The Greatness You Are Building

I saw this video on Motherboards blog and cried when I watched it. I think all women need a bit of reminder of the great and glorious work they're doing. Of the worth we have, of the valuable work we do, of the precious daughters we are of God.

Poster Print Winner

The winner of the Large Format Poster is:
(I threw a bunch of numbers in a hat and we drew one out)

Kimberly!

Congratulations! I'll be emailing you with the details. Thanks everyone for entering.

Question #2-How I met your mother...er my husband

Asked by Barbaloot (Whom I met at a fun bloggy lunch and knew I would love her blog! Plus she's got great taste in movies.)

Question #2:
Maybe you've shared it and I just haven't seen it...but I wanna know about you and your husband. How you managed to date in high school, wait for him, and then get married:)
-------------

So hubby and I met many moons ago. I was 16 and he was 18 and we were both attending a week-long LDS youth camp thing called Especially For Youth (EFY) in the summer of 1998.

We lived far away from each other (180 miles approx 3 hrs) so when we returned home it was a bit difficult to hang out so we settled on emailing. Later that year he was traveling down to my city with his buddy and asked me out on a date. In December he came over and we went out on our first official date, where he not only asked me to be his girlfriend, but asked permission to kiss me, which I excitedly allowed (yes on our first date).

(I made him take <----- this picture a few months before he left on his mission. It's ok, we laugh at it now too.) So as you can imagine, as two young teenagers it was a bit tricky to work out the traveling arrangements. Looking back on it now I still can't believe how cool our parents were about the whole thing (letting us drive so far so often-esp considering I didn't have my own car). We'd see each other every other weekend or so while we finished out the school year and a bit more often over the summer before he left on his mission. (We got to go to a bunch of dances together but these are my fav two pictures.)

He left on his mission a few weeks after this picture was taken (my senior year Homecoming). I'd spend many a school hour writing him letters which meant he got ALOT of mail. Luckily my parents had plenty of stamps around. It was pretty fun hearing about his mission and he'd send me pictures and I did the classic thing: made him a missionary scrapbook. (What's really neat is now when he shares stories or talks about them I know who they are or remember stories myself.)

So off to college I went, and many transfers and letters later he returned home the beginning of my Sophomore year in college. We dated for a bit and later he surprised me with a visit that Halloween (2001) when he came down to visit me at school. We went for a walk and he popped the question with my dream ring! (It felt like I waited eternity to hear that question come out of his mouth but again, looking back on it now I can't believe how fast it all happened. Well at least from the standpoint of when he got home. :-P )

We were married in January 2002 (yes just 10 weeks later) and had a perfect wedding day (which if you want more details we had lunch at Wendys).

I think I covered it all. What do you think? Any more details?


**Want to play along? Do you have any questions for me? Go ahead and ask!

Question #1: Fear

Asked by: The Head Eagle over at An Eagles View. (Who has a fun blog about life as a working mom, giveaways/reviews, and life.)

Question 1:
What is one thing you truly fear?

I'm sorta afraid of heights (or better yet falling from huge heights) but I can overcome it for the sake of rollercoaster awesomeness. I'm ok going up into tall buildings but I dont do so hot on ledges. :)

I'm sort of afraid of creepy crawlies, or more importantly, ever having to be faced with the idea of needing to eat one (ala Fear Factory to win $$--that is why I could never ever be on that show).

But truly really? I'm afraid of emergency fires. Not candles, or campfires or fireworks or anything like that. But having to escape a burning building. A save-my-family-and-important-papers sorta fire. I used to lay awake at night, as a kid, devising plans about what I would do/take if my house started on fire. I lived on the second floor with the driveway below my window, not a soft landing, so I was always devising plans to not break my legs and save as much of my stuff as I could.

Hey bloggy friends: What is one thing you truly fear?

