Saturday

What an awesome day! I got to spend most of it with my DF Angel. YEAH! I was so happy to be able to throw a baby shower for her before she moves (yeah, you heard it right - tears, sad face, tears). Thanks for waiting and here's the cake....

Our DF Claudia who I have not seen in I don't know how long, seriously, couldn't make it but she took Angel out to lunch on friday and got her this....
Yeah, a Tony Romo jersey onsie!!!! How freakin' cute is that? It's really jersey material too. That's the cool thing about it. I've never seen one like that before so I had to post.

And one of the things I got her was a sleeper. Not just any sleeper. The PERFECT sleeper. Polka dots - yellow for me, orange for her, and blue and green because that's what she's doing the baby's room in. Cool huh? She can think of me everytime she puts it on him.
AND, as if it couldn't get better, I also got to spend some time with Diana and meet this cutie patootie little guy for the first time - Meet Alexander....
He's going to be one in July and I can't believe this is the first time I've ever seen him. Sad isn't it? I had a great time. Angel got LOTS of really cool stuff. She's so lucky to have such a wonderful group of friends and I count my blessings each day that I'm one of them. It's funny how things happen in your life. Thank God for PartyLite. That's how I met Angel 6 years ago. At a PartyLite show. Even though we haven't seen each other much in the last few years I can't imagine my life without her. I'll miss her dearly when she leaves for Kansas. They're loading the U-haul on the 12th (anybody want to come help? really). Thank goodness for blogs.

I love you Angel!!

*SMILE*

I just finished the cake for Angels baby shower. But there'll be no pictures today - that would ruin the surprise now wouldn't it? Sorry Sweetie! *wink*

Hmmmmm.

I've traded out the exercise bike for a treadmill. Let's see if this one works by just staring at it, the other one was definately a dud.

Sad and Pathetic

That would be words to describe the shape my body is in. I'm embarrassed to say it but we gutted the garage and the little barn this weekend to clean and organize and my muscles are sore. How completely pathetic is that?! The barn and the garage look GREAT though! WooHoo!

On a roll...

This is a photo from June 2006 - yes, that's how far behind I am on our family album. It's sad, I know. But I'm working on it! This layout was part of a class that I am doing with my DF Becky. So simple, yet TOTALLY out of the box for me. To do something this easy is so hard for me. I think it's a little heavy on the right side with the writing, the heart, and the flowers. Had I noticed it earlier I could have turned my patterened paper so the flowers were on the other side, but I didn't. Too late now.

This fabulous layout was done by my DF Shaunery. She also did the invitations for the baby shower (displayed on the left page). THANKS SHAUN!
(In case you were wondering those pictures do not really have all that glare. The glare is from me taking the picture of the layout. Apparently I need some tips.)

This layout was given to me by DF Jeanne. She totally rocks! A perfect match to display the birth announcements that I made and some pics of him in a great zoo themed outfit. I'm telling you - having these pages has made putting Morgan's album together a snap. I love everyone!
Taking a picture of this one was a challenge because it has a transparent overlay on it. Makes it look blurry and shadowy but it's really not. Blame it on the photographer. She needs some lessons.
This calendar page I'm not so crazy about but I had to just accept and move on. Ever have those pages? There's just too much white space on this one for me but I'm not taking it apart so I must accept and move on.
This beautiful layout was given to me by DF Angel. I love the papers! Thank you Thank you!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!!

Scrappin.

That's what I've been doin'. Not cleaning, not weeding, not watering, not anything else that needs done - scrappin'. Can't help it. I've got the bug bad and I can't think about anything else. All I want to do all day every day is sit in my office and scrap to my heart's content. Oh, but those pesky kids are always needing something (just kidding - about the pesky part I mean). Anyway, here's some stuff I've managed to get done in the past two days....

The kids playing last summer...

And I've finally started on Morgan's album. I started it at convention. I really thought I'd get alot done, and in 12 hours of alloted scrapbooking time I completed 4 pages. Yes, that's extremely slow, even for me. So not very productive at convention but now I'm inspired and on a roll. This first layout was given to me by my dear friend Becky. At Morgan's baby shower most of my friends made layouts for me and I have many of them slated for use asap. So, I hope as I post them I give the proper credits. I love you all! Thanks!

Yes, I know the ribbon it wrinkly. Yes, it drives me crazy. No, I'm not going to iron it. I don't even iron my clothes. I'm certainly not going to iron my scrappin' ribbon. I'm praying that as it gets squished in the book it will flatten out. A girl can pray right?

I'm actually very excited about Morgan's calendar pages. As I was gathering stuff I was a little worried because with everything that has gone on over the last year I didn't do a very good job writing stuff down. Or so I thought. Then my dear friend Jeanne popped into my head and I remember her saying "this blog isn't just for my friends and family, it's my online diary. So that I have a written account when I go back and scrap all these events." Hallelujah! I went back on my blog from last year and there it was. All my thoughts, everything that happened. I just copy and pasted and printed it out and it was so easy. THANK YOU JEANNE!

Too funny for words.

The pictures just do not convey how histerical this was. Grace strapped Morgan with her fairy wings a few days ago. What you may not realize is that instead of being wrapped around his arms they are wrapped around his neck. Apparently not too tight because he didn't mind. As a matter of fact he proudly wore them and showed them off for over an hour and screamed at me when I removed them! It was so funny. He was just laughing and giggling and running around like "look at me!"


