A few of my Favorite Pics of 2009

As we get ready to say goodbye to 2009 and hello to 2010, I thought I would post just a few of my favorite pictures of the year. I have taken so many this year because of the Project 365 that it was really hard to narrow them down. 

These two are favorites because they remind me of our trip to Disney World this last March. The top one because it is of the four of us and the bottom because of how exciting it was for the boys to open the Indiana Jones show. Here is the post of the video we have of this event. 

This next picture says Spring to me. The boys were in the backyard and found a four-leaf clover. It looks so perfect! 

This next one is pretty obvious. Just a silly picture of a silly boy in some silly glasses.

And my water fireworks. One of my all-time favorites!

I remember I went to take Maggie for a walk one night and got about 1/2 way down the block when I saw this huge cloud with lightening in it. So I ran back to the house, dropped Maggie off, and got my camera. Sorry Maggie, but I think this picture was worth you missing a walk!.

I love this picture of the boys in front of the Arch. When you grow up in St. Louis, I think you have to have one of these pictures. 

And how could we forget the little puppy that came to live with us. As much as she has driven me crazy this first year, she is super cute! Look at the little stub of a tail. :-)

And lastly, these two pictures of the boys at Gulf Shores. I love, love, love these pictures of them! 

Happy New Year everyone who comes to my little blog. I wish everyone a safe, healthy and happy 2010!


Thanks again for visiting me! 

Hot Air Ballon Sightings and Cards

Last Thursday I woke up, opened the blinds in my bedroom and was greeted with this sight.

It isn't very often that I see a hot air balloon floating by first thing in the morning. Actually I have never seen a hot air balloon first thing in the morning. lol! I thought this has to be a good sign that the rest of my day was going to go okay. I was a little nervous because I was scheduled to get a wisdom tooth pulled later that day.

My appointment went well though. I think it helped that I opted to get sedated while having the tooth pulled. I think it makes it much easier to just go to sleep and then wake up 15 minutes later and have it all done. I was pretty tired all weekend. Just felt like napping a lot. I'm not normally a napper so that was pretty unusual for me. Today I feel pretty good again. My mouth doesn't feel swollen anymore, so I think I'm on the road to recovery!

And since I felt pretty good today I decided to go in my scraproom and get a little creative. It has been awhile since I created anything, so I kept it pretty simple. I got the Everyday Button bits stamp set from PaperTreyInk.com a while ago and have been wanting to use it. It has so many cute images that incorporate buttons. Even though these are pretty simple, I like how they turned out. Hopefully I can get into my room some more this week and really get to some scrapping and card-making! I haven't been on a good creative roll in a long time.

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Some Project 365 Pictures

I'm still going strong on my Project 365. I will admit that I have missed a few days of taking a picture, but I'm going to go back and fill in those gaps with some generic shots. You know, things like the kind of shampoo we use, groceries, etc.

I said I was going "strong", but now that I think that over, "strong" might have been the incorrect word choice. I have been taking the pictures, but getting the pictures printed and journaling about the pictures has not been done for months. I did just order 100 prints from Shutterfly, so as soon as I get those, I plan on sitting down and getting caught up on my book. It will probably take me a week to get caught up.

Anyways, here are a few of my recent favorites.

Spencer blowing bubbles at Maggie in the backyard. Maggie wasn't sure if she should be afraid of the bubbles or play with them.

This is cabbage plant that Spencer brought home from school last year.
It was for a contest to see who could grow it the biggest over the summer months. Let's just say Spencer isn't going to win this one. I'm just really happy that it is still alive! I saw this butterfly flying around it one morning and grabbed the camera to get some pictures. I was pleased with how this one turned out. I do wish the butterfly had more color so you could see it better against our house, but it is still a nice pic.

I love these next shots!
I went to take Maggie for a walk one evening and saw this huge storm cloud in front of us.

And then I noticed lightening in the cloud.
So I said, "Sorry" to Maggie and I ran her back to the house, dropped her off and got my camera. :-)

The lightening in that cloud was so cool!
I took about a hundred pics and got some really neat shots.
My favorite is the one below.

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Here is my 7/8/9 10:11 picture

This little girl is very time-consuming. Right now I am pretty much on puppy-watch constantly to house break her. We are making some progress. I think. Probably just wishful thinking on my part.

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Yep, Summer has Arrived.

We finally had a good, hot , sunny day. So we went to our neighborhood pool today along with everyone else in the neighborhood! I don't think I have seen it that crowded on a weekday afternoon before. It has been so rainy and kind of cool here until today and I think everyone wanted to get out of the house! This is the only picture I took. I put the camera back in the backpack after this and started talking to the neighbors and forgot to get it back out. I think this picture will do just fine for my picture of the day. ;-)

I'm still working on my new scrap room. I told you I was s l o w!

