The rest of the cards I made for K's b-day. He's in all of these pics but the last one is of him and his Dad which I thought was cool. On the clear box I presented them in I used a rub on about family playing together! Posted by Picasa
2 of the cards for the BIG K Posted by Picasa

What a wonderful day!

Ok so I'm all caught up on my 21 day Journal with Rhonna. And I feel good getting it all out on paper! I've finished a boatload of layouts this week well a boatload for me is like 6! Granted I was rotating them around working on them till I had to stop moving on to the next. This method seems to work well for me I don't stress about finishing it until there is something so lame left to do that I just have to do it and be done! This week the lameness was that I had to dig out my rubber mallet to smash a bottle cap. So lame but it took me 3 days to get around to! In the mean time I started and finished 3 other layouts. I was finished with the layouts in seconds after that. Wacky the way my mind works.

I finished Kyle's football cards they turned out well I'll post them later today. He was thrilled to get them Sat. I'm glad I could make him so happy with something so small!

And the BIG BIG news of the day EMILY can really read!!! She's a reader. My mom bought her a series of books from Pottery Barn Kids when we were visiting and a couple of weeks ago she really struggled with them but today she was reading her way through them FANTASTICALLY! I'm so excited for her that she can read not only her HOP books but these new ones! We were giggling about it all morning how good she is at them!! What an accomplishment for her! I do have to say the HOP program has really helped her get excited about reading. She loves school and all but the games in the HOP program are so much fun and she worked really hard in the last couple of weeks getting through the entire game on level 1 she was sooooo EXCITED to reach the end! She posted a posty on the computer with a star and in it she wrote I DID IT! I'm putting this symbol on each page of my 21 day journal to encourage myself to be more like Emily and Just DO IT!

Last but not least today I'm announcing the APRIL Layout/Card Contest at the Cottage! I'm so excited about these contest packages and the prizes! They are so FANTABULOUS ! I can't stand it I want to shout from the rooftops!

Hope everyone is having a WONDERFUL DAY!!!!
Day 2 of the 21 Day Challenge was mostly journaling. I tell my children everyday that if they practice often and work hard they need not worry about the results so much as those things come with practice and hard work. Mommy really needs to listen to herself more often this is my chance to really tell myself what to do!!!! I know the paper looks odd here it's just because I did almost all my journaling on the pink in white. And although I can read it, I had a hard time scanning it so it looks like strangely textured pink paper. Sorry! I tend to not think about scanning when I'm doing something that's always my After thought hit myself in the head! DUH! Posted by Picasa
Day 1 of Rhonna's 21 Day Challenge. Mine is mostly a journal of my current goals. I'm just playing around working on my handwriting and such. Posted by Picasa

SPRING BREAK!!!

Yup it's Spring Break here!!! So since we're not really taking a break from anything here in our house we are going to do our spring cleaning! WEEEEEEEEE of course I am the only one that knows the plan otherwise I would have to hear grumbling throughout the house from everyone I'm sure. So I'm going to be a clever Mommy and ask them to do little things here and there until we are done. They'll get it by tomorrow I know but at least it will be a gradual knowledge! LOL


Today is also the start of the new Rhonna Ferrar 21 Day Challenge that I am definately participating in this time around. I have the quote for the day and I'm very excited to crack open my new art journal and get started. I'll be posting my completed challenge for the day here either before bed or first thing the next morning! This should be a fun fun challenge and hopefully I'll start a new(GOOD) habit in this 21 days!

I'll be back to report in! Happy Monday!

Sorry I suck! and Do you have an In Box?

Apologies
Ok I've been meaning to blog but then I would have issues with the blogger and would forget and so on! So now anyway I'm back. What have I been doing? OK Quick recap. TN to my Mom's 80 degrees for 3 days. Home 30's snow, a slight cold from the weather changes and back to school and regular old house work blah blah blah. Cute funny kids saying cute funny things. Cute DH saying not so cute funny things, but he thinks he is a laugh riot all day long! Cute DH interview interview cival war blah blah blah. Ok that's all the days I missed your all caugt up!!!! Phew that wasn't hard was it?

Do You have an In Box?
So now I want to tell you about my night stand. Mine is a table that matches my dresser and such. It's Usually covered with books and magazines which I will admit that I put there. But lately my nightstand has taken on a new roll in the family. A roll my kids have decided upon based on need I guess.

Now to set the stage you have to know my children are MORNING PEOPLE ~~~~~BLECK~~~~~!! They are up every morning between 6:30 and 7 AM. That's right AM folks! Now I and my DH are so NOOOOOTTTTTTTT morning people ~~~~Bleck~~~~ We are stay up late NIGHTOWLS and were even as children our parents tell us!

