girl scout thinking day

This event is always a high light for Kira. Her troop really gets into it and dresses up in clothes from their country and they do reports and such to learn as much as they can about different places and cultures. They enjoy 'traveling' to the other countries and seeing what the other troops have learned. This year the theme was Fairy Tales and story telling. Kira's troop got India. I didn't get a picture of her with her scarf wrapped around but the outfit was so cute!!

Here she is with her BFF Michaela. They are both hams!! This was at pick up after their long day.

Me... I spent part of the morning at the Chorus/ Band Pancake breakfast at Applebee's. It was a good turn out. Hopefully they raised enough money for the field trip later this year. I know Kira would like that a lot. But since she couldn't be at two places at once. I did her time at the breakfast and she did the Thinking Day.

Looking for more snow to attack us this week. Both Tuesday and Wednesday. Have I mentioned, I am over winter?? Well I am.

so much fun

Yes! This is what I created with half of the pictures Alex and his classmates took yesterday at school! He was very good and shared his camera and they had a blast taking pictures. It's fun to see what they see and what is important to them. As you can see, the dog on the reading rug was popular!! He even managed to get a picture of me at drop off (purple coat with the red hat) and his teacher!! She is such a wonderful lady. You can bet your bottom dollar I am printing this up for her and for Alex to have. Love my budding photographer!!

sketch from Biddy Buddies

But first we'll start with what might be the picture of the day for today! Yes that is my family room. oh my... can you tell DH has been gone and I have let the kids take over?? We're gonna have some cleaning up to do later. The good news is most of it is pretty easy to get back to it's proper locations. Love Littlest Pet Shops!! Alex has his own collection as he kept trying to take Kira's. Much easier that way. LOL And she is really amazing in sharing her buildings with him.

On to the scrapping pages. I can't remember where Diana said she got the sketches from but I turned them. Guess I should have posted them here but it's okay... you can see and drool over my completed pages!! LOL

Here is the first page. It called for a 5X7 but I went for the gusto and used an 8X10. Every year I take the kids out into the front yard for some fun in the leaves pictures. This was 2009's. I have a frame that holds an 8X10 and two 5X7's which works out lovely as I can change it out at least once a year! And I hate to throw them away when they come out so here is the big one for all time!

I used the Fall Stack paper from some year. Maybe 2008? It's been awhile since I have bought a season stack. I distressed the edges of the mat. I also distressed the leaves running up the middle of the layout. They are prismatic flat stickers and a bit too shiny for the layout. Looks cool in person. The title is a rub on that I stickled. I also put a rub on in the corner of the picture (by Alex) and stickled that too. You can't see it very well in the picture but shows up nicely in real life.

Page two... the center embellishment is three circles pop dotted and distressed on the edges. I also put a rub on in the center and stickled it as well. Yes our photo shoots were a few different days, hence Alex in a heavy coat on this page. But all in the same time frame.

Thanks to Diana for posting the sketches and for inviting me to join her fun little blog group. It's nice to have other inspiration for my scrapping.

two hour delay

That's what I heard when I answered the phone this morning at 5am. Which told me that we had a snowfall but it wasn't too bad. Then again anything is too bad if I have to work with this machine. Today was my first time using it. And I hope it will be my last. It is a work out! I love my husband even more for doing this chore for us.

The happy student ready to go to class! Please excuse the shambles of a garage behind them. We need to empty it!!

Here's the snowbank now. I think a few days back I posted another picture of it.... not as tall as it is now. Nor as neat as it was. I am not a good snow blowing type of person. And by that time, I was pretty much over the whole being outside working in the driveway.

My little man by another of our snowbanks. This one isn't so big. But big enough!

Here he is happily eating his Nana Cookies! (see yesterday's post to find out about Nana Cookies) He has pretty much gotten through one package! I guess he really wanted them.

Sometimes he is just too darn silly for words... wonder where he is???

Oh there he is!! Cracks me up. He's hollering at me to find him and then gets mad at me when I do since he's been hollering!! I was trying to make some lunch at the time and didn't want to play games. Mommy was starving! I know bad me. We played more later to make up for it!

bad mommy moment

Yes I am confessing. It is good for the soul... or so I hear. Last night Alex was asking for Nana Cookies which of course there are none in the house. Those of you out of the loop... Nana Cookies are Keebler Deluxe Grahams. They were named after one of the kids summer vacations at Nana and Papa's. He has not asked for them in ages therefore, they were not in the house. Makes sense to me but not to my four and a half year old. sigh.

So today I drop off Kira and Alex at school and do some retail therapy but totally forget the cookies while I am at Wally World! Another mommy sigh. Ready for another sigh?? It's coming! The first thing out of Alex's mouth at pick up was... did you get my Nana Cookies? Told you the sigh was coming. I let my little man down. Yes bad mommy moment.

