Believe In Miracles

First off, I just have to apologize to everyone who's sent me emails recently. I'm really not ignoring you. Really. I have every intentions of writing back to you. And hopefully soon. BUT, I'm getting bogged down again. I'm sorry. One of these days, I'm gonna sit down, and take a day, and reply to you all. I just LOVE to hear from you :) Really, it makes my whole day. See, this is my face smiling :)

I had another fun day yesterday. It started off at 6:30am, when I woke up, on my own, and felt rested. It's AMAZING how much better one feels when they go to be before midnight - ROFL! Anyway, the kids were all ready to go to school without rushing around,because they were p before 7am too. After they left, Jimmy and I got ready, and walked down the street to Andrea's house, then walked over to our "walk" route. It's about 4 miles total, and we have fun just chatting the whole time :)

After we were done, we went back to Andrea's house to hang out. Laurie came over for a bit, too, before she had to pick up her daughter from pre-school. You know, I could really get used to this "socializing" thing - LOL!

At noon-ish, Andrea, a FRG (um, not sure what it stands for, but it's some family organization inside of the army) leader in Andrea's group, and I went to Sam's Club to buy some food/water/soda's for their sale tomorrow. I guess it's Military Appreciation days at Ft. Bliss (or something like that), and her FRG group is selling food to raise money. It was fun to tag along. I'd only been to Sam's Club once before, I think. With my sister-in-law. Pretty cool store, I have to say :)

After shopping, we went back to Andrea's house, and hung out until it was time to pick up kids from school. I went home, and waited for my 4 to walk home. We had dinner, and headed off to the PX (military shopping center of sorts) to buy a slip N slide. When we got there, they said that they'd moved the entire toy/swimming section to the PXtra. What's that? I asked. Well, during the summer, they set up a HUGE tent across post, and sell things there. Well, it was more than a tent. It had A/C and good walls. But it was tent like.

Anyway, I loaded up all 5 kids, and drove across post to the PXtra, and found the SlipNSlide. It was a Backyardigans one. LOVE that show. GREAT music :) LOL! We drove home, and set it up, and the kids played in it for almost an hour. Funny, that at 7:00 pm, it's still warm enough to play in a SlipNSlide. This Oregon girl was impressed - hehehe. We even had a neighbor kid come and join in the fun.

Today we're gonna go to the Military Appreciation (or whatever) thing. Andrea said thta Howie Mandell was gonna be there. Really? That's pretty cool. I just saw him on Leno the other day. He was wearing a full body germ suit to prevent himself from getting the swine flu. It was HYSTERICAL! Who knew that he was such a germophobic - LOL!

I haven't talked to Captain America in a few days, and I'm hoping that he'll call today. Sigh. Only a few days left now, and he'll be home. His training gets over on the 21st, and then he drives back. He figures to be here LATE on Sunday. Can't wait!!!

I wanted to give you girls a chance to play with a new WordArt similar to those in my "Word Strip" WordArt packs. AND, I thought this one would be PERFECT for pics on brothers and sisters (or sis and sis or bro and bro) playing nicely together - ROFL!

Click on the links below to go to my accounts to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work.

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Life Is Good

I had the most wonderful day yesterday :) I was up WAY too late again, so I was tired when I woke up, but I pushed though it :) Jimmy and I got the big kids off to school, then I put Jimmy in the stroller, and we headed down the street to my friend Andrea's house. From there, we walked a few blocks to meet some other girls for a morning walk. The other girls had seen a coyote the other day, so drove the 2 blocks to the trail head. LOL! Andrea and I figured we could take the coyote between the 2 of us - ROFL!

