Edible Neighbor Gifts, and inexpensive too!

So I should be doing this over at Gygi's blog, but here it is! I am really excited, and I should have posted this earlier but if ANYONE wants something fun, yummy and easy to do for neighbor gifts let me know! Gygi's is doing a GREAT class tomorrow and is offering our kitchen, supplies and instructors (Um Hello- Christina Miller and I, two way cool chicas) to make:



Caramel/Chocolate Pretzel Rods


Caramel/Chocolate Fortune Cookies







White Chocolate Peppermint Popcorn





Mint Truffles





and

Chocolate Dipped Marshmallows!










Really inexpensive, and best of all-- you dont have to do the shopping, set-up OR CLEAN-UP (that is the worst part!!)


For details go here {if the amount minimums scare you, dont worry I wont hold you to that!}

If you want to come, or have questions: email me at heathers(at)gygi(dot)com!!


And the best part of the class, you can come spend the afternoon with ME! Yeah I know fun huh!

Happy Holidays!

Oh I found one!

Thank you for the advice, I looked the one place I knew I would get in trouble, ANTHROPOLOGIE, and found the cutest dress! I love love love it, just imagine it with a white collared shirt underneath and some super thick tights/leggings, and brown boots..... I guess you'll have to just wait and see pictures

WEDDING IS NEXT TUESDAY! AHHH!

I need EVERYONES help!!!!!!

So my dear sister candace is getting married in less than two weeks. She picked out some GREAT vintage dresses off etsy and I picked mine in about 2 seconds! It came in the mail, and its too big!!! UGGHHH! So now I NEED a cute brown "vintagish" {is that a word} dress. I have searched and searched and searched and cannot find something! Does anyone have a good suggestion for me? It needs to be here by December 1st, if i do it online! AHHH!
PLEASE HELP!!

CANDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

why is it that my children seem to find every piece of candy? I swear I have put it up out of their reach, and then Milo comes walking down the hall with ANOTHER SUCKER!! Good thing I love these monsters! Fun pictures to come, I may post some fun summer photos that I finally downloaded!

Hope everyone had a great halloween, and I am giddy inside for the fun fall and Thanksgiving festivites, its becoming a close second to Halloween for me!! Yeah for FOOD Holidays!

Have a good Monday!

been busy.......

{found here }

Sorry I have been neglecting this poor sad blog. I promise one day I will post some really great things, i just have a few things going on..... boo.

26 day countdown.....

it takes everything i have to wait until october 1st to put up my halloween decorations. in the retail world this stuff has been out for at least a month, so when matt and i got married he laughed and put his foot down and BEGGED me not to put it up until at least the 1st of october, i agreed and sometimes i get a bit anxious so instead of the house i decorate the kids.... {they don't complain}....
dont be suprised if you stop by and see at least one of us dressed up for halloween. we are still deciding what we want to be but it takes all 31 ways of dressing up to get that one perfect costume. Here is todays.... somewhere between ariel and this:





and somewhere around the house i have a small bushy haired blond pirate who hates his picture taken. But he has the best argghh i have ever heard, and his bushy hair is real? Who knows where that comes from, but oh the ideas that are brewing to do with that......i guess we will see on oct. 31st....
HAPPY october!!!!!

oh why thank you

So tonight as I was looking for an old old image for work I came across this blog and got quite excited. If you ever wanted an excuse to come to gygi's she is helping get ya there. And if i were you i would enter her drawing, we have some super classes coming and why not get one for free. The cake kit is super fun too, my fav is the liners, the bake so PERFECTLY!!

Some fun pictures she took:

{yes this is where i work, now you may know why i spend so much time there}

DO IT QUICK!!!

goodnight and good luck....

My favoritist girl in this whole wide world....

Saige had the best birthday, I am working on a post and hope to have some killer pictures from the party. Thank you EVERYONE who came and all of you that helped out. We have the best friends in the whole wide world. Thanks for spoiling our little hunting girl.