To make up for my error. Shame shame shame on me. We headed out to Shaw's to pick up some Nana Cookies. Kira had a half day so she got to enjoy the ride. On the way, I told her she could pick out a bag of cookies as well. She is not that fond of Nana Cookies. That made her a bit happier since I don't think she was too looking forward to the trip. As we are driving (actually me driving, kids talking constantly) Alex mentions that we should get two bags of Nana Cookies so we don't run out. Boy after my own heart!! I have to agree with this line of reasoning.

We picked out a basket so I wouldn't be tempted to fill a cart of things I really didn't need but since we're there we should pick up. Hate that! Instead we stuffed that little carry basket to the brim! Kira picked out some Oreo Cakesters. And not the plain kind... nope she had to have the double stuff variety. Go for the gusto my girl!! Alex got his two packages of Nana Cookies. I picked up the house stand by of Double Stuff Oreos and a package of Chips Ahoy Chunky cuz mommy needs some cookies too (not really but hey- we were there)

Alex also found some chocolate fishes which just so happened to be buy one get one free. Kira picked out some neon cheddar fishes. We also got two pints of blueberries for a price I am ashamed to say I paid. So not all bad stuff came home with us. (the blueberries were delicious! I hope Alex lets me eat some more!)

Sure hope this makes up for my bad mommy moment. By the looks on their faces... I did okay. Alex HAD to carry the bag that had his Nana Cookies in it. I think he was afraid I was going to leave it in the store!

working on sea world stuff

I have been working on our Orlando vacation from 2008. It's a slow process especially since we did two parks... Walt Disney and Sea World. Figured I'd start with the smaller amount of pictures. So far so good. I did post some others on Scrapbook.com in my gallery there.

I used PageMaps for all of them. I love my PageMaps!! I had gone through all my pictures and found the maps I wanted to use for them and got myself all organized for when I had a moment to scrap. It makes it so much easier to not have to think about how things will be laid out. Then I can get creative with things.

Anywho... here are the latest ones I have been working on since last week. TFL

Crossing my fingers and hoping that the snow amount continues to drop for this coming storm on Wednesday evening/ Thursday morning. So far it has gone from 6-12 inches to 4-8 inches. I would be very very happy with a dusting to 1 inch!! Really do not want to test my snow blowing skills!

brrrrrrrr

Too darn cold for me. The driveway is a mess. There is ice under the snow that we can't get up because it was compacted down due to us driving on it which is now freezing into a lovely mess. I am officially over winter.

Crossing my fingers and toes that the next storm that is due to arrive Wednesday afternoon goes far far away and doesn't darken our horizon. I'm done!

getting very very old

No, not me. The weather around here! The kids have ANOTHER snow day today. Kira has gone to school a day and a half this week. I am officially done with winter. Bring on spring. Do it. NOW! Yeah... I didn't think it was going to work either. But you never know until you try. Here's what it looks like at my place right now. The tree and the flower container are up on a retaining wall. Yes we have a bit of snow hanging around here. ick pooh winter, I am done with you!

So to keep me from thinking about the snow that doesn't seem to want to stop falling on us, I made some apple mini muffins for hubby. The kids didn't want to wait for them to cook and had something else for breakfast. The house smells lovely now.

Yesterday I took a much needed trip to Goodwill to empty the back of my van out. I can actually use the back to put groceries in again! So happy. And since I despise the Portsmouth traffic circle, I take the long route around and go through North Hampton which just so happens to have my local scrapbook store there! Imagine that!! I probably wouldn't have stopped if they hadn't posted on their blog the arrival of a pillar of Primas! Yes a pillar. It looked so yummy I had to stop and check it out. But I did manage to keep the shopping to a respectable amount and used cash. No guilt shopping in my opinion. Here is a picture of the pillar... just under 8 inches as you can see from the ruler I set up behind it. Oh the goodness! I need to dive in and organize these lovely flowers into my storage containers. And no... I probably didn't NEED these per say. But flowers seem to be my weakness in the scrapping world. Along with pretty papers, stickles, border punches, ribbon... you know pretty much everything! LOL

Kids seem to be entertaining themselves and not destroying too much in the house. Lunch will be in about an hour so I think that calls for some mommy time! Off to hang with some Sea World pictures!

one of my favorites....

New Christmas present that is. I asked for a label maker so I could label things in my life. It's the OCD and I am totally aware of it but have to accept my way of thinking so I can be me and happy. And since I am labeling things in my office, I don't think the family will mind if I go a bit crazy. Here's where I started making labels. I am so happy with them... and my label maker. Thanks mom and dad. It is wonderful!!

