misplaced manual

Okay, I seem to have misplaced something else now... the INSTRUCTION BOOK for my baby. Oh, I wish it were that simple. I wish they came with "check engine" lights. We've all got the sinus crud going on and it really bothers me with Lilly. I mean, you should not hear your baby breathing and gurgling and snoring all the time, right? BUT, there's no fever, so if it is some sort of nasty infection then wouldn't she be running fever? Or maybe she's an early teether, or maybe she's got allergies like the rest of the family, or maybe, or maybe, or maybe. I need some definites, here, people. By the way, the allergy phenomenon really gets me. I mean, no one had "allergies" when I was growing up - now it seems like everyone is on at least a tsp. of Zyrtec daily. What's happened to the world that we're "allergic"? Is pollution getting worse that fast? I need help...I need super-nanny, super-nurse, super-doctor. And it's Friday. Isn't that always the way it happens? We would just wait it out, but somehow it's always coming upon a weekend when they are getting sick and that just heightens the urgency because the clinic will be closed for the next 2 days...geez, and it always happens when I have a list of things to do a mile long. But that's okay, they do come first and I will do whatever I need to -if I could just find her manual and KNOW WHAT THAT IS!

Thanks for listening to my "not a big deal" made into "big deal" - it's my specialty!

On another note: I had a Stamp Camp again last night. We made these cute journals and photo tins! I even had new stampers and they did AWESOME, especially since they're getting thrown into pretty involved projects...hopefully they're hooked and will enjoy stamping as much as I do and the Old Faithfuls that keep me going. Thanks, gals!

mercy

Today was a big learning experience for me. I took Abby to the eye doctor for a checkup. I learned that this is not for the faint of heart. She is painfully shy so you can imagine how this event transpired-not good. Mike & I had talked it up for a week, made promises, told our own "when I was a little girl/boy and went to the eye doctor" stories, and on and on. Her reward was going to be going to the infamous McDonald's playland after the appointment if she talked to the doctor and answered all his questions. Well, to make a long story short, you couldn't have gotten a squeak out of her-her lips were sealed and not budging. It's so difficult for me to not talk for her and to not make excuses for her. He had to put eye drops in to look and see if she was nearsighted. I was ecstatic to find out they can do this so easily. I think next time I'll opt for that myself since I know the charts by memory and can never tell if A or B looks better...then they can just give me the next blinder prescription.

Anyway, back to my point- we got done and she had not met the requirment for going to McDonald's, not even by a long shot. In fact, she practically ran out the door saying in a gruffy tone, "I dont' ever want to come here again, I didn't like those eye drops, not even when I'm five!"

So at first I said, "We can't go to McDonald's-you didn't answer the doctor when he asked you anything!"

Then a tiny little excerpt from a book of Carolyn's came to mind. It was about teaching your children of God's mercy. Nudge, nudge, nudge, here's my chance, the perfect opportunity! After all, we teach her that God loves us, kindness, patience, forgiveness, but we've yet to tell her about mercy, wonderful mercy, pure undeserved mercy. So I said,"We're going to McDonald's anyway!" and then on the way I got to tell her of God's mercy even though we don't deserve it. Whether she "gets it" right now is irrelevant! It was a huge reminder to me (the type "A" rule follower to a fault) that it's good to be merciful and not so strict as I usually am. She is, after all, three and could use some. So could all those from 3-103 that I'm too quick to judge. And so could I at almost 30-that's for sure! Like my friend Suzanne, I'm so glad the Lord uses everyday occurances with our children to teach us so much! Thank goodness His mercies are new every morning...

Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Luke 6:36

spring cleaning

What a productive day today....I got a belated birthday card done (see picture) and I really liked it. It's been a while since I designed my own card instead of copying so I was very proud of myself. Love the funky colors right now...it's the little things!

