Christmas goodies for friends and family

This Christmas I made cookie recipe in a jar. I found a great website for masking these jar recipes: allrecipes.com. They had cookie recipes, soup etc. I loved it too bc you could type in the serving amount you wanted and it would change the recipe to fit that.

I bought a bunch of mason jars, made sure they were clean and lined them up on my counter. I chose what pattern I wanted the ingredients to go in. I placed m&m and coconuts on top to fill in ask of the space.

I made a recipe tag so you know what recipe it is and what to add.

Preview of my magnet board, more instructions to come

Adorable baby wipe case

This week I made a baby wipe case for a friend's baby shower.


I found fabric and some batting about 1/4 inch thick. Both were 1/4 of a yard. I found a wipe case at Target for a dollar. I recommend finding a case that closes really well. I could have used one that was better, you don't want it to open in your purse.



I first cut the batting stuff larger than the case. I hot glued the batting on and around the edges. I then cut the access off. I did it for the top and bottom.

I found out that you can go to national parks for FREE during certain parts of the year. We're so going to go at least once this year.

January 15-17 (for Martin Luther King Jr. birthday

April 16-24 (National Park week)

June 21 (First day of summer)

September 24 (Public Lands Day)

November 11-13 (Veterans Day weekend)

Check out the website for other free national park things at:
http://www.parkpartners.org/Special-Offers-for-2011.html

Thank you postcards

For our wedding thank you cards we decided to make a postcard from one of our wedding pictures. It was so exciting to get our pictures back and use vistaprint.com to design our own postcards. We got 250 postcards for $20. The pictures were clear and sturdy. We decided to get envelopes bc we didn't want our faces to be going all over the country.

This is the back which we made black and white in order to write our thank yous on it. As you can see, we wrote our names at the bottom so we wouldn't need to write them.


Here is the front of the card. I was able to add any picture of mine and I wanted to add words with it also.

Goal setting 2011

New year, new time to set goals.
What great time to reflect on the following year and do better this year. It was so great sitting down with my spouse and setting goals for our future. We made them last week, here are some things we read about or discussed before we set or goals:

Why goals were important:
They bring much happiness and growth
We can become even better than we are
We will be more prepared for the future
Down the road we will feel more fulfilled with our lives bc we have already taken advantage of many opportunities and have less regrets.
We have direction in our life and a plan
We decide and make things a priority
Less time could be wasted
Be on same page as spouse

When making goals:
Make goals long-term and short-term
See where you want to be in a year, where do you want to be in the future.
With a spouse, make goals individually AND together
Goals come in many categories: spiritually, work, academically, health, etc.
Put a number with your goal to make it measurable, for instance saying you will go to the gym.... Compared to... Going to the gym 4 times a week makes a difference
Set smaller goals among the way for the bigger goals
Look at the s.m.a.r.t goals

Just remember, right now you could be doing good, but as Elder Holland says we can be better and then our BEST selfs. Setting goals can help us be that "better" self

December goal calendar

In the month of December I decided to come up with something where we could think of others and remember our Savior in the Christmas season.
The first part of the month we would write down at least one thing each of what we were grateful for. I loved this because chris and I would remember the Lord and what he had given us.
The last 12 days till Christmas day we did acts of service to remember our Savior. We helped family, friends, neighbors, and strangers as we served in so many ways. I feel that it really made our hearts tender and open as we thought of others.
This season can new so selfish in wanting. Many see it as an opportunity to gain instead of give. I'm so glad that we tried to put others first over ourselves which is always a good attitude to have all year round not just at Christmas.

Above: this is the top of the calendar I made. I won't show the bottom, but its just a calendar of the month with writing on it every day for the things we are grateful for or how we served.