I also labeled my cannisters in the kitchen and the recycle bins. I stopped at that point since I didn't need the hubby picking on me any more than he does. But like I said... the office is mine! There will be many more labels printed!! bwahahahahahaha....

busy monday

Spent the day doing laundry and cleaning the place up. Looking good around here. Made a pork roast that Kira described as totally disgusting. Gotta love that girl. Sometimes honesty is overrated. sigh...

Not sure what the weather is going to do to us tomorrow. Looks like snow then sleet then rain. Could be interesting. Love New England.

I had to ask my dad to get pictures of the present I made for my mom for Christmas as I spaced and didn't take any before giving it to her. Yes I know... duh...

It is a vase of chipboard flowers with pictures of each of her grandkids on the flowers. I even had three flowers left over to play with! That's what happens when you have 9 grandkids in a kit with 12 flowers!! LOL I got the kit from Oriental Trading Company. I haven't seen it since in their catalog or online but they still had the directions for it. It came with the vase, the flower makings, stems and the floral foam. I had the fun of attaching the paper to the chipboard flowers and sanding the edges to make them all pretty. It wasn't that bad, just messy.

Without further ado... here is the grandkid flower vase...

I inked the ghost letters with chalk ink (on the reverse) and then attached them by stitching them to the paper. I attached the strip with the letters to the vase after sewing.

Use some solid cardstock that I ran through my shredder as the filler in the vase.

I was pretty happy with how it came out. Nine cute kids for mom to enjoy!!

slow sunday

and there is nothing wrong with that! Got a bit of football to watch today. As well as encouraging Kira to read her book report book. She is not liking this book at all so she is really struggling to get through it. When it's a book she likes, she can whip through them so quickly. This one... not so much. Hoping next months book selection is better.

Here are the cupcakes I made yesterday. I had left over frosting from our Thanksgiving and Christmas cakes that were taking up valuable real estate in the freezer so that's why there is orange and green frosting with Valentine sprinkles. It works for us and the family didn't mind eating them!

I went to clean the sink next to the washing machine and looked down and spotted a small hidden Mickey!! Kira thought it was pretty neat. I think it's Disney World's way of letting us know we should be heading for a visit. LOL Of course we don't want to go while they are in the midst of remodeling Fantasy Land so it looks like our next trip won't be until 2013! Seems so far away! Till then we will have to make due with all the pictures I have of the last two trips and spotting the Mickey's that pop up in our lives!!

It's quiet this morning so I think I shall attempt to scrap some pages. Working on our Sea World visit. So far, so good!

still saturday!!

Had to add a little bit extra here... I have finally gotten my Project 365 from 2009 photographed and uploaded to Scrapbook.com. That took a bit of time. But it is now officially done. whew...

Our family 2009

Don't feel you have to look through the whole thing. I just wanted to post it for an Alien friend to peek at.

Off to frost those cupcakes!

saturday...woohoo

Yes it is Saturday and that means a very lazy kind of day for us. Hanging around doing nothing in particular but totally loving it. It also means that I have a great hubby for getting up with the rather loud children this morning while I got to catch up on some sleep. Hoping that means that I will not get sick anytime soon. Especially with the two little humans in this house with the sniffles... I am trying to avoid them in a loving motherly fashion. LOL

I did make some chocolate cupcakes this morning. Waiting for them to cool down to add the frosting and sprinkles. I'll post a picture tomorrow. They should be interesting as my left over frosting is orange and green!! I'm sure they will look lovely with the Valentine sprinkles! Yes I am getting into Valentine's day this year. Finished up the kids Valentines for school and picked up a bag of SweetTart hearts for my sweetheart! He loves those things. I couldn't wait to give them to him, so he received them yesterday. He was quite surprised. Love that man! Needless to say, they will be interesting looking cupcakes. Wondering if I can make the orange into a red-ish color. We shall see!

I am still managing to keep up with my picture a day and my journaling. But need to get the album itself put together. Maybe that will have to be on the to do list for this long weekend. Never know!!

Enjoy your weekend!!

snowy yesterday, sunny today

Tis the weather of New England. Gotta love it. Yesterday at this time the snow was a coming down full force and quite windy. Now it's sunny and bone chillingly cold. I'll share a few pictures of the fun we had yesterday during our first snow day of the school year. And remember, we get to add one more day of school to the calendar. We are scheduled to be out on the 16th of June now.

Kira's pink milk. Nope not strawberry flavored... just added some red food coloring. She was insisting on drinking water so I 'bribed' her into drinking milk. Worked like a charm!

Alex wanted in on the fun too so his milk became blue. He said it was the best he has ever had!

And what goes better with milk than some freshly baked brownies??!! yummy on a snowy day.

My wonderful hubby out snowblowing the driveway so I could get out this morning to take Kira to school. Poor thing was out there two hours. It was still quite windy but it had slowed down in the snowing department. That's as far out as I went yesterday.

