Gotta Share

Ok so I can't help myself lol. I just finished this layout and wanted to share it. The paper and elements are from the kit Soda Pop by Mandy Mystiques Designs who is a new designer at Digital Candy. They have added lots of great new designers so if you haven't been over there lately you really should go have a peak. Click here to see Mandy's new kit and then you can continue to browse the shop. On this layout I also used Chrissy's wonderful Scallop Paper Cutters templates which I have included an image of here so that you can have a good looksie. They are wonderful to get those custom edge styles on your papers. Thanks for looking and have a great day.

Grocery Deals - week of Feb 27

Smith's

10/$10
16 oz Cottage cheese, sour cream or dips
Nabisco snack saks and pringles chips
18 oz peter pan peanut butter
Aquafresh, pepsodent or close up toothpaste
little debbie snack cakes
kleenex facial tissue

$1.69 lb extra lean ground beef
$1.89 lb whole pork loin
$2.99 lb petite cut sirloin steak
3/$6 frito lay tostitos
2/$3 keebler fudge shoppe cookies

Albertsons

$1.79 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts or tenders

10/$7 after instant rebate on the following:
duncan hines cake mix
hidden valley ranch salad dressing or dip mix
bird's eye steam fresh vegies
spring 6 pack water bottles
sunny d punch
mcCormick foil seasoning select varieties
tabasco sauce
la victoria enchilada sauce or diced green chiles

5/$7 after instant rebate on the following:
dole all natural fruit
mcCormick seasoning grinders
oscar mayer deli style lunch meat
oscar mayer lunchables
kc masterpiece bbq sauce
post honey bunches of oats, fruity pebbles, honey comb or golden crisp
nabisco cheese nips
welch's grape jelly or jam
kool aid jammers drink pouches

4/$7 after instant rebate on the following:
planters dry roasted or cocktail peanuts
brawny napkins
pine-sol liquid cleaner
glad zipper storage bags
clorox disinfecting wipes
409 all purpose cleaner
glad press and seal wrap
clorox bathroom cleaner
hidden valley ranch salad dressing
nabisco ritz crackers
chips ahoy cookies
nabisco 100 cal packs
gladware storage containers
nestle ready to bake cookies
florida's natural orange joice
vlasic pickles

Our Weekend

A New Van
After over a week of searching and test driving we found our "new" Dodge Caravan 2007 and brought it home on Saturday. Our old green one had 145,000 miles on it and so we decided we better upgrade before our upcoming summer vacations. It sure is nice to have automatic windows and locks. I know it sounds funny to be excited about that but I am lol. Sure I would have loved to have lost the stigma of driving a mini van but being the thrifty gal I am I realized it was the best choice for our budget.

GO JAZZ

That same day Clayne and Morgan traveled to Salt Lake to watch the Jazz game. Clayne had received awesome VIP tickets from his boss and knew that Morgan would appreciate the game more than I would so off they went. Clayne asked if he should take the new van for the trip but then decided to just take his Jeep. He told me to expect him home about 10 am on Sunday morning. They were staying over with his sister Glenna after the game.

On Sunday morning at about 9:30 Clayne called. I could hear the sirens in the background and suddenly my heart was in my throat and my eyes filled with tears. They had hit a patch of ice on the interstate near McCammon and had spun around several times (Clayne can't remember how many) before the jeep went off the road and landed on the driver's side. Morgan has not one bump or bruise to show for it. Clayne is a bit stiff and sore on his left hip and shoulder when he landed on the door and arm rest. We feel so blessed and fortunate that they were both safe from harm and injury. I realized how very quickly my entire life could have changed with the possibility of one of them being injured or even dead. I was sure glad to see them when they arrived home.

There was a really nice couple that were headed to Montana and they waited with Clayne and Morgan for the tow truck and then took them to Inkom where the Jeep was towed so that they could get their things out of the jeep. They then drove them home to our house. That couple have my eternal gratitude and I am sure will receive blessings for their kindness. We are now waiting for the insurance to determine the outcome on the Jeep. Since it was 12 years old we are expecting that it will be totaled. This just after spending $700 a few weeks ago on repairs on it. Murphy's law huh? I told Clayne that if he was that jealous that I had new wheels, all he had to do was ask for some new ones too. He said that he certainly wouldn't have thought to almost kill himself and his son to do so either. Thankfully, we are all healthy and well and so grateful for our lives we are able to share together. Stop for a moment today and give your husband and children an extra hug and kiss and then be sure to thank your Heavenly Father for the blessing of having them in your life.

