How times flies When...

You are having fun! We have been so busy since my last post. My daughters, grandchildren and I went to Great Wolf Lodge up near Dallas. We had a blast. This is one of my favorite pictures:

The 4 youngest got to play a fantasy game with a wand. They went all over the Lodge touching pictures, podiums, statues, etc. to get clues to find treasures. At one time 3 of them went off the find all of the clues and were gone for a couple of hours. I recommend anyone who goes there to purchase the wand for their children. At the end of the stay they got to go into a room to "fight the dragon" if they had enough points. I don't know who had more fun. My oldest grandson got a "tatoo" (washable) and said that was pretty cool. He met some other teenagers and had a great time hanging out with them.

Jameson thought he was "hot stuff" waving his wand at everything. Some of the pictures remember if your wand was used already at that site, so it gives you a sassy message like" Don't think just because you wave that wand, I'll give you more clues" haha! The first time Jamie heard that he put his head down, he realized she was "hollering" at him and his feelings were hurt! We are all hoping that we can go back next year.

I went to a scrappy hosted by my friend Linda and we had 20 women there laughing and creating all day. Can't wait for the next one. Unfortunately I was so busy "creating" and socializing that I didn't take any pictures!

A friend got married on July 4th and it was the nicest wedding. Some of the special things she did made a real impression on me. One of them was as she walked down the aisle, a group of her friends lined both sides and each handed her a long stemmed Red Rose. By the time she reached the front she had a complete bouquet. Precious. Another was having her readers prepare a bridge. The groom approached the bridge from one side and the bride approached from the other side. They met in the middle and recited their vows. Hopefully this picture will show up:

We decided to do a little remodeling in the LR/DR and these pictures give you a clue as to how the house looked for a couple of days. Well at least the before! LOL:

We are loving the new wood floors. We plan on remodeling our bedroom next and purchased the flooring at the same time. I can't wait. All I have to do is... scrape the popcorn off the ceiling, paint, remove the old carpeting.......

I'll be sure to post pictures when that room is done too!

I LOVE CARDS!

I love to make them, to send them, to receive them. I don't know what I enjoy more, making a card I've already mastered, or making a card I am just learning how to make.

I love to go on the different blogs, websites, etc. and find new cards to make. I just have to share with you the 2 newest I made today.

This one is a Shutter fold card. I found the directions on several sites, all you need to do is google "Shutter Fold Cards" and a bunch of samples and directions come up. So here is my first attempt. It is for a friend's grandsons 1st birthday.

I call this card my "Hair Gel fish Card" The hair gel is enclosed inside a baggie, between layers of the card. The gel looks like bubbles and is real squishy! This one was alot of fun. I can't wait to make more with different themes. I think it'll make a great Beach card!

Hope you enjoyed my newest cards!

Travels, birthdays, graduations, oh my!

I cannot believe it has been so long since I posted! So much has gone on, plus I really really hate to push Jamie's walking video down on the page! LOL!

Let's see. Where do I start? Probably with our trip to Haifa, Israel. WOW! What a trip. I have never gone anywhere for 9 days and felt like the time went faster than lightening! We got to see so many of the Bahai shrines and holy places, in Haifa starting with the Bahai Gardens. Interesting story here. The Israeli government worked with the Bahai's to literally move a street by 2 1/2 meters so the view would not be distracting! This photo is shot standing at the bottom of the gardens looking up . There were almost 600 stair up to the shrine and then another 600 or so steps up from the shrine to the top of the mountain. Each terrace was beautifully adorned with color coordinated flowers, shrubs, trees, fountains, etc.It was breath taking.

We took amost 700 pictures, so it is very hard to narrow down on which ones to publish here.

Upon our return home, we celebrated dear granddaughters 8th birthday. She picked dinner at a restaurant called Hao Hao's. Said that birthdays are special so you should eat at someplace more special than McDonald's or Gatti land! What a trip!

