Unbelievable

I took my little girls to see the Nutcracker ballet today. They have been taking dance lessons for 3+ years, and I think they really enjoyed seeing what people do with all those dance lessons. After the show my girlies really wanted a nutcracker of their own, so I took them to Michael's craft store (I had a tip that they were lots cheaper there than the ones being sold in the lobby of the Art Center). My girls picked out two nutcrackers, and I filled my shopping cart with some garland and poinsettias. Satisfied with our finds, we went to the front of the store to make our purchases. We found a line with only one person, which would make us next. I pushed my full cart to the counter while my girls stood by with their arms wrapped tightly around their cherished nutcrackers. I believe it's fairly normal to take a look at the items located near the cash register while waiting for my turn. Otherwise, why would they put all that crap up there? So as I'm looking at some Cricut cartridges, the customer in front of me finished up and headed out of the store. At first I didn't notice, but as soon as I did I began to move my cart closer to the counter when a RUDE woman rushed in front of me and my shopping companions. I said, "Excuse me, we were next." She replied, "No, you were shopping." EEEEWWWW! Not wanting to cause a scene I politely said, "In the spirit of Christmas, I'll let you go ahead of me." And then under my breath muttered, you could have asked. At least that's what I would have done..."excuse me, are you in line?" How easy is that? I guess it's much easier to be narcissistic and plow right in front of others. Oh and when I got to the cashier I said, "Did you see that?" She said, "Yes, you were first." What?! Well then why the heck didn't you say that to the rude shopper. Whatever...there is no such thing as customer service or common courtesy anymore. But we did score some cute nutcrackers!

Gratitude Dude!

I stayed at a cabin where little phrases about gratitude are sprinkled all over. Too bad I need this reminder as often as I do. Are you like me and tend to harp on the negative? I'm working on changing that. Maybe I'll have to put gratitude phrases all over my house so I can be reminded even when I'm not at the cabin.

Today I'm grateful my cute kids get along so well. I kept my six-year-old home from first grade today. She has a runny nose, and is constantly sniffing and blowing. She's not sick enough to stay in bed, but I'd hate for her to pass this along to her classmates and teacher. And really, how much work are they doing this short week anyway. It's been so nice to have her here playing with her little brother. They had a picnic outside on the lawn and have been laughing and playing so well together.

I made this cute card for Thanksgiving using Twitterpated paper and Many Thanks stamp set from Close To My Heart. This card was super easy to create using all the fabulous products from CTMH including the Wishes cardmaking book.

"Am I Going to Live?"

This little boy with the owie arms has a special place in my heart. He's my baby, my last one. This year he is the only child still home with mommy except for when he's not in preschool (he likes to call it 'pre-K'). All of his siblings are at school all day - including one who is away at college.




Notice his red arms...he was at the park and scraped himself up getting out of a tree. Before the tree incident, he got up on top of a horizontal drain pipe and couldn't get down. Rather than just lift him down, his dad made him climb down while guiding his steps. During one particularly precarious step he asked "Am I going to live?" Well of course he did, but the tree gave him a run for his money.

I am grateful for the one-on-one time I have every day with my little guy.

Telling the Story

I'm pretty sure I've posted the photos in this layout here on my blog before. Last night I finally took out those photos from my photo organizer and recreated the story in this two-page layout. These are my two youngest children who found an empty box in our backyard last fall and had a blast with the styrofoam packing blocks.


I used two different stamp sets to create the word SNOW (above). I stamped the large letters using my new favorite alphabet stamp, Posterboard, then I stamped the corresponding smaller letters inside the large letters. I used 3D foam tape to add more dimension to the title.

One more plug for another favorite stamp set, Save The Date (below). I keep this stamp set handy at all times because it allows me to add the date to any project so quickly.



Items used, CTMH unless otherwise noted:
White Daisy Cardstock
Creative Basics - Animal Cookies printed paper
Dimensional Elements - Flurry (chipboard snowflakes)
Create A Shade Pearl paint (on snowflakes)
Snowflake brads (not ctmh)
Scalloped circle punch (Marvy Uchida)
Tulip Exclusive Inks marker & stamp pad
Posterboard Alphabet stamp set
Sans Alphabet stamp set
Save The Date stamp set
Personalized name stamps
Black Pen

Things I'm thankful for....

I hope to focus this month on the many things I am thankful for. Recently my husband and I were able to get away for the weekend without our children. Before leaving I asked him, when was the last time we went on an airplane without any kids? Even when we went to Europe we took our three-month-old baby (I plan to remind said baby of that when he's older!). We went to Atlanta in 1996, but we were not on the same airplane so that doesn't count. I think we had to go as far back as our flight to Alaska for our honeymoon cruise. Wow, we are going to have to ditch the kids more often.

I am thankful we are at a time in our lives when we can get away without children and look forward to their warm welcome when we return.

Here we are together on the Oregon Coast (I wish I had a picture of us sitting together on the airplane for posterity).

We survived another Halloween

I've decided after this year that I am not a fan of Halloween on Saturdays. It makes for a really long day for the kiddos to wait for dusk. They were in the costumes by lunchtime. And we had church the next morning at 8 AM. Luckily there was no make-up or hair coloring that needed to be washed out.