Home again...Home again...jiggety jig

We are HOME!!! Just pulled into Charleston and it's 70 degrees!!!! Yes, I said 70 degrees!!!!!!! YIPPEE!!!! I'm SO EXCITED!! We had a wonderful visit to Illinois, but the weather was not fun! We experienced all spectrums: 0 degrees, saw a little snow, experienced an ice storm (a first for the boys..not for the hubby and I), temperatures below zero with the wind chill (YUCK!) and ended the trip with thunderstorms and 60 degree weather. Can you say INSANE? Yes, the weather in Illinois is an adventure. Unfortunately the boys did not get to experience playing in the snow or sledding, as my in-law's yard was an ice rink! So, they "skated" out to the van a couple times and wound up on their rear-ends.

I will post pictures soon! We're about to pull in the neighborhood and then it's time to unload all the "stuff." At least we were able to do lots of laundry before returning, so there's not a lot of that to do. That brings a smile to my face! But, there's plenty of other stuff to do.

Check out Becky Higgins' blog to see her new KOTM. It goes on sale Jan. 1st. I began my pics yesterday! Can't wait to get this one!! Oh, and anyone out there interested in owning a scrapbook store, Elise is looking for a buyer, as she's needing to do more for her family. I hope she can find a buyer, as I don't want to see the store close. Keep your fingers crossed for her!

Dashing through the snow...

or ice... Well, not really, but we're headed for Illinois, and it's going to be FREEZING COLD!!! They had an ice storm yesterday, but I've been informed the roads are clear by my dad, the "Pathfinder." So, we're taking a slightly different route, but should pull in this evening! We left this morning, 71 degrees the van read, and when we arrive it will be in the teens or twentys. BRRRRRRRR!!!!! Sunday the high is 9, yes that's 9 degrees!! The boys have no idea what cold is, and I remember it, but am not wanting to live it again. The things we do for family and friends. :):) I wouldn't have it any other way.

It may even be a white Christmas, which I'm pretty stoked about. Because if there's ever a time I want snow it's Christmas day. Our boys have NEVER seen snow, oh wait they did see a slight dusting a few weekends ago when we were up in the mountains on our way to the Polar Express, but it wasn't much. So, they may actually be able to go sledding and everything. WOOHOO!!! And, I hope there's hot chocolate involved after that!

I hope everyone who reads my blog, all 2 of you (just kidding), has a safe and happy holiday!!! Will post more from the freezing north!

Yea, we got it....

Hot Chocolate!!! We are on our way home from riding the Polar Express in Bryson City, NC. It was an AWESOME trip! The boys really enjoyed it and E and I enjoyed it also! The boys were in their pajamas, as were all the other kids and lots of adults too! We travelled all the way to the North Pole last night and saw Santa Claus. He joined us on the train for a little while and each child got the "first gift of Christmas," a bell. It was great! Lots of pictures were taken, so when we get home I will upload some.

It was COLD there, highs in the low 40s and lows in the 20s. And, the boys got to see their first bit of snow. There was just a little bit on the mountains going up there, and Mr. P said "that's a lot of snow." Little does he know it was just a dusting! He said Grandma and Grandpa need to order lots of snow. When I told my parents that they laughed, and so did I. When we head back to Illinois for Christmas they are going to get to see LOTS of snow, I think. And, it's already freezing there, GREAT!! I guess my blood has finally thinned a little.

LOTS to do in the next couple of weeks before we head back. I'm putting my creative hat on when we get home, I need to make the boys' teachers gifts this week, as Thursday is their last day for school. Then they're with me for 3 weeks, YIPPEE!!! NOT! :) Actually we'll be gone for a little less than 1/2 that time, so hopefully it won't be too crazy! Is anyone else having a hard time believing that Christmas is less than 3 weeks away. WHOA!!! What does everyone have on their list of things to do??!! Leave a comment, and there may be a goody in store for you. :):)

Almost Turkey Time

Sorry for such a lag in posts. I've been busy and gone and busy! We wrapped up the soccer season for Mr. P., my mom came to visit, the hubby and I went to Asheville for our 10th wedding anniversary while mom watched the boys, my mom left, we celebrated my hubby's birthday and now it's almost Thanksgiving! WHEW...it's been a crazy 3 weeks!!!

Asheville was BEAUTIFUL!! We've lived here 8 1/2 years and have NEVER been there. So, I booked a surprise weekend trip, which he guessed where we were going, but oh well. I made reservations for a nice dinner and then had tickets for a candlelight Christmas tour of the Biltmore. The house is AMAZING!!! We saw it at night and went back for an audio tour the next morning. One man built 175,000 sf house for himself as a bachelor, then got married and they had a daughter. It was massive and I was in awe each time we visited, and I still can't fathom it. The weather was a bit chilly, but still beautiful and the colors....ABSOLUTELY BREATHTAKING!!! If there's one thing I miss about the Midwest, it's the changing of the seasons! I don't miss winter, but I miss the fall foliage and the beautiful colors. Luckily we got to see it this year.

