Not such a tame world....

And here's a touch o'Green....

The foyer tree:

 

So here was the Valentine's Decor....

 At the front door was my $5 find from Wal-mart:

 

And in the foyer is my seasonal tree. I try to limit my decorating to my foyer tree and the living room mantle. Mainly so that a) I'm not storing gobs of stuff and b) the house doesn't start to look like a theme park. I do hope that down the road in a few decades,Tabitha remembers how much fun the house was around the holidays. And she may remember how giddy, looney I get about decorating. :-)

So here's my foyer tree with the banner I made this year with my cricut. And yup - I was goofy enough to special order pink lights off the 'net. (I planned ahead and got some green ones at the same time, too.)

 

Some close up's:

 
 

This year, I wanted pink lights for the kitchen bar space. And of course, lots of fluffy white marabou feathers just add to the fun factor.

 

I decided that the dining room table would indulge my "glamour" girl.

 

And then I went all hearts all over the mantle.

I had treated myself to tulips during Feb, but they finally were past their prime. So I ditched'em before the pics. Bad feng shui to have dead stuff around the house anyway....

I had found this adorable pink feather bird at Michael's. I loved it right away even though I had no idea how I'd use it. So for good measure -- I bought two! And they were right at home perching at each end of my homemade banner. Again, I put my cricut thru it's paces.

 
 

So that wraps up the Valentine's Day 2011 Showcase. I'm in the process of decking out in green for the month of March. So far, the foyer tree is sort of done. And that's about it. I'm still dreaming up what to do for the mantle etc.... I need to go on a shopping excursion in search of glassware. But I guarantee that green will be there!

Stay tuned....

"Oh Happy Day!" It's March 1st and that means....

It's time to start celebrating a month of Green!

Wahoo!! My favorite color, for a whole month -- what more could a girl want?

So the project for today is to take down the Valentine's Day decor. The theme this year was pink. And honestly, I'm not sure that I've even taken photos of what I did this year. Well, except for this one:

 
This the collection of jars in the center of my kitchen island. I started decorating with jars of candy about 4 years ago. It was the only way I could think of to keep clutter from accumulating on the island instead. Which was what was happening. And it drove me nuts! Nowadays, instead I have no clutter and a reputation in the neighborhood as having the "good stuff" out on the counter all the time. What can I say? I know kids & how they think. [Big & small, by-the-way....]

I'll go take some pics and post tomorrow. I got pretty darn crafty with my Cricut this year.

So moving right along to March and GREEN, I'm sprucing the place up with some bright green touches. The one that I've gotten done so far was making slip covers for some couch pillows.

This project came about because:

1. I got some new Christmas decoration this past year and didn't want to buy another storage bin to store. So something had to give and not get packed up. After some selective purging -- the best I could figure was that the Christmas pillows that usually live on the couch would get to stay.
2. But it would be totally weird to have Christmas pillows out after December, right?
3. "Sew simple solution" was slip covers. I've done this before and even though I've got sewing skills, this is just super easy straight lines.
4. Then when I happened to be combing the remnants at a nearby fabric store, I found the most striking remnant of green upholstery velvet. I've used this type of fabric before and it holds up well to abuse. And Baby - can my kid & critters pass out abuse? Oh Yes they can! Besides it was cheap and really wide.


So voila!

Before:

 

After:

 

Not too shabby, I think. So now I'm off to work on the rest of the house. I'm feeling a trip to Michael's or Hobby Lobby coming on. Oh -- and then I need to find some bulk candy in green....

So in 2006, today was an important day in the family....

It was the day that my mother-in-law and father-in-law, welcomed their very first grandchildren into the family. It was also the day that my sister-in-law and her husband finally became parents.

Heavens knows that all of us "kids" kept Mom & Pop waiting for a very long time before they became grandparents. We belonged to the 10+ year club. But then we did things with a bang! First they went from 0 grand kids to 2 grandsons in 1 day (twins) and 2 months later we brought home the granddaughter.

Amazingly, in the past 5 years, all involved parties have survived and thrived. Looking back now, it's mind-blowing how much has changed in 5 years.

We went from this:

 
 

past this (2 years old):

 

and this (3 years old):

 

and even this (4 years old):

 

to now (5 years old). How did time pass so quickly?

 

They've come into their own. They have strong likes & dislikes. They've got crazy little quirks. They've got more energy than anyone should have a right to. Spider-man and superheros, Lego's and scooters, guitars and drums, have all become an important part of their daily lives.

They've gone from babies to toddlers to real little boys. This fall they start kindergarten, and I for one am not ready -- and I'm just the aunt!