Anyway each morning my Happy Happy Morning Children are up playing and singing and having a raucous old time, I'm still in bed mumbling answers to them and deciding disputes in a half coma like state brought on by going to bed at 3am the night before, umm I mean morning earlier. My most favorite days are the days they play Polly Pockets or Barbie and I have to, in my coma like state, dress a Barbie in a fragile evening gown or WORSE put a nightie on a POLLY doll! (oops another rant for another day sorry sidetrack) Anyhoo lately the pile on my not so neat nightstand has been growing. A My Little Pony Book(I swear I wasn't reading it, it's covering up my Tolstoy!LOL), a Doll with one arm missing, a bracelet that looks to be tied in a knot, ooooh the missing arm, a Polly dress torn in half, a stuffed toy with a hole in it and stuffing coming out, a game that I gather needs batteries and the one that made me post this because I triped over it a Horsey on a stick you know the ones you used to ride as a kid with stuffing coming out of his head in back where one of the reins was attached. So this happened kinda slowly I wasn't really paying attention. Then after the tripping incident I called the girls into my room and asked them why all these toys were in my room and why they couldn't just pick up after themselves. Only to be told what I should be doing with each of them. That's right you got it! My nightstand is now my In Box my to do list for the kids! GREATTTTTTTT!

So after I fully realized this I mentioned it jokinly to Dave at dinner! Innocently saying did you know my nightstand is now my In Bo? We both chuckled and went on to other conversation at the dinner table. The next morning I awoke blurry eyed after telling the girls they weren't going downstairs until they picked up their room or at least cleared a path(this usually buys me 15-20min more sleep). So slowly opening my eyes I notice the GIANT pile of stuff on Dave's nightstand! Boxes, toys, halves of things! I looked over at mine which just had my books and magazines on it. I had to laugh, they listened to me tell Dave at dinner the night before and decided Daddy needed an IN BOX as well!

He did ask me what was going on with his nightstand when he got home. I just laughed and told him he needed to ask the BOSS!!!

Edited to add: My inbox works really well sometimes. I was missing a piece to a tool I use regularly while stamping mostly. When I noticed Sat it was missing I just figured the little piece was gone forever and I'd have to make do without. Well Sunday at some point during the day the piece magically appeared on my INBOX(ie. nightstand). I'm loving this new household tool!

Colors Colors I Spy Something

This is a game we played with my Dad as a child! I can still hear my little brother saying it in his little kid voice nevermind he's 35 even when he says it now with his kids or mine it still comes out in that 4yr old voice for me! It's cute it's what I remember and if I told him that he would pin me down and tickle me until I pee'd myself. He's a nice guy most of the time!

Anyway today and last evening I'm all about the colors I am stuck I can't move forward until I do something with the colors Powder Blue/Brown/Taupe little white for good measure even though it's not a color. Why do I get so stuck in a set of colors? Now I just have to decide what project to do these colors because it has to be fairly significant to make it end for me. Sad really I have 3 projects started but because they are not the colors I want to be working with at this moment I don't really want to look at them. Wahhh I'm so close to finishing up my DT entry stuff!

Ooooh another funny/cute color story. Emily loves to ask what peoples favorite colors are then she creates a piece of artwork just for them in their favorite color or of them wearing their fav color. So in preperations to go see grandma this weekend she's been making art for my mom and Joel. She asks me a couple Sunday's ago "what's Grandma Gayle's favorite color?". Hmmmmm this stops me dead in my tracks as I don't really ever think I've asked my own mother that question. As a child our house was always decorated in shades of brown after that though black has been the main focal color of my mom's decorating(her passion) and her wardrobe. So I tell Emily black I think but it might be brown since she's started painting walls brown. So we call Grandma. And I'm happy to report her response was, "hmmmmm Black I guess". LOL She hmms around thinking that's not right I tell her it's quite alright Emily's favorite Color is White! They will work well together! We all get to laugh. And why is Emily's favorite color white? Well she likes to tell you why things are the way they are so one day she asked me. "Mommy do you know why I like white so much?" I had to say no I didn't she says "because it goes with every color!". Well that's very true! Forever now her favorite color has changed on a daily sometimes hourly basis. I think white is a way for that to end and just say she likes all color! Nowwwww should I explain to her white isn't a color???? noooooo we'll leave that lesson for another day!

What colors inspire you today?

BAD BLOGGER! Yes That's ME!

