Wal-mart Annoys Me!

My computer (for some strange reason) will no longer read my memory card. So roughly once a week or so, I take my memory card to Wal-mart and I download all the pics onto a CD so I can update my blog and reduce the risk of losing my pictures. A week ago Monday, I went in and downloaded 100 or so pics. I also had a couple that I wanted printed so I can take them to the retreat next week. I wait an hour or so and go back to pick them up. Their freakin' machine is down. The girl says it's been down since 10 and I don't know when it will be back up. I tell her that this is not the first or the second time this has happened and if I was going to have to wait for more than 1 hour, I would not pay for 1 hour services- they would need to mark them to the few day prices. She says I would have to redownload all my stuff. I tell her I've already waited an hour and a half and was not going to do that. I walk away before I start swearing.

Yesterday ( one week and two days later) I was at Wal-mart and thought I should pick up my cd and pictures. There's nothing for me in the one hour. I tell her check the send out because maybe, the girl knew how mad I was and redid them for me as send out. nothing there, either....so thank heavens I did not delete the pics off my camera! So, again I tell the girl what a crappy photo lab they run and that I will start taking care of my photo needs elsewhere! Is it just me or was I a bit irrational? No. I think I was patient given the situation...what if I had deleted my pictures? You can't replace them!

So, I went to Walgreens and checked out their photo lab. CD's are 50 cents more each, but I have a coupon for 30 pics for $3.00 so it evens out. I'm going to give them a try!

Signs of Spring

These are the beginnings of my daffodils. They are my absolute favorite spring flower and I can't wait to see them bloom. Luckily for me, there are several patches of daffodils throughout our yard.

Here are the starts of my tulips. When they bloom, they will be in gorgeous shades of reds and yellows.

This is a little shrub outside our kitchen window. I'm not sure what kind it is or if the berries are edible or not.

I don't know what kind of flowers these are, but my little man and his friends found these outside by our water faucet. They are just teeny tiny little flowers, but they are sure pretty.

The absolute first sign of spring is the kids wanting to get outside. Treven was heading to school and Ellie was just squealing and yelling at him through the screen to get his attention. She wanted to go, too!

Mikayla's 15th birthday pics

Mikayla turned 15 last Saturday, the 13th. I had already agreed to help with the retreat things and I had to work Saturday night so we had all of the grandparents up for dinner on Sunday. She picked the menu and decided on hamburgers, macaroni salad, a yogurt/fruit salad and angel food cake with a lemon topping for dessert. She got this shirt from Chelsey.

Grandma and Grandpa Jones have always given the kids a gift they can use and in their birthday card, they always give them the same amount of dollars as years they are. The kids really look forward to this tradition and this year did not disappoint! Mikayla got a beautiful necklace along with her $15.00 She also got some money from Grandpa and Grandma Wood (an undisclosed amount- she wouldn't even let me see it!) Grandpa and Grandma Gibbons also sent a card with some birthday money as well. She also got money from Lee and Woody...I think I might need to take out a loan sometime soon!!!

We paid for drivers ed for Mikayla for her birthday gift. Braquel gave her a cute pair of black and white plaid shoes and Treven and Ellie went together and gave her a new pair of capris. The DeLuna family also gave her a purple shirt and a new necklace. All in all, I think she had a super day!

Mikayla has been wanting us to send her flowers at school for a long time. Valentine's Day was on a Sunday this year so we couldn't send flowers. She was out of school on her birthday so we still couldn't send any. We bought this arrangement of lillies for her as a special surprise!

Ellie's 1st birthday party pics

Ellie opened her own presents for the most part. She wasn't quite sure what to do with the wrapped gifts , but she knew all about pulling the tissue paper out of the gift bags. She was also really into looking at the cards. Braquel was the same way when she turned one!

These were the cupcakes that I made for her birthday. Since we had a cupcake theme, I thought it was only right that we serve cupcakes.

Gary and I got her a wagon for her birthday. She adores it! She will sit in it even when it's not moving! Treven likes to seatbelt her in and drive her all around the house in it.

This is a little baby doll that Todd and Kathy Adams gave her. When you squeeze her, she blows kisses and says, "I love you, baby!" It's so cute. Her lips are even shaped like she is blowing you kisses.

