still me

happy new year!

It’s Sunday night…the house is quiet…everyone is sleeping. It’s cold, and so my hot chocolate is especially enjoyable! I haven’t taken the pink trees down yet. So I am still enjoying the pink glow as I sit here with the lights out enjoying some quiet. It feels like I haven’t had any quiet in awhile…I have been way too tired to stay up late for my usual ‘alone’ time.  We have so been enjoying our ‘holiday’ week. everyone is off school, so the kids have had friends to play with everyday… happy kids=happy mom! (most the time). Although yesterday I totally bummed them out by making everyone WORK all day cleaning house. It takes all of us to get the job done, and occupy the babies so that Capri isn’t un-doing all that have been done as fast as we do it! do you ever have that experience when you sweep, and there is so much dirt on the floor, that you wonder how you have been living in that ? lol… and I did my 2 VERY LEAST favorite tasks: clean out fridge and clean showers. Despite the fact that I HATE doing both… they are the thing that I LOVE having clean. So I guess that is it’s own reward. Everything smelled so nice and clean… that is until this morning. So, yesterday eric got me a Chinese crock pot. Of course, I have no idea what the settings are, and I supposed that I shouldn’t have assumed that they work just like my crock pot at home… cause as we were heading out the door for church I dropped some chicken and bbq sauce in the crock pot and set it for 4 hours. … meanwhile, we went to church, eric and I had been  asked to speak today…so I guess I was more concerned about that, than the crock pot situation…as we got home, the house seemed smoky and it smelled like something was totally burning. Who knows what setting the crock pot was on, well- HIGH I guess… LOL. But the chicken was burned to an absolute crisp. I was so bummed about the STINK; even more than the fact i had to figure something else out for lunch. So, I switched gears, defrosted more chicken and made some yummy chicken tenders, and whipped up some banana bread in my new mixer! I popped it in the oven as we ate, and right after dinner, I went to put Connor down for a nap, and wound up laying down and .. you guessed it: BURNED the banana bread. UGH. More stink. I hate that! because you kinda get used to the burn smell in your house, and you don’t really notice it, but then when someone comes in , you know it totally reeks to them! Chuckle. I wonder how long before it won’t smell bad in here! I have been burning my cucumber melon gold canyon candle…and so now it smells like burned cucumber melon.
Tomorrow is New Years Eve. 2008. I swear, it was just barely the year 2000 when we had our generator ready, as there was that twinge of a concern that maybe everything would come to an abrupt halt as the new millennium rolled over. Can that possibly be 8 years ago? I can remember what I was wearing… and what we were doing. Time does fly. I have been doing a lot of thinking about 2007, and what I hope for in 2008. I love the whole ‘fresh new start’ thing that comes with a new year. I want to make it awesome. I want to live it to the fullest. I have a few things that I want to really make an effort to truly improve in. one of which is that I want to do a little better PLANNING and Preparing. I am such a last-minute-fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants girl… but I think that it’s time for me to plan a little more carefully, in effort to be more efficient with my time. I have been carefully evaluating how I can get more from my meager 24 hours in a day! It just seems to never be enough! So clearly, I must get more from those 24 hours.
I am not going to attempt to assume what 2008 will bring. I have learned to expect the unexpected…but what I did learn from 2007 is that no matter what it brings, it’s important to LIVE each moment. To be conscious, and purposeful…and present.
Tomorrow night we are having a bit of a party here… we have reserved our clubhouse, and invited some families to celebrate a new year of opportunity, a new year of hope, life, growth, adventure, challenges and certainly a new year to remember…and so here’s to 2008… I wish you a Happy and wonder-full New Year… may it be all that you imagine, hope and dream it to be! …………………..we’ll be one of the first to welcome 2008 here in Beijing…it’s going to be great.

