Portland Trip

Whew! I finally have the 30 seconds I have been needing to sit down and write about my trip! I spent the weekend in Portland and St. Helens with my Aunt, Uncle, and cousins. I originally went up there to take my twin cousins' senior portraits, and we took a lot! (To see all of the finished photos, visit my new photography site.)

I also got to visit a lot of people I love, including my cousin Brenden, his wife Kayla, and their sweet 9 day old baby, along with their three other adorable girls! They didn't know I was coming and we haven't seen each other in about 7 years, so there was much crying and hugging and happiness.

 Plus I got to visit TJ, my long time friend since middle school. We went to Powell's books, which is enormous bookstore in Portland the size of an entire city block. We only got to spend 15 minutes there and we ran around like crazy people. It was so fun  though, I could go back for hours and hours and hours!

By this time TJ had to go to work, so I popped over to a local yarn shop called Knit Purl. It was a lovely shop and again, I could have spent hours there, but stupid parking meters made that hard. I wanted to buy something locally spun or dyed, but I just couldn't find anything I just had to have. So, I decided to pick up some Madeline Tosh lace weight yarn, in a gorgeous blue and green and grey colorway. What can I say? It begged me to bring it home with me. 

All in all it was a very busy, very successful trip. Charlie was a champ on the plane, I got a bit of a break from the four children scene, and we took lots and lots of great senior portraits. I hope to go back and visit next year, maybe with a little less on the agenda and a little more freestyling :D Have a blessed day everyone!

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My Town is Flooding....

as are several other parts of Colorado. They just opened the dams in Estes Park, this should be interesting. Please keep my hometown in your prayers, my mom barely got out of the town 20 minutes south of us but my family is all home safe and sound now.

In the meantime, I'm working on this little guy to keep me company.

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Packing Lunch

Tomorrow is Ethan's first day of first grade. As I packed his lunch and laid out his clothes for the morning, I found myself wanting to write. Not all the cute mommy blog things like how to pack a healthy lunch for 5 cents or less or organize it really well, but about the feeling behind packing him lunch and getting him ready for the next day.

When we told him it was time to come inside and eat dinner and get ready for bed he said "Yup, I have a big day tomorrow! I better get ready!" He has grown so much over the last year, and I realize I have too. I'm not normally the kind of mommy who cries when her kid goes to school, I have always loved school and have felt nothing but excitement for my kiddos and all the neat things they will get to do. This year feels a little different, though. It's the first year he will be gone all day long. I have never had to pack his lunch before, except for the occasional field trip day. I find myself wondering and almost worrying, where do I pick him up? What if I didn't pack enough for him to eat and he's hungry? What if I pack too much and he gets in trouble for taking too long to eat? What if he's tired at the end of the day? I always thought the mommies who wrote their kids notes inside their lunchboxes were kind of cheesy, yet I wanted to (and did) the same thing because I know I will be thinking about him throughout the day and I hope he thinks about me too. It's funny, I have been looking forward to school starting for weeks, and now that it's finally here I don't know that I'm ready for it. I'm going to miss that little guy.

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International Geocahing Day

Apparently August 17th is International Geocaching Day. We had no idea, we just knew Saturday would be a good day to go Geocaching so we went to Estes Park for the day. Our first stop seemed like it would be pretty easy, but a muggle was landscaping so we decided to leave the cache alone. Our second stop we had heard about from our friends who had found this cache the day before in the dark. Turned out it was in a small cliff face and I just about lost it on the kids, totally convinced they were all going to fall off the cliff face and die. My hubby ended up going to find it by himself.

Our third stop was a bridge with a film canister hidden under it, but without a lid and the bag for the logbook had a hole in it so the log was damp. Cadie did great and found it though!

Our last stop was a cache hidden near an eagle statue along the Thompson River. Hubby looked for it for a half hour but couldn't find it, and our friend had even hidden a replacement recently. We'll go back and find it though, someday.

Photo by  McLeodsOfTomball

On top of all this adventuring, we enjoyed some of Bob and Tony's pizza, homemade ice cream, and walking in the river. Estes Park is definitely one of our favorite places to visit! Happy International Geocaching Day!

