WOW... a year already!

How embarrassing, it's been a over a year since I updated my blog! Well 2009 had been an extremely busy year for us!!!!

-I promoted to team leader for Wildtree in January 2009


-We had the opportunity to be on TV!!! Kraig & I traveled to New Jersey to film 3 clips for his friends hunting show. I gave 3 cooking tips using Wildtree products.

http://theruletv.com/Videos__2.html

-We had plans to go on a cruise with my mom, sisters, & Amy's family. It was planned for November, but....

-We found out we were having a baby!!! And I was due just 6 days before we were supposed to set sail ;) So we canceled the cruise!


-We put our woodworking business up for sale and were going to move back to the Detroit area to be closer to family!

-That didn't work out as planned though....

-I went to Portland, OR in June for the LWML convention as a young woman rep for my district. I live in the UP of Michigan, but my district is the north Wisconsin district. www.lwml.org


-In July, the hunting show premiered and we had a party to celebrate my celebrity status, HAHAHA.... joke, I'm no celebrity ;) It was fun though, we had friends and family come to the party. I was also in the paper http://www.mininggazette.com/page/content.detail/id/505812.html and on the radio, the "Dirkside", it was cool~!

-Also, in late July I went to Orlando to the National Wildtree Convention! I was even an on stage helper at that and won some prizes. Gained a ton of helpful info and met some great people!

-Amy started school this year!!!

-In September we were downstate (Garden City & Brighton) visiting family, doing some Wildtree tasting parties, and we had our Michigan meeting in Bay City that the VP of Sales, Gina Thayer came to! That was fun.

-I did several parties each month, average about 4 a month, every month from January thru October.

-November 11th, our little surprise baby boy Wes was born!
-To top off 2009, we had made a quick decision trip on December 30th to go downstate and visit the family!

2010 promises to be even better!

We took our woodworking business off of the market and have decided to expand it. This year we are hiring people, and doing a whole lot more than just log furniture... it's exciting!

Whew... so I'm hoping to update the blog here at least once a month this year.... if I don't, I give you permission to email me to remind me :)

Thanks!
Michelle "Shel" Mahrley
www.michellem.mywildtree.com
yooperwildtree@gmail.com

Wildtree - Simple. Healthy. Natural

Back in July when I was searcing the dsa.org website, I was looking for a company with consumable products! I really wanted food :) I always knew of tastefully simple, but also found a company called Two Sister's Gourmet (TSG), as well as Wildtree.

I heard recently that Two Sister's Gourmet is going to be closing - going out of business!! I guess they will be merging some of their products in with Partylite. The TSG reps will have the option to convert to the new combo under Partylite.

This makes me thankful that I went with Wildtree instead! I liked what both tastefully simple & TSG had to offer in terms of products - but in the end I decided to join Wildtree. The #1 reason I did that was the Wildtree products are 100% all natural! They are also made in the US, contain no additives, MSG, preservatives or food dyes. Everything is made in a peanut-free environment! You can rest assured that when you choose wildtree, you are choosing the BEST! www.michellem.mywildtree.com

Alex & his collections

Here is Mr. Alex with his favorite collections these days... the first photo is @ my brother Scott's house in Traverse City over the new year! Alex loved the stairs & loft at the house! This is his collection of Star Wars the Clone Wars guys :)

The 2nd photo is of Alex's Bakugan guys! These things are fun... magnetic balls that "pop" open & become guys when you put them on their magnetic cards! Alex & I have Bakugan Brawls frequently!

The 3rd one is Amy & the Bakugan that Alex gave her... I thouhgt it was so cute she wanted to be just like her big brother <3

~Enjoy... Michelle

Amy & her straight hair....

Isn't she adorable~! I straightened it one night and it was so long! She had fun showing off her cute hair :)

Christmas Presents for the kids...

I love to shop for my kids! But months after Christmas I get so sick to my stomach when I see all the money we spent & they never play with anything! Last year I found "Victorian Christmas" online. It is when you buy only 4 gifts for your children: something they WANT, NEED, WEAR, & READ. I never thought I'd be able to just stick to that! So last year I didn't do it... I didn't even try!

Well... if you want motivation to stick to a strict budget like that, let me tell you, just clean out the toy room before you go shopping! All the toys we threw away and gave away... and even still - they don't hardly play with what is left, sheesh!

I expanded the version for us a little bit! I also added in "one present from Santa" (even though my children don't believe, we still pretend), as well as having fun filling the stockings (and NO! I did not fill the stockings with $50 WII games, lol...), or candy! They did get 1 chocolate marshmellow santa each, and will get a few peanut butter cups, they got a few small toys (amy a thomas pull back train, and alex some star wars guys), new toothbrushes, a new ornament, combs, things like that!

I stamped cute tags for them that Alex will have fun reading and passing out on Christmas day. Here is what they are getting:

Alex:
want - webkins
need - alarm clock
wear - nike sweatshirt
read - magic tree house books
from santa - a magic set!

Amy:
want - marble run
need - baby bumblebee dvd (helps w/ talking as she's in speech therapy now)
wear - outfit
read - a collection of biscuit books
from santa - candy land castle game!

I'm very excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't wait for Christmas morning :) And our biggest goal of the day, to make it to church! We never do for the "convenience" factor - but that really IS the most important reason, to celebrate the birth of Jesus & remember why He was born in the first place. To save us ALL from our sins. Thank you Lord, for sending us Your Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not die, but have everlasting life!

Christmas Card Holder

I made a few Christmas Card Holders after seeing this super cute memo board on one of my favorite blogs written by The Nester. (trying to learn to enter a link here to her blog...)

((Hmmm, I cannot figure out HOW to enter a link so you can just click on it! Her blog is www.nestingplacenc.blogspot.com ))

I'll try to show you what I did to make it...

First I had my woodworking hubby cut me squares! I said "I don't care how big, I don't care what kind of wood" - 15 minutes later he brought me these 14" square pieces of plywood! He asked me how many, I said I didn't care, lol~! These are for gifts, for no one in particular (yet)!

First thing you do is scatter your supplies all over your living room:


Next... you get your measuring stick (or in my case Amy's DVD & a box of screws... I'm not so precise! The Nester ALWAYS says "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful"!! And you decide where you want to have the screws go. I marked my spots with a sharpi... everyone needs a sharpi (or 10)! I then put wire around the screws to make this easy to hang (but you could also just rest it up against the wall)




Ok, then I used 1 layer of quilt batting, stapled it all the way around the wood. Then I stapled a layer of burlap (I think that's what it's called)


Add ribbon...


And then you are done! I totally need to take a pic of this before I put the cards on it... it's super cute! And you can't really tell when it's all hidden w/ cards, lol! Still cute though! This was SUPER easy and quick to make! You can make them any size, any color!!!!

Our Christmas Tree

Every year we go hunting for the perfect tree on our property. We either get it by our future house site or by the power lines - those are trees that would have to come down eventually anyway! This year, Kraig cut down a huge one that was missing it's middle, right by the power lines. The kids enjoyed watching it fall down. They had a lot of fun putting the ornaments all over too... enjoy the pics :)