Random Updates

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve updated so I thought I’d do a quick post of random updates from the last two months:

Thanksgiving – was nice to visit with family and enjoy the great food (yummy sweet potato casserole) however, M came down with a 3 day flu bug – no fun.

Downtown Dazzle – for anyone living in the Cincinnati area, I’d recommend going to the Downtown Dazzle next year. I think it runs each weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don’t even know how I found out about it, but a group of us spent the day downtown, spent very little money and had a great time! First, we stopped to see the large train display that Duke Energy does every year (FREE), then we caught a showing of “Ruldolph” at the Children’s Theatre (I think we paid $7 a seat)!. Then, we took a horse and carriage ride through downtown (FREE). After that we stopped for lunch in the Tower Place Mall Food Court (cheap and everyone can pick what they want). After that it was time to have pictures taken with Santa (you take your own pictures with your own camera for FREE). That was followed by Santa, Rudolph and an elf rapelling down the side of a skyscraper and capped off with a firework display. Lastly, they had cookies and story time with Mrs. Clause (FREE). It was a great time, with great friends and as you can see, it was a great price! Macy's sponsored all the free things and we all look forward to making this a yearly tradition.

Christmas – M came down with another flu bug on Christmas Eve. Somehow we made it 4 years with no nasty flu bugs and this year she had it twice within one month. Thankfully, she responds well to fever medicine and as long as her fever was down, she was in a good mood. I think she was able to enjoy Christmas, however we had to keep her home for the extended family get together because we didn’t want to pass it to anyone else.

New Years – I had to work until 10:30PM on New Years Eve so I wasn’t doing a whole lot of partying. I watched the ball drop from my bed by myself. M and daddy went out and had a good time with friends!

Resolutions – Yes, I know, every year we make them and *almost* every year we break them… but not this year. I’m determined to lose weight once and for all. We started Weight Watchers the Monday following New Years and we’ve been doing great so far. I think I’m down roughly 8 lbs and I have 38 more to go. My goal is to lose roughly 2 pounds per week so I'll reach my goal in time for M's 5th b-day in July… Hey, 5 years to lose the baby weight… not too shabby… LOL.

Facebook is addicting. Take my word for it! Daddy always thought I was silly because I like to sit on the couch with my laptop while we watch tv at night. Well, he was out of town all last week and I was bored at home so I decided to join Facebook and play around since all the cool kids do it (hehe) and daddy decided he should see what all the hype is about when he got home… needless to say, I don’t sit on the couch with the laptop anymore because I can’t get HIM off of it… LOL. You know there’s a problem when one spouse is on facebook on a computer upstairs and the other spouse is on facebook downstairs. It’s even worse when they are IM’ing each other!

I got a promotion this week! I'm a bit scared about learning a brand new position, but the best news is that I don't have mandatory overtime the last day of the month - every month! It means I won't miss taking M trick-or-treating this year and I can ring in the new year with my friends and family too! So exciting!

Last, but not least, I agreed to make the department birthday card for each birthday in my department. These will be the cards that everyone signs for the birthday person. I tend to be bad about making cards but never giving them away so I thought this is a good way to get in that habit. We had one birthday last week and we have another one this week. These are the two cards I made:

Thanks for stopping by!

Meet Sadie...

This is Santa Sadie and she has got to be one of the cutest stamps I've seen in a long time!

She's part of the new stamp line, Stampin' Spot Studio by Jen Ofiana. They are manufactured by C.C. Designs and available at www.allthatscraps.com.

She just arrived in the mail TODAY and as soon as I got M in bed I ran down to my craft room and busted out this card! 

I also ordered her new Soccer Sadie set. I can't wait to show you a card or scrapbook page with that. She's so adorable and I think she looks just like M!

They're done!

They're done... They are really done! Thank you to everyone who helped me settle on a design for my Christmas cards! I kicked it into overdrive and got them all finished! I decided to go with the landscape design, but with a red card base.  Click on the picture for a larger view!

I think they turned out great and I had the best time making them because M came down to my craft room to keep me company and I set her up with her own supply of paper, ribbon, stickers, etc and she had so much fun making her own "cards" while I worked on mine.

I think she loves ribbon almost as much as her momma!

HELP! I want opinions!

I'm trying to come up with my Christmas card design and I need your opinions. I think I've made about 10 variations on this card and none of them stand out to me...

Which layout do you like better? 

Card #1

Card #2

Close up so you can see the sparkle  =)

Sorry the pictures aren't the best. I had the hardest time getting anything decent!

One of those days...

Have you ever had one of those days where nothing can go right... where you have no mojo to make anything creative and when you look at things you made in the past you think they're not worthy of sharing??? Well, I had one of those days a couple of months ago and I wiped out my blog... lol.

I'm sorry for being a butt head.

I saved some of my past posts (those about my daughter because I didn't want to lose those memories) but the posts only about cards, etc. are gone.

With the holidays coming up and thoughts of making my Christmas cards swirling in my head, I decided I'd try to be better about my blog... so it's back... and even if I'm the only one reading it, at least I'll have something to look back and read down the road!

