VACATION!!!! here we come...

It is finally Thursday.  How often do you hear that one?  Well Thursday is the day that we have been waiting for all week.  Here's why:

My husband gets back from Texas today.
Time to pack our bags
I can go for a jog when my husband gets home (haven't since Saturday).
1 day until we fly to Idaho
1 day until we fly to the state where I'll be running my first half marathon.

I'm sure I could add things like cleaning but.....I can clean any day of the week.  Well I will be putting my store on vacation mode until the 6th of November.  That is when we fly back home.  I should be able to keep ya posted on our vacation every few days. 

I do apologize for not getting the fall table runners posted before I left.  It has been one heck of a week.  I should be able to get at least two posted the week after we get back.  It is amazing how fast time flies.  I'll see ya'll Tuesday at the soonest.

Cake Decorating

Yesterday was going to be my last cake decorating class since I will be on vacation next week.  However, Yana was teething, had a fever of 101.2 and was very very cranky and I was not about to expect a babysitter to have to deal with that.  So I canceled my babysitter and I stayed home with my children.  My friend who did go to class will teach me everything when we get back from vacation and then I can show you what I learned from the last two classes.

So as you can see by now there are pictures of cupcakes.  I bought at the beginning of October this cute little pack of cupcake cups and it came with 24 cups and then 12 of the ghosts and pumpkins and 12 of the BOO! signs.  I just couldn't resist.  I thought they were adorable and I wanted them so as you can see I bought them.  Well I had it all planned out to send cupcakes with my husband to work this week and it just wasn't going to happen.  We leave on vacation Friday and I wasn't going to get to make my cute cupcakes. 

Very disappointing.

Well I was doing stuff around the house today and had this thought.  Yes, sometimes I have good ones that I give in to.  I could make the cupcakes and take some to Young Women's and share them and then share the rest with friends.
So here they are!!!

 I used a white cake mix and butter cream icing recipe.  I used vanilla flavoring and had a blast.

 That ghost was just too cute.

 I even used sprinkles.  I'm not usually a sprinkles person.  But this was fun.

So there they are.  I had a blast.  I told my husband I would save him one and the rest of are going to find good homes.  Have a good night.  I'm going to bed.

MIA Tuesday

Sorry I was MIA yesterday.  It was an interesting day.  I should have known something was up when Yana woke up at 4 am and wouldn't just go back to sleep like usual.  I had to give her a bottle and then she would go back to sleep.

That may not mean a whole lot to some people but normally she doesn't need a bottle to go back to bed.

She had a fever when she woke up and was a little grumpy but not too bad.  We went grocery shopping and to the post office and by the time we got to the post office she was definitely not happy.  Nothing was calming her down. 

We got home and I checked her temperature: 101.2 so I gave her some Tylenol and it went down and came right back out.  I couldn't get her to eat hardly anything.  I did get her to fall asleep but it was a very restless nap.  When she woke up and was still grumpy and hot I wasn't sure what to do.  But then I could see two little Yana teeth front and center on the bottom.  They had broken the skin and everything.  That explains it all.

She was grumpy all day and then went to bed.  I figured it was going to be a rough night but she didn't wake up until almost 9 o'clock.  She is still grumpy this morning and has a temperature of 101.0.  I hope that means that more teeth are coming today.  It would be nice to get it all done at once.

So please forgive me if I am somewhat absent today and tomorrow.  It will all depend on how she is feeling.

Wednesday's featured shop!



Today we are going to talk jewelry.  Who doesn't love jewelry in one style or another.  As I was looking at the different shops on my LDS Etsy team this one caught my eye.  So this week's featured store is:

Fine and Dandy

Her name is Renee Sumner and she is in Fort Worth, Texas. She is married and they have 4 children.  From the looks of her store she is very talented.  According to her profile she joined December 18, 2007.  So she has been around for a few years.

Here is a list of her favorite materials to work with so you have an idea of some of the things that she sales.

Gemstones

Swarovski crystal

Pearls

Czech glass

Vintage components

Brass

Sterling Silver

Copper

Gold

Filigree

She also sales photographs

As you can see from this pictures she makes necklaces and earrings.

