playgroup remix

Okay, ladies with kids and without. Playgroup is making a comeback:) We will be meeting at Western Pines Park at 8:30 am on Tuesdays. I know some of you cannot believe that you will be seeing my lovely countenance so early in the morning. Suzi was shocked when I called her at 7:15 am but no one else is available at that time (and I used to not be too). Boy, I must be getting older or maybe the world is coming to an end!

So, grab up the kiddos, come to the park before it gets too hot to breathe outside and then everyone will NAP soundly we hope! If we don't see you we'll send the Princess Posse (pictured here) to round you up so be there or be square!

fund raisers

okay, I am literally sitting here with my eyes drooping waiting on Abby to fall asleep...We moved the computer to the kitchen yesterday so I have been not able to get online or check email for over 24 hours. A sort of online "fast" of sorts. Plus, I don't know when I would have anyway. Our weekend of fundraising for the mission trip is in full swing so we've been tied up with that and I had my Stampin' Up! retirement party this evening. I will have no trouble at all going to sleep tonight. And Mike offered to go work the early shift at the rummage sale tomorrow (along with Abby no less) and let me and Lilly sleep in. Is he not the best husband in the world? That's rhetorical since I already know he is! I will wait and tell you the grand fund-raising weekend total when we have it all done tomorrow-very exciting! We couldn't have done it without Doug, Diana, Tres, Wade, Brandi, and more... I hate naming names because I always leave someone off...and man, the donations for stuff to sell blew me away. We were overwhelmed with it last night at the drop off and the room was so full!!!! All you guys rock that donated!

Lindy, let me know when you start your blog. I can't wait and I'm so glad you're keeping up on here! Angela, let's take the kids swimming next week. It should be very non-busy for me so I must invent something to do :) Dawn, you're welcome, glad Hannah was here and we got some of her time!

Good night and come shop tomorrow morning at Journey!

side dishes

Jeff recently posted on his blog about focus and how the most popular blogs are focused. Well, now you know why mine isn't the most popular blog. I've been thinking about my focus, and well, here's what I've come up with. I'm too well-rounded and have so many interesting facets of my life for my blog to be focused. I mean really, I'm crazy just thinking about all the different aspects of my life. Some may say I have too many things on my plate, but I say I don't. I enjoy all the side dishes. Dance, for example, is one of my favortie side dishes right now. It's so good for me to get up early and get moving. Yesterday we added a new routine that involves squats and I must say I can barely move today. We also added abs and push-ups. I'm thinking before long, I've gotta start seeing a few pounds fall off. Oh, and I started my new diet since Monday night I weighed the same thing (6 weeks running). And no, I can't tell a difference in the way my clothing fits. So my new diet consists of cereal and fruit all day long besides a "sensible" lunch. Don't you just love it when they say "sensible"....all about the portions and fruit for me!

Another side dish is organizing my home and our day... YIKES!!!! I've come up with a new plan. I am in the process of making Abby some little "chore" cards that will have magnets on the back and she can move them from the dish washer to the fridge throughout the day as she does what she's supposed to. I know, I know, it never really works, but I thought it would be worth a shot. I will try to remember to tell you if it works...

Here's to side dishes!

dressing self

Abby is into dressing herself now! Can you tell???? I'm loving it and grimacing at the same time!

patience

Patience is a virtue...but not one of mine. I see my impatience in full force when I get an idea in my head and want to do it NOW!!!! Nothing else can happen til' I figure out a way to get my idea DONE!!!! This happened to me Friday night with this dumb scrapbook page. I started on this layout and wanted a white gel pen to write on the black cardstock. I've sort of been on a mission for a while for a white pen that would write on cardstock or photos but have yet to find it. So, I dug around my crafting desk for quite some time, even looked for a white-out pen but couldn't find one. I finally found a white paint pen (size medium) and just made it work! It was a little big to write with but hey, it's DONE, and that's what matters to my impatient mind. I'm not even sure I like the layout-just couldn't get it quite right in my quest for writing on black paper!

