the monday update

good monday morning! what a cold weekend. all i could think of all weekend was summer and those wonderful 100 degree days--i cannot wait for them to get here! i want to be tan and wear flip flops~not pasty white and covered from head to toe in winter wear. sigh. only a few short months. big sigh.

here's what i saw when i opened the washing machine to take out an old velour-type blanket that we were using outside for dreamcicle. what a mess. i am still finding green shreds in my laundry!
thursday morning the phone rang at 6 something. knowing no one else would call me that early, i jumped from my warm bed, not bothering to get my glasses and raced to the kitchen where the phone was, expecting to hear danielle panting on the other end of the phone. it was, however, not my sister in the throes of labor, but the automated school message telling me school was canceled. what? i even told chris, "they just canceled school because it's cold?!?" apparently, though, there was a good amount of ice on the roads--so no school for us! yippee! (once my heart didn't feel like it was going to beat out of my chest i was very excited. it took me a little while to calm down though. if sadie doesn't come soon, i am going to have a heart attack--i just know it.)
i sat in bed and read and watched the news until mckinlee came walking in with a troubled look on her face. she thought i'd forgotten to wake her up! i asked what she wanted for breakfast and she informed me that she'd never had breakfast in bed. poor child. i told her today was her day! we had pancakes, fruit and scrambled eggs. so yummy--especially in bed!

in other news, my scrapbook room has been as disaster. this was my organizational project this past week--and i got a lot done! nothing's been done with all my stampin' up stamps, but that is my project this week!
this was what my desk looked like. looking at that has been making my heart race for weeks. it just all seemed overwhelming and i couldn't find a place to start. but i finally was motivated and was just going to do a little. i kept telling myself to just get the desk cleaned off and not think about anything else.

and this is what it looked like less than a hour later. why, oh why, do a put things off? it didn't take nearly as long as i thought. as an added bonus...underneath all that schtuff was a partially completed scrapbook page.
so not only did i organize, i also did something creative and finished my layout. i was so proud. i organized sunday too and got almost everything cleaned up off the floor. i'll post those pictures later this week.
saturday night we went over to kevin and michele's for dinner and to watch football. we had cheese ravioli, gnocchi with a spicy cream sauce, salad, bread, jalapeno/bacon/cream cheese bites, 3 layer yellow cake with chocolate icing and an incredible cheesecake with homemade caramel sauce. we stuffed ourselves and i felt sick the rest of the night. good times.

here's edway and emily before dinner.
there was a group watching the game...
some working on a puzzle...
and some reading scrapbook magazines. (betcha didn't know what group i'd be in!)
here's what my view looked like most the night.
mckinlee in her cute outfit.

and keeping up with zane!
we had such a fun time.
sunday before the meeting, i put a crockpot full of lentils and ham to cook while we were gone. this is not one of my favorite meals, but i did it lovingly for my husband--and he loved it. me? not so much.
it's grocery day for me--and i don't have any meals planned yet. i hate that.
have a great day :)

fabulous friday finds

(can't have a post without a picture. this is one of mckinlee on vacation in myrtle beach a few years ago--when she was losing teeth and would actually smile with her mouth open. i love it!)

today my finds are my favorite scrapbooking blogs. i posted some in december~these are ones i've found or rediscovered since then. prepare to be inspired!

jennifer mcquire
she makes some of the most beautiful cards and she has lots of videos on her blog of different techniques (usually involving ink or paint.)

blackflipflops
she makes some really neat projects and is kind of vintage-y. she just had her 4th baby and still does more creatively than i have in 2 years!

evalicious
this is her blog, but you can get to her online store from there. i love her art journals. this is where i ordered the travel journal i used for our mexico trip--still need to finish that all up!

tim holtz
one of the few guys in the scrapbook industry. does amazing distressed stuff. (funny story i heard about him. someone asked him if he gets recognized at all in public. he said yes, all the time. most people think he's the lead singer for rascal flatts! ha ha.)

october afternoon
so many great links on this blog. their stuff is just so cute!

jenni bowlin
here is her blog. and here is her store.
absolutely love her. antique and vintage goodness everywhere!

lily bee
what can i say? beautiful, beautiful pages.

