Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Ashley's Shower

Ashley came home last weekend for her bridal shower. My friends Brenda and Lynette put it on and lot's of friends helped with food! Saturday was a very busy day! We had 2 different stake events and a wedding reception. So we were so happy that people came!

Cute decorations!

Yummy popcorn to take home.

lots of presents!

great food!

Brenda and Lynette

Michele

Staci, Taylor, Lori and Sherry

Silly Rene'e (she took most of the pictures for me! Thanks!)

Cute Afton

Staci, Melody, Linda and Lori
Kim, Kathy, Tiffany and Jenn

Scotty's sister Jenn and Carson

Fun presents! I want this!

Leah working hard on the hat...

From Grandma Barnes

A hat made from all the bows...
Ashley with the car loaded up. We are so thankful to everyone! It was a great day!

Homecoming Week

Last week was homecoming week. It's been really busy the last few weeks for Mitchell.  He is on student council again this year and they spend weeks preparing for this week. It was especially fun since it is his senior year! He was a powder puff cheerleader. It was so funny!

Powder-Puff
Mitchell and the boys...

silly boys!


Mitchell, Kenny and Bryson


Michelle was one of the coaches. She was so cute with them!

M & M


The whole gang...

The Hallways
After the game I snuck into the school to see the hall decorations.  The hallways are a big deal at Bonanza. They cover all the halls with amazing posters and artwork! Each grade level gets judged and the winner is announced at the football game. the seniors did a great job this year and of course they won! This was the theme this year:



Mitchell is on the E-board (executive board, student body presidency) They made these first two pics...


Each grade decorated in these themes...


The seniors were Harry Potter. I wish this picture came out better. His friend Collin painted this! It was beautiful!




Collin painted this one too!












I am so glad I made it in to see them! They were amazing as usual! 

The football game and floats

The senior float at the football game

Collin, Mitchell, Michelle, Karli and Kristen watching the float go by.



The Dance

Mitchell took Michelle to the dance and they had a great time! They met for pictures and then went to dinner at DW Bistro, then they went to the dance, next to see Penn and Teller on the strip, then dessert at Serendipity at Caesars Palace and then home.

Michelle looked beautiful!





All the boys!



The whole group






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Mitchell has been friends with Karli and Jake since we moved in! It was fun to see them all grown up and going to homecoming together!
We enjoyed the week and we are glad it's over. Now we can see Mitch and he can work on some homework instead of floats and hallways!



The Creative Connection

 Ok, so the whole "what I know for sure" thing didn't really work so good for me. Life has been crazy! I iwll just blog normally and add a few here and there!

A couple weeks ago I went to St. Paul Minnesota to help out at The Creative Connection. My friend Stacy was speaking at it and her company Big Picture Classes was having a booth there. So I went to work the booth and have fun with old friends! I hadn't seen Wendy in so long! She and I go way back to working at Simple Scrapbook Magazine. We used to travel a lot together.

We arrived on Wednesday and we spent the evening gathering supplies for the booth and meeting up with our good friend Cathy Zielske. She took us to a yummy Chinese restaurant. It was so fun catching up with everyone.

Kayce (co-owner of BigPictureClasses), Wendy, Cathy, Me and Stacy

After a two hour trip to Target (we went to the very first Target!) we went over to Cathy's house. It was so cute. She's been doing lot's of remodeling.
Kayce, Stacy, Me, Wendy and Cathy
This convention was pretty cool. It was different than the normal scrapbook conventions that I usually go to. It was for women in creative businesses-mostly for themselves: authors, designers, crafters, artists, sewers, food writers, small store owners, jewelers, marketers, publishers, everyone blogging and some people who blog BIG…a lot of people who make things and sell them, some in a big way.  There were people just starting out, people mid-stream and people who have been incredibly successful. There were classes on different crafts and all the meals had big keynote speakers. Most of them talked about how they "made it" in the industry. They had classes on how to make your craft a business and make money from it. There were publishers there to sign up book deals and stuff.  My friend Becky Higgins made a cute video showing all the things that went on... click here to see it.

