April Specials from Jeweler Brooke Thames!

April is just around the corner, and I wanted to pass along a new Gift With Purchase Special being offered by Premier Designs for Home Show purchases between April 1st and April 30th!

Also, look for a Gift Certificate Giveaway towards the bottom of this post!

Egg-cellent April Offer!! With any $75 purchase made at a Home Show between April 1st and April 30th, the buyer will receive any one item priced at $40 or less for FREE!! This is an awesome promotion, but it's only available to purchases made at a Home Show. Call or email to get your Home Show on my April calendar, and I'll throw in a FREE Clip It, a $10 value!

I am also beginning two of my very own promotions valid for Home Shows AND individual orders:

I have a new “Happy Book”, filled with items marked with a sticker that you can get for only $10 when you purchase any 3 items!

The second offer is called 30/40/50, and this is available for both Home Show orders and individual orders:

· When you buy 3 items, you receive 30% off the MOST EXPENSIVE item.

· When you buy 4 items, you receive 40% off the MOST EXPENSIVE item.

· When you buy 5 items, you receive 50% off the MOST EXPENSIVE item.

Jewelry is a wonderful gift for any woman in your life! Don't forget, Mother's Day is May 8th, and we are also coming up on graduation and bridal shower season.

Do you have a Fundraising need? Did you know I do Fundraiser Home and Catalog Shows?? Just ask for more details!

I wanted to say a HUGE thank you to these amazing hostesses who helped me achieve my Quick Start with Premier Designs, holding 6-9 shows in my first 60 days of business. You ladies helped me get my business off to an amazing start and I'm SO grateful for that!

· Heather Pastore

· Holly Schauer

· Valoree Hill

· Rebecca Cassidy

· Holly Birman

· Diane Wicks & Robyn Burt

· Becca Mandina

· Ariane Donovan

· Rachael Langley

Past Hostesses receive 20% OFF any orders they place in the 6 months

following their Home Show! Find out more details on what you receive as

a Hostess at the end of this email!

Respond in the comments section to be entered to win a $30 Gift Certificate towards jewelry of your choice! No minimum purchase necessary to use the Gift Certificate and it doesn’t expire until December 31^st, 2011! Winner will be picked at random on April 1, 2011- no foolin’! :)

Respond in the comments section or email me with Catalog if you're interested in a catalog for individual purchases or a Catalog Show!

Respond in the comments section or email me with Home Show in the subject line and your contact information in the body of the email to get your Home Show on my calendar!

My Contact Information:
Brooke Thames
brookethames@gmail.com

Details of Premier's awesome Hostess Plan:

As a Hostess of a Premier Designs Home Show* you may receive:

· 30% of the Home Show’s Total Retail in Premier Designs Jewelry of your choice

· The opportunity to purchase 4 to 8 items at ½ price based on the Total Retail of your Home Show

$100-$300 = 4 ½ price items

$301-$499 = 6 ½ price items

$500+ = 8 ½ price items

The Hostess may also receive a $25 Hostess Bonus Award for each of the following:

· Holding your Home Show on the originally scheduled date

· Having $100 in Advance Sales (before the Home Show)

· Have 10 or more guests (18 years of age or older) at the Home Show

· Three or more future bookings at the Home Show

*To qualify for Hostess Benefits, a Home Show must total at least $100 Retail in guest orders

Reasons to become a Hostess:

• Learn new ways to accessorize and stretch your wardrobe with jewelry!
• Free jewelry! (Not to mention the ½ price selections!)
• An excuse to get together with the wonderful women in your life!
• Add some color to your outfits with the new Spring Line!
• Why not??

Is Premier Designs for you?

· Be your own boss

· 50% profit on all retail sales

· No inventory, quotas, or deliveries

· Amazing Hostess plan

· Premier’s Golden Guarantee

Fun with scooters

With a (rare) break in the rain, we were able to head outside to the back patio a couple of weekends ago and enjoy the scooters that Grandma Gayle and Papa got the kids for their birthdays.

The kids keep asking when the rain will stop and we can go outside again.

I wonder the same thing.

I love the green in Oregon. Don't love the rain so much. Which makes it so green. Oh well.

Riley has become quite the fashionista.