Saige has the funniest personality. I can honestly say there is NO one else like this girl. What other 3 year old wants a pink hunting/camo party? She helped plan the whole thing, and her wonderful ideas made me laugh. {All that came you can all thank me for not having you wear your swimsuits, her idea was to go to the fishing hole behind our house and swimming....umm not everyone likes that Saige!!}
Thanks for your silly comments, making me realize you are 100% aware of what is going on around you. Thanks for loving everyone around you and for reminding your parents that we should do the same. Thanks for being so STINKIN smart, I honestly believe that she will outsmart us by the time you are in 3rd grade. Thank you for loving your Dad's passions and for being a girl for your mom. We love that you want to do everything that we both do. Thank you for not being afraid of life, you have a special way of doing everything, and with no ounce of fear. {I always wanted to be that ambitious person that takes every chance and does it 100% and I hope that you stick to that.}
Thank you for loving our Heavenly Father and Jesus and reminding us that we call came from heaven. I know he sent us you to remind us daily why we are here!! Thank you for loving Milo and teaching him. You are so patient with him, even if he finds every way to do exactly what you are doing at the moment. He loves you and wants to be your best friend, and I hope you both stay that way!!

Happy 3rd Birthday! Hope this year is better than ever!
We love you so much and thank you for being our "Dieter".
LOVE YOU!!!

Its kind of like a red box..for books....

I have always admired others that can "get lost" in books. I never really made time to read books. While I was pregnant with Saige, I went through a stage that I did things that I thought I would never get to do once I had children, reading was one of them. But of course I read silly books like "The Devil Wears Prada", and the WHOLE series of "Shopaholic.." Books.. Hindsight is 20/20 and now if I could only take back those times and read things that might have taught me a thing or two, instead of different ways to hide from the credit agencies or how fashion RULES THE WORLD, {I do have to say, I DID quite enjoy ever moment!!}.



I came across this post about a community bookshelf in Germany:

You can read about it here.
hey are located a different locations around Germany stocked with donated books. The rule is you take some books and replace them with those you no longer want. How rad would that be? I might even pick-up reading! If I knew that i could just run by, even at 3 am, and trade it for another book, I might make the time to read. It might only truly work in my dream world, that no one would steal/vandalize/ or just plain forget about. But at least someone else out there is giving people a chance to prove that we aren't all that bad.....

peace out

any suggestions?...

I am NOW, yes it is late almost midnight, deciding that I am BORED with my house. I am wanting a change, a change that costs little to NO money, and a lot of effort. The biggest problem is I like things like this:

Fun bright colors, vintage pieces, things that I feel reflect more parts of ME!!

These are the things that Matt likes:

HMMMMM, how in the world does one combine two different styles, allowing the others likes to be there without looking like an elk/deer/bear fell into 15 buckets of paint...

Oh well, maybe it will slowly creep in the house, I will start in the kitchen and see where it goes from there... wish me luck.

If you find me and my eclectic mix of housewares outside, you will know who won. Any suggestions, please share....

My insight, it doesn't happen very often....

Yesterday while I was driving home I noticed a billboard, it first caught my eye because there was not logo, WHAT SOMEONE DIDN'T TAKE THAT OPPORTUNITY TO GET THEIR LOGO STUCK IN MY HEAD!!, just a background of that nostalgic blue-lined, spiral bound notebook from those days of elementary school, with some simple letters. I first thought, from afar before I could really read it, how cute, someone is excited for school to start! As i got closer, I noticed it was this:

I love it!!!

I love the feeling I got, the chuckle I made to myself, and the feeling that our world might not be this negative place FOREVER!! I don't know if its because I am in a retail work field and many of our customers are experiencing hard times, and sharing those frustrations and feelings with me, but I think this is what we all needed. Not a reminder to go out and spend the crazy amounts of money that everyone was spending, because if anything good can come from this nonsense is that YES we all do need to live within our means, (man those brethren are far to smart!!) but that life is going to be normal again. Jobs will be available and people will be able to go out and do what they love. I googled it and came across this, check it out, I like it!!

But it also made me realize I work at a very unique place. A kitchen store. Actually its more than a kitchen store. Its a kitchen destination. We have been around for over 60 years, family owned and operated. We have some of the most amazing customers that have supported us through thick and thin-- dealing with the grumpy old men, dusty shelves and warehouse feel of our old store, our fire that destroyed our entire inventory and building, moving into a trailer, warehouse, and back again to our current store and old location! We had customers who have seen us through every phase of Gygi's and supported us, a small "Mom and Pop" store, instead of the big box discount stores. These customers have made it so that our store is not in a "recession". People are turning back to their kitchens, wanting to learn more about what they can make, to save some money, but doing it in a unique fun and gorgeous ways that gets all ages into the kitchen. I love the idea!! Imagine if all moms/dads made a unique home cooked meal- at least once a week. Imagine what that might do for all those sad feelings out there, for a brief moment people might forget about the depressed world and focus on that home cooked meal that someone put their heart and soul in to and wants to share it with you!!

