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!

Free Samples in honor of Joy

Today is my friend Joy's birthday- happy birthday Joy! (I don't think she reads this, but she is one of the sweetest, kindest people I know, and a wonderful mother, and she loves coupons and getting a good deal like me.)
Click HERE to get a coupon for a free Mountain Dew Blue Shock Slurpee from 7-11! (you know you want one...) I hope the link works.
Also, a coupon for a free drink and chips from Quiznos if you buy the Prime Rib on garlic bread sandwich. I don't know if I'll do that, but maybe Sam would like it? HERE is the link for that one if interrested.
Then there's this free digital scrapbooking kit with some cute stuff in it HERE. And have you checked out the free samples from Walmart? I feel like I'm getting a present in the mail when a free sample arrives. They usually have some good ones and they change frequently, click HERE to see what they've got now.
How about a free Old Spice Shaver! You have to sign up for the Old Spice Shaving Crew but that's what Hotmail accounts are for. HERE is the link to that one.
And finally, for a free sample of Dove clear deoderant, click HERE. As a special bonus you can watch an animation of a girl taking her shirt off and then putting it back on inside out.
That's all for tonight- I have cleaned out my junk e-mail and can sleep peacefully.

How cute!

Look how cute this is! I didn't make it, just found it online. Click on it to see a gallery full of them. You could use it to store recipes, cards, a gift or just stick on a shelf somewhere. I love it.
I think I need to stop thinking of things to make and start actually doing something! Today I'm feeling ambitious. My table needs an extreme makeover but I'm afraid to tackle such a big job. My vision is painting it white, and then cutting a sheet of cute wallpaper to fit over the top and then pouring some epoxy resin over it to make a hard smooth plastic on top. Are you scared? I can't find pictures of anything like it online but it looks really cool in my head. I need to do it before the real summer heat hits though because that's an outdoor project for sure...

The difference between men and women

Doesn't this look like such a GREAT movie???
This time it was Sam's turn to choose the movie so I suffered through it- literally. I like a movie that I can relate to in some way, I need to be able to at least imagine that it could be real but Nicolas Cage, selling his soul to the devil, turning into a firey skeleton, riding a flaming motorcycle... nope, I can't do it. I need to love the characters at least. Anyone up for Music and Lyrics? or how about Because I Said So?

Happy Birthday Phattie

Today is my long time friend Lindsey's birthday! Here are my top 10 memories of our friendship- and a couple pictures that had me laughing my head off today :)



1- Monopoly club in the guest house.

2- My boyfriend and I broke up and then you guys hooked up- and we stayed friends.

3- Girls camp with braids and you showing off the Monkey and Lizzard.

4- Playing checkers at Coffee Talk- and shopping for clothing there.

5- Going to lunch in Lukes bug, and the Bad Corsica. (Park 'n Shop and Pizza Hut)

6- Sadies with Luke and Hyrum

7- Our "family photo" and riding in the blue & grey Bronco. 8- Special GNO's with our matching t-shirts. (Shauna, I have looked at this picture at least 10 times tonight and you make me laugh every time- even as I am typeing this!)
9- Our trip to Disneyland and Oceanside with your family- wow we were hotties!!!
10- Your mom being funny, and cooking really good food, your dad always rolling his eyes at us and wearing cool shoes, your awesome cruncy ice, 90210 Night, Seth always running past us and wearing Suns hats, loves and breakups, sleepovers, the Pink Adobe Casa, and I know I've gone past 10 things, but I got on a roll- I love you Lindsey- HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Reading time

Here is my very favorite book to read with the girls right now, Big Sister and Little Sister by Charlotte Zolotow:I cry every time I read it and the girls don't know why but it is just such a sweet story about a big sister and a little sister, and I kind of think the girls look like my girls.
The other one we're into right now is Oh, What a Busy Day by Gyo Fujikawa: It's one that I loved when I was a little girl, and I forgot about it until my mom told me about Gracie loving it. I think it's out of print right now but my wonderful sister Beth found it for me for my birthday. (Thank you Beth!) It's just full of the random things kids do everyday and has really beautiful illustrations. I love them all but here's an example of one favorite: I just want to crawl into the book and sit there.

Ok and it's been a couple weeks since I did a "reality check" so here it is:

This is Miss B's February reading log. We are supposed to read 15 minutes a day, everyday, and she colors in one heart each time we do. February is over, and that's as far as we got- 13 hearts. I don't know why it's hard for me to do it. I noticed last time I was in her class that a lot of the kids are reading better than her and I am sure it is because we aren't reading enough at home. Ok, so that's my reality check, I hate to admit it but I don't read to my kids every day- I would like to though, I am working on it.

The happiest place on earth

We just got back from Disneyland last night and I did a photo show of the highlights for you. I love Disneyland- it is so beautiful and magical, but I learned a few lessons this time.

