Blessed!

I may be broken, but it is when I am broken that I realized how blessed I am. I want to say thank you for all of the help I have received. I am counting my blessings and naming them one by one. (these are in no particular order of importance)

1. a husband that loves me, even though I am not always a fully functioning wife and mother
2. My children who make me laugh
3. Jenny Benny for taking my kids and being the one person that I could call and ask for help because her life is as crazy as mine (and her house is almost as messy as mine) and she GETS me.
4. Relief Society Pres that won't let me do this on my own....refuses to let me say no to help
5. Anne Havens for being the best compassionate service leader....she has my entire schedule down to a science and is sending someone over to help every second of the day
6. A mother that calls constantly to check up on me (she just called in the middle of writing this list.)
7. My home teachers for coming last night
8. Dave Prymak for chiropractic care
9. the meals brought in from the church.....especially desserts that made my day bright! brownies and caramel popcorn.
10. Reruns of great sitcoms to keep me company on TV
11. My laptop
12. Sylvia loaning me a power cord for my laptop because I lost mine and for tagging along to my Heritage Makers workshop on Friday
13. on that note, Heritage Makers. a fun hobby that I can do while down.
14. Lena, for the uplifting calls and for always being in more pain than I am. gives me perspective that I am not the only one in pain
15. SPOKT....my family's message board where I get to see and hear from all my family far away.
16. uplifting emails from my cousin Carol to keep me posted on her summer travels and for her desire to want to come visit.....it means so much to me.
17. Patiricia and Cynthia for cleaning my basement. Even though I can't go down there right now, I am looking forward to the day I can go hang out in my clean basement.
18. There are so many women at church that I want to thank. I have a list of people that are coming for the next two weeks to help me out....thank you to all of you ahead of time.
19. My pink cast that will help me learn and grow and become a better person.

Broken!

I have had such a crazy 2008!!! I was laid up for four months almost with a sore back and on Monday I broke my foot!!!!

So this is the story......Scott had the day off. We have been having a crazy weekend. You saw all of the posts about dance recital and scrapbook expo and so on. It is also summer Marine Corps parade season and wedding season for Scott's 2nd job at the catering company. Scott is rarely home and I have been crazy busy so our house has been severly suffering!!!! Scott finally had a day off. He wanted to spend the full day cleaning. I wanted to spend it playing of coarse since we never see him. We compromised and I sent him to the pool with the kids and I stayed behind to clean house. He was gone for about an hour and he called feeling a little lonely at the pool and really hungry. He called and asked if I would join them at the pool and if I would bring them some snacks. I told him that the cupboards were empty and we had nothing. He informed me that he had a secret hiding place above the stove for snacks. I quickly grabbed a chair without thinking excited about the stash. And I climbed up on the chair (that was already broken) and while I was still on the phone with him I came crashing down as I went to reach for a box of Nutter Butter Bars. I came crashing down. The dishwasher lid was open because I was in the middle of loading it. I cut my big butt on the dishwasher. Twisted my foot in the dishwasher and hit my left elbow as I came down on the Island and landed on my back. I landed on the same back that was out of commission for four months....somehow miraculously my back is just fine through all of this!!! Yay for my back. The phone went flying across the room, or so I thought, after hunting for the phone the next day we found out that it too landed in the dishwasher. I kept calling out for Scott to come home. I was not sure if he heard me or realized if I fell so I continued to cry out to my neighbors as loud as I could. So on top of all of this I have lost my voice, so don't try calling....I can't talk anyways. Scott and the girls came running in through the door. We shuffled out the kids to other people and off to the ER we went. I broke my foot in two different places. I got a cast on Wednesday.....If you know me you don't even have to wonder what color I got...PINK. I wished my sister Charlie lived closer to me. I know she would have this thing all bedazzled and bejeweled for me!!! I will still have it on when I go to AZ to visit in July....get out the jewels Charlie. This thing needs some help. So that is my broken story.....urghhh!!! What a year. My church and all my friends have stepped in to help. The Relief Society President was at the pool when Scott was on the phone with me when I fell. She heard him frantically rounding up the girls. I am in good hands. I try to look at the upside of it all.....I am going to DisneyLand in July and if I am in a wheel chair I won't have to wait in any lines!

Digital Scrapbooking Is Not A Crime!