Oh and one more thing I almost forgot to share... The first thing Morgan said when he came through the door was, "The game was awesome!" I found this to be so endearing after what he had just been through. I loved it that the memory he will have of the trip will not be the accident but the fun time he shared with is dad at the game.

Layout Shares

Hey my friends if you are here to check out the grocery deals.... have no fear, they are in the very next post down. I just thought I'd share a bit of my digi scrapping with you and then you'd be forced to look at it before you scroll down lol.


This layout was made using a template by Chrissy Williams from the Angie'licious collection as well as paper and elements by Kami of Ziggle Designs called Ice Cream Dream. Seems like just yesterday Cheyenne was only 8 years old and now she is almost a teenager. Yickes!

This layout is made from Kami's brand new kit that was just released called Swing on a Star. It is full of great papers and elements for boy pages. Yes they would work great for girls too, but I was excited for a kit that was more for boys. Carson looks so little in this picture. It is so fun to scrapbook and look at the changes in my kids over the years. Thanks for looking and have a great day.

Grocery Deals - week of Feb 20

Smith's


2lbs/$3 Seedless grapes
$1.89 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
$1.99/lb rump or cross rib roast
$1.39/lb assorted pork chops
$1.29/lb country style pork spareribs
$2.49/lb petite cut sirloin steak
$1.89/lb pork loin or rib chops
$1.59/lb sirloin boneless pork chops
2/$3 smith's butter
3/$5 Lay's potato chips


Albertsons


98 cents/lb assorted pork loin chops
$1.88/lb beef round rump roast
88 cents/lb sanderson farms whole fryers, drumsticks or thighs
$2.88/lb beef loin boneless top sirloin or 93% lean ground beef


And yes it is that time of year already. I have mixed emotions about the return of these sweet little goodies. Cadbury Mini Eggs are my all time fav candy and each spring I am anxious for their return, but then I eat way too many of them and there goes my new year goal to eat more sensibly. Clayne brought me home a huge bag from Sam's club the day after Valentine's day. They are soooo good. Just thought I'd remind you to pick some up while you are out grocery shopping lol.
Here is a treat that won't hurt your waistline... unless you have to have popcorn to go with it lol. Just thought I'd pass along the code to you.


This post is becoming a bit random... You may remember a few weeks ago when I shared a bunch of info from the LDS Living magazine? Well, here is another great feature they offer. You can sign up at their website for their email listing and you will have a wonderful Family Home Evening lesson delivered right to your inbox each Monday complete with a desert recipe. I was very impressed. Ok that is all for me for now. Have a great day.

A Layout for Today

I am a sad to say that my new friend, Angela Niehaus, has decided to take a break from designing and so therefore I am not able to be on her creative team anymore. This is really sad because she has fabulous design and great kits. I wish her well and if she should ever return to designing, I would be honored to be on her team again. I'm happy to say that I will continue to create for Chrissy Williams and Kami of Ziggle Designs.

Tonight I decided to just play around with a great freebie I got from Sweet Genevieve Designs and this is what I came up with. Just wanted to share. Hope you all have a great weekend.

Happy Valentine's Day and some chatter

I wish there was a convenient way to let you know about good deals on groceries at Winco because that is where I do a majority of my shopping. When I do see a good deal there, I never know how long it will be on sale for. Anyway... with that said, they have a great deal on Cheerios right now. 97 cents for a big 14 oz box - limit of 2. They also have some of their canned veggies on for I think 25 cents a can but again it is a limit of 2. I'm sure there are more deals than I can mention or remember lol.

Here is the last update on our water damage. We finally have all the fans out of here. The walls are dry, the carpet pad has been replaced and our carpet has been relaid. There will be a little cosmetic painting that I'll need to do this spring but I count myself blessed that we were able to get away from this problem with this little of repair work. Don't know what the cost will be for All American renting the fans and putting the carpet down again, but I am just glad that the fans aren't going anymore - they were noisey and even more happy that we have things back in place again.

I want to share with you something I downloaded off the internet yesterday called UnZipThemAll It is going to save me so much time with unzipping my digi scrap downloads. It is a stand alone program that works on its own and is free. I love that if I have all of my zips in the same folder, both .zip and .rar, that I can direct the program to that folder and it will highlight all of the files for me. All I have to do is click to start and it will unzip all of the multiple zip files at once. Afterwards, the folder will have two files for each (the original zip and the unzipped). It's just a few clicks and I'm on my way to sorting my files. I hope you will all find this to be as helpful as I am finding it. I couldn't resist letting you know about something that has simplified my life. I love anything that makes my life easier lol.

