Retreat Challenge #2

The theme for this weeks challenge is to create a layout about a personal hobby. I chose to do my page on scrapbooking, mostly because it's for the retreat and it kind of all goes together. I put some pictures of one of the retreats on the page with some journaling about why I choose to scrap.

Ellie's Mishap

My poor little girl; she was up early one morning and Gary and I weren't ready to get up. We put her in the rocking chair with a cup of milk and some cartoons just like she does almost every morning. After awhile, I decided it was too quiet; I got up to check on her and found her with this little face...

apparently, she learned to unzip zippers and had opened my make up bag. All of the contents were scattered on the table and most everything was dug into pretty deep! It's so hard to get mad when you're busy taking pictures!

Friends Christmas Party

Every year we have a Christmas party with some friends that we have had for years. Instead of a regular gift exchange, we did a gag gift exchange. The only rule was that it had to be $1.00 or less. I bought this big pair of sunglasses for one of our gifts and Michelle ended up with them. However, it wasn't long before everyone was wearing them and getting silly!

We had so much fun! I wasn't really sure how it would turn out, but we laughed so hard I thought I would burst. Some of the other $1.00 gifts were: tattoos, toilet paper, sunglasses that were colored with fingernail polish, a kazoo, a pregnancy test, and disinfectant wipes.

trying to get a photo shoot with Ellie

Trying to do photo shoots with Ellie is no longer any fun! She is everywhere; she won't sit still, she won't look at the camera, and when she does look, she gives the weirdest cheese smile that completely closes her eyes! I don't know why I even bother anymore!

Retreat Challenge #1

The first challenge for our April retreat was to create a 12 x 12 layout about yourself. I asked the ladies to put a photo of themselves along with some information and facts about them. When I was typing the information about me, I had so many things to write! Everything didn't fit on the space allowed, so I had to just put on the most relatable things!

Ellie gets over her fear of Santa!

A couple of years ago I bought Mr. and Mrs. Claus. They are really cute and when you turn them on, they sing and dance and Ho Ho Ho every time they sense movement. Needless to say, most of the time they are turned off! Ellie loves this couple. Several times a day she will walk up to them and hug them and kiss them and carry on little conversations with them. Anytime we ask her what she wanted Santa to bring her, she would say CANDY! So, whenever she would talk to them, she would ask him for candy and then nod her head as if he was talking back to her. It was so cute the way she thought they were real! For some reason, though, they really did help her get over her fear of Santa. It might have been because they were more her size and not so big and scary! Whatever the reason, I sense a scrapbook page about it!

Chelsey's 14th Birthday

I wrote about Chelsey's birthday a little while ago, but I wanted to post some actual pictures. This poor kid was so sick she couldn't even enjoy her day...her day that only comes once a year! We all came down with some sort of nasty flu that week and three of us were feeling really yucky that day. I probably should have rescheduled the pizza party we had with grandparents, but honestly, there were no extra days between her birthday and Christmas; it was now or never. We all sucked it up and went down, but Chelsey was literally throwing up as we walked into Doc's. It was horrible!

Chelsey got really spoiled for her birthday. She got money from her dad and I and each of the kids got her a gift. Braquel got her the cutest black coat with zebra stripes in the belt. Chelsey is really into zebra right now so she loved it! Mikayla got her some jewelry, Treven got her a beautiful teal shirt, and Ellie got her some zebra shoes. She also got an ipod case from grandpa and grandma Wood, her own expensive shampoo and conditioner from grandpa and grandma Jones, cash from grandpa and grandma Gibbons, and a set with tons of perfume from her Aunt Shannon. Her best friend, Linsday, also joined us and gave her an American Eagle shirt and a bracelet with her name on it. Totally spoiled!

I had preordered 5 pizzas thinking we would surely eat that much. I was way off! Since half of us were currently sick and the other half had just gotten over being sick, we didn't hardly make a dent in the pizzas! Oh well, it will be a birthday she never forgets!

Candy Making Day

For the last few years, we have been having a candy making day with my mom. It's so much easier to bake cookies at her house since she has a double oven! She also has a nice cool garage by the kitchen to help the candy set faster. And...let's face it, we love spending time with grandma! The kids all look forward to this day! We did some experimenting the first year with some new recipes, but now we have a pretty set list of what we make. Gary told me I needed to cut down on what we made because we end up eating way too much sugar. So I asked everyone in the family what their favorite treat was...needless to say, they all picked something different. So, we still made a ton of candy! This picture is of Chocolate Billionaires. They taste kind of like a 100Grand bar. They have a caramel center with rice krispy cereal and then they are dipped in chocolate. Super good! Gary picked these and divinity as his must-haves!

These are pecan caramels. These are Chelsey's all-time favorite treat...she begs and begs to make sure we make these caramels. They are pretty yummy! They are nice and soft, but they take FOREVER to cook! We did two batches this year because one just isn't enough!

