Back in September, I had this fun idea to have The Tip Junkie Awards. It would run just like the Oscars with nominees and Tip Junkie readers will vote for the winners. You know, feature the ‘Best of 2008’.

It would be a way to remind everyone of some fabulous {{but forgotten}} tips, as well as feature Mom-preneurs, and give away lots of amazing gifts. win/win/win

So I lined up 20 fabulous prizes and had Shannon get my blog all dressed up for the occasion. I can’t tell you how excited I’ve been to announce it.

At the time, I had no idea that my life would completely stop in it’s tracks and I would be bed-ridden for 5 weeks. So with as much positive attitude I can muster, I’ve decided that the Awards must go on!

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So help an invalid out and head on over to Tip Junkie and nominate your favorite tips in several categories. The only rule is that they had to be featured on Tip Junkie in 2008.

I’ll collect all the nominations, add some of my own, and announce them after January 17th for everyone to vote and receive an amazing prize!!

I just love award season! Set your DVR’s.

Golden Globes: January 11th
SAG Awards: January 25th
Grammy’s: February 8th
Oscars: February 22nd

A comment I read recently got me thinking more about the spiritual aspects of Christmas. So I thought that I’d pose the question over on Tip Junkie, “How do you keep the Christ in Christmas?”

This time of year it’s so easy to get caught up in the material aspects of gift giving. For me, it’s a constant conscious effort to bring traditions, books, movies, and stories into my home that focus on the true meaning of Christmas. I’m sure we could all use some new ideas.

Here are a couple of mine:

12 Days of Christmas with Nativity – Read the poem or story that corresponds with each piece.

Felt Nativity Hand Puppets – Not everyone has enough people or costumes to act out the Nativity. Using puppets is an alternative that you can do as a family or just let the kiddos play together.

A book a day – Wrap up 25 Christmas books and unwrap one and read it every night until Christmas. It’s a wonderful way to get have your children practice as well as get in the Christmas spirit.

8×8 Christmas Album – All you need is a red 8×8 album, 3 pieces of textured scrapbook paper, a red ribbon, a charm, 3 red small buttons, and brown ink pad and print out all the stories. Read one each day.

Christmas Tree Advent Calendar – An advent is a way of marking the days until Christmas, start on December 1st and read the corresponding meanings for each symbol.

I’d love some more ideas! So head on over to Tip Junkie and join in the discussion. Simply compose a post answering the question and then copy and paste it into Mister Linky.

Tip Junkie is having a 12 Days of Junkie where there will be 2 winners announced each day for the next 12 days! {{giddy}}

It’s to help promote the women who are selling their products in the Mom-preneur Shop-a-thon. So be sure to head on over to Tip Junkie and enter the contest and check out all the amazing gift-giving possibilities in the shop-a-thon!

How sad it is it that I’ve been too busy to tell you about my new Mom-preneur Shop-a-thon. It’s a directory of women and their fabulous products. Buy from women this holiday season!

Save the gas money and shop online for your Christmas gifts this year. Every penny goes to supporting another woman and her family this holiday season. Your friends and family are going to be BLOWN AWAY at your gifts this year. {{giddy}}

I am so excited because after 14 days on constant design and troubleshooting, the New Mom-preneur Shop-a-thon has been redesigned!

It used to look like this with only links:

Now it has links with images, discounts, and automatic account upload. {{squeal with delight}}

Jason took off 3 days of work and went to bed between 3-5am for 2 weeks just to design the code and work out all the payment and account integration. Poor guy. But all his work was worth it and we are both so pleased with how it turned out.

I hope you’ll all start shopping and support these amazing ladies. Also, look for discounts just for Tip Junkie readers, they’ll be listed after their shop name.

Women in business ROCK!!

I decided a couple months ago to be a sponsor for the Pink Christmas charity & swap. As a sponsor I have the opportunity to plug Tip Junkie a little and give each of the 230 participants a little something to remember me by and to Thank them for participating in the charity.

I had something else in mind that was easier but it was going to be way too expensive. So instead I did my “fall back”, my one-hit-wonder, the beaded bookmark.

I shrinky dinked one of my buttons instead of using a charm.

This time I used Krylon clear spray to spray each one so the ink wouldn’t smear. It’s amazing what you learn when you read the directions. It only took me 2 years to figure it out. {{obviously I’m a fast learner}}

There’s how they turned out. I love them!! This morning I’m putting them in a jewelry zippy with a label that says, “I hope you’ll ‘bookmark’ TipJunkie.com as one of your favorite blogs.” {{giddy}}

Big thanks to my Mom for helping me with the first 130. I have a cramp in my left index finger which is making it hard to type – but it’s all worth it! Pink Christmas ended up raising $500 for the NieNie relief fund and $2500 for a Christmas for a family that just moved here from Africa.

I’m glad that I choose to be apart of it.

Here are Dylan’s Baptism CTR Invitations. It’s a 3D card that opens up in the middle of the shield. The “C” folds through the card next to the “T” to hold it together. My Mom designed and made them.

So D2, middle dude, a.k.a. Dylan, is getting baptised in a couple weeks and he is over-the-moon excited about it. In my church we baptise our sweeties at 8 years old. We believe, that up until the age of eight children cannot be held accountable for any wrong decisions they make. Their sins are wiped clean.

I personally feel this is such a wonderful gift that we give to our children and inspired by the Lord. Not only at 8 are children solid in their concepts of right and wrong, but they can also remember being baptised. This is especially important when trying to constantly “choose the right” and “do what Jesus would do” while striving to follow the example of our Lord, and Savior, Jesus Christ.

This also gives me great comfort knowing that my sister, who died when she was an infant, is awaiting us in Heaven, clean and pure, enjoying the blessings of eternal life. We were a year apart in age.

Naturally, we’re planning a fun celebration for Dylan. He is my most spiritual child and really understands the importance of being baptised and the covenants he’s making.

I’m so proud of him.

Tammy gave me this oh too cute bag of chocolate and post-its as a thank you for helping her organize the Saturday Spectacular (a.k.a. Super Saturday). Of course, I adore the sunflower glued onto it.

What I thought was really great was this, “Thank you for making our Saturday Spectacular “WonTruffle“!!

I had to share it with you. {{still giggling}

Holy Crap! I am freaking out right now because Jenn from Hostess with the Mostess announced the interview I did with her over on Tip Junkie. It was completely unexpected! YAY!

If you’re looking for a daily dose of eye candy and over the top entertaining ideas, add her to your Google Reader. Jenn’s got some crazy fun pictures and themed ideas.

{{Still screaming with delight}}

I want to thank you guys for your patience while Executive Homemaker was down. It was hacked with a virus along with 30,000 other websites. The virus corrupted the data and then my server backed up the corrupted data. It was a mess!

I feel terrible for those of you who were planning birthday parties and needed summer schedules and they weren’t available. It looks like Executive Homemaker is fully up and running now so you should be able to print out everything you need, free of course.

I did loose a little bit of data and I’ll do my best to re-post those few items over the next couple weeks. It was awful for me to see something I’ve worked so hard on the past 2 years corrupted in one afternoon. I’m over the shock and am grateful there wasn’t more damage.

So register, upload your blog posts, pictures, and files for the world to use. You get credit for everything you upload. I’m now accepting new Mom-prenuers for the online store. Shoot me over an e-mail if you’d like more information.

Thank you for your understanding and continued support!

I can’t believe it, Tip Junkie has hit 100,000 visitors in less than a year. I’m so excited and wanted to share with you how grateful I am for all your support! {{little teary}}