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The Most Amazing Day Ever

I really wanted to sit down and write about our day yesterday. Life has been hard, and we have had some really rough days in our household lately. My kids have been way too saturated in media lately because, well, it's just easier to put on a show than deal with the fighting. I have really wanted us to be more active and outdoorsy as a family though, so yesterday we went to a local reservoir to fish, something our family has never done before. I tried to set up our bait well, but honestly my husband and I have NO IDEA what we are doing when it comes to fishing so we definitely did not catch anything. The kids had fun trying though, and of course they had to play in the water almost the whole time we were there. My friend Jim took some beautiful pictures of our kids while we were there and I have to share them because I love them so much!

We had gotten all packed up to leave the lake when I got a text message from my sister that said "The cache was published." She and her husband have been working on a complex geocache for weeks that they refused to tell us anything about, so naturally we had to look it up on the website immediately. To our complete surprise, they had come up with a cache commemorating the Legend of Zelda games, our all time favorite family video game! They hid three individual caches for each piece of the triforce (power, courage, and wisdom) and each container showed a clue for opening the fourth cache, the Master Sword. It kills me that I shouldn't post pictures of any of it here because I don't want to give anything away, but I can tell you they did an amazing job with this Geocache! During our first stop we were "First to Find" that particular container, and an officer pulled up and asked Dave if he was looking for something. Dave said yes, a GeoCache, and the officer said he knew because he just got the notifications for a new cache and, while he couldn't search himself because he was on duty, he was enjoying watching the race for First to Find. We found the other two pretty easily too, with Cadie finding the third one all by herself! The final container was awesome, TJ had put a lot of work into making this amazing container and a great locking mechanism on it. We were First to Find that one as well because the other searchers had decided to only do one or two that day to spread them out over Groundspeak's "31 Days of Geocaching." I am allowed to post one photo, our swag from inside the containers:

I knew Jenilee had bought Shrinky Dinks, I had no idea she really went all out with them! Each container had several inside as different icons from the game. This cache allowed us to TOTALLY GEEK OUT the entire time and be in awe of the work they both put in to this cache. TJ is already planning out the next one they want to build, and I can hardly wait to see it!

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Resource List for Readers

Hey everyone! I finally decided to sit down and write a complete resource list for my readers. These resources include everything from links to the photography classes I have taken and gear I use, to my favorite knitting podcast and designers, to the number one scrapbooking system I use every year. The  trick is that the only people able to see this list are my email subscribers. I plan on sending out only one email per week with an update on the blog posts I did that week, along with a few other tidbits of information here and there (like my upcoming podcast!) I promise not to spam you, and you can unsubscribe any time without hurting my feelings. To subscribe, just click here or fill in your email address on the right hand side, and you will be directed to my favorite resources to inspire your craftiness! Thank you to all my readers for supporting me so far, I hope this will make it even more enjoyable for you each week. Blessings!

Emily

Culture

Some people grow up thinking "Classical" music is boring. I, on the other hand, love it. I spent 7 years of my life playing in the orchestra (violin and viola, though I was terrible). My sister is an AMAZING harpist and I had the privilege of going to one of her concerts last weekend. The second half was The Planets by Gustav Holst. It's one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE pieces, and it was so neat to hear my sister be a really important part of it. Here is my favorite movement (not their actual performance), but they are all worth checking out:



 And here is the movement I most enjoyed hearing her play. There are some really neat harmonics in the harp, especially toward the end.

 

Somebody Alert the Media!

Oh. My. Gosh.

Can it be true?

No, it can't be.

But it is.


I joined a direct sales company. Pampered Chef, to be exact.

Those who know me well know that I HATE direct sales companies, so it probably came as a complete shock to a lot of people when I announced on my Facebook "Went to a Pampered Chef party today and had SO MUCH FUN! seriously considering becoming a consultant, which is ironic for me because normally I would never consider joining an independent business company like this, but I am REALLY EXCITED!" Normally I don't like going to parties like these because I always feel like the consultants look at me with a dollar sign over my head. MLM companies especially drive me crazy, as we actually have lost several friends over the years when we didn't invest in their companies. Other friends have heard my hour-long rants about how much MLM companies drive me CRAZY. (teeheee, my friend Stephanie probably fell out of her chair when she found out!)


