How you know you're married to a gem....

This is one of my favorite photos from Christmas...Santa brought Ashlyn a Barbie vanity for Christmas, along with a real make-up set. It was one of her favorite things she got and had already spent hours primping...Kevin wanted to spend some alone time with Ashlyn so they played salon....Kevin chose the purple glitter fingernail polish....what can I say...he's a GEM!

I'll post more Christmas photos soon....hope you all had a great Christmas too!

Amber :)

The MOM Song....!

The Mom Song from Northland Video on Vimeo.

Just had to post this....soooo funny! This was posted on our MemoryWorks message board...and I just wanted to share. I've watched it over and over and it's still funny (and true!)

What we've been up to this month....

It's been so long since I've posted...we're having our typical December where no matter how hard you try there's always too much to do and something always get left undone...and unfortunately I've slacked on my blogging....so I'm trying to make it up in one post!

Here are just a few things we've done this month:

* Katelyn's Piano Recital: I just posted a clip of this, but she did great for being so new to piano (only 4 months) and being the first on the program. My mom came up for the day, which was tons of fun. We missed Paul and Paulette though....they're still in Atlanta on their mission!

* Decorating for Christmas: I love this time of year and pulling out the Christmas decorations! It was fun to decorate in our new house...although I sware some of our decorations are still in our storage unit! I love my grandma's antique piano - she passed away in May and I inherited her piano. It's so beautiful and has so many memories...it really brings a lot of warmth to our home!

* Obsessed with Biggest Loser: I've always loved The Biggest Loser, but for some reason I really got into this season. I was sooooo excited when Michelle won the big finale - I really could not stand Icky Vicky, Brady, Heba and Ed. Although Heba won the $100,000 prize I am so glad no one else went home with any money!

* Recommitting to Weight Watchers: I have decided to recommitt to Weight Watchers and love their new "Momentum" program....although it's always hard to start in the middle of the holidays! I've had some slip ups, but at least I'm still going to my meetings and working out more. The other day I couldn't sleep so I went to the gym at 5:30 am and walked on the treadmill for 25 minutes, did the eliptical for 27 minutes and strengh-trained by another 20 minutes...so proud of myself!! Now if it would just quit snowing I can make it back again this week!

* Vegas Bowl: Kevin just took his annual trip to the Vegas Bowl with this brothers to see BYU play (and lose :() It's fun for him to go, but always crazy this time of year while he's away. My mom came up for the day and we had lots of fun with the kids. We made pretzel hugs for the kids teachers (sadly they're all gone becuase we kept eating them :), cleaned the house and did luandry (my mom is wonderful....she can't leave our house without helping in some way), watched Christmas movies, played games and went to dinner to eat. She stayed over night and had to drive home in a bad snow storm...she passed a 31 car pile up on I-15....so glad she's okay!

* Getting Ready for Christmas: Still have tons to do and can't beleive it's only 3 days away! Didn't get Christmas cards done...but have scrapbooking like crazy making last-minute gifts...here's a year-end-review layout I did:

Katelyn's Christmas Piano Recital

Just wanted to share a clip of Katelyn's first piano recital - she started piano in September and has done very well. She loves it...and we can't get her to quit tinkering on the piano! This was her first Christmas recital and she was the very first on the program so she was a little nervous at first, but I'm so proud of her getting brave and performing her song!

Here's some other pictures of the day...

Save 20% - Friends and Family Warehouse Sale!!

Just wanted to let everyone know about our awesome "Friends & Family Holiday Sale" - where we're opening our warehouse doors for the first-time-ever to our local customers! We're offering 20% off our entire warehouse - we've never offered a deal like this before so it's an awesome opportunity for local scrapbookers!!

What: MemoryWorks Friends & Family Holiday Sale
20% Off All Scrapbook Supplies!!

When: Thursday, December 11, 2008

10:00 am - 5:00 pm

Friday, December 12, 2008

10:00 am - 5:00 pm

Satuday, December 13, 2008

9:00 am - Noon

*The first 50 shoppers will receive a FREE BasicGrey Rub-on. Everyone will receive a FREE catalog and supplement!

** All shoppers will receive 20% off all in-stock products, limited-edition holiday sets and gift packages, and exclusive kits. Save 20% on all brands and new releases, including BasicGrey, Cosmo Cricket, Crate Paper, Fancy Pants, We R Memory Keepers, Provo Craft, American Crafts, Doodlebug, Pebbles and so much more!!

MEMORYWORKS WAREHOUSE
1185 N. WASHINGTON BLVD.
SUITE #170
NO. OGDEN/HARRISVILLE, UT

(We're located right off Washington Blvd., behind the Green Touch building, in the Mountain View Office & Warehouse building!)