It was Andrea and I and Laurie, and 2 other ladies. I had forgotten how much I really do enjoy exercising with friends. Maren and I used to walk/jog all the time at the park back in Florence. It's a great social time :)

After the walk, we headed back home. I ended up staying at Andrea's house for a few hours after, and just visiting. OMGosh, it was fun :) Jimmy and her little boy, Luke, played in the slip and slide, and we just chatted. I'm so glad that I'm making friends here :)

We came home at lunchtime, and after eating, Jimmy and I went in my room to lay down. I put in a movie for him (he wanted the live action Scooby Doo movie), and we both promptly fell asleep. When the movie got over, it went back to the main menu, and the music, which lasted about 1 minute, started to loop. Well, I was having dreams about it - LOL! I was at a friends house in the dream, and accidentally turned on some loud music. I keep going from room to room, trying to turn it off. When I finally found the source, and turned it off, it would start up again in a different room, and I'd have to run and find it again. Funny how our brains incorporate things into our dream, isn't it - LOL! But, I did get a 2 1/2 hour nap, and felt FABULOUS when I woke up :)

The kids got home around 3:30, and the older boys went to play at the neighbors house. We had some YUMMY chicken for dinner. Here's the recipe. Well, kind of a recipe - LOL

1 bag chicken drumsticks, thawed
1 can orange soda
1 bottle bbq sauce

Brown the chicken with a bit of oil, add the soda and the BBQ sauce. Add a bit of water. Cook until done. OMGosh, did my kids LOVE this chicken. They usually don't drumsticks quite so well :) I'm putting this one in the rotation for SURE!

We watched Survivor as a family, and had a good time. They voted off (HERE), which we didn't really like. It was funny, because Joe kept saying, "I'm XXXX". Then, once they were voted off, he's was like "I'm NOT XXX". ROFL! Do your kids do that? Do they have to "be" one of the characters? I always thought it was funny when they tried to assign me one of the Power Rangers to be - LOL!

I did really well on my eating too! Not like the past few nights, where I've been eating chocolate chips - LOL! I ate PERFECTLY yesterday. I went to the cupboards at 9pm after the kids went to sleep, and really thought about making brownies (I know, that's not good), but I took a piece of gum and went back into my room. Aren't you proud of me! :)

Woohoo!!! I'm remembering ahead of time to post my new WordArt packs! Yeah for me. I guess that exercising thing is really paying off - LOL! Click HERE to go to my store. Thanks!

layout by fun2educate

layout by Jaimee

I've got another treat for you guys today :) My digi-buddy (and CT memeber), Jen (Graham Like the Cracker) has another kit in SYTYCD! I grabbed her kit again, and made some more WordArt for ya! Click HERE to go to DSA to find her kit, and click HERE to go to her blog :)

I also have 2 other CT girls who are in SYTYCD. Here's a link to theirs: Charmaine & Katherine

AND, Jen and I teamed up again to make you some FABULOUS WordArt :) This first one is available on Jen's blog. Or it will be soon :) Don't you just LOVE the colors she picked? Wonderful!

And this second one is available here from me! Woohoo! I just LOVE frames :) Click on the links below to go to my accounts to download the zip file, and leave some love if you like my work :)

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I Love You & U Rock

Wow, girls! I need sleep. I was up on Tuesday night until 1:30am. I've gotta stop doing this to myself. I'm on track to be to bed before midnight tonight (pre-publishing). I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but not holding my breath. LOL!

Why was I up so late the other night, you ask? WELL, I was watching "Seven Pounds", the newer Will Smith movie. OMGosh, it was good. Thought provoking, that's for sure. I cried like a baby! Seriously, I was weeping at the end. I'm gonna make Captain America watch it when he gets home, just so we can talk about it. LOL!

I had a TON of fun at my lunch yesterday. I got my whole house cleaned. Yeah, I felt like taking a picture, because I know it's not gonna be like that again anytime soon - ROFL! But I can hope. I'll give it my best :)

I also did Scouts last night. Sigh. One of these day, Jimmy will be older. And better behaved. Surely there's something to be done for him. He doesn't like it when I'm leading the meetings. He just wants my attention, so he runs around causing trouble. Sigh. Next week, Andrea is gonna lead the meeting, and I can just be there helping, and do the activity with Jimmy. Maybe that will work better. We'll see.

