Family Business!

So, as some of you know, we have embarked in purchasing our very own family business. We now have a Promotional Product/Printing business. We invested in commercial equipment that is capable of screen printing on t-shirts and other items of apparel. We also have a vinyl cutter for home decor, signs, car wraps, etc. And last but not least, we have a pad printer which allows us to print on any hard or plastic surface. We can print on things like, cups, mugs, pens, golf balls, keychains, stress relievers, etc. (over 800,000 items). We set-up our shop in our basement and work from home.

Our company name is STELLAR SPECIALTY PRINTING...and we have our very own website: www.stellarco.com

Derek and I have learned so much already about this industry and continue to learn every day. We enjoy the limitless opportunities in this industry. We enjoy getting involved with our local community as well as serving other companies and organizations around the country.

So far some of the things we have done are: assisted a church group in designing embroidered caps for their fundraiser, ordered 1000 pens for the local political 9-12 (based off of Glen Beck) group, embroider polo shirts for a local cleaning company with their business logo, designed art work for an order of stadium cups for a family reunion, screen-printed shirts for an electrician here in town, screen-printed shirts for 12 yr old girls at church, sticker labels for a carpet cleaning company, plastic bags for a golf course, etc.

We have steadily been receiving business opportunities from friends and family, just by word of mouth. We look forward to marketing more and visiting more companies to offer our services to. We are excited to get into the schools to do sport and band events or fundraisers. Cassidy has already been marketing for us too. She's so excited and so cute about being a part of our business. She will help us by sharing what we do with anyone wherever we go. All I have to say is... we now own a family business...then she immediately tells them..."Stellar Specialty Printing!" Sometimes I don't even have to mention anything. One day we were at the park and I was talking to my friend about just everyday things...and I guess she was listening as I was pushing her on the swing. Out of the blue she said to my friend.."How about ordering some pens?" She was hired on the spot! :)

We look forward to the growth of our business, learning new skills, understanding the meaning of hard work, extra money to spend, working together as a family, meeting all kinds of people and their businesses, but most of all help others to promote their business and to help them succeed in whatever endeavor they are involved in.

Derek always says with this business... "Everyday is a good day!" If you think about it...it's true. Whether it's helping someone get the word out about their new business, celebrating a marriage with their personalized items to remember their day, providing apparel for a sports team that earn their way to the playoffs, a family reunion that unites people to create memories, fundraisers to help raise money for good causes, and so forth.

If you need any of our services please let us know. :)

The Stellar Team

We used t-shirt vinyl to make these shirts while we were training on our equipment.

Easter Weekend

Easter weekend was fun. On Saturday morning we went to the mall for an Easter egg hunt. The mall was chaotic and there were lots and lots of people. It was disappointing the way they organized the event. Most children didn't even get one egg, and some were crying. Cassidy was fortunate to be standing at the right place at the right time where one of the staff members dropped the eggs.

The best part of this event at the mall... was our daughter making the choice to share her eggs with other children that didn't get any. As well as witnessing a young teenager showing kindness and being a good Samaritan to a mother with young children that needed help, even if it meant she lost her chance to get eggs for herself. That was the highlight of this egg hunt experience.

When we got home we colored eggs and Cassidy enjoyed decorating them with stickers as you can see in the picture below. As we decorated eggs we had the chance to listen to church conference. After decorating eggs we played with Cassidy's new Easter gift her...Play-dough Ice Cream Shop. Cassidy looooves to play with play-dough. It was so fun and it almost looked so real to eat. That night when Derek went to Priesthood session of conference Cassidy and I went to "Girls Night" at the church bookstore. They have drawings for free gifts all night and special buys. Well, we actually had our number drawn and won some great books to read. Yeah!!!!

When Derek got home Cassidy and I sent him off on his very own Easter egg hunt. Us girls had so much fun sneaking around and hiding his eggs. There was even a "Golden egg" with green inside. :) It was fun watching him on the hunt. It made me smile to hear our daughter's giggles as he would get closer to finding one of her eggs. But she couldn't resist in helping her daddy find the eggs that she hid. It was so cute. At one hiding spot she hid 3 eggs at the same spot. Funny girl. Luckily, Cassidy didn't see me hide my eggs. Otherwise, it would have been a very short egg hunt.

