They Say It's Your Birthday

Happy Birthday Dad. Thanks for being the best dad a gal could have. Keep on laughing, camping, vacationing, guitar playing, BBQing and enjoying life. You are certainly good at it!

Here are some shots from dinner Sunday night. I invited my parents to dinner that night in celebration of Dad's birthday and their wedding anniversary earlier in the week. They thought it was just going to be my family but my sister and older brother and his family surprised them with their appearance thanks to some sneaky planning! We had a super time and agreed that we have to do it more often!

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Love this last picture!

44 years and counting...

No! That is definitely NOT my age (just yet!) but the number of years my parents have been married. Actually their 44th wedding anniversary was yesterday and I am so proud of them! There aren't a lot of marriages that last that long so they definitely inspire me to continue the tradition ;)


Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad!


I've been spending some time scrapping with Kenner Road's December kit (finally!) and created a few pages.





I absolutely love the colors. My obsession has turned from yellows to grays. And I think Crate Paper is quickly becoming a favorite paper line of mine!

I also managed to finish my Christmas mini-book kit from Teresa Collins that I bought at Scrapbook Territory. I love that Bind-it-all! Thank goodness Ginger already owns one!







I was also inspired last month to create this holiday wreath:



Vee over at SIStv created a super cute wreath that was so easy to make. I thought it would be a fun craft project to do with Darren but the hole punches I had were too hard for him to use so after 3 circles were punched he was done. So much for that idea! But I loved how it turned out.

On a final note, I am highly bummed that my gal Sasha didn't make the CMK Design Team (what were they thinking?) but she's still an inspiration to me. Love ya girl!

Back to the Grind

The little guy was back to school on Monday after enjoying 2 weeks off for winter break. That also means I'm back to teaching as well. It wasn't pretty when the alarm went off on Monday morning. All of that sleeping in for the past 2 weeks has been comin' back to haunt me.

So here's a question for ya:

What do you get when your 7 year-old kid with the attention span of a 7 year-old spends 12-15 hours over the span of about 5 days putting 1,367 tiny pieces of Legos together???


You guessed it: one happy kid with a sense of accomplishment. Way to go Darren!

2009: Bring it on!

Happy New Year everyone! I am not a believer in new year's resolutions but I am definitely hopeful for a brighter year in 2009. I am counting down the days until President-elect Obama's inauguration on January 20th. What an historical moment that will be!

Although I didn't bother to stay up until midnight to ring in the new year we did go to my mother-in-laws for her delicious gumbo. We hurried home in order to let our dog in the house since she is terrified of fireworks and tends to do damage to herself and the exterior of our house while trying to claw herself inside.

Darren and I did manage to take a day trip (yes, a DAY trip!) to Yosemite with Ginger and her boys on Tuesday. The drive over was quick. We were playing in the snow before noon and left at dusk. We spent the day at Ginger's friend's cabin in Yosemite. The pictures below are in his backyard which is Yosemite Meadow. Talk about a postcard view! It was a beautifully clear day with no wind and powder-fresh snow.

Ginger and I built a small hill for the kids to ride down on the sled. Snowball fights were the order of the day and lots of photo ops were had. All in all, a great day but a LONG ride home in fog once we got down into the valley.