**Do you have any questions for me? Go ahead and ask!

Smell like Twilight

The winners of the Essence of Twilight contest are

#1 Brie (entry #19)
#2 Jenni Elyse (entry #2)
#3 Brie (entry #14)
#4 Terra H (entry #23)

Congratulations ladies! As I stated on the original post here's how it'll go down: First person chosen will get their first choices of scents/flavors of 2 lotions and 2 lip glosses. The second, third, and fourth prize winners will then go in descending order of their choices pictured above.

Winners please email me your order of preferences. Don't forget to check out some of these awesome companies for unique Twilight (and New Moon, Eclipse) inspired gifts.

• Essence of Twilight for things pictured above plus more.
  
• Infinite Jewelry Co for Bella's Engagement ring and Bella's Bracelet
• Charmed for an assortment bookmarks and cell phone charms and book thongs, and key chains and tons more unqiue gifts like aprons, umbrellas, scrubs, magnets, etc.
  
• Tarls Scribbles for original artwork like eeny meeny mo.

So True

Wordless Wednesday: Creative Trap

(Photo taken by me in Summer 2009.)

Tell Me: Are you curious?

What would you like to know about me?

Ask your questions, any questions. Fun questions, silly questions, crazy questions, random questions. Ask away! And in advance, thanks for playing!


This post was inspired by my bloggy friend Evonne over at Sell Party Of.

The Dark Divine-My Review

So as part of 'The Dark Divine Street Team' I got a handful of swag to pass out and a cute t-shirt to wear (that I proudly wore this weekend to two New Moon big movie events). Plus my very first ARC copy of a book. I read it in 3 days (although had I not been study for my final test ala graduating, that same week I'm confident I could have done it in a day-I really wanted to! But you'll also perhaps notice that instead of just waiting a week the book was burning a whole through my pocket. Or perhaps my nightstand. Ok on with the show...)

The Dark Divine by Bree Despain hits stores in just under one month people. Are you counting down? Because you should. This book is fabulous!

I've gotta tell you I read ALOT (as in I actually counted and it was over 107 books last year). And not all the books I read are recommend-to-others worthy. In fact a lot of times when people ask what I'm reading I purposely won't tell them until I'm done because I want to give them a good honest review and I want to stand behind what I'm talking about and really promote great authors.

Let me tell you a little bit about The Dark Divine. There's this nice girl named Grace, who has a brother named Jude and the two of them have a friend named Daniel. You think you know where you're going but this book keeps you wondering and very invested in the characters.

You can read the first chapter on Bree's website, where she's also hosting 'a huge frakkin giveaway' over on her blog so go enter and tell her I sent ya. She'll also tell ya how to find the first SIX CHAPTERS. But really, I'm pretty confident you're gonna wanna own this for yourself.

Thank You Card Winner

The winner of the Digital Room sponsored Thank you cards is
(as chosen by my daughter comment #4 because that is how old she'll be turning in a few months)

Christie!

Look for an email from me shortly. Congratulations!

Be sure to check out the next few prizes this week including lotions and body sprays and a 16x20 rolled canvas.

WIN a Large Format Poster

In preparation for the Holiday season LargeFormatPosters.com is rolling out another giveaway – 16x20 rolled Canvas. Rolled canvas prints are perfect for home decor, photo prints and signage.


Giveaway Prize: (1) Rolled Canvas for One Lucky Winner
Shipping: FREE UPS Ground Shipping in the US
Eligibility: Limited to US Residents due to shipping costs. We will negotiate better shipping rates soon.

LargeFormatPosters.com is sponsoring this giveaway so one of you lucky duckys can win this for yourself! Check out their Canvas Printing or the fun Poster Printing. You can also see some of the reviews at UPrinting Reviews. I've recently seen this and they're great quality! I couldn't believe that not only was the quality impressive but it was a super quick process (printing/shipping).

To enter:
Leave a comment describing what photo gifts you'd want to have printed for your family and loved ones.

Additional entries:
~Follow me on Twitter @cranberryfries.
~Twitter this contest. (You can copy/paste this: Win a 16x20 canvas rolled custom canvas print at http://cranberryfries.blogspot.com/2009/11/win-large-format-poster.html)
~Post this on facebook.
~Email at least 4 friends and cc me cranberryfries [at] gmail [dot] com.
~Add me as a friend on facebook (or if you're already my friend, could you help a girl out and suggest a few friends?).