I went to this party mostly because I felt bad for the host, a good friend of mine. She invited a TON of people and it seemed to be a really busy weekend she had picked, so everyone was RSVP'ing "no." When I went, I discovered the consultant was actually a friend of mine from church. She had invited me to a few events over the years and I had always declined. But, I was really impressed with how she did her cooking show. The food was really good (an autumn risotto with chicken and cranberries), I learned a lot of cooking tips from her, and I never once felt pressured to buy anything. I had a few questions for her because I kept thinking to myself, "Gee, maybe I could do that!" I did buy a couple of items I recognized from my mom's kitchen that I LOVED, and the consultant (Becca) and I decided to meet the next day. I came home and sheepishly told my husband I had fun and wanted to be a consultant. I was a little worried he would say no, after all, having a Tupperware party led to a big fight between us. Surprisingly, when I told him his response was "Well, if it's something you are interested in then go for it!" He was even excited about the starter kit since it had so many awesome tools in it. 


And so it began. I jumped right in with both feet and took off running. I did all of the training courses they had online, and I was very surprised that over and over it was stressed to not pressure anyone, and how important it was to build relationships with people instead of just caring about their relationship with Pampered Chef. I read Doris Christopher's book "The Pampered Chef" (the story of how she created the company) and I felt totally inspired by her story of starting in her basement to save money for her girls' educations. I also love how she values peoples' marriages over her business and encourages consultants to keep them prioritized correctly. My husband even said "You know, the more I learn about this company, the more I'm glad you are a part of it." How's that for support!?! 


Of course, my beefs with certain direct sales and MLM companies are still there, and I am not about to give up on my ideals and beliefs on how people should be treated when it comes to businesses like this. So, here are my promises:


-I promise NOT to look at every human interaction I have as a business opportunity
-I promise NOT to look at people with dollar signs over their heads
-I promise NOT to stop talking to someone if they are not interested in The Pampered Chef
-I promise to NOT clutter up Facebook and my blog with Pampered Chef updates. If people want to know what's going on in that world, they can "like" my Facebook page here . Even then, I promise to make the majority of my posts on FB usable without having to spend money. This will also be the only time I will "promote" my business on a blog post.
-I also promise to do whatever I can to make guests at my shows not feel pressure from myself or my host to purchase. 


Dave and I discussed the importance of keeping these promises to myself and my friends and family. If I start to get frustrated about low sales/lack of shows/etc. I need to double check these promises and make sure I am keeping them. I need to keep in mind that it is for fun, and while I do have goals I need to make sure relationships come first. 


So here's to a new adventure! While you won't be seeing promotions necessarily on my blog, you will be seeing a lot of new recipes and adventures from shows, so stay tuned!


PS - I know I have a few friends who read this blog that also run their own businesses like this. If that is you, PLEASE NOTE that it is not you who drives me crazy! People who do I am no longer friends with and they probably have no idea I have a blog. 

New Toys for the New Year

Ahhhhh, what a wonderful New Year this has been. After Christmas we have been taking it easy, chillin' out, relaxin' all cool and shootin' some b-ball..... oh, wait. I finally finished the last of the Christmas presents on Friday night and it's blocking right now. And I am TOTALLY kicking myself for not taking any pictures of the Christmas gifts I made. My camera had a major ouch, right before Christmas. My hubby was shooting pictures of kids making gingerbread houses and he heard a weird grinding noise, then an error popped up that said "error, release shutter again." We tried and tried, but nothing would work. We looked it up online and many people who had this same problem were dumb enough to open their camera and put WD-40 inside of it. Seriously, people!?! No way was I going to do that. I took it to our local camera repair shop, and yes, it was a very expensive repair. Here's how I look at it though: I could either a)cry about it, decide that the repair was too expensive and wait and save up for a new camera. Most likely this would lead to an upgrade, because who wants to spend money on something that is the same as they already have? Probably total cost = $900. Or, I could b)put my tears away and cough out the $200 for the repair, not have my camera for Christmas, and keep using the camera I already know and love and keep exploring with. For me, this was no contest. $200<$900. Camera home > no camera for months. It amazes me how many people I know that would have just said "too bad, so sad," and bought another camera, most likely on credit and paid it off over the next year. I figure I might as well spend less money, take care of what I already have, and not have a very large credit card bill to pay off. Okay, enough ranting.