I had the experience of being a working mother this weekend....and hats off to all working mothers! I set up a Heritage Makers booth the The Great American Scrapbook Expo. One of my friends from Utah, Trudy, flew out to help me. She brought a friend of hers, Sharon, with her. We set up on Thursday and we spent Friday and Saturday showing off our wonderful product. I was not there with them Saturday morning because of getting to be at Maelee's recital. But I did spend Saturday afternoon at the booth. After the Expo closed we went out to Downtown Old Alexandria and found a really nice Cuban restaurant to eat at. Thank you Trudy and Sharon for coming out! I could not have done it without you!

Trudy is my "Dream Buddy" In Heritage Makers, once you have reached a certain level, you are invited to the Cloward Family Cabin in the Mountains of Utah. The Clowards are family behind HM. I got to attend there what is called Dream Team. This is a three day intense life changing training. Each dreamer is given a buddy, and this is to be their buddy for life. I know that Doug put thought and prayer into each of our buddies. My buddy Trudy and I were matched up so well! I am who she was 20 years ago and she is who I want to be in 20 years. We are MOTHERS! We are so much a like! I love to be around her. I am so blessed to have her in my life. The book we are holding is a book that our Dream Team recently put together. We had put it together for Doug when he was diagnosed. His book is full of letters to him. We all went back into the book and decided to write letters to each other and I just received my copy this week. Trudy and I loved sharing our favorite memories of Dream Team.

The Expo was great. This was an expo for traditional scrapbooking so some were confused and appalled at the thought of digital scrapbooking. Many were glad to see a new way of scrapbooking and are eager to learn more about scrapbooking. I went over to one booth that was selling scrapbooking T-shirts. There were some cute ones but I told the lady that she needed some about digital scrapbooking. She asked me if I had any suggestions for some sayings that could be printed. I said one that for sure needs to printed is "Digital Scrapbooking is not a CRIME!" Some looked at our booth like it was a crime!

Doug's Love....Story of Heritage Makers

So many of you know that I am involved with a wonderful company and product called Heritage Makers. I am all about story and I want to share the story of Heritage Makers with you . The picture bellow is one of me with my dear friends Wendy Mcgee and Doug Cloward. Wendy is my executive leader in the business. Doug is the co-founder and president of Heritage Makers. This picture was taken in April at a Regional Conference in North Carolina. One week after this picture was taken Doug went to the hospital with what he thought was the flu. He ended up being diagnosed with Lymphoma.

His blog can be read at Doug's Love. He started a blog after he was diagnosed to keep his friends and family posted on his health. He has been doing a lot of sharing his life story through his blog. There is some fascinating reading! But he decided in his last post to share the HM story. I wanted to pass it along. I share Doug's vision of what Heritage Makers is all about.

This is the story of our story. It all started, really, with the creation of a concept word called storybooking, the process of creating a scrapbook with more focus on the story behind the pictures and the art, than the art itself. The new concept storybook was also to be a hard bound book, rather than a album of pages and pictures in a binder, the traditional scrapbook approach. The authors of this novel new approach to capturing important life information in a storybook were Candace May and Mother Sharon Murdoch. This was their concept and they paid dearly to develop the idea into a real product service and eventually a business called "My Family Tales". They were joined in the crusade, to launch the fledgling business, by three other equally committed people who have ownership in the birthing of the storybooking venture. They included Christine Crandall, Heidi Arave and Lisa Nelson. There were others who made contributions including Mary Strand who put financial support behind the new business. This history and the people of the storybooking concept and My Family Tales in the early 2000's set the foundations for what has become Heritage Makers. Their vision and mission statement was to "put a storybook in every home" for the purpose of creating real life heroes for the readers, usually children and the heroes were often the authors. Their ground breaking work was a vital preparatory part of the eventual creation of Heritage Makers business. From that first storybook for a beloved grandpa, a book that made him a real life hero for his posterity, we now have hundreds of thousands of storybooks, author's, heroes and children who understand, relate to and continue the legacy of their heroes, traditions, values and heritage. As we moved the storybooking concept, product, people and business into the direct selling system, we did so with the focus of using the heritage enriching power of peoples stories to the purpose, or vision, of strengthening home and family through those stories ability to capture, preserve and celebrate family heroes and heritage. In a sense the story became the means to the ulterior end, or motive, of strengthening the family and clarifying and celebrating the family heritage. We have now grown our business and extended the storybooking process to a much wider audience. With the growth has come the need to clarify the Heritage Makers message and make it more succinct and duplicable. There have been many discussions around this subject. Some of those discussions have sought to broaden the vision, mission and business concepts, but we continue to come back to the foundations of story, family and heritage. Heritage Makers is a family centric message, business and mission. So, who are we - Heritage Makers? What are we? What are we about? And how do we tell our story - clearly, concisely with a reverberating sameness that creates a resonance and conversation that can carry us into the homes and hearts of those who have not yet heard our name nor our story? For the record. Heritage Makers is about family heritage. And heritage is captured and transfered though the medium of the family's stories, even when it is about individuals' stories. In one sense we are a business of "family life publishing". We publish books about family life. In is simplest terms Heritage Makers is binding families together through the power of their own stories.

