Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy

For Christmas this year, we have 8 kids to think about for presents. That starts adding up to lots of money especially when the grandparents are divorced and so we have to get together two times to do presents. When they were all small, it wasn't so bad. But as you know, the older the children get, the more expensive the gifts get. So, this year, we decided to draw names at one house...that way we only buy one present per person in our family...that's fair! And then for the other house, we decided to make our gifts. Me and my sister-in-laws have been doing that for each other for sometime now. We have had gifts such as ornaments, jingle-bell doorhangers, and even a cute winter penguin made from a bowling pin. So, we decided to let the children make gifts for the other children as well. (Of course, some of us have more time than say the mother who is in nursing school, so we know that the crafts may be of all degrees of difficulty and that is totally understandable.) All of this to say, that I came up with an idea after seeing another idea at my LSS on Saturday. The owner had her Christmas tree up with ornaments. Some of the ornaments she had hanging were large circles with scrapbooked pictures of her family on them. She told me she was doing a class on them this month and that they were made from c.d.s. Well, when I got home, Annessa and I made one. It was cute but it got me thinking about what else I could make out of c.d.s. So here you go. I made this for Annessa today while she was at school. When I showed it to her she loved it. So this is what we are going to make for the other girls. We'll make something different for the boys and little babies. I have just one word to tell how I did this...Crop-A-Dile! There is no other way I could punch the hole through the c.d.s and thick paper.

Before....















After....

What I've Been Up to Lately....

Wow! I can't believe how fast time can go by. I didn't blog anything the last part of the week or through the weekend. I stayed busy, busy last week....got ALL my housework done and in shape for our Thanksgiving company. Now all I have for this week is my regular laundry and just maintaining what I've done so far. And that's no small task with the three I have running around here! As a reward to myself for staying home all last week and getting so much accomplished, I took off to Huntsville on Friday. The boys and I met Leah and Natalie at Hobby Lobby and then on to the Mall for a little lunch and playtime (they have a indoor playarea in the foodcourt...gotta love that!). After we ate, we walked around and went into a few stores, then met up with our friend Amy C. She was there to get pictures made of her cutie-pie daughter. We left and went to Michael's and then on to this LSS. We got a few goodies there and then I needed to head home to be there in time for Annessa to get off the bus. But I stopped by one last LSS on my way home. It is here that I have preordered Chatterbox Doodle Genies, but she has not received them yet. :(

On Friday night, I met Heather at this place where she was on a Scrap Retreat. I stayed for a few hours and worked on some stuff. It was a lot of fun...I wish I could have stayed longer or come back sometime on Saturday. I spent Saturday afternoon and Sunday with the family. We really enjoyed each other's company.

Today, I met a dear friend, Wendy, for lunch and then I met Amy C. at Hobby Lobby again! I know, I know...I'm addicted and need help. So when I got home today, instead of doing my laundry and house maintenance, I played! Here are some pictures of my desk that I moved into my dining room/scrap room. Amy M. will be proud of me...look at those labels! The last picture is of some of the goodies I got over the last few days.




I hope everyone is getting ready for Turkey Day! We are here...got me a 14 pounder today...Yum Yum. I'll be adding my recipes for Turkey and my Mom's Cornbread Dressing to my recipe page this week....be on the lookout!

A great time with friends...

Several of us got together at W.H. for a night of cropping last Friday night! It was so much fun as usual. But it was even better this time because we had some special guests. First of all, Jamie (whom I met through Amy M.'s blog and found out that she lived so close) got to come! It was so great to meet her finally after corresponding through emails and blogging! She is very sweet and we hope that she will come back (if we didn't scare her too much with our craziness).Secondly, my friend Heather got to come too. It was great to get back together with her and get to introduce her to my other scapping friends. And she fit right in, as did Jamie. I hope that both these girls will become a regular part of our monthly crops. Heather even took out her camera and was the one to take these pictures. I wish I could have thought to take some of everyone else that was there as well.


This is my good friend Amy pictured with me here. Everyone please leave a comment that she needs to get her a blog started!

Look What I Did...

I worked for a few hours this morning at Redstone. After I left, I decided to stop by a LSS that I haven't had a chance to visit. Bad Idea! I should have known that going in would lead to buying things! But I found some things that I really needed (wanted)! I got a date stamper by Heidi Swapp, some cool flower stamps by Autumn Leaves, a few tags and a few embellishments. So of course when I got home, I had to play with it all. Here is the page I created. I had these pictures on a different page I did earlier but I didn't like it too much. I like this one a whole lot better. The journaling says, "You have such big and beautiful blue eyes! I love to take pictures of you close enough to capture the twinkle of your eyes."