Happy Monday

I was cruising the blog scene just now and came across this etsy shop via SiStv. How darling are these tags? I must have them! Those mustache tags crack me up.


And if you haven't been to Pink Paislee's new and improved website, you MUST check it out. I love, love, love their 'pink projects.' So much fun.


I'm going to have to create those fanned flowers from Thursday's project idea. So many projects, so little time!!!

Where'd the weekend go???

In the blink of an eye, it's gone. Oh well, it's a short week this week since Thanksgiving break starts on Wednesday. So Darren and I saw "Bolt" this afternoon. What a cute movie. The hampster totally stole the show.

I can't believe Thanksgiving is in 4 days. Yikes. I have dinners galore this coming weekend.

Thursday: Thanksgiving potluck at my cousin's house. Talk about a ton of food to be had...

Friday: dinner with high school classmates (thanks to facebook!) Can't wait for this reunion!

Saturday: my mother-in-law's 80th birthday party dinner

...and here's the kicker:

I'm planning on running my first-ever 5K on Sunday morning 8:30am sharp in Golden Gate Park in SF. All I can say is that it's NOT gonna be pretty!

Tomorrow is my sister's birthday so I made this quick little card for her since the date snuck up on me! Happy birthday Jan!

The Voracious Reader

Last month I checked out a Captain Underpants chapter book from the library to read to Darren in order to expose him to chapter books and more challenging text since he is such a good reader.

{pats self on back}

I figured this series would encourage him to try to read a few sentences or pages with me since the books are about 2 elementary school boys who love to get into trouble at school and create comic books about their principal flying around in his underwear (hence, Captain Underpants) and stories involving toilets, boogers and other gross things boys find highly amusing.

Well, I think I've created a monster. He has not only managed to take over the reading of these books (minus a few complicated words here and there) but he has almost finished reading the entire series of them! Here's Darren reading this morning before school:



So, helpful hint to parents who want to encourage their boys to read more:

Get your hands on some Captain Underpants!

Dear Santa

I know it's early but I have been wanting lots of things of late. Some are whimsical and some not so much! So Santa, if you're out there, I've been a good girl this year.

From Kenner Road's ephemera shop:



and...



Although SOLD OUT at Label Tulip, can't Santa create miracles?





this wide-angle zoom lens for my Canon Rebel xTi:




OK, so back to reality!

I thought I'd post this piece of inspiration from the talented Marie who is a designer over at Red Velvet Kit Club. I absolutely ADORE this "Thankful" sign. If I have time, I'm going to try to make one because I just HAVE to!

The Monterey Bay Escapade

As Bruce likes to say and Ginger likes to do, we put the tires to the pavement and drove 2 1/2 hrs. south to Monterey to spend the day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was well worth the drive. I mean, look how beautiful it was on Tuesday...




Cannery Row

The kids ran around from room to room for hours and there was so much to see. I think the hands-on area and the ocean wave room were their favorites.









My absolute favorite part of the day was watching the jellyfish. What amazing sea creatures. These pictures still don't do them justice.





And how cute is this guy?



So even though I'm coming down with a cold, tomorrow we are headed out for our eighth (!) camping trip this year since it's supposed to be in the 80's this weekend. Ya gotta love living in California!

Stories in Hand

Last night I registered for Jessica Sprague's {FREE!} Stories in Hand class on her website. I have to admit that I don't do a great job with extensive journaling on my scrapbook pages and I'd love to create more in-depth scrapbook pages.

There are so many stores in my lifetime that I have never bothered to write about in a diary or journal so this class will definitely inspire me to take the time to jot down my thoughts so that I can scrap about it later.

I had a chance to meet Jessica Sprague at last year's CHA in Anaheim. She is super nice and is SO talented. The digital pages she creates are just incredible.

Now off to get started! Hope to see/chat with some of you there!

Weekend Update

I'm definitely enjoying this 4-day holiday weekend. Ginger and I hit the road with the boys on Saturday and managed to do some retail therapy at Scrapbook Territory in Berkeley and enjoyed an early dinner at Picante. Man, their fish tacos are the BOMB! Yum!



Then we hit IKEA for some mirror frames so that we could "Holtzify" (hey, did I just create a new word or what?) for holiday gifts and then meandered over to My Daughter's Wish in Pleasant Hill and got to say 'hi' to our pal Daniela who was working the crop that night.

Today Darren and I hung out at my parent's house since my 2 nephews were spending the night there. We had quite the day filled with donuts (!) and board games. Here are a few fun shots of our 4-hour marathon game of Spider-Man Monopoly. -- Yes, as you could imagine, it started out with 5 of us playing but the 2 younger ones lost interest after the first hour.




Yay! Jake! Our eventual Monopoly winner!



Well, it looks like I'll be trying to go out for a run tomorrow to work off the donuts I ate if my knee has recuperated enough from a little injury last week at the gym (I won't name names {Ginger!} who had this great idea of doing 200+ walking lunges with weights last week.)

Hope and Change

What a significant event in our time. It's one of those lifetime moments where you'll always remember where you were, what you were doing when the announcement was made that Sen. Barack Obama was elected as our 44th president.

I hope our youth sees this moment in history as significantly as I do. You can be all you want to be. The sky is the limit. Dreams can come true.

Sen. Obama definitely has extremely high expectations to fulfill but I have no doubt in my mind that whatever happens will be positive and significant in the eyes of today's youth.

Did you VOTE today?

I actually voted almost 10 days ago. I've been doing 'absentee' voting so I can avoid the lines. I hope everyone goes out and votes today as this is definitely one of the most closely watched elections I can remember.

EVERY VOTE COUNTS. Bush beat out Gore 4 years ago by a little over 500 votes so there's proof in the pudding, don't ya think?

And an even MORE important reason to vote:

Halloween and that crazy place called Facebook

Here are a few photos of Darren at his school's Halloween costume parade. For those of you who don't have little boys, he was Ben 10, which is a Cartoon Network cartoon about a boy who has a watch that can turn him into 10 different aliens. Yeah, I know, such a 'boy thing!'









Halloween fortunately went off without a hitch. My parents came over to help with passing out candy and going treat-or-treating with me and Darren since Bruce had to work. We managed to skirt the scattered sprinkles and came home with quite the candy stash.







On another subject, Ginger got me hooked on Facebook this week. Yeah, great, like I need to spend more time at the computer! Anyhow, it's amazing at how many people I've been able to find from middle school all the way through college. I'm even meeting a friend I haven't seen since high school for lunch next week. Ah the beauty of the internet age.

Being that it's now the first week of November, yes, I did manage to finish the 3 projects Ginger and I had a running bet on. Actually, I finished 5 projects. Yay me! Here's the cover of a birthday mini-book I did from a Scarlet Lime kit club project I bought back in May (Is that evidence that I'm behind!)



I've been busy working mini-projects from Stacey Fike's "10 from 52" online class at SiStv and am enjoying it immensely. Even though the class wrapped up on Friday I am still playing catch-up plus 22 gals who took the class are going to participate in a ATC swap so I'm looking forward to that (Considering it will be my first ATC swap. Yeah, I know, I'm lagging!) Here are a few pages of a "My Music" mini-album I finished:











So now that it's November, anyone start their holiday shopping yet?