Here is another Operation Undies– Sub for Santa heart warming story about people who really get Christmas.
It’s the Hepworth’s story. You should also know that before my friend Kanani took this assignment, she was one of the first to answer the call to donate gift cards to a needy single mom leaving an abusive situation. A few weeks later she asked me for a family to sponsor. Here’s her story.
Congratulations “An G” the winner of the $200 Sweet Relish giveaway! Happy Relishing!
Sorry to the rest of the entrants of this contest, including my mom, who didn’t win.
If you’re looking for another way to warm your heart today…may I share these fun photos of some sweet preschoolers who received new coats yesterday through Operation Undies. Thanks to sweet families involved with Tiffany Dance Company and Elite Dance Academy.
This week I’m going to be sharing stories about the special deliveries associated with the Operation Undies Sub for Santa effort.
I’m left speechless by the generosity of my friends and people in my own community. The time, talent and effort this took to put together was a labor in love.
I can’t think of any better way to celebrate Christmas than by following the first two commandments. Love God and Love your neighbor.
Am I the only one who has had a great gift idea then completely forgotten what it was when it was time to buy? Am I the only one who sees masterfully crafted items on Pinterest but knows in my heart of hearts that I could never recreate them?
I’ve found a solution to both problems. It’s such a novel idea, I just have to share.
It’s a new site called Sweet Relish. It’s sort of like Pinterest but for on-line shopping. It’s a brand new site just launching. You can be part of the magic. When I heard about Pinterest I felt like the last one in the world to get on board. Even better, Sweet Relish is giving away a $200 Visa Gift Card on my blog! That will help you “Relish” your shopping a little more this gift-giving season.
You’re probably wondering how it all works. Let’s say you’re on Amazon or Wal-Mart’s site or any other retailer in the world and you see something you might want to buy. Once you set up your account with them, you’ll use the-super-easy-to-install Sweet Relish Button to grab the potential purchase item you’re interested in and save it in your personalized Sweet Relish categories. When you’re Relishing, take note of the price. I’ve noticed there are a few items I relished that were discounted on the retailers website and the sale price didn’t transfer to Sweet Relish. That seems to be the exception, though and not the rule. 
Instead of promptly forgetting my great gift ideas, I create lists and save items for when I am ready to ponder them a bit more and decide between choices. Purchasing is also simple, no matter what site the item retails at. It’s all done on the Sweet Relish site. It’s a one-site shopping experience no matter what you want.
You can share your lists with friends and family through Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or email also allowing them to see what YOU want. Sweet Relish helps you avoid the awkward phone calls where your sister-in-law asks you what you want for Christmas and you say “I don’t know” and she says “come on” and your mind goes blank even though you know there are 100 million things you’d like to have and then somehow you end up with another Badmitten set. Merry Christmas!
All you have to do is point your sister-in-law to your boards. She can look at your boards and pick something she wants to buy you that’s in her price range. It’s so genius.
Sweet Relish is just launching their site, so you might be the first of your friends to hear about it. How cool is that! Who doesn’t LOVE to be in on the ground floor of something really novel.
Now all my Sweet Relish followers will know that I need THIS sewing machine. 
Isn’t it beautiful! If you follow me on Sweet Relish, you can even see WHY I want this specific machine. Just Register for Sweet Relish (which will take about 25 seconds), search my name, then hit the “follow” button. Super-duper easy! Feel free to buy me this sewing machine. I’m sure I’m not getting it from Steve for Christmas.
Now for the SWEETEST part, FREE MONEY. I hope you win! It’s the easiest entry I’ve ever seen! Be sure to register with Sweet Relish try it for this Christmas season. See if it saves you time and makes your shopping more fun and convenient. I’m loving it, I hope you do too!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Disclaimer: I am being paid to write this post, isn’t that the coolest? Now I can buy more gifts using a site which, I personally view as a really cool idea that will change the way I on-line shop whether they’re paying me to say this or not.
If you’ve read my blog at all in the last few months, you know I’ve been working hard to support a group of really deserving people.
I don’t pretend to think that this is the only charitable cause in the world, so when given a chance I try to help everywhere I can.
I was invited to attend Ivory Home’s kick off to their 3rd Annual Gingerbread Festival last night which supports the Utah Food Bank. It was a Gingerbread house decorating contest for around 30 bloggers. I also got to preview some of the entries into the contest they’re having tomorrow. (More info about the festival here.)
I had no idea this could be done with food. 
It is seriously amazing. Look at these houses.
I felt very unprepared to decorate a gingerbread house after seeing these entries, especially since I hang out with mostly craft and DIY bloggers, I knew there was no way I could take home a prize. But I went anyway because decorating a gingerbread house all by myself sounded fun. (I tend to hoard projects I should be sharing with my kids, then I feel very guilty)
So here are the results of my hard work. 