And, the Biltmore winery was amazing as well. We spent a good bit of time there, and had a BLAST! We definitely want to go back. Mom, when can you watch the boys again?!?! :):)

I've been doing a little creating too. For the store and myself. My friend Kim and I have a Christmas Card Express class tomorrow afternoon and I'm looking forward to it. 8 cards will be made during this class and each "student" gets the stamp set with their class kit. This set is ADORABLE. It's from Hero Arts. Here are the 8 cards that will be made:

Okay, and I'm SO excited to share this one. I made it today with the same Hero Arts stamp set and packaging from American Crafts brads. It turned out way cute, if I do say so myself!!! I'm thinking an ornament for the tree. My husband said I should make these for the boys teachers, so I guess I'll need to buy more brads or eyelets. ;) ;)

Oh, and one more share....the birthday card for my Mr. E. Kim let me use her Owl stamp from Hero Arts, and has enabled me to want one, REALLY BAD!! Elise.....when are you ordering them!? :):) (She wants one too.) I really LOVE this stamp.

Okay, sorry for all the pictures. But, I wanted to share what I've been up to. What have you been up to???!!!???

Carving some time...

Last weekend we carved pumpkins. I wanted to share a picture of the pumpkins at night, because they turned out pretty well. I know a previous post shows them during the day, but check this out...

Are you spooked??? :):)

Are you ready for the trick-or-treaters? We bought our candy this week, and I'm proud to say we haven't even opened the 50# bag of chocolate we bought. (Really it's not 50#, but good grief, it's a freakin' TON of chocolate!) My boys can't wait to dress up and honestly I can't wait to see them AGAIN in their costumes. They wear them right now at least once a week at home.

Some projects

Happy Saturday! Well, my class at the store didn't make last night, which was sad for me, because I needed to get out of the house. :) But, it was probably a good thing, because it rained and rained and RAINED here yesterday. We got 4" of rain here at the house, and I think that was the average all around the city. It rained from about 10:30 yesterday morning until after 10:00 last night, no stops, all rain. It was a DREARY day! BUT, we ARE going to reschedule my class, so if you're interested, be watching my blog or the store's blog and we'll let you know.

Speaking of the store, she has gotten in so many awesome things. I'm just loving it right now. If I could only find the time to get to work on my projects and $$ to pay for all that I want. I've had sick little ones, but hopefully we're on the mend, so I'm hoping to get back in to the swing of things soon. I have lots of projects to work on that are needing to be completed SOON!!! Oh, Elise is having a Maya Road House decorating contest, just like Maya Road. Check out the Maya Road website, and then call the store to get details about the contest there. Posting should be up on the blog soon.

Project news.....I completed a gift for my best friend's daughter's 1st birthday and wanted to share it with you. It's a homemade chipboard album. No, I didn't make the chipboard, but I did cut the shapes out myself. I couldn't find one that looked like a party hat, so I created my own.






I also created a "My 1st Disney trip" album. VERY simple and I may use it for my little E's pics from his first trip last year. I wish we were going back this year. :( I LOVE DISNEY!!!!






Each of these was made with items from previous month's UnKits. I completed these designs with the July and August kits.

Halloween just around the corner

Halloween is upon us. And, I'm hoping to get my kids well before it gets here. We've had the vicious cycle lately, one is sick, then the other, then back to the other, and so on. It's bound to happen, but I'm ready for it to be over already and we're not even into the major sick season yet. LOVELY! Back to Halloween, my oldest is going to be Batman, and is EXTREMELY excited about it. He's been talking about Halloween since August, and as soon as October 1st came, he thinks it's Halloween EVERY day! My youngest is going to be Superman. It's a super heroes Halloween in our house. They want me to be Wonder Woman, but I don't want to scare anyone who comes to the door, so I'll be finding just a simple Halloween shirt to wear. An added bonus, is Grandma will be here for Halloween. My mom and the puppies will be in town and the boys are ecstatic! She'll be here for Mr. P's last soccer game also. They're disappointed Grandpa won't be here, but they'll talk to him plenty. And, we'll be back for Christmas in just a couple months.

With Halloween in mind, we've been wanting to head to the pumpkin patch, but with it raining the past 2 weekends, we haven't made it yet. But, we've been itching to carve pumpkins, so we headed to Wal-Mart to pick out a few pumpkins to hold us over until we can get to the patch, hopefully this weekend. Here is the outcome!

Anyway, another reason for the Halloween talk, I taught a kid's class this past weekend at A Scrapbook Store, and it was a BLAST!!! We created Halloween treat baskets, and the kids left with their baskets filled with treats, thanks to Elise and myself. The kids stamped and stickered those baskets up.

I'm scheduled to teach a class this Friday for an altered project, a wall hanging. Interested? Call the store, 884-1944, to reserve your spot. Here's a sneak peek!!! I love this wall hanging set from KaiserCraft! It's inexpensive and the possibilities are ENDLESS!

The October Kit at A Scrapbook Store is available, and these are the 3 layouts I created for the kit. The EXCLUSIVE item to this kit is Pink Bubblegum Glimmer Mist from Tattered Angels! It's awesome and I used it on each layout and the card! It was fun to scrapbook pictures of girls, since I never get to do that. (Thanks Elise!) :) And, the add-on kit, is pretty spectacular too! Check it out!