Bring a friend - Everyone's invited!!
Don't miss it - we'd love to see you there!!

New family photo....finally!!

Yay - check it out....here is just one of our new family photos...finally! Kevin's darling cousin Kellie is an awesome photographer and my mom has been begging to do our entire family photos together for the longest time. We finally decided to do it in this year and set a date in September....but couldn't do them becuase of the rain and wind that day. We then set a day in October, got all ready, drove to Riverside, Utah to the old country barn and found out 5 minutes right before we were supposed to take photos that Chris's (my brother's wife) mother just had a stroke - her and Morgan had to go to Bountiful so we took as many photos as we could without them, but again had to set another date for all of the photos....so we finally met again a couple of weeks ago and here's on of the photos of our individual family that I love....can't wait to see the rest!! Great Job Kellie....hope you don't minde that I snagged the proof from your photoblog!!

If you anyone would like their photos done from Kelly I highly reccomend her:

www.kelliehalesphotography.com

I'm in love...Edward, Jacob, Emmet....Twilight!!

All I have to say is....yummy!!! I went to the midnight viewing of the Twilight movie with 12 other moms from my ward and neighborhood....so totally worth it! We all met at Julie's house at 9:00 pm, and then went to Chili's to eat before the show! I drank so much Diet Coke before the movie to help me stay awake during the movie, that I had to go to the restroom so bad that I missed the best part of the movie...when Edward and Bella kissed on her bed!!! I was so mad....I had waited for that scene all night....oh well.

Overall the movie was great - although it could have been a little longer and some of the characters could have been developed a little more....but still an awesome show and I can't wait to drag Kevin to see it with me!! Can't wait for New Moon now!!

Happy Halloween!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Just a fun glimpse of our night!!

Welcome Fall!

Fun new wreath I found at RodWorks!

I absolutely LOVE the Fall...such a great time of year. The weather has been great this year so it's been an especially great! We've had so much going on...but in the end that's really what makes it so fun...but I have had a chance to decorate which is one of my favorite things to do during the holidays. I love the fall colors...rust, olive, brown...all of the colors that we hated about the 70's (still that shag carpet is just yuck!)

We're getting the house all ready for trick-or-treaters....just 2 nights away!!

Tommorrow morning we have our kids first-ever Halloween parade....so excited! Kevin and I will be going in the morning together. Katelyn will be dressing up as a Glamorous Glitter Witch while Ashlyn will be dressing up as a Princess Fairy Witch.....really it's the same thing just mom's way of making them seem completely different. Brock will be dressing up as Batman....not evil Batman, but the nice Batman....(he reminds us that constantly). The kids will get out of school early and tommorrow night we have our ward Halloween Carnival, Crock-Pot dinner and trunk-or-treat! Totally Fun....

Getting ready for the mad rush of Halloween fun in the morning!

Can never have too much glitter make-up and glitter hair

spray when your dealing with two glitter witches!

Even Mr. Bones, our resident Halloween skelleton, is excited for Halloween!


Hope you all have a great Halloween....I'll post photos of ours and can't wait to see yours too!

Check it out...I Yearbooked myself!!

I found this website http://www.yearbookyourself.com/ on one of my friend's blogs - totally funny...I couldn't resist trying it out myself:

Amber @ 1960

Amber @ 1962

Amber @ 1966

Amber @ 1972

Amber @ 1974 (the year I was born :))

Amber @ 1978 (ewww....what a bad year)

Amber @ 1990 (Totally my year!)

Amber @ 1994

Go ahead...I know you want to try it!!

Big News....!!

CRAZY!!! That's all I can say....it's 4:00 am and I'm up becuase I can't sleep...so I'm blogging!

So, I've got some pretty BIG NEWS that I have to share (no, I'm not pregnant!!) It's big news for us as it's something I never thought would happen at this stage in our lives....just when you think life is crazy enough and there's already too much to handle Heavenly Father always throws you a curve ball!!

Two weeks ago our ward split....there were over 800 people in the ward and a huge primary (200) children, so it was definately time for a change. I was perfectly content in my easy Primary Pianist position - it fit in so nicely with my life, not too much stress and work, just a Sunday calling that I could easily do each week! Well....2 days after the announcement of the new ward boundries Kevin and I got a call from the bishopric that they'd like to come over and meet with us. I just knew it was another big calling for Kevin becuase I assumed Heavnely Father just knew there wasn't much more I could add to my plate....but when the bishop extended the of PRIMARY PRESIDENT to me I was blown away. I seriously had to have him repeat it becuase I thought I misunderstood him!!

