Enjoying the small things.....

Thanks to my lurking on the 2Peas message boards, I found this amazing blog. I dont want to give too much away, but, it will definitely touch your heart if you take the time to stop by and read the "birth story". I find myself stopping at this blog several times a week now. I like the way she writes and the pictures she takes are amazing. Be prepared if you decide to go there, I was on her blog for a couple of hours the first time. Enjoy!http://www.kellehampton.com/2010_01_01_archive.html

Cameron and Morgan

Jim and Cameron spent part of last weekend building a project for Cameron's science class. I didn't get all of the details but it obviously has something to do with growing grass with varying amounts of water. It turned out pretty good, don't you think? That's one of the good things about Jim, he's super creative and likes to build stuff so the kids have lots of help when it comes to this kind of thing. That's not really cheating, right??? LOL!

The pictures of Morgan are from an awards ceremony they had last week at her high school. Each teacher in the school picked one kid to recognize for various reasons. Morgan was chosen by the Honor Society advisor for being raising over $500 on her own for women in Rawanda and for being a critical part of the current years Honor Society. Unfortunately I was flying backfrom Texas the night of the ceromony and I missed the whole thing. Iwas so dissapointed, but thankfully Jim took some pictures so I could almost feel like I was there. I'm so proud of her!

Sunday Stuff

It was a beautifully sunny day today in Washington so I did what any dedicated scrapper would do- I spent part of it inside my scrap room! You would think I would have spent it outside but you'd be wrong. Jim and I spent the morning over at my parents house doing some work and helping them with their bills a bit. We took over some groceries, my Dad has this weird thing going on where he thinks they don't have any food - they do , but if they run out of something he enjoys, like cookies, it makes him worry that they don't have food. I think it is part of the Alzheimers and dementia. When we got home we were both pooped but managed to do a few things around our own house. Jim worked on his shed he's building and I spent a couple hours in the Loveshack working on these two pages. I'm happy with how both of them came out. Thanks to Tiffany for the Pink Paislee paper I used for Morgans layout- it was perfect for the picture of her and Oliver. When I came back in the house Jim asked me to go fishing with him, which really means, go watch him fish while I read a book. So I agreed and we spent an hour or so at the lake, it was a nice relaxing way to end the evening.

Twisted Root Burgers

As most of you know, I am a huge Man vs Food and Diners, Drive Inns and Dives fan. You may also remember that I am having a competition with the guys at work to see who can go to the most locations. Well, the boys managed to get ahead of my by one, they went to 9 spots! So this week when I was in Dallas I made a point of finding a few spots and picking at least one to go to. I went to the Twisted Root Burger Co in "Deep Ellum" in Dallas. I think Deep Ellum is kind of like an "artsy" kind of area, check out the metal sculpture, there were lots of those in the area and lots of murals on the walls of buildings. My good friend Rachel met up with me and, after we did a little damage at Sephora, we had some burgers together. It was a pretty cool restaurant, lots funny sayings on the walls and windows, and a funny staff- check out the picture of them behind the counter. I had the green chili, pepper jack cheese and guacomole burger and it was delicious. We also had the fried food basket with deep fried pickles and sweet potato chips- Yum. This is a spot I would definitely go back to. It was nice to see Rachel and relax for a few hours, it almost made being away from home fun, I still missed the family though.

The Crafty Scrapper- Waxahachie, Texas

When I travel I usually look up local scrapbook stores and try to fit in a stop if there is time. I got off work at 5:00 tonight and had just enough time to go to the cutest little scrapbook store in Texas- The Crafty Scrapper.  I took my camera in with me thinking I "might" want to take a few pictures- DUH- they had tons of goodies to drool over. They had new October Afternoon, Bo Bunny Mamarazzi (I've been dying to get my hands on this), and some fun new We R Memory Keepers I couldn't live without. I even found some adorable dingle balls in some amazing colors, a butter yellow and a gray/blue I "had" to have. They match the paper I bought....... LOL.  I spent at least a half hour, probably more, in the store. Thanks Sherri for being so sweet and patient with me, she even snapped a few pictures for me. Love the Texas hospitality! If you are ever in Texas and happen to be passing through Waxahachie you need to stop on by, but in case you dont get a chance, here's a link to their site. http://www.thecraftyscrapper.com/

Love these guys

 I got home  a little early on Friday and no one was home so I headed out to the Loveshack to try to get a page done. I got a good start and ended up finishing on Saturday afternoon. The picture is from the photo shoot I did of the kids earlier this year and it's one of my favorite pictures. We have such good kids- I look at them and appreciate each of them for what they bring to our family "mix". I'm off to Texas this week for business and I get meet my dear friend Rachel in Dallas for dinner tomorrow night. The last time I saw her was over a year ago when her mother passed away unexpectedly. It will be nice to catch up with her and relax for the evening. Have a great week everyone.

The floors are done!!

Yippe, the floors are completely done now. Jim has been hard at work every night after work and most days on the weekends. I haven't been much help, I've been running to my parents house alot.We drove up to the Old Cannery furniture store last weekend to look for a new sofa for the other living room. We ended up finding one for less than $400- I love the Cannery! They always have a really great selection of reasonably priced furniture that can fit pretty much anyones style. I'm so happy with the way the house looks now, it's perfect. Now it makes me want to do more renovating, maybe my bedroom.....

Finally a page

I made it out to the Love Shack one day this week and managed to actually complete a page. It's been a couple of weeks since I've even thought about scrapping and it really was difficult to get back into the swing of things. I had this page all laid out from the crop I went to withTiffany last month so it was as good a place as any to start. I had so much fun driving on the frozen lake in Minnesota I knew I would have to scrap it and I'm glad I got it done. My mood has really been "off" since my Dad was inthe hospital , I think it really has affected my ability to relax and scrap. Hoepfully, now that he seems to be on the mend, I can get back to my normal groove. Wish me luck!