Happy Mother's Day and Heritage Makers

So first of all Happy Mother's Day! Especially to my Mom, who doesn't read this, which is why I can post this . . . . http://www.heritagemakers.com/projectBrowserStandAlone.cfm?projectId=1301448&productId=5&projectSponsor=438878

That's the book that Emily and I made for Mom for Mother's Day - with help from all the kids. It was so easy and so fun! I'm excited about giving it to Mom. I think she'll really like it. I went to a conference a few weeks ago called Time Out for Women, and while I was there, I found this company called Heritage Makers. It is a company that encourages you to preserve your stories and pictures together in ways that are useful and fun. They make photo storybooks like this one we made for Mom, digital scrapbook pages, calendars, recipe books, greeting cards, announcements, invitations and all kinds of other super cool things! Everything is completely customizable down to the specific pieces of digital art you use to embellish your pages. But they also have pre-made templates that you can just use to drag and drop your pictures and text in. It is really neat. Heritage Makers works a lot like Pampered Chef or Mary Kay in the way that we have parties, or as we call them, workshops to show people the products and a little bit about how to make them. I am having my Grand Opening workshop this week - one on Tuesday night at 6:30 and one Wednesday morning at 10:00. So if you live anywhere close, come on! I am super excited! If you aren't able to make it, but want to learn more, I can come show you more about it or do a workshop at your house so you can earn free products! My website is www.yourstorybookconsultant.com so you can check that out to see more about Heritage Makers. Let me know what you think!

While I'm in the Updating Mood . . .

These pictures were taken on Christmas Eve . . .

We got up and opened our presents to each other and then decided to go to the mall to do a little more shopping . . . why we decided to go to the mall on Christmas Eve I will never know . . . I'm crazy. I knew the mall would be pretty crazy, but what I didn't know was that all the rain we had been getting was causing extreme flooding. I called my mom to ask her something when we were almost there, and she told me that the roads were supposed to be bad, so we started listening to the radio. They said there was water over the freeway and it was slow going, but we decided to keep going because we assumed the road would be closed if it was really bad . . . Not true . . .

This is the first picture I took as we started to see all the flooding on the service road

This was my view out my window . . . I felt like I was in a boat . . .

I don't know why we didn't get in the other lane . . . almost no one was driving in the right lane, but I don't know that the left one was much better . . . You can barely even see the lines on the road

The service road was closed and completely flooded. Some how people were still driving on 67/167, but I don't know why. Once we saw how bad it was, there was no where to turn around. I was really scared while we were driving through it, but somehow we made it. These are the best pictures I have, but they weren't even in the worst parts.

I love a good Snow Day!

It started snowing yesterday morning and snowed most of the day and night. It was still snowing a little when we woke up, but has stopped now. Our yard is covered with a thin layer of snow, and I guess the roads around here got pretty bad. The bridge between our house and my parents' was closed due to some accidents there last night.

We enjoyed staying up late playing Battleship and Scrabble, drinking hot chocolate, and eating cookies. We received our phone calls confirming that we wouldn't have school around 9 and 9:30 last night which was nice. This morning we were planning to get things done around the house first and play in the snow later, but the sun came out and we were afraid it might melt, so . . . .

we got out and built a snowman with Trent, Tristan, and Trinity, my cousins who live on our street. So, I know he's pretty wimpy, but we got cold and tired, and there isn't THAT much snow. We're old . . . This snow is so powdery and light and sparkly. You can really see each flake! I've never seen snow like it in Arkansas!

It's so nice to have an extra day to get settled in and get a few things done before we get back to work. The past week has been pretty busy. Days like today remind us how glad we are to work for schools and close to home.