It took me about two hours to create. And yes, I did intend to get frosting all over my clothes.
I utilized a design element from the Days of 47 parade float I helped build this year. My roof top used the same kind of pattern and I was really happy about the way it turned out.
I’m also proud to say that even though I didn’t win first, second or third place, I did get an honorable mention! I’m pretty sure it was the cute roof design.
If you’re looking for a Christmasy way to spend the first day of December, the Festival is open TODAY from noon to 9 p.m. at the Garden Park Clubhouse in Daybreak. Click here for the address and all the details. There will be free family photos, and Santa will be there from 3-6 p.m. Gingerbread house making with all the supplies will also be there if you’d like to give it a shot. It’s very fun!
The entrance fee is $1 or a can of food (be generous if you can). All the proceeds will benefit the Utah Food Bank.
I don’t claim to be a parenting expert. I leave a lot to be desired when it comes to doing everything right. But…I have found something worth sharing that has been a miracle in our house.
I have a four-year-old named Sunny. Sometimes I think we goofed and should have named her “partly-cloudy” instead. She has a very strong will, she’s bright and she wants what she wants.
These will work together for her good when she’s an adult. As a child, however, these traits are a little hard to deal with at times. Particularly at dinner.
This little cutie refuses every organized meal. I rarely grant her snacks in an effort to ensure she’s very hungry especially at dinner, but getting her to eat with the family has been nothing short of frustrating for years.
The paradigm of our home shifts from peaceful and content to World War III at dinner. What I wanted to be a happy family time where we discuss and share our day turns into yells, threats and tears.
Sunny, more often than not, ended up in her room as a consequence of being so difficult and unruly at the table.
But this has all change at our house. Meal time is full of peace, and bliss and thorough enjoyment of carefully prepared food. How you ask. How? 
I’ll tell you how.
This jar, these puff balls.
One of my friends was recently remarking about the power in positive reinforcement. In my head, I totally discounted that this would work at our house. I thought I had given her every reason in the world to obey me, by allowing natural consequences to take their course.
Consequences have always been clearly announced at our house and have followed the choices made. Good consequences for good behavior and bad consequences for bad behavior.
This has worked so well for Alyssa. She is one of the most easily obedient children I’ve ever known.
Sunny however is fully willing to suffer any consequence to assert her will.
I introduced the “Behavior Jar.” I started rewarding the smallest bits of good behavior. I noticed her every move and if it was at all acceptable, she was rewarded with a puff ball in her jar. Fill the jar get a sleeve of Smarties. The rule of the puffball is that they cannot be taken away. They’re a one way street. They can only be earned.
It didn’t take her long to figure out she wanted to earn lots of puff balls. We started this in August and it’s still going strong.
Her behavior is drastically improved even without constant rewarding. That only lasted a few weeks. The day to day pestering, fighting and arguing is now at an acceptable level. When she starts getting a little out of hand, I break out the jar and start rewarding the good stuff and POOF! She’s an angel again.
We mainly use the jar for meal time now. Before the jar, I couldn’t get her to sit flat on her chair or face or food or use her utensils or stop playing with her food, or stop complaining that she didn’t want or like what was served.
Now, I give her puff balls when I notice she’s doing any of these things. It works for her every time. We don’t use the jar at every meal anymore, but if she starts to get unruly I’ll grab the jar and her behavior instantly changes. The satisfaction from filling the jar is enough for her. She doesn’t even need a prize anymore.
So there you have it. There actually IS power in positive reinforcement parenting, at least at our house and with this child. If you’re having a similar power struggle at your house, I DARE you to try it.
Use any sized jar and any sized puffballs. I’ve found a tiny jar and 10 mini puffballs to be the perfect goal for her.
Here’s a quickie for how to brighten your mood, fast.
One of my very favorite ways to kill an hour if I have one to kill (or even if I don’t) is to think of a song I really like and then go and find it on YouTube. While I am listening to it and feeling great, I look on the side bar to see the suggestions or related songs.
Sometimes they are related, sometimes they’re not. I always enjoy this time more than I expected to, and it always changes my mood. It’s strange how many twists and turns your YouTube musical journal will take. I can start with MC hammer and within three songs, it’s lead me to Frank Sinatra.
Somehow though, my musical journey always ends up here. But it’s a pretty good place to end up. Impossible NOT to smile during this video.
This totally counts as #43 on the list.
So..take ten minutes and see where YouTube music videos will take your mood. Feel free to share your results with me here or in the comments below.
So…for Thanksgiving, I made pies, a turkey (for my first time ever) and a 16 layered Jell-O. So that pretty much fills my cooking quota for the rest of the year.The effort alone on the turkey was worth an award in my mind. And that doesn’t even come close to the man hours involved in making a 20 layer Jello.