Today is going to be a quite day. Alex came downstairs this morning at 2am for some reason. He ended up sleeping on his Tigger couch next to the bed and then got up WAY too early for him. Gonna be a rough night with an early bedtime. And there may even be a nap somewhere for this mommy. I could use one.

here's to monday...

Yeah it's not so bad a day today so it can arrive. Busy one but thinking it will make it fly by and it will be Friday before I know it. LOL Actually I'm watching the weather to find out how correct they are with this coming storm. I know it's hitting pretty hard in the south (everyone there, please be safe) but they have been wrong a few times already this season so I have my doubts. Even with the doubts, I managed to get to the store to stock up on some things... just in case.

Okay I'm gonna share my POTD (picture of the day) for January 8. I love it. Does anyone remember the Animaniacs on the WB network?? oh my... I loved them so much. I have some animation pieces and old VHS tapes of their shows. I was working at the Warner Bros Studio Stores at the time and they were on our screen. LOVE THEM!! Anywho... for Christmas my wonderful fantabulous hubby picked up 3 full seasons of them on DVD for me and the kids. Yes the kids love them too!! How wonderful for them to enjoy something that I do?? ahhh... to hear them laughing at Yakko, Wakko and Dot. Gives me great joy.

And I managed to finish up Kira's Valentines!! They are all set for the big day. She did a great job writing everyone's names on the envelopes and coloring in the cat for the card. She is really big into the Warrior book series so cats it was this year. First picture are the envelopes I made and stamped.

These are the cards for inside the envies. The hearts on the front are stickled and the heart next to Kira's name is attached with a glue dot to give it a little dimension. I know... the kids won't care!!

Here is the inside of the treat box. yummy Dove chocolate treats. Alex's will have Hershey kisses.

These are the three patterns of paper I used for these. All from a DCWV spring stack. Not sure which year. There are three hearts on each one. A pink, a red and a silver. The red one is on the side that opens up. The boxes are attached to the envelopes. Neat little packages.

And here they all are!! Ready to go to school. And my aforementioned hubby did point out to me that Valentine's Day is a month away. I know that!! *giggle* But they are done. Another thing off my to do list!!

The templates and instructions for the treat boxes I can email to anyone who wants it. Let me know... daveswife1994@msn.com It was from Making Memories years ago. Good thing I saved it onto my computer when I did!! The cards are just 2X4 pieces of cardstock with the corners punched. The envelope template I got from Mirkwood Designs. Awesome site full of great templates.

That's it for now... off to pick up Alex from school. Which is good cuz I am hungry for lunch!!

lazy sunday

Spent a better part of the day working on Kira's Valentine's for her class. Waiting for the stickles to dry so I can get them all packaged up and pictures taken. I think they came out so cute! Need to do Alex's next.

We did get some snow last night. About 2 inches which the sun melted off the driveway. That's my favorite kind of snow! Need to watch the weather as they are threatening another storm Tuesday into Wednesday. Hope they are wrong again.

Dinner and baths. My day is practically over!! Look out Monday... here I come!

me here

Seriously tired. Did a bunch of things today. Haven't slept well all week. Hoping to catch up a bit this weekend. I'm sure going to try! Did start some Valentine treat triangle boxes for the kids today. I only have to make 30. Should be fun! They are cute and coming together nicely. Hope to post in a couple days. Less if I can keep the kiddos from distracting me! But you know how that goes.

I was so excited to receive my Project Life box... and yet it sits there mocking me. I have yet to open it. What is wrong with me??? I certainly don't know. I think I shall remove myself from the computer tonight and crack it open. I've been good and got many things done. I shall reward me!

finally!

I found my pictures of the Christmas cards I made this year (okay so really they are technically from last year) All it takes is uploading the cards from the cameras! LOL Here they are... 2010's creations to celebrate Christmas.

I totally cheated and used images from House Mouse. I so wish I was able to one own all of them and two have the talent to color them in as nicely as she does. I did add stickles and puff paint and some snow writer paint. But the talent I must say lies with the original artist. Her work is amazing! Check out the site and buy some stamps!!

I am happy to say my Project Life package came last night during dinner. I resisted the overwhelming urge to tear open that Amazon. com box. In fact it is still packaged up just the way the UPS driver delivered it. Yes it is taking a HUGE amount of effort to not open it. It will be my reward today once I finish folding the laundry and reworking the toys in Alex's room to make the new Christmas toys fit. Figure that should motivate me to step away from the computer and get a ton accomplished. I am happy to say I am still working the picture a day and keeping up with my journaling. Yes small victories since I only started on Sunday! LMBO

I guess I should go through and photograph my Project 365 from 2009 and get that loaded for viewing. Okay... that's added to the to do list. Off to tackle some toys!