Take me to the Land of Nod

Have you gotten this catalog yet? I haven't and I'm dying- it looks so cute! I save all of them because I'm obsessed with the covers. (oh yea, the stuff inside is great too in case you haven't seen it before) I haven't gotten one in a while though...

Happy Birthday Mom!

The adorable baby is ME, held by my grandma between my mom and great grandmother.
And I want to wish my in-laws a Happy Anniversary! April 11th is a good day~

Has it been a week already?

It's been a fast, busy week! Easter was the highlight so I'll just cover that. We had a party here with Sam's family on Saturday and it was a total blast. I stayed up till 2am baking for it and loved every minute of it. (except for doing the dishes) We had an egg hunt of course and then some fun games and an Easter parade around the circle and a very yummy lunch with my bunny cake. Here are some pictures:

And finally the Easter dresses on Sunday- they looked so pretty!

My only regret is we never decorated eggs! I kept forgetting.

French Fries anyone?

McDonald Happy Meals have the Madame Alexander dolls again! All Wizard of Oz Characters! I can't believe I didn't know sooner, we are totally going there tomorrow.

Ready for Easter

Well, actually I'm not at all ready for Easter, but I finished this project! Thanks to Ginger's suggestion I glittered the letters, I don't know if you can tell in the picture but they look cute! The garland was from Target last year.

Spring is in the air

I saw this cute card in Family Fun Magazine last year and when I saw these little chickies at Michael's I knew I had to make it! Maybe older kids would have fun cutting the grass, but my kids weren't interrested.Then look at this adorable Easter Dresses mini album I saw on Creating Keepsakes website- click on the picture to see the full article and more pictures. What a cute idea!

And the rest of the weekend...

Tonight we had my parents and little brother over for dinner. It was fun to cook a "real" complete meal that people will actually eat. I made some really yummy rolls with a recipe from Ashley. I haven't figured out how to make them pretty yet- when Ashley makes them they are beautiful. I always get a few that look like scorpion tails. And for desert a yummy Chocolate Pudding Cake. It tastes better than it looks- like a crusty brownie oozing warm chocolate pudding.

Saturday after the boys went to their Priesthood meeting and the kids were in bed, Kyle and Ashley came over for a late night game of Progressive Rummy- I totally lost.

Friday we watched the kids while Kyle and Ashley went out. A few hours with sweet baby Lilly gave me a touch of baby fever, but a reminder of why I am not quite ready for another one.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is for everyone!

I love General Conference! One more session to go- I am going to put more effort into studying the messages when they come out in the Ensign. They are so awesome and uplifting and I almost never go back and read them again unless I'm preparing a talk or a lesson that applies. Particularly today I loved the story of the Amish community who forgave the man who shot the girls in the school. That was such a terrible story, but to hear about the outpouring of love and forgiveness in that community was so inspiring. It made me think about the fact that there are dedicated followers of Christ all over the world, in many religions- many of them more faithful and dedicated than me, and that simply being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints doesn't give me any special consideration- "for He shall reward every man according to his works." Live your religion!

That probably belongs in my journal more than my blog, but if I save it for that it might not get written down. So thanks for letting me share here. :-)

Regrettable Food

I don't know if it was a cultural thing at the time, or that my parents started out as zero income students, but my mom definately got creative with our food. Picture a hot dog sliced lengthwise, topped with a scoop of mashed potatoes and some shredded cheese, then baked and served with ketchup and a side of jello with some canned fruit mixed in. Did anyone else eat like this? Tonight I dumped a pack of Costco flautas into a casserole dish, poured over some canned enchilada sauce (Macayo's) and a few handfuls of cheese and cooked it till the cheese was all melty, and it was good! But it reminded me of those dinners, and of James Lileks Gallery of Regrettable Food. He has a collection of old cookbooks and food ads and his comments that are really funny. (I got that jello picture above from his site.) I had to save this ad from the Sunday paper a few months ago because I thought it was pretty funny.
Mmmm- give me some of that Slurpin' Dunkin' Wholesome fun!

The best magazine

I finally got to get into my favorite magazine- Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion and I thought these were pretty cute! I read this magazine cover to cover- it only comes every other month though but it's so exciting when it comes! It's always full of great projects, beautiful ads, and informative interviews with all kinds of different artists. And now I just have to share one more Easter page! We had a cute party last year and I had a lot of great pictures that needed to be scrapped!

My Weekend

Ok, first of all, if you are at all interrested in digital scrapbooking, or photoshop, you must check out my link on the sidebar here to SpragueLab! Every Friday she does a tutorial on how to do something in Photoshop, and this week was how to re-color things and it has just opened up a whole new world to me! Suddenly every digital paper I have, every ribbon, flower, element etc, can be made to match any page I'm doing! How cool is that? I did a couple pages from Easter last year that I was happy with. I recolored a few things I had to match and it was so fun! That was the high point of my weekend, the low point was giving breathing treatments to my poor little sickie! She's had a cough for a while, and then Thursday woke up with a fever and acting really sad so I took her in and discovered she had 2 ear infections, and some other kind of infection that was giving her some breatheing trouble. She has been a pretty good sport but she hates sitting there with that thing on her face.Finally, I had to post these pictures because it's so funny. Miss B is my little crafty girl and today while I was taking a nap, she made these "decorations" for the house

They are filled with little toys and candy and she couldn't wait to do a "family line" where we took turns taking something out of the cups. I wonder how long I have to keep them up... She is so cute and creative though.

Cute video- catchy song!