1- Disneyland is much easier when you have a 1:1 ratio of little kids to adults. Miss E was still in my tummy last time and she was easier to manage that way.
2- Kids love it, but they equally love going to the park, or riding the carousel at the mall, or watching movies in the hotel room, so I will not feel like a bad mother if we don't go back for a few years. (but I will miss it!)
3- When taking a toddler to Disneyland, it is absolutely not a waste of time to leave for a few hours in the afternoon for naps, and in fact, if you do not have naps, the rest of the day may feel like a waste of time.
4- Giant swirly lollypops work like magic to keep kids happy through one more long line before dinner.

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There were a lot of people there but I don't think we waited more than 20 minutes for any ride, and they were all good enough to wait 20 minutes for. Sam and I got to take turns on the California Screamin roller coaster and that was really fun too. We found good food in Disneyland this year- Cafe Orleans, especially their Mickey Beignets- heaven!

What can you buy with $16?

All of this if you have the coupons and put them to good use! That is 10 cans of Progresso, 6 boxes of cereal, 6 boxes of popcorn, 2 boxes of GoGurt, 2 Pillsbury breadsticks, 3 Pillsbury Grands biscuits, 3 boxes of Pizza Rolls, 3 cookie mixes, 2 muffin mixes, and 3 Warm Delights all bought at Albertson's today. Woohoo! I also got a loaf of bread, bananas, carrots, celery, lunchmeat and salsa so my overall total was $28 but that's pretty good! I couldn't have done it without Coupon Sense- I saved $102.86 today.

Is it Monday already?

This weekend I went through my Creating Keepsakes Top Ten magazine and recreated a couple of my favorite layouts with digital scrapbook stuff i have. (I guess the technical term for copying someone's layout is "scraplifting") It's the only way I can do it, my brain just doesn't work in layers yet. Today will be spent restoring my house to pre-weekend condition.

The Cowgirl page is made with the Neopolitan kit from AMS DigiScraps and the other ones are from "Two Soon" from Shabby Princess. Nothing else to blog about, I just wanted to share those!

A Hero

I love being a mother- I love my children more than anything, but I will admit that there are times when I daydream of the day that my children are grown, and my time can once again be MY time. When I can mop my floor, and no one will track mud on it, when I can prepare a meal with no one complaining about it, and when I can spread scrapbook supplies all over the floor and no one will walk on them, rip them or try to eat them! I was thinking about this last night when I had the opportunity to babysit a 5 month old baby for a woman that I visit teach. She is a 70 year old widow, who has been raising 3 grandchildren for 12 years, and does emergency foster care for infants. AND she has been a primary teacher for the 3 year olds every Sunday for about 20 years- maybe longer actually. She has photo albums filled with pictures of infants who were brought to her at all hours of the day and night, taken from unsafe environments. Often they come with no clothes and a dirty diaper. Sometimes they are abused, sometimes they are homeless, sometimes they are premature infants, addicted to drugs- thanks to their birth mothers. She remembers their names and their stories. And she is sad each time she says goodbye to one, but she continues to welcome them over and over. She is not in good health herself, but she doesn't complain. It is difficult for her to get around, and to wake up and feed hungry infants through the night, but I don't think she thinks about doing "what she wants". She looks for ways that she can be useful to others- to her Heavenly Father, and then she goes and does what she can. She is truly an angel to her grandchildren, and to the dozens of babies who she has cared for over the years, and she is a hero to me.

I have 1,003 fonts

I collect fonts. I wait for Lettering Delights to have the $1 sale and I have bought a lot there, but DaFont has a ton of great free fonts to download. I have so many that I waste a lot of time scrolling through them to choose the right one for whatever I'm doing so I was SO excited to find this free program called All My Fonts Professional! It lets you print out all your fonts so you can see them on paper- a lifesaver for Photoshop because you can't see them in the menu in that program. (At least not the version I have) I printed mine out at 28 point and I have a stack of paper an inch thick but it's great. So if you want to do it, you can get the program HERE.
And I did finish a couple of my dishtowel aprons- I just need a model and then I will post a picture. They aren't that special, I don't know what I'm going to do with them!

The Genius of Craftster

Have you noticed my little link on the sidebar to Craftster? That is a great website to waste time on. There are so many original ideas- some good, and some not so good, and some of the people on there are pretty funny. I wasn't going to blog tonight but I saw this and I just have to share it- a personalized Guess Who game. It's a little late for Valentine's, I'm sorry, but maybe you have a birthday coming up for a friend or family member who is particularly hard to buy for... or you could customize it for your own family. OR make it a primary or FHE game by putting different prophets on there! Hmm, the creative juices are flowing...

My life is not perfect

If you know me, you probably are saying DUH- but I realized the problem with blogs- it's like the Christmas card photo and letter- everyone puts out their best side, because who wants to see or hear about the bad? But then you start getting all these Christmas cards, and seeing the perfect beautiful families, reading the letter of their awesome accomplishments, and start to think boy my life is pretty dull and my family is pretty imperfect. But the fact is, a picture is just a moment. And while I totally admit my life is nothing to complain about, it is far from perfect. I want to keep my blog positive, but I am going to do a "reality check" a couple times a month in case I start making things sound too good. Here is a perfect moment from today.