Almost did aerobics today, had my tennis shoes on and everything but then I got sidetracked cleaning house. Good thing because I forgot that I told my mom we'd help her in the yard this afternoon. So after cleaning house and finally getting my tax stuff together for Mike we went to help her out. Her place is huge and I don't see how she does it. Memaw and Abby drove the mower with trailer for a while and pointed out limbs for Mike and I to pick up (must be "the life")... then Memaw and Abby kept Lil inside for a while and we finished up outside. 3 hours later, the limbs were gone. The yummy meal when we came in from working hard was worth it. It always feels so good to work hard all day-I know we'll all rest well tonight! One can hope anyway :) Maybe a dose of Tylenol for the weary...

mystery solved

Okay, I know that most of you are wondering at this point why you are even still visiting my blog. Just hang in there, though. I will post something of interest again someday, I promise. I found the tweezers. They were in the corner of the bathroom floor, not a much warmer place like I had suspected....and I didn't even go buy new ones before I found them.

Today was Abby's weekly trip to the local library with Nannaw. I think I'll start packing a picnic lunch for them or something. They are the fastest "book picker-outers" I've ever seen. Just kidding! I'm so glad she has all these great grandparents and that she will remember all the fun times with them. Tonight I think she's going to Memaw's house, yet another highlight. I have so many wonderful memories with my grandparents. It seems like just yesterday I couldn't wait to go spend the night too! Grandparents just let you by with so much more than mom and dad do!

Oh, and the quote for today comes from Abby last weekend. I had been working a lot on my Stampin' Up! stuff and she had been so patient and good for several days of this. I decided to surprise her with a new movie so we went to Wal-mart. As we were parking I asked her if she knew why she was getting a new movie, a special treat. Told her why and how proud I was....she says, "Do you know why you get to watch my new movie with me?" "Why?" "Casue you let me work on Stampin' Up! too!" I love how she rewards us with stickers, movie time, etc.... too funny but it shows what really motivates her I suppose.

tweezer hunt

This is day 5 of the tweezer hunt. Where in the world could they be. In the words of Veggie tales, "Oh where are our tweezers?" I always keep a pair in the bathroom window sill; I've kept them there for over 2 years. Now did they sprout legs and decide to move to a warmer place or what? And the red pair of Tweezerman tweezers that Mike kept in his bathroom cabinet - MISSING in action also. If any of you can help us solve this riddle please let me know. My eyebrows need them...Mike, well, he needs them too and we'll leave it at that :) I know that if I were to go right now and buy a new pair I would come home and trip on 3 old pair as I walk through the door. It's Murphy's law of lost things!

Yesterday a friend and I took a little road trip to the Nature Center and a McDonald's playland. 6 hours later, we got home. How on earth do you spend all day doing those two things? I guess between the 5 kids and 45 minute drive it gets eaten up... Abby had fun though. We saw honeybees, alligators, an eagle and lots of fish...Those playlands crack me up too. It's sort of like watching zoo animals on a cotton candy high or something (see photo to right). Hilarious the dynamics of a bunch of kids all wound up together in one little space!

Dad

It's been a really yucky day around here...it rained all day long, Abby burnt her thumb and cried for 2 hours, Lil got her 2 month shots and cried for a while...exhausting. And tomorrow marks 9 years since we lost my Dad. It's funny how big life events mark you forever. This is one of mine. It's almost like things happen on a timescale of before Dad died or after, like before Mike and I were "us" or after. He was such an incredible father; words just don't do him justice but I thought I'd share some of my favorite things about Dad:

-he loved to laugh
-the stories he'd tell
-he always had time
-he hardly ever got in a hurry (not always a favorite thing :)
-the smell of his pipe
-the taste of a ham he smoked
-his hugs no matter how old I got
-he taught me how to live
-he had integrity and character
-he worked hard no matter what
-his thick gray hair (now you know where I get it)
-he got up early in the morning
-he went to bed early in the night
-he loved kids and worked in the church preschool even after Andy and I were teenagers
-he was a loyal friend
-he loved us and Mom and it showed

I miss so many things about him for my own sake but mostly I hate that my girls don't have him here in the flesh. Sometimes I start to let myself begin feeling like they've been cheated and then I'm reminded that the Lord is father to the fatherless. He will be sufficient for me and for them. I hope they can see some of him (and Him) in me and I'm blessed because they have a great Daddy, too!

