It's a wonderful life

Productive weekend

2009-03-30T07:37:00.002-05:00

We had quite the productive weekend! Worked on little projects that we have been blowing off because of helping my parents out so much. We pulled out ALL the kids' summer clothes and made them try them all on to see what we needed for this year. Christian fits in just about everything still! (thank goodness!!) Just needs some new warm weather PJs. Ava fit in much more than I thought she would. Still needs a lot of shorts and a few more dresses. And, of course, PJs. Overall, I'm *very* happy with how it turned out. :)

We also did a million loads of laundry and worked on the piles of paper we have laying around. I swear...papers breed when they hit our house! LOL They are everywhere! I still have the dining room table covered with different piles of stuff from around the house, but I'm hoping to finish that today or tomorrow. Then, need to finally implement some organization...sick of having stuff scattered everywhere and not able to find things!

Going to my mom's house right now to take care of her. Then, need to do Christian's birthday party invitations. He wants a pirate party! :) I'm so excited and can't wait to make it super fun for him and his little friends!! :) Bought this super cute kit by Heather Roselli at Sweet Shoppe to make the invitations and will use it for other party stuff as well. Isn't it cute?!!?

Have a great day and TTYS! {HUGS}

Back in the swing of things...

2009-03-28T11:44:00.005-05:00

As most of you know already, my mom has been very sick for the past 5 weeks. In and out of the hospital twice and still VERY weak and needing help with every little thing. She's not able to do hardly anything by herself. Needless to say, we've all been exhausted from running around taking care of her and their house. It's finally started to let up a little bit because she's able to be left alone by herself a little bit more and they've taken the dog back for now. Leaving us a little more time to our own house/family and doing some projects. :)

We've lived in this house for almost a year now and FINALLY got up our first drops of paint! :) I absolutely can't stand white walls, so this is a BIG accomplishment! :) We painted the family room green/white and the dining room a yellow with white trim. Excited to work on more projects and get things more pulled together. :)

Have a good weekend! We don't have much planned. Beauty & The Beast musical at Cara's high school Saturday(she's the spatula and a townsperson) and having Jason/Kathy over Sunday night. TTYS!

Oscraps Birthday Blog Train and SALE....LAST DAY!!! :)

2009-03-22T01:46:00.007-05:00

Hello, all! I've been a horrible blogger lately, but I am super glad to see you stopping by! Be sure to check out my store at Oscraps for the last day of my 33% off sale. Also sign up for my newsletter here at the right to get some extra freebies and special offers made just for you! :)

All that being said...here are your goodies. Thanks so much for playing along with all the wonderful Oscraps girls this week for our birthday! We've enjoyed having you all!!! :) {HUGS} -Melanie

Your very last word: "~IRISH BLESSING"
Your next blogger link: bloghop@oscraps.com (bloghop AT oscraps DOT com)

**You must e-mail the correct quote from this week's blog hop to be eligible to win a CUSTOM kit by Mikkel Paige!!**

MY FREEBIE: http://www.vickistegalldesigns.com/o-bday/bloghop/mcolosimo_OBday_template_2.zip

Terms of Use

2008-11-15T08:21:00.002-05:00

I needed to post my TOU online, so here ya go! :) If you have any concerns, comments or questions regarding the TOU/items purchased, please email me at melaniecolosimodesigns@gmail.com

TERMS OF USE - MELANIE COLOSIMO (Melanie Colosimo Designs)

Copyright ©2008/2009 by Melanie ColosimoAll Rights Reserved

Copyright of all the graphic images and any sample images created by Melanie Colosimo are retainedby Melanie Colosimo Designs.

HOW YOU CAN AND CANNOT USE THESE ITEMS

YOU MAY:
You may use these kits and elements in part or in whole in your layouts/projects that will be submitted to Scrapbooking and related magazines for publication, giving proper credit to Melanie Colosimo, including any graphic you have altered in any way.

You may alter any graphics with respect to color, size or by adding to or removing from them.

These items are for PERSONAL USE ONLY unless written permission from me (Melanie Colosimo) isobtained. Please email me to get permission. Not all projects will be granted permission.

YOU MAY NOT:
Use templates or premade pages for publication or call them your own works.

You may not use these items in any way as part or a resale layout or any other graphic product without prior written consent. Not all projects will be granted permission.

You also may not to use the content for any harmful, pornographic, or racial material or material that may be deemed harmful or offensive to another person.

Limited Liability:Melanie Colosimo shall not be held liable for any damages resulting from the use of these items.

Copyright Policy:All copyrights to elements, graphics, and kits within this site are retained by the original creator, Melanie Colosimo.

All graphic images are copyrighted Melanie Colosimo with all rights reserved. Graphic images are for personal use only. No other use is hereby authorized.

Unauthorized Use:It is illegal to reproduce or distribute copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright owner. Accessing the images and text provided on within this kit does not give you any rights to use them without the permission of the Copyright owner.

All Materials designed by Melanie Colosimo, including but not limited to images and text, are protected by copyright under U.S. copyright law, international conventions, and other copyright laws. You cannot use the Content except as specified herein.

You agree to follow all instructions within these terms and are limited the way you may use the Content.

If you did not receive these items by purchase at Oscraps or at my blog (http://melanielemonyr.blogspot.com/), this is an illegal download and is considered digital piracy.

Crediting the Designer:
Please be sure to credit Melanie Colosimo, Element Name and Kit Name when posting your layoutsto any online galleries and/or magazines.

If you have any concerns, comments or questions regarding the item, please email the designer at melaniecolosimodesigns@gmail.com

Thank you to Atomic Cupcake (actions), Manfred Klien (fonts), Dani B (overlays).

Melanie Colosimo retains and reserves the right to modify, update and change the Terms of Use for all digital designs at anytime with or without notice. It is your responsibility to check for updates and changes to the Terms of Use. Unless stated elsewhere, any amendments to this Terms of Use agreement will take effect 10 business days from the time it is posted.

Oh my...so much for posting every day! blush

2008-07-09T18:10:00.002-05:00

Okay...last post was Sunday. So much for my 21 straight days of blogging! :( Oh, well....back on the bandwagon! There's actually not much going on around here. Part of the reason I haven't blogged, I guess. My family reunion is on Saturday and this year my immediate family is in charge of it. (every brother and sister in her family alternate years to be in charge. Rotates every 5 yrs) Anyways, we're doing a luau theme and it's always a lot of work! We went shopping today to a bunch of dollar stores to try to find stuff. We ended up hitting the jackpot!!! :) Now, I just need to focus on some of the details. I found a cute site with lots of luau ideas. I'm even making name tags for everyone with their "real" name and their name in Hawaiian! They have a name translator on their site!!

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For those of you who didn't see my posts on the message boards, I hit the jackpot at Disneyshopping the other day! I got an email with coupon code SUMMER40 for 40% off the summer sale prices and I got free shipping for using my Disney Visa card. (spend $75 and use code VISA75)

For $91 (including tax!), I got:

~ 8 pairs of PJ's/nightgowns
~ 2 beach towels
~ 2 T-shirts (wish I had gotten more now though)
~ 1 button down shirt
~ 1 pair of sunglasses
~ 2 hats
~ purse
~ 1 swimsuit (wish I had gotten at least 1 for Christian now though AND another one for Ava)
~ plastic atomizer set for Ava's vanity
~ headband

I'm beyond thrilled with my purchase! We haven't been spending much "extra" money since we bought our new house, but I couldn't pass up these deals!! That's a whole lotta stuff for $90!! :)

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And my gosh...check out these cupcake pops! Someone posted about them at DST and I am seriously IN LOVE with them!! :) I'm a cupcake freak anyways and these are too cute for words! The basic premise is the same as cake balls, but with a little more panache. I love 'em!! I spent forever browsing through her blog last night looking at all the goodies. Look at this cute Tshirt too. I am adding this to my wish list...I gotta have it!!

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Anyways, I have lots to do and not enough time to do it! I have SOOOOO many cute ideas to design, but need to get them all on the computer. Where does the day go?!?!? (I'm guessing a 3 yr old and 5 yr old help make that happen, eh?!?! LOL)

I'm off to work on the family reunion stuff. Have a great night! {HUGS}

So tired!

2008-07-06T21:57:00.002-05:00

I am absolutely exhausted, so it'll be a quickie tonight! :) Our friends that came over last night didn't leave until after 3:00 am and then the kiddos were up at 7:30 am...NOT a good combination! LOL We had a lot of fun with them though!

Today we went to my parent's house for a 4th of July picnic. Just us, my parents and my sister. Very low key and relaxed. A nice day, but when you're so tired, you just want to be home in your own comfy clothes and your own environment, KWIM?

So...it's 11:00 pm and I am off to bed. Hope you had a great weekend!! :) {HUGS}

Low key day...

2008-07-05T19:38:00.004-05:00

Just another low key day around here. We worked around the house cleaning up and doing some little projects. Finally got my American flag hung on the porch, got some of Jarrett's stuff hung up in the garage, and started working on taking out the old cabinet in the kitchen above the stove. We got the old one out and the new one in today, but didn't get the microwave hung. Tomorrow's project, I guess! :)

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We went to a birthday party tonight for some of our best friends. Their little boy turned 4 yesterday! We had a lot of fun. Our friends live about 4 hours away, so we don't get to see them very often. :( The kids had a BLAST playing together though! There was a big bouncy thing for them to jump around in and they had one of those Little Tikes water slides. It was SOOOOOOO neat!!! After seeing how much the kids loved it, we're contemplating buying one for our kids. IF we can find it for a good price though. They are awfully expensive!! :(

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We have some good friends coming over tonight to have a few drinks. We don't get to see them very often either because he's a police officer and works nights and all kinds of funky shifts. :( They are so much fun though and I'm really looking forward to seeing them! (even though I'm exhausted!!!)

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Have a great night and don't forget that my whole store is 30% off through tomorrow! :) {hugs}

Happy 4th of July!! :)

2008-07-04T22:52:00.002-05:00

Well, it's extremely late, but "better late than never", right?!?! ;) HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!! I hope that you had a wonderful day today. We went to the in-laws' house and had dinner, then went to see fireworks. The kids absolutely LOVED them! They were extremely tired by the time it was all done and now I'm ready to go to bed too. We have a birthday party to go to tomorrow (Happy Birthday, Brady!) and other than that, no plans! Just doing some projects around the house.

Anyways, quick and simple tonight 'cause I'm exhausted! Talk with you tomorrow!! :)

Kinda boring day today. Sale & new template though!

2008-07-03T14:30:00.002-05:00

Today is a boring day. Nothing much to report. Jarrett put up a shelving unit in the playroom/office last night, so I spent most of the day starting to finally unpack office/craft stuff. It looks like a complete mess at the moment, but I can't wait to finally get the room all together!!

The weather is crappy yet again here today. Thunderstorms and more rain...surprise, surprise. :( I am SO sick of it!! So, that means no playing outside or doing anything fun. I'm really sick of being cooped up in the house. Ugh.

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Having a 30% off sale in my store today through Sunday for the 4th of July. I also put a new template up in the store yesterday, Marching On. This is one of my all time favorites! I just love how my LO turned out using it!! :)

Sample LO using Starlu by Andrea Burns:

Template:

Sale info:

Enjoy your day! {HUGS}

21 day challenge...

2008-07-02T08:45:00.004-05:00

My gorgeous friend, Sally, posted a 21 day challenge on her blog. Basically, the premise is that you can form any habit if you do it for 21 days straight. I'm right on board with that, because I need to get some structure back in my life! I'm going to work on TWO habits in 21 days:

~ Blog daily
~ Track my calories daily

I'm really glad that she started this challenge. I really need the motivation to get off my rump!

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Went to Kennywood yesterday! We had SO much flippin' fun! The weather was beyond gorgeous. A little hot, but not humid at all and there was a nice breeze. Also, it wasn't crowded at all! It was so nice to just jump on the rides without waiting in line forever. The kids absolutely loved it too! Their favorite ride was the Whip...HUGE smiles and big belly laughs the whole time. They just wanted to keep getting in line and riding again! :) Childhood excitement and innocence is so contagious. They really make me see things in a new light, KWIM?

With my sister, Dana, and my hubby, Jarrett:

Ava would ride absolutely EVERY single ride we saw! It was hysterical! That kid isn't afraid of anything!!! She just LOVED the Kangaroo. This was her favorite along with the merry-go-round.

Christian is a little more of a chicken. He's leary about everything and won't ride it if he's a little scared. No Kangaroo for him!!! LOL His absolute favorite was the turnpike and the auto cross ride. He would ride those cars all day if you left him!

He was tall enough for a real roller coaster this year. He loved the one in Kiddieland, so we decided to take him on the Racer. He rode in the seat with my dad. Ummmm....didn't like it so much! lol

BEFORE- Went on smiling.

DURING

AFTER- Came off crying. :(

He got over it real quick though and actually said that it was a "little scary", but still "fun". Said there was NO WAY he was riding it again though! LOL

Random cute pics...

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New LO posted and new template in my store! Just in time for 4th of July pics, Independence Hill, is ready for sale!

And here's a LO of my little Christian playing Tball! Uses my new template and Backyard Bar-B-Q collab kit from Oscraps.

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Easy day planned for today. Just need to get everything cleaned up and put away from our Kennywood trip yesterday, getting together another template that I have almost ready to go in the store, and a LOT of rest and lying around! My knees are killing me and I need to chil out on the couch a bit! We got a new movie from Blockbuster Online in the mail yesterday. (Veggie Tales Wonderful Wizard of Ha's) Planning on some couch time with the kiddos to watch it! :)

Have a great day!!! {HUGS}

My gosh...how long!

2008-06-29T18:58:00.002-05:00

Wow. How long it's been since I posted something here on my poor neglected blog! :( And how much has changed since my last post! :)

All went well with the selling of our home. The couple who bought it needed to close a little bit earlier, so we moved in with my parents for about 2 weeks. We had our whole life packed up in a UHaul rental truck in their driveway and our storage facility until we could close on our new house. As most of you know, we wanted to build a new home and that was our dream. VERY long story short...we couldn't build. Getting the sewage up to our property was going to be such an excessive cost and the taxes went up tremendously and that (amongst other things) priced us right out of our dream. :( It was by far a HUGE bummer, but....what can you do right?!?! Given lemons, you need to make lemonade! We searched and searched for a new home in the area we wanted to move to and found it!

It's 4 bedrooms/2.5 bathrooms. There is SO much more space than our old house! It's truly amazing. We are really, really enjoying it and still have so much we need to unpack. We're having fun though and we're hoping to start painting and making some cosmetic changes sometime really soon. I'll have to post some pics for y'all to see it! :)

That has pretty much consumed my life for the past year! Selling the house was WAY harder and more work than we thought and the whole selling/buying process was way more stressful than I thought it would be. I put on about 40 pounds in the past year that I need to get off now and it will NOT be easy! :( All good things come to those who wait, right??!?!?

Other than that, I'm still designing at Oscraps and have LOTS of neat projects up my sleeve. Now just to find the time to get them all out of me and done! lol Hope you all are doing well! I know that hardly anyone checks this old neglected thing anymore, but I'm hoping to change that again and post more regularly again. Talk to ya soon! {HUGS}

Great news!!! It's sold!!

2008-02-16T14:51:00.002-05:00

Yep, that's right! Last Sunday (2/10), we got an offer on the house and accepted it!! :) We had the home/pest inspection on Thursday and supposedly all went well. We'll be closing on March 28th!! YAY!!! What a huge weight off our backs!!!

~ Valentine's Day

Jarrett & I don't celebrate Valentine's Day. We just exchange cards and then try to have a date night a week or 2 after it. We were all sick this past week anyways (mostly Jarrett & the kids though...I only had a slight hint of it for a day or so). Christian's valentine's day party was on Wednesday and I was one of the moms to help out with the party. It was so fun! Christian loved having me at school with him and I just love being around all those 4/5 yr olds. The kids in his class are adorable and they just have such a blast no matter what you do with them!!

~ Other than that...

It's the first quiet weekend in FOREVER!!! We have been showing the house so much and having different functions to go to every weekend. It's nice to have the house under contract with no more showings! It's especially nice since everyone is recovering from the sickies. Just a weekend to lay around and chill out! We're going to Monster Jam tonight with Christian, my FIL, and my BIL. Christian is totally obsessed with monster trucks and I can't wait to take him. We went last year and had a blast...this year will be even better!! It kinda sucks since we put off getting tickets until the last minute so we're not going to have great seats, but with everyone being sick, we didn't want to buy them ahead of time.

Have a GREAT weekend!!! :) Talk to ya soon!!

YAY, AVA!!!

2008-02-07T16:17:00.000-05:00

My little peanut is starting to use the p.o.t.t.y!!! YAY!!! Yesterday she had no accidents at all and told us every time she needed to go. Including at the mall!! :) We left her pick out her own new under.p.an.ts over the weekend and she got Dora and Pooh. She is so proud of herself!! We had one accident today, but she's making such good progress! YAY, AVA!!! :) I'm so proud of you, princess!

On the house front, we had someone else come yesterday to look at it. The people that came back for a second look haven't made any decision yet. His pickup doesn't fit in our garage, which is the biggest issue. He is trying to figure out a way to make it work. We're just trying to stay positive and keep our fingers crossed!

I STILL haven't got my designs up in the store yet! ARGH! Every time I sit down to do it, something else comes up. :( The people that came to the house yesterday called at 1:00 pm to say they were going to be there at 4:30. I know...3 hours sounds like MORE than enough time to get a house together, but with a 2.5 yr old and 4.5 yr old it is SO hard!! I ran around the house the whole afternoon to get it done. I am SO SICK of getting this house ready to show to people! I am hoping we get an offer soon. This is causing so much stress!

Have a great day, girlies! {HUGS}

Not much...

2008-02-05T14:45:00.000-05:00

Not much going on today. We had someone come back for a second viewing today and we're really hoping to get an offer from them. They need the garage to be taller so that his pickup truck would fit and today they came with a family member that is a contractor to see if they could make ours work. That seems to be the only sticking point, so hopefully it works out! We haven't heard anything back yet, but I'm of the thinking that "better nothing at all than a NO!". So...another day of keeping the fingers crossed.

Today there is nothing at all happening. Just sitting around and relaxing. I'm going to get some new templates packaged up as soon as I get some sample LOs done. That's pretty much it! Thrilling, eh?!?!? ;) LOL

It's nice to know that a couple people still check in here...thanks, girls! {HUGS}

Well...

2008-02-04T13:29:00.000-05:00

the couple that came back for a second viewing of the house on Saturday chose another one. :( Their realtor said it was between our house and another and they ended up making an offer on the other one. Is it too mean to say that I hope the offer falls through? ;) We DID get a call last night saying that someone else wants to come back for a second viewing tomorrow morning. They like the house, but he wants a garage that will fit his full sized pickup truck. He's bringing a family member that is a contractor tomorrow morning to see what it would take for him to alter our garage to fit his needs. They like the house other than that! SO...again....keeping my fingers crossed! LOL (the story of our lives right now)

We had a Superbowl party yesterday and the normal group came over. We had a ton of fun and it was so nice to get together with everyone! And...I'M SO GLAD THE GIANTS WON!!!! I absolutely, positively hate the Patriots!! (sorry if any of you were rooting for them! lol) They are just so cocky and arrogant and I hate that. Then the way they were big babies and sore losers at the end of the game...ugh...really turned me off even more!! I thought the commercials pretty much sucked too. What a letdown!

I started a few more templates over the weekend and need to get some sample LOs done before I can get them up in the store. I've been neglecting my designing so much. I haven't done much since before Christmas! :( I really need to treat this more as a "business" instead of just "something I do on the side". The money is definitely more important now that we're in the middle of this whole house fiasco!!

Anyways, I'm off to work on them now. Have a wonderful Monday! {HUGS}

Keeping fingers crossed...

2008-02-02T17:50:00.000-05:00

Well, so much for my relaxing day yesterday! lol As soon as I posted my blog post, Jarrett called and someone wanted to look at the house between 1:00 and 4:00! That was at 11 am!! ARGH!!! I pulled it all together and me, the kids, and the dog all went to my parents house. Well, they liked it and came back again today for a second look! Plus, we had 2 others look at the house today. Keeping those fingers crossed that we get a good offer soon!!!

Today, we went shopping while the people were looking at the house. We went to the mall and did some returns and then Walmart to get some goodies for tomorrow's Superbowl party. It was friggin' MOBBED out there! So darn busy and the kids were acting up too which made it so much harder. :( Ugh. I'm glad to be home now!!! Just a relaxing night planned here. Getting ready for the party tomorrow as much as I can.

