Christmas Day Photo Favorites

 

Danielle in heaven with her new phone. The wonderful relaxing dinner at granny's. Enjoying the good company.

Christmas Eve Photo Favorites

 

Matthew waiting by the front door for Joseph to come over for over an hour greeting everyone is at the top. My second favorite is my dad sitting on the bar. Third is my husband cooking. It was a fabulous night. The food was awesome, the kids had a great time. It all went by too fast.

3 days of snow!

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The best weekend ever. Lots of sledding, and getting warm by the fire. Back to reality today with lots to do on my list. 3 gifts still to get, wrapping, cleaning and some decorating still to do all while keeping the kids entertained. I finished up an album I decided to do last minute for a gift and am scrapped out believe it or not. My Christmas album is stuck on day 10 and will stay that way until after Christmas. I am still journaling and taking daily pictures but have to get my priorities in line. I am so looking forward to seeing the excitement in my children's faces Christmas morning. I really want to set up the video camera this year. I haven't done that since Danielle was little. Happy Holidays everyone!!! ps. my Christmas journal day 1 -10 is up in my gallery at tally scrapper if you want a peak!

8 days and counting

I can't believe Christmas is so close. I have been busy with lots of shopping, Holiday parties, decorating, Christmas cards, and of course working on my Christmas journal. The kids will be out of school on Friday until January and I am so not ready for that. Last Friday we decorated Granny's homemade gingerbread's. It is an entry in my Christmas book that could take up to 5 pages. I am going to have trouble deciding on which picture to use for sure. Granny made 6 gingerbread's this year. Danielle invited Gabby and Matt invited 3 friends Ryan, Gian Carlo, and Joesph. The day before he invited one more, his friend Ronnie without consulting me and poor granny had to whip up another gingerbread that morning. She is simply amazing. This year we had 2 visitors helping to decorate. Aunt Jean and daddy. I think we have been doing this for 10 years and it is the first time daddy has joined us. Being slow at work can sometimes be a good thing. I think next year now that he saw what he was missing he will make it a point to join us on this gingerbread decorating day. One good thing about the slow economy.

Tinkering Ink

products ROCK! Just finished with my December Bella Art assignment early as usual. It was to create using a Creative Imaginations Colin car board book, with a birthday theme using Tinkering Ink papers, alphabets,Finery adornments,Tabs and tags from their Westminster line. I also used some Studio brown paint mixed with Pearl Ex to give it a shimmer, Hambly transparencies, Robin's Nest gold dew drops, some CI paper for journaling and some paper ribbon all from Bella Art. Unique products you can't find at those big craft stores. Love the way it came out and hope you do too! Happy Saturday

Quarantined

sign should go on my house. 2 kids home sick and myself not feeling so great. It's a pajama day here. Maybe if I am lucky I will fell up to finishing a project or working on my Christmas cards. Danielle made the Basketball team! Well, they decided not to cut anyone. She is thrilled and so am I. She does better when she is busy. Such a great organizer like her dad. We had our first family meeting last night. Rules where layed out, chores assigned and allowances and consequences where discussed. Matt was to get 5 a week , Danielle 10. Right away he negotiated 6 and 12 with me because that's how old they are. How cute is that? I had to give in. No pictures from yesterday and the tree still is bare. Lots of time though right? No stress. The house smells good at least!

December First 2008

 

I feel like tomorrow is Christmas. Time is going by that fast right now. I want to stop the clock. Pulling 2 all nighters, well one and a half in 3 days has not helped. Our tree is up today, no lights or ornaments, which is a first for this family. It is usually up and decorated the day after Thanksgiving. I want to go to New York on Wednesday with my sister to see the tree lighting in Rockefeller Plaza but It just isn't in the cards this year. Hopefully Kara will get some good pictures. Happy December everyone!

What are you thankful for?