Blossom

I've decided that I'm a fairly random person - random thoughts, random acts, random scrapbooking. I don't do things in the order I should most of the time but in the scrapping arena, I'm beginning to see that it doesn't matter. I don't do chronilogical albums. I scrap what I want to scrap at the moment and the pictures are my starting point, my inspiration. I have tons of little mini albums and I like it that way - it keeps things interesting and my kids will have fun going through them all someday I'm sure. One thing I've tried to start encorporating is the date of the picture along with the date I scrapped it if I'm doing first-person journaling to the subject. I love lots of different sizes of pages, my artist's canvas. My new favorite is 8x8 pages. This is Abigail's first page in a brand new 8x8 album...hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it. Pictures by Carolyn, must give credit.

way to Goooooooooo, Lilly!

Imagine the Razorback fight song playing right now. Now we're all on the same page. Okay. Quickly I must tell you that LILLY SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT LAST NIGHT. We are doing the happy dance around here. It is monumental that we got almost 7 consecutive hours...One of our favorite sounds in the world is when Paul Eells says "TOUCHDOWNNNNNNNN, AR!" He is the voice of the Razorbacks after all. Usually if the Hogs are televised we are truly rednecks and watch the game but listen to the radio just becuase of him. Well, in Razorback style, I was saying, "Way to GOOOOOOOOOO, Lillian!" this morning. How on earth am I thinking football and it's not even summer yet? It gives me an adrenaline rush just thinking about going to a Hogs game, or maybe it's all the energy that I haven't felt for the two months before or after Lilly was born. Woo, hoo!

Takin' one night at a time.

Happy sleepin' through the night to you all :)

sisters

Abby had a friend over to play today and I got the best quote from her. Noah Beth is her name and she is in kindergarten. Her mom and I have been friends since we were in kindergarten! Noah Beth has a baby sister and she said, "I wish Lilly was Maddie and then we'd all be sisters! But friends are sisters and sisters are friends!" Is that not the best quote? I've spent my whole life wishing for a sister (sorry, Andy)...all my friends had/have sisters except for one who is an only child and one who has a brother. I guess sometimes I feel like I've missed out on something. If you know me you know I don't ever want to get left out of anything. I think that's why I wanted another girl so badly while pregnant with Lilly; I wanted Abby to have a sister. I'm not sure why I'm fascinated with this and obsess about it but I think there is a special bond among sisters that can't be matched. I'm so glad Noah B. enlightened me today, though. She couldn't be more correct, I'm blessed with so many good friends! I really haven't missed out after all!

friend

We have a new pet in our household-Friend. He/she, whatever, is a new goldfish. Abby won a goldfish at the county fair when she was almost 2 years old. She and mike decided Goldie would be a great name so we had Goldie-but only for about 5 days. Then we got Goldie #2 (she was too young to figure out why Goldie #1 was floating on his back). I must say that as far as fish are concerned, Goldie Dos is the most hearty one I've ever known. Goldie has resided in a 2-3 year old's room for quite some time now. My favorite fish story happened when some of her boyfriends were over playing one morning. I won't name names. Their Mom walked into the kitchen and said to me," They're dippin' paint brushes (from the stampin' holy grail) into the fish tank and using it to paint on the wall; do you want me to stop them?" Need I really answer that. I live in a 1-girl house, of course I wanted it stopped. Over a year he's survived feats like this! His water has had paint brushes dipped into it, toys added to it for his playing pleasures, and probably even more interesting things that I don't know about. Now he has a Friend. We'll see if they survive this change. Mike and I are just hoping that the new Friend doesn't eat poor Goldie because Friend is at least twice as big as Goldie.