My camera is back now, and I love it so much. The nice repairman (a.k.a. total jerk until you are sugary-sweet nice to him, then he is super friendly and helpful) actually found sand in it. GAH! Sand!?! I need to start taking better care of this thing. A new camera bag for me is in the queue for sewing projects. Anyways, it was really hard not having it for Christmas, but my hubby got a friend for it under the tree. Here is the new buddy in the house:

Ahhhhhhh, I love having a 50mm f/1.8 lens in my home. I am still learning a LOT about this lens, but oh boy is it fun. The parts that are in focus are very sharp, while the parts that are out of focus are very blurred. We played with a bit of bokeh techniques and focal range points, and I love how well it auto-focuses. It has been really great for taking more monthly pictures of Baby J (photos to come soon) and I love shooting at 1.8 for lots of stuff now. I think I will name it Sherman.

I also ordered a remote for my camera right after Christmas. I am hoping to use this to start getting myself in more of our pictures, and making family photos a heckuvalot easier. It works really well, too!

Another buddy showed up under our tree this year from "Santa" (my parents). Seriously, this has changed how we are documenting our family.

It's not this exact model (I think she ordered it from QVC) but it's an AMAZING video recorder. It shoots in 1080p, it's waterproof and shockproof, and it also works as a point-and-shoot camera. Wow, do I love this thing. I have been shooting random clips from different events, then putting them together with music to make really fun movies. (I'll start posting them soon.) We had a video camera before, but it used stupid tapes and you could always hear the tape humming in the background, plus it was a pain to upload the video. This thing makes it SO MUCH EASIER to capture life on video. Okay, enough blabbing. Look forward to the next month with lots more pictures, videos, and cards to share! And yay for getting 4 new followers after the feature on beckyhiggins.com. I had such a fun time with that, so welcome newcomers :) Blessings!

3am

This is what insomnia must be like. But does it count if I am able to sleep during the day?

Goodbye Hair, Hello Pixie!

Oh my, what a week. The sickies have traveled around my family, hitting me and Little Miss today. I think Baby J might be sick as well, she is super crabby when she is awake, but fortunately she is sleeping right now.

I have been working on SO MANY projects lately! I turned 30 cards in to the Cherry Lime Boutique to sell for Christmas. Hopefully they will sell, since I have yet to make enough to pay my rent in that booth so far. Last month I only sold one card! (sigh). I also tried having a booth at our church's first "Holiday House" to support single moms. Unfortunately, the event was pretty much a bust. I sold a total of 5 cards to a vendor. But we have a lot of ideas for next year to make it happen! Plus I have been knitting like CRAZY, but I can't show any of that because it's all for Christmas. So, expect lots of knitting yumminess after the first of the year to show up here.

In other news, I chopped my hair off. Yup, 14 inches of hair. Gone. In two ponytails, ready to be sent to Locks of Love after I get better and can drag my sick butt to the grocery store to get a padded envelope.

I loved my hair. It got super curly during this last pregnancy and I finally figured out the amazing thing that is hair product, so I was able to keep my frizzy curls under control. I got compliments on my hair all the time over the last few months and I definitely felt feminine and pretty.

Most recent pic, with product (and wind)

Sans product

Straight with no product

I could wear it curly or straight, up or down, and it was easy peasy to take care of. No time for a shower? A pony tail worked just fine. It was grand.

So why in the world did I decide to chop it all off and do a pixie cut? I have no idea. The idea came to my head, and it literally WOULD NOT LEAVE for a week. I texted my hair girl the first day asking to get on her schedule. The ends needed some touching up anyway, and I figured I would have a whole week to chicken out and decide to leave it long if I wanted to. But the idea would not go away, and I became obsessed. I read about 25 blog entries and watched countless youtube videos on people making the "big cut" and styling their new hair. And do you know what I found? Not a single person regretted chopping all of that hair off. Most of them looked much prettier and more mature after the cut. There are a lot of great styling products out there (product is my new best friend) and plenty of people willing to share how they make their poofs into attractive hair styles.

The night before I texted my hair girl a picture of what I wanted. She about lost her mind. Here's what I was going for:

When my hair girl finally started cutting I think she almost started crying. It was a traumatic experience for her. I just kept yelling "keep going! Keep going!" When she styled it I wasn't 100% sold yet, she kept poofing it and spiking it and spraying it with hair spray. But the next day I tried out my own hair products (which I got from The Body Shop, thanks to Aunt Pam for the gift card!) and I LOVE IT.