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Our Holiday Weekend

Over the Memorial Day weekend we went to Ohio. We got to visit with family and friends, see a couple of movies and do a little shopping. Well actually we (that really should say me) did a lot of shopping! I thought I would share a few of my pictures that I took for my Project 365.

Here is my picture for Friday. Chris took this for me as we were entering Ohio.

This nest is in Chris' parents backyard. I had to take a lot of pictures before I finally got one of the mama bird and her babies. Every time I got the camera out, she would fly away.
Here I am after our big Ikea shopping trip. Can I just say that I love Ikea. I really, really love that place. I wish there was one closer. I got two of the Expedit shelves they had on sale for the Holiday weekend for my new scrap room. I also got Spencer a new desk chair and a long table to put in the basement for the boys to use for their drawing and coloring. I got a small chair for my scrap room and some curtains. This was on Sunday. After we got home that evening, I was wishing that I had got the cover that went with the chair. So on our way out of town Monday, we drove back to Ikea with the boys. We ate breakfast there and I got the chair cover. The boys loved it! Spencer said he thinks Ikea is his new favorite store. :-D
After our full day of Ikea shopping on Sunday, our friends Denise and Joey came over to Chris' parents house and had dinner with us. This is Joey, Spencer, Karen (Chris' sister) and Connor playing a game of washers in the backyard.
And this is of my picture of the day for yesterday. Driving back into Missouri.
We had a great weekend and now I have to get all of the things I bought at Ikea put together. Spencer's room is very close to being done. I have a few canvases left to paint and hang and then I think his room will be ready. His room is really coming together great! I can't wait to show it off. I'm hoping by the end of the week to have it done so I can take some pictures to post.

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Tuesday's Picture of the Day

I'm still going strong with my picture of the day. Now I haven't got them all printed out yet and in my album, but I am taking them. Actually I think I'm about two months behind on my printing. I need to get that caught up!

Today's picture has a little story behind it. A couple of months ago Connor planted some seeds in a cup during Sunday school. We brought it home and kept watering them and to our surprise we actually grew a plant! On Mother's Day, we transplanted it to a pot outside and this morning I happened to notice that we had flowers on it. Very pretty purple flowers. Now I just have to keep it alive during our hot St. Louis summers, which I admit I'm not very good at. I tend to forget to water them. I'm going to try and be better about keeping this one alive. Wish me Luck!


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My Mother's Day

I hope that everyone enjoyed their Mother's Day. I had a great day. Connor drew me a picture of a sunflower and Spencer had watercolor painted a vase full of flowers at school for me. They are both gorgeous pictures and I love them!

I also received this cute, clay flower pot that says Mom on it. This was all Spencer's idea. His school was selling these pots. So both he and Connor used their own money to buy me one. And they kept it a secret all week long!

I also got an Archiver's gift card, and Chris made me breakfast.

We decided to go out to dinner at one of my favorite local Mexican restaurants. But before we went, I wanted a picture of the boys and me for my picture of the day.

And of course, I got quite a few of these:

And these:

And then I finally got a picture or two that I love. Of course, I told them that we couldn't leave for the restaurant until I got a decent picture. That definitely speeded the process up!

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Living with boys

So this morning I hear Spencer up. That is not unusual because he is an early bird and is usually up before me. My alarm clock is typically the sound of the tv being turned on by him to the Disney channel. I get up and come down stairs to get him breakfast and I see this.

This little speck is on my ceiling in the family room. I can't begin to tell you how many times I have told him not to throw things in this room. I have found things on my window ledges many times (remember this post), but this is the first time something has been on the ceiling though. Can you tell what it is? Any guesses?

Any idea?

Any at all?

How about a sticky frog?

That little frog stayed up there all day. I was beginning to think that gravity wasn't going to get him at all. But about 15 minutes ago, he fell back down to earth. I'm sure it left a mark on my ceiling, but thankfully the ceiling is high so I can't see anything.

I will say that Spencer has a good arm because he lobbed him up there and got him to stick the right way. It did look like I had a frog on my ceiling for most of the day.

And both of these are going to my picture of the day. Thanks again for visiting me!

Monday Picture of the Day

I love, love how this picture turned out! This is what happens when you get your camera book out and read how to set your camera to get the picture you want. I was aiming to get the raindrops and what I ended up with is so much better. In my opinion anyways. :-D

I'm going to title this one "Water Fireworks". And I might even frame this one and hang it up in my house. Can you tell that I seriously love how this picture turned out? ;-D


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A card and a picture...

