FUN IDEAS and a free MP3 code

It has been a while since I just gave you few fun finds so here are 3 of my faves from the past week.

BOOK:

Fairest.

I absolutely love this Youth fairy tale book. I enjoyed the easy read myself but I kept thinking I can't wait till my daughters read this book. It is an absolutely wonderful book about the psyche behind girls and women's fascination with beauty. It has a great ending and although it is a fairy tale twist on the Snow White story, (quite a big departure from the original story line in fact) there are some very real issues dealt with in this book. I suggest it for all gals 8 and older.

Amazon.com sent me this code to redeem 3 free MP3 downloads. I am pretty sure it will work for anyone MP34FREE. Give it a try.

Lia's preschool teacher is just cute. Seriously, I could not be a preschool teacher. I just don't have the creative, crafty genius or patience for it. But I thought this Thanksgiving activity was so adorable that I would share it with all of you in case you have some cute craftiness just waiting to be used up this Thanksgiving.

The pilgrim hat in itself is darling but it is the waffle cone cornucopia stuffed with frosting, cereal and fruit snacks that I thought was just a clever kid craft.

Write A Little Monday -- The Cat Is Out Of The Bag

Well, it's not really an announcement since so many of you already know about my giant writing project. But I am going to make an official announcement today. On December 1st I will launch a new regional online magazine community for Iron, Beaver and Garfield Counties called ALIVE UTAH. It is going to be beautiful and I am so excited.

Why am I telling you three weeks early? Well, I need a few things. First of all I am looking for a hunting columnist for my Explore/Outdoor Section. I would like the hunter/writer to be from my target area. So, if you know someone who would be interested that would be awesome to know.

Secondly, We are going to have a classified section (hopefully and eventually similar to KSL 5's classified) I need people to start sending me their "stuff" to be in the classified section. I would like a couple of things in this section before I launch. It is totally free and you can include an image. Hopefully, it will be up and running soon so that you can upload your own stuff. Until then send me what you have.

Third, I really need short humorous stories, photos or comics from locals for our weekly humor section.

Fourth, I am trying to get a comprehensive calendar put together for December. Do you have an event you want on the Calendar. email me at hugsfam5@msn.com
Finally,
I am always looking for writers or ideas about feature topics you want to see covered that would fall into any of the following categories
Live (Home, Garden, Shopping, Parenting)
Work (Finance, Technology, Business)
Explore (Outdoors, hunting,)
Wellness (Health and Fitness)
Taste (Recipes, Foodie blogs, Food Features)
Applaud (Arts, Entertainment, Music)
Discuss (Local hot topics in our community, Book Review for book forum, Political questions and photos of people at local events.)

I am really excited about this project. It has been in the works for a long time. And while I can't promise it will be perfect by its launch date. We are working toward something that will be both entertaining, interactive and useful to the community we are dubbing Utah South.

Talented Thursday -- Finally Done

It took forever and at times it stretched me to my limits. I'm just not that naturally detail-oriented. But it is done and I really love this painting.

Halloween Equals Baptism Day

October 31st was a momentous day for us. Our girl got baptized. What a beautiful little angel she was Saturday morning. I was not really excited that Halloween was her baptism day since I knew she was going to dress up as a Japanese vampire later in the evening. From angel to vampire in one day is a little disturbing. Still we had a wonderful morning. I sent her and her Dad and her brother to the church early, totally forgetting I should be there to help her get dressed. I showed up 10 minutes before the baptism time and realized she was not a boy and I should have been there. I felt like an idiot but practical Becca took it all in stride and was cheerfully waiting with her Dad when I arrived. Tom's parents and his brother Dave and his family, his sister Libby and her family and his sister Camille came to the baptism and my youngest brother Jake came down from Provo to represent the Riggles.

Isaac and his aunt Becky played a beautiful violin duet accompanied by a sweet girl from our young womens. They played I Am A Child of God and it brought a peacefullness to the baptism. Rebecca was the first to be baptized of the three children and everything went beautifully. Her sweet beaming face and wet hug were totally awesome when I met her afterwards. Afterwards Tom gave her a beautiful confirmation. Yes, we had to redo it because he forgot to confirm her a member of the church, although he did give her the gift of the holy ghost. But in his defense every Dad made the same mistake that day. I remember him specifically blessing her that she would be a light shining for Christ in her life.

I am really grateful she made the decision to become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I feel that she truly has the beginnings of a testimony and understands the basics principles of the gospel.

We came home and had a light lunch with family, took some naps and then the costuming began. Here are the kiddos (and Jake my brother) in their Halloween garb.
Isaac as shaggy and his friend as Fred
Japanese Vampire girl - Creepy
Gun Guy?

Tinkerbell

Halloween Here We Come

I love Halloween. Not the gory scary side of Halloween. I love the creative, silly, candy, jack-o-lantern carving, costume creating side of Halloween.

This year I decided to give myself a challenge. This year I wanted our costumes to be totally handmade, scrounged or found. And I wanted to spend $25 total for all 5 costumes. I am excited to say that we are going to come in under budget. Tom and I already went to our adult costume party. I wanted to go totally Japanese but Tom is sporting a flaming red beard and was unwilling to get rid of it. So we went as an International odd couple. I was Japanese and Tom was Scottish. I am happy with how they turned out because we literally did not spend one dime on our outfits. Tom totally looked Scottish with his red beard and sheet quilt. And even though he got some votes for scariest costume, I thought he was pretty clever.

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There were some other pretty clever party goers.





The kids costumes will be finished and soon you will get to see Shaggy, Tinkerbell, and a Chinese vampire.

Saturday and Sunday we had two full days of October Cedar Fun.

We watched the sheep dog trials at the Heritage Festival and then the kids got to pet the shire horses and Isaac tried his hands at a little roping.

Later we headed to the SUU homecoming game. We had to leave early due to my migraine and the girls' developing coughs. But woot! woot! SUU won.

Sunday was the primary program and the kids did great. We came home and the kids insisted on getting their pumpkin carving started, Never mind that I told them they would be wrinkly corpses by Halloween, they needed to get their pumpkin carve groove started. Becca carved her very first pumpkin without any help from Dad. It has a few issues but she is pretty proud of her work.
I need better photos so I will post all the Jack-o-lantern creations later in the week. Until then happy haunting and Happy Halloween. Have a great week. We are going to try and get Rebecca well before her baptism on Saturday. She came down with a nasty cough/cold/earache. And the rest of us are fighting off the same stuff the best we can.

It's Fall

I love Fall. And I love Fall in Cedar.

All the decorative grasses on my property get all decked out in their feathery plumes.

This little tree in front of my house is brilliant.


I get the urge to bake on almost a daily basis. My house smells like pumpkin and cinnamon and apples.

Cedar is the land of sunsets. Every night in the Fall we have spectacular sunsets and sometimes they surround us 360 degrees.

We get super crafty. Now I am not a really crafty person. But I start thinking of all the crafts I can make for holiday decorations and my children do things like build fairy boats out of pecan nut shells, marsmallows and flowers.

Yep, I love Fall.