Since it is Valentine's Day I thought I'd share something on that subject from Woman's Day magazine (Meredith L. Ritchie). They had a little tidbit about how to write a love letter. They suggest that each letter should be unique and tailored to the recipient. Here are some suggestions

• Make sure the letter is about what you have to say, not what Hallmark has to say.
• Start with a list of adjectives that describe everything you love about your man, then use the list to craft the letter. Or just pretend that you are writing a thank-you note and thank him for all he does.
• Point out the length of your relationship and how your feelings have grown over time.
• You can compliment the usual subjects like hair, eyes and lips, but praise them in a new way. A nice line is, "Your smile is my favorite distraction."
• Make use of those silly disagreements or everyday annoyances: "I love you in spite of your snoring."

Here is your big chance to write your own Valentine for your husband. There is still time to get it done. I need to take a bit of my afternoon and do this too. I gave him his gift early. I couldn't wait to show him the Heritage Makers book I made. It is titled, "The Story of Us" and starts from when we were engaged and marks the milestones in our lives from then until now. It is a fun book to see how we have changed in the last almost 19 years. I'll try to get some pages up on my blog in the next week to let you have a peak. Clayne brought me a beautiful arrangement of flowers yesterday and today we will be meeting at the temple to do sealings. I think that is a great way to spend time together on Valentine's day and I am thankful for the opportunity.

Tonight I will take a break from cooking and pick up some of those fun heart shaped pizzas at Papa Murphy's for dinner. Hope you are all having a great Valentine's day.

Grocery Deals - week of Feb 13

Albertsons

50% off entire line of Kellog's cereal
10/$10 Bisquick mix, Betty C. brownie mix, Progresso bread crumbs, 4 count bakery cinnamon rolls
$1.88/lb boneless skinless chicken breasts, tenders or extra lean ground beef
$2.99/lb beef petite sirloin steak

Smith's

$1.79/lb extra lean ground beef
$1.89/lb boneless pork loin chops
10/$10 Ragu pasta sauce
$1.80 Nabisco cookies or crackers
$1.97 Kellogg's frosted flakes or mini wheats

Fun News

Chrissy Williams CT Announcement


Yep I needed some fun news to share after last week and the water leaking. I am happy to let you know that in addition to being on Angela Niehaus' Creative Team I have also joined the Creative Teams of Kami - Ziggle Designs and Chrissy Williams. See the blinkies on the side? You can just click on them to go right to their products in the store at Digital Candy. Here is a layout using Kami's kit On My Way and one of Chrissy's Angie'licious templates. If you have never tried a template you really must visit Chrissy's blog and pick up some free ones as well as read her wonderful tutorial that teaches you how to use them.

The jounaling reads: The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, The figure she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen from her eyes, Because that is the doorway to her heart, The place where love resides. The beauty of a woman Is not in a facial mole, But true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, The passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman with passing years -- only grows.

Update and a Layout share

Here is a little update on our water damage situation. We called in All American Cleaning and they brought in 3 big fans to dry out the walls. Clayne bought a heat cable rope that he put up on the roof to help melt the ice block. Apparently the snow that was melting higher up on the roof was pooling behind the ice block and then seeping under the shingles and into wall of the house. Clayne also spent a good portion of the day up on the roof chipping away the ice. Poor guy his face is all wind burned and he was frozen. Fortunately the majority of the ice is gone from this trouble spot now and we will not get any more seepage. The cleaning guys came back yesterday after the fans had been on for 24 hours and said we were making good progress and that it looks like the walls would be saved. I'm not going to totally accept that until we are all the way in the clear. We still have the fans going and they will be back again today to check the progress. We just wait and hope and pray. We lost a little of the pad because they say that it never does get dry so we will be replacing that - but that is pretty minimal and all the carpet looks good. I am so glad I had my carpet cleaner to pull some of the water up quick. Unfortunately it looks like I will need to be doing some repainting when it is all over with. That beautiful paint job that I did in Cheyenne's room just this summer - yep, I'm a little bummed over this. Guess I should be glad that we are (likely) saving the walls. I know it could be a lot worse and then of course I think of all the people who lost their homes in the tornadoes and I feel very blessed. This is only a house and it is still standing.

The kids all had the day off from school yesterday as many of you know and Cheyenne continued to be very put out that we are ruining her room. I just try to smile and let it roll off. Carson had the flu and I kept him home again today just to play it safe. This has not been one of the best weeks lol. Oh well - it builds character. Now just so that this isn't all doom and gloom I would love to share with you a layout I finally got made to announce the birth of my beautiful new niece. Isn't she sweet? She is now almost a month old - time flies. I can't wait to see her in real life. New babies are just the sweetest. Hope everyone else is getting along well with the weather. word to the wise.... if you have ice on your roof get yourself a heating rope and get the situation under control. We will learn from this and keep it up there in future years to prevent this problem.