Ellie did pretty good with her cupcake. At first, she just would stick her finger in the frosting and lick it. Then she figured out that it was ok for her to pick the whole thing up and eat it. She was so stuffed from dinner, though, she didn't actually eat much of the cupcake! We love you, baby girl...hope you had a wonderful first birthday!

Ellie's 12 month photo shoot

I love these new pictures of Ellie. She turned one on the 5th of March so we had to finish our project of taking pictures with her little lamb each month. It's so amazing how much she has growm in this last year. I get so sad every time I think about her growing up. Check out the teeth in the pictures!!!

Retreat Challenge #8

Our challenge this week was to use uncropped 4x6 photos on a layout. I chose these pictures of Mikayla playing basketball in junior high. It was a challenge finding a set of photos that were all vertical and didn't need cropped! I'm really starting to get excited for the retreat. We got together on Saturday and started putting the project into kits, gt our welcome gifts ready, and tied up some loose odds and ends. It's starting to really come together and it's going to be great!!!!

Miss Get-in-skie

We have a large cupboard in our kitchen that has a lazy susan in it. Gary was cleaning it out the other day and turning it from a one shelf lazy susan into a two shelf one. After he pulled everything out of the cupboard, guess who climbed inside and made it her play area!

That's right- the get-in-skie herself! She is a maniac now that she can crawl. She is everywhere and her little hands and feet are going a hundred miles an hour! I really hope that she doesn't learn to walk until summer when I have some backup help from the kids!

Does Ellie look innocent or what? It's so hard to be mad at her when she looks at you with those sweet big blue eyes and smiles...it kind of melts you! Lord help us as she gets older...I think we are in trouble!

Challenge for Week #7

The challenge this week was to create a page using a punch of some sort. I used my new Stampin' Up border punch for the top of the green patterned paper and along the bottom of the yellow patterned paper. All of the flowers on the page were also done with a punch. These pictures were from my grandma's 80th birthday party 8 years ago! I think it's about time they got put in a book.

On another note, we got about 4-5 inches of snow last night. It was snowing and blowing and just being miserable all night. I had to take Mikayla and three other kids to drivers ed at 6 am and now it's 10. I still can't figure out why in the heck they didn't call school off!?!?! I'm pretty sure the people that decide these things never got out of bed this morning. If they had taken the time to even look out the window they would have known it wasn't safe to send the buses out.....now I've vented and I feel better! Have a great day!

Kathy's Birthday

Last Friday was my friend, Kathy's birthday. She and her husband, Todd had gone to Costco over the weekend and saw a pontoon boat that she wanted. He decided to get it for her for her birthday, but he wanted to surprise her. He asked me on Monday if I was going to Twin sometime that week and I told him I could go on Thursday. All week, we plotted and schemed on how to surprise her.

Because Todd was on-call that weekend, she kept telling us that they were not coming into Annie's. We debated and debated on how to get her there without blowing the secret. Finally, I told Todd to tell her that I was going to surprise her with a cake or something and that if she didn't come in, it would really hurt my feelings. Kathy would never hurt anyone on purpose, so she and Todd came in.
The plan was that I would leave the boat in the back of my car and somehow get her outside to see it. I asked her and Todd if they would help me unload all my Costco supplies. She looked at me really funny and immediately knew something had to be up. She told me,"You never ask for help. What's up?" In the meantime, I had my friend, Diana hiding in the backseat of my car with my camera so we could get some shots of her surprise! We finally got her out there, and VOILA!

She was so excited! She immediately told Todd, "Let's go fishing!"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KATHY ! LOVE YA, GIRL!!!!

Retreat Challenge #6

Here is the layout that I made to meet the 4 Girls and a Dream Challenge #6. The challenge was to make a layout that had some type of sewing on it. I chose to use my machine instead of doing any hand-stitching so it went a lot faster.

I stitched all the way around the edges of my layout and then I zig-zagged around each of the main pictures of both pages.

This is the pocket on the second page of the layout. When I make the kids' first day of school page for each new school year, I always make a pocket to tuck in their report cards, rewards, prom tickets, anything that needs saved, but doesn't necessarily need it's own page. This way we can pull out their mementos and they don't require a lot of space. It was the perfect page to use for the sewing challenge!