Thankfully for our marriage and family, Mike likes things done, but also done the best possible way :)

I became a member of the peaNut gallery at 2 peas in a bucket. Fun stuff! You can see my layouts there now too!!!! It's a very cool website for scrapbookers. Enjoy!

freestylin'

Okay, I've been lurking on kelli crowe's blog for some time. So long that I feel like she's my best friend even though we really don't know each other at all. She's so darn funny and a great scrapper to boot.Anyway, this was her week to come up with the freestyle challenge so I decided to jump in. What do I have to lose, after all. The challenge was to slice up some photos for a layout. Here's my version of slicin', a cutesy little flower thing. I wonder what my next obsession will be after the flower thing fizzles out. Abby was adorable the day of her big sister class. Her big brown eyes were wide with excitement and I just giggled watching her nod her serious little head at everything the nurses said. Man, she was taking this serious, like it was her job to be the best big sister EVER! And really, she has been and will be forever I'm sure. I love watching her entertain her baby sister and Lilly look at her and laugh and take it all in! Nothing like it!

Oh, by the way, if you have junk to donate to the mission trip rummage sale you can drop it off at Journey between 6:30 and 8 pm next Thursday night, the 22nd! Thanks!

ps-The other day on our road trip to Lake Village (really Greenville) Abby asked why I say the word "DUDE"...It's because of kellicrowe-if you hear me using the word "dude" it's because I read kellicrowe and she uses it often I think. funny how we pick up whatever language we "hear". I'm starting to remember the song, "oh, be careful little ears what you hear, oh be careful little eyes what you see, da da...for the Father up above is looking down below....." now that you have that great tune in your head...

mom's mornin' out (or in)

I am writing to you kid free for the moment. Jordyn is going to babysit for me on Wednesday mornings for me to have a little break in my week! Yay, Jordyn, she's an awesome gal! I had some pictures to share so last night I did a 3 or 4 paragraph writing, got ready to upload the photos, started looking at something else online and got carried away for about 15 minutes. Then I thought to myself, "Self, you need to go to bed!" So I started frantically closing everything on the computer so I could put it to sleep and go to bed. I lost everything I had just typed, the whole reason I got online to begin with. And so goes the days of my life!

Here's Abby working on a scrapbook page and what I've named her "first page"! It's a self-portrait that she did, complete with ribbon and glitter. I'm so proud...I know, I get a little carried away about the whole scrapbooking thing, but hey, I enjoy it so much and hope she does too. Every since I was a little girl I've LOVED looking at photos and albums, it fascinates me!

We've been busy doing summer fun stuff too. Here's the girls on our first swim day at Mimi's and a cute shot of Abby and Riley riding the motorcycle in our tiny house. Always fun! It has this siren thing on it that I so wish I could disconnect without tearing up the whole thing!

Enjoy. I'm off to do something productive for a couple of hours. Or maybe just sleep for a change.

help

Those of you following this blog know that we have a mission trip coming up to Connecticut...our group of 13 is flying out in just a few short weeks so we're trying to get together money for the flight! We're doing some cool fundraisers that we need you to help make successful. I've already shared about the Weight-a-Thon and have about 10 sponsors who are paying me a buck or two per pound that I lose between now and July 3rd. Thanks to everyone for your support in this fun twist on fund-raising. It's not too late to donate if you'd like to and haven't already.

Another great fund-raiser is a Black-and-White Photo Special by Carolyn. It will be held at Journey Church this Saturday, the 17th from 10-3. Please let me know if you'd like an appointment to have your kids/family/pet/pet rock...whatever you want photographed. Carolyn is a great photographer and has been really generous to donate her time and talent for a whole Saturday to help us get to Connecticut. The photo packages start a $55, an excellent deal with no sitting fee!

