Goodbye 2010

Wow, I can't believe 2010 is already over.  What a year it's been.  I've learned quite a lot.  Here are the top 10 things I've learned in 2010:

1.  Being a homeowner is awesome and hard at the same time.
2.  I'm super excited to experience the baby phase again next year.  I can't wait!
3.  Traveling with a 2-year-old wasn't as painful as I thought it was going to be.
4.  Potty training really is up to the child.  Can't force it too hard.
5.  I love love love Modern Family.  Love.
6.  I feel the same way about Dexter, with a few more loves in there.
7.  I will not sign up for a full year of personal training again.  Not worth it.
8.  Tucson, AZ is absolutely beautiful, despite the heat.
9.  I'm a pretty hardcore Republican.
10.  I'm really looking forward to what 2011 will teach me.

I hope that everyone has a safe New Year's celebration.  Happy New Year everyone!  Bring on 2011!

Merry Christmas!

Hi everyone!  I hope that you all are having a wonderful holiday season!  I'm traveling to Florida to visit my family for three weeks starting tomorrow, so I won't be posting as often, although I will try to pop in a couple of times.  I won't be on again until after Christmas, so MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone!  Ok, onto the December Daily updates:

I also had my first OB appointment today and everything looks great!  I'm 8 weeks and 1 day today.  We did a vaginal ultrasound and I was able to see my little peanut and see the heartbeat.  So exciting!  My due date is July 31, but if I have another C-section (which I probably will), we'll schedule it at 39 weeks, so we're still looking towards the end of July. 

I hope that everyone has a wonderful and safe holiday season!

Dec Daily Update

Here are my most recent December Daily pages.  It's hard to sit down everyday and add details, so I'm keeping a running list of what I want to record on which date. 

This weekend we are getting all of the last minute details done to prepare for our trip.  Including:
-laundry
-packing
-eating all of the parishable food in the house
-trying not to stress out
We leave for Florida on Tuesday and we're all so excited to spend some good quality time with our family.  I'll be back Monday with more updates from my DD and hopefully no stress stories!  Have a great weekend everyone!

The Sampler!

I just got the great news that I'll be designing for The Sampler, which is a kit club linked to Scrapbooking Supplies R Us.  I'm so excited about this!  To get a monthly kit to play with and make beautiful pages, count me in!  I start in January so I hope you will come follow me and the other great design team ladies as we work with our kits.  I'll be sure to share more details as I get them, but go and check them out!

I'll be back tomorrow with my December Daily update!

Book Review - Mercy

I just finished a book called Mercy by Jodi Picoult.  I. Love. Jodi. Picoult.  She is my favorite author.  Favorite!  She writes about hard issues that make you feel things you probably shouldn't.  In this case, she makes you feel sympathy for a man who killed his wife.  You spend the entire book hoping that he'll be found Not Guilty, regardless of the fact that he admittedly killed her.  I won't give anything away, but one of the main characters just made me so mad!  One of the main characters cheats on his wife (not the one who killed his wife, a different one).  And it made me SOOOOO mad!  I know that a lot of people cheat, but she really didn't deserve it.  I focused more on that than on the trial, that's how mad it made me.  As always, Picoult wrote a great book that made me feel so many emotions, including anger.  Another great book!

One of my goals for my 32nd year is to read 50 books, including the first book in each series that I'm interested in reading, to see if I do in fact want to read the whole series.  I decided my next book will be one of these series starters.  I'm moving on to the first book of a series that my mother and sister told me about.  It's called Nightwalkers by Jacquelyn Frank and the first book is about Jacob.

Updates, Updates, Updates

So much to say today!  Ok, let's start with my December Daily.  When I put the foundation of this book together, my husband was still scheduled to deploy.  So instead of ripping apart the pages I had already made about his deployment, I just added little notes about the cancellation of it.  I want to be able to look back and remember the change we went through and how thankful I am that he'll be us for the holidays this year.  So here are the first 5 days of my completed December Daily.

I'll show updates each week as I fill up my book!

Ok, second.  Have you checked out Scrapping the Moments yet?  No?  What are you waiting for?  There are so many talented ladies over there doing the challenges and kicking some scrappy butt!  You should be one of them.  Go to the site, sign up and look under the Forums tab for the challenge prompts.  These women are amazing!  Also, starting January 1, 2011, there will be a monthly contest going on.  You can enter it by doing any type of layout you want and you will be able to get points for elements on your page (you'll know the point system ahead of time).  What do you have to lose?  Go check it out!

In other news, all of my Christmas shopping is done, all plane tickets are booked, Christmas cards are being put together and mailed this week and we're gearing up for all of the holiday related activities.  Hope everyone has a great week!