I don't have anything creative to share with you yet, but I will soon. However, I can update you on some other random things:

*M is in preschool through our school district and loves it... or at least she loves snack time because that's the only thing she'll tell us about her day...lol. She even gets to ride the school bus too and from school. We had a meeting with her teacher last week and she's doing great.

*I've been at my "new" job 3 months now and it's going good. I've always been the "young" person at work and it's odd to be one of the "older" people now. I'm only 29! I share an office with 2 other people and I found out today that one of my office mates graduated in 2004... OMG, he was only in 5th grade with I graduated HS! I would have sworn he was the same age as me... That's either saying something bad about him, or I'm delusional about how old I appear!

*I coached M's soccer team this season and I'm so glad soccer season is over! Note to self, don't try to teach 4 & 5 year olds to NOT steal from their OWN team... It will take weeks to convince them afterwards that it's still OK to steal the ball from the OTHER team!

I'm sure there's a lot more I could add, but I'll save that for later!
Thanks for stopping by!

My baby is 4 now!

Today is M's 4th birthday! We had her party last Saturday, but I feel like I should do something special with her today... just can't think of what. She did inform me that we're all going for cherry dip top ice cream cones tonight... and who am I to say no to cherry dip tops... LOL

Her party turned out wonderful. She was surrounded by family and her closest friends. Daddy grilled some yummy food, I made her a princess castle cake (because it was a princess birthday party), everyone got to make their own princess crown and the kids played and played. They even tried out a few of M's new toys that she got as gifts!

Here's the invite to her party:


...and the cake I made:


... playing at the party:








...and the adults playing too (Rockband...lol):

From Daytona and Beyond...

Sorry for the long delay in posting. M and I took a spur of the moment trip last week to Daytona Beach, FL with a friend and her son.

We had wonderful weather, a wonder hotel and M was wonderful... Ok, maybe I won't go THAT far, but she sure had a blast playing with her friend in the sand, water fountains and ocean!

We were also able to drive down to watch the space shuttle launch on Saturday! The closest we could get was about 12 miles away so I really had to super zoom the shuttle pictures on my computer. Sorry they are so fuzzy!

*M's first plane ride!


*The view from our hotel room!


*Sunrise on the beach!


*A view of Daytona Beach!


*M collecting sea shells!


*I just love these types of pictures!



*The space shuttle launching!

Not ONE, Not TWO, but THREE goals!

Yes, you read that right! My child scored THREE goals today in her soccer game!

I'd like to believe something finally clicked in her head and she *got* it today, but I know better... I know what works on my kid and the trick with M is bribery... We issued a nice bribe this morning on the way to her game. If she scored a goal, she got a certain candy she's been asking for lately. It's shaped like a baby bottle and the top is a large sucker that you can unscrew to dip into the powdered candy that's in the bottle.

I had one in my purse *just in case* but I wasn't holding my breath. M proved me wrong...

Want to know how I know it was the bribe that worked and it wasn't just a fluke that she scored a goal on this particular day??? Shortly after M scored her first goal, they broke for a water break and M's coach came over and said "M wanted me to remind you that you have a baby bottle for her"... LOL. Oh yes... she sent her coach to remind us that she upheld her end of the deal and now it was time for us to uphold our end. Of course, her coach was out of the loop and is probably wondering why I'm giving my almost 4 year old a baby bottle but I don't care... my baby scored THREE goals!

I should also add that at the end of the game M ran up to me and asked for THREE baby bottles... Apparently, she thought she should get a bottle for each goal she scored... Good try kid!

M's next game is tomorrow and don't think I don't have another baby bottle in my purse!

She scored a goal!

M finally scored a goal!

Ok, I know we shouldn't be so excited because she didn't score a goal in a real game, but she did score her FIRST goal last night during a practice scrimmage and daddy and I were thrilled!

Her team was playing against each other and there are 6 girls on a team. Two of the girls are really good and know what they are doing. The other 4 are just kinda out there having fun but not really playing too much. M is one of those girls! She's had a few good runs down the field with the ball but she's never really come close to scoring. Last week during a game the ball was literally in front of her and only 12" from the goal and she was clueless.

..but back to last night... they split the team and they played against each other. The two "good" players were on the same team with another girl and M was on a team with two more "clueless" players. I even made a comment to daddy that the sides were lopsided and it was going to be a joke, but someone how M got a hold of the ball and ran it down the field against the best player on their team and she scored a goal!

Daddy and I were hootin' and hollerin' and M was so proud of herself. She was jumping up and twirling in circles and yelling that she made a goal...

I don't think we even care if she ever makes another goal. It was so much fun watching her last night!

Sadly, I didn't have my camera with me but I do have a few other random pictures to share with you!

Enjoy!

ETA: If you click on a picture below, it will enlarge!

So Much Fun...

I recently started staying home with M and we've been having so much fun together. Each day we have a learning time and art time and I think it's something M looks forward from the moment she wakes up!

We've done everything from the traditional finger painting, water coloring, drawing with crayons, etc. to the more fun things such as:

Make a picture of mommy:


Make a princess hat:


... and make a Fruit Loop necklace:



We've also been lucky enough to have wonderful weather so we've made several trips to the park! Today we even had a picnic lunch at the park next to the lake!