One more thing...the following Friday/Sat. June 23/24th we are having a rummage sale at the Journey center. We will begin at 7 am on Friday morning and then you can also catch us there on Saturday beginning at 7 am. We need stuff to sale and we need shoppers. Either way, your help is greatly needed and appreciated. More to follow on this one as we have some friends who will be cooking meat (Boston butt, BBQ chicken, or the likes) and selling it also on that Friday. YUMMY!

I digress

I must say, I'm exhausted. I've created a day of chaos for myself as usual and now I'm paying for it. Not to mention that my dogs are barking (southern for 'feet are tired'). Dance class was a great work-out. If that won't shed the pounds then I don't know what will. Truthfully, I'm a little down. I've opened pandora's blog (hope I'm using this correctly, Mark) and I regret it. Well, sort of! I've definitely stirred everyone up generating the most comments of any post to date...and now it's too late to digress, but I am for now. So, instead of (or maybe, while) continuing to wallow in self-pity, I decided to read some of my favorite blogs. And what before my wandering eyes should appear (pretend I know the poem correctly here) but my name on Angela's blog. She's so cool, especially since she now claims to be one of "us" southerners! I am so thankful that she's paying it forward and involving me...I'm blown away! Angela, even if no one takes you up on it, it won't matter. It means so much to me that you would do that!!!!! :) You truly made my frown turn upside down and now it's just plastered on like I've won Miss America or something! Everyone go check it out and someone please take her up on it. Come on, you know you want to! Girl, if you aren't already linked up on here, you are now!

To copy Lee Ann, here's some good things from today:

*got the house clean thinking we had a "looker"---we didn't but now our house is clean

*ate lunch with my mom and some of her friends and ran into my HS English teacher that I really thought was awesome. always fun!

*Mel and Kris's excellent adventure-I've got the road trip bug along with the scrapbook bug so I decided to take a little trip to Lake Village to the scrapbook store and enter some pages in their contest. Only the store is really in Greenville. My first dumb question was, "Is this still Lake Village?" when we were like way on the other side passing through.I was waiting on a "okay, turn left right up there" anytime. Mel is like, "Well, sort of...." then it dawns on me that the store is in Greenville, MS. It was quite an adventure. Oh, and note to scrapbookers-you can only enter pages using stuff bought at their store. Bummer! But alas,it was not a wasted day, believe me...we had some good ol' fun & laughs! Abby cracked us up with her banter all the way home!

*Angela is doing a cool contest involving me. I feel special!

new pages!

Brandi and I have scrapbooked 2 days in a row now. We're on a roll even if it is for just 1 and a half hours per day! Tomorrow it's back to cleaning house...here's 3 of the pages I've finished. I have one more that's not quite right yet! My favorite out of these is the "Spring Fever" page.

I started dance class today. Can you believe it? My teacher was so impressed that she wants to work with me 3 days a week instead of just one. Not really, but we are going to start meeting 3 days a week instead of just one. That part is really true :) I've sat at the dance recital for 3 years in a row wishing I could dance so by dingy, if my little girl doesn't want to take, I do. It is going to be a great workout for me - my legs are already sore tonight. I wonder if this will make me lose 15 pounds instead of just 10 before the sponsorship, weight-a-thon is over. It's not to late to pledge at least a dollar per pound. I feel like that guy that used to be on TV with black curly hair for the phone-a-thon for kids or something. Or maybe my ears are just ringing!

I'm trying to think of anything funny that Abby has said lately but I'm at a loss. She's totally into things just happening by themselves lately. For example, "Abby did you dump out all those blocks?" "No, Mom, they just got out of there all on their own!"

Or, my personal favorite, "I didn't hit Riley on the head with my broom. I was just holding it up in the air and it got on his head!"

Going to bed for my 7:30 am dance session!

calling you out...

okay, need to address some folks and this is my platform.

Lila-Yes, Mike remembers you fondly. When we were driving through Nashville or Memphis (I can't remember which) he was talking about the house that his mom and George lived in and how you would babysit him sometimes when he didn't go to work with her. I'm so glad you're keeping up with him/us on here...thanks for the comment!