She loves to dress herself and would choose to wear a skirt and/or dress every single day if we'd let her.

She also loves to have her picture taken. :)

So, when Riley had her little kissing incident at preschool (if you're not familiar with this, you should read my previous post), Rick had a great idea. Wearing skirts was taken away from Riley, as a "punishment". At least for a little while. Which is really funny, because that is complete opposite from me! I actually wore a skirt to school last week, and Riley was pretty proud of me. :)

She also got her hair cut a couple of weeks ago. We were considering cutting it up to her shoulders, but we'll save that for the spring/early summer. (Yes, I'm being way too sentimental about her hair.) A woman at the salon braided her hair and she was pretty excited about it!
(I got my haircut, too.)

One of those days...

I'm about halfway done with my long-term sub position in 4th grade. I have to admit it has been at times very challenging, but certainly educational (for me, and hopefully for them). In the class, I have the only student in the whole school on a behavior contract, a girl who bullies anyone you seat near her, and several Chatty Cathy's. Most days I am exhausted by the time school ends at 2:45pm. The teacher I'm subbing for came to visit a couple of days ago (she had surgery and is home recovering), and she even said she didn't realize how exhausting the class was until she's been away from them for a couple of weeks. I will always appreciate this experience and all the tools I am acquiring on conflict resolution! :)

Now turning to our own kids...

Tyson has been struggling with some angry outbursts at preschool, including kicking some chairs last week and screaming. He spent some time in the office this afternoon at preschool because he had a bit of a meltdown. Awesome.

Cooper has two of the most random teeth coming in... as in the two bottom teeth on either side of his middle bottom teeth. The kind most kids get in before their first birthdays. He's almost 2 1/2. AND he has all the other teeth in his mouth already, so those silly teeth are trying cram their way in between some pretty well-established teeth. As a result, he's a total grumpster- which has not gone unnoticed at preschool either. Awesome.

Then there's Riley... usually glowing reviews from her days at preschool. Until today. Riley's teacher caught Rick and I before we entered the building this evening to let us know that Riley has been kissing a few of the boys at preschool. On the mouth. Often. Awesome.

So, after my exhausting day at school dealing with other people's kiddos and a week of my first parent conference, phone call, letter, and email (all for different kids), I got to hear all about how my own kids are creating issues for their teachers. It was all I could to not burst into tears before even leaving the preschool building tonight.

Tyson went to bed early tonight.

Cooper sat in more time-outs this evening then he has in the past month (at least it felt that way), and he's taken to flopping on the floor in a drama-filled fits.

Riley lost her doll house, her new flashlight, and Princess (her beloved stuffed bunny, and her best friend).

When we sat Riley down to talk about why those things were taken away and what her teacher had talked to us about, she said "For kissing at school." Honestly, I had a to walk out of the room because I started giggling. And her reason for kissing them? "Because I love them." We then talked about other ways she could show love towards her friends at school. She came up with making pictures for them, and making them necklaces and bracelets. We also let her know she could be polite to them, share, and just play with them. I guess the bright side is, she "got in trouble" at school for showing too much love. We were more disappointed to hear that her teacher had talked to her about it a few times already and she continued with the behavior. Hopefully our talk will help.

I don't want another day like today for a while. I'm hoping for a positive day in the classroom tomorrow, and for good reports from preschool. I think my nerves need it. :)

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Happy 6 years to us!!

Thanks to an amazing deal from Groupon, Rick and I were able to spend our 6th anniversary at the historic Viewpoint Inn in Corbett, OR on March 5th. The Viewpoint Inn has been around since the early 1900's and is a historic building overlooking the beautiful Columbia River Gorge- only about 20 miles away from downtown Portland. President Roosevelt and Charlie Chaplin apparently visited there, and the suite we stayed in was named after Roosevelt. It also just happens to be the site of filming for the prom scene at the end of Twilight. The final scene of Victoria looking down on Edward and Bella dancing in the gazebo was filmed from the window of our Roosevelt Suite (according to the guy who showed us to our room!).

There are only 4 rooms at the Inn, no TV's in the rooms, and the grounds are pretty small, so it was a very relaxing evening. With my Groupon, we also received a bottle of champagne and $25 towards food at the restaurant, which was nice. I couldn't stop taking picture of our beautiful room and the view!

