Hello?

This is Emily calling you on her new phone to say
Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday, Emily!

Happy 1st Birthday, Emily!

My silly baby

Hard to believe she will be a year old a week from today. Time really does fly when you're having fun.

Another test blog from my Treo

Are you ready for Christmas? I'm not. I have not even started my shopping. I know. I better get a move on. Especially since Emily's birthday is Dec. 21 and Tyler's birthday is Jan. 13. Busy times.

This is a test mobile blog from my Treo.

Baby it's COLD Outside

Dec. 2, 2007
We got our first snow of the year today. The cold weather
made a trip to the local K-Mart for a warm hat for Emily
necessary. She isn’t too sure about it yet, but I
think she’ll get used to it! I sure think its cute!

Its Make Me Merry Monday again!

Its that time of week again! Its Make Me Merry Monday! Help me spread some merriment throughout Blogland, won't you? Just blog about something that makes you merry and then come back here and leave your link in the Mister Linky at the bottom of this post. That's all there is to it! Then we can all come visit you and see what makes you merry. So, lets do it!

This week crafting and decorating with my family is making me merry. If you read yesterday's post here you will see some of what we've been up to. Its so simple yet so fun! We all sat together and traced our feet and hands and made reindeer. How silly is that!? But, you know what? It was fun! It was fun to see how creative we could get with them. It was fun to see Daddy get involved, as he usually misses out on our crafty times. It was fun to see Tyler thinking of how to make his deer look cool. Then Tyler and I made a tree with cut out hands from each of us... and we went on to make decorations for the tree. We finished up our "mural" with some old fashioned paper snowflakes. Tyler and I enjoy making them online, but it was fun to see his amazement as I unfolded each one. He said "Wow. You never know what its going to look like until you unfold it!" :)

Crafting with my family makes me merry.
How about you?

Happy December!

Happy December, Blogland!

Today has been a festive day of decorating for us. I gave my blog some holiday cheer, as you can see. We also had fun crafting some decorations for the wall above our couch. That wall has become our canvas for holiday decorations... it changes with each season. Here is what it looks like now...

What's that? You want to get a closer look at our handiwork? Okie dokie!

Here are our reindeer...

Yes, those are our feet and hands. Daddy, Tyler, Emily, and I all sat here and cut out our own hands and feet and then decorated our deer. Pretty cute, hey? :o)
(Yes, Daddy's deer has its tongue hanging out and a tag on its antler. Leave it to him to make a dead deer. lol)

Now feast your eyes on our Christmas tree...

Yep. Those are handprints. Many, many handprints. The decorations are made my Tyler and I. I especially like the little white angel near the top... Tyler made that "because Emily is an angel". Awww.

Tyler and I also cut out the paper snowflakes above the reindeer. He loved that. We've done them online HERE, but it was way cool to actually cut them and then watch them unfold. He was amazed... "you never know what its going to look like!" he said. Fun times!

Well, I hope you enjoyed our silly craftiness! If you are in MN, enjoy the SNOW!!

P.S. Tomorrow is Make Me Merry Monday!

He's one awesome big brother

So, last year we went on a school field trip where the kids put on a play for the parents. One of the lines in the play was "Its too hot to live!". That's been a staple line in our household since then. Its so versatile... you can say "Its too cold to live!".... or "You're too silly to live!"... or my favorite "I'm too old to live!" See? Where am I going with this you ask? Well, here's a conversation from earlier today...

Me: (groaning as I get up off the floor after changing Emily) I'm too old to live!

Tyler: I'm too tired to live!

Me: Emily, what about you? Are you too little to live?

Tyler: No. She's perfect.

:o)

Make me merry Monday

Happy Monday, Blogland! Its time for Make me merry Monday! If you'd like to play along just blog about something that makes you merry... then come back here and leave your link in the Mister Linky at the bottom of this post so we can all visit you and see what makes you merry. You can find the code to add the above badge to your post HERE.

So... what is making me merry this week...

Family time. We have been blessed this past week or so with being able to do some family things together. We've ate out at some awesome restaurants. We've gone bowling. We've played pool and darts. We've had Thanksgiving dinner. Sometimes we get so caught up in our own lives that we forget to do things as a family unit. I have enjoyed doing just that lately.

Family time makes me merry. How about you?

Digital scrapbooking

Just popping in to share a couple of layouts I created over the last couple of days...

Lots of fun stuff going on over at Digital Scrap Garden. You should stop over!

Oh! Don't forget that tomorrow is Make Me Merry Monday!

Thanksgiving FuN!