This is another creative team layout using the kit Grace by Angela Niehaus. Congratulations to Jedd (Clayne's brother) and his wife Kathi.

Winter Woes and Worries

Ok now for my life drama. My sister came over yesterday to have me help her work on a digital project and we were scanning in some pics. My scanner is in another room and when we went in there we found that the carpet was wet. Turns out we have a water leak problem in our house. I have had to pull up carpet in two rooms and have pulled up over a gallon of water with my carpet cleaner. We have calls in to a few places to get someone to come over and help us figure out what the problem is. Our closest guess right now is that the water is coming from the roof. We have a huge ice pack up there about 12 inches thick and it seems to be melting and leaking down through the wall. The walls are dry so far. But we can see that water comes at the base of the walls after we clean it up and wait a bit there is more water. This is in the two rooms next to outside walls on the front of our house upstairs. In our basement we don't seem to have any water at this point. It is so frustrating and I feel at a loss as to what to do about it. Clayne was up on the roof last night trying to dislodge some of the ice and shovel off some snow. The fact that it snowed again here this morning doesn't help.

I am trying to be patient and not stress too much before we get someone in here to tell us what to do. I had a migraine last night and haven't had a full blown one for a few years so that tells you how stressed I am. One of the rooms effected happens to be Cheyenne's and she is acting like I am ripping up her room just to make her life miserable. This does not help my stress situation. I just want to slap her lol. I am not going to though. The carpet and pad is only 6 months old to top it all off.

Anyway....STRESS!!!!!! I'll lyk what we find out. Hope you have a good day.

Grocery Deals - week of Feb 6

Albertsons

The following are 10/$15 but when you buy 10 you get an instant rebate of $5
Betty Crocker cake mix, frosting, brownie mix, cookie pouches or warm delights
Hamb., Chicken or Tuna helper
Betty C. Potatoes
Chex or Gardetto snacks
Bisquick mix
Totino's pizza rolls
Pop Secret popcorn
Green giant vegies

The following are 10/$20 but when you buy 10 you get an instant rebate of $5
Progresso microwave soup bowls, or regular canned soup
Nature valley granola bars
Yoplait go-gurt or mulitpack yogurt
Pillsbury cin. rolls or create-n-bake cookies, crescent rolls or grand biscuits
5 lb Gold medal flour
Betty Crocker fruit rolls or snacks
General mills cereal
Fiber one bars
Betty C. muffin mix
Pillsbury toaster strudels or scrambles

Buy one get one Free on several of the meats

Smith's

$1.89/lb Chuck roast
2lb/$3 red seedless grapes
69 cents Betty Crocker cake mix
2/$1 Campbells ckn noodle soup or tomato soup or spaghettiOs
2/88 cents Kroger canned vegies
5/$10 Kellogg's cereal

Tagged - about Clayne

So it has only taken me a week to finally find the time to post this "tag." Anyone who reads my blog and hasn't been tagged, feel free to post about your honey on your blog.

What is his name? Clayne, Hun, Mr. B

How long have you been married? 18 years and 4 months

Who long did you date? 7 months

How old is he? 44 - but I'm not that old. He's 6 years older than me.

Who eats more sweets? Me - Clayne hardly eats any.

Who said I love you first? Me - I think - that was a long time ago!

Who is taller? Clayne - Most people are taller than my 5'3"

Who can sing better? Me - It is best if Clayne doesn't sing too loudly - it is ok in a congregation

Who is smarter? Depends on the subject. We balance each other well.

Who does the laundry? Me - always! He was fired long ago. He probably shrank things on purpose.

Who pays the bills? Me - and I like it that way.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Clayne.

Who mows the lawn? Clayne - unless he wants to pay for me to go to the chiropractor.

Who cooks dinner? I do 98% of the time. When I'm gone it is left overs or take out.

Who drives? Clayne - I love to sleep when we are on road trips - yep, I'm great company. Zzzzz

Who is more stubborn? You all know it is me!

Who kissed who first? Again... this was a long time ago, but Clayne was pretty shy - so I had to start things up.

Who asked who out first? He asked me out to go skiing at Beaver up Logan Canyon. But before this date night, he asked me out again and we went to Wendy's and then bowling at Logan Lanes.

Who proposed? He did - but we had talked about it for a few weeks before he really asked.

Who has more siblings? We are equal. We both come from families of 6 kids - 3 boys and 3 girls in each.

Who wears the pants? Clayne lets me most of the time and the rest of the time he is smart enough to let me think that I do.