Dh's 1st daughters graduation from Sam Houson was the week after Mother's Day. She has a double major in Spanish and Criminology. It has been an interesting trek for her and I know she is going to do great things!

Dh's son came in from D.C. for a week to visit before he leaves the states. We celebrated his birthday and dh's birthday last week. He left this past Tuesday for DC and then on Wednesday, left for Warsaw, Poland. He will be on assignment there for the next 3 years! Told us to get something called Skype? We will be looking into it this weekend.

Today is Dh's official birthday. Happy Birthday honey! We went to IHOP for a brunch and laughed when we ordered off of the senior menu! LOL Went shopping for some new jeans, supplies from Sam's, a quick stop in Hobby Lobby and then home again. What a day.

Through all of this I found time to do a Baby word bloom for a shower I'm attending tomorrow. Just need a few finishing touches and then wrap it up.

My dear friend Pam made me a Bahai word bloom and is working on making a Haifa word bloom. I already picked out the paper today for the Haifa book it is My Minds' Eye Out & About series. Can't wait to start on that one. Will post pictures when it is done.

More later

Guess Who's Walking!

JAMIE................................

Lots going on

What a week it was. On the 10th was my dear grandson Jonathan's 13th birthday. He is so artistic. He plays guitar, piano and clarinet! A one man band! On the 12th was my bd, plus Easter.

We had huge plans to bbq in the backyard while the hubby and sons in laws worked on remodeling the tree house, which was originally built in 1999 by Brandon (15) and Jonie (13). At the time they were 5 and 3! I have wonderful pictures of them helping Papa build this tree house.

Well as luck would have it, we were forcasted with a 70% chance of rain, so we cancelled the bbq and tree house repair and went to dd#1's house for dinner. We all had alot of fun and are still looking forward to remodelling.

My dear grandaughter wanted a "neat" name for the treehouse so we came up with "4 Pirates and a Princess". We have 4 grandsons and only 1 grandaughter so she thought this was a great name! Dear sil#2 painted up a skull and crossbones to add to the decor! Now we need a princess crown or something to add to it. I can't wait until we are all done with it so I can post some layouts with the then and now pictures.

Papa is even talking about duplexing up to a higher level in the tree house. We'll see!

Can scrapbooking Hurt??

You betcha! If you are foolish enough to bend over the wrong way to pick up a ribbon box! That's what I did Sunday evening while scrapping with my dear friend Patti. Actually I was finishing making one Easter card and never did use the ribbon afterall!

I leaned over the side of my chair to pick up my ribbon box and felt a "pull" in my lower back. It went from a minor discomfort that night to being barely able to move this morning.

I have been trying to "self medicate" with tylenol (useless) anacin (not so much) motrin (works the best but not enough) to using a topical pain medication called "Blue Emu Oil" gives a nice fuzzy warm feeling but doesn't help for too long.

I broke down and talked to my doctor today and she is prescribing some muscle relaxants and pain pills ( I hate pain pills but will take them if I REALLY REALLY REALLY feel like I need them). She is concerned that if I don't take care of this now that it'll linger on until our trip at the end of this month. So that was the deciding factor to get help!

BUT... I will not let a little ribbon box stop me from scrapping... no siree....I still need to make Easter cards for the grand kiddos! Wish me luck! LOL

Here's Jamie

At the beginning of the year I posted that I wanted to show a layout a week for 2009. Well "It ain't gonna happen" haha but..


A couple of months ago my dear friend Pam (of Heart of Texas Studios) made me this pciture frame album called Jamie. Thanks Pam! I have been working on this book about Jamie and finally have it finished, so I'll post pictures of the pages.


I had alot of fun trying some different techniques. I quilled a butterfly, I used alchol inks on metal letters, I embossed a metal strip and covered a rocket ship, I painted, sanded and even got to use bling on a robot! I used a photo flip technique to show how he ate a cupcake and the mess he made. Priceless! I know there are sooooo many products and techniques out there to learn and work with. This time I decided to only use the things I had on hand and I think I did pretty good. So here's Jamie.............................