I'm going walking with my friends in the morning. They walk for about an hour. I'm really looking forward to it. My waist just keeps expanding, and I'm not liking it. Hopefully the walking will help. And if I could just stop eating all the stuff I'm not supposed to be eating, my pants would fit again - LOL! Maybe today will be the day :) Yesterday sure wasn't - ROFL!

OK, I wanna ask all of you Jimmy Fallon fans out there a question. Am I missing something? Is he funny, and I just don't get it? Cause I watch his show when I'm up SUPER late pre-publishing my blog post, and I just don't get him. He seems nervous and disorganized and scatterbrained. I'm sure he's probably really funny, and I'm just missing something. Maybe. Right? He can't really be that bad. LOL!

I got a text from Captain America saying that he needs to go to the Doctor. He's on his 2nd week in the field, and apparently he got into some poison ivy. Honestly, the man is SO allergic to it, he could have just been camping near it, and he'd have gotten it. LOL! Poor thing! He was gonna go get a shot of cortisone, or whatever it was, and hopefully he'll be better. At least he's not as bad as his brother Nathaniel. He gets poison ivy BAD. Worse I've ever seen, actually. I don't think I'm allergic to it. I remember when I was prego with Jimmy, we found some in our yard, and he made me go pull it. Nice. Lets test the theory. LOL! I didn't get it. I also sat in it one time when I was younger, and didn't get it. My dad's not allergic to it either. Woohoo for me :) Maybe my kids will luck out, and not be allergic. So far, no one but Captain America's gotten Poison Ivy in our family. Only time will tell :)

Last night while I was chatting with a few people on gmail, I told my friend Crystal that I was SO tired of designing (I made 4 wordart packs in one day - sigh - i need better time management planning, and less Facebook-ing - ROFL!), and still needed to make a freebee for you guys tomorrow. She said that I could use her "clippy" freebee from her blog. Woohoo!!! I promptly went to her blog and downloaded them. Her idea was the cute little clip, with a paper, and a note on it. Yeah, I even had to beg a paper from her (I used an overlay by Pineapple Plantation Designs on it too). She's a REAL designer, and me? Well, I'm just a lowly WordArt designer. I couldn't even make a paper - ROFL!

Anway, click HERE to go to her blog to pick up the COOL clippy alpha for yourself, then come back here for my WordArt. Click on the link below to go to 4shared to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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Aged To Perfection

You know, I really never thought that I'd be here. That I'd be one who lived in one of these pretty houses shown below. Who lived in a subdivision like this. I didn't grow up in a place like this. I didn't live in a place like this the first 12 years of my marriage. I still find it unbelieveable that I'm here now. It's so cool - LOL!

Here are a few pics from our family night at the park on Monday. Here's Eme.

Joe. What can I say. He's as weird as him mom. LOL!

Tom and his buddies played Lightsaber Battles all evening.

Sam (kid from down the street - my friend Andrea's kid) and Tom

Again, I can't believe I actually live in one of these house - ROFL!

heheehe, here's me :)

Jimmy on the swing. He had to wait for 30 minutes until the middle schoolers/high schoolers got off the swings. sigh.

OK, I've got a few pics of my living room/dining room, with the updated curtains. See, isn't this better :)

And the living room.

My house is clean! Can you believe it? Oh yeah, you don't really know me in real life....hmmm. Well, those of you who know me in real life.... MY HOUSE IS CLEAN!! I even mopped. I KNOW!! I should totally take a picture, because it's not gonna last long - hehehe. I guess this is why we have people over. For an excuse to clean. ROFL!

A few of my friends are coming over for lunch today. OH YEAH! And I made the most amazing yummy snacks. It sounds simple, but I tried one before bed last night, and OMGosh! Amazing. Take a banana, peel, and cut in thirds. Insert a skewer. Cover with melted chocolate. Roll in finely chopped walnuts. Wrap in plastic wrap, and put in freezer. SO good! Tastes like an ice cream bar. And I don't even like banana flavor. Mmmmmmm.

