christytomlinson

Great relaxing (sort of) weekend....

Well, just came back from a very long, relaxing (for the most part) weekend at our best friends, Liz and Kevin's,  cabin. It's actually more like a house, but I love it. It's like a home away from home surounded by pines trees, rolling hills and frish mountain air. The only drawback was that it rained most of the weekend which meant that for the most part our 9 kids (our 6 and their 3) were cooped up in the cabin most of the time and by the 3rd day.. it was an all out war. Kids hitting kids, fighting, crying, you name it.. it was crazy. but in the end.. (after making all 6 of mine take a nap at one point in the day.. boy you thought I was grouding them for LIFE!).. it ended on a nice, pleasant note. Not sure if our friends will ever invite us back! LOL.. but it was good! Liz, my girlfriend, didn't come up until Saturday night because she was in Arkansas, getting her professional pictures done for Mrs. America. So it was just me, Ben, Liz's husband Kevin and all 9 kids. The "boys" as I like to call them (which means Ben and Kevin) played Saturday.. golfing and then finding their way to the four wheeler rental place.. and so while they were gone I started the book Memoirs of a Geisha.. By the time the day was over I had finished the book ( I think I read that book in only 10 hours!!). So I had Kevin call Liz on her way back from the airport and rent it so we could watch it the next day.. The movie was great.. but the book was AMAZING! Well that's my weekend. Parker. the only one who was so scared about riding the rented four wheelers (they were kids sized).. finally agreed to ride it, and in less than 3 minutes he had rolled it and was crying hysterically. Poor guy. He definitely likes to be inside. The other kids loved em.. in fact fighted over those too! LOL.. Well I better go get ready. I work in the office today and have to leave in 15 minutes. Only one more month of working full time and then I only have to go in twice a month for a few hours each day for meetings. Can't wait to get to spend more time with my kids!

Some pics from CKU

Well here are SOME but not all of the pictures I took at CKU. I have so many and some of them aren't showing up on my computer. So I need to figure out what I did wrong! LOL.. but here a few.. I will post more later. Love the girls in all of these pictures. I really met a ton of people I would love to just hang with. All of them. I have some of my new Idaho falls friends.. but those I will have to post later :) oh and I also wanted to shout out to Margie and Michelle.. they came "up to my room" one day after class LOL :)

One of the nights i went to a friend of mine's 30th suprise birthday.. jesse "stringer" (www.jessestringham.typepad.com) yah.. still don't know how to link.. anyone want to help me with that? LOL. Anyhow went to a party for her friday night after CKU and have some pictures I will post later tonight of that event!  OH! and I made a new friend.. a friend for LIFE.. jamie Soucy... she ROCKS. She just started a blog, www.jamiesoucy.typepad.com. I will post pics of her later too :) Love ya jamie!

One last thing.. Wanted to give a huge shout out to Taylor Hicks. I know everyone in my office wanted kat.. but I just like a real mature husky kinda voice.. Me and Taylor.. Yeah.. we go way back! LOL.. Actually, my sister leah went to one of his shows way back when and he gave her and her husband a cd of his after he sang them a song for their anniversary.  I think I mentioned this once on my blog. So now I feel like I kinda "know" him because my sister met him once. We are "tight".. good friends.. you know? LOL.. I really do like that guy. Someone who just seems down to earth and has his values in the right places.. love people like that...

okay! So here are some of the pics of CKU! now I am off to work :0

Back froM CKU- WOW

Wow.. that is one word the describes my amazing experience at CKU. You know, over the past 2 years, I have been fortunate to attend many CKU's, but this one was by FAR the best ever. I was so nervous about the class I was teaching becase it was a very different. It really did make you think about your life, and put it all into perspective... sometimes those types of classes just don't go over well, but WOW. I had such an amazing experience. I met so many wonderful people in my classes and after each class I was overwhelmed by the people who stayed after to come talk to me and share their stories with me. It was a very humbling experience. I think this class changed me in a lot of ways and I hope it changed those who took it. I have SO many pictures to post! I am just getting started for the day working, so I can't post them until later, but I wanted to pop on here and say hello and give a HUGE shout out to everyone who took my class. So many women really touched my heart this weekend.. it was a very emotional weekend for me. I have more to tell you about what I did.. and who I saw.. but gotta get to work! Tallk you all soon! Christy

