I’m excited about what I’m doing at leadership, and I’ve had so much fun working on the projects for my main stage demonstration. But it’s taken a lot of time, and I have to admit I’m feeling a little stressed.

When I say I spent most of the past few days in my pajamas, I’m really not exaggerating. I did get dressed yesterday and attended church, and I got dressed on Friday night to attend our son-in-law Jon’s art show. I mentioned earlier that he’d graduated in December with a degree in photography, and he’s participating in a one-month art show/gallery walk in downtown Provo, Utah, that opened on Friday.

I went with Shalae and Jon and their children to check things out—loved the eclectic feel of the café/gallery and loved Jon’s photos even more.

Shalae read the blog recently and said, “Mom, you need to explain why you mention us so often in the blog! Your readers will think I’m the favorite or something!”

As I looked back on my posts, I realize I do mention her a lot, so I could see her point—they do pop up a lot! But the explanation isn’t because we love them more, it’s simply that they live closer and, in Shalae’s words, “We impose on you a lot!”

Of course, spending time with our girls and their families is never an imposition! I love every minute we spend with family. Shalae and Jon live only a couple of miles away, and they do drop by often. Sage and Jason are the next closest. They live only about a half hour away, but that half hour makes a difference!

So, that’s why you see Shalae and her family a bit more than the others!

Now, I’m heading off to leadership, and I probably won’t post for a few days. I’m still wrapping up a few details on a couple of my projects tomorrow, rehearsing on Wednesday, and the party begins on Thursday! I’ll let you all know how it goes—and hopefully I’ll see a few of you there!

We rang in the new year last night with family in our favorite fashion—several hours early! (smile)

Sterling and I will stay up late if there are people at our house, wanting to make it a party. But last night all we had was Shalae and Jon and their three children. And for all the boys knew, it might have been midnight—because they definitely stayed up way past their bedtime!

To celebrate we made shape pancakes (stars and hearts—both the boys wanted stars), toasted with Martinelli’s bubbly (a holiday tradition), ate caramel popcorn while watching an episode of “Word World” (a PBS short cartoon series), and then waved to the kids as they headed home. They left our house about 8, which is pretty late for those three little ones.

Sterling and I weren’t too far behind. We didn’t get to bed way early, but we sure didn’t stay up until midnight either!

And today has been just as enjoyable. I’ve listened to Christmas music all day (probably the last whole day for several months, although I do sneak in Christmas songs all year long) and worked on leadership projects, while Sterling cleared snow off our driveway. No interruptions, no meetings or deadlines, not a lot of pressure. I’m excited about what I’m demonstrating on stage at leadership, and I’m having lots of fun trying out new things.

So there you have it—a Gardner family New Year’s celebration! Hope the details aren't too disappointing! And I also hope you all had a wonderful New Year celebration yourself!

I’ll do a quick rundown of the past week and catch you up. Last Tuesday we started what I think will become an annual tradition: our Courage Reins Christmas open house. Several years ago, Sterling became involved with a local group—Courage Reins—as a volunteer and member of the board. Briefly, the organization works to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities through therapeutic horseback riding and other equine-based activities.

Sterling and I have always worked to teach our girls how important it is to serve others. We believe this helps develop gratitude for what we have and an awareness of others and the role we all must play in reaching out to those around us. Now that we’ve got grandchildren, we wanted them to have the same opportunity, so our Courage Reins open house was a wonderful opportunity for our grandchildren to meet others who may be a little different from them.

We invited all the Courage Reins volunteers, riders, and their families to the open house. The grandchildren listened to a few volunteers talk about why they loved what they did and loved the kids they worked with, and then the grandchildren gave out gift cards to the riders and Rice Krispie treats and hot chocolate to everyone.

It was a fabulous event! We loved watching our children and grandchildren interact with the Courage Reins riders, and we’re already looking forward to next year.

Wednesday was Christmas Eve, and after the typical scurrying around to get all the last-minute things done, we hunkered down at home. Sean and Sara and their kids and Sage and Jason and Kona all stayed at our house. Shalae and Jon only live a couple of miles away, so they came for Christmas Eve activities (NOT dressed in pajamas; Shalae completely forgot that was our tradition!) but went home to sleep in their own beds. (Nate and Megan were in southern Utah for Christmas but joined us on Saturday and Sunday.)

We laid out a lot of finger food and nibbled all night long while we watched Christmas movies, ending the evening with a Christ-centered movie. When the kids went to bed, the grown-ups stayed up a little longer, finishing up the late-night gift duties and watching another movie. It was laidback and relaxing!

The kids woke up fairly early on Christmas Day, and we opened the Santa gifts before calling Shanna in Spain. (Missionaries are allowed two phone calls a year—one at Christmas and one for Mother’s Day, so this was a significant event.)