So, Wednesday night Daddy got it in his head that we should go bowling. Now, I am soooooo not a bowler... BUT my sweet little boy gave me the puppy dog eyes, so off we went to the bowling alley. Tyler had a blast and has not stopped telling me how he LOVES bowling. Tyler and Daddy bowled a game and then they talked me into bowling one with them. It wasn't too bad... I had more fun watching Tyler though.

I bought Tyler a Lariat Lanes t-shirt as a souvenir. He was so excited he had to put it on right then. NOW he had a "bowling shirt". THEN... then.... are you ready for this?? As we were leaving the man behind the counter gave Tyler his very own bowling pin! Can you believe it? He absolutely MADE my little boy's day. Tyler has shown everyone his pin... it holds a place of honor on the shelf right beside his bed.

On to yesterday... Thanksgiving was awesome. Lots of food... lots of family... some friends... lots of fun. A friend of ours joined us for Thanksgiving dinner. Afterwards he and Dave decided they would like to play pool. So we all loaded up in my van and headed to Southtown Lanes where they have pool AND bowling. We arrived and realized bowling was really expensive, so the guys played pool and Tyler, Emily, and I ate and played darts. Tyler offered Daddy a little help with pool game as well. ;)

An unconventional Thanksgiving... but tons of FUN!

In other news...
You'll notice a new ad at the bottom of my blog. I was intrigued by the ability to spotlight toys that are Made in the USA and Lead Free. So check it out. And, if you are so inclined, click it a few times... you'll get to check out some cool toys and I'll make a few cents! Win-win!

Also, Digital Scrap Garden is having a Black Friday sale! 50% off the entire store!! They are also offering a free collab kit with any purchase! AND another free collab kit just for joining the forum over there! Awesome stuff!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

May your Thanksgiving day be full of
family, friends, food, and fun!

------



Today I am feeling most thankful for my children.
I love you Tyler and Emily.

OopS! Its Tuesday!

Its Tuesday. That means yesterday was Monday. You know... Make Me Merry Monday. Oops. I totally forgot. So sorry! Anyways.... I found this little graphic just now and it fits me.



I often wonder how we survived before we had computers and the internet. Its the first place I go in the morning. Its the last place I am at night. I read the newspaper here... I pay my bills here... I talk to my family and friends here... I get directions and maps to places here... I shop here... I plan our days here... I check the weather here... I school Tyler here... I scrapbook here... I work here... Pretty much everything I do at least starts here. And now I can do alot of those things with my cellphone too. Does that make me a bad person. No. A nerd maybe, but not bad. :o)

My computer makes me merry...
on Tuesday and every other day of the week.


Edited to add: If you want to post a Make Me Merry Tuesday post, go for it!! Just leave us a link in the comments for this post so we can come visit you. I promise to be on time next week.

Yesterday's creations and todays blahs

Well I had a bit of a creative day yesterday. I created 2 new digital layouts using templates. I hadn't used a template before and it was sort of fun! A great way to do digital layouts if you don't have alot of time. I used Purple Frog's new Art Inspired Templates. She is offering them free on her blog. This first one is our new hamster (who still doesn't have a name, by the way). I used the New Members Kit that they are giving away FREE to everyone who joins the Digital Scrap Garden forum.

And another one of my kids on Halloween. This one is made with Ladybug's Autumn Bliss kit and Purple Frog's Glitterfied Swirls.

I also made myself a wallpaper for my new cell phone! I used a free kit from Raspberry Road Designs. I think it turned out cute...

In other news...

• I feel BLAH today. I think its going to be an all-day-jammy-day.
  
• The hamster is doing great. This is the third day in a row I have been handling him without him nibbling on me. Yay! Tyler still can't really hold him because he is still a bit scared and tries to bolt when he gets nervous. But he's enjoying petting him and watching him run around in his ball. We might try him out in his littlle hammy playpen one of these days.
• Tyler is doing good in school. He's so durn smart!
• Emily has 8 teeth now. She's ready for her first Thanksgiving dinner!! She's getting good at pulling herself up and standing on just about anything in her reach... no steps yet though.
• My mouth is STILL NUMB. It will be a week tomorrow since they extracted the teeth. Hope it comes back to life soon.
• Sprint replaced my phone for me on Monday... with a brand new phone that's the next step up from the one I had. I am now the owner of a Treo 755p. Yippee. It seems to be working great.

I think that's all for now! Have a great day, Blogland!!

Thank you, Ladybug...

Thank you for the friendship tag, Ladybug!

Make me merry Monday

Its that time of week again!

