Happy Holidays~

Can anyone tell me why the code shows when I upload photos instead of the photos themselves? You can see the photos in the end result, but when I am typing my draft, all I see is code. Anyhow, here are some photos from Christmas. My sister finally uploaded them so I could share. Rylan turned 5 on the 22nd, Grandma turned 79 on the 24th and you know what the 25th was. We have been a celebratin family! It has been a wonderful visit, full of laughs and loves. I will share more photos and stories when we get home. The roads should be okay, but I just dont know about Mae. Today was so awesome. We went to Miracle Hot Springs here near my dads house. It was outdoors and snowing. We spent 4 hours there. They also had an alligator farm, so it was just incredible. I have some photos. I wish I could write a description for each, but I can't figure out this code thing.
Happy holidays!
- K

Here we are!

We are in Idaho right now at my dads. For those of you that don't know, my dad lost my mother 14 years ago, so they aren't divorced like it sounds. Anyhow, everyone is here except my brother Eric and his wife Maddie. They will be here tomorrow. We are having fun and the kids are sledding all day. The snow here is incredible. I don't know how we are going to get home. It is supposed to snow the entire time. Today Shane, dad and Greg are going to go pick up dads snow plow so that we can get around somewhat. Rylans birthday is tomorrow and he is so excited. Yesterday, Shane and I went into Twin Falls to do some last minute shopping. I was overwhelmed! I couldn't believe how many people were out doing the same thing. Idaho people are a trip, no offense. If you're NOT from Idaho, you'll know what I mean. Everywhere I looked it was frizzy hair, missing teeth and blue eyeshadow. The best was while I was at Costco and a guy about my age comes walking in with a cowboy hat, handlebar moustache, cowboy shirt, skin tight green pants and wait for it.......yellow cowboy boots. He was strutting his stuff, feeling good. Too funny. I also ventured into the Sportsman Warehouse to find Brennan's archery items. You think you've seen hicks at a regular warehouse. Boy oh boy! This is like a hicks paradise in Idaho. It was great. I love people watching so it was fun for me. What wasn't fun, was standing in line at Old Navy for 30 minutes to buy Mae one pair of pajamas while she was screaming the entire time. There were carolers trying to raise money right next to us and they couldn't sing above her cries. So embarrassing. Well....I wanted a girl didn't I! Brooke...we are looking at another Adana. I'll tell you more later.
That's it for now. We are all safe, warm and happy. I am not sure yet if we will make it home anytime soon, but oh well. Take care and Happy holidays to everyone!

"It's not going in our yard Russ, it's going in our livingroom".

In case you weren't aware, this is our family's all time favorite movie to watch together. Last night we had the opportunity to go to our church Christmas party but opted instead to spend the night decorating gingerbread houses and watching Christmas Vacation.
Today our driveway was so slick, we couldn't even make it out to go to church, so...I caught up on my sewing and made some cute bags for gifts. We are leaving Friday for Idaho and I couldn't be more excited. I haven't been out to see my family in Idaho since Mae was 6 weeks old. I cannot wait to show her off. I have not only my entire immediate family joining us down there, but all of my 35 cousins and their families as well. My aunts and uncles are like other sets of parents and my cousins like my siblings. It is so much fun to all get together and compare our kids.
A typical conversation includes " oh, she's got the Hardy butt" or "look, he scratches his head the way Grandpa used to". It's too funny. When we are down there, Shane feels pretty left out of our kids genetic pool. I can't wait to be down there.
Take care and Merry Christmas to you all!

Pay it Forward

[Photo]
This is how it works:

Pay It Forward Exchange is based on the concept of the movie "Pay it forward".

I will send a hand made gift to the first three people who leave a comment to this post on my blog requesting to join the PIF exchange.

All the gifts will be made and posted out 'sometime within the next year'. How exciting to not know when your surprise package will arrive!
What you need to do in return, is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog. This Exchange is only open to those with active websites or blogs.

ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS PROMISE TO POST THE SAME PAY IT FORWARD PICTURE AND THIS MESSAGE ONTO YOUR BLOG, WHICH MUST BE ACTIVE IN ORDER TO PLAY. YOU WILL PAY IT FORWARD TO THREE PEOPLE WHO COMMENT ON YOUR BLOG.