studio calico
they make the greatest monthly kits. if i ever join a kit club, i think it's going to be this one. their stuff is so pretty with a vintage flair (i think i am on a real vintage kick lately!)

i have GOT to organize my scrapbook room so i can do some creative stuff! i just can't be creative at all in a mess and i have not felt like organizing at all!
i must do that this weekend. in keeping with my goals, i will work on my room and make at least one thing this weekend.
have a great weekend and stay warm!

thankful thursday

"may you have warm words on a cold evening, a full moon on a dark night and a smooth road all the way to your door."

isn't that a nice quote?
i just wanted to do a quick 'thankful' post before thursday is over.
i am so thankful on this cold, cold day that i have a warm and loving family and a warm place to spend the night.
what are you thankful for?

wordless wednesday

thoughtful tuesday

my thoughts today are on goals.
i just love the start of a new year. it feels so refreshing and motivating~just knowing there is a whole year to accomplish new things.
and while i don't make new year's resolutions, i have been thinking about goals i have this year.
i love this quote i read earlier:

"goals that are not written down are just wishes."

~unknown~


since i really want to incorporate these goals into my everyday life, i figured i should write them down.
**read the bible everyday
(even if it's just one page, i want to get into the habit of doing this.)

**start my day off each weekday with personal bible study
(this goes along with the first goal. i have already been doing this and it feels so good to start my morning off on such an encouraging note.)

**make something creative each week
(this can be a card, a scrapbook page--anything that helps me think creatively)

**keep a good schedule of cleaning
(i love the end result, but cleaning is not something i enjoy. and when i don't enjoy things i put them off. so keeping a cleaning schedule is going to keep me focused on doing this each week.)

**be more o.c.d.
(usually i just do things "good enough." i am in no way a perfectionist and if something is good enough, that's just fine with me. if something isn't done perfectly, it just doesn't bother me. but i am going to try and let things bother me. that didn't sound right. what i mean is i am going to do things better than just good enough. this might be my most challenging goal so far.)

**be more involved
(more about this next tuesday.)

**organize something each week
(whether it's a room, a closet, a drawer--whatever. but something at my home will be organized every week!)

so...those are the major things i will be focusing on this year.
i'll let you know how i'm doing.


i'm already doing good on my cleaning schedule. yesterday was spent cleaning all the cabinets in my kitchen with murphy's oil soap. it took much longer than i thought, but now i have shiny, pretty cabinets! today was spent cleaning downstairs. my floors are sparkling!

in other news...we finally decided and ordered the family pictures we had taken this summer (see? procrastinator!) i can't wait to frame them.
that's all for today--i'm off to make dinner and watch the biggest loser. a new season starts tonight and we love that show!

the monday update

now...back to my regularly scheduled blogging. (i just can't keep up with it when we're on vacation. blogging and cleaning--so hard for me to do when we're all home. although i can't quite figure out why!)

mckinlee has been on a real baby kick lately (anticipation of sadie's arrival, i think!) she spent hours on wednesday and thursday dressing her two favorite babies in some of her old clothes. she wanted me to post these pictures, because we thought this baby (whose name was paige on this particular day) looked so real.

here is paige wearing an outfit that i clearly remember dressing mckinlee in and having to roll the pants up because she was so tiny. paige is also sporting booties that were mine!


this picture just absolutely cracked me up! (mck took all of these) it looks like poor paige is contemplating plummeting to her death. mckinlee informed me she was just gazing at the daisy below. heehee!