I am cautiously optimistic about today...trying to stay positive! Off to relax now! {HUGS}

TGIF!

2008-02-01T10:29:00.000-05:00

Today is my dad's birthday!! :) He can be a true pain in the butt sometimes, but I just love him to death! He is soooooooo hard to buy presents for. Ugh! We went to the mall and got him a new grill cover, a 1/4 zipper sweatshirt, a bartenders bible (since he claims he is sick of drinking beer right now, lol), and the automatic adjustable wrench from Craftsman. It was so cute shopping with the kids for him. Every single thing they saw, they were saying "let's get this for papa!" or "papa would like this!". LOL You should have seen some of the stuff they were pointing to! Christian also came up with a grand plan for his bday. He wanted to make a cake, buy the relighting candles ("'cause that would be so funny, momma!"), and go to the mall to buy him presents. I haven't had the heart to tell him that my mom already ordered a cake for him. Shhh.... ;) So, anyways, that's where we'll be tonight. Spending the night with dad/Papa. :)

The weather is so gross here today. It is rainy and everything turned into a solid sheet of ice outside overnight. The trees look like they are ice scuptures!!! Really pretty, but I hate going out in that crap! I kept Christian home from school today and we are just in our PJs. I'm hoping to get the house straigtened up, have the kids do some sort of project for dad's bday, and hopefully get some designing done!!!

Christian is also old enough to do T-ball this year!!! OMG! When did my little boy get so big?!?!!? Sign-ups are tomorrow morning and it's looking like he will be the youngest one. It is based off of their age as of April 30th and his bday is April 15th. The T-ball is for ages 5/6. I really think he'll have fun with it though!! I hope that some of his little friends from preschool are on his team!

We're having a Superbowl party on Sunday. The same group of people gets together every year for the Superbowl and we also get together for the playoff games if the Steelers are in them. It is always a fun time and this will probably be the last big party we have at our house! (hoping that we're out of here by April for Christian's bday, of course!)

We had people come yesterday to look at the house and again tomorrow. PLEASE let someone make an offer soon!!! *fingers crossed and prayers being said* We are SO sick of showing it to people!!!!! The ones that were here yesterday were here for almost 45 minutes, so hopefully that is a good sign.

And that's it! Just sitting in front of the computer on a crappy, gray day! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!! I love you!!! xoxo Have a great weekend everyone!! {HUGS}

Ups and Downs

2008-01-29T11:02:00.000-05:00

That is what life consists of right now. Complete ups and downs. Better than ALL downs though, right?!?! ;)

Christian had his Winter Wonderland day at school on Friday. Jarrett stayed home from work so that he could watch Ava and I could be a part of it. It was so cute! They had little stations set up around the room and the kids were divided up in groups of 4-5. Me and another mom were in charge of the "Penguin Waddle" game. The kids put a beanbag on their feet and had to waddle like a penguin to the finish line. SOOOOOO cute and the kids got a real kick out of it! It was way harder than it looked though! LOL They also had a story/hot chocolate station, relay race putting on winter clothes (hat, scarf, gloves, etc...), winter snowglobe craft, a science station where they painted with ice cubes (water with food coloring frozen with a popsicle stick in it) and made a string stick to an ice cube floating in water by sprinkling it with salt, and a snack station where they made a snowman out of little powdered doughnuts. It was all SOOOOO cute!!

He also had PJ day at school yesterday. His whole class got to wear their pajamas to school and they looked so adorable! He told everyone about it and he's been looking forward to it for weeks now. They got to sit on a blanket and watch a "Franklin" cartoon while having a snack. A BIG deal when you're 4 yrs old! LOL

We took the kids bowling for the first time ever on Saturday! It was sooooooooooooo much fun!!! Christian would have stayed there all day if we left him! Ava got bored after about 4 frames, so he played her games for her too! Yep...do the math...He did 3 and a half games all by himself! They pulled up the bumper rails so that the kids couldn't get gutter balls and it was such a blast. I'll have to post pics tomorrow. I haven't downloaded the camera yet!

We're not really sure what is going on righ tnow for the whole "home" front. We can't get any kind of an idea what the estimated taxes are going to be for the new house which is SO frustrating! We also have a couple options to break off a piece or 2 of the property and sell it to make this all possible again. I truly hope that we can figure out a way to afford to build the new house. It means so much to me! The land has been in my family forever and it will be so nice to continue our life on it.

We still have a bunch of people looking at the house too, which is SO hard! Someone is coming again tomorrow morning....UGH!! Supposedly, the person that was here on Friday has "some interest"...whatever the hell that's supposed to mean! Show me an offer!!!!!

SO...life is up and down...trying to stay positive and hoping that something happens soon! Happy Tuesday!!! {HUGS}

Another emotional day...

2008-01-22T11:33:00.000-05:00

but aren't they all anymore?!!? :( It just seems like there isn't very much good news coming from anything right now. We contacted the realtor and asked him to lower the price on our current house again. Hopefully it will generate some more interest and an offer. Please keep the good vibes and prayers coming our way! If it sells while we have no other plans, we are just going to move in with my parents for a while. Not the most ideal of situations, but at least an answer for now.

We also talked to our potential neighbors last night to see if they were interested in buying a piece of the property we are building on. It would have helped us significantly money-wise, but as of right now, they are only interested if we give them a big enough plot to build on. This is a MAJOR thing to contemplate because the piece we would have left wouldn't be the flatest or greatest of yards. A LOT to digest, that's for sure.

The kids are being extremely rowdy today too, which isn't helping my situation at all. They are driving me nuts!!!!! God love 'em, but they need to calm down today or momma is going to be taken away in a white jacket!! lol

I feel like such a "Debbie Downer" recently. My normal happy go-lucky attitude is on a major vacation right now...and I have a feeling it will be gone until we get some answers on this house situation. It is just so disheartening and depressing. I really, REALLY hope it works out soon!!! Everything is such "bad" news right now when it comes to this. Hopefully one day soon I can come on here and post some WONDERFUL, POSITIVE news!!!

Have a great day! I'm off to hopefully get some designing done, 'cause ya KNOW I need the money!!! ;)

Tough times...

2008-01-21T13:35:00.000-05:00

We're having some major headaches right now. This house not selling is really making it hard. And then, the realtor says that we need to drop the price again a bit. We aren't thinking that we will be able to afford to build the new house now. :( It's just going to be too hard. Hopefully we will get it all cleared up though. Keep your fingers crossed.

All of this stress has also affected so many other parts of life too. My diet and exercise are pretty much thrown out the window for now. I haven't been scrapping at all recently, let alone designing!! WHICH...in turn makes for less sales, which makes for more money issues....ugh... :( I really need to get out of this funk RIGHT NOW! I'm seriously driving myself nuts.

I really don't have much else to say today other than....GIVE ME A BREAK!!! :( We really need something to break open here to give us some closure on some items. I know if we keep the faith, it will all work out, but it is so hard to keep a smile on, KWIM? Send us some positive vibes, okay? {HUGS}

Ugh...money!!

2008-01-09T15:38:00.000-05:00

Why is it such a pain? Why is it such a factor in every single aspect of life?!?! Honestly...it just drives me nuts. I am blessed to be a stay-at-home mom, but I would love to find a way to make more money to help support us. Yeah, I sell my digi designs at Oscraps already, but we have so much money stuff to worry about. It would be SO nice to find another source of income. A part time job outside of the house is out of the question. Family life is too important to me.

Anyways...just needed to vent. We had 2 strokes of bad money news today and I'm just frustruated, KWIM? We are definitely going to have to write a check to get out of this house once we sell it and today our realtor told us that he really feels we need to lower the price again. The market is just crappy and he thinks it is best. Ugh...we haven't made a decision yet, but the amount of the check we would have to write is OBNOXIOUS!! Seriously...I have no clue where that money is going to come from.

Rant over...and yes...this is my second post for the day. I need to get off my ass and start doing something other than worrying!!!!!

STAY POSITIVE, right?!?!?!? ;)

One day down...SOOOOO many to go!

2008-01-09T11:12:00.000-05:00

So, yesterday was a good one for the new "healthy living". I put in the Turbo Jam videos I've had now for over 2 months and finally did one. Let me tell ya...it was so fun!! I started out with the Learn & Burn and I get a little lost in some spots, but it is a blast and I worked up a great sweat. When Jarrett came home, we both did the Learn & Burn again. He wanted to try it out and he didn't care for it as much as I did. I also used the Ab Roller twice yesterday and did some leg exercises while laying on the couch. All in all, a great day! I DO have to say though...I am sore today! lol But at least it's a "good" sore, if that makes any sense.

Here's the rest of the breakdown for yesterday:

Calories (between 1200-1500): :( I went over a little bit. I didn't realize how bad the leftover wedding soup was! Those white flour noodles are a killer!
Water (between 80-120 oz): :) I did VERY good on this!!
Exercise: 40 min of cardio (Turbo Jam), approx 20 min misc exercises (ab roller, legs)

Yesterday was a pretty low key day. We just hung out around the house and did nothing. I have a LOT of catching up to do today though! Our Christmas decorations are still up....I know...pathetic, eh?!!? They are in the process of coming down today. I also have laundry to do and also a church Session meeting tonight. I haven't been to church much in the past 2 months. I'm kinda burned out by the negativity surrounding it and I've been avoiding it like the plague. I missed the last 2 Session meetings because of it, so I decided to suck it up and try to overcome it. Being more positive....

Word for the year
On that note...my word for 2008, ala Ali Edwards, is...
POSITIVE

Yep, it's time to get back to the happy-go-lucky person that I used to be. I have been so stressed out this year with this house being up for sale, getting together ideas/plans for the building of the new house, money issues, and in the process of all of that...gaining 35 pounds, which made me even more miserable. Now, I've noticed that I'm just crabby, miserable, and a little depressed almost all the time. I want to get over the stress and get happy all the time again. I know it can happen, so this is my pledge...staying POSITIVE!!

Alrighty...off to pick up Christian from preschool. Have a wonderful day!! {HUGS}

A kink in the plans already!

2008-01-07T21:36:00.000-05:00

Yep...you heard me right. A kink in the plans already!!! Today was supposed to start extreme healthy eating and exercising. Want to hear what happened?!?! We got a call this morning (while I was taking Christian to preschool) saying that someone wanted to come look at the house tonight. UGH!! Having the house ready to show to anyone at a minutes notice is a lot of hard work...especially with a 2 yr old and a 4 yr old! The house has been "officially" for sale with a realtor now for a little over 2 months. We are just hoping for that special someone that wants to buy it!

Anyways...I digress...since so much time today went into cleaning/scrubbing/etc, no exercise happened and we ended up eating in the mall food court for dinner while the people were here looking at our house. Thank god I ate really good all day and only drank water, because we did Taco Bell for dinner. Here's how the day ended up...

Calories (between 1200-1500): yes :)
Water (96-120 oz): yes :)
Exercise: no :(

Pretty good, all things considering. I also did some grocery shopping this morning and got lots of healthy food for us all. Tomorrow will be a better day exercise-wise hopefully!!

~ Cute kiddo stuff ~

Here are some really cute things the kiddos are doing recently:

Christian:
~ Woke up this morning and told me he was dreaming last night. When I asked him about what, he said "about how much I love my momma & daddy". Awwww...does it get any cuter than that?!?!? Then he told me, "I dreamt that I loved you guys even more than I already do, but that's not possible, Momma, because I already love you thiiiiiiiis much!" *spreading his arms open as wide as he could* My gosh. This kiddo warmed my heart tremendously and he was only awake for 5 minutes!! :)

~ He says some of his words so darn cute. It makes us smile every time we hear them! Such as "wevver" for "weather", "skirtcles" for "circles", "nuffin'" for "nothing". He's adorable!

~ He LOVES going to preschool! His teachers are Mrs. Patterson and Ms. Cole and they are awesome! He has a different job each week, has a different letter they focus on each week with show and tell being on Wednesdays (the item they bring has to start with that letter), he says the Pledge of Allegience and sings My Country Tis of Thee. His best little buddy is Carter and they just love each other!

Ava:
~ Is in such a kissy mood recently! :) She is so darn cute about it. She puckers up her little lips and just lays one (or twelve) on you when you're not paying attention. She also gives you big 'ole bear hugs and tells you she "wuvs" you all the time. It is simply SOOOOOO adorable!

~ She wants to snuggle nonstop. Every time you lay her down for a nap or to bed at night, she wants to have someone lay down with her.

~ She is in love with her baby dolls. She likes to dress them, feed them, pretend she's changing their diaper, etc... She is always carrying one of them around and she takes care of them just like any "mommy" would. It is so sweet!

That's enough rambling for today...I have so much stuff to do!! It's 10:00 pm and I swear, I feel like I can never get caught up. :( Ugh... Happy Monday to y'all!! {HUGS}

Has it really been 6 months?!?!?!

2008-01-06T23:17:00.000-05:00

Seriously...has it really been 6 months since I posted anything here? PATHETIC!!! :( One of my new years resolutions is to post more regularly again. This is a great way to remember all the little daily things that I want to cherish always.

Also, tomorrow starts my "new life". I have quite a few resolutions this year. I'll be sure to post them all in the next day or so. I have just been so busy, stressed, and unfocused for the past 6-9 months. I really need to get my life back in order so that I can go back to the happy, easy-going person I once was. NOT the miserable, moody bitch that I am now. Seriously...I am SO moody! It doesn't take much to throw me over the edge right now. Most of it revolves around money issues, house issues, and of course, the 30 pounds I've put on in the past year. My biggest resolve right now is to start getting healthy again. I need to lose a TON of weight and start eating healthier. Not as much takeout and sitting on my butt. I need to lose at least 30 pounds as a short term goal and more like 45-50 for my long term "ideal" goal. Just losing a bit will help to make me feel better about myself. All of my clothes don't fit or fit like absolute garbage. It is so sad and pathetic that the only pants that fit me are some running pants and a pair of dress pants that I had to buy in a bigger size just so I would have something to wear to church. HORRIBLE!!!

SO...starting tomorrow....

~ Drinking only water/crystal light.
~ Healthier eating. Between 1200-1500 calories a day.
~ Track my calories daily.
~ Exercise at least 20-30 min a day 5-6 days a week.

Other than that...that's where I stand as of now. Starting over a new leaf and getting back in the groove. :) Hopefully I may actually get people to start reading this thing again too! LOL Happy New Year!!! {HUGS}

Queen of the Day!

2007-06-27T07:33:00.000-05:00

YAY!!!! I'm the Queen of the Day at DST today!! :) :) :) I am so excited and so flattered. Stop over and drop a line or feel free to ask any questions you want. Here is a little gift for all of you as well just because I'm SO excited! Use the coupon code queen627 for 50% off my entire store through Friday (6-29).

SO busy with house stuff...
We are still trying to sell our house and looking to build a new one. We spoke to a builder and have it narrowed down to 2 different house plans with some updates. The Lexington and The Jamestown. It's just amazing how much all the upgrades come to and once you figure in the cost of the property, it is just obnoxious!!! We need to figure out what we can afford and then go from there. We're going tomorrow night to see a Jamestown that is under construction to try to get a better idea of what it looks like "in person" and not just "on paper". The home builder had a model of the Lexington at their site and it was SO pretty! We actually didn't like it "on paper", but loved it "in person". Now we're seeing pros and cons to both plans and need to figure out where they fall money-wise.

Speaking of money...
Just a quick rant... Why is everything so gosh darned expensive?!?!? I swear, it is unbelievable!! I'm lucky enough to be a stay at home mom, but the "play money" just isn't there, KWIM? It just amazes me what life costs.... Okay...rant over! ;)

That's it
Just a quick blog post today. I still have to download the camera to get off the camping pictures to show all of you. I promise I'll get on that today! ;) (ooppssss...did I say that DAYS ago??!?!? LOL) Thanks to all of you for being such wonderful friends!! {{HUGS}}

Whew...SO busy!!

2007-06-13T22:18:00.000-05:00

I know that I have been SO totally neglecting my blog. Life has been so hectic and insane! Here is the last couple of weeks in a nutshell:

~ Ava turned 2!

Yes...my baby girl turned 2 years old on June 2nd. It is seriously so hard to believe! We had a girly monkey themed bday party. She is just obsessed with Curious George and all things monkey! Here are a few pics for you all... (isn't her dress the cutest?!?!)

~Church things...

We had our Silent Auction this past weekend. I was in charge of the whole thing and it went very well. A TON of work goes into it, but it is totally worth it in the end. We're also planning a big picnic for the whole congregation this summer and also selling engraved bricks for a patio that we want to install this fall. Overall...just FULL of stuff to do! Bible School starts next week and Christian is going to go at least part of the week.

~ Designing & CT stuff

Some new templates are in the store and I'm working on some more. I'm having a blast with them and I just love working at Elemental Scraps! You really need to check out the store and the great designers there if you haven't already. I'll be getting some more new goodies in there next week! As for now...here are some previews of the new stuff!

Point it Out

Backyard Adventure

Ray of Light

Steppin Down

~House Selling stuff...

We still have the house up for sale. We haven't really advertised it at all except for putting a sign in the yard. We've been too busy to put the time and effort into selling it really hard and now is the time for us to step it up. We're hoping to buy the property off of my aunt that has been in my family forever. We are really hoping to buy and build a house within the next 9-12 months. Keep your fingers crossed that we can get it all figured out!

~ That's it & a coupon

Not going to bore you to death anymore! ;) If you've read this far, here's a coupon for you to use at my store at Elemental Scraps. Valid for $3.00 and until July 1, 2007. Code is loyalreader I'm going to try to get better at blogging regularly again and hopefully get you all to start reading again! :) Have a great day! {{HUGS}}

50% off my entire store AND last day for free...

2007-06-05T12:19:00.000-05:00

Mega grab bag at Elemental Scraps! When you spend $10 in the store, you receive a HUGE grab bag worth over $40 including the June mega kit by the ES designers.

My entire store (Melanie Colosimo) is 50% off through June 8th. Including all of my new templates too! SO...RUN OVER! You don't want to miss this!

I promise...
that I'll be back to regular blogging soon. Life has been SO hectic recently and I haven't had time to devote to it. Sorry! I miss you girls! {{{HUGS}}}

I'm back!!!

2007-05-23T19:05:00.000-05:00

I'm back!!!!

Thursday was Christian's preschool end of the year program and it was TOO CUTE FOR WORDS!!! :) He looked so grown-up in front of everyone and of course, proceeded to ham it up for the audience. Yes...he likes to steal all the attention! LOL He was one of 3 boys who got to come up front, wear fireman hats, and sing a special fireman song....too adorable! He's been walking around the house singing for weeks now and I just love hearing his little voice. During the program, he was so cute. I heard him lean over to his little friend, point, and say "there's my momma and daddy over there!". LOL Guess he was excited! There was also a part where they needed a partner and another little boy didn't want to be partner with a girl. And guess who was there willing to take his place!!!! ;) My little studman, Christian, ditched the boy he was partner with to grab the little girl. Too funny!!! We went out to lunch with the in-laws afterwards and then left right away for our trip to the Outer Banks.

As you all know, Jarrett was the best man and it was an "adult only" wedding. It KILLED me to leave the kids with my in-laws for so long. I seriously was upset for hours into the trip. We stopped in Norfolk, VA on Thursday night and I got to meet up with a digi scrapper that I'm good friends with, Hollie! We had a great time and it was so fun to meet her! Thanks, sweetie! I had a blast!!!

Friday, we drove the rest of the way to Cape Hatteras (Outer Banks) and started on the "wedding duties". We had SO much to do and it was NON-STOP through Saturday night. They had the wedding at a bed & breakfast and the owner did hardly anything to help! We had to set up tables, chairs, move a wood pile that was near the wedding site, set up centerpieces, rolling silverware, etc....UNBELIEVABLE!!! We worked our butts off the whole time and it looked beautiful when it was done, but whew...we were whooped!! The maid of honor didn't do much at all, so I was the unofficial "helper" to everyone! LOL They are good friends and I wanted their wedding to be "perfect", so we all did what we could to make it that way.

We actually got to spend time together and do what we wanted on Sunday! We went to the Hatteras lighthouse, walked on the beach, stopped at a few stores/restaurants, stopped to see Grave Digger (the monster truck) to take lots of pics for Christian, then stayed overnight in Front Royal, VA. We woke up, went to some beautiful caverns, and started homeward. We stopped to shop/eat and ended up at my in-laws to get the kids. We had to get all their stuff together and hear about the weekend. We were all SO GLAD to see each other!!! I haven't stopped hugging them yet! LOL

Jarrett took off work yesterday to spend time with the kiddos and we had SO much fun! It was Christian's last day of school, we took them to Toys R Us, and went to the zoo. Then, we went to my parent's house to eat dinner with them and let them see the kids. What a nice, relaxing day!