You can get them in sets or separate.

She makes rings.

She also has bracelets and anklets.

There are many things on her store website.  You can click her name at the top to check out her store.

This has been a lot of fun.  I enjoy looking at new stores and telling others about them.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

The second flower hair clip of the day.

Here is a cute maroon, purple and black flower hair clip.  It has a white jewel looking brad holding it together.  I am using alligator clips that have teeth so they shouldn't slip.  It would be great for children or adults.  It doesn't really have a holiday in mind.  The colors would go great with Halloween because of the purple and the black together but it would work well all year long.

Come check it out and tell your friends.

New flower clip

Have a good night.

Weekend activites.

Well I did it.  I ran my 8 miles Saturday morning and it felt great. I set up a route Friday night so I knew exactly where I would be running.  I woke up at 7ish and had a granola bar.  Then I got dressed and ready to go.  I headed out the door with my hat, gloves and sunglasses on.  I took some water and some Cliff shot blocks to test out.  I know they say you don't need them for runs under 10 miles but I want to know how my body will react to them if I take them on the 13.1 mile run.   It took me 1 hour and 40 minutes.

It felt great and I loved it.  I was sore but nothing hurt.  I am still sore today.

Do you remember when I posted about a blog that was doing it's first giveaway?  If you don't you can click here to see the post.  Well I also entered that giveaway.  Guess what?  We won.  I was amazed.  I didn't really expect to win I was just trying to help her have a great giveaway.  She put Sarah's name on it and sent it to us.  Sarah loves it.

 We chose the bag with the pumpkin on it.  Isn't it so cute.

She immediately wanted to fill the bag with toys and she was that much more excited for Halloween so she could put candy in it.  Thank you Appibelleart.  Check out her blog and her store to see what else she has.

While taking pictures of my flower clips for my store Sarah really liked a set of hair clips for Halloween so I gave them to her but I thought I'd show you what they look like.

As much as she hates spiders she loved these flower hair clips.

Well that was our weekend.  We went for a long drive up to Kansas and back and just had an enjoyable time.  This week should be busy and interesting.

A new brown and orange flower hair clip

 I finally got some more hair clips and the tape to attache them to the back of the flower clips I had assembled a while back.  Here is the first one that I have posted today.  Click here to check it out on my store.  My daughter makes such a cute model.   These clips are a lot of fun to make and are actually really stress relieving.  I am happy to share them with you all.  I plan to post a few more flowers hair clips today so keep checking back.

Yesterday's activities

I told you all that yesterday was a busy day.  Well it was.  In the morning we went to playgroup and were there for a couple hours.  Then we came home for lunch and Yana's nap.  Then around 2:30 we followed some friends down to Bixby's to a pumpkin patch.  It was a lot of fun.  At this pumpkin patch the pumpkins are arranged so that people can climb and play on the pumpkins.  Sarah loved it.  She was crawling and climbing all over the place.

 Yana was really good.  She just rode along in the stroller munching on snacks and having fun.

 They also had lots of animals to look at.  This pen had two large turtles in it, eggs and some birds.

We thought these guys were pretty cool.

 At this pumpkin patch they grow sugar cane and have a can maze for everyone.  Last year the cane was a lot taller.  This year the lack of water affected the height of the sugar cane.  It was fun for the kids though.

 They had scare crows all over and Sarah and her friends liked to play by them.

I loved this picture.  Sarah wanted to look at the pigs, ducks and other animals in this pen.  She loves animals.

It was a lot of fun.  We didn't leave the pumpkin patch until about 4:50 and so my husband  beat us home.  We went out to dinner and then came home and spent time with the girls.  They love to take baths and juts play so that is how we ended the day.

After they were in bed I pulled out my hair clip stuff.  I finally got some more clips and tape ordered.  I got several of them finished.  I will be taking pictures of them this afternoon and then I'll try to get the rest of the Halloween ones posted tonight so I can start posting Fall and other cute clips next week. 

Have a great day.