Photography lesson #327: fish DO NOT make great subjects. They just won't be still and they swim so fast that my new camera can't keep up. I know there's probably a setting that I just haven't played with yet, so here is the crummy picture of Goldie and Friend. Oh, and while I was making the picture Abby informed me that Friend is Goldie's mommy since she's bigger. Go figure!

By the way, don't you just love our pet names around here? Her favorite toys in the whole wide world are stuffed animal dogs and puppies. We counted not long ago and we're pushin' 20 of these fun, quiet pets. They have names like Snickers, Sniffles, Lamp,Toilet Paper, anything she happened to be looking at when we ask, "What's this one's name?" Too funny, she is!

Abby really wants a chinchilla. Yeah, a chinchilla, you heard correctly. I didn't even know what one was til' she announced this desire and I had to look it up. She knows all about them and promises it would make a great pet. She informed me that they're nocturnal, sleep all day, take dust baths, other pertinent info. Oh, and she told me that she'd put a diaper under the cage so he won't get his cage nasty with poop. I said, "Call your Memaw!" We had fun looking online at them and all the things you can buy to keep your chinchilla happy-I think a cat would be cheaper in the long run and way more fun than a caged animal...and plus we just got a baby sister, geez, isn't that better than a chinchilla? We'll keep you posted on the chinchilla front! Maybe we'd better just stick to the hearty goldfish duo for now. I'll just warn you not to be looking for any crummy chinchilla shots any time soon...

basketball

I'm sure tonight's title got some of the testosterone attention. Let me say, sports are a big deal at our house! In fact, I just had to wait on Mike to do some chart of picks for college basketball. He had to click on all this bracket stuff for all the regions in the nation. Not enough to just do our region... when Fantasy Football starts the blogging might get thrown to the wayside unless I come up with funds for a laptop. By the way, I'm really proud of our hometown Weevils. They made it to the Sweet Sixteen for division 2 schools and played tonight in overtime but lost. Bummer. Abby knows Billy Mac (star player) by name and face. She likes to go to the games and yell at the opposing teams' coaches. I know this is hard for some of you to believe but she really does. She says things like, "SIT DOWN BUS DRIVER" . Needless to say I wasn't there when she was taught this wonderful phrase! She loves her Weevils basketball and football. Oh, and Mike informed me that they might not be ranked 16th or better even though they were in the Sweet Sixteen. How on earth is that possible?!? What a rip off! Maybe he can explain it to me tomorrow after we've had a good nights' sleep. Right now, he's just rolling his eyes at all my dumb sports questions.

Today I began learning to knit. I know, I know, do I have to learn every craft there is? Do you really need an answer to that? YES! I am making the coolest flaming red blanket for Lilly and then Abby wants a pink one when I'm done. Since I've got about 2 rows of 20 stitches it may take me a while. When I'm going to work on this, who knows? Thanks, Susanne, for taking the time to help me get started, it's my latest addiction! I'm sure you all can't wait to see pictures.

Happy dribbling and knitting!

YIKES!

Tonight I have a Stamp-a-Stack class where customers will come and stamp a stack of 12 cards... I worked til' midnight last night and should be cutting the cardstock right now for almost 100 cards. YIKES! But, I couldn't stand it any longer. I had to get these photos on my blogspot! The pictures are not as good as last time - Carolyn isn't here to coach my poor photography skills along this time. They're all straight copies that I've created from Stampin' Success and the SU! website & tweaked to suit me but hey, my mind can only come up with so much right now!

Oh, and here's a little picture of us enjoying the beautiful weather yesterday-it does me so much good to just be outside! Let me know if you're lurking out there keeping up with us through this crazy blog... til' later, happy stampin'!

just when i thought

1. just when i thought lilly was about to start sleeping through the night....she didn't. well, really none of us did. i was up too many times to count. abby was hard to get to bed, couldn't go to sleep, and then fell out of her bed at 5 am. boy, it was one of those nights that i should have pretended it was still daytime and just gone about business as usual. then i wouldn't have had so many unmet expectations. another time several months ago she fell out of the bed and her lip burst open. she couldn't stand to hold ice on there so we let her eat a popsicle at some ridiculous time of the morning to help the swelling and make everyone feel better. so, you guessed, although she managed to take her pillow with her to the ground level of her room last night and come through the incident unscathed, she still asked for a popsicle. she says, "that'll make me happy!"