Anyways, I'm glad to be back and start eating right/exercising again. I gained 4 pounds while gone!!!! I missed all you girlies! I'll post some pics after I get them all downloaded/sorted.

Literally losing my mind...

2007-05-09T13:52:00.000-05:00

Ugh...I am seriously starting to lose it. I have NO time to do anything but work on the house. :( HELP!!! I can't wait until the damn thing is just on the market and sold. Bad attitude, I know...but I'm sick of working on it. Never-friggin-ending!

Worked on the house all weekend and didn't even get to enjoy all the NSD festivities. HUGE bummer! I did jump into a chat at DST on Saturday night hosted by some of us Elemental Scraps designers. Had a flippin' blast! I just love chatting with you girls and giving away goodies! :) That was only an hour...then back to work. I did a little bit of shopping. Went to the Lilypad, Gina Miller Designs, Amanda Rockwell, Funky Playground Designs and got LOTS of new goodies! Also, did I tell you that I'm a guest CT for Traci Murphy this month?!?! Lucky me, I know... She is so friggin' awesome. I just love her to death! :)

I decided to extend my sale on all my designs at ES until Mother's Day, so run and shop if you have any money left! 50% off and free gift w/$5 purchase. I also put up a new kit and a new template. (You can see my first Traci Murphy LO on the template preview)

Feelin' Flirty

Tiny Bubbles

Bday Pics...
And a little late...but here are a couple pics from Christian's bday party. Cute, huh?!?! I still can't believe my baby turned FOUR!!! (not edited at all....excuse it, please!) ;)

With all the "traffic light colors" balloons...

Again...we LOVE balloons!

See little peanut crying in the background? Guess who blew that Cars hornblower thing right in her face 2 seconds before this? LOL... Hence, the HUGE smile on Christian's face!!

The whole group of kiddos eating dinner. They are SO darn cute and seeing them all together was a blast. These are the kids of my 2 best friends. (Missy, if you want a full sized version of this, let me know...I have some other cute ones of Dylan & Brady too!!)

Blowing out the candles. Yes...I make my own cakes. My mom did it when I was little and it's something I like to carry on. They aren't the most extravegant, but we love them!

And that's it!
I've slacked too much here...need to get back to work! My dear friend, Andrea Burns, tagged me but I'm going to have to wait to do it. :( I promise I will though! Have a great week girls!! {{{HUGS}}}

My gosh...I'm a slacker!! LOL

2007-05-04T07:11:00.000-05:00

When it comes to blogging, that is! ;) I have seriously been SO busy that I don't even know how I'm going to keep up with it all. Here is what life has coming up for us...

-Still trying to get projects done around the house to get it up for sale. We're hoping to get the sign out this weekend and a blog up and running for it too. Keep your fingers crossed that it's a QUICK sale!!

-Trying to figure out where we stand on building a house. Of course...it all comes down to money and what we can afford. (Doesn't everything in life?!?!?) We're getting a piece of property tested to see if we are able to put in a sandmound since it doesn't attach to the main sewage line. We also started looking at modular houses since building from scratch isn't in our budget. I was amazed when I started looking at these!!! I had a stereotype in my head of what they were going to look like and I was SO wrong! They are gorgeous!! We found a model that we just love. Big, open floorplan and we would have a HUGE basement to finish too! YAY! Now to only figure out the other specifics....

-On top of the projects at home, we've been packing/moving furniture/de-cluttering the house to make it more "showable" to people. We rented a storage facility and have been making trips there. TONS of work!

-Parties/Baptisms/Bridal Shower...all parties that we had/have to go to in the month of May/June. Ugh...

-Ava's bday is June 2nd. Still haven't written thank you notes from Christian's party. Still haven't posted pics for you of it... Our 6th anniversary is on June 1st.

-Wedding in the Outer Banks, NC in a few weeks. (10 hour drive for us) Jarrett is the best man and it is for his best friend, Jason. It's a small wedding and is an adult reception only. MEANING....my poor kiddos are being left here while we go!! :( I am totally bummed about it and don't want to leave them to go. We're leaving on Thursday afternoon and coming home on Monday evening. (yes...we are driving the 10 hours!!!)

-Silent Auction at my church June 9th. SO much planning and stuff left to do for it. I'm in charge of the whole thing (of course) and I don't know how it's all gonna get done.

-150th anniversary for my church. Activities all year long for this and I'm a co-chairperson. Starting in May/June we are going to sell engraved bricks to make a cute little patio.

Not to mention, my CT work, designing, etc...

UGH....I am losing my mind!! I am tired, both physically and mentally, 24 hours a day. I honestly don't know how I'm going to make it through the next few months. Jarrett & I are both irritable with everyone and everything. (more me though, of course...) I just hope that things go well and fall into place quickly. I don't want to drag this all on forever, KWIM? Please say a little prayer that it all comes together and that we have a quick sale on the house.

That being said....SALE!!!
I'm having a sale for National Scrapbooking Day!

~ Now through Monday ~

All items by me are 50% off at Elemental Scraps AND...you get my new Spring is in the Air doodles totally FREE with a $5 purchase!! YAY!

AND...if you've read through this whole boring blog post and have continued to read even though I've taken a break, here's an additional coupon for ya! ;) Use the code bored2tears for $1.00 off your purchase!

Happy Friday!
There is a chat tomorrow night at DST from 10-11 pm EST with the designers from Elemental Scraps. (including me!) Be sure to check it out if you have a chance! Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy all the digi sales! {{{{HUGS}}}}

No...I didn't forget about you!!!

2007-04-26T16:01:00.000-05:00

I'm just SLAMMED with stuff going on right now. I promise I'll post some pics from Christian's bday party soon. I just need to start to get things under control again!

SO...that's it. Just wanted to let you all know I didn't forget about 'ya!! ;) {HUGS}

Quick post and extended sale!!

2007-04-20T10:26:00.000-05:00

Okay, girls...it's gotta be a quick one today! Christian's bday party is tomorrow and I am SO behind!!! Here are the last 2 days in a nutshell. Wednesday I did laundry, made cake balls for Christian to take to school for a snack on Thursday, and had a church meeting for the 150th anniversary. Thursday, Christian had school and I got to stay! :) YAY!!! They walked down to the library and had a little story time. They looked so darn cute walking in their line down the sidewalk. Christian was just thrilled that I got to stay and my goodness...the kids in his class are TOO cute for words!! It's so fun to see what he does when he's there, KWIM?

Today, I need to clean and go shopping for food for the big party tomorrow. I make cakes for each of the kids bday parties, so I need to get off my butt and figure out what I'm gonna do for that too! OY!! I need to get moving!!! LOL....

The weather is supposed to be GORGEOUS all weekend! 70 degrees and sunny! And can I just say...thank goodness!!! Our house is too small to hold a big party like this inside, so every year, we just cross our fingers and hope that it is warm enough to be outside. Nice way to plan, huh?!?! ;) It's worked for us every year so far though.

AND....since the weather IS so nice...I'm in a giving mood! ;) SO....that's a perk for you! All designs by me at Elemental Scraps are going to remain 50% off through Monday!!! That's right...3 extra days of shopping!! Could you ask for more?!?!

Well, okay...if you really need more of an excuse to shop....take another $2.00 off your purchase of $5.00 or more using the code niceweather

Now, go shop!! ;) And don't forget to enjoy your weekend! I'll have some pics from the party when I post on Monday! {{{{HUGS}}}}

Sick to my stomach...

2007-04-18T08:45:00.000-05:00

about all of the violence that is going on right now. It is so sad and horrifying to see all of the stuff on the news about the Virginia Tech killings. Makes me wonder about the world that we are living in and that we are raising our children in. How do people end up this way? Why do they do what they do?

It is disgusting to me. How are you supposed to feel safe in this society. How can you live without fear? I am always worried that something is going to happen to the people that I love. It has gotten way worse since I had children. Unbelievable...People killing each other "just because". Sick...

Then I hear this....2 of the high schools in my area have had bomb threats in the past couple days. The high school where I graduated from (and the school district that Christian goes to preschool and that we are moving back to) had writing on the bathroom wall and a note threatening a bomb for tomorrow (Thursday). Parents were already given the option to have their children stay home from school tomorrow. My mom also drives a school bus for that district and I am worried about her. What if....ya know?

The second high school that had a bomb threat is literally at the top of my road. 4 houses away from ours. :( I just heard this about 5 minutes ago and I am SICK.... This threat mentions tomorrow as a date as well. They have tightened security, cancelled all school activities and have a lockdown search today at 4:00 to check the entire school and tomorrow there is a ban on backpacks as well as a search on every student when they get there. I am SICK to my stomach. :( Anyways, sorry for the bummer of a post. I just needed to get it off my chest.

Lighter note...

We are all starting to feel better finally. Thank goodness!!! Also....

I'M HAVING A SALE!!! 50% OFF ALL MY DESIGNS AT ELEMENTAL SCRAPS

Plus...if you read my entry from Christian's bday, you'll find a little coupon to add to it!

New LO Posted

I posted a new LO too! It uses Lie Fhung's Evening Falls kit at Ztampf. I had a blast with this one! It's not my usual style, but when I saw those moon and stars, I wanted to do something fun with them. :)

In my gallery here

See ya!

On that note...I'm done ranting for the day. Hope you all are having a good week! {HUGS}

My baby turned 4 today!!!

2007-04-15T21:56:00.000-05:00

Can you believe it? My gorgeous little Christian turned 4 today. Wow... I still can't believe the time has flown by so fast. Anyways, here's a little blast from the past to honor my little buddy...

April 14, 2003/April 15, 2003:

A normal day. Jarrett came home from work and we were eating dinner and watching TV in the living room. As soon as dinner was over, I had cramps in my stomach. I thought that maybe something I ate didn't agree with me. I was in the bathroom and I remember thinking that it definitely wasn't just an upset stomach...something was different. I had Jarrett grab my trusty "What to Expect When You're Expecting" book and started to read up on contractions. (I didn't know what to expect and didn't know if these were them or not.) WELL...let's just say....it didn't take long to realize that those excrutiating pains HAD to be contractions! We started timing them and they were very close together from the get-go. We called the doctor and she told us to make our way to the hospital.

Right before we left....

I don't remember much about the drive there. Only that I was in SO much pain that I didn't even want to hear Jarrett's voice on the cell phone. (He was calling our family and friends to tell them we were on our way.) By the time I got admitted, I was SO ready for drugs! (And yes...I normally handle pain pretty well!) The guy who came to give me my epidural was wonderful. He totally did not look like he should be working in a hospital. He looked like he could have played football for the Steelers!!! LOL His image will be in my head forever because it threw me off guard so much. They made Jarrett leave the room while he did it and let me tell ya...it was a miracle!! My football player gave me the epidural (with NO pain at all) and before he left I told him that I would marry him if I wasn't married already. YES...it worked THAT quick!! ;) Jarrett came back and compared me to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. LOL Huge difference!!!

I will always remember that the movie The Mummy was on TV the whole night. The hospital only got a certain number of channels and there was nothing on any of them! The channel we were watching was playing the Mummy back to back, so we saw it a million times that night!

We just sat and waited it out to see what would happen. They brought our doctor in when it was time and I didn't have to push for very long before we learned what we had....a BABY BOY!!! YAY!!! :) We didn't want to know ahead of time, so it was a HUGE surprise! The doctor pulled him all the way out and as she lifted him up to my chest, he started to pee on me!! Only 1/2 a second old!!! I was laughing my head off and she said "Ummmm...I'd close my mouth if I were you!". EW!! ;)

I will never forget that moment. 2:06 am. The moment where my life would change forever. The moment where I would realize that nothing else in life mattered anymore. The moment where I saw the most beautiful little testament to the love that Jarrett & I share. Wow. I'm tearing up now just thinking back to it. My little guy has made me happier than I could have ever imagined. And just when I think that it's impossible to love him any more than I already do, he proves me wrong. I thank God every day for him and for the way he has changed me and my life.

Then

Now

Have a great night, girls! I'm off to kiss my little ones goodnight and get in bed! {HUGS}

****Here's a coupon for those of you who shared this special day with me...$1.00 off your order at my store at Elemental Scraps (valid until April 20th using the code bloglover). AND...my store is 50% today through the 19th. (Discount will show in your cart) AND the WHOLE Elemental Scraps store is 50% off April 17-19th! Thanks for stopping by! :)

Where does time go?

2007-04-12T19:32:00.000-05:00

I swear, it seems like just yesterday that I found out I was pregnant with my first baby. Now he's turning 4 on Sunday! *sob* Where does the time go? Today was his birthday party at school. They sang to him, made him a card, he wore a cute crown...he loved it! I took a couple pics but didn't download the camera yet. He looked like such a big kid today! He kept referring to today as his "special day" since they made a big deal about it at school. We made up cute little treat bags for his friends and he was excited to pass them out. They also got a visit from the zoo today. They brought in 3 animals. A chinchilla, a turtle, and a python. He was THRILLED! Both of our kiddos are huge animal freaks so he kept going on and on about what he saw/learned today. Too cute!

And....today is my mom's bday! She went shopping at Party City with me & Ava to get party supplies for Christian's Cars party next Saturday. Then, we took her out to lunch when we picked Christian up from school. What a nice day! We're going to my parent's house tomorrow night for cake/ice cream and to give her presents.

I think the sickness is hitting our house once again. We're all sniffling, have sore throats, tired, achy, cranky, etc...ugh...when is it going to hit full force? Hopefully it's quick and over with.

I've been tagged!
Oriana tagged me and I figured now was as good a time as any to fill it out! :) Here ya go!

FOUR JOBS I HAVE HAD
1 – Cashier at a grocery store
2 – Retail clerk at the mall
3 – Secretary
4 – Service Department Manager

FOUR MOVIES I HAVE WATCHED OVER AND OVER
1 – Dirty Dancing
2 – Father of the Bride (1 and 2)
3 – Gone with the Wind
4 – any Disney movie

FOUR PLACES I HAVE LIVED
1 – Pittsburgh, PA
2 – Erie, PA (college)
3 – -
4 – -

FOUR TV SHOWS I LIKE(D) TO WATCH
1 – Criminal Minds
2 – CSI Las Vegas
3 – Amazing Race
4 – America's Next Top Model

FOUR PLACES I HAVE BEEN ON VACATION
1 - Walt Disney World (Orlando, FL)
2 – Niagara Falls, Canada
3 – Outer Banks, NC
4 – Caribbean (St. Thomas, St. Martin, St. Lucia, Barbados, Nassau, Antigua)

FOUR OF MY FAVORITE FOODS
1 – Pizza
2 – Hamburger
3 – Pasta
4 – Good Bread

FOUR PLACES I WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT NOW
1 - On a beach
2 – At Walt Disney World
3 – A spa being pampered
4 – In bed

FOUR PEOPLE I WILL TAG
1 – Whoever wants to do it, grab it! I'd love to hear from all of you!! :) Especially my CT girls!
2 –
3 –
4 –

Good Night!
And with that, I'm off! Have a great night! {{HUGS}}

What a weekend!!!

2007-04-11T08:09:00.000-05:00

Busy as usual! First off, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! :) SO...here it is in a nutshell...

Friday: Jarrett off work. Took the kids to the mall to get their pics with the Easter Bunny. Jarrett waited in line for 40 minutes!!! Insanity.... Ava was all about it while in line. Waving to the bunny, pointing, saying "bunny" in an excited voice...(yeah...see where this is going?)...CRIED from the second we put her on the bunny's lap until the time we took her off. OY!!! Christian smiled like a big boy and we have a priceless picture! LOL. I'll scan it in later to show you.

Saturday: Me, my sister, my mom, and my sister's best friend all went out to lunch downtown and then went to see Sweet Charity with Molly Ringwold. The show was just "okay". None of us were very thrilled with it and we were TOTALLY annoyed by the crappy ending! :( What a letdown, but it was still nice to get out.

Then we went to Jarrett's uncle's house and had Easter dinner. It's their tradition to do it on Easter Eve every year. (his dad's side of the family) We all had a good time and the kids looked adorable! All was going good until CHRISTIAN ATE A PENNY!!! Yes...you read that right....MY SWEET LITTLE CHRISTIAN ATE A FRIGGIN' PENNY!! My MIL was sitting with him while eating and I guess he had a penny on his plate. (Just exactly WHY, I'll never know). Then he walks over to me VERY calm and says "Momma, I swallowed a penny and it's in my belly". Ummmm...WHAT??!?! You have GOT to be kidding me!! Just so happens that Jarrett's family is friends with a doctor who just so happened to drop by to give them a cake for Easter. Thank goodness!! He told us that we had to check Christian's BMs until we found it. YAY! {sarcastic, of course} Just what I want to do! As long as he didn't have any pain in his stomach and passed it in a couple days, it was no biggie. Long story short...we checked poop for 3 days and found the penny yesterday! My word.... {rolling eyes}

Sunday: Church at 7:00 am, breakfast at church 8:00 am, my parent's house for dinner/egg hunt/baskets, Jarrett's aunt's house (his mom's side of the family) for dinner again! We got home around 7:30 pm and the kids got to look for their baskets and eggs from the Easter Bunny. They got lots of goodies and went to bed VERY happy! :)

That's it!
CRAZY weekend!!! As always! Hope you all had a fantastic one as well! {{HUGS}} Have a great day!

HAPPY EASTER!!!

2007-04-08T04:26:00.000-05:00

Good morning and HAPPY EASTER to all of you!! :) It is 5:30 am and I am getting ready to go to the sunrise service at church. I just wanted to take a very quick second to let you all know I was thinking of you and that you have a special spot in my life. {{HUGS}}

And, of course...don't forget the true meaning behind today!

Matthew 28

The Resurrection

1After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
2There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
5The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you."
8So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

The Guards' Report

11While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. 12When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, 13telling them, "You are to say, 'His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.' 14If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble." 15So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

The Great Commission

16Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Happy Easter, Sale, and a Long Weekend...

2007-04-06T09:00:00.000-05:00

Jarrett is off today, so we are starting a nice, long weekend! YAY!! :) I just love when he's off! Doing a little shopping today and then we're going to do Easter bunny pics later and dying eggs. SO....I'm gonna keep it short & sweet today!

I'm having an Easter sale today through Monday. 35% off of my whole store! Enjoy! :)

That's it for today. (TOLD ya it would be short & sweet!) I'm probably not going to check in again until Sunday night or Monday, so have a WONDERFUL EASTER!! This is truly the time of year to realize just how lucky we are for all that we have and for our wonderful family and friends. {{{{HUGS}}}}

Funky weather!!!

2007-04-05T09:06:00.000-05:00

Okay, so seriously...what is UP with the weather?!?! :( On Tuesday it was 75 degrees. We went to the park in shorts & t-shirts, played on the playground, and took a nice walk. Today...it's friggin' snowing outside and FREEZING! Ugh...I am SO sick of the winter! :( And of course, both of Ava's Easter outfits are for warm weather. I'm going to go shopping tonight to try to find her a little cardigan sweater to wear over top of them. Crappy, crappy weather!!

So, I never made it grocery shopping last night. Guess that's going to happen tonight too! Actually, I may push it off until tomorrow. I just need to get my goodies made before Saturday morning for both of the family dinners.

Speaking of Saturday...
My sister bought me tickets to a show, Sweet Charity, for my bday. It has Molly Ringwold in it and to be dead honest...I know nothing about it! LOL. Me, my sister, my mom, and my sister's friend Beth are all going. It's an afternoon show, so we're going to meet for lunch and then go to the show. Then, I need to hightail it home and hurry to get to Jarrett's uncle's house for their Easter dinner. Oy! It's going to be a busy one!!

Fun Things...
So, my friend, Michele, pointed out this great free font site. I had a few of them already, but I just HAD to download the whole set!! I am a true font junkie and these are GREAT! Check them out here.

Nothing much else
I'm going to try to get some LOs done today and try to get another template up in the store. Jarrett is going out after work with some of his friends, so by the time he gets home I should be fit to be tied! LOL. I seriously don't know how single moms do it...by the time he gets home, I am SO ready for him to be here!! I'm going to put the kiddos' baskets together tonight and fill the eggs for their egg hunt. I read something last year that said to give each kid a designated color to look for. That way, there are less fights and everyone gets an equal amount of goodies. SO...they'll look for their color and then some special ones that will have better "goods" in them. I found cute "Cars" and "Disney Princess" eggs at Walmart. They are going to be the special ones. Fun, huh?! :)

Have a great day, everyone!! {{{{HUGS}}}}

New Product and Easter Prep!