I went to the park yesterday with the "Park Playgroup" ladies from church. It was fun. It was over closer to our old house. I had fun chatting with the girls, and Jimmy got a chance to play with some kids. LOL. I know I can't be that much fun to hang out with, day in, day out. Or maybe I am - hehehe. Anyway, he seemed to enjoy himself. At the beginning, anyway. Towards the time we were ready to leave, he was just going off by himself, and scrowling at everyone. I don't know what that's all about - weird kid - ha!

Ok, just wanted to share this FABULOUS and fun new kit that some of us designers got together and made for Shauna (Pineapple Plantation Designs - co-owner Scraporchard) for her 40th B-day today. hehehe. Anyway, it's free over at DSA, and I thought you all would enjoy it (or at least get a kick out of it). My WordArts are the "Older than Dirt" and "Over the Hill" ones. Could you tell? LOL! Click HERE to go grab it, but be sure to come back here when you're done - ha!


Ha! I just stopped blogging after the "Shauna" kit - ROFL! Luckily, Pam, on of my blog helpers, emailed me and let me know about my "senior" moment - LOL! So, here's my WordArt for WordArt Wednesday. In honor of Shauna's b-day, I decided to make the WordArt "senior" themed too :) hehehe. Click HERE to go to Scraporchard to download the zip file, and leave some love if you like my work :) (Font names included in zip file)

Antique Smile

You know, I think I need to start my pre-publishing routine a little earlier than 11:00pm the night before. I'm just not on the top of my game - hehehe. I have all sorts of fun things to talk about when I'm not tired. When I'm not battling to keep my eyes open - ha! BUT, my so-called friends Maren and Andrea convinced me to start playing "Farm Town" on Facebook, and now I have NO time - ROFL!!! Just kidding, girls - LOL! I can see how that one's gonna be addictive - sigh.

I did some decorating yesterday. I knew that if I was gonna have friends over on Wednesday, I was gonna need to get my house looking presentable. Mostly I focused on the kitchen. We have these WONDERFUL cabints in the kitchen, that were just begging for some decorations on top of them. I had a few things, but knew that I'd been needing a trip to the store :)

First, Jimmy and I went to Goodwill looking for some decorations. Um, why would I pay $4.00 for a red vase. Really. For someone elses used decorations? I don't think so. I did get a few pairs of dressy shorts for Jacob for school, so the trip there wasn't a complete waste - lol. I'm pretty picky about my thrift store. I like them cheap, and lots of selections. I got SO spoiled with "The Unique Thrift Store" in Chicago. It was the BEST. I'd also like a Deseret Industries, like my sister has in Utah. I guess we just take what we have, though.

Right next door to that was a Family Dollar store. They had a few things that worked for my house. 2 Red Asian-ish vases, for $2.00 each. I aslo got a rooster picture thingy for $2.00. And a curtain/window covering for my living room for $12.50. It said it was 5 pieces. Had 2 panels, a valance, and 2 tie backs. More on that later :) I also got some curtain rods. And I was good about not buying snacks. I got some raisins for Jimmy, and headed off to the next store.

I just love the Dollar Tree. It's good for inexpensive decorations. I bought some baskets, some greenery, some "color" flowers, a few picture frames, and some decorative bottles. I also didn't do so well at this store with avoiding of the snacks. Dang. I bought a popsicle for Jimmy (managed to not get one for myself), some cheese puffs, and some chocolate covered graham cracker cookies. Yeah, I ate a few of those. Drat!

We came home, got lunch, and started decorating. I must say, it looks pretty cool. And, I found a good place to store some of my books - LOL! There being used to raise my decorations a bit higher. LOL!

Yeah, I already had those elephants. They're bookends, or something like that. hehehe.



Then, I moved to the living room to hang up the curtain. Well, unfortunately, it was too small for my window. What do ya think?

So, I moved it into the dining room. (sorry, no pics of that yet). It looked much better. Unfortunately, there's 2 windows like it in the dining room. So, after the big kids got home from school, we loaded up in the truck and headed back out to Family Dollar. I bought another of the red curtains, and a larger one for the living room. It's cream, with red accents. It's nice too. I ended up spending about $40.00 on curtains instead of about $10, but still, that's not bad. Some curtains are that much for just one, let alone 4. OK, maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better - hehehehe.