Cake decorating class

Tuesday night was the second class of this third course.  It will be the last course for a while.  I have enjoyed taking these classes.  This week we made a rose, a carnation, a calla lillie and leaves.  Take a look.

 Here is one of my roses.  My first one looked like a rose reject but the second one was better.

 The side view of my rose.  This was the rejected rose.  It really doesn't look too bad but I hope they get better with each one.

 Here is my carnation.  I really liked my carnation.  It looked pretty good if I do say so myself.

 She told me after I finished this that I could have made the leaves larger before placing it on the carnation so it would go up farther. 

 This is the calla lillie.  They are pretty small but she told us how to make bigger ones.  I really liked the calla lillie. 

 Here is the inside of the calla lillie.

 This is the outside of the calla lillie

After the flowers we started making leaves.  We tried a couple different styles and that is why they look different from each other.

It was a good class.  Next week we will learn how to cover cakes.  We wont be covering a cake but we will be covering a cardboard round board for practice.  I'll let you know how it goes.

What a day...

Well I'm not really going to tell you what I did today.  Sorry but I have pictures but I'm not on the right computer in order to share them with you.  So you will just have to check back tomorrow in order to see how my cake decorating class went Tuesday night as well as what we did today.  It was a great day but a very busy one.  We really only spent about 2 hours at home today.

See ya'll tomorrow.

Wednesday's Featured store/blog

Last week I decided that on Wednesday I would feature a blog/store from my LDS etsy team.  It is fun to really look at stores and read their profiles and feel like I get to know more about that store.  I hope this is something that you all come to enjoy.

This week I am featuring

Birds and Blossoms

The owner of this store's name is Jenny.  She lives in Lehi, Utah.

She has some very pretty necklaces, rings, earrings and hair accessories.

She created her store this year in fact.  It was July 25, 2011.

She was invited to guest blog and said she would love to. However, between work and family she could do so for today.  Maybe in the future she can tell us a little more about herself.

Here are a couple items that she has for sale on her store.

These are some glass flower earrings she has made.

These are some cute flower bobby pins.

She has a lot of very cute things listed on her store.  They would make a great addition to your own accessories, great stocking stuffers, and just great all around gifts for the upcoming holiday season.

A guide to decorating your bathrooms

A treasury for your bathroom.  The holidays are coming and we are all pulling out our decorations.  How many of you have stuff to decorate your bathrooms? 

Honestly, the bathroom is the last place I think of when I think about decorating my house.  So here is a treasury dedicated to those bathrooms that get left out of so many things.

Come check it out.

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/MTEyNzc3MTB8OTEyODAyMDA1/whats-in-your-bathroom-this-christmas

Am I Crazy?

Sometimes I think so.  If you know me you know that I started running after my mission in Russia from 2004-2006.  My last companion was a runner and she got me into it.  I kept running off and on since coming home until I got married and was going to school and just wasn't very dedicated to running.

After Sarah was born and I had gained a ton of weight I decided to get back into running.  I did and I love it.  My first race was a 10K.  I loved it and was bound and determined to run another.  I kept running but never ran another race.

After Yana was born I got back into shape by running.  I'm still working on the last little bit of weight but it is coming off with the help of running and biking.  I have ran a few 5K's and I was training for a 15K.  Then I found out we will be in Idaho on vacation at the time of the 15k.  That 15k was going to be step towards running a half marathon the following weekend on November 5th.  Well I will still be on vacation in Idaho.

So I am still running and I found a race in Idaho on the 5th.  The day before we fly home.  It is isn't far from where I grew up and should be a fun race.  I want to run it.  The problem I have is I don't know if I have trained enough to run it.  Since adding biking to my list of regular exercises I haven't been running as much as I used to.  I used to run 4 days a week and now I run Monday's Thursday's and Saturdays.  I bike Tuesday's and Friday's.  Sometimes I have longer bike rides on Saturdays. 

Well my longest run lately on my Saturday long runs was 5.55 miles.  My shins didn't hurt at all and I haven't been sore either.  My knees have been a little achy and my calves were cramping a little towards the end of that but it all went away with ice.