Getting ready for CKU

Good Monday morning! I am excited about this week. It's CKU time! I really enjoy going to CKU and meeting SO many wonderful scrapbooking ladies (and men sometimes too). There is such a high energy there and lots of people excited and ready to learn. It's a ton of work getting ready for something like this, creating the classes, kitting them all, making sure prizes are ready and making sure all of our class supplies are ready.. but once we are there.. it's seriously SO FUN! Nicole Stern who is in the marketing department with me, is coming with me to help teach and I can't wait! (and big thanks to the CS department and sara for kitting everthing for me!). I love the staff at CKU too.. Seriously some of the nicest people you will ever meet. Those are the ones you don't hear alot about because most of what you see at CKU are the celebrities like Lisa, Becky, Heidi, Margie etc, but the real women who put these events together like Emily, Angie, Tyanna and Paula.. these girls are the ones who RUN the show and make sure all of our boxes are where they are supposed to be, make sure that all the students have their goodie bags and class schedules, and lunches and fun at the crops etc. They are amazing. And then there are my friends.. I think my favorite part about this industry are the friends I have made within the industry who work for other manufacters... Seriuously so excited to see Margie, Donna, Tracy, Danelle, Tim (that guy ROCKS) OH! and Kollettel. (seriously sweet girl). Ali isn't going to be at this event.. which makes me sad.. I always enjoy hanging out with her and donna.. laughing my BUTT off! Seriously funny girls. Oh and Becky.. if you have ever wondered if there was anyone MORE genuine.. she is truly the most genuine person I know. She is always so kind, and just honestly wondering how I am doing and how my family is. What a great, well rounded person. Margie and I are going to go out to dinner on thursday and i can't wait! You can ALWAYS count on her for a good time! LOL.. Then's there's my pen pals.. all those great girls who live in Utah that i only get to see once a year but love to talk smack with.. Loni Stevens.. love her.. and Jessi Stringham. Both of these girls are so much fun! I am always so jealous because beacause them and Layle, Allison and Jackie all get to hang with each other all the time and I only get to see them like once a year.. they let me come into their little club once a year! LOL.. Well, it's time for me to get to work. Lots of stuff to do today. Creating a class for Melody to teach at an event she will be attending in South Africa this fall. She is so excited to go and meet the scrapbooking girls over there. She can't wait! On a family note: had a great weekend with my kids and husband. We went to church yesterday and then made snowcones and hung out in the backyard in 85 degree weather. Love my kids.. and am so excited to be going partime to spend more time with them. good decision. Even though it was hard to give up all those other fun things I get to do with my job.. my kids are completly worth it and the most important thing I can do with my life. There will be plenty of time when they are grown to get back into my marketing career with Chatterbox, but right now.. they are it! hugs! Christy

your going to love me.....

okay.. now everybody don't all push at once.. there's room for everyone here..

I have it.. sitting in my pretty little hands.. the ad that Kelly made for an upcoming issue of CK magazine. and guess what.. Cute ad.. but the great part about it? IT shows some of the new paper for CHA SUMMER!!! :)  oh  and sorry it's so small. I think you can double click on it and make it larger.. :)

Okay.. you can send me gifts later.. LOL...

enjoy!

Good Monday :)

Ah! I love feeling back to normal after being sick. What I hate is all the work, house work and messes I have to catch up on when I am feeling better! BUT IT's ALL GOOD!  Seriously I have six great kids who clean like nothing else. They make the messes too, but at least they don't complain to much about cleaning them up!

You know what is so interesting to me? That Peanut Butter gets out gum. Who knew?  My son came down from his room the other morning and attached to his face, hands, belly, arms, hair AND legs was bubble gum he had been chewing ( I am guessing before he went to bed). Yeah well. fun fun. The poor kid is three and I tried to clean him of with soap and water and couldn't get it off! He was crying I was frustrated! LOL. Then Ben's sister stopped by to drop something by and told me peanutt butter would get it out. So we smeared it all over his body and let him go outside and play for a while. When he came back in, she started rubbing with a clean rag and guess what? It came RIGHT OFF! Wow. I heard it's good for bee stings too :).

Okay. So onto my day. Didn't finish my layouts YET (said yet) and so I can't post them. And Kelly is taking pictures of them tomorrow. So I will have him send me the pictures and then post them as a sneak peak (hope I don't get in trouble! LOL). It's good PR for CBX right?

Thanks to all those who tried to contact me about teaching at your store. I am so excited to start doing this again and can't wait! I didn't realize I hadn't leave my e-mail address on my blog? Not sure even how to do that.. but here it is in case we don't connect. I created a one just for teaching inquiries:   ChristyTeaching@aol.com. I also created one that is just for my scrapbooking friends since my other one is through chatterbox, it's christyscrapbook@aol.com  Anyone please feel free to e-mail me! Love getting them.

Well better go finish my layouts. You ladies have a wonderful evening! 

Christy

Fun Late nights and the Flu

wow! what a fun yet exhausting week/weekend!

Cambria, Melissa and Katie, our three winners of the CBX Make it Meaningful Contest, came on Thursday to just hang out and have a little fun. Despite all the hard stuff they are going through, we wanted to bring them here and just hang out with them, and take their minds off everything they are dealing with right now.  They arrived Thursday and we pretty much spent EVERY waking moment with them, laughing talking showing them around the CBX office, hanging with the crew and just having fun. On Friday we started out the day with a photo shoot for them, in our photo studio at CBX. We got some great candid shots of them for the book and just for them to have.

