Happy New Year

My house is finally back in order after all the Christmas festivities. However, all my Christmas cards have not gone out yet. And I am sending them late! I worked too hard, and I dare say, they are too super cute not to send them just because I missed the big day. I am guessing people will still appreciate them even late. They have now become Happy New Year cards :)

We are planning a little family party tonight with all the appetizers, champagne, noise makers, sparkling grape juice and silly hats the four of us can handle! I am excited. Of course, there will probably be a mock midnight around 9pm for the kids. There is no way we are keeping them up until midnight! They don't do well with less than normal sleep. Gotta love night terrors!

Anyway, I hope you all have a blessed and safe New Year's celebration and that 2009 brings you lots of love, laughter and adventure. Here are a few of the cards I made for special orders this past month. I will post my Christmas card soon!






Thanks for looking!

Holiday Crafts

Two more days until Santa comes ... the threat is not working (and never really did) on my kids. They are so excited they are driving me a little nuts. I still have some wrapping to do but luckily have spent my last dollar on presents. We are good to go :) Tonight I anticipate watching National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, settling in with a cup of hot chocolate and surrounding myself with lots of toys to be wrapped.

Here are a few of the crafts we did this year (and one from a few years ago that I still love):



This is one that I made with hurricanes from my wedding. okay so this one was quite a few years ago. But he is held up well and makes an appearance every Christmas. I think he is adorable :) Super easy to make and a good gift.



The kids and I made this cute little guy from a kit I got inexpensively from Michael's. He was easy and they had a ball putting him together.




This fun garland of stars was made from the SU! die cut kit in the holiday mini catalog. I really enjoyed making these and thought they looked cute on our kitchen valance. I might keep them up for a while after Christmas. I am looking forward to putting almost everything else away this year. The clutter is getting to me!

My Christmas cards are *almost* done so once I get them all in the mail I will post a picture. I like them and thought they were pretty simple but elegant.

Happy Holidays!

excuses ....

Okay, so if you have tried to keep up with my blog lately you will have noticed that I have not been posting much (or anything!). So here is my excuse ... we had to get a new laptop as our poor, overused, other one had finally seen its last download! We loved it to death. And I transferred all my pics to Shutterfly, as to not lose them completely. Learned that from experience when Teagan was 4 months old. But I can't download pics from Shutterfly to blogger. So, I don't have many pictures of my cards and projects to share as of yet. And, my back-up/secondary excuse is that I had a lot of special orders the last few months (yea!) and so wasn't doing much card making or crafting for myself.

I am almost finished with my Christmas cards so will post those once I drop all the ones being mailed at the post office. Until then here are a few samples or recent work:







These were all made for a friend to use as her Christmas cards. I made all the samples and she liked them all (that was nice and easy!) She requested a mix of all them. I will share some others in the next day or so :) Meanwhile here is also a pic of my crazy kids during our annual Christmas card photo shoot:



Needless to say, this was not the one chosen for this year's card but one of these years we must may send out a goofy card because this type of picture is much easier to get!

Merry Christmas :)

Thanksgiving

I am sitting here with my newest neice all snuggled up in my arms and the older kids watching Max and Ruby in the other room. All is right with the world. I am so grateful for my healthy, beautiful children and my husband and the home we have made. I love being home with my kids to hear all the silly things they have to say and watch them discover new things every day. I do have this nagging little tick-tock, tick-tock feeling that I want another baby. I am trying to fight it but I just don't know that its going to go away.

We went to a Frosty and Friends event the other day and Santa was there. Kamryn was feeling kinda shy and didn't want to talk to him. Teagan, or course, jumped right up and asked for a Wii! Which we are not getting him -- he's only just turned 5 -- doesn't that seem too young?? Anyway, I was trying to prompt Kammy to ask Santa for something and mentioned that what she wanted had a mirror. And Santa guessed that she wanted a princess vanity! She (and I) were shocked -- the look on her face was PRICELESS!

Last night we went to have pictures taken with Santa at the mall. All the way there I kept trying to get Teagan to think about asking for something besides the Wii. So his next best answer to give to Santa's "what do you want" question was -- one of every boy toy! Yes, that is what he said! He is so "ilarious" -- that's what T and K have been saying lately -- everything is "ilarious"! So, I have been praying that he is not too disappointed Christmas morning when he does not get a Wii and does not have one of every other boy toy under the tree waiting for him.

Ah, kids! I am blessed.