PS... if you are interested in coming to see me here in Beijing... Jim West is announcing a China tour that we have designed especially for scrapbookers!  Fundamentally, this is a trip to Beijing...including all the fabulous sights, tastes and experiences you can ONLY get here in Beijing. the scrapbooking part is just a little gravy on a once-in-a-lifetime deal. You don't have to be a scrapbooker to come! but we will be creating a rockin' travel journal... and i will personally show you what i have come to love about this place!  i am already working on cool things to share that will capture the essence of Beijing for your travel log and stuff that will make your scrapbook of this memorable trip truly unique. Jim will be posting the details, the itinerary  and all other info on his site Monday: www.scrapmap.com...be sure to check it out! this is such an amazing destination.

skiing in china??!

Being a Utah girl, it’s really hard for me to want to go skiing anywhere else. I mean, I have been completely spoiled with pristine snow, and mountain conditions my entire life, so skiing in anything less than fabulous, is just not something I am interested in! however… here in BEIJING we live about 40 minutes away from “Nanshan” a Chinese ski/board resort.  It’s pretty much all man made snow, and the mountain, well, it’s not really a mountain like we consider mountains in Utah, but pretty good for here… where the biggest hill you can find is a highway on-ramp. The boys had already been up once boarding, and totally had a blast, so we decided to all go and check it out! we had such a great time. The hills are just the perfect size for the kids…and they can cruise and do their own thing, and you can pretty much spot them from on the lift no matter where they are riding. We met up with some friends, so the boys had a pack of about 6 kids to ride with… and for quincy, it was her 3rd time skiing, so we kept an eye on her. She did SO awesome, and totally loved it. by the end of our 4 hour pass, she was looking to hit the ‘jumps’ in the terrain park, and make her way down the center of the ½ pipe. We all were able to rent gear, and go for 4 hours for about $19 each. Not a bad day! We’ll hope to get back up there again soon!

in the mood to create?

so now that the stress of christmas is officially OVER... the kids are occupied with new toys... the fridge is full of left-overs... so you don't need to cook for a couple days! (yea, right...) are you in the mood to get creative?? maybe win some stuff?
there are 2 contests going on that i wanted to blog about in case you didn't know or if you were totally over the edge getting ready for the holidays when they were posted... maybe now you are ready to think about a challenge!

the first one is a contest that we put together to associated with the December Club Heidi Kit... i believe there are a few kits left if you didn't get one! and if you have one... or just even have some of the contents, you can enter! the rules are here... contest rules so go check that out... there is some good stuff you can WIN!

the second contest is for Creative Escape... We are on the hunt for our 8th teacher! we are looking for someone fabulous that is waiting to be discovered! we need someone that has done some teaching on a local level, and  loves to teach !! you can read all about it on the CE website.. but there are some pretty fresh perks....in the form of cash AND fame!! LOL... we'd love to see what you have to show! and if you know someone that you think is AWESOME, and a great, inspiring teacher that you have had classes from... be sure to tell them about the contest, and convince them to enter!!

Good luck! we can't wait to see what you come up with!

merry christmas

There is nothing like Christmas morning! It’s just so exciting.. and we  love to torture the kids by coming up w/ every excuse not to get right to the presents… like putting on music… and having to brush teeth, and change diapers for babies… and get a bottle for connor, and then making them open their stockings one at a time! Youngest first! Lol… it's funny each year how bad everyone looks in Christmas moring photos cause we all have the bed-head, puffy eye thing going on. but usually you can make up for it w/ cute Christmas eve PJ's...but i totally forgot about that until it was actually christmas eve, and they didn't have any cute matching, photo friendly PJ's going. it turned out to be fine, as all 3 of the older kids and Eric crashed out on the couch about 9:30pm and slept there all night! So not only did we have classic bed head, we had...wearing-the-same-clothes-as-yesterday thing happenig!