Boys -- I love you insanely! And I'm so grateful that you live nearby and I get to watch you grow up.

Happy 5th Birthday!!

[p.s. -- Don't you just love how I condensed 5 years into 5 photos? I think I feel a scrapbook layout coming on....]

Word of the Year - 2010

Just to keep up with the annual tradition that I've got going, I'm please to announce that this year's word will be....

JOY

I finally decided at about 1139pm, Dec 30th after discussing via text with Mrs. K what her WOTY would be. Turns out that independently, we both had thought about using Joy -- even though I was still undecided. After checking to make sure she didn't mind sharing, we decided that it would be fun to share. So joy it is!

Here's the bible verse to go along with my/our WOTY: [Notice I also managed to keep WOTY 2009 "Trust" in the verse too....]The LORD is my strength and my shield;
   my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
   My heart leaps for joy
   and I will give thanks to him in song.

Psalms 28:7

 

And from Merriman Webster's on-line Dictionary:

Main Entry: ¹joy

Pronunciation: \ˈjȯi\

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French joie, from Latin gaudia, plural of gaudium, from gaudēre to rejoice; probably akin to Greek gēthein to rejoice

Date: 13th century

1 a : the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires : delight b : the expression or exhibition of such emotion : gaiety
2 : a state of happiness or felicity : bliss
3 : a source or cause of delight

— joy·less \-ləs\ adjective

— joy·less·ly adverb

— joy·less·ness noun

I'm thinking that this will be a good word for a good year! Happy New Year everyone!!!

Happy Birthday to You....

Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday Dear Sweetie!! Happy Birthday to you!!

I love having a MIL who shares vintage family photos. That's how I got this one:

 

Didn't I marry a cutie!?! This was his second birthday and you can see that his chocoholic tendencies started very young. We celebrated at a Sunday group party and Michael was all about the chocolate pie (home-made from scratch by MIL!), which has to be his favorite.

And because I'll use any excuse to visit JibJab, this one is for you Babe!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend....

We're staying close to home. In case you haven't noticed, we've got a new puppy and he's not vaccinated enough to be travel-worthy. So we're going to be mellow. There's some birthday party plans for Sunday. Otherwise, I hope to get in some more photography, some scrapbooking, and some puttering around the house done.

Scrapbooking-wise, I'm feeling Happy-Happy. I found a place to order my favorite adhesive in bulk at about 50% the usual price I can get locally. These folks shipped ultra-fast & the price was awesome. I also spent my Mother's Day gift certificate on my new favorite technique. I'm addicted to this stuff. There was a class using this at the weekend crop I went to. That was the first time I'd seen Glimmer Mist in action & got some great ideas to try. I don't think that I really need all 80 colors, but I really like the ones that I've got. This is definitely "Glimmer for Dummies". I tried out some color experiments and once they're dry I'll try to post some pics. Fun! Fun! Fun stuff to play with!

So enjoy the three-day weekend and "Think Safety!"

In a bit of shameless self-promotion....

I have to share this with you. My SIL sent me this video clip late Sunday night & I was ROTF! If I ever wondered whether "people really like me?" -- Well this is my answer. Enjoy!

Happy Gotcha Day -- #3 - Part 2....

So about three years ago, on March 21, 2006, Michael & I went to the regional court in rural Russia to adopt Tabitha. It was pretty intimidating. The judge was "no-nonsense" and refused to be in photos -- but we set a land-speed record for our adoption agency and in less than 27 minutes had a ruling in our favor. Tabitha was OURS!

This was Michael & I then:

 

Fast forward to today and this was the three of us, earlier this morning appearing in county court to finalize Tabitha's adoption here in Texas. This judge took all of five minutes and he agreed to photos. So it's now officially offical -- Tab is stuck with us FoReVeR!!

 

It seemed fitting that for this year's Gotcha Day #3 we went for dinner at our favorite Hibachi restaurant. I got lots of video courtesy of the flip, but haven't had time to edit -- so that's a coming attraction. Sort of seemed appropriate since our last night in Russia we visited the local "Japan-skaya" restaurant. As a family, we seem to have a thing for sushi & hibachi steak....

2006

 

2009

Happy Mardi Gras!!!!

Happy Mardi Gras!!!!

We had cupcakes at our house to celebrate. The girls have started this new "tradition" of smooshing their faces into the cupcakes for whatever event it is. <Sigh> Fortunately Zoe adores all things "people-food" and makes a great floor clean-up crew.

We also decided to sneak in a Fourth Birthday shot for Merlot & Brie:

 

They proved to be much more excited about a can of wet catfood than a cupcake up in flames!

So tomorrow starts another season of Lent. What sort of plans do you have?