Sunday, August 28, 2011

Blog Hop and win!




Welcome to the Awesome August Blog Hop, where bloggers from all over the Internet have come together to throw a summertime party!

Every blog on this hop is offering a fun prize, and entering is quick and easy. Simply follow the instructions on each blog, leave a comment, and bop right along to the next blog. You can win multiple times, so be sure to check out all the participating blogs!

On my blog, you can win one book from Amazon under $20!  Yes, any book!  You can readome of my reviews or favorite authors if you need suggestions!

To enter:
1. Become a follower of my blog.

2.  Tell me what craft you would like to see made!

3. Leave me a comment and tell me that you've done both things. If your e-mail isn't available through your profile, I'll need you to leave that, too - I can't tell you if you've won if I can't contact you!

This blog hop runs through Wednesday night at midnight, so be sure to enter before then! The winner will be notified by e-mail.

Now that you've entered my contest, come meet all my other blog friends and see what fun things they are offering!


Awesome August Blog Hop Participants

1. Tristi Pinkston, LDS Author
2. Karen Hoover
3. Michael Young
4. Kristy Tate
5. cindy Hogan
6. Julie Bellon
7. Margot Hovley
8. Laurie Lewis
9. Mandi Slack
10. Melanie Jacobson
11. Joyce DiPastena
12. Renae Mackley
13. Debbi Weitzell
14. Donna Hatch
15. Carolyn Frank
16. Marsha Ward
17. Stacy Coles
18. Bonnie Harris
19. Danyelle Ferguson aka Queen of the Clan
20. Diony George
21. Lisa Asanuma
22. Susan Dayley
23. Christine Bryant @ Day Dreamer
24. Stephanie Humphreys
25. Ranee` Clark
26. Tamera Westhoff
27. I Am A Reader, Not A Writer
28. Heather Justesen
29. Rebecca Talley
30. Jennifer Hurst
31. Aimee Brown
32. Cheryl Christensen
33. Rachelle Christensen
34. Imaginary Reads
35. Andrea Pearson




Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Tuesdays

Oh, Tuesdays...  Why do you have to be so busy?  Here's my day:
6:26-We hear Cecilia crying in the hall.  What!  Save the baby!  Scott brings her to me to eat.
6:27-Scott turns to me and asks if I set the alarm.  Yes, to go off in three minutes.  I try to go back to sleep.
7:30-I wake up and make sure Ben got his medicine and we have family prayer before Scott leaves.
8:20-Scott comes home (he had to drop a class that he didn't want to take) and I manage to scarf down some food as I top Cecilia off.  I check my email to find I have a review/giveaway due today, so quickly throw that online while Kira keeps telling me that we need to go.  I know! 
8:40-AAhhhhh!!!  Hurry to get out of the house.  Why are Ben's pants on backwards??  Make the kids run as Ben yells about having to hurry to school.  It doesn't make me happy!  (I couldn't tell.)  I let them walk the last block and take off on my bike.
8:55-Get to school and get my big ol' Art packet out of a locker to head up to my Basic Drawing class.
9:00-Basic Drawing begins.  We had to bring a unique item, so I brought my "Pregnant Pitcher," which manages to fall off my bench and breaks its arm off.  It's almost ten years old and I manage to break it in Art class.  Sheesh.
11:40-After repeatedly drawing my now broken pitcher and a group of items(mailbox, luggage, wine bottle and water container) over and over in squeaky charcoal, we can leave!  I put the stuff back in the locker and bike home.
12:00-I feed the baby as fast as I can and drink at least half a bottle of water.
12:20-Oh no!  Bike back to school for my IT class.  I get there right on the dot!
12:30-IT class and I'm thirsty and starving!  I drink water and chew gum until she lets us go, ten minutes early too!
1:50-Bike home in the 102 degree heat.  Bad car drivers!  Aaahhhh!!!!
2:05-get home.  Feed the baby and Scott helps me make my "lunch."  I finally got to eat!
3:15-drive Scott to school, because we can't pull five kids in a bike trailer.  Go straight home, because I forgot to make Kira a paper Zoey in my Cricut.  Work fast, but still only get half done!  Leah is asleep, so I have to bring the stroller too!
3:45-try to leave to get Ben and Kira from school, but it takes me another five minutes to even get out of the house!  So, I'm late picking them up. 
4:00-get back home with a very whiney Kira (Why do we have to ride in the car, it's so hot, I wish I could walk...) and have to finish Zoey FAST, so I work on that instead of figuring out things!
4:35-leave with the kids to go to school and swap out with Scott.  Luckily he carries around a schedule, so he could tell me where I needed to go!
5:00-go to Music Teacher class, see two women from church, FUN!  I like this class a lot, but am glad it's only once a week!
6:40-class ends and I wait for Scott and the kids to get me.  I call to let them know we got out early and Kira tells me to wait where they dropped me off.  A seven-year-old bossing me around.  Yeah.
6:50sh-They show up and we go to the nearest grocery store.  It's expensive, but I'm Stah-ving!  So, I get food and we came home.
7:30-make French bread pizza, so I can eat dinner.  Have to put the kids to bed after a couple bites.  Bummer!  I sing to the girls and Leah gives me a very sweet peck on my cheek!  She loves her hug and kiss!  So, do the other girls, but it's new for Leah.
8:00-Watch "What not to wear" as I finish my whole half of the french bread.  I was so hungry!
9:00-finally feed Cecilia enough, so she goes to sleep.  Phew!  Ben is still awake, so I can finally trim his nails.  He was proud of me for being careful.  Good news!
Now, exhausted, Ben is still wide awake and I'm still super thirsty.  Good times at the Westhoffs!  This may seem kinda crazy, but oh so much better that my friend's day!  She had to have surgery for a very sad reason and I was super worried about her!  I'm so glad that she's okay and that the Relief Society steps up with no problem, so she was well taken care of!  I still want to send them a pizza though.  Their Pizza Hut is online, so I can order it from here...  I did send her a present via Amazon, so hopefully she gets that soon.  It shipped today.  I figure she needs something after going through all that she has!  That and I love buying presents and her birthday is coming up...

