Happy Halloween!!

My sister sent these pictures to me a week or two ago of the girls in their costumes. Mia has since changed her mind & will now be a pumpkin, but I love her as a lion too. So cute.

Nellie the pink dragon & Mia the cuddly lion

**If you think of it pray for me tomorrow - we're letting the kids at school dress up for the first time ever in their Halloween costumes. That mixed with candy & the excitement that Halloween brings for small children should make my day very interesting...It probably doesn't help that I'm going to dress up too...Yeah, no learning for us tomorrow. :) **

Wishing you & your family a fun & safe Halloween!

Being Brave...

Okay...here I go. I'm laying it all out here for you. I 'learned' how to crochet on Thursday afternoon. My friend Stephanie from school helped me & was very patient with me for a couple of hours as we made several chains & then she showed me how to do this:

So...can you tell which one is Stephanie's & which one is mine?! Yikes... The top one is hers, it's what mine (bottom) is suppose to look like. I had planned to work more on my blossoming skills this weekend, but did not. It actually entertains me that mine is so pathetic. I'm sure one day when I'm crocheting beautiful sweaters to sell for thousands of dollars I'll look back on this swat & laugh even more.

We've had a very nice relaxing weekend. I cleaned the house (REALLY well) on Saturday, then we made dinner & watched Fracture. Very entertaining by the way if you haven't seen it. Today was church, errands, naps, scrapbooking & this...

We picked up Guitar Hero 3 for the Wii at Costco & Tim spent most of the afternoon & some of this evening looking like this. :) I played once...it's way harder than it looks. I may need to stay home from school one day this week to catch up so he doesn't get too far ahead of me! Alright, I won't really...

52 Card Scrap Up Week #2

Well, here we are at the end of the week & I've only posted once. So sad. I've thought about my blog this week - just haven't had time to get to it...I'll try harder next week.

Onto the scrap up challenge. This week's challenge was presented by Erin . She chose: 'You time'.

Last week in preparation for my visit with my new friend Ali - I quickly covered my card with paper & took it with me for her to sign. She did so happily & tonight I created my card around her signature (it's my card surprise for this week). This is the front view of my card:

The back of my card - 2 of Spades if anyone is wondering...

Not much planned for the weekend & I'm SO excited about that! I'm also excited about the fact that my weather forecast says sun for the next seven days instead of rain like last week. Hooray!! Happy Friday!

My New Friend...

This weekend at my LSS (aren't I fancy?!?) Ali Edwards came to do a book signing. My biggest blog stalker told me about it so Tim & I decided to go on Saturday to check it out.

I had visions of long lines & waiting in the rain, in which case - I was going to back out...but to my great surprise we walked right in - they had delicious treats available & we found Ali right away. Not a lot of people were back with her at the time, so she signed some things for me (can't disclose what they were as some may involve Christmas gifts) & then we chatted. She also brought several of her mini books for people to look at so I looked through them while we talked. She hung out with us for about 15 minutes...even offered to get us coffee!! She was SO sweet & I had a GREAT time meeting her. So much fun.

Here is our photo... :) Tee-hee!

52 Card Scrap-Up...

This summer when Erin came for my birthday party - she brought along with her two decks of cards - one for me & one for Andrea. Of course I chose the pink one... :) Erin, Andrea, & I are going to create one card a week for the year. We begin tomorrow. I did my 'title card' on Saturday - picture posted below. The forum is open, anything goes...I think we are going to do theme cards sometimes, challenges, etc. The goal is to post the cards on the blog sometime during the week. Here is card #1! If anyone else wants to play along e-mail me (or one of us) & let me know! We'd love to have other card players...hee, hee.

Good News & Bad News...

Tonight at choir - this is the phrase Nicole used to greet me: "I've got good news & bad news. I'll give you the good news first."...

The good news was she finished my birthday present & it was sitting on my chair waiting for me - the bad news? Well, we made a deal in August (when it really was my birthday) that I would still be 29 until Nicole gave me my present - so I guess I'm now officially 30. :)

Last month Nicole presented me with a card telling me happy birthday 29 & 13/12. Such a funny girl.

The gift was worth the wait...she made me a scrapbook of 30 reasons why she loves me. Ironic as I suggested just a few weeks ago for Erin's 30th that we do a list for a toast of 30 things we love about Erin. She was secretly laughing at me when I suggested this & I didn't know it...sneaky girl.

It's a beautiful book & it brought me to tears & in the middle of choir too - for shame. Here are a few glimpses at my wonderful book.