Here is my dilemma.  When I was ran my 10k a couple years ago I had originally been training for a 1/2 marathon but my shins couldn't handle it at that point.  I hadn't really been running that long.  I had ran 8 miles and then couldn't run for 2 weeks because my shins hated me.  I have been running at least 2-3 times a week for the last 1/2 year and biking 2-3 times a week so I feel like I'm in good shape.  Always could be better.

I don't know the first thing about running that long.  Do I need energy stuff (gels, bars, beans, etc)?  Do I need a water belt?  What do I eat before hand?  These are the questions going through my head.  I have had this on my mind for a few days now and it is starting to slip into my dreams.  Last night I dreamt about about this upcoming race.  I need help with answers to these questions.

If any of you have any information please let me know.  I will continue my search for answers and let you know what I find out.

A great weekend.

Last week I told you I'd share pictures at a later time - so here it goes.  Lets get caught up.

 This is a skirt I made in my first sewing class.  I liked it but with my weight fluctuating so much I am always bigger or smaller than this skirt so I am going to turn it into a dress for Sarah.  I will use the pillow case dresses idea.

 Here is the last table runner I made for Halloween.  It is mine.  It fits my table perfectly.  It is very long.  I love it.

 This weekend we had a BBQ with some friends and I was asked to bring a desert.  I was going to make apple crisp but my husband thought I should use some of my new found cake decorating talent.  Who am I to disagree.  I just didn't think people would want a cake since we've had so many of them lately.
I made a chocolate cake - from a box in order to save time.  Then I decorated it.  I tried to make orange frosting by mixing colors but it turned more salmon than orange so I added blue to try and get purple and got a purple grey color.  It turned out good.

I made butter cream frosting and added the almond flavoring and then made the ghost on top and then just had fun with the green and left over white.  It was a lot of fun.  I really enjoy playing with it.  i just need to figure out how to make the cake smoother while frosting it so there aren't lines in it.

Saturday I was going to run 5 or 6 miles but other things came up and I wasn't able to run that long in the morning.  So I ran for 30 minutes in the morning and then that evening after the BBQ I ran another 40 minutes or so to get 5.5 miles.  It felt great.  My shins aren't bothering me at all.  In fact it is my calves and my knees.  Go figure. 

Sunday we went to church and had a good day.

This morning we filled the car up before it ran out, went shopping and cleaned out the inside of my car.

It has been a great day so far.

What to say about Fridays?

It has been a good day.  That is what I'll say about today.  My husband didn't have to work a full day which was nice.  We got some shopping done and right now I'm making icing for a cake tomorrow.

What did I do today?  Well I went for a bike ride.  I spent an hour on the phone with my mother in law.  We don't talk often enough.  I sewed the top of other table runner, finished my Halloween runner.  I'll share pictures tomorrow....maybe.  It will probably be Monday before I have time to share them.

Spent time with my children and husband.  Did my Biggest Loser wii workout and just had a great day.

I hope that you all had a great day and that you have a wonderful day tomorrow.  I have a busy day between running 5 miles and a Super Saturday activity and then a BBQ with good friends.  I love weekends like these.

Have a good one.

An Idea

Today when I was sewing I got another table runner top finished and decided that I needed to start cleaning some other stuff up.  I got the family ironing done and had an idea.  I learned how to do most of my sewing at BYU-Idaho.  I believe it was the first class I took when we made a skirt as one of our projects.  I made one during class and then another one after the class on my own.

I liked the skirt but since have gained weight and then lost and gained and lost and I'm just never at the right spot for those skirts.  They are either too big or too small.  I put them into my box of material to use on another project and had an idea to turn them into dresses for Sarah.  They would drown Yana at this point.  She can grow into them.  So I looked up how to make pillowcase skirts and I will use that idea to make these two skirts dresses for Sarah.

I will share before and after pictures once they are done.  I love coming up with new ideas.

New Wednesday idea

I've been really lazy today.  You see it is my rest day from exercise.  I usually go about the day as normal but without a run or bike ride.  I was going to sew while Yana was sleeping but decided to work on my blog, store and other such things.