Contest will close Nov 29th and the winner will be announced on my blog by Nov 30th.

*I will receive a poster print for participating in this giveaway. Thanks to LargeFormatPosters.com!

Even a little can help.

My cousin Kristin recently has worked with some foster teens in the Salt Lake City area. She has created an incredible idea for Christmas and I'd encourage you all to check it out. A few points:

~Check out the blog link below to get more details, stories, and information.
~These teens are the most overlooked population when it comes to Christmas and donations. ~They usually get what's leftover from other houses. ( One year one of the teens in the home opened the one present he got and said, "I just can't believe I got an actual present and not just candy!")
~The idea is to get their dream list (that's below) FIRST before doing other donations. These are things that not only they would want but really need.

(Click to enlarge picture or click on the Teen Foster link below to see a list.)


You can see what they still need or what's already been purchased at

It's a Very Merry Teen Foster Christmas blog.

I'd love it if you could help pass the word along. Send it out in emails, twitters, facebook, anything you can think of. She's tackling this project not just for a few youth she's hoping to help 17 boys and 17 girls. Even if you dont think you can do this along, get together with a group of friends, neighbors, family members and pool your resources to help.

Freebie Friday: Essence of Twilight

In honor of this eventful weekend (for some of you) I'm giving away some fun products from
Essence of Twilight

Pictured here is: Edward, Bella, Jacob and Nessie lotions. All with their own unique hand-picked, book-described scents. I also have an Alice body spray.
There is also Edward, Bella, Jacob, Honeymoon and Nessie lip gloss.

I'm going to pick 4 winners. Here's how it'll go down:
First person chosen will get their first choices of scents/flavors of 2 lotions and 2 lip glosses. The second, third, and fourth prize winners will then go in descending order of their choices pictured above. Okey dokey? Yahoo go enter!


To enter:
Leave a comment.

Additional entries:
Check out any of the companies below. I helped contact companies for the giveaways and swag bags for the folks in our theater tonight. These companies all kindly donated their products and I thought it'd be fun to share the love. Come back and tell me anything you learned on their site(s). 2 entries for each site you visit and tell me about. (You can leave one comment I'll make sure to count each entry! For example put +2 for blah blah +2 blabbity blah)

• Essence of Twilight gave each movie goer a sample of one of their lotions. And three lucky winners will get a party bag full of an assortment of fabulous products!
  
• Infinite Jewelry Co donated a Bella's Engagement ring and Bella's Bracelet to two different winners.
• Food Should Taste Good donated a bag of (my favorite) Multigrain chips to each movie goer.
• Charmed gave each movie goer one of an assortment bookmarks and gave away 2 cell phone charms, 2 book thongs, and 2 key chains to 6 winners.
• Tarls Scribbles gave each movie goer one of an assortment of bookmarks and/or eeny meeny mo postcard.
• Bree Despain gave each movie goer The Dark Divine bookmark.
• Gnome Sweet Gnome is also doing something crazy cool but since the movie hasn't happened yet (It's at 1am folks and I'm preparing this post at 7:30pm since I will be crazy busy this weekend) so if you're interested I'll add that in later. :)

Contest will close Nov 26th and the winners will be posted on my blog. Please make sure to either have your email enabled in your profile or leave it in your post so I can contact you. Thanks!

A special thanks to all the awesome companies for being so cool!!

*I did not receive any monetary compensation for this post from any of the companies listed.
**I know it's Freebie FRIDAY but I wanted to make sure the post came up ok so I'm posting it now a few hours early.

Enjoy the music (Winners!)

The winners of the original Christmas music Cd's by Victoria are:

Comment #7- Rachel @MyPinkFlipFlops
Comment #3- Jill Hunt
Comment #10- Owen's Mom

Congratulations to the winners! Thanks for entering everyone. And if you'd like to grab one for your yourself or friends, you can order them here.