2. just when i thought our budget might actually work...it doesn't. i failed miserably this weekend at sticking to our cash system. we put money in designated envelopes every friday that is supposed to be it til' the next friday. it was gone (from EVERY envelope) by 8 pm yesterday thanks to yours truly. how i did it i don't know, well, sort of. groceries, pink sandals, eating out 3 times and nursing my sorrows by shopping. we'll see how the rest of the week goes.

3.just when i thought i'd grown out of badgering myself... i haven't. i'm in a slump of hating everything i do, every personality quirk i want to change, every insane thought i have. and the scary thing, i know better but i do it anyway. i'm an accepted, redeemed child of God, why do i do this? i've got to get out of the slimy pit and start living the life of victory i've been handed. i mean, does it really matter that i'm imperfect? no, i have a perfect God.

4. just when i thought abby was out of her disobedient stage for a moment.... she's not. she spent the whole day with M yesterday (Mike's mom). i am forever indebted to this woman. she works nonstop managing a store 7 days a week and she bore my wonderful hubby. then on her one day off in forever she called to see if abby could spend the ENTIRE day with her. exhausting. i loved the break, the silence around here was nice, lilly got a day of undivided attention. but, all you parents know the phenomenon of "time spent with grandparents equals craziness for momma later". i'm sure i had the same problem as a child. they come home totally warped and totally testing everything they know. what is that about? add that to #1 up there on the list and it's a disaster. really, i am grateful, M, and it was worth it! give her a couple of days and the phenomenon will wear off as usual.

5. just when i thought this was a really stinky post and i have nothing good to say.... i do. God has blessed our family so much. a good marriage. two beautiful, sweet, funny girls. the most GORGEOUS day i've seen in a while. friends who love us in spite of our weirdness and budget and "been to grandma's kid". grandmas to spoil us. greatgrandparents that adore our kids. a swing for our baby who wouldn't sleep from 2 am til' 6 am. a blog for a postpartum mom so she can produce thoughts and sort of journal. mostly the love of Christ to save us and help keep things in perspective when we can't by ourselves.

that'll be safe

Today I was going through iPhoto getting ready to order some prints and came across these pictures of Abby. She's a girl trained well by Mike for safety. Too bad he can't apply the same principles to driving. :) I'm not sure how he arrived at being so cautious and protective after hearing some of the stories of his teenagerhood. Usually when he divulges stories about wreckless driving, dangerous activities, and plain ol' boy idiocracy I say,"Please don't finish telling me this and don't ever tell me anything like this again. I don't want to know and I'm just thankful God spared your life in spite of yourself." Although you wouldn't know it now, he was quite the daredevil. Speaking of which, I love Matt Parker's blog about taking chances! Check it out, he is hilarious and has some great points.

But now, Mike is all about cautious. Maybe it's because he's a little older and wiser, maybe because he and I saw too many videos in college about Traumatic Brain Injury and the likes preparing us for our professions, maybe because he sees how vulnerable life really is, maybe because he has precious girls in his care. Who knows?

These pictures make me chuckle because they are so Abigail. Her Great Grandma Doris sent a "big girl bike" for her birthday in November and she loves it. Somehow Grandma knew the purple one was just for her! One of her first rides on the driveway she, of course, crashed and burned. I was shocked beyond belief that she would even get back on the thing after that. But she did... and crashed again the next time. So, Mike decided to surprise her with her very own princess helmet and pads. This is the "trying on and adjusting session". She was so happy that she practically wanted to wear them to bed.