HAHA! Anyway, saturday morning CJ was weed-eating and when I look out the window I see CJ only from the waist down crawled head first inside the culvert that goes under the driveway and Tanner and Grace standing at the other end with their bug nets. Hmmmm. I must go investigate. After MUCH effort we have a prisoner....

This is the biggest lizard we've ever caught. Though elusive at first I must say the lizard doesn't have much brains. We make Tanner let him loose at night and instead of running away he sticks around the house so Tanner catches him again every morning. Dumb lizard.

CJ has been working hard on our projects (which, by the way, our list for the HOA was completed ahead of schedule so they can kiss my you-know-what!). He stained all of our cedar this weekend and of course the kids had to "help" - which usually meant you had to tell them to move before you got down off the ladder or you would be stepping on their heads. I had to practice being calm and keeping my mouth shut because the kids were not at all fearful of that big extension ladder. They would climb up until they were right on CJ's heels and be like "look at me mom!". Aaaaahhhhhhh!!!! OK, be calm. Don't scream at them to get down. They're kids. They're having fun. It's not likely that they'll fall and break a limb. Breathe. These pictures were taken at a MUCH lower altitude - I'm telling you they were WAY up there when CJ was working higher.


It's amazing really how shutters, porch railing, and a little stain can totally change the look of the house. I can't wait to see the way it looks when we can get our landscaping in...

FINALLY!!

Catching up

Yesterday was my birthday and I've been celebrating since last friday :-) I went to Great American Scrapbook Convention with my girlfriends on friday, cropped, stayed the night, shopped and took classes all day on saturday and cropped some more. Arrived back home about 12:30am. FUN, FUN, FUN!!!!!
Got to hang out with my family on sunday. Watch the race. Monday CJ and the kids gave me presents - a beautiful braclet and earings that they got from a little boutique on the square. And, last night I went to Pokeno. I didn't win anything though. Shouldn't there be some kind of rule that if you are playing Pokeno on your birthday you should go home with something?! hehe.

I think I forgot to blog about Tanner. He had an awards program the second to last day of school and he got an award! A medal for being one of the top Kindergarteners in Advanced Reading!! Go Tanner!!


Last thursday was Tanner's first time to go to GymKats with Grace. He was SO excited. All day - "when do we get to go?", "is it time yet?". And they both had a BLAST. Since CJ was there I got to go down and snap a couple of pics. Here's Tanner getting some assistance and learning how to do a back handspring on the trampoline...


And Grace doing a headstand (which was supposed to be a HANDstand), and doing her jumps on the trampoline. I'm hoping one day I'll get some better pics, but for now this is it....

Old School, Sentimental, Nostalgic...

something. Seems like the older I get the more I get that way. I love life "back in the day" (but not too far back - hehe). CJ has always said he should have been born 100 years ago. Riding horses across the range driving cattle, hard manual labor, sleeping on the ground around a campfire, drinking coffee and telling stories. That's him. And he's right. Me, I don't need to go that far back, but I love old farm houses, actual farms with animals, huge gardens, clothes on clothes lines, a simpler life. Life without identity theft, internet predators and $4.00 per gallon gasoline! What ever happened to your word is your bond, you only need a handshake, trusting your neighbor to look out for you, knowing that there were other adults looking out for your kids while they were running all over town? After my last post someone said to me that they thought home canning was a dying art. I'm sure they're right but the way grocery prices are going up it might need resurrecting pretty soon. People may need to get back to their roots and learn to love gardening again just so save some money on their grocery bill.

Something that totally warms my heart is Dave (CJ's dad) has taken up some carpentry work. He started with fishing lures (I think) and he branched into many different areas makeing all kinds of cool things for the kids. He's made cars, trucks, trailers, Semi-trucks, adirondak chairs, baby doll beds, an African safari jeep (as I like to call it) and most recently a riding horse for Morgan. I love it. Every time he makes something it just melts my heart and brings back so many fond memories of my Grampy. Nothing could be more special. Thanks Dave!


And my mom, who sewed matching outfits for us when I was a little girl, who sewed cheerleading outfits for the whole squad in junior high, who sewed almost every one of my prom dresses, just made Grace a matching outfit for her and her doll for her birthday. Grace LOVES it and so do I.


I still have a quilt that my great-grandmother made for me when I was born, a beautiful armoir that my Grampy made for me when I was just two, a quilt that my grandma made for me when I graduated college, among many others. They are all so special to me. I hope that I can do some of those things for my kids and my grandkids, if I'm so lucky to have some, and pass on some special memories.

Look what I picked from my garden...

I started picking green beans LAST weekend. Canned 7 pints last weekend and 8 pints this weekend. Me and the kids were standing around the counter breaking our bowl of green beans and it made me laugh as I recalled memories of canning beans when I was a kid. I told CJ I'm glad I get a bowl or two at a time because that's about all I can get canned in a day by myself, but when I was a kid if you didn't have four or five 5-gallon buckets full of beans sitting around your chair you weren't very busy that day. At least that's the way I remember it. Grandma up before the roosters picking them, mom washing jars, sometimes Aunt Esta or Aunt Jeanne would be there to help too. For hours and hours, until you didn't want to look at another bean. I wonder if that's really the way it was or if that's my memory of it because I was so young and it seemed like such a huge amount. The only reason why I question my memory is because I always remember making a double batch of sugar cookies to be such a HUGE deal - massive bowl, stir so much your arm hurt, takes all day to roll them out and bake them there were so many. Today I can bake a double batch of sugar cookies in about an hour and a half. hehe.




Also, I made a cake for a lady who was throwing a "Great Grandma shower" for a friend. I made a quilt cake for her. I hope she had a wonderful party.