year. I'm pretty sure the hot chocolate was some sort of reference to "Polar Express," but seeing as we already owned both the movie and the soundtrack, I have no idea what else it could've been. Anyway. It made us laugh.

Then, Christmas of 05. Lyndsi was 3 almost 4 and really starting to understand the whole Santa thing. We had spent a few days with Jeff's family in Price and came home on Christmas eve and watched the kids go absolutely bonkers with excited anticipation for the next morning. As I was putting Lynds to bed, she seemed a little upset or concerned. I asked what was wrong. She replied, "Mom, what if Santa brings me boy toys??" I had to laugh and then explained that Santa was a smart guy and knew that she would like girl toys.

Enjoy the music for one more day. Those of you who turn your speakers off when you come-tomorrow it will be gone and you can turn them back on. :)

Merry Christmas in July!

Tough Cookies

One of the hardest parts of gift giving is the "neighbor" gift. You don't know these people well enough to pick out something individually (nor do you want to) but you do appreciate them more than not doing anything. So, what do you do? No literally. What do you do for your neighbors at Christmas time? Or conversely, what have they done for you that you liked? I'll be sharing mine soon!

My Christmas Planner

Yay! Post #2 is all about planning to keep myself sane the entire month of December. Here is the basics of my holiday planning goals:

Christmas goals:

Gift Buying:
Both sets of Parents and Greg-labor day
Marchant Names-Oct. Conference
Maynes Names-Halloween

Kids-Thanksgiving weekend (Black Friday baby!!)
Each other (Thanksgiving weekend)
Neighbor gifts (Thanksgiving Weekend)

Christmas Cards- Oct. 4 and 5

Traditions:
v Festival of trees (12-2 thru 12-6)
v Cookie Exchange (11-29?)
v Polar Express movie night
v Mary and Joseph Dinner
v Gingerbread Cookies with kids
v Violin Christmas concert at care center

Another great tool is something I found a holiday control journal at Fly Lady's website. I may not be consistent with her techniques, but this is one thing I use every year. You can find it here.

The one other thing I'm trying to do to help myself be in a good place by December 1 is working on daily routines to help me gain control of my home and keep it consistently clean. Thanks goes againg to flylady and her daily habits and also to the book "Organizing from the Inside Out."

I am determined 2008 will be the best Christmas to date. (Ugh. I promise I did purposely make that rhyme!)

Christmas in July

Yep. If you couldn't tell by the carols sifting through your speakers, it's time to celebrate Christmas in July!!

This is starting to be a real problem. Every year in the summer I start feeling nostalgic for Christmas when it's still in the 90s outside. In some ways this is a good thing. I planning out my gift buying strategies, trying to come up with a clever neighbor gift, thinking out how to make December run just a bit smoother this year, etc. Down side-my kids want to pull out all their snow stuff, wear other winter clothing (long-sleeved shirts and pants) and I honestly feel a little nutty.

My name is Angie and I listen to Christmas music in the summer.

Putting this playlist together really did make me happy. As I listened to each song before adding, I felt this little squeal of excitement start forming in the bottom of my stomach and quickly rising up until it left my mouth in a delightful sound of anticipation and excitement. I felt about 5 years old again.

I love old, classic Christmas music and you'll find a lot of these sound like "movie" music. Probably because at one point or another they have been featured in films like White Christmas (duh), the Holiday, Polar Express, etc. One artist has not (to my knowledge) and that is Jars of Clay. Jeff bought their Christmas album last year and it is my favorite. Not my favorite Christmas album, but my favorite album. It makes me feel good. What can I say?
If there's a song you love that's not currently playing let me know and I'll add it.


Assuming I'm on top of things, the next few days will be dedicated to Christmas-themed thoughts. On July 26, there will be no traces of Christmas left until November sometime. I promise. :)

Rennovation

It is finally time! Tomorrow we start Project: Basement. I can't wait. Our goal when purchasing a home was to find one with an unfinished basement that we could do ourselves. Now dreams are coming to fruition. Here is the very scary befores:

From top to bottom-Home office storage, playroom, food room (a.k.a. the 4th bedroom)

Across from this gigantic mess (I promise it's not always quite this bad. eek.) is a laundry/craft/bath-room. Apparently I don't have any pictures of that. That's ok. It probably would've been filled with dirty laundry, and who wants to air their dirties?

I'll have to go take some pictures of the pre-construction rooms. They are looking so nice and empty (just don't ask to come watch a movie or have a sleepover with my kids). More to come as the work progresses!