Normally I don't get too deep into what I am thankful for on this Holiday. It is a given... my family, good health, and all the things in life we are lucky to have. This year though, I am very thankful for more time with my dad. I had a great Thanksgiving at my sister Laura's then at my Auntie Doris and Uncle Vinnie's. We miss you Paula, Mike Hanna and Little Mike! Hope you enjoy my slide show! These pictures were taken for you. Some people were not very cooperative!! I think I may have even got my x-mas card photo taken today! Happy Thanksgiving again! T Here is my slide show of the day.I went a little crazy with pictures of dad.He actually had a glass of wine! I was shocked at that. Notice Larry's blonde hair and how thin Donna is? Oh... and poor Rachel!! I'm off to go shopping in a few hours! Crazy....

Feeling Guilty

that almost all of my layouts are of Matthew lately. I have been trying to update my online albums at 2 peas.As I was going through layouts I worked on this summer but never downloaded, I noticed most were of Matt. I did this one quickly with my leftovers from my last Bella assignment. I had made the canvas a month before inspired by an Ali Edwards layout and had never done anything with it. Worked out perfectly.

I am gathering my photos and ideas for my car mini book and look forward to starting it maybe tonight.

Feels like a Friday today to me. Doesn't it?

Hope you all like the new look of my blog. I am quite proud of myself I must say.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Eat tons!

OLW #40 ENERGY

My family got to see this electrifying energy in person for 6 days straight on a family vacation this summer in the Outer Banks, NC. It was great for me to get a break from all this energy. Lots of babysitters, one of my favorite things about family vacations. Hopefully we will get to vacation together again soon! Lots of great memories.

I am looking forward to putting my Christmas album together, taking photos everyday and journaling. Last year I joined Shimelle and I look forward to her great inspiration again this year. http:// www.shimelle.com/classes/389/journal-your-christmas.

Everyday Moments

On the way to school this morning...

Mom: "Hurry Up Matt your gona have to get a late slip"!

Matt: "And why do I care about that?".

Simply precious.

Yesterday, I made sheets for Danielle and Matt to write their x-mas list on thinking I could somehow make a page with it after. My plan was to cut them down to 8x10 and add a photo of them writing their list. Matt was very into it and got very creative with his. He used the whole 12x12 and got some very cool illustrations down for Santa. I am going to have to rethink my page design now.

Number one on his wish list was an ipod VIDEO. Can't believe it. What happened to the very big star wars ship? Very torn about that request. He is only six. Wonder what Santa will think....?

Happy Monday everyone. Looking forward to Thanksgiving and no school routines for a few days.

Almost done with my OLW http://onelittleword.typepad.com/olw/ about energy. Will post later today.

crowdSPRING, hire Kelly Purkey for your new Community Marketing Manager!

Novemeber Bella layouts and Jenni Calender

I know pictures from '06 that I haven't scrapped. Crazy with all the scrapping that I do. That is one of the reasons I like designing for Bella because it makes me get things done!

The calender is a free digital printout from Heidi Swapp's website I just happened to run across while doing my daily blog reading. Scroll down to the Nov 8th entry titled enjoy. Also some great thanksgiving tags for printing. http://www.heidiswapp.typepad.com/

Looking forward to working on my next Bella project which is a car mini book birthday project. I think I have 2 or 3 of Matthew's birthdays left to scrap so .... no problem!

5th layout

this one didn't post the first time for some reason...

November Jenni kit

5 pages out of this great kit so far. I added very little to them, just some of my recent vintage paper finds, pages from an old music book, a vintage ledger and and old almanac. They went so well with this kit. Can't wait to see what she has instore for December!

Hello Tuesday...

I didn't take one photo on Halloween. I don't even remember why. Maybe it was because my kids were the same thing 2 years in a row. Well, technically Matt was Luke Skywalker last year and this year Bobba Fett. Thankfully my good friend Lisa took some, so I had something to scrap. As you can tell vintage stuff is my trend right now. This page was created around a book page taken out of an old Golden Book. Matthew made the bat in the background at school I crumpled it up and stapled it so it would fit. It was a very fun page to create! Lots of stuff going on.