Braquel and Mikayla both demanded our Marbled Roca. It has toasted almonds, a toffee base, and then chocolate and white chocolate swirled on the top. They are to die for! I know this picture looks kind of gross, but I had just swirled the two chocolates. When it sets up and you crack into pieces, it is like eating a piece of heaven! We try to be stingy with this on our Christmas plates we take to the neighbors because we really want to keep it all for ourselves!

Retreat Challenges are posted!

As we prepare for our 4 Girls and a Dream retreat, I am excited to have posted the challenges for April. I got to take charge of the challenges and I'm super excited about them. If and when the ladies complete them, they all go into an album and will tell the story of each of us! I can't wait to finish them and post my samples! I'm actually going to do something that I never do and that is to have a photo shoot of myself. I don't have any pictures of me since I am always the one behind the camera, so it will be fun to try something new!

As a sidenote, we still have several spots available for our retreat. If we don't finish filling up, we will be forced to cancel. I cannot tell you how disappointed I will be if that happens, but we have to have enough come in to cover the costs of the inn and the food. We can cut out the extras (the welcome bags and the projects) but if we can't cover food and lodging, it wouldn't make sense to keep it going. I have researched several other retreats that offer similar things as we do, but their prices are around $400.00! We charge $110 and we don't make any money. After we do food and lodging, the rest goes right back into our projects, treat bags, prizes, etc. We do it because we love it, not to make money! If anyone is interested in coming, please let me know...we'd love to have you! It is so much fun spending time with such creative ladies and getting to focus on our shared hobby. I come away from there with such a feeling of renewal!

PTO Gift Night

The president of our local PTO had an idea that it would be fun to host an evening at the school so the parents of the kids could have a night away to go to dinner or go Christmas shopping without their kids. We also opened it up to other kids at home. It did sound like fun at first, then it sounded like a lot of work! I'm not going to lie, it was a ton of work! It was well worth it, though. I'm not sure that there was one single kid in the whole school that didn't come! We started right after school and began with a snack and then some games. This is one of the games; the kids divided into two groups and had to wrap a member of their team with toilet paper. The only trick was that each kid only got about 6 squares of toilet paper at a time! It was a mad dash!

This is another of the games. There was a suitcase filled with oversized clothes for each team. One team member stood at one end of the room and one at a time, the other team members dressed him up. They took turns being the one who got dressed, so by the time the game was over, each team had dressed 4 kids. It was a lot of fun to watch these kids try to put on big pants!

By 5:30, the kids all started to get hungry again. We ordered 18 pizzas and while we waited for them, we had the kids put on pajamas and set out sleeping bags to sit on. We were planning on watching a movie a little later, so it seemed like a good time to get settled in. I guess we forgot to tell the kids that, though! They were so wound up it was crazy! Thank goodness for Mikayla; she went to pick up the pizzas so I could stay and help control the chaos!

We had lots of other games, both indoors and out, but it would take a week to show everything! This game was one of their favorites, though. Two teams again and lots of balloons and running! Ellie loved this game the most even though she nearly got trampled! She had so much fun with all the "big" kids that night! By the time all of the kids got picked up and we cleaned up the classrooms and lunchroom, we were all worn out! A big thank you to Chelsey and Mikayla for helping so much! I'm sure it wasn't the way they envisioned spending a Friday night, but they were good sports. I'm thankful I have such good kids!

12 Months of Christmas part 2 (January)

To start the Christmas organizing off right, I covered this composition notebook. Now I can keep all of my ideas and lists in one spot. Hopefully, having everything all together will keep me on track!

I kept the back really simple because I want it to lie flat when I'm writing in it. The more embellishments and thickness, the less easy it will be to write nicely so I can actually read what I wrote! I'll be back in the middle of February with next months ideas and projects!

12 Months of Christmas part 1

In order to better prepare myself for Christmas 2011, I have decided to break things down into the twelve months leading up to the big event! I usually send out about 50 Christmas cards, so I decided I would start with 4 cards per month on average. If I do a set that I really like, I will add a couple more to equal out to the 50. While I was making the project for my next post (12 Months of Christmas part 2) I had some leftover paper and stickers, so I went ahead and made the first 4 cards for December. They are pretty simple because I was using scraps and I didn't feel like getting a bunch of things out that day. They turned out okay so I put them away! Join me tomorrow for part 2!

Gingerbread Houses

Every year, the Sage Mountain Grill hosts a gingerbread house challenge and invites the elementary school to participate. Each of the kids bring in bags of candies to use on the houses and the Sage brings down a huge bucket of icing. They use graham crackers and icing around milk cartons for their houses and they can decorate however they want.