Play along! Please? Let's make Blogland a merry place today! Blog about what makes you merry... it could be a person, a place, a food, a thing, an event, anything! Then leave your link in my Mr. Linky here so we can all visit you and see what makes you merry! Oh, the code to add my badge to your site can be found here. Send all of your friends and family over to play along too! The more the MERRIER!

So, what makes me merry? Lets see...

I think I am leaning in the material object direction this week.
My cell phone makes me merry. I have a Treo 700p. I love my phone. It is my life. It contains my life. It holds my calendar, my address book, my checkbook, my photos... I nad GoogleMap an address with it and get driving directions... I can surf the internet with it.... I can get my email with it.... I can play really fun games with it. Its my alarm clock. Oh, and its also my telephone too!! :o)
The reason I am so into my phone this week is because it isn't working properly! Grr. It freezes and turns itself off without notice on occasion. Very frustrating. My phone and I will be visiting the Sprint store today to have it fixed or replaced. Then I will be merry again.

When my phone works properly it makes me merry.
How about you?

The continuing saga...

So I'm pretty sure that if something can go wrong for me, it will. I had a rough Summer and its continuing right into the Fall for me. How nice. In the last 6 months I have had 4 surgeries, blood transfusions totaling 6 units, and enough drugs to... well, alot of drugs... including antibiotics, steroids, and even Cocaine. Simple and routine procedures have just been going totally wrong on me for some reason. Last week was no exception. After spending last Saturday night in the ICU over my tooth I went to the oral surgeon and had the tooth extracted on Thursday. All went well with the surgery. EXCEPT... here we are 4 days later and my mouth is still NUMB. Can you believe it? I was a nervous wreck Friday morning when I woke up and it was still asleep. Wonderful, I thought, now they've messed something up and my mouth will be paralyzed for the rest of my life. Go figure. I was on the phone to the oral surgeon's office the moment they opened... and finally got a call back around 2:30 in the afternoon. The nurse tells me that my roots were really close to some nerves and sometimes the nerves get "bruised" during the extraction, but its temporary. Not to worry. Easy for her to say. So I ask her how long it usually lasts. Guess what? Could be a week... could be a month. So I guess I just drool away till it decides to wake up. No problem. No problem at all. Seriously though, have ya all ever heard of such a thing??

Oh yeah, I scrapbooked yesterday... I am loving this digital scrapping! So fun... and no mess!

We got a new pet yesterday too. We're accepting suggestions for names!!

Get ready for Make Me Merry Monday tomorrow!!!

Question of the day...

Tyler: "What's the same about pee, poop, and potty?"

Mommy: (wincing) "I don't know, what?"

Tyler: "They all start with P!"

Come on. Admit it. That wasn't the answer you were thinking of either. Was it?

---

Here are a couple of layouts I created yesterday and today...

These are both made with a fun NEW kit called Peach Mocha. Its a collab kit designed by Purple Frog Pizzazz, Ladybug Graphix, and Flutterby Designs over at Digital Scrap Garden. They all have previews of the kit in their blogs. The best part is... they are giving this huge kit away for FREE with any purchase this month! Go! Grab it! Now! :) You won't be sorry! Its got DUCT TAPE!

I go in the morning to have these 2 teeth extracted. I'll let ya know how it goes!

Make me merry Monday

Its Monday, Blogland! A time to think about what makes us happy. Its time for....

Play along! Blog about what makes you merry... it could be a place, a food, a thing, an event, anything! Then leave your link in my Mr. Linky here so we can all visit you and see what makes you merry! Oh, the code to add my badge to your site can be found here. Send all of your friends and family! The more the MERRIER!

So, what makes me merry? Lets see...

Given the weekend I have just endured, I have to revert to the old standby. My kids. My kids are my life. And as much as I'm supposed to enjoy a little break from them, I just can't. I miss them too much. I miss tucking them into bed. I miss waking up to the crawling into bed with me for our morning snuggle time. I miss watching them play together. I miss watching the baby eat... her little fingers shoveling it in. I miss hearing my big guy's stories and seeing the "art" he creates for me daily. I miss listening to them make each other giggle. I just plain ole miss them, darnit!

My kids make me merry. How about you?