2007-04-04T13:26:00.000-05:00

I put up a new product in the store yesterday. Tiers of Paper is a 2 page LO in PNG, PSD, & TIFF formats. It can also be used as a single page LO. This template is close to my heart because the LO that was the basic setup for it was chosen to be published! I hope you like it as much as I do! :)

Easter Preparations
I'm desperately trying to get everything together for Easter. While Christian was at school yesterday, Ava & I went to Target and got LOTS of goodies! I had a lot of stuff for their baskets already, but I wanted to grab a few more things and then ended up finding some "extras" that I wanted to get for their bdays and such that are coming up. Here's a little of what I bought...
~ 4 DVDs: Ice Age The Meltdown, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Great Clubhouse Hunt, Little Einsteins Search for the Golden Pyramid, & Dora Shy Rainbow.
~ Spring/Summer PJs for Ava. She is growing like a weed and needs something other than long sleeves and pants.
~ T-shirts & shorts for Ava. (I thought Christian would fit in stuff from last year, but after checking last night...I don't think so!! :( SO...I guess I need to get him some too! Good thing Target has them 2 for $6.00 this week!!)
~ 3 T-shirts for me. I'm a pretty plain kind of girl. I got a pale pink, light green, and plain white. They are slightly fitted and SUPER comfy!!
~ Starburst Jellybeans...have you tried these?!!?! I had them at the in-laws house on Sunday night and I loved them!!! I'm not much of a jellybean eater, but these were YUMMY!!!

I need to go grocery shopping tonight or tomorrow and get the goods to make stuff for Jarrett's family dinner on Saturday night and my family dinner at my parent's house on Sunday. I'm making potato salad, an appetizer, and a dessert for my family and probably an appetizer and dessert for his family. I'm a HUGE cupcake freak for those of you who don't know, so I'll be making cute springy ones for both houses to put in my super cute cupcake tree! :)

My mom's bday is next week too. (The 12th) Anyone have any great ideas for a gift? We don't spend a TON of money, but I'd like to think of something different than what I normally get her, KWIM?

That's it for now!
I have been pretty productive this morning and want to keep up the pace. I'll check in with you all later! Have a great Wednesday!! {{HUGS}}

Desperately ignoring you...

2007-04-02T10:34:00.000-05:00

and everyone else!! *blushing* The weather has been GORGEOUS here and we have been outside enjoying it every second we can. Not to mention that from now until June, life doesn't even BEGIN to slow down!! It's amazing!! I seriously don't even know how everything is going to get done, but I'll deal with it as it comes, right?

This past weekend was a big dinner at the church. We needed to be there Friday night, all day Saturday/Saturday night, and then yesterday morning for the regular church service and then for an hour afterwards getting all the money together for a deposit. Oy!! My knee was KILLING me on Saturday night when we came home. We also started planning the Silent Auction for our church this year (it's going to be on June 9th), a big church picnic for June 23rd, selling engraved bricks to make a nice brick patio, etc... It's the 150th anniversary of the church this year and they want to get a lot of really neat things done for it. The bricks and picnic are part of this.

Christian's bday is on April 15th...he'll be 4!!! *falling over in shock* I need to get started on planning his party on the 22nd. Of course, it's going to be a Cars party. He won't have anything else!! LOL So, if you have any great ideas for this, I'm all up for it!!

Can you believe Easter is this weekend??!!? I can't believe it! It seems like it always comes so fast. We go to the sunrise 7:00 am service and then the men of the church prepare a HUGE breakfast for when it's over. It is SO good!! I look forward to this every year and this one is no different. It's been a tradition in my family for as long as I can remember. Then, we all go back to my parents' house and eat Easter "dinner" at around 1:00. It's nice because then we have the rest of the day to relax and enjoy things. We celebrate with Jarrett's family the night before Easter every year. It has always been their tradition and it really makes it easier for us in the long run too!! :)

I am SO behind in my designing and my CT work!!! Ugh...I need to get my butt in gear. There are so many things that have a high priority right now that it's hard to get them in order, KWIM? I need there to be 48 hours in a day and even then I STILL don't know if it would all get done! LOL.

Hope you're all doing well! I promise I'll try to stay better at bloggin' this week! {{HUGS}}

Nice Weekend!

2007-03-27T12:12:00.000-05:00

It was a very nice, relaxing, and productive weekend and let me tell ya...it was MUCH needed! we went looking at modular homes on Saturday with my parents. These are the homes that you order to be what you want and they are delivered to your property in 4-6 weeks. Nice, huh!??! ;) So...my expectations were pretty low just because I've never seen them before. I was absolutely SHOCKED at what I saw!! They were very nice inside and much bigger than I expected. For a LOT less money than building from scratch with a contractor, we could get a bigger house. Anyways, that's just one of the options we have right now. And it's not at the top of the list either.

At the top of the list is moving into my parents' house. They are talking about the fact that it's too much for them to handle now and that they want to downsize. They live in a gorgeous stone house that is almost 180 yrs old on 3 acres of property and a VERY quiet street. This house has been in my family forever and I would love to live there. We would put an addition on and renovate inside a bit to make it more "us", but financially it is still the best bet for us. We just need to work everything out with my parents and my sister to see if it's going to happen. Don't you wish that money grew on trees to make life easier?!?!?

Date Night
My parents kept the kids overnight on Saturday and Jarrett & I had "date night". This consisted of dinner out and then shopping around to see how much money it was going to take to fix up the house before we sell it. We also watched 2 movies over the weekend. Starsky & Hutch and Friday Night Lights. I have to say I wasn't impressed in the least by either one. They weren't horrible, but not good by any stretch of the imagination either!! We've been watching movies more often and actually using the Blockbuster Online that we have and it is so nice!! I've been staying off the computer as much too and it's a well needed break I think.

Productive Sunday
We picked up the kiddos, painted our split rail fence, raked out the flowerbeds and cut back the dead stuff on my perennials, raked up leaves by our fence in the backyard, picked up TONS of sticks, and just overall cleaned up a bit outside. The kids were playing and just enjoying the gorgeous weather and Christian has proven himself to be quite the little helper!! (Guess who picked up 97% of the sticks?!?!?) :)

Misc Mumbo Jumbo
Here are a few little odds & ends...
~ The weather is GORGEOUS here the last few days!! 70 degrees and sunny!

~ I finished a couple LOs and will post them in the next couple days.

~ I have been digi shopping crazy this past week!! I got TONS of goodies at Gina Miller's sale last week and finally caved in and got some Lilypad goodies too. I seriously need to go on a spending freeze though...I'm buying more than I'm using!!!

~ I'm working on some new stuff for the store. Hopefully I'll get them done in the next couple of days.

~ Have an Anniversary Committee meeting tonight at my church. Yippeee!!! (dripping with sarcasm there)

~ Having the in-laws over for dinner tomorrow night.

~ Christian gave me crap again today about not wanting to go to school. Ugh. I hate that!!! Today it actually started before we even left the darn house!!! Then, he refused to get out of the car in the parking lot of the school. {rolling eyes} He was fine 2 seconds after I left and happy as a clam when I picked him up. Aye-yi-yi....what am I gonna do with that kid!?!??!

Sayonara
That's it! I'm going to enjoy the weather and open some windows!! Hope you all have a great day! {{HUGS}}

Been a LONG week...

2007-03-23T08:27:00.000-05:00

Ugh. So sorry I haven't been posting this week! :( It's been a rough one! As a lot of you know, I do a lot of volunteer work for my church and this past weekend, we started working on our Silent Auction (which I am the head of). We got together to stuff almost 500 letters the other night and there is just so much "behind-the-scenes" stuff to get done for it. I'm also a co-chairperson for our 150th anniversary committee and there is a whole year full of stuff going on for that too.

Other than that keeping me busy, it's just been a crappy week. The weather is rainy and gross, Christian had a fit when I dropped him off at school on Tuesday again. :( Yes...I had to leave him crying again AND it was their picture day! Then, Wednesday, I got a horrible stomach thing that was just killing me. It was so bad, that I didn't even take Christian to school yesterday because I didn't think I could handle it with my stomach!! :( UGH...it's still not feeling 100%, but it does feel better. Also, my knee has been killing me! As a lot of you know, I had surgery on it a year ago and it hasn't been the same since. How in the world can I only be 30 yrs old and be falling apart so bad!?!?!??

Anyways...enough for the downer talk. I'm hoping that next week is WAY better and I promise I'll be on here more often updating. As for now, I'm going to take a shower and chill out. I started working on a really cute kit last week and haven't gotten around to touching it again. Maybe I'll do that too! Have a great weekend and thanks for checking in!! {{HUGS}}

Fun new product and storewide sale!!

2007-03-16T09:30:00.000-05:00

The last few days have been pretty uneventful. Christian was off of school yesterday for an inservice day so we just got to bum around. It's rainy and cold here too, which just makes you tired and want to stay inside. KWIM? I cleaned the house a little and got some new stuff up in the store too! Productive, huh!?!?

New products
So, I love polka dots! I thought a fun line using them would be a great idea since they are so versatile. This is the first in the series. Polka Party - Primary Colors. They are available seperate or together in a bundle pack for the best bang for your buck! AND...everything in my store is 40% off until Sunday! :) YAY!

Papers

Ribbons

Doodles

Bundle Pack

Storewide Sale
Also, Elemental Scraps is having a storewide 40% off sale this weekend! Good through Sunday and valid on almost everything! So, go check it out! It's a great group of talented designers!!

St. Patty's Day
Anyone have any plans? I wanted to go to the parade downtown, but it's going to be too cold. :( I'm not taking the kiddos out in that crap, KWIM? We're going to go to my parent's house and have a few beers, wear our green (of course), and watch The Quiet Man. This movie is a tradition for us to watch every St. Patty's Day. It is a WONDERFUL movie and I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it! I've been reading a thread at DST about being a "leprechaun" to your kids. This is THE cutest idea ever! I'm thinking they might be too young for it this year, but I am definitely keeping these ideas for next year. I'm also going to do a couple of the little things like dying their milk green. :)

So, anyways....enjoy your weekend and your St. Patty's Day!! {{HUGS}}

My "date"...

2007-03-15T00:08:00.000-05:00

I got to have a "date" with Christian on Tuesday!! :) He had a field trip with his school and the parents were allowed to go if they wanted as well. We got to ride a school bus downtown to Heinz Hall and see the Pittsburgh Symphony perform a "Tiny Tots" concert. TOO CUTE!!! It was "the tortoise and the hare" and was all about slow/fast music. I thought he may be kinda bored by it, but he wasn't! It was amazing. He was telling me when each instrument came in and what it was...just by listening!! And he was right!! Then, he recognized some of the songs they were playing because they were used in the cartoon Little Einsteins. One of his teachers were sitting next to me and she was shocked when he started humming along to it!! Yes...it was a proud mommy moment! There was my little guy...humming along to classical music, listening to the symphony, and pointing out the instruments. :) What a cutie pie! He fell asleep on the bus ride back to the school and it was so nice. He was snuggled up all against me in the seat and it was so quiet and relaxing just holding him.

I don't have any pics from the day because I didn't think cameras would be allowed in the theater. Dumb, dumb, dumb!! You weren't allowed to take pics during the concert, but I could have gotten some great ones before/after and the bus ride!! :( *pouting* Jarrett took one of the 2 of us before we left though, which is better than nothing! I'm going to try to find a couple of the theater online to use in a LO too.

We also got to go out with some friends on Tuesday night. My parents and my sister played with the kids at our house so that we could go out for my friend's bday. We went to a great little bar and had a few drinks and some dinner. They have THE BEST wings there! Mmmmm... We had a lot of fun and it was nice to get out.

Today was a nice, bum around the house day. I've been cleaning/organizing a bit in the house. We're hoping to get it up on the market to try to sell sometime in the next 4-6 weeks and I want to declutter a bit. There are a lot of little projects that need to be done before then and I want everything to look clean and clear. KWIM? We're going to store some of our stuff somewhere else so that the house looks bigger and not as personal. I've been reading up on some staging tips, so if you have any...let me know!

Hope you all had a great day! Talk to you soon! {{HUGS}}

Long weekend!

2007-03-13T14:49:00.000-05:00

This weekend was a long one! Friday night was my chat at DST and we had a BLAST!!! :) Thanks so, SO much to all of you who came. 2 hours flew by before we even knew it! Anyways, I'll get the tattoo pic to you girls soon...I just need to get Jarrett to take one! ;)

Saturday, we went to Jarrett's grandmother's apartment to clean it out and get all the loose ends taken care of. We were there all afternoon and there is STILL more to do!! My gosh!! One really cool thing is that Jarrett and I are going to get her dining room set! We don't have a nice set ourselves and the family wanted us to have it. What a nice reminder of her that we will always have!! :) I have a beautiful hutch that was my grandparents when they got married. So, now, we'll have gorgeous furniture that has such meaning and a great way to remember them by. Jarrett's aunt's bday was also on Saturday and we went there to have pizza/salad with them. Nice times...

I decided it was going to be another "computer-free" weekend. I hardly got on at all and it was kinda nice!! Jarrett & I watched Ladder 49 on Saturday night and it was SOOOOOO good! Whoa...tears were pouring out of my eyes the whole darn movie!! You seriously have to watch it if you get a chance!

Sunday, Jarrett's little sister had a cheerleading competition downtown and we went to see her. There were TONS of squads there and it was really neat! Christian was having a blast hitting on all the little cheerleader girls sitting in front of us. Yeah....he's my little stud! LOL. He gets his charm from his daddy! ;) We all went out to dinner afterwards and it was really nice.

Baby news!!
So....did you all hear that my beautiful, wonderful friend Andrea had her baby yesterday!?!?!? YAY!!! Baby Bean Burns is here and healthy! You all have to wait until Andrea updates to see what his name is though! ;)

Short & Quick
That's it for today!! It's 70 degrees here today and I am going to ENJOY it!! :) It's supposed to be in the 30s-40s again soon enough. Ugh... Have a great day, girls! {{HUGS}}

Almost over....

2007-03-09T14:03:00.000-05:00

My birthday week, that is. :( Today is the very last day!! On a good note though, I'm hosting another chat tonight!! This one is at DST and is at 10:00 pm EST. We had a BLAST last week! I'm hoping you all decide to come again! We did brownies last week...cupcakes this week! (Yes...I LOVE cupcakes!!! I'm not a "normal" cake eater.) SO, bring your beverage of choice and meet me there! :)

This is also the last day for my sale! My whole store is 30% off until tonight at midnight, so go check it out! I've added lots more goodies this week and here's another!

Gorgeous Grid

Challenge

That also brings us to the last challenge. Remember, you have until Friday, March 16th at 8:00 am EST and they must be posted in their respective thread at ES for them to qualify for a prize!

Challenge #7: Present Challenge: Scrap about a favorite present that you have given/received. What were your feelings about it? Why is it your favorite?

Lookie here!!!

Jarrett told me to get the laptop bag that I wanted for yet another bday present. (yes...I am SO spoiled!!) ;) Of course, I wanted something fun and girly. Not the "normal" black bag! I went with the Mimi Laptop Bag that so many digi scrappers love. I was totally torn on which color to get...pink? lilac? kiwi? Hmmm...decisions, decisions... I went with the kiwi green! It looks SO pretty and I can't wait to see it!! I just tracked it online and saw that it should be here today! YAY!!

Oh...and here's a great coupon I found if you want to use it! (It took $28 off of my order!!) It's for 40% off any one item at Joanns and is valid until 3/31/07 Code is: MARA740

Blinkies

I have 2 little blinkie things for ya too! First off...if you want to show your support for me, feel free to sport the "I'm a Fan of Lemonheads" blinkie here. I would really appreciate it!! :)

Secondly, there is a CUTE new blinkie going around right now and rumor has it if you're spotted wearing it there just may be something good that can happen to you!! ;) You can grab it here!

Another little enabling note...

I saw these CUTE Italian charms over at DST and thought you all should see them! One of the girls, Juliana (pennylane), decided to try her hand at making these and she is doing a GREAT job!! She RAKed me for my birthday and sent me the "got mouse?" charm. Okay...I LOVE IT!! :) And wasn't that sweet of her? She also makes custom charms from your picture/idea. Seriously...I am going to get these for gifts for people. They would LOVE to see the kiddos on a charm of their very own! You can check out her blog here and that is also where she's selling them. Give her a little support if you can, she is a GREAT girl and I'm really excited to get to know her better! :) Thanks again, girl!

Weekend?

So, what about you, any big weekend plans? Nothing much around here. I'm still feeling crappy and I think it's starting to officially hit the kids today. Ugh. And on a quick sidenote...I am SO glad the clocks change this weekend! I hate when it gets dark so early! Have a great weekend and don't forget to come to DST tonight for the chat!! (10:00 pm EST) {{HUGS}}

Ugh...I'm sick!! :(

2007-03-07T15:23:00.000-05:00

I'm sick and miserable! Ugh...sore throat, runny nose, achy body, tired, upset stomach, etc...and I think the kids are starting to get it too! :( SO...anyways...I'm a little behind on bday week activities. Let's try a little catch-up, eh?!?!

Challenges

Day #4: Color challenge: Use the color BLACK in a LO. A lot of people shy away from black, but I just love it! I think it adds an interesting contrast to a page!

Day #5: Name challenge: Scrap a page about your name (first name, last name, middle name, username, etc...). Our name says a lot about us and everyone has some kind of a story behind it. How you got it, what it means, why you like it, why you don't like it, etc...

Day #6: T.V./Movie challenge: Scrap a page about what T.V./movies you like to watch. Why do you watch them? Why do you like them? What kind of effect do they have on you? If you don't watch much, explain why. Reasons?

Challenge Prizes: Remember that a link to your LO MUST be posted in the thread for that day at Elemental Scraps for it to count. Here are the prizes that you are playing for:

~ Complete 2 challenges and win one item of your choice from my store

~ Complete 4 challenges and win two items of your choice from my store

~ Complete all challenges and win two items of your choice from my store and a $10 coupon towards a future purchase.

These must be posted in their respective thread at Elemental Scraps by next Friday, March 16th at 8:00 am EST for them to qualify for a prize.

** BONUS PRIZE**

The Lemonheads and I will be choosing our favorite LO to win the bonus prize. It is for a $20 coupon to my store!! :)

New Products

I have 2 more templates that I put up! Don't forget that everything in my store is 30% off until Friday!!

Clean Lines

Strips & Stripes

Short & Sweet!

Feeling crappy and want to get you all some more new products made so I'm cutting it short today! Nothing much happening anyways. Last night we had a family picture taken at our church for their new directory. Tomorrow is "green day" at preschool. They are celebrating St. Paddy's Day a little early because next week is a field trip and they are off on Thursday. Christian is THRILLED since it's his favorite color! LOL...

Okay...I'm done for the day! :) Have a good one!! {{HUGS}}

Birthday Details!!

2007-03-04T22:16:00.000-05:00

Okay...so first off...I'm a little late posting the 2 new products and the 2 challenges for the first 2 days of Slammin' 30th Birthday Bash week...sorry! Once you read the big birthday details below, you'll understand why! ;) Challenge Day #1 was coming to my chat at ES on Friday, March 2nd. :)

Challenge Day #2 & Challenge Day #3

So, there will be perks to completing the challenges I post this week. I'll give you more details on that tomorrow, so tune in! Also, this is posted at Elemental Scraps and you MUST put a link in the corresponding thread for it to "count" as being done.

~ Challenge Day #2 : Use one of the following quotes in a scrapbook page.

"Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind." -- Eric Hoffer

Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing. Author: Mother Teresa

~ Challenge Day #3 : Use the following font in a scrapbook page. The King & Queen font can be found by clicking here.

New Products

I'm going to release one new product each day of birthday week. Here are the new releases for Saturday & Sunday. Don't forget that my whole store is 30% off all week! (through Friday, March 9th)

Leave a Trail (2 page template)

Layers & Layers - 2 Page Template

Birthday Weekend...

So. I had the BEST birthday weekend ever!! Friday night was my very first chat ever and let me tell ya...I was nervous! I was so scared that nobody was going to show up and that I'd be in that big 'ole room all by myself! BUT...so many of you came! There were over 30 people in the room and we had a flippin' blast! Everyone had fun, enjoyed their brownies and margharitas, learned more about me, and won some prizes. Good times.... :) Thank you all SO much for coming! And don't forget that there is going to be a chat THIS Friday, March 9th with me at DigiShopTalk. 10:00 pm EST. This will be the end to my birthday week celebration!