I forgot how much fun toddlers are on Christmas morning. With the bigger kids, they just want to move onto the next gift… but if it were up to Capri… she didn’t want to have to move on! She loved it all!! And she would get soo excited: clapping and screaming and dancing. And she has some sweet moves! Seems like there were a lot of things for her to dance to! The kids got a wii…boys got myachis (if anyone in your household got a myachi... you can see them do tons of tricks and see what it's all about online. there are a few different sites that have littel video clips and stuff on how to do it etc.) and a electronic keyboard (q is taking piano lessons), there were various toys that have loud annoying music, but watching her dance, dance, dance… totally made it worth it!
This year, we had ‘virtual’ Christmas  with our families over video chat! That was awesome… it was ALMOST as good as being there! Now if we could just figure out how to digitally transport ourselves… like star trek.. that would be perfect! 
Eric totally surprised me this year. I didn’t need anything…or ask for anything… but one of the things I guess I complain about is not having my kitchen aid… i mean, it’s not pink, but turns out, I use it all the time, and I have been missing it. and I wanted to try to make cinnamon rolls, but you have to have a real mixer. SO… he found out where to get one, from like a restaurant supply place. It’s a totally heavy duty, hard core mixer… industrial type. I was totally laughing. He won for super thoughtful gift! So I am going to attempt sweet rolls this week! (wish me luck).
After we were all done w/ presents, and chatting, and cleaned up a bit, we went to hang out at some friends’ home for the afternoon… it was so nice just to kick back, eat some yummy food.. and they have a sweet set up for watching movies, so we watched “Son’s of Provo”… it’s a satirical movie about a mormon boy band, filmed in that ‘documentary/interview’ style like “Best in show” and “the Office”… it was pretty funny, cause one of the main characters (a guy) works in a scrapbook store in Provo.  So funny.
I took a minute to photograph our Christmas card… as I was planning what I wanted to do, I wanted it to ‘chinese-y’…and Christmassy. I had planned on using a photo that was taken the morning of the first snowfall (only snowfall) this season at the ‘Summer Palace’. So, I had something all worked out, but then decided that what I was planning would take up too much of my precious ink and cardstock resources. SO I had to re-think. I needed to come up w/ something that I could get here… something that would be interesting.. this is what I came up with.
I bought a bunch of ‘tourist maps’ (nevermind that they are the Chinese version: no English). I made a band to go around the map that said: ‘walking in a BEJING wonderland” … on the inside, I adhered a little letter, and a bunch of photos that had been taken while we have been here, and stuck those on the map in the close-to-geographically-correct places where the photos were taken. I got a little carried away, and wound up w/ 10 photos on the inside of the map. Then it worked out to have Kylee take them to my mom, who took care of the distribution! (thanks to you both!) Making and receiving Christmas cards is my favorite tradition. Right up there with the pink trees. i always have so much fun putting them together!
Enjoy your Christmas week! Be safe… have fun… stay up late… make it a Christmas to remember!