I should point out my bed is unmade- and it remained unmade all day! But my reality check picture for today is my kitchen floor. It actually looks much worse in real life. I haven't swept it in almost 48 hours. See- very imperfect.

P.S. I did sweep tonight because luckily we were having friends over for dinner. I need the motivation.

Happy Birthday Arizona! (yesterday...)

And happy Valentine's Day too! This card came from a free 4"x4" Valentine's brag book by Dani Mogstad that you can get here. I also made a cute card to give to the cousins and grandparents and ordered them from Winkflash but they didn't get here in time. I used stuff from the (free) Seasonal Sampler from The Shabby Princess to make it and you can download that kit here.

Yesterday was a fun day! We made some YUMMY heart shaped brownies for Sam, and put them in heart shaped box that started out really ugly (red with gold foil chocolate box you know) but I think we made it kind of cute. And my favorite Valentine's Day tradition- heart shaped pizzas- Miss B and Miss G each get to make their own- Miss G wouldn't let me take her picture.

Now I have to go take care of the laundry I ignored for the past couple days. You will find me chained to the washing machine all day...

3 Black Shoes

I have a hard time throwing things away. I've been hanging onto 2 of these shoes for a very long time- they both lost their match at some point but I just knew it would turn up somewhere... and I could not throw away perfectly good, hardly worn shoes! The dogs ate the match to the third one the other day and I decided it was time for these 3 lonely shoes to go- together. Maybe there's a charity that collects shoes for girls with one leg? Well I couldn't actually throw them away, so they are off to DI. (where they will probably have to throw them away...)

I've been looking at a lot of blogs lately- and came across 2 really great things I had to share- first of all, these aprons for little girls. They reminded me of the stack of cute dishtowels and ribbon I collected last summer to make into aprons. Click here to get the idea. I'm going to finish one this week and post a picture- they won't be as cute as these ones though.

Ok next, this is the cutest digital scrapbook kit I have ever seen! They have it at Sweet Shoppe Designs. I don't know if I can wait for it to go on sale. I love all the layouts they made with it!

Digital Scrapbooking...

Here's what kept me up late tonight. I made this page with Angie Briggs Tomboy kit- I'm pretty sure it was a freebie somewhere. Miss B no tomboy but it worked for these pictures and it's my favorite layout I've made yet. I am trying to do a digital album for Miss B (and print it with Shutterfly) and I'm doing Miss G and Miss E's the paper way to see which one I like more. I think digital is winning, but I love the feel of real paper- and I have a lot of supplies to use up!

Young Love

Miss B has her first love. They sit together after school each day next to the tree while they wait for their moms. I knew she liked him but as she was signing each of her valentine's cards she took one and put the "big heart" sticker on it, and said "This one is for Isaac- I love him so much." And then she wrote "I luv yo" on it just for him. Fortunately, I think it was kind of short lived because when I picked her up after her class party, she couldn't stop talking about how much she liked Evan, because he gave her a little box of chocolates and a heart necklace. I can't believe it starts this young... I especially liked how she did the fancy lettering on her name. We made some pretty heart shaped, red velvet cupcakes decorated with white frosting and pink and red heart sprinkles- they were way cute.

Oh- I have to share a good deal going on right now- if you use paypal, they are offering a $15 rebate on a $30 purchase from a PayPal store- including e-Bay. Checkout www.paypal.com to find out the details. Trying to think of what I need...

D. T. was here...

Today was a very productive day- my kitchen is a total disaster, but I changed all the two-tone hardware in the girls bathroom to a pretty satin nickel set, (I used the power drill and everything!) I put up a shelf I got from Ikea 5 years ago, and I installed a ceiling fan I've been holding onto for 4 years. So that left no time for anything else, and I confess to putting the gate up to lock Miss E out while I was installing the fan. In that time she got a red permanent marker and left some lovely drawings on the counter, chair, some BBQ tools, and several body parts. I am just relieved she didn't do anything with that huge knife or nail that was for some reason sitting out... She also got my pink hammer and hit Miss B on the head with it. And ate some pieces of styrofoam. And that's just the stuff I know about.

Double Trouble

Miss E is into everything- we call her "Double Trouble" now-a-days because she really is double the trouble her sisters ever were. (or more) She's figured out how to push the kitchen chairs all around to get into even more stuff. She found this red stamp and immediately rubbed it all over her lips. I didn't get a picture of the tantrum that followed when I took it away...

I have a header!

Hooray! I found great SIMPLE instructions and I was afraid I would lose them so I had to stay up and create a header to stick on here tonight. Now I am going to bed- if you are interrested, here is the link to the instructions I used: http://testing-blogger-beta.blogspot.com/2006/09/adding-graphic-to-your-blog-header.html Goodnight!

Fun in a box

One of the best things about being a mother is seeing your kids sleeping. Miss G created this bed in a box for her nap today. She didn't care that my bed was much more comfortable. Or that this one kind of looks like a coffin. She's so much fun.