here they are together. i cannot count the number of times she was tenderly holding paige that she said "i can't wait 'til sadie's here!" ~so sweet.~
thursday night, amber came home with us after the meeting. chris and i finally went to bed after midnight and the girls were still up. friday they woke up and decided to play babies. mckinlee decided she wanted to be french. amber said she was "just american." too funny. mck got gussied up into a proper "french" outfit, decided her name was nathalie (one of my names in french class) and got on the internet to find an appropriate french name for her baby. (paige was not going to work apparently) she decided on maccaire (which i thought was pretty unique). she and amber (whose "american" name escapes me right now) played dolls all day, talking in their respective french and american voices! good times.
they were so engrossed in their play, i got to sneak out to michaels and wal-mart by myself while chris stayed with them. good times.
saturday we went over to amber's house for a going away get together for her sister, jade, who is going to california for a few months. we had the most wonderful dinner and desserts and played games while the guys watched football.
i thought this was a cute one of kelly, jade and michele.
here are some of us girls.
and maria, bianca and jade. bianca is walking now and is so cute. she keeps her hands up above her head to balance herself while stopping every few steps to wave. chris says she looks like a little politician!
i finally put out my winter decor this week. i just never want to put up all my fall stuff. it looks so pretty in my house that i leave it out until the last possible minute. i figured with all the snow and cold weather we've been getting, it's finally time to bring the snowmen out!
i have so much winter stuff that is blue, but since that doesn't match my house anymore, i tried to not use so much of it.
i had to bring out this snowman, though, because i just love him!
i had forgotten i even had this snowflake candleholder. i put it in my kitchen window and light it every night.
this little arrangement is on the breakfast table.
i got these glass/silver hurricanes and the silver doodads at michaels during their after christmas clearance. i had gone to hobby lobby earlier in the week thinking all their winter stuff would be clearanced. i was utterly shocked to find a couple aisles of clearanced christmas stuff, but absolutely not one winter item in the store. it was filled with valentine's stuff! i was so mad. but michael's came through with a couple winter things!
i already had this and just stuck it on the side table in the living room.
i tried to do more white and silver this year, so i put a couple more white candles on this little table in the living room. (sure wish i had found a big snowflake to replace that brown orb, but oh well!)
so that's about it. mckinlee's back in school and my big project of the day is cleaning all of my cabinet doors with murphy's oil soap. hope your day is as exciting as that! :)

catching up...

wow. i am really behind on this blog. here's what's been happening since i last blogged.

1. we finally got our house painted. we have been waiting until all the rain stopped in the fall. it finally did (for a couple days) and we got it painted. it looks really nice.

2. mckinlee has been curling her hair and wore it to school this way. something different. yay!
3. chris got his cholesterol checked and it was high. he has really been eating good since then. this meal was not what i wanted but it turned out to be pretty good. salmon on spinach and mixed greens with vinaigrette. after dinner chris said, "that was really good. even better than the salmon salad i had for lunch!"
4. we took ryan, camila and mckinlee out of school early last friday. we took them to lunch and ice skating. patricia and i froze to death for 3 hours watching them skate.
5. this is "our" new outdoor cat, dreamcicle. he comes for food and to sleep on our porch sometimes. chris is thrilled, hopeful that he will stay around and keep all the rabbits out of our yard.
6. we spent a fun week in waco. this day, mom took mckinlee and lauren to practically pikasso to be creative. here they are working.
7. here are the masterpieces just waiting to be fired. they were so cute when they were finished.
8. mom and i watching the girls paint.
9. mck & lauren downtown.
10. this was such a cute place we ate lunch at. i think it's called the olive branch.
11. my yummy lunch. wonderful potato soup!
12. taking mom and danielle's picture in spice. trying to get a picture for them to use for real estate. took some cute ones--just not any they were able to use. we found at later it needed to be vertical and i had taken them all horizontal! go figure.
13. mck took one of me with my short hair.
14. we spent the night at chris' mom and dad's and had a nice visit with them. she has been feeling so bad lately, but was feeling pretty good this day. i thought this was such a cute one of her and mckinlee.
15. we spent some time visiting grandaddy. right before we left to come home, we stopped to say goodbye. nathan was there with his guitar~so we all sang a song before we left.
16. when we got home, this is what we found! we were so excited.
17. i just loved this sign covered in snow.
18. dreamcicle's pawprints from his napping spot under the tree up to the porch.
19. mckinlee and i made these the other day. can you say delicious?
20. we took the girls skating yesterday. i just love all the music they play at skating rinks. takes me back to my childhood! (or at least the 80's.)
21. i had a few of the girls over to scrapbook and make cards today. here's michele and julie.
22. and mindy and me.
23. here's what it looked like outside my front door this afternoon. it was the perfect day to scrapbook. snowing outside~potato soup and coffee inside.
24. here's what the girls did while we were being creative.
25. here's a couple cards i made.
26. here are the other two.
well, that pretty much sums up what we've been up to the past week and a half.
off to watch full house with mckinlee. i just love that cheesy show. was uncle jesse the cutest or what?