So.....I am officially the new Primary President!! I jokingly asked the bishop if he was sure he prayed about it....and he said that all of the bishopric members had a definate spiritual experience when coming up with my name. I really needed to hear that as it helped confirm that if my Heavenly Father beleives I can do it at this time and trusts me with this calling...than I know I can do it (of course, with a lot of guidance and support from Him...)

I'm actually really excited (I know I'm crazy)....we had our first presidency meeting on Tuesday. We met at 6:30 pm and didn't finish until 11:45 pm - REALLY! Where the ward split - we lost half of the primary and almost all of our primary workers - no nursery workers, no music leader, no pianist, no scout leaders, and literally no teachers. So we are really starting from the ground up....learning and working alot, but I have already felt His inspiration and blessings. Kevin used to say when he was in the bishopric that somehow he was just blessed with peace and patience - he wouldn't get annoyed with phone calls, questions, visiting or when his position called for him to be away from home and family. It's amazing how I feel that too...not resentment that I have to spend time doing primary work, but instead contentment and happiness that I'm able to serve....and I so need that in my life right now! So really I'm the one being blessed....

Catching Up...


Last time I posted was right before the "Just for Her" Women's Fair - so glad that's done! Things went great for the most part - except in my first presentation I got a little ahead of myself with my notes and powerpoint...but it's all good!

Here's an article that was published in the Standard right before the show...kind of cool how they highlighted MemoryWorks. They came to our warehouse and took photos of my projects, our products and me...the article was in the "Hers" section and it doesn't show it all online, but here's just a glimpse:

http://www.standard.net/live/features/hers

This is huge for us, as it was one of the first times we've been in the local newspaper (after 6 years in busines and several press releases!) ...so in typical blog fashion I am assuming all bragging privlages!! The photo at the top of the blog is one of the photos that was included in the article - thats my Ashlyn and projects I did for the September MemoryWorks Express kit!!


October 2008 MemoryWorks Express Kit

Here's some more projects I've worked on for our October kit (soon to be updated on our website....)

Look where I'll be all day Tuesday, September 23...I was asked to speak at the Just for Her Women's Fair at Weber state University! I'm excited and very nervous..not neccessarily to speak becuase I love presenting about MemoryWorks and scrapbooking...but just nervous becuase I still need to put my presentation together - Yikes!

Here's the schedule if anyone wants to go - in between my sessions I want to hit Don Aslett and Angel Shannon....I've convinced my mom to come with me so that will be fun!

Just For Her Women's Fair

Also check out these photos from Paullette's blog - Daina and Sherm took these with their web cam when Bryan and Preston were visiting them in Seattle...we couldn't even tell who they were at first!!

So funny - huh. We're all getting web cams so we can "talk" to Paul and Paullette while they're on their mission in Atlanta....and you can bet this is the first thing we're going to try out - so I'll be sure to post our own photos!

Talk to you soon!

Hello....I'm Back....!

Okay - too funny! I was just reading through some of my favorite blogs today and came accross one from one of my favorite scrapbookers that hadn't been updated since August 8, and I thought to myself..."She sooo needs to post to her blog"...then here I am on my own blog that I haven't posted to since August 11....hmmmm.

So I am still getting used to this blogging thing...sorry for not posting as there has been tons of fun things going on thats been keeping me pretty busy!

Here's a list of my "Top 10" reasons or things that have kept me from blogging the past 3 weeks:

Top 10 Reasons for not Blogging

10. Back to School - Need I say more! Katelyn started first grade and Brock started Wee Weber pre-school on August 25. Ashlyn started Kindergarten on September 2. Had to finish there school shopping, go to back-to-school night, and hit the Old Navy $7.00 denim sale bright and early on the Saturday before school started!

9. Yard, Dirt, Mud!! We are knee deep in getting our sprinklers finished so we can plant our grass before fall. Kevin has been working every morning, every night and every Saturday for the past month...we miss him and will be so glad when it's finished. We'll also be glad when we don't have mud and dirt everywhere!

8. Paul and Paulette's Mission: Paul and Paulette (Kevin's mom and dad) left on their mission on September 1 - so before they left we had a few parties and gatherings with the family. We will MISS them, but know they are where they need to be and they are setting such a good example for our family!

7. Summer Fun: It's been such an interesting summer, where we moved into our new house in the spring, had our retreat, and have been working on our yard it feels like we really haven't had much of a summer - so in the last month we've been to a family reunion, we've been to the swimming pool 2-3 times, had BBQs, been to family parties...all the things we should have been doing all summer long!

6. Dreaming of Decorating: I am patiently waiting until I can decorate our house...our budget has gone to expenses from moving into our home and landscaping our yard...I've had to wait until I could REALLY decorate...so in the meantime I've been shopping and looking...have found my two new favorite stores: Real Deals and Rod Works.....LOVE THEM!! I could do some serious damage...and can't wait to actually bring some fun new things home instead of just dreaming of them!!