I'm here!

Yes, I'm here, just haven't posted in a while. A LONG while. Both boys have been sick, different weeks, colds with fever, YUCK!!! Hopefully on the mend! Now the big boy has it in the house, but he's getting over it too.

So, Scrap Pink weekend was AWESOME at the store.

Wendy Vecchi's classes were the bomb! I had SO MUCH FUN! These are pictures of the fragment journal I created. LOVE IT!! In fact, I'm making a couple as gifts. And, maybe you'll see one or 2 on my etsy site.

I've got some classes coming up at the store. This weekend is a kid's class on Saturday. We're making a Halloween basket. I'll post a picture soon. SO CUTE! Next Friday, 10/24, the project is an altered wall hanging. Again, picture peeks tomorrow.

Party time...

This past weekend was full of birthday parties, well 2, but they were for 4 year olds, so it was busy. Mr. P had some partying to do, so we all joined in at the first one; and, little E and daddy stayed home in the afternoon, while we went to the 2nd party. Both were fun!!! Here's a card created for one of the parties, oh and a bow I made for her gift.





This weekend is ScrapPink at the store. I'm looking forward to this event. Wendy Vecchi is teaching classes, there are crops going on, I'm doing a couple make n takes, there are prizes, food and there will be TONS o' fun!!!! If you donate $5 this weekend, you get 20% off your ENTIRE purchase. How cool is that! You donate money to a GREAT cause (Susan G. Komen) AND you get a discount!!!! If you're in the area, stop by and say hello!!!

It seems these days many of us have been touched by cancer in one form or another. My mother-in-law and my grandma are both SURVIVORS! And, a VERY good friend of mine is battling it right now, in fact she just had her last round of chemo this past Tuesday! So, this cause, if you will, is VERY near and dear to me. I would love for them to find a cure and I hope they do, not only for breast cancer but for ALL cancer!!!!!


Oh, one more thing, check out the store's calendar, there are classes and crops through the end of December listed. ROCK ON!!! Lots going on! Hope to see you there!

A few layouts done this weekend

I worked this weekend at the store, and when I was done, there was an all-day crop going on. So, I stuck around and after the creative juices started flowing (which took some time), I was able to complete a 4 pages from a Scenic Route class at CKC and another layout: so 5 layouts in all. I was pretty happy.

The LO about Mr. E's pacifier is the layout I did on my own. The others are from the Scenic Route class. The crop was SO MUCH fun!!! There are some great women that come to them! And, Kim, Angela, Elise, you gals are the BESTEST!!!! So glad we're FRIENDS!!! Thanks for making me laugh so hard!!

Now it's time to say Goodbye...

Why? Because Daddy needs a new office.

Yes, over the weekend, the Disney characters were painted over.

It was a sad day for me yesterday! I was already hormonal and then I had to say Goodbye to this.

So, here are some 'during' photos:

And now it's a beautiful, earthy, masculine green color.

It was really hard to say goodbye, but we're moving on. The boys are

sharing a room, and it's good so far. (Knocking hard on wood right now!) Daddy is happy that he has his own office and my craft space is decent too. Will post more pics of this later!

Wii've been playing...

It's been a little while since I last posted. We dodged Hanna, but we're now prepared for a storm and our garage shows it with a generator and 3.5 cases of water. And, the pantry is well stocked with canned goods! Glad we didn't have to deal with her too much. And, we've been watching Ike, even though he's not heading our way, I'm praying for the people in Texas!

Since we were planning for a weekend indoors last weekend anyway due to Hanna, I wasn't sure what we were going to be doing, except Play-doh, movies, some DVR'd TV shows. But then Eric came home Friday late morning with a HUGE SURPRISE! He bought a Wii!!!! Yes, we are now the proud owners of a Wii game system and it is AWESOME!! Patrick absolutely LOVES it! His faves are bowling and baseball. He's already scored a 202 in bowling. Yes, he's 4 and has beat his mom and dad!! And, now this is the ONLY kind of boxing I like to see in my house.

Truly an awesome gaming system! And, you get a great workout from some of these games.

We've also been doing some things around the house. We moved both boys into one room, and (knock on wood) it's going pretty well thus far. My husband moved his office into E's old room (the nursery), so right now he's working with Disney characters on the wall. I'm dreading painting over these, but he's going to this weekend! I mean how could you want to get rid of them...

I'm working at the store this weekend. There's a garage sale from 7am - 1pm and a crop from 9am-?? P has his first soccer game this weekend, so I'll be there and then off to work. Speaking of the store, Elise has started a kit club and she chose my back to school class to inspire the first kit. It's pretty exciting! Check out her blog and there's more information, including pics of the kit and add-on kit.

Speaking of soccer... I can't wait to see P's first game. I think he's enjoying it. There's only 7 kids on a team and they play 3 people at a time, so everyone gets a chance. The practices have gone pretty well, it's E that we have to watch, since he thinks he can play too! So, that's the CHALLENGE!!

And this month at unKit, the theme is scrap pink! So, check it out!