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Remembering

Because I don't feel like writing about something new, I'm going to write about my favorite thing on earth:  my family.  So, enjoy old family pictures! 
 So, we're going to go backwards in time, starting from now.
 Our family in 2009
 When Emma was the newbie
 I still LOVE this picture!  When we had an "average" size family.  Ha!
 When I was pregnant with Kira
 Ben's first Christmas
 And one of my favorite Wedding pictures.  The snowflake fell just right, so it looks like I have a blindingly white smile.  Nice!

There you have it, a little family trip back in time.  I might do this more often, since I have a TON of pictures!


Sunday, August 14, 2011

Another week

I should probably accept the fact that I'm super busy and won't plan out my time well enough to blog more often, but that's okay!  In the meantime, here's the pile of catchup pictures:
 Our family

My sisters and I (Yes, we're all pretty, and they're all single...)

The Foreman clan

Melissa cut Leah's hair and it looks great!

A blast from my past-Nata came to visit and we got to hang out for a day!

The applique I made for Ben's shirt

The appliques and matching hair clip I made for Kira.  She only wore the hair clip.  Gggrrr...

 Goofing off before school.  See how Ben is actually wearing the shirt I decorated?

 After school and before Kira started crying about getting into trouble on the first day of school.
 The special snacks I made that made the school day better.  Phew!  I really need them to go to school daily!  I also made snacks for me!  White chocolate cherries, YUM! 
Emma fell asleep.  What a crackup!

