Project 365

 

I have decided to do Project 365 this year. Take one picture, every day, for a year. Though I will probably miss a few days (already have since I just decided to do it) and have to "fake it", overall it will be a good look at a year in our life. I hope that this project will also help to improve my photography skills.

Here is week one!

 

Megan enjoying homemade Apple Pancakes on New Years Day

 

My fairy lamp. This is one of the cheats. I was moving things around in my scrap room that day to make room for my new island and shelves!

 

January 3rd was spent painting. The paint is white... it is just a pink roller!

Day 4 was a date night. We went to Em Chamas and to see Marley & Me. Picture was borrowed from the internet.

 

Day 5 included a bloody nose. I was not home, but it involved Scout and a toy...

 

Day 6, Big-girl panties and extra clothes to bring to daycare!

I am not sure what I want to take a picture of today...

Weightloss and eating out...

I am going to follow in the footsteps of Cathy Zielse and post a monthly update on my weight-loss efforts. Only once a month, and it will not be much.

Here will be my format:

Starting Weight (12/29/08): 167    

Current weight (1/5/09): 164    

Total Loss: 3

Current fitness goal: Exercise 3x a week for 30 min. (I know.. but I have got to start somewhere!)

Last night was NOT good for the diet. I did not even try to count points, but will stay within my daily points all of this week to make up for it. We went to Em Chamas for dinner. It was phenomenal. Probably the best service that we have ever received at a restaurant. The food was wonderful. It was a little pricey, but worth it in our opinion. If you are in the Parkville, MO area you must try it out!

After dinner we went to the theater to see Marley & Me. We have both read the book, so nothing was a surprise. It was a great movie and they stayed true to the book.

 

One more gift card holder...

 Here is a gift card holder that I made for my grandparents. Between my sister and I (and our husbands) we gave our grandparents 6 gift cards to area restaurants, grocery stores and wal-mart. This is what I made to present it!

 

  
Stamps: Snowfall, Snowfall Additions
Paper/Ink/Ribbon: PTI Spring Rain, Vintage Cream
Pearls: Paper Studio,Snowflake Punch: Marvy; Glitter: Martha Stewart

I started with PTI's Vintage Cream cardstock and trimmed it to 3" wide. I used 3 sheets (I think) and scored at 2.5 inches. There were 6 "hills" total. I stamped the top and bottom of each with the small snowflakes from the PTI Snowfall and Snowfall Additions stamp sets in PTI Spring Rain ink.

For the cover I used PTI Spring Rain CS(Though the color in the picture is way off for some reason. It is the same CS and INK that I used in the other gift card holders below). The medium snowflake from the Snowfall set with the cordinating Marvy Snowflake punch, Vintage Cream ink and Martha Stewart glitter made the snowflake. PTI Spring Rain and Vintage Cream ribbon and Paper Studio pearls were also used. The gift card holder is held closed by a Basic Grey magnet hidden under the flap, and I used the Stampin Up slit punch to hold the gift cards in place.

I really need to write out my descriptions/ steps BEFORE I give something away! I do not have the dimensions for the outside of the holder, but I made the inside part first and measured the depth.

My craft room will be done this weekend! The island is painted and ready for my Dad to come over and screw it together (It is in 5 pieces.. and it is HUGE!) and the shelves are in my room waiting for me to paint them tonight! They would have been painted last night, but Eric and I went out to dinner and a movie, and did not get home until almost 10. I can not wait to be able to put things away so that I can start scrapping again! There will be plenty of room for a friend (or 3) to come over and create with me!

New Years Resolutions

Ok, I know that everyone makes them.. and I know that they are rarely accomplished, but I have one anyway! I WILL get back on track! After all of the hard work I did 2 years ago and losing almost 35 lbs, I have gained back almost 20 of them. I have decided to start over. I have re-set my starting weight in WW (Online) and will start tracking points again.

My goal? Size 8 by the time we go on the cruise in Sept. That should be between 25-30 lbs that I need to lose. 32lbs is my overall goal. My reward? (Besides looking good on the cruise of course) I will need a whole new wardrobe!

I will need some help with this. Support from my family and friends. Eric is supposed to get back on plan as well, so that will make it a little easier.

 

So, there you go. My new years resolution out there for the world to see.

A new year already?

This year has just blown by! It is hard to believe that Thursday will begin a new year.

2009.

This year we will be celebrating quietly at home. Dad is working the next day, so the typical karaoke party is out. Eric is off, and we have decided to spend the evening at home with the girls.

Whatever your plans are, stay safe and have a Happy New Year!

Our Christmas

We had a pretty good Christmas this year. We were in charge of the food for Christmas eve, so we decided to host it at our house. Dwayne, Sarah, Monty, Alana and Marin all came over for dinner and to exchange gifts.

   

After Sarah's family left, the girls got to open their Christmas PJs and Grandpa read them a story (Twas the Night Before Christmas.. of course!) before bed. Amazingly enough they went right to bed.

 

On Christmas morning we woke up and opened gifts at home before heading over to my parent's house.

 

Where we opened MORE gifts. We had maybe 3 or 4 gifts to open at each "celebration". Not to much.. more than enough for the kids.

 
(The kids passed out the presents)

My favorite gift this year was my watch from Eric, but a VERY close second is the stories and pictures from my Grandmother. I asked my grandparents this past summer for some stories about their childhood, my mother's childhood etc. I told them that for Birthdays and Christmas from now on, that is all that I wanted from them. I received 2 stories for my birthday, and another set for Christmas. This time it included pictures of my grandmother as a little girl!