Sam sent me the link to this video: http://joansowards.com/somepostman.html It's about a mailman stealing the LDS missionaries love letters and it made me remember a band I forgot about long ago- The Presidents of the United States of America- I like them!
The girl who teaches Beehives with me is the girlfriend- it's cute. I think I may have to go download the song from iTunes.

I'm an analytical...

One time I heard someone say "Oh I hate analyticals." Because they just think things to death, and can never make decisions and ACT. And I thought that was rude, because suddenly I realized was an analytical! And it drives me crazy. I have been working on things, but I want them to be PERFECT and they aren't and I can't decide what to do about it. I purchased the wood and paper to make the word SPRING 2 months ago... then I realized it would be 6 feet long, and I don't have a place to hang a 6' long spring decoration! So I decided to do HOP. (you know, like the Easter Bunny hops) But, that doesn't make as much sense on spring paper as it would on easter paper- you know with eggs etc. So I can't decide what to do. Those letters aren't glued on yet...Next, Target decided they weren't sucking enough out of me with just a $1 section, so they also added a bunch of $2.50 items that were so stinking cute! They are all painted wood, and cute, but I thought how much cuter they would be Mod Podged with some pretty paper! But I'm having a hard time decideing which items will go in which room, and what papers I will use!One decision I did make, I found this shower curtain that I absolutely adore! And bought some pretty bright pink towels to match for the girls bathroom. I've had the same shower curtain since we got married, nearly 9 years ago, because I could never really find something I loved. Now I'm worried when we have our next kid (not any time soon) it will be a boy, and he won't like the pink towels. Totally ridiculous! This is my reality check- I am analytical and a little crazy.
PS- We got my "smokin' deal" table tonight, opened the box and there's a big crack about 1/3 of the way across the top. :-( It's still totally functional, and I really love it other than the crack! They don't have any more though so I can't exchange it. I'm really bummed but I'm thinking if they give me a good enough discount, I may just keep it anyways.

Guadalupe

So if you drive down Priest, south of Arizona Mills Mall, you will pass through Mexico! It is the craziest thing I've ever seen. One minute you're in a totally metro shopping area, and then for 1 square mile, it's Mexico- colorful shops, people walking around, this old church etc. And then suddenly, it's back to Tempe shopping and apartments. I never knew that's what Guadalupe was. It was very interresting.

Cupcakes are so in...

There was an article in the paper this week about cupcakes and by the time I was done reading it, I was trying to think of an excuse to make some. Miss B asked me the other day if she could do a lemonade stand, and that was it! Today we had a cupcake and lemonade stand and the neighbors (mostly cousins) came over and it was fun! Apparently, cupcakes are the latest food fad- who knew? I've never thought they were all that yummy to eat, but they sure are cute. Check out this cupcake blog: Cupcakes Take the Cake.
And did you see, I have a coupon code! Mark from Pink Milk was gracious enough to give anyone who sees this on my blog 10% off their purchase this month with the coupon code WannabeCrafter. So go check it out and save! Thanks Mark.

Pink Milk

Do you watch Charlie and Lola? (or read the books for that matter) I saw this site, Pink Milk, over on Prints & Patterns and was so excited! It's the cutest show and Pink Milk sells tons of the merchandise. I bet I can steer Miss B towards a Charlie and Lola party- isn't this the cutest?

Extreme Makeover- Mailbox Edition

We gave the mailbox area a little makeover today.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I'll be heading back out to Home Depot to get a little more gravel. I think the mailman was happy with it too.

Old Spice

Have you seen this Old Spice commercial?
http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2007/01/would_you_buy_o.html
My grandpa is Old Spice- it's his natural scent, and he always told us things "will put hair on your chest" as if it was a good thing...

I love JC Penny's!

I was planning to redo my kitchen table somehow, (I was kind of chickening out on the resin top part though) but I was looking at JC Penny online outlet and found a great looking table for $99! Delivered to the store for free! I am so excited. It was out of stock online, but my wonderful, smart husband suggested I call and sure enough, they had it! And in black which wasn't even shown online. Picture this in "distressed black"
SO do you need a table? JC Penny has a lot of great stuff on clearance right now, and you can get free shipping with the code ONLINEFS through March 14th. How about this HUGE 36" clock for $89?
Or this great mirror? (also huge and $89)
Or this great large painting for only $59!
And finally, how about these cute red dishes! Only $99 for 72 pieces- 12 people!



Who knew JC Penny had such great stuff? For such great prices...

Enough of that- I hope I haven't sent anyone on a shopping spree- it was hard for me to not buy any of that stuff but I think it helped sharing them here :) I have to show a couple scrapbook pages I did last night because they turned out so cute! I used the Spring Chick kit by Dani Mogstad and a couple templates I downloaded somewhere... The templates helped me learn how to do some cool new "tricks."

Happy Birthday Ashley!

March is the month for birthdays and today is Ashley's! And it's a milestone one, no she's not turning 20, or 40... We've been friends for nearly 10 years but the only photos I have of her are from when she was pregnant with Christian, at Lake Powell, 7 1/2 years ago. (should I have posted those?) But what would a birthday tribute be without embarrassing photos? Have no fear, SAM was friends with Ashley before I was! So we have these! The stud on the left is mine now.And here's one more- Ashley is in the middle between Louie and Sam.The best word to describe Ashley is dependable- she is a great friend who will always do whatever she can to help you if you need it. I don't know what we would have done without our weekly Sunday dinners at her house for the first 3 years of our marriage. Now we look forward to Friday nights, usually spent playing progressive rummy with her and Kyle. I hope you had a great birthday Ashley!