Caution...HOT HOT HOT

Maelee had her dance recital. She was sooooo cute! She could not stop smiling. Then she got the giggles when she saw her sister sitting on the front row dancing along to the music. We were very lucky to be on the front row. Last year we were in the back. I am cursed with being late all of the time! I heard my husband on the phone tonight talking to his dad and he said, "yeah, Channon is the queen of procrastination." and I thought "wait, I am not the queen, My mother is the queen. I am the princess of procrastination!" But for once in my life I was on time. Only because I did not listen well while the teacher was giving instructions on the times. And I sat through three of her speaches since I was in three different classes taking pictures. I had to have maelee to the school by 10:30 but I thought I heard 9:30. And I thought it started at 10 and not 11. So I got to the school and the parking lot was empty. I was the first in line! Yay, we got the front row! I am doing this again next year! I got some of the best pictures! Then on our way out I saw some caution tape that had fallen off of a door and I wrapped it around Maelee. She was so HOT HOT HOT!!! These were some of my favorite pics. I still have another 100 I could post. But I think I will wait and post the book when I am done.

Tiny Dancers

So I spent time this week in the dance studio taking pictures of some really cute dancers. Last year I made a wonderful book for my daughters dance teacher. Some of the moms fell in love with the books and asked if I would help make books for their class. They also asked if I would come in and take some pictures of their class. So I had a fun time learning more about my new camera. I took a ton of pictures! I took too many of the class right before Maelee's class....by the time I got to Maelee's class my flash card was full and I was frantically trying to go through the card deleting pictures when my battery died. I wanted to cry!!! I did get about 10 pictures of Maelee's class. The lady next to me said, "well that should be enough"...she does not know me! I got 200 of the class on Monday. 300 pictures of the class before Maelee's and 10 pictures of my own daughters class......so sad! and Maelee is only in 3 of those 10 pictures. I am hoping to get pictures from other mothers so I can make the class book. Here are my dancers.

You Know You Have Had a Fun Day When Your Camera's Flash Card Gets Full

I filled up my flash card in one day.....I had such a fun day. We celebrated the last day of school with a fun primary activity at church. We played water games and ate more fun summer treats.

Last Day of School Tradition...so fun

I ran into my neighbor yesterday and she asked if I had my water gun ready for tomorrow. I had no idea what she was talking about. She told me that it was tradition on our block for the parents to hide behind the bushes on the last day of school at the bus stop. This sounded like so much fun. She said they greet them as they come off the bus with water. One dad even hides in his backyard and sprays the kids with his hose as they walk by his fence. I had Lauren (little girl I tend to) shoot the water while I shot the photos. After that we had a little party with cup cakes and summer treats. What a fun neighborhood I live in.

Last Day of School...and the last morning of fighting

The hardest part of Maelee being in school is the daily fight in the mornings. We fight over clothes to wear, brushing hair, what to pack for lunch (pack or buy, she always wants to buy), snacks, and she has wanted to wear flip flops everyday this year, even when it was snowing. So now the fight is over. As a treat this morning I let her pick out whatever she wanted to wear, buy her lunch, wear her hair however she wanted, take candy for a treat, and even wear flip flops (they aren't allowed at school, but what are they going to do, kick her out??? So now she is a first grader. and we have a wonderful summer ahead of us with peaceful mornings and the fights are over. .....and Delana helped me wish farewell to Maelee, she even tried making sure Maelee had her umbrella....we spent many days this year chasing Maelee down because she left without her umbrella.