5. McDonalds and 1 am trips to Wal-Mart: We love the new ward and neighborhood (with a few exceptions)- it's the reason why we moved! We have especially loved getting know the couples our age...such a difference from our last ward. Where this is a new subdivision everyone has this sense of making freindships and welcoming everyone...so it's been great. I've especially had fun with two moms with kids our childrens age - Julie and Marli - seriously so fun, especially the spur of the moment trips to McDonalds and 1:00 am trips to Wal-Mart.

4. Scrapbooking!: I am spending more time organizing and re-organzing my scrapbook room...it's almost finished! Now that school has started again my goal is to spend more time actually scrapbooking then just thinking about it!

3. Tumbling, Piano, carpool and Homework: Now that school has started and our kids are getting older, we're finding things get a little more crazy with all of the activities and homework. Luckily Katelyn hasn't had any homework yet, but Ashlyn has and it's a lesson in patience for me to sit through homework sessions with her! Katelyn's in piano and all three kids are now in tumbling...so we've joined the carpool and "run around all day dropping kids off" club!

2. Housework, cooking and cleaning: I'm learning that even in a new house you still have to clean, cook and do laundry. The house cleaning and laundry fairy hasn't showed up to my house.....yet!

1. Birthdays Galore: In a spand of one month we have so many birthdays in our family: Here's the birthdays for August and September: My Mom, Kevin, Logan, Brock, Katelyn, Libbee and Luke!

So there you go....my reasons for not posting!! Actually...things seem to finally be slowing down...HA! Until next time...:)

Blog Loser...MW Retreat and Breaking Dawn!!

Okay - I am brand new to this blog thing and I am seriously feeling like a looser. I have so many things I need to catch up on, but something else always gets in the way!

I have been pretty busy with MemoryWorks.....and Breaking Dawn....so between the two I am exhausted. We're gearing up for the back-to-school season, which for MemoryWorks means busy, busy, busy! All of the MW consultants are back to their routines and are ready to run their scrapbook businesses again...so I've been working on some really cool party plan guides to help them really make a big impact with their business. Unfortunately, that means typing 24 pages of ideas, suggestions, guides, etc....and my creative energy is spent. Luckily my mom works in our warehouse helping with orders, compiling kits, etc. so when I was at the MW office last week I went down to the warehouse in exhuastion and had her help with proof and edit my documents....so huge to have it off my shoulders for now. (Have I told you how great my mom is...she seriously loves helping any way she can!)

This was at the same time that Breaking Dawn came out...so between staying up late typing, I have also been pouring through all 750+ pages of Breaking Dawn...I bought the book at Wal-Mart on Saturday night when it came out and finished it last Wednesday....I so LOVED it, although I'm sad to say "goodbye" to my Twilight friends. I will posting more on this...but seriously Stephanie Myer needs to do another round of books on Jacob - love him...and have you seen who will be playing him in the movie...I'm usually not into long haired werewolves...but holy cow!! Can't wait for the movie!

I am also so excited that I finally completed the MW Retreat newsletter articles ...our retreat was in June and I just finished compiling a highlights article as well as a testimonial article from some of the attendees...the retreat was a huge success and went off better then I could ever dream. We put our hearts and souls into it...we planned everything down to the detail, had tons of staff meetings, etc. and it so paid off. It exceeded my, and the attendees, expectations in everyway - the best part was getting to meet our consultants and customers in person. We are rarely face-to-face with direct consumers and we were a bit nervous...but I have to tell it was what made the event for me! We were also lucky in the fact that we are key accounts with most of our vendors so they laid on the goodies and classes. Seriously - each attendee received something cool at every event....totally fun and surprising. I would guess that they each walked away with at least $500 worth of products, including the classes, cool Stacy Julian key-note, goodie bags and free prizes. Our vendors were also impressed with the event...we had many compliments from teachers that have taught at CKU, CKU-Japan, internationall events, etc. and they all said they had never been to an event as well-organized, smooth, etc. That was huge for us!!

Anyways we are so proud of our accomplishments and we did it with a fairly small budget and staff - it was awesome to see our team come together. Now everyone is wondering when our next retreat will be...and to be honest we will probably wait another year to do one. Although this retreat was a huge success...we need another year to regroup and really focus on our basic MemoryWorks program. Becuase we were so busy with preperations for the retreat...some of our basic programs got put on the back burner so we're taking a year to get back to business and then we'll be able to better determine when our next retreat will be....but the good news is we WILL be doing another one!!

I hope you enjoy the photos - we seriously had so many fun photos it was hard to narrow them down for our newsletter articles....but this will give you snap shot of how much fun the retreat was!!