Wordless Wednesday: It's Official!

(Photo taken by me in 2008 at Brigham Young University of a friend. Photoshoped by me last night as now I can include myself in the loop.)

(As long as I use parenthesis I can say whatever I darn well want on Wordless Wednesday. Right? Ok. Today you get two because I'm just that excited. The end.)

Wordless Wednesday: For Kayla (hehehe)

(Photo taken by me in July 2008 while flying near Seattle Washington's Floating Bridges.)

Tell Me: Traditions

What kind of traditions does your family have for Thanksgiving and/or Christmas?


As a mother of three young children our family is still establishing our traditions and it's been fun to use ones from our past and create new ones together. What things do you remember or have you started?

My friend Brie asked her friends this question recently and it got me thinking about the fun things we do.

A few of my favorites for Thanksgiving includ:
Crafts (like the one over there-->) or making a leaf garland by letting the kids cut, color leaves and on the back writing what they're thankful for.
Board games with the family

For Christmas a few favorites include:
-Driving around on Christmas eve/Christmas night to look at all the beautiful lights and finding our favorite decorated houses.
-Make cookies and put out cookies and carrots for Santa and his reindeer
-Read/act out/film the bible story in Luke
-Read The Polar Express.
-PJ's on Christmas Eve
-Watch holiday movies the whole month!

A few of the memories

Here's a small sampling of our trip to Disneyland. (And a small background first.)

When I was 0-7ish my dad worked as an accountant for Disney so we'd get family passes and we'd go a lot. I loved it! And I think because we were still little when my dad decided to get a new job the magic is still magical to us as opposed to some folks whom I hear grew up in that area and went so often it's no fun anymore.

Any who for our first annual my-side-of-the-family reunion my parents took us to Disneyland.




Ok back to our trip. Obviously most of the pictures are self explanatory. A few highlights included:

~Lunch with the princesses. All the kids got a big kick out of that.

~Day 2 we bought autograph books. I didnt think they'd care, but they did. So we ended up scoping out the characters. At last most of us did. My oldest got shy all of a sudden.

~Turns out my 6 y/o is a roller coaster nut. She rode on Matterhorn, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Gadgets Go Coaster.

~My parents kindly took the kids back to the hotel one evening so hubby and I could stay and play in the park. It was a blast! (We went there on our honeymoon.)

~I love seeing my kids love every part of the trip. The plane ride, the bus ride to the parks, staying at the hotel. It's so fun watching them enjoy all the little things.

~My son was so excited about every thing he saw. It was awesome watching him discover so many things.

~My 3 y/o was loving all of the magic!

~My 6 y/o lost her 5th tooth on the shuttle from the airport to the hotel.

~We had a fab lunch in the Blue Bayou where I even tried a tasty new dish. (mmm I'm hungry)

~We got to see the debut show of The Princess and The Pea. I think we're all looking forward to seeing how good the movie is.

~Favorite characters:
2 y/o: Buzz, Woody, Lightning McQueen
3 y/o: Tinkerbell, Buzz
6 y/o: Princesses

~Favorite rides:
2: Monsters Inc., Nemo Submarines
3: Dumbo, Teacups
6: Splash Mountain, Autopia
Me: All of it
Hubby: Indiana Jones

~Favorite treats:
2: Suckers
3: Churros
6: Popcorn
Me: Churros
Hubby: Cotton Candy

Giveaway: Custom Thank You Cards (w/ envelopes)

Holidays are just around the corner, ‘tis the season to be merry and giving custom thank you cards is the perfect gift to express your warm thoughts to your loved ones.

ONE lucky reader will be jingling all the way with a pack of 50 Custom Thank You Cards with envelopes, all for free! UPrinting cards are made from high-quality paper and cardstock and will surely bring holiday cheer to your friends and family.


Prize Offered: (50 ct.) 7 x 5" (folded to 3.5 x 5") Custom Thank You Cards with plain envelopes

Shipping: Free UPS Ground within United States
Eligibility: Limited to US Residents due to shipping costs. We will negotiate better shipping rates soon.