Nannaw-Where are you? I know you're checking my blog and I miss hearing from you on here. I need some comments to keep me going ?!?!?!? (even though you don't want me to go to CT and you love me just like I am - overweight and all)

Mom-ditto. leave me some feedback...

Rene Teater-thanks for lurking...I saw 2 comments from you on Lee Ann's blog so I must say, I'm a bit jealous....:) just kidding

Mel-thanks for the fun at Mud Hut and sponsoring me with $20 per pound-don't faint, I'm just kidding. I know that would buy a really cool stamp set :)

Angela-yes, I still read yours...i love that you're addicted to blogging almost as bad as I am :)

Brandi W.-glad we're hanging out more again. Thanks for being so exceedingly patient with me as I've been parenting a new baby and postpartumly delirious/psycho - - - even though you're outta that phase (sucka)!Glad we scrapped today!

Mimi-miss you while you're camping. I'll be expecting some comments soon!
hmmmmm, anyone else.

Suzanne-So glad you're blogging again. Miss you and glad things are looking up :)

oh, Jeff- love the idea of giving away a free magazine subscription. I'm trying to be nice and let someone else have it...maybe that's what everyone is doing. If it's not taken in the morning, I'll be on that. Sorta like eBay. gotta love that!

EVERYONE-please, please comment. I know I am not the best writer, I usually have nothing of great importance to say, I love self-promotion, etc. but the comments are what make this fun! Glad you're here!

Connecticut or bust

Ah, I'm in the thick of a mission trip. That's right, a mission trip - how exciting is this????? Very... Back in April Jeff asked Mike and I to possibly round up a group of Journey folks to take a trip to Connecticut to help with VBS and various other summer fun-ities of a sister church. So, we said,"YES, of course, at your service, yipee, let's get this party started, wooooo hoooooo, etc.!!!!" Then fast forward about 2 weeks and YIKES, our team of 12 needs money, honey, to make this happen by July 8th (when we're leaving)! So, our little brains went to work as fast as they could and we've come up with some great things to raise our funds! I will begin sharing those with you here because I know all of you can't wait to HELP us!

The first is a Weight-a-Thon... some of us losers from the Monday night weight loss group are getting sponsors for helping us get rid of the fat! That's right, YOU HAVE THE CHANCE to pay me per pound and all the money goes to fly me (a few pounds lighter) to CT! So, get your calculator out and figure out just how much you can give me per pound that I lose from tonight til' July 3rd. I already have 2 sponsors at $1 and $2 per pound but you could be next. Just leave a comment telling me how much you'll be willing to pay for my pounds lost over the next several weeks! My goal, drumroll please, is to lose 10 more pounds and have at least 15 sponsors paying me the big bucks before the deadline!

All the fund-raising aside, I'm thrilled to be going on this trip. I talked with the lady there that we're coordinating with just a while ago and I can't wait to get there. I will be teaching kids with special needs and hopefully reaching out to their parents with Christ's love also.... and there's so much more going on, too. It sounds like they have a niche for all 12 of us who will be going...

Here's to connecting in Connecticut! Stay tuned for more ways to help!

post order happy dance

My assistant and I just got done placing the club order from Thursday night. Here's our picture - no worries about quality control, right? I know, some of you were hoping that I got it done at 10:53 pm on Thursday night but I just now got up the courage to balance my Stampin Up! checkbook and see what supplies I could order. Abby helped me by pushing in the numbers I called out. It worked out great - she learned 7,8, and 9 and I think the order was correct in the end. Only a couple of times did the item number look like this 10000000000022222229981 (102981). She has trouble just hitting the key and not hollllllldddddddding it down occassionally. ah,hem....

So, after we ordered we played airplane on Mommy's feet and took silly pictures of ourselves. You know, like when you were in jr. high and you and your friend held the camera out in front of you and wasted about 15 shots. Only, now, with digital cameras you don't and it's still FUN! But somehow my teeth still look like Mr. Ed's from that angle...