The window where the scene in Twilight was filmed from.

Our room

Outside our bedroom was a whole sitting room with a fireplace, table, and several places to sit.

The whole place had fun built-ins, little closets, and so much character!

The view of the Gorge, Vancouver, and Portland... on a clear, sunny day, I bet the view is even more amazing!!

The Viewpoint Inn... our room was the two windows on the left of the second floor, and we ate dinner at a table by the window right in the middle on the bottom.


We woke up to a foggy morning, and I was very thankful I got pictures the night before!


And this must be THE most stylish chicken coop I have ever seen!

It was a much needed evening away for rest!

Catching up...

Man, have I been a SLACKER at blogging lately! We have been leading a crazy-hectic life around here and blogging has taken a huge back-burner to other things. That, and my laptop's hard drive went out and the DVR in the office hasn't been working, so sitting down to blog with no TV to catch up on in the background has made it less appealing. Sad, right?! The office DVR is still not working, and my laptop is fixed but has no pictures on it yet, so I'm sucking it up and blogging in complete silence in the office. (Not complete silence, I can hear Rick feeding the kids dinner- so nice of him to give me this time!) So, here is my best attempt at catching up for the last 3 1/2 weeks since my post about Tyson's birthday...

We had a big birthday weekend over February 12 and 13th. The night of the 12th, we had all the family over, including my mom, Jim, and Cassidy from the Tri-Cities, and we had tacos, cake, and the kids were spoiled with presents. :)

On the 13th, we rented out JJ Jump (an indoor bounce house arena) for a private party for a little over 2 hours. We invited Riley and Tyson's friends from preschool, plus from of our family friends, about 30 kids and 15-20 adults in all. The kids played, jumped, and generally wore themselves out for about an hour, then we stuffed their faces with pizza, juice, and cake! I was surprised at how not hectic the party felt! The kids were spread out playing (it's a pretty big place for 30 kids), and then they were all so hungry that they sat nicely at the tables and ate... it was so nice! Here are only a few pictures from the day- the camera was resting while we enjoyed watching the kids play and talked with some of the preschool parents.

Riley and Cooper before the party- Riley LOVED the new dress she got from Grandma and Grandpa! Isn't it cute? :)

The kids got to try and win money and prizes- Riley kept catching things and letting them go, she didn't quite get it. Tyson got a dollar and he was pretty excited!

The party guests!

And the cakes... Riley's party theme was actually Barbie, but got a Costco princess cake. Tyson's party was Transformers, and got dinosaur balloons and cake. :)

It was a wonderful weekend with friends and family! Even though the kids were once again cursed with the dreaded joint parties (and will be for years), I think they both felt really special and loved!

Paul Frank jammies have made their way to our house, courtesy of Aunt Robyn! The kids now have favorite jammies, the best part is hearing Cooper call them his "Ooh, ooh, aah, aah's"!

Moving on from the kids, I have seen a big change in the past few weeks as far as my schedule goes. I was offered a six week long-term substitute teaching position that started on February 17th, at the school I student taught at last year. It's in a fourth grade classroom, and so far it has been an adventure! I'm enjoying being home every night, but a part of me misses flying just a little bit. What's funny is, about 2 months before being offered the position, Rick and I had decided that financially it would be best to put flying first in my schedule, then sub only to fill in the days off. Then this dropped into my lap and I was more than happy to shift thinking again to focus more on teaching. It's been a wonderful learning experience already- I even had my first parent phone call on Friday and I have my first parent meeting tomorrow. Fun times. :)

I have also really been enjoying my job as a Jeweler with Premier Designs. Just this past Friday, I complete what is called a Quick Start with the company- holding 6-9 Home Shows in your first 60 days as a Jeweler. I completed 9, so I'm getting a $300 bonus to put towards jewelry to have on my table to show. I've also been Top Seller in my little Premier family for both January and February, which is fun! I'm sure things will quiet down now that my Quick Start is completed, but I'm looking forward to seeing where my path with Premier takes me!

That's enough for now... I have MUCH more to share, including a little fashion show from Riley, fun with scooters, and pictures from our anniversary getaway to The Viewpoint Inn this weekend. Stay tuned!