I have to say hearing Shanna’s voice was the highlight of the day for me. She sounded great! She’s had a few health problems, but she sounds like those are hopefully improving, and she’d had a wonderful Christmas Eve with a family they used to live with. The sweet family, which had very little money, spent way more than they should have on a dinner for Shanna and her companion. The evening was full of love and sacrifice, and Shanna said that if nothing else good happens her entire mission, this one experience will have made the entire time worthwhile!

We probably talked to Shanna way longer than we should have, but I didn’t want to say good-bye—and she didn’t either! The grandchildren were fairly patient, especially considering that they still had unopened gifts they were anxiously waiting to tear into! Eventually we hung up with Shanna and finished opening presents.

We had agreed the night before that, unlike previous years, we would actually stay in our pajamas the entire Christmas Day! I loved it! Shalae and Jon and their children had come appropriately dressed this time, and we spent the ENTIRE DAY in PJs! We even had our traditional dinner, complete with the Christmas china that Mom Heather had given to me just before she died, wearing only our comfy nightwear. It was great!

Although we did get dressed on Friday and Saturday, it was mostly more relaxing and playing with family. On Friday, Sara and the kids went to the movie while I tended Stella. That night, the boys (Sean and his sons) went to a friend’s house for an almost-all-nighter video game party, and the Sara, her girls, Sterling, and I watched another movie and munched on caramel popcorn.

On Saturday, all the adults went out to dinner to celebrate Jon’s graduation. We take all the kids out when they graduate from college—the graduate gets to choose the restaurant. Jon chose the Melting Pot, a yummy fondue restaurant in downtown Salt Lake. We went to an early dinner to miss the crowds, so we got back home early enough to fit in yet another movie. (I watched more movies this week than I have almost the whole year!) The kids were in bed, so it was just Sean and Sara, Megan and Nate, and Sterling and me. (Sage and Jason and Shalae and Jon went back home after dinner.) Megan and Nate fell asleep before the movie ended—they were exhausted!

Today, I’m reluctantly heading back into the real world. We have meetings in Washington, and I’m working on my Leadership Conference presentations and projects too. It’s been hard to get back into the swing of things, but I’m so grateful for the few days’ break and the wonderful chance to spend time with the most important people in the world—my family!

You have to know something about me first. I’m not a terribly creative person. I love to stamp, but I don’t stamp often, and when I do, I copy what other people do. The one exception? Our annual Christmas card.

Because I really do enjoy stamping, and because we don’t stay in touch with our friends as well as we’d like (we do the best we can with three small children and a husband in school, but it’s just not the season for a lot of friend time!), I choose to hand-stamp our 120 Christmas cards so that people know that we really do care about them, even though we haven’t called them for forever.

Usually I sit down with Mom or Sara and they help me come up with an idea. This year, however, our card was mostly my own idea, which is why I’m especially proud of it! I love the Top Note die cut and the Winter Post set, so I was talking to Mom about how I could incorporate those two things into a card. I came up with the idea of die cutting the picture, along with the matching card stock front and the back of the card. You just stamp a few images on the card stock, add a dimensional to pop up the circle and poke a bit of ribbon, and you’re done. Because you can run three layers through the Big Shot, it was very quick and easy.     

As a side note, I sent my cards out a little late this year. We didn’t take our photo until later, and I did the stamping on a plane ride to the East Coast a couple of weeks ago when Jon and I went back there to check out a few graduate schools (he graduated in photography this month from Utah Valley University). When we got back from our trip, I finished everything up; Jon even helped me with the ribbon. I stuck the cards in the mail the week before Christmas.

I was a bit surprised when about half of them came back, with a note that they needed more postage! Apparently if you stick a button or ribbon or anything dimensional on a card,the post office can charge more postage. From what I understand, they often don’t (my mom receives dozens of hand-stamped cards every year with all sorts of accents on them that are mailed with standard postage), but I guess during the holidays they get a little more strict. Of course, I re-mailed those and made a mental note for next year!

I hope you like this card. I realize it’s after Christmas, but I think this card would work for a lot of occasions—announcements (birth or wedding!), invitations, special occasions, whatever. I sure had fun making it, and it was so quick and easy, I hoped someone out there might be looking for something that was fun to do but didn’t take a lot of time!

Hope you all have a great new year!

We enjoyed being together to create them—we even got help from the guys when it came to the journaling, and we all visited and giggled until late, eating homemade cinnamon rolls until we were sick.

The party includes Mom Pat and her husband, Bill, my Grandma Baker, and all of my sisters and brothers and their families. It always occurs the full weekend just before Christmas. The last few years we’ve gathered in Kanab, Utah. Out-of-towners stay in nearby hotels (everything’s nearby in Kanab), and the party is at the Stampin’ Up! manufacturing building.