I have to say that one of the best parts of Christmas is how well the kids seem to get along together as it gets closer and closer! I know, I haven’t blogged in FOREVER. I am not even sure if can remember all that has been going on around here… feels like my world has been in hyper drive! Isn’t that how December ALWAYS is? For us it is! Work has been nuts… putting together catalogs, working on new prod., getting ready for CHA summer, preparations for CE…wrapping up my year-long Big Picture class (speaking of, if you haven’t checked out the new year-long class…4experts… I think it will be amazing!) We also celebrate our anniversary and erics b-day on the 21 and 22nd respectively. This year is 13 for us… and we snuck away for 2 nights and stayed in the city. We ate good Chinese food, and for the first time in those 13 years, had Christmas ‘wrapped up’ before Christmas Eve… For e’s b-day, I bought him a super turbo RC helicopter, that creates almost as much wind as a real one!  We had a fun day together.
Kylee went home for Christmas! She will be gone for 3 weeks, and we miss her so much! She is so fun to have around. But it was a great way to get presents and my Christmas cards back to the states for distribution! We sent her w/ a huge bag of goodies! … and I am such a dork, I stayed up the entire night getting everything ready to go… including making our Christmas card… e and I were both cranking them out. I will photograph one, and post it… it turned out SO cute. It was all about using the resources that were available to me here!
So what else…? For about 5 months, I have had elbow pain on my right arm. It keeps getting worse,… SO I thought, what the heck, we are in China, may-as-well do the acupuncture. Can I just tell you… it’s been AMAZING. This is my first experience, and although eric has done it and had great results, I have just not been into the needle concept! I seriously can’t believe the improvement in my elbow- and also my ankle that has been bothering me since I twisted it the day before we moved here. The guy I goes to is so nice and so sweet.. only speaks Chinese, but his wife speaks a little english. We spend our sessions teaching each other how to say words that relate to the acupuncture. The whole process is really amazing.
I have been getting a lot of emails from people wondering what is Christmas like in China? I think that for me, this has been one of the most powerful and wonderful Christmases in my life. I don’t want to forget how I am feeling, or what I am feeling. In general, Christmas stresses me out. buying gifts stresses me out…. you want the recipient to like it.. you want to get something thoughtful, and unique. And I like to make gifts… and I am always leaving it to the last minute, and wishing I had planned better etc.  In general, I get carried away in the whole craziness of it every year. Now, while I am still hoping that the kids’ will be happy with their gifts, and that they will be surprised etc, it hasn’t consumed me. From Dec.1st, when we had our Relief Society dinner… and the theme was “Celebrating the Light”, I have thought about that every day since. My mom sent us “the Nativity story” on DVD the 2nd week, and we watched it as a family, and the older kids are old enough to understand more clearly the story of Mary and Joseph, and the responsibility they had in raising the Savior. I have been listening and reading more closely the words of the Christmas hymns that we sing, and coming to a better understanding of that night… and what that night meant, and how it was awaited, and how it is celebrated. The Christmas traditions, such as lights, and decorated Christmas trees can be found all over here. You can even hear Chinese people humming ‘jingle bells’ (not just at Christmas time even). There are lots of images of Santa Claus.  Sunday, we were invited to a Chinese Christmas party… it was preatty awesome. We got together and sang songs, and laughed. As I have questioned a few Chinese, if they ‘celebrate’ Christmas, most don’t celebrate it as a religious event…but more of just an excuse to get together, and have a party. I  think that more than anything, just being away… with a changed environment, well-everything changed, you just have the opportunity to look at everything just a little different.  It is for this fresh perspective, that is the best Christmas gift I could ever ask for. I am SO grateful for my family, and friends..i am so blessed…in so many ways.
In that song I was talking about “Celebrating the Light”(written by Michael Mclean), there is a phrase that says: lifts us when we fall, and answers when we call”… as  I have taken the time to think about the effect that sacred, holy night has on my daily life, I have truly come to respect and reverence Christmas. It’s truly cause for Celebration. It’s almost Christmas morning here in Beijing… all my kids are asleep on the couch- joined by Eric. They are all hoping to ‘catch’ Santa… This will be a Christmas I will always want to remember. Our Christmas in Beijing. Here’s wishing you all a very warm, and joyous Christmas! And may the peace that Christ - his message, and his mission bring, fill your life with light.
These are our Stockings this year... we went to the big, crazy market to get the silk, and faux fur, and i stayed up until a billion o'clock sewing them... wow, seems like there are a lot of us!