One of my goals as a mother, is to make sure that my children feel 100% comfortable and confident in the kitchen. I LOVE IT!! (My secret passion and dream is to one day be able to bake for a everyone and anyone who is willing to eat it.... but that is for another day and another million dollars later!) But our family has always gathered around food, and being exposed to Gygi's at a young age has helped me to develop a love for food and the feelings it can give. I really am not the best cook, Matt will tell you he considers himself a better cook than me, but that is the best part, we don't all have to be Wolfgang Puck or Martha Stewart. If we are doing something we enjoy-forgetting the world around us, the countless errands and cleaning we should be doing, and taking a moment to bake some delicious peanut butter cookies or lemon bars, then at that time We are ALL BE THE BEST CHEFS OUT THERE!!!

So thank you billboard, for reminding me that the world will be beautiful again, people will love each other again, and one day we might all take a moment and share that chocolate chip cookie together and remember that our life is to way to short to focus on the negative. And if any of you want to see it, well its somewhere between 3500 South and Lehi, sorry I don't remember where! (I think around 4500 South, but if you are up that way come see me at Gygi's!)

Preschool for hunting girls??

This crazy "hunting girl" {yes that is how she refers to herself}, is needing to go to preschool! This being my first big kid and she having a mom who is a bit late, needs some advice on what to do!!! Home pre-school could be an option with me being home more, or is it worth just paying and her interacting with all the other "hunting boys and girls"??? PLEASE I need advice, cause we all know next year she will be smarter than her dad and mom!!
AND

...Yes my goal is to update this much neglected blog!! Oh I can hear the cheers and shouts from afar!!

We are so so excited!!!

We just wanted to tell our big {definitely in age not in size}Uncle Josh that we are so so so proud of him! Matt's older brother is graduating from dental school this week and moving back to good old Utah!! Kentucky has had you guys for way to long and we CANNOT wait to have you back. Saige is SO very excited to have Abby and Parker to play with and I hope{ just hope} that Jenni will share her very extensive wealth of knowledge of anything Crafty with me!! We love you guys and get here safe!!! CONGRATS JOSH YOU ARE AMAZING!!

Miracle

Some might say that me actually making a post here would be a miracle, a yes I too agree. But there is a much mightier miracle that occurred the past few weeks that I honestly feel was the absolute blessing of our Heavenly Father's hand in our lives!!

{thanks Bon for the pic, I wasn't as lucky to get to spend the afternoon}

My Mom has been struggling with terrible headaches for sometime now. She finally decided to do something about and found that she had a small brain aneurysm on the right side of her brain. The doctor gave her a choice whether or not she wanted to have it removed because of the small size. Because she had an Aunt pass away from an unknown aneurysm rupturing she decided that for her sanity and safety she would have it removed.
Last night after several several hours of waiting she finally had a successful brain surgery that finished around midnight. The doctor came out to tell my Dad that she was just great and that the surgery went very well. He them proceeded to tell him that he was so grateful that my Mom had chosen to have the surgery. When he got inside he noticed that the aneurysm had grown to a larger size and had actually grown a second one. I am not sure of other details right now, as its only been 24 hrs since the surgery. But we are so grateful for her promptings to do something about it.
I have always admired my Mom for all of her many talents. We grew up thinking we had everything in the world. She made every birthday, holiday and party feel that we were queens for the day! She did everything she could so that we were able to do the dance, karate, singing lessons, or whatever we felt we wanted to be at the time. She would make all 6 of us girls clothes and would do our hair everyday so that we looked PERFECT! Now having a daughter I have a hard time keeping Saige clean let alone SIX girls! She is one of the most selfless people that I know and so close to the spirit. We often tease her that she has these promptings to check up on us, and I'll admit being a teenager it was a pain, but now looking back she was just telling each one of us how much she loved us!
I am so grateful that she followed those prompting and I hope this will only add on 100 more years to her life! I love you so much Mom and am so proud of how well you are recovering from this!

WE LOVE YOU!!!

{and for some beautiful pictures and even more beautiful words check out
these here and here. I love my sisters!!}