It’s perfectly suited for our family with a large area for eating, crafting, and games; the training room doubles as an area for the children to run around and be as loud as they wish as well as a movie theatre where we have our Christmas program; the phone booths make perfect spots for the little girls to hide away and play; even the hallways are filled with activity. Basically every accessible nook and cranny is taken.

Of course, the warehouse is off limits, even though the older boys asked if they could have their Nerf gun wars in between the racking—just imagine Nerf bullets in your stamp sets!

Friday evening everyone arrives for a light dinner and visiting, and Saturday is usually spent playing games, with crafting of some kind for the women provided by my mom (and Aunt Leslie brings projects for the younger children). The children and teenagers exchange and open their gifts, and we end with our traditional Christmas program. Of course, the entire day is filled with visiting and lots of food!

This year was unique because we also had a bridal shower on Saturday morning for my niece Cierra. We held the shower in the Stampin’ Up! apartment upstairs while the men watched all the children downstairs. It was a delightful time with family and friends celebrating Cierra!

It made me remember when the whole company was this small (we have less than 100 employees in Kanab), and we used to have potlucks on a regular basis. I wish we could do it in Riverton, but we're just too big--it would be a fiasco! I've accepted that and I'm grateful for our growth, but I do love to come back!

Just before lunch we gave out our service awards.

There were 10 five-year awards, four 10-year awards, and our first 15-year award! Linda Kloepfer has been at Stampin' Up! longer than anyone but me, and she got a standing ovation today when she received her $1,500 check. I told her that I was planning on giving her a $2,000 check on her 20-year anniversary!

Tonight, the girls and I have been busy working on our scrapbook pages for our family party that begins tomorrow night. It's pretty much a weekend affair, with family arriving tomorrow and a light dinner. Saturday is full of fun and food and family, and Sunday morning we go to church, eat leftovers for breakfast, and head home.

I'll write more about the pages and the party later. I've got to get back to scrapbooking now, or these pages won't get done!

However, I scheduled one all-day “appointment” a couple of weeks ago that is more important than anything else I have scheduled today—an all-day “celebration of Mom Heather.”

Mom Heather passed away one year ago today, and I’m going to do everything I can today to celebrate her life. While I’m sure tears will be shed (I expect many tears!), I hope most of them will be tears of joy and gratitude for having her in my life. I’m going to wear one of the many pins she gave me, enjoy eating more than usual (Mom Heather LOVED food, and she passed that love on to me), talk about her with Sterling and our girls (and anyone else who will listen), and call her husband, Paul.

I’m also going to take a few minutes sometime today to walk down to our lobby here at Riverton and look at the Christmas tree there.

Mom Heather made every handstamped ornament on it for our first Christmas here in our own facility.

The ornaments are gorgeous and are so much like everything she did—creative, beautiful, detailed. I’ll spend a few minutes in my stamp studio too, where I have a few projects she made displayed so I can always be inspired by her work.

While I’m in my studio, I’ll take a few minutes to write down some special memories I have of Mom Heather. And at some point in the day, I will definitely watch the DVD we put together for her services—it has tons of great pictures that make me smile and cry, all set to her three favorite songs.

Today will be a celebration of Heather Harrison, and I am so thankful for the things I inherited from her, the things she taught me, and the huge impact she’s had on my life!

The Riverton celebration begins with our own Stampin’ Up! choir sharing its talents with us (and they have a lot of talent to share!). They walk around the building before the official festivities begin, singing and getting people in the holiday mood. Then we all gather in the atrium for cookies and hot chocolate, while the choir sings several more songs. I love listening to our choir, and can’t imagine the holidays without them.

Then I get to share a few thoughts. This year I talked about Mom Heather, who died one year ago next week. I mentioned how strongly I feel about spending time with those you love all year long, but especially during the holidays, and how important it is that we enjoy this time of year, even if it means we have to take a project or two off our plates. And of course, I thanked everyone for everything they do to make Stampin’ Up! successful!

We also recognized Stampin’ Up! staff members who have been with us five and ten years. (We also recognize fifteen years, but this year there weren’t any in Riverton; we don’t have very man of those—yet!). We give out service awards ($500 for five-year employees and $1,000 for ten-year employees), and this year we had 64 fabulous people who have been with us this long.

One of the employees said it best when she looked around the packed atrium and said, “This is one of my favorite things we do. There’s such a great feeling of camaraderie here. For those of us who have worked at other jobs, we know how special this is, and for those whose first job is here—well, they just don’t know how lucky they are!”

I absolutely agree! I can’t express in words the love and gratitude I feel for the dedicated, gracious, and kind people we have working at both places, and to see so many of them gathered together is always overwhelming. I teared up more than once today! I’m already looking forward to next week, when we’ll enjoy a similar celebration in Kanab.