Yesterday was my actual birthday. Got to sleep in a little bit and then got a call from my sister telling me to be ready in 1/2 hour because she was coming to pick me up. Not telling me where we were going or anything! We ended up going out to lunch and then going to the zoo. I absolutely, postively LOVE the zoo!! We have a membership there and go all the time. I have to admit it was kinda nice going without the kids for once. We got to set our own pace and do what we wanted. It was a little chilly, but it wasn't crowded at all either. Perfection!

When we came back to my house, my parents were there and Jarrett was almost done cooking dinner. Yes...you heard right...Jarrett cooked dinner for all of us! Chicken & biscuits, which is one of my favorite meals!! :) Mmmm...it was delicious! There were tons of balloons everywhere and we were just sitting around talking. To be honest, it was a little boring. THEN...the doorbell rang. 3 of our friends and their kids were there!! Talk about a surprise!! Then, for the next hour, the doorbell kept ringing and people kept showing up. My BIL, 2 of my very good friends from college that I don't get to see very often, and then...kicker of all kickers...one of my VERY best friends that lives in Buffalo, NY. 3 and a half hours away!!! He is like a brother to me and we have been friends for almost 15 years. We don't get to see each other very much either, but every time him & his wife come to Pittsburgh, they call us and we do something. I seriously had tears in my eyes over the whole thing.

My sweet, sweet Jarrett planned all of this as a huge surprise just for me! I guess all kinds of secret phone calls went on between him, my sister, & my mom and dad to plan all of this. Sneaky bastards!!! ;) I seriously was SO surprised and SO flattered that he would even think to do this for me. Man...he's a keeper, isn't he!??!?

Presents...

Oh! And listen to the presents I got!!! Seriously...unbelievable!! Jarrett & the kids got me a laptop (yay!!!!), PSE 5.0 ('cause my 3.0 won't work with Vista), and a Wacom tablet!!! YEP...it was a digi scrappin' girls' dream!! :) I CAN NOT wait to play with them all! From everyone else, I got a DigiShopTalk t-shirt, a beautiful silver locket necklace, a gorgeous jewelry box, tickets to a show in April with me, my sister, my mom, and a friend of ours, gift certificate for Kohls, gift certificate for Bath & Body Works, a beautiful wooden girl/plant holder for my porch, candle....hmmm...I think that's it. SPOILED, aren't I?!!? :) I couldn't have asked for a better birthday. What a way to remember my 30th!!!

And thanks to all of you wonderful girls who made cards for me!! They are all so, so gorgeous! :)

Come back tomorrow!!

I'm off to bed for the night now, but I'll see you all tomorrow!!! {{HUGS}}

Meet the Lemonheads!! And pull on your boots...

2007-03-02T09:32:00.000-05:00

I'm going to have you wade through a LOT of info today!! :) Sorry, girls...it's been a BUSY, exciting week!

First off...Meet the Lemonheads!!!

Okay, so I NEVER expected to get the wonderful turnout that I did on my CT call. Especially being a new designer! I looked through tons of galleries and I can't thank all of you enough for giving me the pleasure of doing it. I wish I could have taken every single one of you. Jarrett laughed saying I was going to be the first CT with 50 people!!!!?!? LOL...Anyways, without further ado, here are the new Lemonheads!!!

And for those of you who can't see the image:
Meet my Lemonheads!!!
These girls are fantastic! Their personalities shine and their galleries are amazing! I am so lucky to have all of them for my team.
Laurie (LibbysMommy)
Laurie (Laurie Garza)
Shelly (Shelly)
Bretta (bretta)
Kim (MissKim)
Andrea (Andrea C)
Oriana (OrianaVianey)
Paula (scrappinmama)
Marisa (Marisa)
Marci (m1218p)
Rachelle (jaylensmom)

Thank you so very much to every single person who applied. It was a VERY hard decision and I wish I could have taken every single one!!Keep your eyes out for Guest CTs starting in April!

Slammin' 30th Birthday Bash Week
It starts today!!! Chat tonight at Elemental Scraps. 10:00 pm EST. Please come kick off the celebration with me...I've got the brownies baking and the beverages chilling! :) Also, this starts a week long SALE!! 30% off everything in my store until next Friday night, March 9th.

For those of you who can't see it...
I turn 30 this week! Come celebrate with me!

~Chat Friday, March 2nd Elemental Scraps. 10:00 pm est
~ New products
~ Daily challenges
~ Freebies
~ Chat Friday, March 9th Digi Shop Talk, 10:00 pm est
~ And, best of all....30% SALE!!! Valid on all of my designs and valid all week!! (Expires Friday, March 9th)

New Template
I have a new template up in my store and I just LOVE it! Circles: Over & Out And...don't forget that all of my designs are on sale all week! 30% off!!

Circles: Over & Out

Here's a LO I made using it using the new, amazing Wild Rumpus kit by Andrea Burns!

And here's a LO by Kim using my Curly Cutie kit! (Yippee!! My first CT LO!!)

SO....WRAP UP...

My birthday is tomorrow and I'm so excited!! Not sure what is going to happen yet, but I'm sure it will be a great day! Also, did you guys see the comment Jarrett left on my blog yesterday!?!? OMG...too freakin' funny! I just love that guy!!! xoxoxoxo So, see you all at the crop tonight! Don't leave me hangin' there in a chat room all by myself, huh?!!? ;) Have a great weekend! I'll post the first "challenge" tomorrow! :) {{HUGS}}

CT Call Change

2007-02-28T10:56:00.000-05:00

** Due to an overwhelming response, I am closing my call for lemonheads this Friday, March 2nd. I have lots of things in the works for next week and can use all the wonderful girls I can!! Thanks to all of you who are applying!! It's going to be a super hard decision! **

Short & Sweet
That's what this is going to be today. I have TONS of stuff on my plate and need to get working on them!! :) So, here's a little heads up for my regular blog readers...Saturday is my 30th birthday! AND...I'm going to celebrate a whole week of it starting on Friday, March 2nd and going all the way through Friday, March 9th. LOTS of fun stuff planned...you'll need to tune in here for more details. Also, here's a little hint...keep your calender clear for this Friday night at 10:00 pm, (March 2nd)...a little birdie told me there just may be a chat with me at Elemental Scraps to start off birthday week!! ;)

Comments....
So, what the heck?!?! Only 1 or 2 comments a day? Where are you guys? ;) I LOVE seeing comments when I log on here and I'm just not feelin' the love, chickies! (And before you ask...yes...I am that pathetic that I will shamelessly beg for some! LOL...)

Happy Hump Day!
Have a wonderful hump day, girls! I'll be back tomorrow with more to throw at 'ya! {{HUGS}}

It's a CT Call!!! Looking for lemonheads! Also a little enabling... ;)

2007-02-27T13:08:00.000-05:00

So...it's time! I'm having my first ever CT call!! :) I really want to get my name out there a little more and need some wonderful, FUN girls to do that for me! So...what are you waiting for??? Read on! ;) (text version is under the pic) This call is officially open until March 9th, but I will be picking girls THIS WEEK because I have some big stuff planned for March 2nd-March 9th...so hurry up and get your applications in!! You can see my designs here.

For those of you who can't see the pic, here's what it says! :)

Are you sweet? Or are you sour? I need some LEMONHEADS!!

I‘m new to the design world and need my first Creative Team! I’m looking for girls who would like to help me promote my designs, give me their input, make new friends, and most importantly - HAVE FUN!

Requirements:- 1 layout per kit/template I put out- Posted in at least 4 galleries- participation in a CT forum so that we can get to know each other

That’s it! Simple, huh?!? Then, apply!

If interested, send me the following:- Your “real” name- Your username at DST- Link to your most complete gallery- Other teams you are on - Why you feel you’d be a good fit with me, my designs, & the rest of the CT. Interested? Email me at melaniecolosimodesigns@gmail.com

Boring Day

It's a boring day today. Christian had school this morning and Ava & I went to Sams Club to do a little shopping. They had out all kinds of outdoor things already!! YAY!! Bring on the springtime! So, I saw this swingset and I just "need" to have it for the kiddos. It's expensive, but we just got our tax refund money back...think I can persuade Jarrett? Cross your fingers, okay?

Cambridge Wooden Swing Set with Slide

A little more enabling...

Then, I was at DST last night browsing through the threads when I see that my friend, Cori, makes these AWESOME little girl outfits! I mean really, I was friggin' blown away when I looked through them! They are SO unique and so gorgeous. I'm picturing Ava in one already... ;) Here is her "about me" page at her EBay store and here are a couple of my favorites...and yes...I just "have" to have an outfit like this for my little angel!! :)

And on that note...

I'm done for today! :) So, get your CT applications in quick! I'm eager to look through everyone's galleries!! I am already dreading the hard choice though... Thanks so much for your support, girls! Also, hurry up and go buy my 2 newest items at the store...I need to make some money to buy that swingset!! ;) LOL... Have a great day! {{HUGS}}

Relaxing Weekend & 2 New Products!!

2007-02-26T13:41:00.000-05:00

Hey, girlies! We had yet another relaxing weekend around here...I LOVE IT!! ;) Did absolutely nothing Friday night...hung around the house on Saturday and my good friend Missy and her 3 little ones came over to see us in the afternoon (she doesn't live around here anymore and was in town) YAY!!!, nothing Saturday night, church Sunday morning (we had an ice storm and there were only about 30 people there!! I had to set up & serve communion, so I had to go out in it), and then last night went to my in-law's house for dinner. And HERE'S where it gets interesting...I thought we were just going over for dinner and it ended up that they were doing a little surprise birthday dinner for me! :) My 30th bday is on Saturday and they wanted to surprise me a little early since I wasn't expecting it. Sweet, huh!?!? Anyways, my MIL made a kick-butt dinner and we had cake/ice cream & presents. I got a gift certificate to Bath & Body Works from my BIL and a gift certificate to a local nursery from my in-laws. (I absolutely LOVE gardening & flowers...I can't always get all I want every year though because it gets to be too much money, so this is a great gift for me!)

THEN...Jarrett tells me that is just the beginning of my birthday surprises....hmmmmm...what's he got up his sleeve?!!? ;)

LO of the Day!

My How Bad? LO got picked as the LO of the Day at The Digi Chick over the weekend!! How exciting!! That totally made my day!

New Products

So, I put 2 new products in the store today! A kit and a template. :) They're both 20% off today and tomorrow, so go buy them!! ;)

Curly Cutie

Pictures Galore - 2 Page Template

Happy Monday!

I hope you all have a great Monday! I'm off to work on a few LOs and some super secret stuff. ;) Don't worry...you'll find out soon enough!! LOL... {{HUGS}}

Doing good!

2007-02-22T13:38:00.000-05:00

I am doing SO good at catching up on things! I have my "to do" list in front of me and it feels SO darn good to scratch things off! :) Also, my stomach is feeling better today (thank goodness) which makes the day great!

Went Shopping

Ava & I went to good old Target this morning while Christian was in school. And of course...I got some goodies!! ;) Got the things on my list first of course, but then had fun looking at the Easter stuff, kid's clothes, garden stuff...yes...my mind is on spring!! I bought this dress and a little white hat for Ava for Easter. Not sure if it's what I'm definitely going to stick with or not, but I fell in love with it! Ava was wearing the hat all around the store saying "I pretty, Momma!". Seriously...does it get much cuter than that?!!? LOL...

Also got her this cute little shirt...

and this shirt in 2 different colors

She also got a cute Easter t-shirt that says "cute chick" with a pic of (what else...) a little chick on it. And Christian got a nice polo shirt that was on clearance. (Neither one of these on the website.)

Also grabbed them 2 new toys for a little surprise gift. Ava is obsessed with Ariel from The Little Mermaid, so I got her a really cute soft doll. (she has Snow White & Cinderella already like this) And Christian got yet another monster truck. Monster Mutt. (the one that looks like a big dog with it's tongue hanging out.) Needless to say...they were THRILLED!!!

New Layouts & Some CT Lovin'

I posted 2 new LOs this morning. First one is using the new kit from Andrea Burns & Kimberly Giarusso at TDC. Illuminaire (click here to find it.) Such a rich, gorgeous kit...check it out! Also, it's 20% off today only! ;)

And here's my LO using it. (Check out my sexy hubby!!) Click here for more details.

THEN...Lie Fhung (Ztampf) put out a friggin' HUGE collection last week! The Great Expecations-A Collection. (Click here to find it.) This kit is seriously amazing. If you've never bought anything from Fhung before, it's like Christmas when you open up one of her kits...they are FULL of stuff that's not even on the preview. Her designs are very distinctive and artsy...you can pick them out anywhere!

Here are 2 LOs I did using it. First one is when I was pregnant with Ava and is a 2 page LO. (the template will be up for sale in the next couple of days!) ;) Click here for journaling and details.

And the second one is for a weight loss challenge with TBL girls. You can read the journaling and see credits here.

See ya!

And on that note...I'm done! Whew... ;) Hope you girls have a great rest of the day! {{HUGS}}

Not much going on...

2007-02-21T10:56:00.000-05:00

Not much on the schedule for today. My stomach wasn't feeling very well last night and today I'm still not 100%. Ugh...I HATE stomach issues!! More cleaning and knocking more to-dos off of the list for today.

New Template Up!!

So, I got a new template up in the store last night. Swirl Fun is a 2 page template that is also strong enough to stand on it's own. It's also 25% off until Friday, so go check it out!! ;)

Here's a LO I did using it.

Credits here.

I used goodies from Misty Mareda for this LO and let me just tell ya...if you haven't checked out her designs yet, you just have to! She is phenomenal!! She has her designs at Twisted Lollipop right now and keeps adding new stuff all the time. Not to mention, she's a FANTASTIC person! I just love her! :)

Birthday Wishes for Julie
In case you didn't know, today is Julie's (mrs2a50) birthday!!! Julie is one of my favorite digi girls and just cracks my butt up every single time I talk to her!! Not to mention, she is talented beyond all belief!!! You can check out her gallery here if you haven't seen it before. Anyways, I just wanted to wish my special friend the happiest of days!!! {{HUGS}}

Credits here.

Short & Sweet
Well, that's it for now! I know...you're shocked aren't you!?!?! ;) Off to work on my projects! Have a wonderful day, girlies!!! {{HUGS}}

Lookin' good!

2007-02-20T14:12:00.000-05:00

So, I got lots of stuff done yesterday and I'm feeling good! Still overwhelmed, but working on my to-do list to scratch things off. Christian had school this morning and was too darn funny. He was wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans and absolutely insisted on wearing his Easter tie from last year! LOL... When we walked into school, he went straight up to his teacher and told her to look at how handsome he was! ROFLMAO... I think my little stud has a thing for her! ;) Everyone got a big kick out of it though and it made him happy, so who cares, right?!?!?

More CT lovin'!

Okay, so today's LO is using Andrea Burns' new kit Sweetly and a template by Janet Phillips- Playing with Paper #1. I swear, since I joined Janet's team, I have hardly scrapped anything by myself!! LOL... Her templates are awesome and they go together so fast and easy!

Credits can be seen here.

I'm a guest!

And guess what...I got to be the Digi Dare #24 guest!! My sweet friend, Shelly, asked me to do it and of course I was SO excited! Thanks again, girl! {{HUGS}} So, here's my LO using my Kiss Me kit and the One Heart template I gave to you all last week.

Credits seen here.

And yes...I finally

bought food! LOL... Went to Walmart today and got a huge load of stuff so now we can avoid the takeout a bit more! (Go ahead Jarrett, feel free to praise the Lord!) ;) Oh, and we heard back from the girl that looked at our house and she's not interested. :( Bummer, but what can you do?!!? It's not officially on the market anyways, so now we just need to hit it a little harder to get it in tip-top shape before the spring comes.

Have a good one!

Hope you all have a wonderful day!! I'm off to work on my to-dos to get more done! Talk to you all tomorrow! {{HUGS}}

Some pimpin' today and catch up...

2007-02-19T13:35:00.000-05:00

I'm trying to play a little catch up today. Not answering the phone, put the kids down for their nap, and just hitting it hard. I've been slacking on my CT stuff and I need to get more designs done for all of you! So...hopefully a day or 2 like this will get me back on schedule. The designers I CT for have been kickin' out some AMAZING stuff recently! My gosh!! It's hard to keep up with it all! I'll start with Andrea Burns today. I'll do the other girls in the next few days.

So, here are 2 new kits Andrea put out on Thursday. Both baby kits and both friggin' GORGEOUS! The little felt giraffe is seriously too cute for words. You can find them here. Softly and Sweetly. Here's a LO I posted using Softly. I went back and pulled out pics from when Christian was first born and it's so hard to believe he's going to be 4 in April!! Where does time go?!?

Credits can be seen here.

And did you see Gina Miller's new goodies?!?! My lord...this girl is a-friggin-mazing! When I was on her CT as a guest one month, I was spoiled rotten. Now I just have to buy everything I see because I can't break the mold! LOL... So, the new All About The Paper line came out and I was thrilled! I use the first AATP line all the time and this one is just as yummy! Downloaded it this morning and just HAD to scrap with it right away!! Also used a bunch of Gina's stuff I grabbed last week for her 6 month bash. :)

Credits can be seen here.

Weekend

This weekend was another good one. I am totally enjoying this whole "nothing planned" thing! LOL... Saturday, I went shopping with my sister at the mall. I seriously can not tell you the last time I went shopping and actually got to take my time and enjoy it without the kids!! Of course, I had crappy luck and couldn't find anything to buy, but it was still fun. Saturday night, we went to see a friend of Jarrett's who plays in a band. They play all cover music and they are SO good! This is the second time we've gone to see them and we had a blast. A whole group of us went, including my sister, and we just had so much fun. CAN NOT wait to go see them again!

Yesterday was the Daytona 500 for all you Nascar fans. Personally, it doesn't do much for me. I like watching the last 20 laps or so, but that's about it. Now, my parents on the otherhand, LOVE it!! So, we went over there to pick up the kids and spent the day with them watching it. We had a good time and I actually enjoyed the cutthroat ending. Yes...you just heard me admit it...I enjoyed watching a Nascar race!! ;) LOL...

Today's Plans

Well, after I'm done with this entry, here's what is planned for today. Laundry, general cleaning around the house, doing a few CT layouts, putting together some new templates and designs for release this week, and working on some super secret news that I'm hoping to spill in the new few days. Then, tonight, I absolutely HAVE to go to Walmart and Giant Eagle. We have NO food in the house and are running critically low on lots of essentials. Thrilling, huh!?!? So, cross your fingers that I get it all done!

See ya!

Oh, and a big thanks to the Blog Party from Let's Scrap that stopped by here and left me comments yesterday. To be honest...I have no clue what it's all about, I need to investigate a little, but it was nice to see more comments! :) Hope you all have a great day!! {{HUGS}}

Party Day!!

2007-02-15T19:46:00.000-05:00

Well, today was the big Valentine's party at Christian's school. Remember? With the 2 nutty moms that had everything planned?!?! *rolling eyes* Well...here's how it went down. First off, the other 2 moms got their kids to school 15-20 minutes late, then they both LEFT the school to go home and come back before the party started!! (it was about an hour and typically, the party parents stay for the beginning of class and start to set up about 1/2 hour early) I got to stay and see how Christian's "normal" school day begins and it was awesome!! The kids were all excited that "Christian's mommy" was there and kept playing around with me and talking to me. TOO CUTE!!! :) The other moms showed up about 5 minutes before the party was supposed to start and THEN they didn't bring all the stuff they were supposed to!!! We were each supposed to bring 4 shoe boxes covered in white paper so the kids could decorate them and use them for their Valentines...I brought mine...1 mom brought 3...and the other mom brought ZERO!!! We didn't have enough for all the kids in the class!!! *yes...eyes popping out of my head in disbelief right now* We actually had to empty and cover a tissue box in order to have enough. The teachers didn't get one and 2 of the kids didn't show up...and thank goodness or we STILL wouldn't have had enough!!! And did I mention that the shoeboxes were THEIR idea in the first place?!?! I had no friggin' input when they brought THAT up at the meeting the other day!! Aye yi yi..... *rolling my eyes YET again*

Anyways, the party was awesome! Christian was so, SO thrilled that I got to stay at school with him! He wore his cute little "Heartbreaker" shirt and asked me to spray some of Jarrett's cologne on him before we left this morning...I think he was ready to pick up some chicks!!! LOL... That's my little stud! ;)

Our Valentine's Day
Well, like I told you yesterday, we don't really celebrate Valentine's day with each other. Jarrett picked up food on the way home yesterday and also grabbed 2 little bouquets of flowers for each of the kiddos to give to me. Oh my gosh...they looked TOO cute walking across the kitchen floor saying "Happy Valentine's Day, Momma...we love you!". So adorable!! We've had snow and ice here the last few days, so we took the kids outside to play in the snow and ride their sleds down the tiny hill in our backyard. They had a blast and so did we!