Sneek Peek

I love the feeling when I get things accomplished. I am on target with my Stories in Hand and my 25 Days Until Christmas books. They are not complete but started and I thought I would share to get you inspired! Last year I worked on my x-mas album as I went along and didn't have it all put together prior to Dec 1st and none of my days were numbered. This year I will be ready to roll and fill in each day.

More pictures and info to come!

Our Joe!

Isn't this picture great! In Delaware after the elections it is their tradition to gather and read the numbers out to the public. This had been done for centuries and my sister tells me Joe has never missed it. He was there on Thursday with a ton of secret service men. My sister got this shot of him stepping out of his horse drawn carriage against secret service advice. The loosing opponents ride in the same car in opposite seats. Joe's declined. Very cool that she got to experience this.

Lots of Scrapping done this weekend...

The first layout I did for Isa. Such a great photo taken one day of Eva while we were picking up Danielle from school.

The second layout I love love love the way it turned out. The small photos with the art stroke around them make it. Going to do a general magazine submission for this one. Wish me luck!!! All the items for this layout are from Bella Art. :) So glad they are so close!!!

I am finishing up my day in the life album, getting ready to start my December daily album, working on my next class, and finishing up a few more layouts I started this weekend. Looking forward to getting my Jenni kit too.

Tomorrow we will have a new President! Can't wait to find out who it is. I will be spending more of the day going around to polls with Greg. So fun! I hope it is a huge turnout.

Happy Monday everyone. Stop eating all the kids candy!!! :)

Bella October Layouts & Happy Halloween!

I was very excited to work with my new Bella goodies. I submitted them one week early. Looking forward to seeing all the other member's layouts.

They have the best trims in the store available by the yard. I am in love with the new Swiss dot Bazzill and love that Bells carry's Hambly... one of my favorites. They have alot of the new Basic Grey papers in the 6x6 paper pads. I went nuts when I saw the BG Chocolate albums and think I might do an x-mas day of the week mini book for my next submission.

I can't wait to see if Matthew spells Halloween right on his spelling test today. Thinking of picking up in kids in costume today... so fun. Have a safe Halloween everyone... my 2 followers at least. :)

Determined

Finally getting on the ball and submitting stuff. I found this call for Easter pages on 2 peas and had actully written down my supplies on the back of this layout this summer at the beach house. I was thinking ahead for once.

I am going to play field hockey today... against my daughter at MB. This should be interesting. :)

Hello Monday

I am very excited about many things this morning. I am so proud of my children. At the beginning of the school year Matthew could not even read 2 letter words. I was so worried about how behind he was from all the other kids and now this month, actually last week he has begun reading whole books all on his own! We had been working hard and he was coming along slowly. All of a sudden he got it! And he likes reading and doesn't complain. This morning I finished his monthly reading log, six books and I am filled with such happiness with his progress and am excited to see him continue to do well in school. He may still be behind the other kids but he has made such personal progress and I am so proud of him.

And Danielle, she completed her science project last night 2 days early! It ended up being a family project we all helped with and she even let Matthew help. At her parent teacher conference last week her advisor said she is at the top of her class. When I told her this she said "really" ? I knew she had it in her and hope she continues. She has such potential and again I am so proud of her.

Now enough family stuff. Bella Art. Where do I begin? I am very excited about being part of their design team. We had our first meeting yesterday and I think she did such an amazing job picking out the team. Very diverse styles. I am excited to be working with these talented ladies. Our first project is to use Thickers and for it to be a fall theme. These are the goodies I got yesterday. I can't wait to create with them.

I am almost done with my Day in the life album. Very excited about this also and love the way it came out. Here are a few pages. I have sat and Sunday left to do. It feels so good to do a project just for me. I highly recommend doing this.