 However, as I chatted with Felicity, I was particularly touched as I discovered that she and her mother had flown to Arizona last Friday to visit her brother and sister-in-law, who recently had a baby. Felicity got up this morning, caught a flight to Salt Lake City, took a cab out to our home office for a two-hour visit, and then took a cab back to the airport to catch a flight back to Arizona. She and her

mother are returning to Australia next Monday.

When I expressed how amazed I was that she would spend an entire day of her short time with her family here to visit Stampin’ Up!, she replied, “I was so close! There was no way I couldn’t come!” I don’t know that a trip from Arizona to Utah is “close,” but I guess it’s all relative. And meeting Felicity made my day!

Felicity topped off her wonderful visit with a handmade gift.

When she pulled it out of her bag, I thought it was a cute little tag, and then she wowed me as she began to unfold it into a darling ornament. (She calls it a star card.) Felicity said she got the pattern and idea from a friend, and she said I could share it with you. I thought you’d find it as amazing as I did!

You can see it’s quite simple—five square pieces of coordinating Designer Series paper (4”x 4”), each piece scored into quarters, laid out diagonally, and then adhered at the two side corners, and folded into an accordion-type ornament.

It was finished with a front and back tag, and a ribbon. And notice that the button is more than just a cute add-on—it’s quite functional; it keeps the star card closed into the “tag” or open into the “ornament.”

I love this gift from my new friend from the Land Down Under!

So here are a few answers to questions you’ve asked in October and November.

What is a Dutch oven dinner? A Dutch oven is a thick-walled iron (usually cast-iron) cooking pot with a tight-fitting lid. In Australia, they sometimes call it a camp oven, a cocette in French, and a casserole dish in British English. (I looked it up on the Internet! Smile) We use a Dutch oven to cook during camping and other cookouts. There are tons of fun recipes available, and a variety of ways to cook food in Dutch ovens.

What kind of camera do you have? I have one large, nice camera with lots of handy, dandy gadgets that I don’t even know how to use. I love the pictures I take with it, but I hardly ever use it because I usually end up grabbing my smaller, pocket-sized Sony Cybershot. It fits perfectly in the darling little purse I got at convention in the Memento Mall, and I take that with me everywhere. Even when I’m at home, I usually end up using it because it’s so convenient, and the pictures are pretty good.

Where is Shanna serving her mission in Spain? She actually gets “transferred” several times throughout her 18-month mission, and will serve in several different locations in Spain.

If I live in different countries, can I send cards to Shanna directly or to the Stampin’ Up! local office? Of course! Shanna’s mission home address is:

Sister Shanna Gardner

Spain Madrid Mission

Avenida de Espana 17, Local 01-1

Alcobenadas, 28100 Madrid, Spain

And if you live in Australia, New Zealand, England, France, or Germany, you can send the cards to your local Stampin' Up! office, and they will forward them to Shanna. I already received a bundle of cards for Shanna along with a note for her, that I've sent off to Spain. Thank you!

If you get too many cards for Shanna, would you consider sending those extra cards to our military service personnel? I think that’s a wonderful idea, and I will forward extra cards to our military personnel. I’m looking into several different ways to do that.

Do you make something for your grandchildren every holiday? Not every holiday, but many of them. When I see a fun project or get a great idea, the holidays are a perfect excuse for me to be creative and share that creativity with others—my own family members.

Did you ever think Stampin' Up! would get this big? This is a great topic for a whole entire blog sometime; I’ll make a note about it. But the short answer is—absolutely not!

Can I order Where Women Create (the magazine that featured my stamp studio) if I don’t live in the United States? I checked, and I found it on Amazon.com, so you should be able to order it there. Also, one of you purchased the magazine and asked if I would sign it. I’d be happy to—if you want to just send it into the home office, I’ll sign it and return it.

Where did you get the shoes that they showed in the Where Women Create feature? I bought them at a small shoe boutique at Gardner Village here in the Salt Lake Valley called Heels and Toes. They carry a lot of shoes that are different and unique; I love the variety I find there.

Can you update on Ashton and how his potty training is doing? Ashton is doing fabulously. He only had one or two accidents early on, and he’s had no problems since. He is very responsible, and we seldom remind him anymore. Just as a note, Ashton was almost three and half years old, and he was ready for potty training. Several of you noted on your comments that potty training needs to be on the child’s timeline, not yours. I do believe that, and know that that’s why our experience with Ashton went so well.

How do you pack your stamping supplies when you travel? Sometimes I’ll pack my supplies in a Cropper Hopper that I’ve had for years (back when we used to sell them), but my new favorite bag is the striped bag I got at Memento Mall during the last convention! Before that, I’d use different bags from Stampin’ Up! events.

As a note, I’m working on getting the larger photos of the holiday place settings. And I was also “tagged,” and I’m going to do that in a future blog too! As for Sara, she will definitely post again! I loved her samples too, and I can hardly wait to see what she comes up with next for us!