Her quote comes from the park (a couple of months ago) yet again. I overheard her friend Adelyn say, "What do you want to do, Abby?" Her reply (not knowing I was listening): "Let's go swing in the bucket swings, that'll be safe, Adelyn!" This is word for word what she said, no kidding. No living life on the edge in the real swings for this 3 year old! I smiled knowing that Mike would have been proud!

it's contagious...

Abigail has been so much fun today at the park. She laughed hysterically almost the whole time. When she really laughs, it's a deep belly laugh and I can't help but laugh with her. It's contagious! Her quote for this blog is from Sunday night. She had eaten dinner in the living room with her friends. Later on I asked her if she ate her chicken. She said, "Just one of the chickens, Momma." I asked was she hungry and she said, "I was not a lot hungry, just one hungry." I know, sometimes only I would laugh but I thought it was funny. It really gets her going for us to laugh at her sayings and jokes.

I love the word adore. It just conjures up so much feeling...there's a lot of people I like, quite a few that I love, but adore is reserved for those special few. According to Webster "adore" means to love and respect someone deeply. I adore Mike. I adore Abby. I adore Lilly. There is nothing like it and there's nothing like watching the girls adore their Daddy!

I've been wanting to scrap this picture since last August. It's one of my favorites so I couldn't wait to share it with you. In fact, I've been itching to blog but I wouldn't until I could sneak 30 minutes to scrap this picture so that I could share it. I should have been doing laundry, cleaning house, playing with Abby, taking a nap-but when the urge to scrap hits it's so strong I just get sucked over to my desk! By the way, my inspriration for this layout was from Faye Morrow Bell on Jenni Bowlin's website. I love to go there and browse.

Laugh. Adore. Smile. It's contagious!

tinkering time

I can't believe it's Saturday again already...This week has flown by as I've blogged away my time. Thanks to Jeff, I'm now a blogger. I must give him credit for answering a million dumb emails helping me get this set up! I even have a cool counter down at the bottom thanks to him. He's the Mac expert around here and frequently has to make trips to our house for service calls, much to his dismay. We're fairly inept at anything computerized and especially Macs but we're slowly being transformed. I just wonder if he thinks it's worth it to convert us when he has to spend hours helping fix everything we mess up.

Speaking of being transformed, today's quote is from Jeff. He has begun teaching from the book of James and made a powerful statement last Sunday. He said, "We don't want the hand of God to tinker with our souls." The basic context is that all believers go through struggles (James 1:9-12) and so often we just want the Lord to give us a quick fix. We'd rather just get out of the hard circumstance or difficult situation than go through the transformation of heart and character God wants for us. We want the outside fixed and He's worried about what's on the inside. I know it's been very true in mine and Mike's lives...I'm slowly learning though that He is not here to fix everything-we are here to bring Him glory. Period. I think it's more important that we persevere and grow in our faith than have a solution to everything. I think it will take a lifetime for me to learn this! Although it's not always the easy way, I want more of his "tinkering with my soul"-it's best.

Today my Mom and I took the girls shopping for Abigail's warmer weather clothing. It was the hardest day yet since Lilly was born I think. It was like keeping up with a monkey and well, a newborn I guess. If Abby wasn't bouncing out of buggies, then Lilly was screaming at the top of her lungs down the aisles. She loves being heard.Man, has Abby grown or what?!? I could not believe how big her feet have gotten...I kept getting her to try on shoes that were about 2 sizes too small. Mom was like, "Why are you putting those on her, they won't fit?" I guess I'm in denial of how big she has gotten. She's a joy and has always loved shopping...She is really coming into her own. Today she wanted to pick and choose more for herself than just let me choose everything. She's growing up way too fast! Her favorite purchase was a t-shirt that says "I love Daddy", of course.