Totally a bad blogger but I haven't been on the computer all weekend I did some stuff Friday night online then didn't return until this morning! And do you know why? Well besides the fact that I was busy, which I was! It was mostly because I'm the kind of girl that has Piles of stuff all over her house! You know you all have a friend like this! Well that's me! So anyway since we had guest I piled stuff up on the computer desk and vowed to clean and I removed things! What better reason to avoid the computer! So I now have a place to type and I can see the screen but only barely! LOL

Anyway Friday night Dianne and I met up with Nancy from the Cottage and took her up to one of our local Archivers. I was excited to get some Making Memories paper I had wanted a while back on clearance and a very cool Paisly Stamp along with a new set of my most favorite American Crafts pens. Nancy got the absolute cutest album for her vacation pics it has flip flops all over it! FANTABULOUS! I think it was by Kolo! Dianne was the well behaved one of the bunch she got some DB rub on letters and the same cool Cube of paislies I did. All and all it was a great trip and great to meet Nancy!

I came home that night to paint my Conductors wands for the goodie bags for the party on Saturday then I vegged in front of My Family (love that show). I did some cleaning up and baked the cakes as well.

Saturday was insane in the Morning the girls and I sorted out the playroom it was soooo bad then I watched a bit of Little Einsteins with Abbi only to find I painted the wands the wrong color so after Dave took the girls to pick up the veggie tray and stuff I repainted the wands the right color and decorated the cake made the chilie, corn muffins and cleaned the rest of the house I hand't gotten too in the week. Finally I dressed. I'm lucky my MIL showed up early to help! She ended up cooking the hot dogs and putting the goodie bags together with all the stuff. And Grandpa blew up the balloons before the guests arrived. I was able to just finish the cake as people were walking in the door. There is a pic below it's a bit off to one side! Bummer! But the party was a success and I think everyone had a good time.

Sunday I tried to run around and do errands I hadn't been able to do last week while working on the party. But it took me forever just to go 3 places with the snow coming down. We ended up with about 2" and more still coming today! It should be all melted by tomorrow with the warm up we're supposed to get! Anyway we starting digging out from the party and I finsihed a layout and an Altered project I was very excited!

So this morning back online back to work gotta do some laundry and other stuff today! I did update all the submission stuff at Croppers Cottage! Added lots of new stuff and took out the old! Gotta love that! Now I'm just catching up on emails and messages!

Have a great day!
Abbi on her birthday! I made her a Rocket Cake! A little on the crooked side but I was finishing up decorating it as people were coming in the door! She had a great time! And now she's officially 3 WAAAAAAAAA so not much of a baby anymore!  Posted by Picasa
It's curtains for you! This looks way redder than it is! Actually hot pink! I mad it for the girls window I'm only making one panel as the bed covers the other side of the window! It's loud loud loud! But their pink walls will wash it out a big and the bed is white! Posted by Picasa

Life Lessons I Can't Seem To Grasp

You know as a mother we all try to protect our children from the pain felt while learning those little life lessons like who to trust and who to call friend. It's a sucky thing but one each individual needs to learn in their own way. No matter how much it hurts the people on the outside looking in. I remember the look on my mom's face when I was a kid with some terrible earth shattering news. She was so helpless to stop what she knew was coming. I feel just like that a lot of times and I'm sure I will a lot more.

Why am I talking about this? Well it seems these are not lessons I have learned well in my life and I needed a current fresher lesson to reffer to whenever meeting new people and making new aquantinces. Sad as it may be as an adult I'm at least relieved, now, to have it over and to know what I'm dealing with instead of the unknown and the initial shock and hurt and then the question how to deal with it. At least I know when to walk away quit trying not put anymore energy into a lost cause I know when these things are outside my control and never will be within it. But still it makes me wonder, as a mother, what I can do for my girls to help lessen this pain, the feeling of betrayal, the question "what did I do wrong?" I don't have the right answer at the moment but I have to think that this lesson has been retaught(is that a word?) to me for a specific reason at this very moment in time so that I can learn something positive and apply it to mine and those around me's lives in a positive way. And you know I've seen my mom's face just like that a number of times this week when I close my eyes to think. I should have known there was a lesson coming! And before my Mom reads this and freaks out she's not dead or anything she's alive and well in TN(Hi Mom we got the box you sent the girls toda!) I can just see the look that's all!

Ok blah blah blah blah! I'm going to say it here for the last time for all of you that have had to listen to me all week long about this! This is my last negative statment. I'm glad the NASTY is GONE!!! Hopefully soon out of my life for GOOD! I hope she gets help for whatever ails her but I do not need to suffer because someone else is COMPLETELY unhappy in their lives and I will not be lied about or to period end of story! TAKE ALL THAT NEGATIVE CRAP AND GET OUT OF MY LIFE!

Seeeeeeee this is why I blog it's so freakin CATHARTIC! Instead of Shouting from the rooftops I'm shouting it from my BLOG! NASTY'S BE GONE! My next post will be happier I have some new awesome projects in the works I just need to put some finishing touches on!