We had dinner, played a round of Superman Uno, then went to the park to play. By 7:00, the sun had hidden a bit behind the mountain, and it was starting to cool off. Lovely evening. Tom and Joe played lightsabers and kickball (I know, what a combo). Eme and Jimmy played on the swings, and Jacob went back home because he was mad at me. Or something like that. I don't know. I didn't feel like dealing with hormonal tweeny boys - lol. You mom's of boys. Does it get better? He's 11. Geesh! I can't imagine what it would be like if he were a girl!

Little kids got put to bed, the big kids and I watched some TV, big kids went to bed, I played some Facebook, which brings me to now and pre-publishing. It's now midnight. Sigh. One of these nights, I'll get to bed before 11. One of these night. But not this night - ROFL!!

Allrighty, girls! I must be off to bed :) I may be napping today (Tuesday). Click on the links below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work :) Thanks!

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FONTS:
Antique - EpoXY HistoRy
Smile - Pharmacy

Emergency

So, how did Mother's Day go for all of you Mom's out there??? My hubby promises me that as soon as he gets back home, the next weekend, he's doing a "make-up" Mother's Day. He's so sweet. Because while I did get SWEET homemade presents from my kids, I also had to clean up pee on the floor, cook all the meals (although Jacob helped with dinner), help kids clean up SUPER messy rooms, deal with emotional whinny tweens, bickering brothers, and kids who didn't like what I cooked. Sigh. I'm looking forward to my "belated" Mother's day. hehehe. We did get chocolate ice cream at church, so that kinda makes it all better, though - ROFL!

Saturday night we got to go to a BBQ in our neighborhood. It was SO nice to get out of the house, and have some grown up interaction. It's nice to know that still I remember how to interact with people - LOL! Sometimes, after being with little kids so long, I'm afraid that I'll forget. hehehe. We had yummy hamburgers and cookout foods. Jimmy at TONS of watermellon, and the kids all had a blast with the other kids. It was a great evening.

We have a few things planned this week, but not too many. I'm sure more will come up as the week unfolds. I'm having a few friends over for lunch on Wednesday, which means that I'm gonna be cleaning my house until then - LOL! I don't know if you're anything like me, but part of the reason I invite people over is for an excuse to have my house cleaned. Especially now that my hubby is gone. There's no one to clean for - hehehe. I seem to be most motivated when under pressure - LOL :)

This WordArt request is from Sarah. She's starting a new job, and wanted to put this on a sign. Hehehehe. Since I'm feeling a bit ornery today, I thought I'd go ahead and make it up - LOL! Click on the links below to go to my accounts to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. :)

AND, the typo is now fixed :)

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Emergency - An Accidental Kiss

I was in a scrappin' mood last night, so I made up a layout :) I thought I'd journal the "trials" that we went through while Captain America was in trainings. Not many kids get a chance to live in a garage. LOL! But then, I guess that's a good thing - hehehe. I also made another layout, and it's on my other blog here.

KIT - Brandy Designs - SYTYCD - Week 1
WordArt - Elegant WordArt by Bethany :)

Children May Know

First off, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, Mom! I love you, and am SO glad that you're my mom. I've learned so much from you over the years, and am so glad that we are such great friends today :) I wouldn't have it any other way :)

It's gonna be a short one today :) As I'm writing this, it's 12:38 am on Sunday morning. I decided, after I got home from our BBQ at the neighbors house (at 10pm), to start a movie online. Um, yeah, not the most wise thing to do - LOL! Great movie, though. Well worth the staying up late.

BUT, I'm now too tired to blog :) So, here's your WordArt for today. ROFL! It's the Wall Decoration I showed you earlier in the week. Enjoy!

Click on the link below to go to 4hared to download the zip file of all pieces of the wordart, and as always, leave some love if you like my work :)

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A