Mike took some more surprise pictures last night when he got home from playing X-Box with his friends. Yes, he still goes over to play X-Box but hey, it keeps him outta the bars...I color, cut, and paste and call it scrapbooking and he plays video games. Can you believe we're grown up enough to have kids? yeah, us either. Anyway, the picture was of me and Abby asleep in exactly the same position. Hands over our heads in this weird arm looking thing...so strange that we even sleep alike! It wasn't very becoming so I'll just let you picture that one in your mind's eye!

Okay, now my assistant says she's ready to do some scrapbooking...til' tomorrow!

home

Here's the page I did today... got the scrapbook bug really bad right now. Maybe I will have more to post this week! Love the Basic Grey paper, love the hand-stitching, and love the doodling. Maybe I've gotten out of my rut! Here's what the quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes says

Where we love is home. Home that our feet may leave but not our hearts.

rice cereal dreams

okay, cross your fingers. i've been troubleshooting why we're getting NO SLEEP around here. it's not an easy task. so my latest theory is that the baby is hungry. hungry baby = give rice cereal. tonight she gobbled it down and i had to refrain from mixing about 1/2 c. of it and letting her go to town at it...with the visions of sleep dancing in my head.... made me dizzy...lil' is a hearty little girl, LOVED the cereal even though, to me, it looks like something that's been sitting in the dirty sink for a week! i had tried it once a couple of weeks ago but she wasn't quite ready. now she gets the idea.

here's a scrapbook page i did for a virtual stamp night while everyone else is smartly sound asleep. yet another copycat page from Jenni Bowlin.

abby was complaining earlier that her neck hurts (Abbyish for "sore throat") so we'll see what tomorrow holds. i'm going to get horizontal at least for a while. toodles!

Retirement Party

Nope, not for me or Mike although I have enough gray hair to retire!

Every summer the Stampin' Up! year ends at the end of June. It is bittersweet for demonstrators because we say goodbye to over 100 stamp sets but anticipate a brand new year and catalog. I've decided to hold a "retirement party" to celebrate stamping and invite all my customers and interested parties to come and stamp with me at no cost for the project(s). We will be making one or two things using retiring stamp sets. Please come if you're interested in learning more about stamping or just want to give it a try! Catalogs will be for sale dirt cheap that evening also and even though they will be "inactive" they are chock full of great ideas for cards, gifty items, page layouts, color combos, and more!

Visit Stampin' Up! to see the catalog and a list of retiring stamp sets!

This year is my first ever Retirement Party and I'm excited to offer a Mystery Hostess workshop along with it. I will give tickets/entries and then at the end of the evening draw from the tickets who will be hostess for the night and receive benefits (at least $15 in FREE merchandise of your choice + one hostess stamp set)....

RETIREMENT PARTY....June 23rd from 4-7 pm (come and go when it's convenient for you)....at my house!

Here's how you can get your name in the drawing for hostess:

1 entry if you RSVP by June 20
1 entry for attending
1 entry for every $25 you spend
2 entries for each outside order you bring
2 entries for bringing a friend
2 entries for booking a catalog workshop
3 entries for booking an in-home workshop
3 entries for taking a recruit packet
5 entries for signing up as a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator
1 entry for calling in your order if you cannot attend

Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions at all!

if the shoe fits...

I just had to share these great photos. I took some of Lil in her cute little Waverly ensemble just now. Really, it's not Waverly but it's "oh, so Waverly" to me...anyway, when I got done with my little "ham" shots I came over to download/upload/whatever and was surprised to find these pictures of Abby wearing two of my shoes. So funny! I love it when Mike takes pictures that I don't know about. So cool to be surprised...love these girls and all the fun times like wearing mismatched shoes!

I also have our second project for tonight's club with 2 hours to spare. That's me for ya! It uses the Stampin' Up! set Buds and Blossoms and Sassy Sayings and a new technique (faux linen). You scrape glossy cardstock up vertically and horizontally with sandpaper and then stamp and sponge color on however you want. It looks really vintagey to me! Enjoy...copyright SU!