This was at a book signing. Cristina Ferrare was there and spoke one night. She has an amazing story. (if she looks familiar, it's because she used to co-host GMA and substitute for Kathy Lee and now she has a cooking show on Oprah's network!

  

This cute girl wrote a book about saving the birds during the big oil spill. The lady in the glasses is
Jo Packham, she is the editor of Where Women Create & Where Women Cook magazines.


They had a market place where lot's of crafters had booths set up selling their stuff. This is our booth! We had a photo-booth in it! It was great. People had to sign up for an account at Big Picture Classes to get a photo taken.
We had lots of fun in the photo booth!
I grabbed this picture of the market place from the house of smiths blog. It's amazing what you find when you google!

I had a great time! But as always, it was good to come home! This trip was a little long for me.

What I know for sure...


Beating the Heat

It’s always a hot summer in Vegas and we always try to find ways to beat the heat.  So today’s post is to give you some ideas to help you beat the heat too.  Of course, there’s always going in the pool or mall.  But when you’re home and it’s hot, it can really get uncomfortable.  But ever since we got our shutters, we’ve been able to keep our house much cooler in the summer.
Most of you know that John works for Sunburst Shutters & Window Fashions and loves it.  We put their Polywood Shutters in our home because they are the most energy efficient.  And I can tell the difference.  Our plantation shutters are really great at blocking out the summer heat.  I can feel the difference in every room. 
We’ve had our shutters for about six years now, and they are still just as beautiful as the day we got them. Yes, this may sound like an ad for John’s company, but I know they’ve helped us save on our power bills.
If you’re in the market for new window treatments or if yours are due for an upgrade, look at the options available at Sunburst. They have great shutters, of course, but also blinds, draperies, shades and more.   
Judging by our experience, I can assure you that you’ll love them. They are gorgeous shutters that can stand up to just about anything and will last you a long time.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

What I know for sure day 3



What I know for sure: "Enjoy the moment" is true!


This quote hit me really hard the other day. I was driving home from watching Afton & Jack and they were really sick and I began thinking about these days:

crying babies, poopy diapers, no sleep and having to entertain the kids. I'm not sure I enjoyed the moment enough back then. I let myself get stressed out and I would long for the days that they would be old enough to do their own things. No diapers, no car seats, no teething babies, no ear infections and all those things.

Now that my kids are at this stage:


I long for the good old days when they were little and depended on me for everything. I wish I could still control where they go, who they play with and what time they come home.

So, as I was on this drive home the saying "enjoy the moment" came to my mind and I realized that's what I needed to do! I need to stop crying that my kids are getting too old and just enjoy them at this stage! They are really fun right now, they make me laugh and make me so happy and I love them so much!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

What I know for Sure Day 2

I know for sure that I am not a morning person!

I had to drive John to the airport at 4:30 this morning and it was really hard! I barely said 2 things the whole way there. I would much rather stay up late than get up early! That's what I know for sure today!

Monday, September 5, 2011

What I Know For Sure Day 1

I read a friends blog the other day and she spent a few days writing about "what she knew for sure." Like in the Oprah magazine... I thought it was a great idea and decided that I should dedicate the month of September writing about "what I know for sure." I know, I am already 5 days behind! Oh well, I still like the idea and I will do my best to do it for the rest of the month!

***note: these are in no particular order! Just random things. One day I might do my family and the next might be the color red and the next might be my faith... who knows...

What I Know For Sure:

I know that I love John Barnes more than anyone else in my life! He is my joy, my rock, my best friend, my confidant and the love of my life!

He celebrated a birthday last week and I think he he is still as young as the day I married him! We celebrated by going to dinner at The Yard House up at Red Rock. We weren't that impressed with the food. Stick to the burgers and fries if you go there.

I know I am one lucky girl to have this guy in my life!!




He tried to be happy about the Bears apron. I guess he thinks men don't wear aprons. I thought it was pretty cool and he could BBQ in it!


Ashley & Scotty


My silly boys!

Happy birthday John!