I spent the day at the school helping the kids with their masterpieces. Let me tell you, this is a messy experience, but the kids love it! It was really fun to see how creative the kids can be! Here is Treven's finished house. I really think he should have taken first place, but I'm just the mom!

Ellie's visit with Santa

After the school performed at the Festival of Trees, I took Ellie and Treven over to Santa. There were two little boys already on his lap, and Ellie kept telling them Beep, Beep. She wanted them off and her on. As soon as they got off and I sat her on his lap, she freaked out! She started to cry and tried to jump off his lap.

I told Treven to sit down on Santa's lap and hold Ellie and maybe she would calm down. It worked pretty well except that she maintained a constant death grip on Treven's neck and she wouldn't talk to Santa or even hardly look at him. It was pretty funny for everyone watching, but I think it may have traumitized her!

Festival of Trees 2010

The Albion Elementary kids sang and performed at the Festival of Trees toward the first part of December. They do lots of little jokes, recite poems, etc. One of their traditions is to also play the bells. It always gives me chills when they do because it's so soft and pretty.

Treven got to take part in one of the jokes as well as play the bells and sing. One of his classmates asked "What is in December that is in no other month?" He answers with "The letter D!" He really doesn't like participating in these little things; he's a lot like his dad and he would rather stay home than get up on stage and make a fool of himself. I keep trying to encourage him that he does a great job and no one thinks he looks dumb!

Ellie had a ball watching the kids. I was in the front row so I could get pictures and she kept yelling for her Bubba! She walked right up almost to the stage and just watched. She would dance along with the music and clap like crazy when each song ended!

Treven's rules

Treven made this sign one day and hung it on his bedroom door. Apparently they are rules for those who may/may not enter. Love the "No Smoking" sign part, but the other written rules are a little weird. Here they are in a nutshell:

You may NOT ENTER IF:

You are a victim of a crime

You talk at all

You are a girl

You have secrets

You fit in his clothes

OR

You give the finger...

Don't ask me where he comes up with this stuff...must be from his father!!!

Last of the Thanksgiving Photos

When all of the other kids went outside to sled, Ellie had a fit. She wanted to go outside, too. I bundled her up and she and Chelsey headed out for awhile.

Ellie must have a bit of her daddy in her because she immediately thought it would be funny to scoop up some snow and throw it! Nobody has ever shown her how; in fact, this is probably one of the very few times she has really gotten down in the snow!

She had poor Chelsey on the run! She would just giggle and giggle when she would throw the snow and Chelsey would run and scream! Devilish little thing, she is!

After we ate Thanksgiving dinner, the kids went outside into the field next to the house. Keven pulled the kids around on the sled behind his Suzuki and they had so much fun...until Braquel was pulling Keven and ended up breaking the sled! The whole top with the rope came off! That was the end of that!

When Mikayla came in, she had icicles hanging from her eyelashes. It was so weird! I guess it was good that the sled broke so they could all come in and defrost!

Part of our Thanksgiving traditions are the kids and I going through all of the ads for Black Friday. Even though we don't really go out and shop at 4 in the morning or fight the crowds, it's fun to see what's on sale and what we are missing. Usually, we don't miss much!

Braquel and Keven got to Thanksgiving dinner a bit late. Braquel always has to work on Thanksgiving and they like to stop by Keven's grandma's house before they come out. It's a good thing that we usually eat a little later at the Jones' house!

Can you believe that Chelsey finally posed for me? Typically she turns away really fast and all I get is a shot of her flying hair! This time she just smiled and waited for me to take her picture. Maybe it helps that she was starving and wanted to stay close to the food!

Here is Gary's dad getting the turkey ready to slice. Along with the usual turkey, we have potatoes and gravy, homemade turkey noodles, frog eye salad, rolls, and lots of pies! Gary's sister, Sheila usually makes the turkey noodles and frog eye salad, but her family spent Thanksgiving in California this year. Grandma Jones did the turkey noodles and I took frog eye salad instead. The kids said we just couldn't break with tradition!

Another tradition at the Jones Thanksgiving is pickles. Lots and lots of grandma's homemade pickles. Ellie loves them and they are great for snacking on while waiting for everything else to get done! It's very unusual to see Ellie without a pickle or olives in her hand when we are grandma and grandpa's house! Stay tuned for more of our Thanksgiving pictures in the next few days! Slowly, but surely, we'll get this blog caught up to the present!

January Blog Hop

For my blog project this month, I made a New Year's Eve banner. I cut out each of the HAPPY NEW YEAR letters and glittered them. Then I attached all of the pieces to a string and added buttons and flowers in between each. The letters took forever to dry, but other than that, I was pretty happy with it!

To see another great glitter project, link up to A Creative Day! Ashley has a really cute project that she made.

February's blog hop theme is going to be "Be My Baby Tonight". You can choose a project that uses the whole Valentine aspect or play on the baby word and make something with the baby theme. Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!