I wanted to post some pics, but blogger is not letting me yet again today!! ARGH...Anyways, I can't get those darn kids to pose for pics anymore!!! LOL... guess I take too many pictures!!! Anyways, after the kids went to sleep, Jarrett and I snuggled on the couch and watched You, Me & Dupree. Cute movie...not as great as I expected, but still not a waste of time to watch!

That's it!
Hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day and got all you deserved!! :) Thanks for all the comments on the template freebie...glad you all liked it! See you tomorrow! {{HUGS}}

2007-02-14T11:57:00.000-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

So, what do you all have planned? Anything? Jarrett & I stopped celebrating Valentine's Day a while ago. We don't buy presents or anything, just go out to dinner either the week before or the week after. It's what makes us happy and works out just right! No crowds and no expensive flowers/gifts. So...we'll be celebrating with dinner next week. Tonight is just fun with the kiddos. It's been snowing like crazy here, so I'm thinking maybe we'll go outside and play when Jarrett comes home.

Little Present for all of you...
Of course, I just "had" to give all of my digi girls a V-Day present, though! ;) (Don't be offended, Jarrett! LOL...) Here's a fun little template for you and also a coupon for my store at Elemental Scraps. Don't forget that I put out a new kit yesterday and it's 20% off until tomorrow!! ;)

Use the coupon code luvmygirlies for $2.00 off your order at my store. Valid until March 1, 2007.

And here's the template. If the links expire before you get it, please let me know and I'll get another one for you! Also...please leave a comment if you take it...I'd love to get a little lovin' back for Valentine's day! I also LOVE to see what people create with my goodies, so drop me a link to if you'd like!! :) (ugh...it's SO small!! Blogger is NOT being friendly with me today!)

And here are the links! They are all the same, so please only take one. Start with the first link, if it's expired, try the second.

One Heart Freebie Link 2
One Heart Freebie Link 3

Have a GREAT Valentine's day, everyone! Huge hugs and kisses to all of you!!

****ETA...did you see the cute comment from Jarrett?!?!? He came out from under his rock to post a message to all the digi girls!! God...I just LOVE that guy! ;)

Wonderful Weekend

2007-02-13T09:22:00.000-05:00

Oh, it was such a nice weekend! Relaxing...calm...and back to normal. Thank goodness!! :) Went shopping on Saturday to return (finally) some stuff from Xmas...yes...I still had it!! *blushing* We went out to lunch at the Olive Garden and man...do I LOVE their soup, salad, and breadsticks!!! Mmmmm...SO GOOD! The kids also behaved. Miracle of all miracles. You never know what you're going to get in a restaurant...KWIM?!?!

Monster Jam
Friday night was the Monster Jam. A group of us all went. My mom & dad, Jarrett's dad & sister, me, Jarrett, Christian, and a friend of Jarrett's from work and his little boy. (my sister and Jarrett's brother had to back out at the last minute 'cause they were sick) We had a BLAST!!! Christian was on cloud 9 the whole entire time. He had his big ole noise reduction earphones on, sat on my lap, ate popcorn and had a HUGE smile on his face from beginning to end. We bought him the cutest T-shirt and a Gravedigger flag that he just loves. He also got a program and I wouldn't be lying if I told you he's thumbed through it a hundred times since Friday night. He was so wound up when we got home that he stayed up until 11:00 just playing "monster trucks" on the living room floor!!! LOL... He was setting up his cars and running over them with his monster trucks he has. Too darn cute! (Oh...and if you're wondering where Ava was...she spent the night with my MIL!!)

New Kit and LO
I put a new kit up in the store last night. I am so thrilled with how pretty it turned out! :) Hopefully everyone else thinks so too!! I really would LOVE to see some sales, ya know?!?! :) And here's a LO I made using it and also using a template I made for the Elemental Scraps Mega Kit coming out this week.

You can find Belle in Blue here and it's 20% off until Thursday!!! :)

Belle in Blue is a soft, pretty kit that is able to be used with just about any scrapbook LO. Wedding pages, baby pages, love pages, girly pages...you name it!! Kit is created at 300 dpi and has no drop shadows included. Kit includes: 6 Patterned Papers -4 Textured Solid Papers -5 Ribbons -3 Pins- 3 Gems- 1 Glitter Swirl- 1 Metal/Gem Swirl -2 Journaling Blocks -Glitter Alphabet (upper and lowercase)

LO can be seen here.

Back on the Wagon...

So...I'm back on the wagon this week! Eating well, tracking calories, drinking TONS of water, exercising more, scrapping away, designing more for you all...back in the swing of things! :) Don't forget to check back tomorrow...there just may be a little Valentine's present for all of you!! ;) Have a great day, girls! School was cancelled here today due to snow, so I'm off to play with the kiddos! {{HUGS}}

Back to "normal"...

2007-02-09T09:27:00.000-05:00

or I should say...as normal as it gets around here! LOL... ;) It was nice just falling back into the swing of things yesterday. Thanks for the nice words and for reading the kids' stories about the funeral. I thought you'd all get a kick out of it! :)

School
Christian had school yesterday and was so excited to see his friends that he missed on Tuesday. Their school was cancelled then because of how cold it was here. His teacher called our house on Monday night and left a message saying there was no school...Christian WILL NOT let me erase it!! LOL. We have listened to it no less than 30 times already and he is so darn excited that his teacher called our house. So cute!

I also had a little meeting with the 2 other moms that are in charge of the Valentine's party with me next Tuesday. Let me just say nicely that...it sucked. I'm used to being in charge of the things I volunteer for and it SO was not that way here! Not that I need to be in control...I would just like to have had some input. These 2 girls both go to church there (I don't), so they already know each other and are friends. I guess they pretty much had it all figured out before I got there, because I had NO input. At all. Nada...zip...zilch! *rolling eyes* I'm used to being a part of the group and being well liked and this really just rubbed me the wrong way. KWIM? I was excited to be a part of Christian's school party, but now...not so much. I'm just a little follower doing what I was told. THEN...the one girl typed up a paper on what we were doing and got my friggin' name wrong!!! Yeah...NICE....huh?!?!? I was "Melanie" in 2 spots and then "Karen" in another spot. Great...just great... *rolling my eyes yet again* Oh well...when you get lemons, make lemonade! I'll just use all my ideas I had with my own kids at home!!!

Oh...the one thing I AM in charge of is doing 1 Valentine's day game. Any ideas?

Big Plans for Tonight
Big plans for tonight...we have tickets to go to the Monster Truck show!!! We bought them months ago and there's a few of us going. My parents, my sister, Jarrett's dad, brother, & sister, me, Jarrett, & Christian. Jarrett's dad may not make it due to other family/funeral stuff, but the rest of us are excited! I've never been to one before, but I CAN NOT wait to see Christian's face! He is seriously going to flip out. I'll be sure to post some pics afterwards!

Logo/Amazing Race LOs
So, here's a logo I think I decided on. What do you think? I wanted something simple, yet pretty...did I achieve that? Any CC? I have my hardhat on...let it rip! :)

And here are my last 2 Amazing Race LOs. We had to give our younger selves advice in one and scraplift our partner in the other. My partner was Laurie Garza and I just couldn't love her more! She is a fantastic person and a wonderful scrapper. We got to know each other better and I am hoping that someday we get to meet each other in person so that I can give her the HUGE hug she deserves!!! :) She's always got sweet words of support and friendship and I can't even begin to tell you how great she is. Thanks again for being my teammate, girl!! {{HUGS}}

Advice. Credits can be seen here.

Scraplift of Laurie. Credits can be seen here.

WOW...
Did I hit ya with enough today?!?! LOL... Hopefully you're still awake! ;) Have a fantastic weekend, girls! {{HUGS}}

Totally, utterly drained....

2007-02-08T13:27:00.000-05:00

both physically and mentally! It has been a LONG few days. Viewings for Jarrett's grandma on Monday & Tuesday, funeral yesterday...with LOTS of family functions in the meantime. They wanted us to all be together as much as possible and there was a ton of food sent to them, so we have all been together almost non-stop since Sunday. Makes for a VERY long 4 days!! My parents watched the kids for 2 of the 3 viewings and also for the funeral yesterday, which helped so much. The kids just can't stay still and quiet for that long and they had a blast with my parents playing.

We explained to Christian that Gramma was up in heaven with Grandpap and he seemed to take it well. He's still young, so it still doesn't really sink in. We asked him if he wanted to put something in the casket for Gramma to take to heaven with him and he put 2 of his little monster trucks in there. "One for Gramma and one for Grandpap so they can play together in heaven." Yep...direct quote there. Tell me THAT isn't heart-wrenching! :) It was a very proud mommy moment and it made us all feel better for at least a minute. He placed them in Gramma's "bed" at the funeral home and we also put in a little resin duck figurine from Ava. We took them up to see her and Christian blew her a kiss and told her he loved her. Then, it was Ava's turn to say good-bye....ready for this??!?! She looks at Gramma in the casket, blows her a kiss, starts waving and says "Bye-Bye! See ya!". OMG!!! Jarrett & I almost fell over!! LOL... It's her new thing to say to people as we're leaving them and I guess she felt it was appropriate for Gramma too! Again...the sweet innocence that just makes your heart beat a little faster. I know that Gramma was up in heaven looking down at the 2 of them and laughing. :) Definitely made the day a little easier!

So...back to "normal" now. Christian had preschool today, Jarrett had work today...ugh...back to the grind. I am SO far behind in my CT stuff and haven't designed anything new since all of this started. I think I finally settled on a logo though....I'm going to play with it a little tonight and I'll share it tomorrow along with my last 2 Amazing Race LOs.

Again, thank you all so much for your thoughts and prayers. It seriously means more than you know. {{HUGS}} I am truly blessed to have all of you in my life. Have a wonderful day and I'll talk to you tomorrow! {{more HUGS}}

Update

2007-02-05T11:39:00.000-05:00

So, here's an update for all of you. Jarrett's grandma passed away at about 2:00 in the morning Saturday/Sunday. Jarrett and his family got to be there with her and it was very calm and peaceful. She was asleep the whole time they were there and medicated...she just stopped breathing and passed. We're starting the round of viewings and such, so I won't be around much the next few days. Just wanted to keep you all updated on what was going on and let you know why I wasn't around so much! Thanks again for all the prayers, girls! Jarrett reads my blog as well and is thankful for all of the nice things you are saying. You are all so very wonderful! {{{HUGS}}} I'll be stopping in momentarily to keep you up to date, okay? Have a good week!

Even more prayers, please!

2007-02-02T10:59:00.000-05:00

Okay, girls. I need you to send some more prayers my way. I've been posting asking for some for Jarrett's grandma and family. Today...I need even more!

Here it is in a nutshell. They found out a week and a half ago that she has lung cancer. The tumor is VERY aggressive and is multiplying very rapidly. She is too weak to give any treatment too and they gave her a month or 2 to live.

They have called in hospice and she is not able to leave the hospital even to die at home. Last night, we got a call that they didn't think she was even going to make it through the night. Jarrett went to the hospital and was there VERY late. I wasn't able to go because I had to stay home with the kids. My grandparents all died 10 years ago, so she has been like a grandma to me as well. I am just devastated. It kills me to see her suffer like this and it kills me even more to see Jarrett and his family being ripped apart inside. She was 100% normal...healthy...up until 2 weeks ago. How in the world does this happen???? :(

She ended up making it through the night, but now it's just a matter of time. They have stopped all treatment and are just "keeping her comfortable". She has been on morphine since yesterday and hardly wakes up at all. Right now, I'm just hoping that she goes quickly and quietly to end all the pain. Please send your prayers to our whole family right now. We need them. We just need the strength to pull through and realize that this is what God intended. If I'm not around the forums much this week, that's why. I will be updating my blog though for anyone who is interested. Thanks in advance! I appreciate it. {{HUGS}}

Wow...

2007-02-01T13:56:00.000-05:00

Life is driving me nuts right now!! I'm feeling overwhelmed and a little down in the dumps. Haven't been exercising much or eating very well, because of it either. Which, in turn, leads to feeling even crappier!! {rolling eyes} How to switch it around? Jarrett's grandma is not doing very well at all...thanks for the prayers you have already given and please keep giving more! We need all of them that we can get!!

"Perfect" Day at Preschool
Christian told me today that it was the "best day ever" at preschool! Is this the same boy who was crying a couple of weeks ago because he didn't want me to leave him!?!? LOL... He was all excited because today he got to take in snacks for his friends (we made the cake balls last night), it was show & tell day so he got to take in his motorcycle transporter truck, and then...to top it all off...he was the flag person today!! Yep...HUGE news in a 3 (almost 4) yr old's eyes! :) The flag person gets to hold the flag (duh...) while the class says the pledge of allegiance and then they are in charge of ringing the clean up bell for the day. Whooooo Hoooooo!!! Too darn cute, I tell 'ya!

And then....our little devil....
I swear, little Ava is the spawn of the devil sometimes! She is not eating dinner well AT ALL. Screaming, throwing her fork/food onto the floor, ugh...then she's just hungry and miserable and STILL won't eat! I've never had a problem with her not eating before. Normally, she's a human garbage disposal that never gets filled up! LOL... Also, her new thing is ripping all the clothes out of her dresser drawer and then climbing up the empty drawers to get stuff off of the top. Dangerous, huh!?!!? Not to mention frustruating as all hell when you have to pick up the clothes TWICE a day (morning and after nap) because they are all over the floor. We moved the dresser out into the living room last night because I just can't take it anymore! I'm sick of cleaning up after it and scared she's going to hurt herself!!!

Pizza Dip Recipe
Okay...so some of the DST girls got a little crazy waiting for Gina to open up her revamped store and started a hysterical thread on the MB. Long story short....everyone wanted the pizza dip recipe I talked about, so here it is! :)

Pizza Dip
1 pkg cream cheese (softened a bit)
1 8 oz. jar pizza sauce
1 c. mozzarella cheese
3/4 c. parmesan cheese
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tbsp. italian seasoning
Green pepper and Onion chopped

In a bowl, mix cream cheese, italian seasoning, & garlic powder. Spread in a microwave safe pie plate. Mix together the mozzarella cheese & parmesan cheese in a bowl. Sprinkle 1/2 of this mixture over the mixture. Spread pizza sauce over this. Sprinkle rest of mozzarella cheese/parmesan cheese on top. Sprinkle green pepper/onion on top of that. Microwave for 4 minutes uncovered or until cheese is hot and melted. Serve with crackers. (I used the new Keebler Toppers. The garlic ones were YUMMY!!!!)

Enjoy! This is seriously my new "go to" dip recipe! I've made it for a few get togethers and everyone just flips over it. PLUS it's super easy to make!

Happy Thursday!!
Hope you all have a wonderful day! I'm off to shop at GMD for the big sale and work on a new kit! Talk to you soon! {{{{HUGS}}}}

Prayers Please...

2007-01-29T14:10:00.000-05:00

Jarrett's grandma is in the hospital and not doing very well at all. If you could all please send any prayers that you have to her and Jarrett's family, I would totally appreciate it! Thanks!

Sick kids....again!
Yep...both kids are sick yet again! Ever since Christian started preschool, it's been the never-ending round of germs here!! Ugh... They are starting to feel better now, but it's just SO tiring!! I hate seeing little ones sick. They just don't know how to handle it, KWIM? Cross your fingers and hope this round is gone soon!

Preschool Mommy Things
I'm the snack mommy for this week! They are focusing on circles, so the snacks I bring in are supposed to be in that shape. At least I got an easy shape, right?!?! ;) I'm thinking of making Andrea's infamous cake balls. Christian loves them and they're easy to make. Also, Christian said he wants to make M&M cookies. I think it's so darn adorable that he gets so excited about doing special stuff for his class. When I told him it was our snack week he was thrilled! LOL...

Also, I'm one of the class moms in charge of the Valentine's Party! If you have any ideas for easy games/treats/crafts for 3/4 yr olds, let me know! I've been browsing the web and have found a couple, but I'm always up for more ideas!

Weekend
The weekend was pretty calm and boring around here. Went to Jarrett's parents' house on Saturday night and my family came here last night. My sister just got back from Mexico and wanted to show us all her pics and stuff. Oh, and she got THE cutest shirts for the kids! They're in the wash now, but I'll take pics to show you!

World of Wheels Pics
So, I know we went to this last weekend, but I'm just getting around to posting the pics. This was seriously like a dream for Christian! He is obsessed with all vehicles and this was just right up his alley!

Meeting Lightning McQueen! Notice we just "had" to wear our Cars hat & shirt! LOL...

Christian saw this car and said it looked like "Snot Rod" from the movie Cars. ;)

The kids were fascinated with the size of some of the trucks they had. These wheels were bigger than they were!!!!

And....in Christian's hand, you can see his favorite thing he got the whole night long! Even though we bought him a shirt (that cost TOO much!), snacks, etc...he loved the FREE catalog one of the cars had next to it! LOL... These guys saw how much Christian loved their big, green car and gave him that racing parts catalog that it is featured in. He hasn't put it down since then!!!! He carried it around all night and was too stinkin' cute with it!

Have a great Monday!

Hope you all have a wonderful day! Nothing much planned for today except for snack making and MAYBE a little sled riding if the snow hasn't completely melted yet! ;) Talk to you all tomorrow! {{HUGS}}

Whew!

2007-01-25T14:17:00.000-05:00

I've got ALL kinds of stuff to share with you today! So, grab your hats and hold on! LOL... ;)

Hubby of the Year?
So, remember last week when I told you Jarrett was running for Hubby of the Year? Well...he's officially been crowned! :) He has been nothing but supportive with how much time I've spent on the computer this past week getting stuff together for the store and then he comes home from work with these....just because! He knows I'm a little frustruated with things right now and he knows that I LOVE flowers! After all...who can look at these and say they're not happy!??!

Aren't they gorgeous?!?!? Christian got a real kick out of them too. He kept saying that I got them "because they love me SO much" and that they were for "our sweet momma". Does it get much cuter than that, I ask you??!! I think not! :) Little Ava keeps sticking her nose in them to smell and is even climbing up on the table so that she can get a better view. LOL...

So, I made a LO with my new kit to show Jarrett how much I love him and that he's earned his reward! ;) Also, I used Andrea's new Vintage Photo Frames...aren't they the best?!??!

You can see it here too.

Amazing Digi Race

Okay...so I am having so much fun doing this! My partner, Laurie, is fantastic! I just love her to death and we make a great team! The first challenge for this week was to use a sketch provided to us. Of course, I took it and made it into 2 pages! LOL... I just can't resist!

Here it is! Credits seen here.

Surprise Gift

A couple of weeks ago, Yen was having a contest on her blog where she chose random people to win a prize. Well, guess who was one of them! ME!! :) I won this book. It came in the mail today and I can't thank her enough! And then it made me start thinking how lucky I am to have friends that live all over the world. Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, England, Canada, etc...it's amazing! All because we share the same hobby and have gotten to know each other better. How friggin' neat! Anyways, Yen, Love ya, girl!

Happy Thursday!

LOL...I just saw that Gina tagged me with the same one from yesterday! Guess you girls ALL want to know more about me! ;) So, Ms. Miller...consider it done! LOL... And before you ask...yep...I'm just THAT darn good that I knew you were going to tag me with this! Wanted to get a jump on it, ya know! ;)

Hope you all have a wonderful day!!! {{HUGS}}

New Products and Some Tags!

2007-01-24T11:06:00.000-05:00

I've gotten a couple of tags over the last couple days and I haven't gotten to them yet. SO...it was a boring day around here yesterday and not much to talk about, so I'm doing them! :)

Kirsty , Bretta, & Yen all tagged me with the same thing. LOL... (makes it easy on me, huh!??!)

List 5 cool/unknown things about me.

1. I love to garden! Once the weather starts to warm up even a tad, I'm outside buying flowers, planting, re-planting (lol), moving things around...I just can't stay away! It's a total addiction and I can't even go anywhere that sells flowers without me drooling over them.

2. I listen to absolutely EVERYTHING when it comes to music. I don't think it's possible to find anyone more eclectic in their choices. I love alternative rock, pop, dance, country, classical, big band/swing, oldies, hard rock, easy listening...you name it, I listen to it! The only thing I never got into was opera though...don't know why, but it just doesn't hit me!