Priceless.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Now I get to take all of the holiday decor down. I am always sad taking down the decor. The house just looks sad without it...

For all the Mom's...

This is awesome!!

The Mom Song from Northland Video on Vimeo

More Gifts

I worked on a couple more gifts last night.

This set is for my friend April. It is homemade lotion (SCS) and a nugget tin with a gift card holder.

   

   

Stamps: Snowfall, Snowfall Additions, Holiday Treats
Paper/Ink/Ribbon: PTI Spring Rain, Vintage Cream
Pearls: Paper Studio, Tin: PTI, Lotion Container: Specialty Bottle

I also made another nugget tin that will be part of my FILs git.

 

Stamps: PTI Holiday Treats
Paper/Ink/ Ribbon: PTI Ripe Avocado, Vintage Cream, Pure PoppyTin/ Labels: PTI

A busy week

This past week was a busy one for us! The girls had their Holiday Program on Thursday night. Megan did great! Lauren... not so much. She would not sing, she would not sit still while the other kids were singing, she would not listen to Mommy and Daddy. We ended up leaving after Megan's class got done because Lauren was just being a pill. This made Megan upset because she didn't get to talk to Santa (who showed up as we were leaving).

 

 

Friday afternoon we took the girls down to Crowne Center. We saw the Gingerbread village:

 

and watched the trains

 

Visited Crayola Christmas

   

Visited with Santa (BTW.. the BEST Santa and setup I have seen in a while! They even encouraged us to take our own pictures.. though we bought one of theirs as well)

 

Went to Fritz's for dinner, where the trains deliver your food...

 

Played by the fountains

   

And went ice-skating!

   

There are LOTS more pictures in the December 2008 album!

Just a few pictures

Here are some pictures of the girls playing Monday night.

   

 

They are so sweet! They have been playing together really well lately. I hope that they always stay this close!

Busy time of the year, and I love it!

I love the holiday season. Our Christmas shopping is just about done (I need to pick up a few gift cards and stocking stuffers, and that is it!) The house is decorated... inside. Maybe next year we will do the outside. The girls have their holiday program Thursday night. The babysitter and hotel is reserved for my company holiday party Sat night. Next week is Eric's birthday, yummy Butterball Soup!

Friday night Dwayne took Alana and Megan to see the Nutcracker. Lauren went to Kindercare's parents night out while Eric and I went out for a grown up dinner. We had a nice night, and picked up Lauren just after 9. She did not want to go to bed until Megan got home (around 10). This is what she looked like at 10.

 

I know it is hard to tell, but her head is actually OFF of the couch!

 

She was so tired but wanted to wait for Megan!

"Teacher" Gifts

Ok, I delivered the teacher gifts to daycare this morning. I decorated clear glass ornaments with shredded paper, glitter, fake snow and rub ons.

The ones with the snow and/or iridescent fill are hard to see, they have light blue/ purple wintry rub-ons on them.

I had a hard time with the packaging. First I made this with the acetate top:

But they were a pain. I went down to the craft room (I was working on these in front of the TV in the evenings since my craft room is not set up yet) to get some patterned paper for the tops when I found the gift packaging set that I bought from Wal-mart last year. It has pillow boxes, takeout boxes and gift bags, with lots of die cuts to decorate. It is all packaged flat. I do not remember who makes them (Since I am posting from work) but I only used 2 last year. They were too small for most of the gifts that I gave! The takeout boxes worked perfectly, and the colors matched the ornaments that I made! It was meant to be.

 

My next project is decorating the cocoa jars and nugget tin for my FILs gift basket. Nugget tins for co-workers (April, act surprised) and lotion jars need decorated. Oh, and I still have not sent out cards or started wrapping any gifts yet! Plus there is the cookie exchange (just family and a few friends), my Relay for Life meeting tonight, the girl's program Thursday, my company holiday party on Sat, Eric's birthday next Friday... I had better get started!

Gift Tags Pictures

  Ok, I took pictures of the gift tags last night, but they were in crappy light.

 

 

Most of the tags have a coordinating "To: From:" circle on the back (like the one top-right). The Spring Rain ones were hard to photograph!

First snow of the season

Saturday it started to snow. Just flurries and nothing sticking to the ground. When we woke up on Sunday the ground was covered in white and it was still snowing! The girls were so excited to get in their snowsuits and go outside to play. They played out back for a good 30 minutes before deciding that they needed hot cocoa to warm up.

 

 

 

Our weekend

I decided NOT to go shopping on Black Friday (Sorry Mom and Amanda!) instead stayed home and put up the tree. I fought with our "pre-lit" tree for hours before going to the store to buy some strings of lights. Unless you are really close to the tree you can not even tell that it is half pre-lit and half traditional lights!

The girls had a good time putting up the ornaments, now if only they would leave them alone! They have already had 2 time-outs from playing with the ornaments, and the tree has only been up for 3 days!

I love sitting in my chair at night looking at the tree all lit up. I have a few other Christmas vignettes that I put up this weekend as well. Most of the items were from Judy (either given to me as gifts or acquired after she passed) so they are special to us.

Our Nativity was a Birthday gift from Judy a few years ago:  

And my snowmen (on the bakers rack in the dining room) were all from Judy as well:

I have a few other Christmas vignettes around the house as well, I just have not taken pictures of them yet! I put the snow-globes and musical figurines in the girl's room, and the bells (most of which were from my Grandmother) are in my bedroom.

I just love decorating for the Holidays!