I haven't really done much creative in the last few weeks. So I thought I would share a card I made about a month ago. I saw this idea somewhere a long time ago and I apologize because I now can't remember where. But I have made a few of these cards and I always love how they turn out.

I just cut some yellow cardstock into the shape of a glass to represent the lemonade. Then cut a piece of transparency the same size and shape. I ran the transparency through my Cuttlebug to emboss it to give it the look of a glass. To adhere the transparency to the cardstock I used jumbo glue dots. They are suppose to look like ice cubes. :) Then cut a lemon shape with my cricut and used a regular ol'straw to complete it! It is really a pretty easy card to put together.


And this is one of my pictures for my Project 365. Spencer came home with these silly straw glasses for turning in some addresses for a magazine subscription fund raiser at school. He couldn't wait to try them out, and I absolutely love this picture of him!!

Thanks again for visiting. I hope you have a great weekend!

It's a new post from me!

Really! I'm still here!

So the last week has been crazy! We got back from Disney World a week ago tonight. We had a fantastic trip. The weather was perfect, our flights were on time and smooth, the food was great, and we did some new things at Disney that we had missed before. I'm still in the process of going through my pics. I think I took around 700, so that is going to be a big process to narrow them down.

The main reason I haven't really updated anything is because right when we got back home, the flu hit our house. And I mean right when we got home. Like I stated earlier, we got home last Tuesday night. We got to our house around 10:30pm and at 1:30am Connor woke up sick with the flu. Poor guy was sick all night. And then he was just really weak and sleepy for about another 3 days. And of course right when he starts feeling better, it hit me. So being gone on vacation plus coming home to a week of sickness equals me being really behind on things.

I thought I would share some of my pictures from my Project 365 (Taking a picture of the day for the entire year.)

This is poor Connor on day two of his illness. Doesn't he look pathetic? Poor thing. I didn't notice the lego creature behind him until I uploaded the picture. I think Spencer set him there to keep Connor company.

This is one of Spencer's Lego creations.
Chris made the boys smoothies on Sunday. They had been bothering me all week to make them and I was actually getting ready to go the grocery store to get the ingredients when the flu hit me. They had seen it on the Disney channel and wanted to give them a try. So Chris took them to the grocery store and made them all up and .........the boys didn't like them. Figures. (And just for the record they were good. I tasted them.)
Here is Chris replacing the hinges on the door to the basement. Connor and Spencer both helped him with the drill.
And the last two are some pretty shots I got. This is of the blossoms on the Pear Tree in my front yard. I think it is a Bradford Pear Tree. I love these trees. They bloom early in the spring and are one of the last to lose their leaves in the fall.
And this is the view from our bedroom window today. It is a rainy day. I like the reflection of the curtains in the rainy window.
Phew! That was a long post! If you read it all and looked at all of the pics, Thanks! I hope to have some more Disney pictures to post soon.
Thanks again for visiting me!

14 days and counting....

Wow! We are only 2 weeks away now! The time is really going by fast. Yesterday we finished up making our dining reservations. We are going to go to a couple of favorites from last time (Lilo & Stitch breakfast) and try some new ones (Sci-Fi Dine In & Raglan Road Irish Pub). Can you guess who picked the Irish restaurant? :D I can't wait to eat all that good food.

Here is the last layout from my 2008 Disney Album. This is one of my favorite layouts. It is simple in design, but it took me forever to finish. That isn't digital. I took all of my left over pictures and cut them out to fit into the mouse ears shape. I just love how it turned out!

This is my picture of the day for yesterday.
We bought this puzzle in a bottle at Disney last year.

More Project 365 pictures

I got all caught up on my Project 365 today, which means I have all of my pictures printed and the journaling done for each day. Yea!

This first picture speaks for itself. :D

Connor getting his hair cut. I'm not sure what he is looking at, but I do know that he was avoiding direct eye contact with his "momarazzi".

Spencer brought home this clay pot that he made in
Art class at school.
Chris is taking it to work to use as a candy dish on his desk.

This was an exciting day! The elementary school held "Saturday" School for all the new incoming kindergartners. Here Connor is coming off of the bus after his very first solo bus ride. Then after this, he went to a kindergarten classroom and did some crafts.This was to get him used to where he will be next year. I can't believe he is going to kindergarten next year!

These are some tulips that Chris brought me. And no they weren't for Valentine's Day. We got engaged 11 years ago on February, Friday the 13th. He thought Valentine's Day was too obvious a day to propose. So he picked Friday the 13th!

Thanks for visiting. :D