3. Sometimes I go DAYS without seeing anything other than cartoons on the T.V. Nothing. No programs, no movies, no news, nothing! Just Diego, Dora, Handy Manny, Little Einsteins, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, etc...and to tell you the truth, I don't really mind! These shows are DARN cute and really teach stuff to the kids! It's amazing what they learn just by hearing it in the background!

4. I still talk to my mom every single day on the telephone. No fail. Even if I just saw her the night before, I still have to talk to her the next day. We've always been close and she's really the only other adult I talk to on a regular basis except for Jarrett!

5. Hmmmm....having trouble thinking of another one! LOL... Well, no surprise here, but I spend a lot of my free time on the computer with you digi girls. :) Even though I haven't met any of you IRL, you are still my friends and I care about all of you! Sappy...stupid...whatever you want to call it, it's true! I'm hoping that digi takes off and we can have a huge get together somewhere! I'd love to see all of you and give you a huge hug!

Now, here's who I'm tagging! Mary Elizabeth Katie Gina Karen Heather

New Products
I loaded some new products into my store this morning! A kit called Kiss Me and a 2 page template called Button Up. (It's the template that I gave away here last week.)

Kiss Me

A great kit for Valentine's day, anniversary, or just an everyday "I Love You" layout. Includes: 6 Textured Patterned Papers 4 Textured Solid Papers 5 Ribbons 2 Tags 3 Painted Wood Hearts 1 Silver Chain 4 Silver Hearts (2 as charms to hang from the chain) -No drop shadows are included with kit. For display purposes only.

Button Up

Clean and simple 2 page layout. These pages are also strong enough to stand on their own if you don't choose to use them together. Includes: 2 PSD files 2 TIFF files Previews Instructions for use.

Okay, girls!

That's enough random rambling for today! Thanks again for taking the time to read it! {{HUGS}}

Wow...what a day!

2007-01-23T13:23:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was interesting for me. Such a huge mixture of emotions....excited to get up and running in the store, nervous that it was all for nothing, exhausted from staying up till all hours of the night this weekend, extremely high when I got notice that someone bought something from my store, to kinda low when I only sold to 3 people. :( Hmmm...yes, I'm a stressed out, tired nutball today! LOL... I know it's going to take time to get better and get on my feet, so hopefully it'll all work out in the end.

My very first customer was Marci (m1218p)! She is such a fantastic lady and I was THRILLED when I saw that I sold something!!! :) Anyways, she made a beautiful heritage LO using my Butterfly Kisses kit. I wanted to share it all with you so you could see how pretty it is! Thanks again, girl!

Credits are here.

And I want to send a HUGE thank you to the other girls that purchased something. It seriously made my day and I appreciate it SO very much! Also, to all of you wonderful girls who took the time to comment here, send me an email, PM me....THANK YOU!!! It all means more than you know! {{HUGS}}

Okay...so very short entry today. I'm still tired, both kids are sleeping, and I think I'm going to go take a nap! :) Not much thrilling going on today anyways and my eyes are starting to blur looking at the screen! LOL... Happy Tuesday to all of you!! {{HUGS}}

It's official!!!!!

2007-01-22T10:21:00.000-05:00

I am officially a designer at Elemental Scraps now!! :) Today is their grand re-opening of the shoppe with a gorgeous new look and I'm a new addition! I am so very excited and there are lots of great sales/offers over there by all the designers, SO GO CHECK IT OUT!!!! My store is here. :)

I'm really excited and also really nervous about having some things in the store. Hopefully I'll sell at least ONE thing! LOL... Here's a LO I made using a kit I made, Butterfly Kisses.

Credits here & here.

The House

Well, we spent the ENTIRE weekend getting the house together for someone to come look at it yesterday. It's not even on the market yet, but it's someone Jarrett knows through work. Hopefully they liked it, because we spent a LOT of time working around the house. Between that and getting some stuff ready to go into the store, I've been up 'till at least 3:00 am for the last 3 nights! Yep...I'm exhausted!!!

World of Wheels

The World of Wheels was a lot of fun on Friday. It's a whole bunch of cool cars. A lot of classics, Grave Digger (monster truck), and of course....LIGHTNING MCQUEEN!!! Christian had a fit. Seriously. He wanted to wear a Cars shirt and his Cars hat so that "he could show it to Lightning McQueen". LOL... Of course, he wanted to know where all the other Cars were though...especially his favorite, Ramone!! It was so fun...I don't know who liked it more, me...or Christian!! ;) I'll post some pics tomorrow.

That's it

Okay, everyone! That's it for today! I'm exhausted and have to muster up the energy to take care of the kids! I think it's going to be a "chill out movie day". Shhhhh...don't tell anyone! LOL... And keep your eyes open for another freebie this week, okay? {{HUGS}}

I'm totally flattered...

2007-01-19T11:36:00.000-05:00

by all the support you girls have shown me. THANKS!!! I've been having some fun designing a few more things over the past couple of days and can't wait to share with you! :)

Big News
I got offers by a few different stores to start selling with them!!! :) I'm going to start with just one until I get my feet wet and see how it goes, but I am SO excited!!! This store is fantastic and has a great group of girls that I can't wait to get to know better. SO...want to know where it is???? Elemental Scraps!!! They are re-vamping their store and when they have the grand re-opening, I'll be there! I am just thrilled beyond all belief and I have all of you wonderful digi girls to thank for it all! All of the stores that offered me the opportunity were FANTASTIC and I hated turning anyone away. Thank you all!!! {{HUGS}} I am seriously a little overwhelmed by how great everyone is being about this!

New Kit and LO
Andrea Burns posted a new kit yesterday and it's GORGEOUS! One of my favorites of hers! And she has a contest for it too! Check that out here.

LoveNote at The Digi Chick

And here's a LO I made using it. These are the pics of my friends, Missy & Dwight, from their last pregnancy. Credits can be seen here.

Weekend Plans

We don't have much planned for this weekend. Tonight, we're going to the World of Wheels with my parents. Christian is obsessed with cars in general, so he's going to love it. THEN, we found out the life sized Lightning McQueen is going to be there!!! AHHHH!!! Christian is going to literally have a stroke when he sees it! LOL.... I'll be sure to post pics on Monday! The lady is coming to look at our house on Sunday night, so there will be a lot of cleaning/de-cluttering/hiding before then. Want to make the house look as good as possible, 'ya know?!?! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I'll be back to chat on Monday morning! {{HUGS}}

What a great day!

2007-01-18T12:19:00.000-05:00

Well, let me tell 'ya! What a great day it was yesterday!! :) :) :) I was a little nervous about putting myself out there and doing this and I'm thrilled with the support you all showed me! THANKS!!! {{HUGS}}

All of these links are still active. I just copied and pasted them from yesterday's post.
Template link download #3
Paper Download link #3
Element Download link #2

If anyone is still having problems getting them, please email me at melaniecolosimodesigns@gmail.com :)

I still have a few surprises for all of you that came out of yesterday that I can let you know in the next couple of days. I promise! I totally appreciate every single thing that all of you wrote yesterday both here and on the forums. It means more to me than any of you will ever know. It's really nice to feel so loved and to feel so gratified by something that I am doing for myself. Not the kids, not Jarrett, not the rest of the family, not church...just me! I LOVE IT!!! ;)

Hubby of the Year Award goes to...
Jarrett!!! :) Yep. He's the absolute best! I was published in Scrapbook Trends January issue and couldn't wait to see it. I've been trying to wait patiently for the complimentary copy they are sending me, but it's been KILLING me! So, I started calling around to local scrapbook stores/craft stores/bookstores and NO ONE carries the darn thing! {rolling my eyes} Long story short, Jarrett called places while he was at work and found a store an hour away that had it. Then he drove there on his lunch break at work (An hour up AND an hour back!!!) just to get it for me. And ALL without me knowing! Yep...Hubby of the Year award...here he comes! :)

No Fit!!
And we had NO FIT at preschool today! Hallelujah!!!! :) He told me the other night that he's scared something is going to happen to me and that I'm not going to come back. How sad!! :( Jarrett & I have spent the last couple of days reassuring him that I'm okay and nothing is going to happen. Thankfully it worked. At least for now...{fingers crossed}

Great Day Vibes
coming right back at 'ya! :) I hope that you have a fantastic one! See you all tomorrow! {{HUGS}}

And the winner is.....

2007-01-17T09:14:00.000-05:00

****HOLY HECK!!! You girls are nuts! The templates maxed out again?!?!? And the papers too??!!?? YAY! Here's some more links! Template link download #3
Template Link Download #4
Paper Download link #3
Element Download link #2

***ADDED MORE LINKS! :) I heard the templates were maxed out! Just added some more links here: Template link download #2 Not sure why you need to log in to yousendit to get the papers/elements. I have to run out the door to a meeting, so I'll check into it when I come back, okay? Thanks again for all the nice words, girls! {{HUGS}}

***Edited...the links are good now! Before, only the template one was working! Sorry! :) Thanks for all the nice comments, girls!

RAJI! She guessed it correctly first! :) I'm going to try my hand at designing! I'm a little nervous about it, but I've had fun playing around making a few things already and would like to share 2 of them with you today. I'm going to hand out some freebies for a while until I get better and can find a store to sell at, (hint...hint...) ;) so check back often! I have some different ideas in the works, but kits and 2 page templates are going to be the basis of it all. (And I'm sure I'll throw some 1 pagers in there too for you girls that don't like the doubles!) :)

So.....without further ado.....here's a peek and the download links! (If the links expire or you have a problem, just let me know!) It's a mini kit and a 2 page template. I need to work on my elements a bit more.... ;)

Soft & Sweet Mini Kit
Download Papers HERE.
Download Elements HERE.

Download papers

And a LO I made using it.

This is my LO for the Amazing Race this week.

Doodled vines are by Traci Murphy. Template by Janet Phillips.

First Template Freebie
Download here.

And that, my friends, is it for today! I'm going to try to contact Raji to get her a GC right now! How exciting! Thanks for playing along with my little game yesterday! I've really been trying to think of a way that I could get more obsorbed into the community that I love so much and I think this is a good way to start! You girls have always been good to me and I'm proud to call you all my friends!!!

And Julie Jewels....if I ever get to selling at a store, you're my first girl! I promise!!! :) Love ya!

I have some hubby of the year news for you too, but I don't want poor Jarrett to lose the love he deserves. SO...I'll tell you all tomorrow about how lucky I am! :)

Have a great Hump Day! {{HUGS}}

Think someone guessed it??!?!

2007-01-16T21:29:00.000-05:00

Well....you're right! :) Guess you better check back tomorrow to find out what it is! ;) (yeah...I just LOVE to torture people!) LOL...

Thanks for all your guesses, girls! It was fun to see who was saying what! Especially some of the funny creative ones I got! Don't worry...you'll all get a little consolation prize! ;)

{{HUGS}} See you tomorrow!

My Surprise....think you know it???

2007-01-16T13:52:00.000-05:00

Okay, girls! I posted that I have a little surprise for all of you! But NO ONE knows what it is! (Except Jarrett and my friend, Missy) Some of you have been saying that you think you know what it is and I want to see if you really do! ;) SO....here's a little contest for 'ya! Post your guesses here as a comment on my blog as to what my surprise is. The first person to guess it right, gets a $5 gift certificate to one of the girls I CT for. Your choice of one out of these designers: Andrea Burns, Janet Phillips, Lie Fhung, Misty Mareda, or Janel Kretschman. I'm curious to see who guesses it first! :)

Another Bad Day

So...another fit at preschool today from Christian! :( Again...just not wanting me to leave. And yes. I left him crying AGAIN. Yep. Momma-of-the-Year award here...I'm telling you! {rolling eyes} After I left him, I hid around the corner and he only cried a couple of minutes though. Thank goodness!

Do any of you have any ideas on what I can do to stop this? It's happened twice now in the last 2 weeks! I'm open to any suggestions!

New Goodies

Fhung has posted some gorgeous new goodies at her store! Be sure to check them out if you get a chance! She also has some new freebies posted!! :)

Check it out here!

Check out the add on here!

The Wedding

So, I needed a book to read before I made it to the store to get the 4th Outlander book. I've had The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks sitting on my nightstand for a while now and decided to pick it up. It was so darn good, I finished it already!!! I've been reading before going to bed and I just couldn't put it down! It is SUCH a beautiful romance story. Oh...the kind that any girl would just LOVE! Especially if you have kids and put them first in your life, you should definitely read this! What a great, GREAT story! I'll definitely be grabbing more of his books!

Start Guessing!

That's it for today! Start guessing and I'll post either tomorrow or the next day (depending on if someone gets it right) what it is and who wins! :) Good luck! ;) {{HUGS}}

How???

2007-01-15T13:13:00.000-05:00

How in the world can the high temp today be 59 degrees and tomorrow the high is 32 degrees?!?! WTH??!?!?!? I am sick of the rain...sick of the cold...sick of it all! Either give us enough snow so that my little ones can have fun playing in it or give us the springtime!!! Ugh...

Work Weekend
So, we worked all weekend on the house getting it ready for the lady to come look at it this week. Just finishing up little projects that have been sitting on the backburner. Jarrett's parents took the kids overnight on Saturday and my sister came over to help us. We got a lot done, but it still feels like there is so much to do! KWIM?!? Just being paranoid, I guess!

So, we were so busy working around the house (and I went to church yesterday), that I didn't even listen to a message on my answering machine until late last night! Didn't even notice it was there!!! It was my friend, Missy, saying that she was in Pittsburgh (she lives 4 hours away now) and that she wanted to see us! HELLO!!! That sucks! I didn't get to call her back and she was leaving late this morning so there was no chance I could see her or her kids. :( Bummer, huh!?!?

My Weight Loss
So now, officially, I have lost 23 pounds since June 1st!!! :) Yipee!!! I am so happy and feel so healthy! I've been going to the gym regularly again, eating well again (for the most part!), and drinking my water...oh...I'm feeling so good! I still have 20 pounds more that I want to lose and I'm hoping to get that done in the next 12 weeks. I know...a HUGE stretch, but it's worth a try! I definitely want to lose as much as possible before the beginning of March. I turn 30 on March 3rd and want to look HOT for it! (Maybe it'll take some of the sting away!) LOL...

My Surprise
So....I mentioned last week that I may have a little surprise in the works! ;) I think I'll be able to tell you all this week....hopefully... ;) Some people are curious and think they know what it is....SO....how about this! I'm going to have a little contest here at my modest little blog! I'll give you details tomorrow or the next day! :)

Amazing Digi Race LOs

Just realized I forgot to post these! Here they are! My sign of the times LO and my ATC.

Credits seen here.

Happy Monday!
Hope you all have a fantastic week! Thanks again for checking in! {{HUGS}}

I've been tagged!

2007-01-14T10:09:00.000-05:00

Yen tagged me on Friday, so that's all you're getting for today! ;) I'll be back with my normal rambling tomorrow morning...I promise! :) Hope you all are having a great weekend! {{HUGS}}

3 Things Survey

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:
1. Melanie
2. Mel
3. lemonyr (lemon-ee-r....my dad's nickname for me when I was little was lemony (a play on my name) and I added my maiden name initial when I needed a screen name!)

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD:
1. lemonyr
2. jarmel (JARrett & MELanie)
3.

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1. Eyes
2. Smile
3. Lower Legs

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU DON’T LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1. Stomach
2. Thighs
3. Skin (I have the bad skin of a teenager!!!)

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:
1. Dutch
2. German
3. Irish

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:
1. Anything happening to my kids/hubby
2. Deep Water
3. Robbers/Stalkers (I am forever worried about someone breaking into my house with us in it!)

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:
1. Hair Brush
2. Chapstick
3. Diaper Bag (lol)

THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW: (ohhhh...caught me on a lucky day! I'm ready for church!! lol)
1. Black Pants
2.Dark Grey Sweater Turtleneck
3. Silver Earrings

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS OR MUSICAL ARTISTS: (I'm VERY eclectic!)
1. Matchbox 20
2. Brad Paisley
3. Louis Armstrong

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE SONGS:
1. You've Got a Way (Shania Twain) - our wedding song
2. What a Wonderful World
3. You are My Sunshine (sappy...I know!) lol...

THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP:
1. Honest
2. Romantic
3. Loyal

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE (in no particular order):
1. I love to digi scrap.
2. I lived in Mexico once.
3. I love Walt Disney World.

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE PREFERRED SEX THAT APPEAL TO YOU:
1. Arms
2. Smile
3. Eyes

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:
1. Digi scrapping
2. Gardening
3. Photography

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:
1. Go back to bed!
2. Move out of our house and into our dream house.
3. Eat something chocolate/salty and very bad for me! ;)

THREE CAREERS YOU’RE CONSIDERING/YOU’VE CONSIDERED:
1. School Teacher
2. Personal Trainer (for like 2 seconds!) lol
3. Something with my digi scrapping.

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:
1. EVERYWHERE!!! ;)
2. Walt Disney World
3. Cruise to the Caribbean

THREE KID’S NAMES YOU LIKE: (okay...so I'm not going to pick Christian & Ava, 'cause that's obvious! lol)
1. Isabella
2. Colin
3. Ben

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
1. To Travel the world as much as possible
2. Watch my kids get happily married and have their own families
3. Build our dream home/garden.

THREE WAYS THAT YOU ARE STEREOTYPICALLY A BOY:
1. I like to drink beer out of a can/bottle. No fancy drinks for me!
2. I’m not scared to speak my mind.
3. I can drive Jarrett's big 'ole pickup truck and STILL look hot! ;)

THREE WAYS THAT YOU ARE STEREOTYPICALLY A GIRL:
1. I LOVE pink!
2. I like to have my nails/toes done.
3. I love to shop

THREE CELEB CRUSHES:
1. Brad Pitt
2. Ben Affleck
3. Matt Damon

THREE PEOPLE THAT YOU ARE TAGGING:
1. Julie (MRS2A50)
2. Andrea Burns
3. Angelina

Yipppeeee!!!

2007-01-11T20:56:00.000-05:00

Today was a MUCH better day on the school front. No crying or not wanting to go. In fact, Christian just gave me a quick kiss and went running into his class. LOL. Thank goodness! I was totally not looking forward to another episode like on Tuesday! ;) Thanks to all of you for letting me know I wasn't nuts! LOL...

Finished Voyager!
So, I finished Voyager by Diana Galbadon. It's the third book in the Outlander Series and I LOVED it! I don't find much time to read, but since the new year and going to bed a little earlier, I've been making time at night right before turning off the lights. These books were recommended to me by Andrea and they are fantastic! SO not something I would pick up by myself, but they have me totally obsorbed! They are about a woman who accidentally goes back in time and ends up finding her true love. It's a great romance...just unbelievable, the kind that every woman wants. The first book...sucked me in as soon as she went back in time, the second book...not so good, but NECESSARY to the plot, the third book...again, sucked me in. I'm going to buy the 4th book this weekend hopefully.

Speaking of Andrea...

She has a new kit out! Winter's Grace. Absolutely gorgeous! There are the prettiest crocheted snowflakes! AND it's on sale!!!

And here's a LO I made using it. (template by Janet Phillips)
Also, she's having a HUGE retirement sale on older designs. Check out her store here. Her designs are just gorgeous and full of detail. If you haven't used any of her stuff yet, give her a try! :) (And no...I'm NOT just saying that 'cause I'm on her CT!!) LOL....

A little surprise...
I have a little surprise in the works. And of course, my new loyal blog readers are going to hear about it first. I have to keep it a secret for now, but maybe sometime next week I can let the cat out of the bag! Shhhh.... ;)

Losing my mind?
Do you ever feel like you're just totally losing your mind? I do...almost on a daily basis! LOL... I forget to call people back, return emails, etc...etc...etc... A couple of days ago, I emailed Shelly about the Biggest Loser challenge and the list of girls we would like for our team. I went into LOTS of detail creating my list in a Word document so that I could copy/paste it into the email to her. Ummm....I wrote a little note at the top of the email about why I didn't choose the other girls, a little BS-ing about non-related stuff and sent the email. Closed out of my Word document without saving. (I totally wouldn't need this list again or for anyone else) And guess what I get back. An email from Shelly saying "Ummm...was there supposed to be a list of names attached to that?!?!". AHHHHH!!! I forgot to copy/paste the damn thing! Needless to say, she got the Readers Digest version after that. {rolling my eyes}

Then, I get an email from my good friend, Melissa, tonight. She just had a gorgeous little baby girl a couple of weeks ago and when she was pregnant, we took some pics of her. This was at friggin' Halloween time. HELLO!!! Guess who totally forgot about them? Who totally didn't proof them yet? Who totally didn't get them to her at all? Yep...you got it! Me again! LOL. She's just too darn nice to say anything before now. When I took them, we were SO overwhelmed with life. Then the holidays came and I just completely forgot about them. Ugh...calgon take me away! So...I'm going to work on those tonight for her. And maybe a little surprise for the baby's room too? Shhhh...