The pictures for today are a peek at my own tinkering space. This is the custom closet that Mike built for me last summer. It's my little creative corner of the world where I stamp and scrapbook....I LOVE it and love that he did it for me! I thought I would share it on my blog since I'll be sharing my pages, etc. Thanks Mike, you are the BEST! And so are all my friends who helped paint it and organize it after he was done hammering in and wiring up electrical outlets (only perfection for Mike!).

steppin' & stampin'

Tonight is "1st Thursday Stamp Club", one of my favorite nights of the week! I've been even more excited about this month because Stampin' Up!'s new spring mini catalog is out now and I LOVE IT! Everything you see here in the projects comes from the mini. The stamp set with flowers, backgrounds and more is my new favorite along with the new patterned paper you see on the little notebook. Gotta have that in more colors soon!!! The bright card is using a new technique with the re-inkers to make the striped background and the center of the flower has teeny, tiny micro beads to add depth. I really hope you clubbers enjoy making these tonight as much as I have enjoyed them!

If anyone is interested in becoming a club member let me know ASAP as I am getting a new round of clubs going soon.

This morning I got up early. Well, sort of early, or early for my new life as mom---7:00 am. I did step aerobics. Last week I decided to dust off the old Jane Fonda DHS that I've fondly nicknamed Old Faithful. It is a workout that I know by heart. Heck, I think I could do it in my sleep (if only we could exercise while sleeping). I've done it so many times in the past that I shudder to think of how well I know the blue Barbie girl, guy with curly hair, and geometric spandex pattern woman. It's the timeless early 90's spandex and funky hair gals and guys encouraging me along to lose that 30 pounds of baby fat or lazy fat, whichever you want to call it. I must say on the boring scale, it's midway, not quite as low as treadmill but certainly not as fun and interesting as say: an exciting spinning class, jogging with Mike, climbing a gorgeous mountain trail, strolling the streets of Paris, etc. As they say, baby steps. And it helps that I can do this workout right there in my living room dressed atrociously with Lil watching lovingly from her bouncy seat and Abby watching with horror as she jumps by me. It's a game for her to see how many times she can get past me without getting kicked, squished or knocked to the ground by the graceful Mommy giant moving way too fast-so far she's suffered no permanent injury, don't worry!

It's a fairly quiet day on the home front so I hope to play with my stamps more this afternoon while the girls nap and show you more pictures tomorrow.

Til' later, happy stampin' or steppin'!!!!

"the way of the future"

I had several goals in mind when I decided to create my own blog space... I was over at Carolyn's helping with pictures and tossing around ideas. I really want to share my scrapbooking with more people than just Mike and Abby so I thought this would be a great venue for that. Actually, I'll let you in on a little secret. My dream job is to work for a scrapbook magazine or manufacturer of products and sit in a craft room all day every day scrapbooking and papercrafting. Ah, back to reality. So, my secret silly dream has always been to be published in a scrapbook magazine like Simple Scrapbooks or, well, that's my fav so we'll leave it at that. Carolyn says, " You need a blog, it's the way of the future.." I just had to laugh at her (and make her today's quote), then I got serious and got a blog! Wow! So now although I'm not published in a big superstar scrapbook mag, at least I'm published here for those of you who check this out.

Monday night's stampin' workshop went really well. I always have a great time with Yvonne and the gals. We did some cute projects and then watched Bachelor after the workshop. I should have gone on home but I just had to see who he would choose...it was a sight to behold and hear. 6 women who have been addicted to this ridiculous TV show sitting around watching it like it's the latest breaking news. It's the little things! So, here's a scrapbook page that I did that night for the ladies. My first ever "published" page. Carolyn Noble (www.anoblephoto.com) took the picture so I must give her credit. She always gives me incredible pictures to work with. Stay tuned to this blog for info on future scrappin' classes that I want to do and just haven't gotten all the details worked out yet.

Yesterday some friends and I began a playgroup at the park. It's amazing how well it went. Our kids range in age from 7 weeks to 4 years old. We played at the park for a while and before I knew it the time was up. Time flying is always a good sign when you are with 8 kids! So, hopefully next week the weather will be just as nice, the kids will be just as good, and we'll do the playgroup thing all over again... Oh, the picture is of Abby with Jonah, Noah, and Riley (some of her closest friends). She's always surrounded by her guys :)