Over the last year I have joined two teams that I chose and was invited to join two more.  I have decided to try something new every Wednesday.  I was doing recipes on Wednesdays but to be honest I don't always try a new recipe every week and although I do have lots more recipes I could share I decided to do something different.

Every Wednesday I am going to blog about a store/blog of someone on one of my teams.  I'll tell you what they sell and how to find them.  If I can remember to contact them before hand maybe even a guest blog by that store.  So for today...since I just decided to do this I'll just share a store that I saw on the LDS team I am on.

Bow Peep Creations 

According to the information on the store it was created January 23, 2009.

It is based out of Logan, Utah.

On this store there are many different things. 

There are banners, cards, frames, notebooks, hair clips and much more.

With Halloween coming I really liked this item

This is just one cute item on this store. 

She also has a facebook page: Bow Peep Creations on Facebook

And a blog: Bow Peep Creations blog

They have a lot of cute and fun things on this store.  Come check it out and spread the word.

A blogger is doing her first giveaway

Appibelleart is hosting her first giveaway and I thought I'd do something to help spread the word.  She is giving away a customized Halloween bag.  If you go to her website there are instructions on how to enter the drawing.  You can do everything for more chances or just one.  Lets help her out so she has a good drawing.

A new Treasury

I just got done creating a new treasury.  It is loaded with cute holiday decorations that are $20 and under.  Decorations for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Halloween is upon us and the other two will be here before we know it.  Lets get those decorations out and set up.  Come check it out.

Holiday Decoration Treasury

Come check it out.

I just added another Treasury.

Candy corn for everyone

Cake Decorating class Course 3 - Fondant and Gumpaste

Last night was the first class of course 3.  We will be working with Fondant and Gumpaste in this class.  Last night we started by making a bow and 3 different bases for 3 different flowers.  We will use the bases next week when we finish the 3 flowers.  Off the top of my head I don't remember which ones they are.  I think there will be a rose and a carnation.  I don't remember the third.

 We stuck 4 bases on macaroni noodles and then we stuck them in the Styrofoam cup to dry.

 These are the carnation bases.

 Here is the bow this morning after I took out the paper towels.  We put rolled up paper towels  in the loops in order to keep them from collapsing while it was drying.

That is the bow.  It was fun to make.  I still need to figure out how to make my own fondant that tastes good so I would want to eat it.

Next week we will finish the flowers from above.  I'm not sure what else we will be doing.  It has been fun.

A year on blogger!?!

Can you believe that the first post I made was a year ago on the 15th.  Now I'm trying to think of a way to celebrate this.  I have also had my Etsy store up and running for a year now.  I was thinking about celebrating this with giveaway drawing on my blog.  Here is the problem.  I have no idea how to run one.

So I am asking you.  If any of you have ever run a drawing and could give me some ideas on how to do this would be greatly appreciated.

I would like to start it this Saturday and run it for a week to celebrate.

Thanks for your help.

I love my husband!

My husband spent Tuesday through Saturday in Texas working at the sites.  We have missed him.  He has had a lot of work lately.  He texted me this morning that he had a package coming and that I should check for it especially if I was going to be out and about a lot.  A couple hours later he asked if the package had gotten here yet.  He said it was a part for his truck.

So after we got back from our walk and Yana was sleeping and someone rang the doorbell.  I figured it was the package and much to my surprise when I opened the door there was a lady holding these:

 Aren't they beautiful.  I just love them.  They colors are beautiful.

 Here is the sad thing.  I now know what these flowers are because I've learned how to make them in my sewing class.  Sad, I know.

Very pretty.  I just love them.  I love my husband.  He apologized for spending so much time at work.  He has been so busy and so stressed lately.  It was so thoughtful that he thought to send flowers.  I don't hold anything against him having to work and I haven't given him any guilt trips or anything.  I understand that he has to work and that he has to go out of town.  I enjoy the time when he is here and appreciate the money that pays our bills.

I just love him.  Got to brag him up a bit.