Easter weekend was pretty special this year, because we were able to listen to our Prophet speak and other amazing church leaders all weekend in General Conference. It's a world-wide broadcast conference from the Church. They give inspirational talks to inspire us and teach us to be better.

We had the privilege to have Aunt Barb join us for some of the conference. We enjoyed her company and our conversations. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to stay for Easter dinner but we were grateful for the time we did get to spend together . For Easter dinner, we invited our good friends: Jaime and her cute kids Tyler, and Rachel (Jeff had to work).

We tried something different this year. Filling our Saturday with all the fun Easter activities and reserving Easter Sunday to celebrate the true meaning of Easter, the life of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Cassidy's decorated egg, she insisted on placing the same stickers next to each other in groups. She explained she wanted to place her stickers like Noah's ark with the grouping of animals.

Easter Egg Hunt at the mall

The Golden Egg! I thought I was pretty clever to hide it in our ceiling vent. But no fooling my clever hubby.

Inspiring Video...Stephanie Nielson

I have kept up with this beautiful woman's life story...as most people have. She has touched many hearts including my own. Enjoy!

Futbol

While visiting family in Arizona we had the chance to go to our nephew Branden's soccer game. Cassidy took delight in standing next to her cousin Branden on the sideline, like she was part of the team.

Well this spring, my friend Camille asked if I would like to sign Cassidy up for city soccer to play with her daughter Aly. We decided to wait until fall season(due to unpredictable weather at this time in Colorado) and maybe try out some ballet classes. I found out that ballet classes were already too far into the season in order to participate in the recitals.
So we decided to wait and maybe start classes in the fall.

Then a week later I received an e-mail from my friend Teri that the soccer league she signed her daughter in was short on players and needed more. They were offering a special deal for new players to play for FREE. We decided why not.

It was exciting to go buy her soccer stuff: shin guards, soccer shorts, and her very own pink soccer ball. Cassidy was so excited and we got together with some friends to practice a little bit to get her ready for her 1st game. While we practiced she did very well with dribbling the ball on her own but had to understand this was a "team sport" and needed to give her ball away to others.

Her first dress rehearsal as a soccer player

(wearing her Stellar shirt that we made her)

For the next month and a half, we were going to have Soccer games every Saturday. From 12pm-1pm a soccer practice and then from 1pm-2pm a soccer game. Unfortuantely, due to the weather several weekend games were canceled. But we were assured they were going to have make up games with 2 games in a row (rather than a practice) the following weekends.

Cassidy's 1st game of soccer. Standing next to her friend Tyler

The picture above was the very beginning of Cassidy's soccer career. It was so cute to watch her stand so close to her friend Tyler for comfort.



As you see in the video, she and Tyler (both in red) basically just stood there and didn't move one bit. Within a couple of minutes, she ran over to me and finished the rest of the game on the sidelines as a cheerleader for her team and not as a soccer player. We kept encouraging her to go back out there and play. But she would have no part in that. She just got too overwhelmed.

I can't be too upset, she is only four. And maybe soccer is only fun with mom and dad...and not with 12 kids running in a big crowd after the same ball. But doesn't she look so cute in her soccer uniform?


Superstar #9

Her untucked reversible jersey looking like a dress. Enjoying her goldfish as she cheers for her team. Her teammate Alyssa, that she helps cheer for.

In Sedona... with the JOHNSON'S

In December, 2009 we had the opportunity to spend a week in Sedona, Arizona for the Johnson Family Reunion. It was gorgeous! As you can see, the leaf colors were still changing.

With Grammy's timeshares each family was able to have their very own house unit. These units were huge and cozy. We had fireplaces, a balcony off the master suite, hot tubs, location near a creek, and close to the shopping outlets. It was so nice to be together and to watch the children play together. Some of the fun things we did during our stay:

Matthew & Cassidy all dressed up ready to go to Church

Cousins playing in the courtyard of the resort

Cute niece Carolyn found a treasure

Swimming Time

Uncle Bryan "to save the day"

Fun times playing Rock Band & the Wii

Playing Winter Olympics on the Wii

Play time

Adorable Daniel, Macey, & Cassidy pretending to be kittens in the shower

Matthew snuggling with Grammy

Movie Night

Cute niece Grace with baby brother William

Handsome nephew Michael

We exchanged stockings for the kids & for the adults had a white elephant exchange.