I used street drugs over the weekend

So on Friday my tooth started hurting. I knew I had a bad tooth and had put off having it extracted. I figured I should stop putting it off and called and set up an appointment with the oral surgeon on Monday (tomorrow). Friday night I felt a little swelling starting, but not bad. Saturday night I went to bed with a little swelling on the side of my cheek, but still not terrible. During the night things turned for the worse. The swelling moved over under my chin and began to block off my airway. I was having trouble swallowing and talking. So off to the ER we went. Where I had a CT scan, which confirmed that I had an abscess that was compromising my airway. I would be admitted. To decide where I would be admitted the ENT doctor needed to go down my nose with a camera to see how bad it was. So she comes in with this little bottle of stuff to numb my nose. She dips 4 long q-tips into the bottle and sticks two of them in each of my nostrils. Very fashionable. Then it happens. I glance over at the little black bottle on the counter and it is clearly marked COCAINE. Did you do a double take? Cause I sure did. "Does that bottle say COCAINE on it???" I say. "Why yes it does." says the doctor. Like its nothing. Just cocaine. No big deal. "But don't worry, its only 4% cocaine." she adds. "Well thats more than my body has ever seen!" I reply. So here I am snorting cocaine. Nice. After which I was given many many bags of Steroids intravenously. For the swelling. Cocaine and Steroids. What a weekend.
Oh by the way... I ended up spending the weekend in the ICU. For a tooth. Leave it me.

And the Fall Y'all Bloggy Giveaway winners are...

First of all I want to take a second to thank everyone who visited my little ole blog and signed up for my giveaways. It is so appreciated. I hope some of you will continue to visit me here! Ok, without further ado.... the random winners of my giveaways are....

The winner of my grab bag of 40 coupons is...
the saunders family of Plenty to Praise

The winner of my personalized digital scrapbook layout is...
jamie of Our Liberian Adoption Adventure and Princess Ruby

Congrats, you two! Look for emails from me in the near future!

B is for Big Brother

Page kit: Blossom by Flutterby Designs at Digital Scrap Garden
Letter tile: Flutterby Designs at Digital Scrap Garden
Fonts: Tracy, Turtle Club

I am constantly amazed at the relationship Tyler and Emily have. I am an only child, so I have never experience the whole sibling thing. Its pretty neat. :)

Oh and keep your eyes on the Digital Scrap Garden. They have some awesome stuff planned for this month!

November 3rd is Digital Scrapbooking Day!!

Tricks and Treats

Trick or Treat, Blogland!
From my little magician and his bunny rabbit.

I took the kids to Fall Family Fun at Calhoun Square here in Minneapolis on Sunday. It was fun. Pumpkin decorating, singing and dancing, trick or treating... all the makings for FUN! And it was all FREE, which never hurts the fun factor for Mommy!
So, now the real trick or treating goes on tonight. You know the tonight I mean. The low of 32° tonight. Ugh. Nice trick, Mother Nature. So I don't know what we'll do. Tyler is so looking forward to trick or treating with his baby sister on her first Halloween. I am thinking maybe we'll hit the Mall of America for indoor trick or treating. I don't know. I'll let ya know what we decide.

Until then though I have a treat for you!!

Welcome to my second Fall Y'all Bloggy Giveaway! This time around I have a grab bag of 40 coupons! Who can use some coupons?? I bet you can. And you. And you. And YOU! So all you need to do to be entered in my drawing is leave me a comment right here on this post. Make sure you leave a way for me to contact you, blog or email or something. I will choose a winner randomly on the morning of Saturday the 3rd.
And don't forget to sign up for my other drawing HERE.
You guys, there are 525 drawing to sign up for as of right now!! You better go get started!

AND

REMINDER! Today is the last day of the $2 or less sale at Digital Scrap Garden!! Don't miss out! Everything in the store is $2 or less! Wow!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!
The winner has been announced HERE.

Make me merry Monday!!

Its that time of week again. A time to think about what makes us happy. Its time for....

Play along! Blog about what makes you merry... it could be a place, a food, a thing, an event, anything! Then leave your link in my Mr. Linky here so we can all visit you and see what makes you merry! Oh, the code to add my badge to your site can be found here.

So, what makes me merry? Lets see...
One of my favorite parts of the day happens around 10pm. The kids are in bed. Its peaceful. I can watch what I want to watch on TV... I can do things on the computer without interruption... when I go to bed I can lay there and relax or play games on my phone. Its quiet. Yes, I love the "me time" I get each night. It makes me merry.

What makes you merry?

The ultimate freebie!

Shannon over at Rocks in my Dryer is doing it again!!! The Fall, Y'all Bloggy Giveaway is under way! Head on over to her Bloggy Giveaway site and play along! Details can be found here. Then GO HERE to sign up for the giveaways and host one of your own! The fun will go on throughout the week, so you can hold more than one giveaway if you want! There are already more than 160 giveaways to sign up for!!!! And its just starting!! This big y'all... BIG.... HUGE even! Run over there! Now!