I’ve informed my family that I’m done cooking for the year and instructed them to be creative at meal time. I’m just planning to eat whatever gets dropped off on the doorstep from neighbor gifts. Don’t you just LOVE December. Yes to fudge, yes to divinity, yes to a box of oranges. They all sound like dinner to me.
Also on the docket for dinner (or lunch) is the new location of Café Zupas which opened last week at Quarry Bend Shopping Center in Sandy. We attended a pre-opening party before Thanksgiving where they fed us some scrumptious salad, sandwiches and desert. 
Steve had the Turkey Cranberry, and I had a new item on the menu…The Turkey Spinach Artichoke Panini. I was starving when I ate it, but it was easily the best sandwich I’ve ever had.
Did I mentioned they served us desert? Four people in my family…four different flavored Crème Brule’s. 
Seriously. To be fair, they were more like custard than the Crème Brule I’m accustomed to, but still…delicious and BIG enough to share.
Ask my seven year old what happens if you eat an entire Zupa’s Crème Brule by yourself…She still insists the flavor and enjoyment was worth being WAY too full all night.
So…what does all this mean to you?
Well, their big GRAND OPENING is this weekend and I thought you might like to know about some of the festivities. They’re offering some pretty BIG incentives to celebrate.
Thur-Fri, Nov 29-30 Grand Opening Weekend of newest location, 9242 S. Village Shop Dr. Sandy.
Sat, Dec 1 The Grand Opening Party
If you’re like me…your next square meal will likely be made by the professionals at Café Zupas, because I likely won’t cook a thing until my New Year’s resolution in January tells me I have to.
For many years I’ve been creating discussion worthy masterpieces with Jell-O. This year was no different.
I racked my brain thinking about what I could do this year that I had not done before when my friend Amy suggested individual Jell-O cups. 
Last year my friend Angela and I had a Thanksgiving Jell-O throw down which I clearly won. Her entry however was at least worthy of an honorable mention.
So this year I decided to take her idea and add more layers. 
So I bought my supplies. Dozens of boxes of Jell-O and some clear short Solo cups.
I lined the cups on a wide tray in my fridge and got out my level.
When layering Jell-O I’ve found it to be very important to make sure your dish(es) are level in the fridge. Otherwise you’ll 
get tacky uneven layers.
Since my cups were so small I had to find a way to keep the amount of Jell-O in each layer small and consistent between each cup. 
To do this I bought a “flavor injector” from the kitchen gadget aisle at Wal-Mart and used that to distribute the liquid into each cup. It worked perfectly. I also used a turkey baster when I needed more Jello toward the end.
With the help of my trusty assistants who were wearing their best Jell-O layering outfits, 
we made Jell-O every few hours for several days. 
Here’s the result of my unyielding effort.
I was delighted, as was everyone at our Thanksgiving table with the results of our beautiful and tasty 16 layer Jell-O
In case you’re interested in trying this one at home, I thought I’d share the recipe.
Rainbow Jello
2 small boxes Jello, same flavor for each layer (in the Jell-O I made above I used 8 different flavors and 16 boxes of Jell-O total)
1/3 Cup Sour Cream for each creamy layer
1/3 Cup Ice water for each clear layer
Boil one cup water ( I use a glass measuring cup in microwave)
add Jello contents, dissolve.
for clear layer add the ice water
or
for creamy layer add sour cream
When mixing in sour cream, I use a submersion blender. It takes about two seconds to mix and makes very few bubbles (you don’t want bubbles).
Allow around two hours for each layer to set before pouring the next layer.
(Avoid using peach jello, although it’s delicious, it looks gray when mixed with sour cream. Also…it’s very hard to get green Jell-o (also tasty) to look good on top or below any other colors. Just saying.)
No one is more committed to holiday tradition than me, especially if that tradition involves wasting enormous amounts of time and effort meticulously crafting Jello.
Many years ago I began what would turn into my Thanksgiving passion. Through the years I have tried new ideas (some better than others) that have contributed to my extreme success in building Jell-O worth talking about.
Today I am in the middle of a Jell-O masterpiece. I’m crafting in a way I never have before.
How you ask? Well…I’m not at liberty to say. Actually this is my blog and I COULD say if I wanted to, but I don’t. It’s a surprise. I will say this. It involves a syringe.
The day after Thanksgiving I will post my big reveal. The Jello reveal. The “how I topped last year” reveal.
I think Jell-O might owe me some money for this post. Contact me here Jell-O. I’ll be your best brand ambassador!
Since I know you’re hanging on my every word, I won’t leave you with out showing you my Jell-O gallery from yester-year.
The Tiny Jello
The 2010 Rosette.
The 2011 Trifle
Check back on Friday (or Saturday if my food coma lasts longer than I expect) to see what The Vocal Sokol 2012 Jello brought to the table this year.