December Mini Challenge

My December mini challenge is up on Scrapping the Moments!  Here's peek at what the finished product looks like:

If you want the full tutorial, go check out Scrapping the Moments.  There's also challenges up for cards, sketches, scrapping your stash, scrap lift, and a 3D challenge!  There's so much inspiration over there and I hope you go check it out!  Oh, and don't forget to sign up. ;)

Merry Christmas to Me!

There's so much I have to be thankful for this season.  First the pregnancy.  Second, my husband was scheduled to go on a 3 month deployment starting today.  He was going to miss Christmas, our anniversary, Valentine's Day and possibly our daughter's 3rd birthday.  We were completely prepared for him to go.  Bags were packed, paperwork was processed, we were just counting down to departure.  Then he gets a phone call yesterday...the deployment is canceled.  WHAT?!?!?!  Ok, we were in a bit of shock for the rest of the day.  So many emotions going on.  We had prepared for it and we were ready for it, and now it's gone.  It's just hard to switch mindsets so quickly like that.  Today I'm more happy about it and of course, I'm so happy he'll be able to be here for everything, including going to Florida to see my family (gotta get him a plane ticket now).  He was disappointed because he was ready to go and get it over with, get some good flying hours and experience over there, but he's also happy that he won't miss out on everything.  He'll end up going sometime, it just may be another few months before it happens.  So much to be thankful for, and someone is sure looking down on our family this year.

Exciting Announcement

As promised, here's my exciting announcement....wait for it....

That's right!  We just found out that we're expecting our second child!  We're very excited.  It's very early, I'm only about 5 weeks along.  My symptoms are already showing up: extremely tired, crying at the drop of a hat (Oprah, Biggest Loser and Glee had me boo-hoo-ing this week), and my appetite is bragable.  We don't have an official due date yet, but we're expecting it to be around the end of July or early August.  We're both extremely excited!

Blog Award!

I just got this blogger award from Mary Ellen over at her Southern Moments blog.  Thanks so much Mary!  Totally made my day.  Now, it is my job to award this...award...to 8 other bloggers that I've recently discovered and then to share 8 things about myself.  Here it goes:

Blogs I love:
1. Over the Rainbow
2. Threaded Together
3. Memories in Thyme
4. Two Kids and a Map
5. My Scrapbooking Journey
6. Like a Lemon to a Lime and a Lime to a Lemon
7. In a Creative Bubble
8. A Scrappin Nana

Stuff about me:
1.  I read books constantly.  I'm never NOT reading a book.
2.  I'm getting ready to announce something big this weekend.  Stay tuned!
3.  My credit card will take a beating with all the scrapbooking sales and Studio Calico reveal this weekend.  At least I don't have to leave my house.
4.  I'm a little too excited to curl up and watch Christmas movies this year.
5.  I can't wait for my trip home to spend the holidays with my family and my new nephew Matthew, due to make his appearance any day now.
6.  I have so many ideas for scrapping, I feel like my head will explode.
7.  I'm getting the first season of Modern Family on Netflix soon and I'm so excited!
8.  I'm hungry...gotta go eat!

For those of you I passed the award on to: please copy and paste the award on your own blog, pass it on to 8 others, and share 8 things about you.

I won't be on tomorrow, so I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend!  Please don't run over anyone while shopping!  I'll be back something this weekend for an exciting announcement.  Take care everyone!

Right Now

Right now I am:

-watching Tinkerbell and the Great Fairy Rescue with my daughter
-wishing I had more coffee since my cup is empty
-gonna play with my new washer and dryer today
-can't wait to do some more scrapping.  I didn't do any yesterday and I'm itching already.
-counting down to the Studio Calico reveal next weekend.  I can't wait!
-reading Little Bee and really enjoying it
-very happy that all of our Christmas shopping is DONE!  It helped that we concentrated mainly on the kids and since we're traveling, they're all smaller gifts.

Exciting News!

Hi friends!  The awesome ladies at Sketches in Thyme have asked me to be their guest designer on not one, but TWO days coming up here soon.  First is on December 16 and the second is February 3!  I'm super excited about it!  The sketches are amazing and so are the talented ladies over there.  If you haven't been to their site yet, I encourage you to check them out.  I'll be celebrating joyously when my pages are featured as well.  Big thanks to Kim and all the fantastic ladies at Sketches in Thyme!

December Daily Foundation

I finished my December Daily and let me just say...I'm hooked!  I decided to do all 31 days since it's my first album.  When it's finished, I'll decide how to do it next year, but I definitely want to keep this going.  I actually went ahead and finished a couple of pages, just to be sure I got in there what's going on this year.  My husband is in the AF and is deploying in 2 weeks.  Therefore, he'll miss Christmas, our anniversary and Valentine's Day.  He should be back either late February or early March, just in time for our daughter's 3rd birthday.  I wanted to be sure to document this and to show how differently we'll be celebrating this year.