Thank you Nicole for the beautiful gift - I shall treasure it always (oh yeah, & I shall treasure you always too). :) Love you!!

I Must Confess...

I've been tagged by my friend Melissa's blog to confess 8 things about myself.

I can't really come up with anything too exciting - since I usually confess things to you on this blog anyway. I will however, try to come up with something exciting - so keep reading. :)

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1. I pull on my hang-nails. SO gross, I know. I would like to say that since I took off my acrylic nails 3 weeks ago, I've had minimal hang nails & am doing well...good job me.

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2. I go to the Starbucks drive-thru everyday & get an iced-tea lemonade. Sometimes I switch it up & get a non-fat Chai latte. Everyday (except for today...I ran out of time - so sad).

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3. I'm a cover stealer. According to my husband (name has been removed to protect the identity of the victim) I begin the stealing every night when I fall asleep. Halfway through the night (according to him) I throw off all of the covers because I'm too warm. Then somewhere in the early morning hours I steal them back again because I am cold. Now, I'm not sure if this is all factual because I sleep very soundly & comfortably throughout the night... :)

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4. I will buy pants that fit in the smaller size (I sometimes go between two sizes) just because it is the smaller size. I don't care how much they cost - if they fit in that size...they are mine.

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5. I have hair envy with my sister. She's been growing her hair out for locks of love so I decided to do the same. Except she started a year before me & just cut her hair off in a super cute new style & I'm TOTALLY envious of it. If she had brought her scissors with her today I wouldn't have any hair left. Luckily she didn't & I've told Tim not to let me give in - I do want to donate my hair - I just have sister hair envy right now...this too shall pass - hopefully...

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6. When I'm on my own for dinner these days I choose cheeseburgers. I confessed this problem to you earlier this summer & it's still with me. What's so great about it is now I have Nicole on my side too - she LOVES them as much as I do. Yay for Nicole. Come on Erin, you know you want one...

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7. I carry around all kinds of things in my purse...standard things like a wallet, pen, checkbook, gift cards - but there's other things too...$3.00 in case of an emergency (it needs to be a cheap one), Advil, upset tummy drugs, Tide pin, little notepad for quick lists, bobby pins, hair ties, lip gloss, chapstick & back up chapstick, iPod, fingernail clippers, cell phone, tape measurer (it's super cute too!), throat lozenges, & today I added Neosporin. You never know when you'll get a hang nail!! :)

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8. I once had to wear a sign that said "I tell lies" & the sign flipped over for my sister & read "I'm a tattle-tale". My mom would make us wear the sign if we did the offense. She threatened to take us to the store wearing the sign if we were heading there & chose that time to offend. She NEVER did. She's since confessed that she would have been mortified to take her lying, tattle-taling children to the store. :) I don't lie now, except to Erin to make her think I'm not coming for her birthday...

That's it for my list! Consider yourself tagged. What would you like to confess?

Erin's Birthday Surprise!

The Plan: To surprise Erin for her 30th birthday
The Culprits: Nicole & myself (also involving: Shawn, Phil, Melinda, Kellie, & Tim)
The Outcome: Success! (See photo below)...

Thursday evening Nicole & I boarded a plane headed for Arizona. We arrived at 9:30 pm & were at Erin's house waiting for her by 10:45 pm. We waited...and waited...and waited. I double checked with Shawn (Erin's husband) to make sure that she didn't normally stay out too late - he assured me she didn't. So we waited...

At 12:30 am Miss Erin showed up. The first thing she saw upon entering the house was how clean it was (good job Shawn & Teri). As she came around the corner, she saw Nicole & I sitting in her living room. The above photo is her face followed by an 'Oh My Gosh!'. It was perfect. She had no idea we were coming & we were very proud of ourselves for keeping the secret. (Although it did help that I didn't call Erin for the past few weeks because I was SO excited about going to see her that I was afraid I would make up some weird thing I was doing on her birthday weekend like...hunting for raccoons...). So a few white lies & no phone calls to Erin in recent weeks made our surprise a success. And don't worry, I cleared up the lies. :)

The next day we went to lunch. This is Erin at her birthday lunch with her cake. It was DELISH!

After lunch we went for pedicures. Guess who got the French manicure with pink instead of white?! :)

And here are my lovely ladies at Erin's birthday dinner.

Erin did a wonderful re-cap of the weekend on her blog with a lot more details. It was a fantastic weekend & I'm so sad it had to end. I'm also sad that I'm no longer in 95 degree sunny weather - but we won't discuss that...love you Erin! So glad you had a good birthday!