So, I guess you want to know if I'm doing a giveaway, huh? YES! I am! What is it, you say? Well, I have decided that I will give one lucky random winner a personalized digital scrapbook layout! Fun, huh? You can see some of my work over in my sidebar to the left and in my previous posts. The winner will send me the photos and journaling and I will work my magic! I will send it to you in several formats so that you can print it, post it, or whatever tricks yer trigger. All you need to do to enter the drawing is leave me a comment on this post! Be sure you leave a way for me to contact you if you win, blog or email. I will choose a winner randomly on the morning of Saturday the 3rd. And keep your eyes open, I may have more giveaways up my sleeve. :o)

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!
The winner has been announced HERE.

Happy Saturday!

Not too much going on in our world today. I ran to the Sprint store to have them look at my phone... its been freezing a lot and even shutting itself off now and then. They only had one tech working and I had to leave it there for 2 hours! I was in a strange area, so I had no clue what to do with the kids for 2 hours. I spotted a Toy World and we went in there and walked around a little. I asked the girl working there if there was a park or playground anywhere close. Well! There happened to be a really nice park right out back of the mall! So we strolled around for a little over an hour then headed back over to the mall and had McDonalds. I finally got my phone back and it seems to be working. I told them I'd be back if it wasn't any better!!

I did get a layout done this morning before we left...

Page kit: Blue Bird Bliss by Purple Frog Pizzazz at Digital Scrap Garden
Fonts: Vintage Typewriter

Speaking of Digital Scrap Garden. There is some new stuff in the Garden Shop today!! Those girls are talented, I tell ya! Don't forget to keep an eye on their blogs for freebies too. The links are in my sidebar.

So we are home and settled in for the night. I plan to do some more scrapping tonight so get ready for some creations sometime tomorrow! Hope you all had a happy Saturday!

New hats & a digital scrapbook freebie alert!

The kids got a box in the mail from Grammy & Grampy yesterday. They always find cool little trinkets to send. This time they each got a new hat. :o)

Grampy bought Tyler this cool Marine hat at the Crawford County Fair in PA.

So Grammy had to go on a hunt for a hat for Emily.

Tyler wanted to try taking a picture... (ignore my wet hair, please)

In other news...
The girls over at Digital Scrap Garden have some awesome freebies on their blogs today!! Run, don't walk, over and grab them!

Ladybug has a beautiful quick page for you made with a new kit she is working on.
Flutterby has a gorgeous page kit called Ultimate Passion just for you.
AND
Purple Frog has a whole pile of paper clips for you!

And they're all spotlighting my layouts today too! *blush*

Meet Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle... or maybe you'd rather not??

So we started reading a book called Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle in school today. It seems there is this woman... she lives in an upside down house. Her clothes are all brown and wrinkled. Alllll of the kids in the neighborhood come to her house after school each day. While they're there they cook, paint, brush Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's hair, iron her clothes, cut firewood, dig for treasure in the back yard... all sorts of "fun" stuff. All the while Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle sits in the corner on a chair with a crown on pretending she's a Queen. It also states that Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle knows all of the kids in the neighborhood and hardly any of the grownups. Does anyone else see anything wrong with this??? I know its just a story, but still...

I did a little more scrapbooking after story hour...

Page kit: A Splash of Color designed by Ladybug Graphix at Digital Scrap Garden
Fonts: C39HrP48DhTt, Little Trouble Girl BV, Scriptina

Page Kit: Spooktackula by Flutterby Designs at Digital Scrap Garden
Font: Boring Showers

Good news!

The girls over at Digital Scrap Garden have informed me that I am their first Garden Gal! I am so excited to be on their team! If you get a chance, stop over and see me at my new creative home!

Wish me luck!

So I took a chance and tried out for the creative team over at the Digital Scrap Garden today. Wish me luck! I think I'd be a great Garden Gal, don't you?? Here are the layouts I created for my application. I got to choose a kit from each of the 3 designers there to work with. You can click on them to see larger views over at Flickr.

Covered Bridge
Page kit: A Splash of Color by Ladybug Graphix
Font: Segoe Print

Beautiful Sweet Emily
Page kit: Blue Bird Bliss by Purple Frog Pizzazz
Butterfly cutting template: Just Some Shapes by Peachy
Font: the Blue Cabin

2 lil Pumpkinheads
Page Kit: Spooktackula by Flutterby Designs
Fonts: Cafa Rojo, Tootlebug, the Blue Cabin

PS
All of these kits are only $2.00 right now!! You can click on the name of the kit under each photo to view the whole kit in their store. They have some really cute stuff over there and its all on SALE!

You might also want to keep an eye on the designers' blogs. They often post digital scrapbooking freebies there!

Purple Frog Pizzazz
Flutterby Designs
Ladybug Graphix