Medical Mystery

On the 4th of July, while we were at the cabin for a huge family reunion, McKay got sick. He was throwing up, but afterwards would be just fine. We assumed that it was probably a combination of things-heat, lack of water, new foods, new place to sleep, etc. We tried to keep him comfy, but didn't do much in the way of medicine. Well...yesterday it had been 10 days since it started and he was still throwing up. Here's the strange part-it was only in the middle of the night that he would do it. During the day, he was just fine. Sunday night, we were dead tired from interrupted sleep. I determined I would call the Dr. in the morning and get it fixed. Since it had been 10 days, the nurse had me bring him in. The doctor checked him over saying "that looks good" after each body part was inspected until he got to the left ear when he kind of chuckled and said, "Did you know he stuck a bead (a jewelry bead) in his ear?" Holy cow! I'd never even thought to look for that. Once he found that, he checked other little hole to make sure there were no other little treasures tucked away for safe keeping. McKay thought it was pretty funny and kept telling me "I put a bead in my ear!" He was really brave though, when it came time to pull it out. So-next time your kid is throwing up, but only at night check the ears. Last night, I am happy to report, Jeff and I got a full night's sleep. :)

Jasper

I was cruising through the entertainment section of my news site and happened to glance at an article on John Mayer and noticed his picture. All of a sudden, it dawned on me. That's my Jasper!!! We all get our ideas of what these characters are going to look like. Sometimes we can describe them and see the beautiful picture in our heads without any outside help. Other times, we aren't exactly sure until we see it and then we know. Now, I know, Stephenie has her description, but this is what formulated in my head:














Can you not see the vampire here?

Challenge: What do you think these characters look like? If you find a picture, post it on your blog (and then leave a comment here :).)

A Prize Winning Day

Literally! I am no longer included in the "I don't win anything" category. Yesterday, Jeff had his weekly Chamber of Commerce meeting. There are always prizes at their luncheons. He came home with a prize he won from a photographer- 3 sets of cards with beautiful photography on them. He also came home with some concert tickets (emerson drive) for the county fair. That night I went with my Mary Kay consultant to a MK dinner. Just for going she gave me a free product (of my choice) from the catalog and then there were prize drawings. (This is MK after all.) There were only 3 prizes, so what are my chances?? Well, apparently pretty darn good because I won one! How exciting for me. Lesson learned: think good thoughts and you will take home a prize!

Celebrating

For the 4th, we went down to the cabin for the annual Maynes' family reunion. This is the big kahuna with Jeff's family and his dad's TEN brothers and sisters and their families (and their families, too). Ok-so not everyone attended. I think that would be a miracle if every Maynes descendant of Roy and Carol made it on the same weekend. It was great to visit with those who could come.



Jeff's aunts crack me up. Cheryl, Virginia and I decided to form an anti-rose club (sorry rose lovers) and 1st on the agenda was deciding the best possible ways to rid our yards of those flowering shrubs that don't ever seem to die. I would share more details but have been sworn to secrecy. ;)



All of Jeff's brothers and sisters (minus Elder Maynes) were there which means babies galore! It was great to see the moms and dads, too. The kids had a blast on the rope swing and the zip line and the partially finished playground including the 2 sandboxes. We had all kinds of yummy food. Bry and McKay decided they were going to build a fire (yikes!) so they could roast marshmallows. One problem boys-you're stacking the would between the gas-run generator and the enormous, gas station-worthy propane tank. Fortunately, grandpa helped them relocate the potential flames.

I also made sure to bring each of my new cutie pies their very own black apple dolls. Really-they are a great baby doll. They are soft and there are no parts that will come off and be swallowed. Here are the 3 newest (l to r: Avery, Ella and Sadie):

To cap the weekend off, we were able to celebrate the last of the niece's blessings. Claire was given a beautiful blessing by her dad which was followed up with beautiful testimonies from her parents. It was such a pretty day to enjoy being with family, too. The weather was cooperative and even cloudy at times, but the temps were always comfy. Isn't she so cute??

Happy 4th of July!

This is my favorite patriotic song. I've played it for years in orchestras and sung it at church. (Grant it, I could probably sing the 1st and 2nd violin parts better than some of the words:)) I was really lucky to have a large dose of patriotism ingrained in me at a young age as well as being able to see much of the country. Have a great Independence Day and get out and do something or see something you haven't!

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL (as performed by Ray Charles)