Post Pixie

I still have some work to do, this looks a little messy still. And I want to get a good flat iron. The Wet-to-Straight I have had for 9 years just might not cut it any more. But I have to agree with the other girls who chopped their hair off, I don't regret it. Besides, it's just hair and it will grow back eventually! So to girls who are considering making the cut, do it!

Why I Don't Do Dishes At Night

(photo credit)

I don't do dishes at night. More specifically, I don't do dishes right after dinner.

It's a really strange thought process I have, but it's been there as long as I can remember. I mean, it definitely doesn't make life easier. Usually the food is pretty stuck on the plates the next morning, and we have to be careful and get rid of things like chicken bones, or else the dog will eat them and choke on them. And that would be sad.

I have a whole mixture of memories of my mom's cleaning habits. Some memories are of her keeping an immaculate house, scrubbing the floors weekly on her hands and knees and dusting the top shelves. Other memories are of my mom, my sisters and I frantically cleaning our super messy house because company was coming over that night and there was no way we could let them see the mess (even though usually it was our friends that had lived with us for 8 months and knew everything about us, including how messy we were. I tried convincing my mom that this made it so we didn't have to clean up, but she never bought it.) I wonder if my mom had moments of inspiration to get organized and clean, and then got burnt out with having 3 kids to take care of on top of it. At least then I would know where I got that part of me from.

My dad was in construction for most of my childhood, and he often came home too tired to play at night. We scheduled dinner around when he came home, which could easily be 9pm during the summer months when he was roofing. After dinner was when we all spent time together, usually watching tv but with a lot of conversation going on as well. When the basement was finally finished we got big, cushy couches to go down there and a tv without a knob on it. As much as we all loved being down there, I think it bugged my mom that she couldn't be a part of it when she had to cook or clean up upstairs. During the little bit of time us kids had to do the dishes (yes, I'm part of the "entitled generation" where we apparently had everything given to us on silver platters) I remember feeling like it took forever to get them done, and we usually finished just in time for bed. After awhile I remember post dinner times spent with all of us, relaxing and having fun after a long day, and I vaguely remember the dishes being put off until the next day.

To this day in my mind the time after dinner feels almost sacred, when everyone is home together and usually with no plans. It feels almost like a tragedy to me to take that time and spend it cleaning. This is especially true when having company over, as I want to enjoy the time with them and not just cleaning up after them. What fun is it having company over if you can't spend the time after the meal playing cards or just talking over the dining room table?

I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that I don't want to get stuck all by myself cleaning every night during a really special time with my family. I'm willing to take a little bit of extra time scrubbing the next morning to keep those evenings relaxing with my kiddos.

On the other hand, I'm probably just lazy.

Harry Potter - The End of an Era

Okay, I'm a nerd. Big time. I admit it.

My sister and I went to our very last Harry Potter premiere this past Thursday night. We have been to every premiere there was available, and have at least seen every movie the day it came out. Here are just a couple of fun shots to remember....

Our evening started with 5 hours of waiting in line outside the theater. We were kept busy by the Chic Fil A cows who handed out coupons for free sandwiches. Hooray! We also had water balloons thrown at us by lame people who don't know how to appreciate a good nerd fest.

This picture was actually taken after the movie was over, and we are super tired. Can you see what my shirt says? It says "Expecto-ing!" Ha ha ha. My sister made it for the last premiere when she was pregnant with her daughter, then I made it a bit more readable and added some pizzaz with the lightning bolt over the belly button. Once during the night I tripped on a curb and fell down, and people freaked out! That was fun :)

Yup, our 3D glasses were shaped like Harry Potter's. We look like total dorks.

I'm so bummed we don't have pictures from Deathly Hallows Part 1, but here are some other past HP pictures for your enjoyment:

These are from the Goblet of Fire Premiere. We made our scarves and I think we were a little overly proud of them....

For the fifth movie, I decided to actually throw a party. I made a big taco bar and even bought an ice cream cake decorated with Harry Potter decorations (which I still have). The sad thing is that nobody came except for my sisters. I was super bummed, but we had a good time any ways.

Movie 6 Premiere - Now this is just where things get REALLY goofy...

Of course I have to include a couple of pictures from when we visited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Florida last summer...

I'm sad that it's all over, but I need to admit that I'm getting old and it's harder to stay up until 3am watching a movie. Thanks for everything, Harry Potter.