Every Friday at CBX we have what's called Friday Fun Lunch or FFL. We either bring potluck and sit around eating, laughing telling jokes, or we go out to eat somewhere and do the same. It's always fun because we work with such funny and crazy people. Well this week Carrie was in charge and decided to have a FIESTA and a Pinata (sp?). What a RIOT we had!  I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. We hung the pinata from the ceiling and then we blindfolded the three sisters and let them go at it. Watch out boys, cause Katie (who is the youngest and single).. man she can swing a bat! LOL.. So fun.. it was a great time. Kenna ended up breaking the mangled pinata and then all the boys wrestled on the floor like little kids trying to see who could get the most. Pretty funny wathcing grown men act like boys.

Then Friday afternoon we all gathered in Mel's office and asked the girls to tell us again the story of their album, their mom, and what they have learned since all of this has happened as I documented it by video tape. It lasted almost 2 hours and I have to tell you, there was not a dry eye in the room. If there was ever a family that has a unique story to tell, this is it. It was hard for Mel and I to even ask them questions without choking up...  we just love these girls so much and the thought of seeing them go through what their mother is going through is heartbreaking to us.

Well during the intereview,  I started feeling really crummy.. started getting a fever and just feeling achy. We had planned to have an all night PJ party with the girls and who ever wanted to come from the office at Kat's house.  Of course I wasn't going to miss out on that. I took some drugs and although I wasn't much fun, it was fun for me to just be with them, laugh and listen to stories. We had such a great time. I eneded up spending the night because I was too sick to drive home, and thought maybe sleeping in (with no kids) would do  me some good. I just couldn't sleep all night long so I woke up around 7 and went home. I could barley drive my body ached so bad and I lived 30 minutes away from kat's house..  So needless to say,  I spent all day yesterday and today (so far.. not feeling much better) in bed just sleeping. AH! I HATE being sick.. specially on weekends!   Those are my only free days. It was SO nice and warm yesterday too, which made it even worse. I tired to go outside and sit in the sun for a while and my body just hurt too bad to even sit up. YUCK! oh well that's life.

well, I better head back to bed. My husband went to church to teach my lesson. So nice of him. I teach the "sunbeams" which is the 3 and  4 year olds. They are so cute and fun. Love that age. Hopefully I will feel better tomorrow. I have to do 3 layouts tomorrow for some CBX packaging for some new page kits we have coming out at CHA summer. Usually we have our design team do those, but I guess they found out friday they needed them done and they have to be turned in by tuesday. It should be fun. I am not the fastest scrapbooker, so getting 3 done in one day maybe be a little stretch for me.  BUT  mabey I can post a sneak peak of them when I am done so you can see some of the papers from the new rooms! Granted these are different from the open stock papers, but they are simlar designs and the same color pallettes. 

okay.. really going now. headaches coming back and my body just needs to rest. Hopefully my 6 kids will live while I sleep! LOL

hugs-

Fundraiser and Teaching!

I just wanted to jump on here and remind everyone of the last few days of the awesome fundraiser Karen Russell is hosting on her weblog. www.KarenRussell.typepad.com (sorry haven't figured out yet, how to create links that actually WORK)! LOL..

It's an AWESOME fundraiser with tons and I mean TONS of prizes. You won't want to miss it!

Well, this week for work I have been working on doing instructions for a class I will be teaching at CKU in two weeks! This class is totally going to rock. I honestly just can't wait. Sakura and Prima both also donated products for this class, so it's going to be fun! Here's a sneak peak at the cover of the mini album we are doing!

Speaking of teaching. Some of you may know, but many of you might not, that I this summer I will be going part time with Chatterbox, so that I can have more flexible hours to spend with my kids. It also opens me up to have a little more free time to do somethings I have been missing out on because of my 40 hour a week work schedule.  One thing I have always loved doing is teaching and have taught several times at LSS stores throughout the US. It's just so different than teaching at CKU's and other events, because you are usually there all weekend and you really get to know the store owners, the customers and the students! I LOVE it!  I will be starting to teach at stores throughout the us and am starting now to book my fall classes. If any of you are interested I would love to chat about it! Just shoot me an e-mail!

Well, better get going. Today I am working on photographing my class projects, to put into my instructions. By the way.. don't tell anyone (LOL).. but I saw the new CBX paper when I was in the office on Tuesday that is due out for CHA summer and all I can say is it's going to ROCK YOUR WORLD. I can't wait for it!  I was foaming at the mouth! LOL.. 6 new rooms.. lots of new color combo's! WOW! Jesse and Mel really rock at creating papers. I will see if I can post a sneak peak..

hugs all. Have a wonderful day! don't forget to check out Karen's blog!

Christy