Rambling
Yep, I'm a big talker in person too. LOL. Hopefully you haven't grown tired of reading this yet! I truly appreciate all of you that take the time to comment! Thanks! I was told today that I can't email you back unless you have your email address set up in blogger or give it to me some other way. SO...let me know your email! ;) I'd love to thank you!!! Happy Thursday! {{HUGS}}

3 and a half years

2007-01-10T14:42:00.000-05:00

and Christian hasn't shown a sign of separation anxiety. Only once a while ago he did get worked up when Jarrett's parents were going to babysit him so we could go out. And that was bad enough. SO...guess what happens yesterday...you got it! A MAJOR hissy fit inside his preschool. He woke up saying he didn't want to go. Whatever. That has been normal recently. He just doesn't like to get his butt up, dressed, and moving fast in the morning. He gets over it by the time we're in the car and he's all excited to see his little friends. So, yesterday we get all ready, to school, taking off our coat in the hallway (the whole time yakking away to his teacher about how much better his belly is feeling), and BAM! Right after he kisses me good-bye, he starts crying. Just a little. I ask what's wrong, he just says he doesn't want me to leave. I give him a big hug and try to walk him into his classroom telling him it's going to be okay. Nope...not working. In fact...I can't even get him in the room! He won't even pass the darn threshold!!! VERY long story short...what started out as a little crying turned into a HUGE fit. Crying, yelling that he didn't want to stay, hiding behind the door, hiding behind my legs...and there's me. Ready to start crying too! :( And all of this while holding Ava who is SO ready to be out of there! LOL... Not a fun time! His teacher told me that this is normal after XMas break because they are used to being home with you again. She told me to just leave and he would be fine in 5 minutes. If not, they would call my cell phone.

So, I walk to the end of the hall and around the corner. (Christian is screaming bloody murder by now!) And yep, you know it...I feel like "Mommy of the Year"! {dripping with sarcasm there} I can just hear him saying "I want my Mama" and "I want to go get her"...ugh...totally friggin' heartbreaking. But, I left. Tears in my eyes and ready for a mental hospital to come take ME away, but I left. The teacher said it was the best thing to do and I trust her opinion. She's seen this MANY times, I'm sure.

Sure enough, I come back around 11:00 (it's over at 11:30) and peak in the little window in his classroom door. There's my little guy. Laughing and playing with his friends and having a good time! Now, I've already been crying in my car and talking to Jarrett on the phone ready to have a complete meltdown. And here HE is, having fun!!! Little shit! ;) LOL... Then, (you're going to get a real kick out of this), when they open the door and it's time to leave, he has the audacity (sp?) to say to his teachers....ready???..."Can I stay here with you guys?"!!!! AHHHH!!!! We all busted out laughing and now I'm going to assume that tomorrow is going to be a good day. :)

KMart Sucks

Remember that line from the movie Rain Man? Well, yeah...it's true! At least the one by us does!! Every single time I go there, there's one flippin' cashier open with a long line and they have nothing that I want. So, my main purpose for going there yesterday was the plastic underbed containers they had on sale and my makeup was on sale for BOGO. Guess what...out of both!! Ugh...I walked out of that darn store with 4 things. NONE of which were needed! What a waste of a trip. I just hate that!

XMas stuff

Yep...ours is still up! Tree and all!!! We seriously need to get to work on that asap. I'm sick of looking at it and we're having someone come look at the house next week. I need to get my butt in gear!

See ya!

I'm off to work on a LO for Andrea Burns and my LO for the Amazing Race. Hopefully I'll have them up to show to you tomorrow or the next day! Also, I'm trying to figure out a way to get more visitors to my blog...any ideas? Am I just that boring? ;) Oh, and one last thing. Have a great Wednesday everyone! I'll see you tomorrow! {{HUGS}}

Relaxing day!

2007-01-08T23:09:00.000-05:00

Today was VERY relaxing! Nothing planned, nowhere to go...oh..so nice! :) I did a little laundry (and before you ask...no...I didn't fold it right away like I said I was going to! In fact, 2 loads of towels are still in hampers on the living room floor!) LOL... Guess that's a new year's goal I really need to work on! ;) We all just laid around the whole day. Played with the kids, watched T.V., very low-key. I loved it! Tomorrow morning is a school morning though and that always makes it interesting! We're not very fast movers in the morning and Christian has to be at school at 9:30 am. AND his school is 20 minutes away. (We wanted him to be in the school district that we're moving to, so we had to compromise and do it this way for a year.) He's only in school for 2 hours though, so it isn't enough time for me to come home, lug Ava in and out of the car, and make it back. SO...Ava & I go on a grand adventure every Tuesday and Thursday for 2 hours. Almost always some type of shopping that needs done. I'm thinking tomorrow we're going to hit good 'ole KMart. They have the makeup I use as BOGO and also plastic storage things on sale this week. Thrilling, huh?!?! ;)

Such a boring entry, but that's kinda how the whole day was...boring! LOL. Hope you all had a great weekend! {{HUGS}}

LOs for the challenges

2007-01-08T14:15:00.000-05:00

Hee...hee...I forgot to add pics of the layouts I told you about last night! These are what I made for the challenges at The Digi Shoppe! Here they are:

The Day

Credits can be seen here.

Baking Cookies Page 1

Credits can be seen here.

Baking Cookies Page 2

Credits can be seen here.

The weekend is over...

2007-01-07T21:52:00.000-05:00

and I have to say "I'm glad"! Yep...you don't hear that very much, do 'ya??!?! I love the weekends. I love having Jarrett home with us, I love that I can get a little bit more "me" time, I love that we can do errands together....everything about the weekend is great. UNTIL...it's full of stuff that you don't want to do. Especially today.

Church was just a killer. I haven't been there in a couple of weeks because I'm just feeling a little burned out by it all. It's a small church with a majority of the congregation being very elderly. Hence, the group of volunteers to head things up and keep the church running is very, very small. I find myself getting involved in too many things, getting in over my head and I think it's starting to take it's toll on me. When I leave church recently, I think "oh...I'm so glad it's over and I'm going home"...NOT GOOD. You're supposed to leave church feeling refreshed, revived, full of life and ready to face the week and what it brings you. Lately, I've just been wondering about who is going to ask me to do what when I go there and which person is going to get irritated by some comment I say. (The elderly group of members is VERY set in their ways and not open to many new ideas.) I'm trying to change this mode of thinking, but I just don't know how to do it. Any suggestions? I want to LIKE going to church again!

The rest of the weekend

Really didn't do a whole lot or get much accomplished! I had my annual reports for 2006 due for the committee I'm on at church, so I spent Saturday night with Jarrett trying to get it all to balance correctly. My mom & dad aren't very computer literate and had their reports for their committees that needed typing up. I did theirs too and turned all 3 in this morning.

Went to the gym yesterday morning (that makes 3 whole days this week!) and I'll tell 'ya what...I feel great! It's amazing how much impact it has on my mental state as well as my physical state. I just feel happier and more relaxed when I go regularly.

The girls at The Digi Shoppe had a New Years crop this weekend and had TONS of challenges/chats/events going on. I made it to the chat on Friday night and had a BLAST with all the girls there! I really need to make it a point to do that more often. :) I also did a couple of the challenges (wish I could have done more though) and played around a lot.

That's it!

I'm tired and want to just "wind down". It's been a LONG day! Hope you all had a great weekend! {{HUGS}}

Got to sleep in!

2007-01-05T14:36:00.000-05:00

Yep...you read it right...I got to sleep in today! Yipppee!!! Until 9:30! The kids usually get up around 8:00, so this was a real treat. Christian needed to get up to use the bathroom around 7:30, then I begged him to come in bed with me so I could sleep more. That little guy didn't wake up until NOON!!! He hasn't slept like this in forever. I'm thinking that he just still isn't feeling well and his body is catching up with him. But boy...that 9:30 was a godsend to me! :) Thanks, kids!

Amazing Digi Race

I also got to do my LO for the Amazing Digi Race first challenge last night. We had to scrap a goal for the year 2007. ONLY one goal. I had fun with it because it actually made me do a page about Jarrett. Poor guy doesn't get many pages because I'm always doing the kids! Laurie is my partner for the race and I'm so excited to be doing this with her! She's a wonderful person and a terrific scrapper...let's do it, girl! :)

Credits click here

Exercise/Food

I was doing really good for about 6 months and then decided to slack a little over the holidays. I didn't go to the gym for a month!!! Ugh...I felt so crappy overall and couldn't wait to get back to it. I went this week on Tuesday and Thursday and aiming for tomorrow morning too. I really want to get in the swing of a schedule again...it really worked out for me that way. Also, I cooked dinner every night this week!! And it was healthy!! Yep, try to pull yourself back up into your chair and slow your heart rate down. I don't want anyone having a heart attack here! LOL. I'm thinking that tonight may be the night for takeout though. Hmmm...should I call Jarrett now!?! ;)

Weekend Plans

Friday: Nothing big planned so far. We were going to go see a band tonight, but with the kids being sick, we're not going to.

Saturday/Sunday: Also, there is a woman who may be interested in buying our house! We weren't going to put it on the market until at least this spring, but she casually mentioned to Jarrett that she was looking for a house like ours in the area we live in. Ummm...tell me we wouldn't be nuts to show it to her!!! So, she's coming next weekend, so we need to de-clutter and finish up little projects this weekend/week so it's ready when she comes.

Sunday: The kick off of our 150th anniversary at church. I'm one of the co-chairpeople on the anniversary committee, so there is a lot going on! We are planning a year full of events/fundraisers. It is a tiny church, so there's only so much we can do, but we're going to try our best to do a great job! This weekend, we are stringing up a large banner in front of the church stating 150 years that will stay up all year long. Also, we had some beautiful bookmarks made for the pulpit and lecturn that are embroidered and will stay up all year long. We're going to tell the congregation what we have planned for the year and try to stir up some excitement. Anyone have any fun ideas for things we can do? Also, I'm in charge of setting up/serving communion AND taking collection this week. WHOA...talk about a lot going on in a 3 hour time span! LOL.

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday to all of you and have a fantastic weekend! {{HUGS}}

Overwhelmed with love...

2007-01-04T12:05:00.000-05:00

I'm having one of those sappy days where I just can't believe how lucky I am to have the people in my life that I do. It's simply overwhelming sometimes. In a good way, of course! :) Hmmmm....where to start off?!?

Digi Community

I love the digi scrapping community. Seriously. A lot of people just don't "get it", so I don't talk much about it in my "normal" life. But everyone in it has truly affected my life. And continues to do it every day. Just from looking at your beautiful LOs and getting inspiration and sharing in your special moments, to reading your blogs, to talking with you in chats, to being on the same CT as you, BS-ing on MySpace and posting funky comments, to talking to you and asking for advice/help on the message boards... You are all a special part of my life and I consider each of you my friend. Even if we never have met face to face. (Overrated, if you ask me!!!) LOL...

2 particular people have really went out of their way to make my day recently and I want to share them with you. It's the little things that really make a huge difference.

Sue (sphmaz) - I posted on a thread about hard-to-find XMas toys that I was looking for some of the Cars movie diecast cars. Especially the yellow Ramone. (he is Christian's favorite!). Sue was nice enough to PM me and tell me should would keep her eyes out for it. Then, the very next day, told me she found it at Target, bought it, and needed my address to ship it to me. ALL of this in the middle of holiday craziness with her own life to attend to. Unbelievable. Now, she's going to keep checking to see if they have any of the others I still need. Can you believe this? A totally random act of kindness that will make a 3.5 yr old VERY happy!!!
Bretta (bretta), Amandajane, and Rachel (scarlettcharm) - A thread was started today at DST about who your favorite scrapper is. All 3 of these wonderful women posted little 'ole me as one of their favorites! :) Yipppeee!!! What a huge, huge compliment and definitely made my day. All by just taking a few minutes to post in the forum. Yes, it's the little things in life....

"Real" Life

I am truly blessed by those around me in my "real life" too. It sounds sappy and gay, but it's so true. Yes...they work on my nerves from time to time, but that's a sign of love, right?!?! ;)

Jarrett (my hubby) - I'll just post the things in the last couple of days that has made me feel so lucky. First off, I hated going to the gym so late after he came home from work. It left us no "family time" by the time we ate and I left. He is altering his work schedule to go into work an hour earlier so that he can leave at 4:00 instead of 5:00. Tell me that isn't great! Now, there won't be any rushing around and I can actually relax a bit! :) Secondly, I really want to start earning some money with my digi scrapping. Most guys would say I'm nuts, but he has been supporting me in every way imaginable. Even leaving it up to me whichever avenue I choose to go.
Christian (my sweetie) - Covering me with hugs and kisses telling me I'm "his best momma ever". Seriously...does it get any better than this!?!? Then, telling me today that I "make him laugh" and "make him SO happy". Oh...the good things in life! :)
Ava (my other little sweetie) - Climbs up next to me on the couch and pulls "our" snowflake blanket up over the 2 of us so we can just cuddle. Sometimes for 10 seconds only, sometimes for an hour. Making sure it is pulled up tight on both of us and patting it into place. Then, hugging and kissing you and holding your face in her precious little hands. Just heaven... :)

Still Sick

Yes, we're still sick today. Now it's not throwing up though...think the other end... ;) AND the real kicker. Now Ava has it too. Ugh... This is the first day of preschool that Christian has had to miss. I hate that he had to miss out (he loves going to school so much), but there was no way we were going today. Lots of rest to be had in our house.

New Purchases (Jarrett, close your eyes if you're reading this!) LOL... ;)

I bought a couple of goodies last night. I really need to start using things before I keep buying, but these darn designers are too talented!! All of these are by Ashley Olson at The Digi Shoppe.

Thought Bubble Blanks

All Star Paper Set

All Star Elements

One More Thing

Hopefully I haven't bored you mindless yet and you're still reading. ;) I really want to comment back to those of you who have been kind enough to leave me a comment. As soon as I figure the damn thing out, I'll get on top of it! I promise! So far, it's winning the battle! LOL... Have a great Thursday, everyone! {{HUGS}}

Starting off with a bang!

2007-01-03T12:49:00.000-05:00

Sickness

Oh yeah...wouldn't want you to start reading my blog and be bored, would I?!?!? ;) Guess who was up all last night sick? Christian. Throwing up all over the place and worked up beyond all belief. Seriously, he gets himself so worked up that he can't get calm again and under control. Poor little thing had to have his sheets/pillowcase changed twice and stripped out of his clothes and showered once...all at 3:00 a.m. :( Poor little guy. Add to that, I'm not feeling 100% either. A stomach thing just like my poor little Christian. Share and share alike, right??!!

New Years Goals

Like a lot of you, I hate the word "resolutions". Resolutions are made to be broken, if you ask me! Hence, I'm starting a list of "goals" for the new year. Just things that I really want to work on in 2007 to make me a happier, less-stressed, better person. So, here they are so that you can all help to keep me accountable.

1. Exercise at least 30-45 minutes a day 5 days a week. (Gym 2-3 times)
2. Cook dinner at least 5 days a week. (Yes...we eat a LOT of takeout)
3. Do not let laundry sit in washer/dryer. Fold right away and get into drawers.
4. Return phone calls right away. (I have a habit of waiting to return them at a more "convenient time". Problem is...that time hardly ever comes!)
5. Keep track of everything on calender. (Meetings/Parties/BDays/Gym time/etc...)
6. Set up cleaning schedule and stick to it. (I usually wait to do an intensive cleaning after it's too far gone. Of course, causing myself LOTS more work!)
7. De-clutter house. (Get rid of things not being used. There is no need to have a house full of things.)

8. De-stress life. (Learn to say no. I have a very hard time doing this. Especially when it comes to my church. I get very caught up in "helping" others.)
9. Go to bed by 11:00/12:00 each night. (I stay up WAY too late now.)
10. Get up by 7:00 each morning. (I'd like to get a little jump on the day before the kids wake up.)
11. Set up a “do nothing night/family night” a designated day once a week. (No cooking, no cleaning, just fun.)
12. Grocery shopping same day each week. (I hate grocery shopping. Seriously hate it. Again, I put it off until the last minute and that's part of why we end up eating take out so much.)
13. Stay on top of digi scrapping/CTs/LOs. (Set up a schedule for each designer I work for and stick to it. I've been slacking a bit the last month or so.)
14. Start some sort of business with digi scrapping. (I need to make some extra money. I love digi scrapping and the community around it. I'm looking to figure out where I want to go with this. Whether it be designing products/templates or selling custom LOs/cards to "regular" people. Not sure which route I want to go as of right now.)
15. Eat better and try to lose the last 25 pounds this year. (I've lost 20 pounds since June 1st and want to lose 25 more by next Jan. 1st.)
16. Start a blog. (hee...hee...guess that one is done now! I just need to focus on keeping it updated!)

17. Learn more about my camera/photography. (I have had my Nikon D50 for a year now and haven't ventured out of auto mode once. Ugh...I just need to make the time to do it!)

Wow...that's a lot, isn't it!?!? LOL... Guess I'm pretty ambitious when it comes to the new year!

Layout Posted

I posted a new LO today. Not my normal 2 pager, but I love it!

Credits can be seen here.

Well, off to start working on my list of to-do's! Thanks for checking back again today! Happy Hump Day! :) {{HUGS}}

I caved in...

2007-01-02T22:54:00.000-05:00

So, I finally caved in and decided to join the blogging world. I know...surprising, huh!?!? LOL. I really enjoy reading the ones posted by others, so I figured it was about that time.

Not that my life is very thrilling...I can't promise to rivet you every day, but I can make you laugh your butt off at the things that manage to happen in one 24 hour period in my house. Seriously, it can make your head spin. Life with a 3.5 yr old and an 18 month old is never really boring. ;)

So, grab your hats and hold on. Hopefully I won't put you to sleep! I'll start my regular entries tomorrow. And I'm a comment/praise hound, so please leave me a message! And if you want me to add you to my list of blogs, link me up! I'd love to get to know all of you even better! Have a great night and I'll catch you tomorrow!

2007-01-02T14:44:00.001-05:00

Testing....still so plain! :(

It's a wonderful life

Productive weekend

Back in the swing of things...

Oscraps Birthday Blog Train and SALE....LAST DAY!!! :)

Terms of Use

Oh my...so much for posting every day! *blush*

So tired!

Low key day...

Happy 4th of July!! :)

Kinda boring day today. Sale & new template though!

21 day challenge...

My gosh...how long!

Great news!!! It's sold!!

YAY, AVA!!!

Not much...

Well...

Keeping fingers crossed...

TGIF!

Ups and Downs

Another emotional day...

Tough times...

Ugh...money!!

One day down...SOOOOO many to go!

A kink in the plans already!

Has it really been 6 months?!?!?!

Queen of the Day!

Whew...SO busy!!

50% off my entire store AND last day for free...

I'm back!!!

Literally losing my mind...

My gosh...I'm a slacker!! LOL

No...I didn't forget about you!!!

Quick post and extended sale!!

Sick to my stomach...

My baby turned 4 today!!!

Where does time go?

What a weekend!!!

HAPPY EASTER!!!

Happy Easter, Sale, and a Long Weekend...

Funky weather!!!

New Product and Easter Prep!

Desperately ignoring you...

Nice Weekend!

Been a LONG week...

Fun new product and storewide sale!!

My "date"...

Long weekend!

Almost over....

Ugh...I'm sick!! :(

Birthday Details!!

Meet the Lemonheads!! And pull on your boots...

CT Call Change

It's a CT Call!!! Looking for lemonheads! Also a little enabling... ;)

Relaxing Weekend & 2 New Products!!

Doing good!

Not much going on...

Lookin' good!

Some pimpin' today and catch up...

Party Day!!

Wonderful Weekend

Back to "normal"...

Totally, utterly drained....

Update

Even more prayers, please!

Wow...

Prayers Please...

Whew!

New Products and Some Tags!

Wow...what a day!

It's official!!!!!

I'm totally flattered...

What a great day!

And the winner is.....

Think someone guessed it??!?!

My Surprise....think you know it???

How???

I've been tagged!

Yipppeeee!!!

3 and a half years

Relaxing day!

Oh my...so much for posting every day! blush