We had Macey's Christmas stocking, and filled her stocking with fun things...but she enjoyed her banana the most

Found snow outside of Sedona. Watch out for flying snowballs. We had a great snowball fight.

Train Ride

Going through the dark tunnel was fun for everyone.

Derek and his brothers: Bryan, Scott, & Kevin

Beautiful niece Brynna holding Cassidy

Santa & Mrs. Clause on the train with us. They read Christmas stories to the children.

Los Abrigados Resort-a tradition in Sedona to go see the decorative light displays.

One of my favorties: Peter Pan Display

Horse rides at a nearby Ranch. We also had the chance to feed the chickens.

Michael, Brynna, Amber, Daniel, Carolyn, & Cassidy

Karaoke Night. Uncle Kevin not holding back.

Karaoke is a Johnson family tradition

Once upon a time...

During a lovely afternoon...a discovery was made..."Cassie's Castle" (named by Cassidy of course)

Our adventures within these sacred walls include:

• A place of refuge from the angry dragons that were trying to take the princess away

• After defeating the dragons the Princess Cassidy had her hair done beautifully

• Then ate like Royalty, our lunch menu: Mac & Cheese, Hot dogs, & Pears -It was delish!
  

• Read Princess story books and created some of our very own

But most of all...shared the most magical moments between a mother and daughter, with NO interruptions!

Mission Call

Our oldest nephew (my sister Maria's son), has just received his mission call. Nic will be the 1st one to lead the way for his cousins. We're so excited for him and can't wait to hear about his missionary experiences.

He will be serving in this country... Armenia

We love you, Nic! We can't wait to see you before you leave.

Cassidy's Birthday Party

Cassidy was asking for a "Pajama Birthday Party" 6 months before her birthday. I thought what a perfect idea, since that is Cassidy's favorite thing to wear...her PJ's. She also asked for a Strawberry Shortcake cake.

So I found some fun ideas online for the party. I made pillowcase birthday invitations out of fabric and stuffed them with bubble wrap. They were fun and easy to make.


Knowing a slumber party was probably not appropriate for their age, we decided to have her party Saturday morning. We had all the children come dressed in their pajamas, it worked out great since they were in their pj's already. We provided a hot breakfast. We had waffles, scrambled eggs, bacon, fresh fruit, O.J., juice boxes, etc.


Derek had a great idea to set-up the basement with some bed mattresses and extra pillows and blankets. The kids LOVED jumping on the mattresses and snuggling up with their blankets/pillows.


Some of the activities at the party included: decorating pillowcases with fabric paint using their hand prints and sponge shapes, playing musical pillows, pin the pj's on Boo (Boo from Monster's Inc), story-time given by my wonderful husband, pillow fights, and of course cake and ice cream.

For the party bags to take home I filled them with a toothbrush, a story book, and goodies to go along with the theme. It was nice to have some extra pair of hands to help out at the party. Thank you Eve and Camille we couldn't have done it without you!

Yummy Chocolate Cake with fresh strawberries in the middle

A cheesy smile after blowing out the candles, she couldn't let go of her juice box and her precious DOLLY

Giving kisses to Daddy with a chocolate ice cream face!

My sweet 4 year old!

This is how we found Daddy after all our guests went home

Right after the earthquake in Haiti, we wanted to take the time to teach Cassidy about others around the world and their needs. Cassidy had many questions about it and asked us what an earthquake was. Derek used Cassidy's wooden blocks and started stacking them on top of each other like houses in Haiti on a chair. Then he rocked the chair as the wooden blocks fell. I think she had a better understanding on how devastating an earthquake can be. Right after that demonstration she ran to the bathroom and brought us something. Cassidy wanted to give all her Scooby-Doo bandaids to the kids in Haiti.

Since her birthday was coming up we thought why not do something different. Instead of birthday gifts from her friends we had the idea to instead ask her friends to bring a pair of pajamas that we were collecting to donate to a family shelter here in town. It was another great opportunity to teach our daughter it's more fun to give than to get. We have been blessed to provide our daughter with so many things and after we explained to Cassidy that some children have nothing, including a mommy and daddy, she wanted to give more. Our friends were very gracious in giving too and we were able to collect 20 sets of pajamas.

That following week Cassidy and I invited some friends and we took a trip to the shelter to drop off the pajamas. The staff at the shelter were very grateful! Children are an example to all of us.

Pajama Success!