Tuesday already?

BF and Lucy - my grandparents - not sure of the date

Wow, the days sure do fly fast! I feel like as I get older, the days get shorter and my kids get taller. How does this happen I keep asking myself!?!? It is a busy week as I get ready for my trip with the kids to Georgia this week. We fly out on Thursday night on the red eye (to keep the kids on schedule as best I can) and arrive in HOTlanta on Friday AM. We are headed back East to see my 91 year old grandfather and have a mini family reunion! It has been over 13+ years since I have seen some of my family, including my siblings. I know....sad but true. It will be great to catch up with them all, I am really looking forward to this trip.

Then on Sunday, my darling boy Xander will fly back home to finish up the school semester and final exams while the 2 short peeps and I head even further into the deep south to visit with my mom, family and friends in south Georgia for a few days.

To get ready, I am putting the finishing touches on a gift for my grandfather that I hope he'll like so won't be on here too much unless I get done early. Anyone have an extra wife I can borrow? I sure could use one right about now to feed, bathe the kids and clean my house while I am busy crafting and packing!

I'll blog along the way as I can squeeze in the time and as ya'll know, I will have oodles of photos to post so stay tuned and follow along with me.............the best is yet to be!

Life's Full of Potential....

Borrowing this post from my Aunt Sandy since it was too wonderful not to share. It is people like this young man who are great reminders that those things we consider life's "problems" are not really problems at all. May we all be so blessed with a life as rich as his!

Enjoy your sunny Sunday my friends!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xwCG0Ey2Mg

Recycled Crafting with Kids

I was going to post yesterday but I was too busy crafting! Hannah had a friend over so I decided to teach them how to make paper. We made very cute cards with all the recycling from my shredding machine, added seeds in it and they make darling cards that are perfect gifts and can be re-gifted back to the earth after we are done. So the girls made some cards with perennial wildflower seeds and they added in chamomile, vanilla, lavender and other scents to make their cards not only functional but smell good too! I made a stack of 4 cards that each contain seeds to plant a "pizza garden" - a tomato card, basil card, onion card and red pepper card. I stamped the back with some really cute CTMH "handmade" stamps that I ordered long ago from the best scrapper I know, my cousin Haley - check her out here. Now I am going to tie these up with a cute set of gardening gloves, trowel and shovel and give them to someone as a gift.

It was a great day. I even bought a piece of wood, mitered it and made my very own deckle screen frame. This craft is so stinkin' easy that even small kids can do this as well. All you need are recycled paper materials, water, screening material and a lot of creativity! Makes great teacher and neighbor gifts!!! The best part the only costs are the sees and the scents if you decide to add either, otherwise these cards could be made completely for free by using leftovers around your home - dry your flowers and save them too for nice additions of color pop in the cards. You can trim the edges or leave them rough as I have done. The paper is the easy part, what you do with it afterward is up to you. :)

Have fun. What have crafty project have you done lately with your recycling materials?

Windy, wonderful Wednesday

I say wonderful because we need the rain and because my family is healthy, happy and safe however that is about all the wonderful you get! Otherwise the wind is AMAZING, the rain when it comes on shore is torrential and the weather is the craziest I have seen in the 5 years of living here in sunny, southern California. You see, we are weather wimps here. Yes, we live in weather luxury where our years are a perpetual summer of sunshine, warm balmy temps, little rain and any given day can be a "beach day" almost year round, there are many days that I miss living somewhere that has 4 distict seasons but I certainly have no complaints, it could be worse. So this kind of weather sends our community in a tail spin and turns the town on its head, lol! Good thing these people don't live in the south, they would all run for the hills.

You can check it out here:

http://www.ocregister.com/news/storm-229995-highway-commute.html

So to make the most of the day we are hunkered down in the comfort of home crafting, cooking, catching up on housework and homework and just being happy! For those without home's or the comfort of a safe haven, we send our thoughts, prayers and hopes that you are finding a place to stay dry.

Hoping my darling hubby gets a flight in tonight from Tacoma in between the storms. We are missing him.

Have a great day making the most of your weather no matter where you are!

Christmas Road Trip 2009

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Where has this month gone?

Is it Tuesday January 19th, the day after my birthday and I am wondering where in the world these last 19 days have gone already? Whew, it seems like as I get older the days start going faster. I had meant to pist the last few days of our Oregon/No Cal adventures but never got around to it. I am going to post a smilebox (which everyone knows I am addicted to - if you haven't tried it, you should - a great way to send photos in a fun unique way). I'll get that up right in between the loads of laundry that never seem to end this week.

Speaking of which, why is it I have to tell my oldest that I notice each and every time he puts the exact same pair of pants in the dirty laundry that are still (or were still) clean AND STILL FOLDED! Does he really think I think they're dirty? PUH-LEEZ! So back onto his bed they go and the same cycle has repeated itself 3 times over the last week. I told him if I see them one more time, he is doing ALL the laundry for the entire family for the next week! So there!!!! Geez!

Anyway, I need to get to that laundry, get this smilebox made and get my house back in order so I'll sign off for now but post the photos from the trip before I go to bed!

Here's a photo to keep you occupied while I pull the others together! The kids at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company restaurant at Pier 39 in San Francisco. Run Forrest Run!!!

Night ya'll! XOXOXO