Ashley's 1st Birthday

So I have failed at my blogging once per week but I will strive to at least aim for twice a month!! March has flown by and today we celebrated Ash's first Birthday!

What I have learned this day - Ashley hates to be set down outside, Alison had the aversion of being on grass as well so I am going to assume she will grow out of it soon...I also learned she has the same aversion to birthday cake Alison had. Dan somehow managed to get her interested in it though and by the time she was done she was a total mess!

This is my attempt to get a pic of the girls...you can see how much ash is enjoying the outdoors lol

so i moved the group inside and this is the best i could get!

Ash's favorite present was her own zoobie...awesome pillow/blanket/stuffed animal combo. Love these!

She was not enjoying her birthday hat but we managed to get a smile out of her!

Mom did a mommy and baby panda bear cakes.

Ashley and Ariel were both watching the cake closely lol

And she realized she does not like to get dirty

Dan intervened and we managed to get her interested in the cake

Overall I think she had a wonderful time!!!

Cards, Cards, Cards!

So I am actually keeping 1 of my resolutions...I wanted to make 1 card a month at least for the entire year. I decided I need this much needed 'me' time and I have managed to keep it up!! I just have not kept my blog resolution which is why you are just now seeing the cards LOL Below are my recent cards:

This card was done for a challenge on our Meade Splitcoast Thread. Gloria challenged us with the "flip"card. I actually really enjoyed this one! It took 3 tries but I enjoyed it LOL

I used a Unity Stamps and Stampin Up Card Stock. I inked the edges and used stickles to put a little sparkle







Amanda hosted a shoebox swap in January and this was the card I did for it. I was looking for something valentiney (so not a word but it is on my blog LOL) and this unity stamp was perfect! I used Stampin Up CardStock some chalk pads for the background, brads, and dew drops to complete the card. I believe the patterned paper was basic grey.

At Amanda's Shoebox Swap, I won the auction for the stampin up set I used on this card. I dont know why but I love this set!!! This is the card I made for the Baltimore Shoe Box Swap hosted by Cindy!

This is another card I made for a challenge hosted by Gloria! I am also noticing a trend with my cards, I apparently like Purple and Pink LOL Could be the 4 girls in the house! Anyhoo this is a new MFT stamp set I HAD to have and I love it!!! I used my favorite Crate Paper and Stampin Up Cardstock. We actually used a sketch for this challenge and I used my copics to color.

I also cut out the wings partially...I was trying to keep somewhat true to the measurements in the sketch and my image was so large I was able to cut out a lot of my white space by cutting the wings out of the square.






So that catches me up creatively!!! Between my 4 cards above, I have made approximately 50 cards at swaps so I think I am well within my 1 card a month goal!!!

The Great Blizzard of 2010!!!

Wow I keep postig the "great blizzard" but this one really was! We had the biggest snowstorm the area has seen in over 100 years, I am starting to see a trend. Everwhere we live seems to have the worst storm ever when we move to the area LOL

My poor car got buried!




I am worried about the overhanging snow! Happy to report it did not take out my satellite before the superbowl!




Hubby looks for any change to belly flop in snow apparently LOL btw the snow is up to your rear anytime you sink all the way down! You get lucky in some spots and not go all the way down!



This is during the storm still


Some snow on the trees




We are all now trying to figure out how long the kids are out of school! They are definitely out tomorrow and we are to get MORE snow this week!!! Should be interesting!

FYI:
I have moderated my comments due to some spam so that is why you may not see a comment appear immediately.

Cute Gift Idea!!

So after watching the story of stuff, I realize we have soooo much and we had already been thinking of ways to cut back but not let the kids realize we are cutting back. One of my solutions is buying consumable goods like fruit bouquets/candy/cookies, doing activities like disney, or usable/necessity type of goods. The latter is not as much fun though, right? WRONG!!

One of My absolute favorite blogs is Hip2save.com. Well she is doing a giveaway for sockgrams! http://www.sockgrams.com/ How cute are these!!! Perfect as a "we are thinking about you" type of gift without adding to all the clutter/landfills! Everyone wears socks and from someone that has 4 kids they LOVE decorative socks!!

Anyways I thought this was a really cute idea!!

Other than that - the blizzard has begun....anywhere from 20-30+ inches!!!!!

The Story of Stuff

So Hubby sent me this link and WOW! It really opens your eyes to what we are doing to ourselves!

I definitely recommend watching this video!

www.storyofstuff.com

Time for some sleep!

so tonight was supposed to be my late night at work, and instead I chased kids down, checked on alison and tackled my tax return! I unfortunately cannot submit until i get my 1099 from Pampered Chef and Scentsy but I am ready other than that!!

Ali has been sick all week with a high fever but is doing much better, she now has a nasty cough but the fever is lower.

Work has been hectic as always, today my phone rang nonstop, which means one of those days you cannot get anything done because you are constantly getting diverted by the caller's new issue!

I foresee me working Sunday night since tomorrow night I have to finish my swap card for a baltimore card swap and get my 30 (yes 30) card kits cut up!!!

I leave you with a very intriquing blog....I am sure you saw or heard about the movie julie and julia where she cooked from julia child's cookbook every day of the year? Well this lady did a crockpot meal every day and boy do they look great! I think this is a cool idea and she even has a cookbook out now! Thanks DawnMarie for showing this to me!! I will be testing some of her recipe's over the next few weeks and I will let you know what I think! Be sure to check it out at crockpot365.blogspot.com

Uh oh!!!

sooooo I have already shot my blog a week and it is only day 17 of January LOL.....I will make 2 posts this week to "hopefully" make up!

It has been crazy (as always!) I with 3 other ladies here joined a dump our plump team and I have been trying to work out for that and this week i was bad, too much going on so I am only praying I did not GAIN weight!!! Next week I am going to make sure we stay on track!

We got the wise idea to rearrange the house....My office/scrap room moved upstairs, all girls to one room, living room to my old office, all toys to old living room as a playroom. Yeah this was hubby's idea btw - I think it will be a good move when we are done but right now I think my hair is turning gray! And I will now have a door I can lock and CLOSE when I am working wooohoooo!!!

I am a new aunt!!! My sister in law Dixie gave birth to baby boy (yeah nice someone in the family can have boys LOL) Mason!!! He is a cutie and I hope Mommy and baby are doing well!

That is it for now - busy as always, not much new - oh Ashley is starting to take steps on her own so that is our big news for the week =0)

Until next time.....

My first 2010 Post!!!

So far I am on track of blogging once a week LOL I know it is only day 6 of the year but hey, at least I am on track for now!

For my first post I have to share my latest triples trip wooohoooo! My fave grocery store has not been tripling lately but they brought it out to start the year right!


The total for all you see was $7.57 AND I got $10 Bonus bucks back to use on my next visit!

I got 3 bottles of mr. clean pourable cleaners, 3 spray cleaners, 2 dawn dish soap refills, 1 dawn dish soap, 2 magic erasers, 6 frozen pizzas, 4 no yolks, 2 yogurts, 2 season salts, 1 sour cream, 10 healthy choice dinners, overall very pleased with this shopping trip!



And on a humorous note - this is now how I humor myself, tormenting my cats with zhu zhu pets LOL I like to think of it as mouse catching training for if we ever move to the country!

Seriously though I am not sure who enjoys them more the cats or Amanda and Ashley!