I'd love for you to join me! Will you? Other comments are welcome, but only the first three will be my Pay It Forward recipients.

Yay for videos again!

These videos are just precious. I love the ones of Shane and Mae. Shane is just the most amazing daddy. He is so gentle and kind. She adores him.
Mae and Rylan had so much fun in the water and at the fountain. Shane, bless his heart (I love this man) took the kids out of the show just 10 minutes in, because Mae wanted everything. He ended up getting 30 min to himself at the end while I took the kiddos to the car. It was a short trip but lots of fun. We timed the ferries just right at left at 1:10 and returned on the 4:40.

Urban Craft Uprising

As I said in my previous post, I have misplaced my cameras uploading thingamajigger.
This really bites because I have some adorable footage of Saturday in Seattle at the Urban Craft Uprising show. Mae and Ry were playing in the water. Stay tuned for those videos. It was a great day. Shane and the younger ones joined me on my trip to the hip craft show. I found some amazing things and am so inspired by all that I saw. I met some great people and even recruited them for our Indie Banditas show in February.
I wish I could share some photos that I took, but for now, here are some that my friend Selena took. Enjoy.

Yay, I found the cord! Here are some videos I took that day!

Que Sarah Grand Opening!

Tonight was so much fun that I just have to add it to my blog.
My friend from high school, Sarah, is a very gifted designer and has
just opened her own boutique here on the Island. Today was the grand opening
and she asked me to dress up as Betty Paige and model with her other models.
It was a blast. I ended up being the "dresser upper" for the girls and I had so much
fun being goofy with them. I did their hair and makeup and we laughed non stop.
Finally, Sarah convinced me and another woman to wear the corset aprons over our clothes and go strut our stuff. It was too much fun. There was no runway or anything, we just walked around, which was easy to do because half the company included our friends from high school. It was so great catching up and hanging out. So many of us still live on the Island or close by. I spent hour hours at the boutique shmoozing and getting to know Elia, this amazingly funny Portugese woman that spoke with such a strong accent and made me laugh my pants off. She and I are going to be good friends I know it. I have photos, but of course, my camera uploader cord has gone missing.
My friend E had this fun quiz on her blog, so I thought i'd give it a go. Hers is far more interesting than mine, but it is fun to go through what kind of things you haven't done,.....yet!



How to play:yes to anything you have done.
1. Started your own blog- yes
2. Slept under the stars- yes
3. Played in a band- yes
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower-yes
6. Given more than you can afford to charity-yes
7. Been to Disneyland (DisneyWorld)-yes
8. Climbed a mountain-yes
9. Held a praying mantis-yes
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea-yes
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch-yes
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning-yes
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables-yes
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train-yes
21. Had a pillow fight-yes
22. Hitch hiked-yes unfortunately
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill-yes
24. Built a snow fort-several
25. Held a lamb-yes
26. Gone skinny dipping-yes
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse-yes
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset-yup, yup
31. Hit a home run-
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community-yes
36. Taught yourself a new language-yes
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied-yes, not much is still satisfying to me
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing-yes
40. Seen Michelangelos David-yes
41. Sung karaoke-yes
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt-yes
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant-yes
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight-yes
46. Been transported in an ambulance-yes
47. Had your portrait painted-yes
48. Gone deep sea fishing-yes
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris -
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain-yes
53. Played in the mud-yes
54. Gone to a drive-in theater-yes
55. Been in a movie-yes
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business-yes
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen-yes
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies-yes
62. Gone whale watching-yes
63. Got flowers for no reason-yes
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma-
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check-yes
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy-yes
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar-yes
72. Pieced a quilt-yes
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job-yes
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone-yes
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle-yes
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book-not yet
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper-yes
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating-yes
88. Had chickenpox-yes
89. Saved someone’s life-yes
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous-yes
92. Joined a book club-yes
93. Lost a loved one-yes
94. Had a baby-yes
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake-yes
97. Been involved in a law suit-yes
98. Owned a cell phone-yes
99. Been stung by a bee-yes
100. Read an entire book in one day-yes