Okay, to fill in the blanks now.  I finished Summer school and ended up with 2 A's and an A- (in Math, so I was THRILLED)!  I read some fantastic books!  I will be reviewing them soon.  We "vacationed" in Olathe for almost a week.  We got Foreman pictures done.  Mainly mom had a friend come and an old family friend was there and just snapped pictures!  Nice!  We're such a huge crew it takes alot to get a good picture! 
 We came home on Tuesday and got everything for school on Wednesday and then I stayed up till 3 am working on the kids' shirts, because I wanted them to have something special for their first day of school (and I wanted to use my new sewing machine).  Kira said she would wear her shirt the next day (she didn't).  Ben wasn't sure about his shirt until I reminded him that he picked it with mamaw.  Oh, okay.  I was glad he wore it!  Kira, on the other hand, is not a very grateful child and will be a lot less likely to get me to make her anything else.  I think I'll stick to my baby and preschoolers!  They're a lot more fun!  Although in all reality we're having Kira tested to see if she has something else going on and she does, but still don't know for sure what.  They want to see her a few times before labelling her, which is fine by me!  She cried on the way home from school because she had five minutes of recess taken away and they only get 15 minutes!  I'm still upset about that.  I understand the whole punishing a kiddo for talking (because Kira absolutely has a hard time listening), but taking away recess is a no-go for me.  I think she should have had to do something to help the teacher instead.  Personal opinion.  
Leah is talking a ton now!  And today before her bath, she said she had to go potty!  She needed the soft potty seat and a book, but she went!  Woohoo!  I'm very proud!
Meanwhile, Cecilia started crawling!  She does a little hop and may launch herself forward, and then military crawl, but she gets around!
Scott got a job at school which thrills me!  He'll be doing maintenance on Wednesdays and Fridays.  I have a very full class schedule and am very excited to start into more real classes.  Especially my basic drawing class!  I have been very impatiently waiting to take this class and made sure that I put it first and then added the other ones!  I really am excited!  I also just ordered a Cricut on ebay, plus bought some crafty stuff and will hopefully be able to make things occassionally in the hopes of opening a store online by December.  That's the plan.  We'll see how it goes!

Friday, August 5, 2011

The Key of Kilenya

Book Summary

When two vicious wolves chase fourteen-year-old Jacob Clark down a path from our world into another, his life is forever changed. He has no idea they have been sent by the Lorkon—evil, immortal beings who are jealous of powers he doesn't know he possesses, powers they desire to control.


The inhabitants of the new world desperately need Jacob's help in recovering a magical key that was stolen by the Lorkon and is somehow linked to him. If he helps them, his life will be at risk. But if he chooses not to help them, both our world and theirs will be in danger. The Lorkon will stop at nothing to unleash the power of the key--and Jacob's special abilities.

About the Author


Andrea is an avid reader and outdoor-er, who loves traveling. She and her husband (AKA Mr. Darcy) were married only a few months ago, and have settled near a river that someday will probably overflow and flood their house.

It took her nearly a lifetime to do so (nine years), but she graduated with a bachelor of science degree in Communications Disorders from Brigham Young University. She plans to open a flying bicycle shop eventually, but for the time being, she is happy teaching orchestra to elementary students.


My Thoughts

Wow!  This was an awesome book!  Here I am in the last week of summer school drowning in school work, and I didn't want to do any homework in order to read this book!  I fell asleep a couple times while reading, because I had a hard time stopping.  You know how it is, "I'll stop reading before the next chapter...Maybe when it slows down..."  It starts off with action and never slows down!  I was very sad when it ended!  I hope there are a LOT of books in this series and even a pre-book that gives more info than the journal entries!  I love all the different creatures that I can imagine how they look!  She "illustrates" her characters and the places they are in an incredible way, but still leaves enough room to imagine the rest (especially the Lorkons).  Andrea is a fantastic writer and I'm thoroughly looking forward to more of her books! 
If you like action and/or Sci-Fi books, then this book is for you!  It is about a teenager, but could be good for pre-teens and up!  Matter-of-fact Ill let my (advanced) 8-year-old read it and see what he thinks too!  I have a feeling that he won't be too happy when he finds out it is just the one in the series so far!

Buy it!
You can buy this fantastic book here for $13.95 or the ebook version for .99!
Do it, you know you want to!
 
This book is on tour!
 
August 1st: Jenni James
August 3rd: Nichole Giles
August 5th: Me!
August 8th: Gail Zuniga
August 10th: Cindy Hogan
August 12th: Canda Mortensen
August 13th: Lynn Parsons
August 19th: Heather Justesen
August 25th: John Waverly


*I was provided a copy of this book for review purposes, and was not paid for my opinions (maybe someday I will be)!