I love my Cricut (chirp, chirp)

So I really, really want to share some of my Christmas crafts this year but alas cannot yet. I would love to share but then surprises would be ruined of gifts I'll be giving. I'll give you a preview of things I did after they are opened on Dec. 25.


I had a new friend since December of last year. I got my friend for a steal (at the time), but this past week everyone could get this same friend for an even better deal. I don't regret paying the higher price because I have gotten good use out of my friend over the past year.


Who is this friend you ask? It's my little cricut bug (pronounced cricket). It is a electronic die cutting machine. You buy cartridges that plug into this and then you can cut shapes or letters anywhere from 1"-5.5". This is my new best friend for scrapbooking and project making. I used my cricut this christmas to make my christmas cards, gifts for the grandparents, and ornament exchanges with Jordan's siblings. It's just a great little tool. It will be so handy to use for School projects down the road.


I bought mine for $159 last year and over Thanksgiving and last week they were on sale at Michaels and Roberts (Utah craft chain) for $119 (regularly $299). If you do any kind of crafting please look for them to be on sale again and add this cute little friend to your house. I even convinced my mom to get one so she's in the cricut club now too. My older sister Arlene was the first person that I knew that had one and I didn't get the concept until I went to a scrapbook show and saw it and finally understood how it worked.


Anyways, I just thought I'd share my love for this little gadget in my life and the fun things I've been able to do with it this year. My favorite font is Base Camp and I'm out to track down the Plantin Schoolbook while in Utah for Christmas. You can go to http://www.cricut.com/ for more info. They did release a larger one that cuts on 12x12 paper, but I'm content for now with my little bug. (p.s. I don't work for this company just thought I'd share something that I love that I know many of you out there would love too).

We Gather Together To Ask for Some Pepto

I delayed writing about our Thanksgiving and got quickly stuck in the annual craziness that follows leading up to Christmas, but I figured that our little holiday was worth a few quick paragraphs. We packed up on the morning before Thanksgiving and headed up to Beatty. About 30 miles before Kingman, Matthew threw up all over, and we couldn't clean up the poor kid until we got almost to Kingman. It wasn't fun for any of us, and it didn't help that it felt about 20 below when we stopped (in reality, it may not have been that cold, but by contrast to where we live, it might as well have been).

Because we had just been over some little hills, we thought that he might have been carsick, since he hadn't seemed sick before we left and since I had a hard time with that as a kid. He got sick again on the winding road down to Hoover Dam, but by the time we got to Vegas, he seemed much better. We let him eat a little bit, which may have been a mistake since he became violently ill once again about 20 minutes outside of Vegas. Fortunately, that was really it for him, and by the time we got to Beatty, he seemed to be fine and didn't show any more symptoms.

Car sickness, right? Well, we thought so until a few days later, when basically everyone in my family caught a similar 24-hour bug (except for me and Karin and I think one of my sister-in-laws - unfair, I know, since we brought in the plague). Between that and some windy, weather, we spent a lot of time indoors. Fortunately, we all get along, so we had a good time anyway, helped along by a steady mix of football and home improvement shows. Matthew had a great time running around with his cousins, creating messes faster than we could pick them up.

Because I was going to be slammed at work the next week and Karin had to work at an event in Scottsdale, we left Matthew with my parents, who were kind enough to deal with a highly curious child for a week. That meant that we made a return trip (just to Vegas) last week to pick him up and spend a little more time with family. It was great seeing him again, of course, and somehow in the space of that week in Beatty, Matthew decided to start talking a lot more. I'm not sure if it was the time around his cousins during Thanksgiving or some special trick my parents know, but he suddenly has started saying things like "see you later" and "bath." Now he seems to copy us all the time, so we'll have to be careful. On the way home he said, "Wow, cool."