Where did time go? Here is the rewind

I found all these photos on my camera that never made it to the blog because I was so busy with the bazaar. So here they are.
The photos are of, Myron and Nathan on their first scout campout together,
Mae loves carrots and looks just like her Grandma Julie, and eating out at my all time
favorite restaurant, Shima. It is an all organic, slow cooked, Japanese restaurant.
They make the best Spicy Tuna, and Barbecued Eel sushi that I have ever eaten.
Rylan had been begging for sushi, so we splurged one afternoon. Rylan finally learned to use chopsticks and he was so proud of himself. Mae loved the miso soup
and chicken tempura. Yum. I love ordering the Bento box. It comes with shrimp and vegetable tempura, tofu, salmon with orange sauce, spicy tuna roll and miso soup and salad. I can never eat it all, so I take it home for the kiddos.
Tonight Myron and I worked on his handmade gifts. He made some great fabric bookmarks that have a quilt like appeal to them. Then we used this stuff called "Stiffy" that will make them hard. He has such a great eye for color. They really turned out great. For FHE each week, we are working on our gifts to give. I am hoping we'll be done in time to go to Grandpa's for the holidays.

Christmas tree oh Christmas tree.......

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. We went to our good friends, The Bells home.
I have known them for over 20 years and it is always fun to laugh about the
past. They truly are family. We had a wonderful dinner and dessert and walked
away with a lot of leftovers. This was amazing considering there were 19 of us!
I did bake a 25lb turkey though, so that was nice. I will post a photo of all
of us together later on.
I was so anxious to start decorating as soon as we returned from dinner. Shane made
me wait, so Friday we headed over to our good friends home to cut down a tree.
They bought the old Gregg tree farm and offered us one of the trees. The rest they hope to keep, with the exception of a few here and there for friends.
We were so excited. We scored an 10 ft noble fir and trimmed it down to 8ft to fit
into our livingroom. The kids weren't as excited as me, but I didn't care. I was excited enough for everyone. After returning home, we trimmed the tree and hung up
our Christmas decorations. I love the way the house looks when ready for Christmas.
Happy Holidays to everyone!

We did it!

La Befana was a huge success. It was an amazing weekend and definitely a highlight in my life. I reconnected with my friend from high school, Sarah from Que Sarah, made new friends and bought/traded a bunch of goodies. It was just such a special event and I feel so proud of myself for the end result. Throughout the day the vendors kept telling me how much fun they had and how neat it was. Mostly, all did pretty well.
You can read a review and see photos of Kathy Mack's booth, at this website.
http://pinkchalkstudio.com/blog/ . We will be having another bazaar February 7th, so mark your calendars. I have to come up with a business name for my items, so I need some input from all of you. Which name do you like?
-Lily Maison
-Nettie Mae
-Hattie Maison

That's all for now. I am attaching a photo from Kathy Mack's website. As soon as she emails me the rest of the photos, I will post them here.

Cuteness

Greg, you will reckognize the similarities in this post. Today, after wondering where in the world is Myron, I received a phone call from the bus barn which was not my first. Myron had apparently forgotten to get off at his stop. This was not an isolated experience. After turning down a ride from a fellow bus driver ( you can never be safe enough), I arrived at the bus barn to a sweet little apologetic Myron. After assuring him, that we were more than happy to pick him up and that accidents are normal, he related his story. Apparently, he entered the wrong bus! I asked him how long it took him to realize that he had gotten on the wrong bus and he replied with an innocent "20 minutes." I love this Myron of mine. He is just the sweetest bite of cake that heavenly father could have offered me. He continued on with his story, telling us about how he fell asleep with boredom and that he figured his bus driver just had a substitute that day. Oh how I love this guy.
After posting this story, I remembered another funny story about another of my sweet boys, Rylan. Rylan and his "bestest friend" Hyrum were riding in the back seat of the van. Hyrum asked where he should deposit his banana peel. I told him to just throw it out the window, to which Rylan replied " Hyrum, dont! the car behind us will slip and do a front flip and then the police will come and arrest you!"
He was so sincere, it was adorable.
On another note, I had to go to Silverdale aka Sliverdale tonight. Since it was FHE, we incorporated this trip into our lesson. Shane took the kiddos to Chuck E Cheese after a nice dinner at a local Chinese place. I went craft shopping alone......yes, it was bliss. After the game stop, we all went to Home Depot......yes fun fun.
I couldn't remember the last time we were all together shopping. As chaotic as it was, it was so nice to be together as a family. How pathetic are we?
Anyhow, I am up late tonight just finishing up my hour(s) long crafting spell.
Ciao for now!