Find ideas or see fun greeting cards from the Digital Room or even check out some Uprinting Reviews on Yelp.com.

To enter:
Leave a comment and tell me how you plan to use the custom thank you cards.

Additional entries:
~Tweet the giveaway please include a link to this post and @uprinting
~Friend me on facebook
~Follow @cranberryfries on Twitter
~Leave a comment on any post on my blog (up to 5 additional entries, 1 per comment) then tell me what posts you commented on.

Contest will close:
Nov 22 and I'll announce the winner here on my blog on the Nov 23.

*I will be receiving 50 Thank You cards from Digitalroom.com for hosting this giveaway.

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme

TodaysMama and Provo Craft are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What 5 items are on your holiday wish list this year?
a computer chair, hair dryer, a maid, new books, a new game

2. What is your favorite handmade gift you have received?
My sister made my daughter a personalized bound book all about her with pictures and fun stories. She gave us all a copy. It was very sweet!

3. What handmade gift have you always wanted to tackle?
A quilt. A big nice beautiful quilt.

4. What was the best Christmas gift you received as a child?
A doll or nintendo

5. What items are on your kid’s wish list this year?
A cat, buzz lightyear (or slinky the dog), trains

6. What is your favorite holiday food?
Chex Mix

7. What will you be hand-crafting for the holidays?
I'm planning on making a cute tent for the kiddos.

8. What is your favorite holiday movie?
Home Alone (the original). I have fond memories of watching it with my fam growing up.

9. Favorite holiday song?
Frosty the Snowman, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, Grown-up Christmas List

10. Favorite holiday pastime?
Playing board games with my family

Tagging: Grammee, PinkFlipFlops, HeadEagle, and anyone else who wants to play/win!

Freebie Friday: Christmas Music

Today I'm THRILLED to feature a brand new CD entitled It's All About the Baby. As noted on the Cd cover above it's Original and Traditional Songs of the Christ Child. I've had had a chance to hear a handful of these songs, and you guys, I'm not kidding when I say they brought tears to my eyes. They are peaceful and thoughtful and sincere and sweet and amazing. The music and the words are so heartfelt! There are even a few I've heard that are just so fun and bright.

Victoria is the amazing person behind this all!! All the original songs were written by her and she is crazy awesome on the piano (plus she has cool friends who came out to help with the signing, cello, harmony, etc). Besides all of this musical talent she is a mother of 7 kids (6 boys and 1 lovely lady), she makes recipes and food that are to die for, she's incredibly generous, and she's a fab friend to name just a few things I love about this lady.

Do you wanna sneak peak (er listen) for yourself? You can hear a bunch on her blog or listen to this one called Did You Know or this one I didn't expect (but love) or this one about a special mother or this classic O Holy Night. (And I think this may be my favorite.)


Where to Buy it:
You can preorder your very own copy or a few copies to pass out as Christmas gifts.

How to Win it:
THREE of you could win one of these for your very own listening pleasure! Here's how:

Mandatory Entry:
Go visit It's All About the Baby. Comment on any of the posts. (Come back here and tell me you did --or even copy and paste what you wrote.)

Additional Entries:
~Follow the blog It's All About The Baby where Victoria shares all about her road to making and creating this beautiful cd. There is a 'follow' widget on the left side of her blog.
~Tell your friends on facebook to check out this giveaway or to go follow her blog.
~Tweet about this giveaway.
~Email at least 4 friends about this giveaway and cc cranberryfries@gmail.com in the email.
~Make a comment on any of the posts at It's All About The Baby (one entry per comment).


This contest will close Thursday Nov 19th at 11:59pm. Winners will be announced around Friday. I reserve the right to randomly choose three winners. It may be possible (especially if someone enters a lot) that someone could win more than once. Believe me, you're gonna want to share this!


**Victoria is kindly giving away these CD's to my readers. Because she's just that cool! Thanks babe.