catching up

It has been forever since I last blogged… I can’t believe how I blink, and there goes a week! I have been sitting here wondering what I have been doing in the last week or so… i am feeling totally exhausted. The house is quiet, and normally that would energize me, but instead I am wanting to just close my eyes and go to sleep! Tired. It’s been deadline time for me… and if I thought that deadlines were tricky before, try having deadlines when the people you have to work with are 13 hours behind!  My day is everyone else’s night, and vise versa…I have been in the throws of new product design, and receiving all the new samples for CHA to give the final ‘ok’, and working on catalog and packaging samples…it’s been exciting, and exhausting and I think I am trying to recover from a week with no sleep! I used to could stay up for days on end w/ little to no sleep, and I guess that I need more sleep now that I used to! Saturday night was our branch Christmas Party, and we had a great time! Everything went really smoothly, and a good time was had by all. I got this photo that was taken behind santa, as everyone was waiting patiently to get on santa’s lap. I really do love the reaction from the kids when they hear santa’s jingle bells jangle over everyone talking, and suddenly everyone is quiet, then the kids start to let out these little squeals, and start jumping and clapping…always a highlight. I came home and just fell right into bed, and slept ever-so-soundly! Sunday we went to church, and instead of cooking a meal when we got home, I baked cookies! That is a healthy alternative! But I think after …what 4-5 tries, I have finally figured out my oven! I know right where to set the temp gauge and just how long to cook them. I have almost perfected them again… such a relief! So, now…with chips and salsa, and choc. Chip cookies… Sunday is complete! (wink).

Sunday evening, I went over to Keisha Campbell’s home. She lives pretty close to me, and I have been wanting to meet her. She is a Garden Girl and also has done some work for various companies…like Making Memories, and recently she helped Christy Tomlinson kick of her new kit company. Check out her blog… she has made some really cute stuff… it  was really fun to meet her and peak into her studio and her creative space. She has great taste. It was fun to connect with another scrapbooker!
Monday we woke up to SNOW in Beijing! It was SO exciting for use Arizona people. I mean, if it’s going to be this cold…we really deserve snow! We had made a decision to go to the summer palace on the morning of the first snow for a family photo… so we hurried to get out the door and bundled up and sure enough, we got our photo. I am attaching a couple of them here.  The kids made the most of sliding around and throwing snowballs! It wasn’t a LOT of snow, but enough to make things look very beautiful, the way only snow can.
So what do you do inside for fun when it’s sooo cold outside?? Well, we have been taking Chinese classes for the last several weeks, and our teacher Echo (pictured) is also a clay teacher, so she has been teaching the kids how to make a few little things out of clay, and brought them some clay to take home and bake. Oh wow… my kids are having SOOO much fun playing with clay! We have never done that before! (where have I been?) and it’s so easy and fun…and once you bake it for like 10-15 minutes in the oven around ?160 C… they are ready to play with! They have been making all kinds of things as you can see. There is a whole set of mini-christmas tree ornaments made from pink and black clay.. so cute. But I thought this was the funniest… the kids love the movie ‘surf’s up’ (such a great show, such great voices), so they made a bunch of surfing penguins. I loved it how quincy colored this surfing background for the penguins to play with. such a crack up.
Ok, so I am falling asleep at the wheel here…
G’night

just a few ideas...

How is the holiday gift production coming?? Are you buying gifts on-line? Or making them? or giving gift cards?? I have been making some gifts…clocks and mini-books mostly! Shhhh… don’t tell! Lol. if you are looking for some quick, and easy ideas… maybe something that you could give your sister… or best friend! Go and check out the cute clock that I made for kylee for her birthday in November.  I posted it in the inspiration section of Club Heidi. The new December kit is up… as well as the cutie ideas… you should see the beautiful ‘celebrate’ banner that janet whipped up! It’s this month’s download. This alone would be a wonderful gift!  Are you having visitors this holiday? This would look awesome hanging in the guest bedroom or bathroom! I love the black and white. I am feeling really inspired. I want to make one to hang over my trees. Janet also made the cute little mirror frame ideas that I think would be PERFECT neighbor gifts! And I really love the simple elegance of the frame that she created… you could totally pick the frame up from target 45 minutes before any party and have it created, and wrapped in time to go! It’s that fast, and totally fabulous!  … so go to the club heidi site… and you won’t have any excuses to just give gift cards. (unless it’s a sonic gift card… that is my favorite one to get!)