Nearest Book

Nearest Book

Here are the rules:

Grab the nearest book.
Open it to page 56.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.
Here's mine:
"Now you attend to me, if you please," said the policeman, taking out a very large note-book and very small pencil.
- Lying on Myrons floor, "The Chronicles of Narnia".
(Computers are set up in Myrons room)
Thanks Brooke!

Rants and raves

I have a few rants I have to get out. Our family used to enjoy the show "Home Makeover" on ABC, now it is like the 500,000+ ring that a celebrity gives to his loved (for the moment) girlfriend. You know what I am talking about. A ridiculous ammount spent on an exquisite gift that could have fed a country. ABC has the right idea but not the right people. There are families all over the country that should be so lucky as to own a home, and ABC's qualified applicants are great people, i'll give them that much but do they really need a mansion? Take this example, a family that has a nice enough home, and yet doesn't have wheelchair access. What?? There are people all over that are in need, give THEM a home! Just my two cents.
On a lighter note, I received an amazing email from a parent of Myrons soccer teammate. Today, against my better judgement, I allowed Myron to play in his soccer tournament on a SUNDAY. I know I know, lord, strike me down now, but after a plea from not only his coaches, his teammates called and I gave in. I worked today and Brennan was sick, so I gave in to them. Tonight, after coming home from work, I was greeted by this awesome email. Trust me, I am not going to get in the habit of the kids playing on Sundays, but this was definitely a welcome message.
From Tara Beatie'

"We discovered a new chemical element in Kingston this weekend - "Myronium". We are seeking to have this powerful element added to the Periodic Table. Right before Plutonium and Uranium. Give me about 70 lbs of Myronium, and it seems there's not much I can't get done.

Myron was completely unintimidated by boys double his size. He was everywhere at once. He's more fun to watch than ANYTHING in my Netflix line-up. Just an FYI that you can be very proud of your kid. He's a very special guy".

- TB

Defitely a moms ego boost. No pictures, I am exhausted from crafting.
Ciao!

Busy bee

I am too busy these days to post on this blog, but feel free to check out the La Befana blog (listed on the right) to see what the bazaar is up to.

La Befana Bazaar

I am getting more and more excited about the bazaar. I just finished creating our new blog.

You can click on it to the right of this post under "favorite blogs". We have some really amazing artists and you can view their items as they post. I have been working on the journals and now will be doing magnets as well. If I get any done tonight, I will post some photos. We are now up to 16 artists and their items are truly amazing and unique. I have a feeling this bazaar is going to be a very special holiday tradition for years to come.

Poetry

A kiss of a flame
the hearts true desire,
a lick of love from an ember of fire,
A souls need, a hang on a wire,
to find out at last your intent to conspire.
To which I proclaim as the ultimate crier,
you never loved me, you infinite liar.


I find that I really love to write from someone elses perspective, so please don't read anything into my words.
My inspiration for poetry comes from my favorite author, Sara Teasdale.

Journals

Here is the finished result of my first journals. I am so loving doing these and will be doing small notebooks and large art books as well!

Ps- Did you vote?

Pretty little girls

I got some really great shots of Mae and her dear friend on Sunday and just had to share them.

I stayed up pretty late making a slip that Mae could wear underneath her dress to make it more "pouffy". I also undid the big flower bouquet that was embroidered on the front smocking.

I love the end result. Girls are just too much fun. I have been crafting like crazy lately to prepare for the bazaar. I have made some flower hair clips that are really popular right now and I have been crocheting some organic cotton blankets. I think I can have about 6 by the 21st. I went into Silverdale tonight on a quest to find a large sheet of balsa wood for my journal covers that I want to make. Instead, I ended up getting photo matte board and had it cut into 1/4ths. Then I bought a bunch of printed paper and I will make funky collages on them. I figure I can pump out about 30 of those. I'll keep you posted on the result.