I had a blast gathering supplies to put in this album.  I definitely made a dent in my Christmas stash, and my regular stash as well.  I was surprised to find how much I had that I could use in the album.  Some of my favorite details: 
1. The coffee stain stamp from Studio Calico (no longer available) just happens to work perfectly with my Starbucks addiction. 
2. The envelope I used for day 9 will be used to collect all the different holiday stamps from Christmas cards we get. 
3. The Jet Set Paper from Studio Calico is being used for day 21, which is the day me and my daughter fly to Florida to spend the holidays with my parents. 
4. December 28th is our 8 year anniversary, so I'll use that day to reflect on our marriage and how I'm feeling. 
5. And the last page might be my favorite.  I love that I can document how I spend my December versus how Josh will spend his.  The card is from the Life Stories mini journaling cards by My Mind's Eye.
This was definitely a great year to start my December Daily adventures.

Book Review - Riding Lessons

I just finished Riding Lessons by Sara Gruen.  It was her first novel and I enjoyed it.  It's about a woman who's going through a divorce and she returns to her childhood home to help care for her ailing father.  Her childhood home is a ranch and she was a former rider who stopped riding after an awful accident, which lead to the death of her favorite horse.  She ends up facing the riding world again while dealing with a difficult teenager, a divorce and some family issues.  I really liked it....however....the main character kinda bugged me.  She didn't make very wise decisions and she spent most of the book in dramatic situations and crying a lot.  I get it, it's a hard time, but come on!  She just got on my nerves by the end.  There's a sequel and I'm trying to decide if I want to read it.  I kinda do, but I'm afraid that she'll bug me again and I won't enjoy it.  I don't know, we'll see.  Now I'm off to read Little Bee for a book club that I've recently started for the squadron wives.  It's our first book and I chose it, so I hope it's a good one!

The Moments is now open!

Hello friends!  Today is the big day!  The Moments is having their grand opening weekend!  If you haven't checked out the site yet, please do so.  There are some great prizes being given away, including full kits, and you can have up to 4 chances to win!!  There's a great challenge already posted and the DT challenges will go up tomorrow.  I really hope you all go and join, it really is a wonderful community and I've made some great friends over there.  Go check it out!

A Quick Glimpse

This is what my desk looks like right now:

And here's what's going on at this desk right now:
- Christmas cards
- December Daily album
- random layouts in between these two projects

What are YOU working on right now?

An Exciting Announcement!

It's FINALLY happened!  I've been chosen to be on a design team!  It's for a new site called The Moments and it's gorgeous!  The Moments is a great community of scrappers, stampers, card makers, you name it.  There will be bi-weekly challenges where yours truly will be in charge of mini album challenges.  There is also a great challenge called Friday Fast Trak - a sketch is posted at 7pm EST and you have 2 hours to complete a project based on the sketch and post it.  I did it this past weekend and I actually made a page in 20 minutes...that's a record!  There are also impromptu challenges that just pop up whenever they want to, so checking in often is a good idea.  The owner of this site is so talented and wonderful and I really hope you all come over and check us out!  The site is up and running and the bi-weekly challenges will start on Nov.14 as part of the grand opening.  Grand opening is Nov 13-15 and there will be a ton of prizes given away, so be sure to stop by and leave some love!  So go...like....now!

Who's a Winner? I am!

Guess who just scored a free Art Smith cookbook from Kitchen Keepsake...this girl!  I'm so excited!  I got it by referring my scrappy friends to the site.  If they signed up and put me as their reference, I got a point.  Whoever had the most points, won the cookbook.  A big thanks to Suzanne from Kitchen Keepsake for running the contest and providing the book.  Also, a BIG thanks to Rosalie, Penny, Emily (my mom...hehe...), Samantha, and Mary for checking out the site and signing up!  You ladies are awesome!  If you haven't checked out the site yet, please go!  Now!

Kitchen Keepsake

This week has been a crazy one.  My husband is doing a crazy mission session and is working 12 hour days.  And of course, this is the week that my daughter decides that the Terrible Two's need to kick into overdrive.  Ugh - is it Friday yet???

Goodbye October

You were a very fun and busy month.  Filled with birthdays, Octoberfests, Disney characters and Halloween goodness.  I'm glad that I decided to document this month in a mini album, inspired by Kelly Purkey's April Twenty Ten album.  First up, here's the Halloween pics I promised:

My husband, the chef.

Dexter's victim.  I had to explain it a lot.  Who doesn't watch Dexter???

Trick-or-Treating with friends.

My little princess!

And here's the mini that I made to document the month of October:

I love how easy this mini was to put together.  All I had to do was keep scraps of everything we did and punched holes in them and into the book they went.  Couldn't be easier!  I definitely want to do another one like this sometime next year.  Alright November...bring it on!