Okay....Don't fall over because I have blogged now again in the same month...

I told myself that I was going to try to get better and look, I am! It may be a short post, but it is a post!

We had a packed weekend with Regional Science Fair, Major League Baseball tryouts, and cousins coming over for a visit. It was a great weekend!!!

I am so proud of Collin!!! He was an alternate for the Regional Science Fair for his school and he was actually able to go to the fair because one of the other kids could not. Out of about 40 projects for the 5th grade, his came in 3rd!!! I was shocked and amazed! Of corse I am partial to his, but it was great to see him on stage accepting his award. His project did the best from his whole school! Now THAT is impressive!

Here is a picture of a paint can that I altered using products from Paper Popsicles...I am using it for Collin's Easter Basket...shhhhh don't tell him!!!!

Hope you have had a wonderful St. Patty's day and that you will have a blessed Easter!!!

So What is New With YOU?

Well, it seems like time has passed by again and the old blog has been ignored! Yet again life has flown by and now it is March already! Things here are just rolling along with a few speed bumps put in to make life interesting!

This weekend Collin and I will be at IPFW at the Regional Science Fair. The child was thrilled that his Science Fair project was chosen!!! I am so proud of how he is able to do speeches and give presentations at such a young age. I know that when I was his age, I was terrified of speaking in front of others. He, on the other hand, loves to do church readings and presentations in front of his class or even the whole school!

His class is also studying the United States and they have to be able to locate them on the map. I am pretty sure that this is one of those skills that when you don't use it...you loose it a little bit! I found a fun website (click here) for him to practice. Check it out! See if you are smarter than a 3rd grader...that is what is says on the site!

School is going well for me...I forgot that the word college basically means READING!!! I am having a little bit of a problem fitting time in for all of the reading that is required! I will be happy to see the snow go away. It seems like every Tuesday (when I have class at night) we have a major snow/ice/sleet storm pass us by! IPFW is on Spring Break this week although it doesn't seem to Spring"ish" to me! I will say that it is better so I am not complaining!!!

I also have been busy with some wonderful projects over at Paper Popsicles!!!! I tell everyone that I know that she has the best kits for the best prices around! I am in charge of doing a monthly challenge with the monthly kits so you should stop over and check them out! Here are the layout/cards that I did for March's Challenge where I focused on titles...

I must also tell you that I was fortunate enough to get some of my incredibly talented friend, Andrea's, paperline from her newest release and it is AWESOME!!!! Here are a couple of projects with her paper and rub-ons!! Check out where you can get some of your own here!

I may be a little partial, but I think Andrea's lines are awesome! Thanks again Andrea!!!

I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for their kind thoughts and prayers for our family with regards to the house fire that my brother-in-law and his family went through a little over a week ago. It is hard to imagine that in one days time how your life can change! We went from planning to go to dinner with them at Cebellos that night to them having a house fire and now not being able to "go home" for 2 or more months. We are so grateful that no one was hurt and that their house was not a total loss. There are lots of pieces to pick up, and I am so thankful that we have family and friends around to help!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Easter....I can't even believe that I just typed that!!! It is the second week of March....but I truly hope that your Easter is filled with many blessings!

Well, it has been over a MONTH...

It has been a loooooong time since I have last updated the old blog...guess that means I have been busy.....right? It has been crazy around our house with lots of things going on. I will try to update you all a little:

• Collin is done with basketball for the season. It was a great season and I really enjoyed watching their team grow both in their basketball skills and their team spirit! Their team went from not scoring a single point in their first game to becoming quite competitive and winning 6 games. It was great to watch them play and to cheer them on with all of the other parents!!! I do miss the games, but not the hectic schedules!!!


• We had a suprise birthday party for Collin at Laser X and boy was it a suprise!!!! I gave all of the invitations directly to the parents of the boys that we invited and they all did a wonderful job keeping the suprise from Collin. When he came into the building he was speechless!!! And for all of you that know Collin....that takes some doing to get him speechless! He came up to me after his first game of Laser Tag and told me, "mom, I have to keep pinching myself to make sure this is not all a dream!!!" So sweet and it was a great party! I am still having a hard time believeing that my "baby" is 11!!!!


• I have started my class at IPFW....AND I have my first test next Tuesday! It has definately kept me busy although I am enjoying it. Collin has been very "helpful" with suggestions on how I can stay organized and study for my test. Very cute!


• Our office has moved and that has come with lots of new and interesting problems...most of which have been solved. We were without computers/phones/faxes for over 4 weeks which made everyday tasks very difficult! I do love our new office, although I don't really like the location...you see I was spoiled with having our old office 5 minutes from my house!


• On the scrapbooking front, not much is happening. I have been in a creative slump for a while, but getting to host a new monthly challenge over at Paper Popsicles has helped me out of it! Check it out! I will be doing a new challenge each month to get those creative juices flowing in all of us!

So that is the short side of the story of the last two months. I am going to leave you with some pictures from our lastest snow storm. Patrick and Collin decided to build forts and then throw snow balls at each other! FUN! But yeah I stood and took the pictures....someone had to do that job! LOL!

I hope everyone is having a safe and fun winter season! Hey, did that groundhog see his shadow today??

Tis the season for changes....RIGHT?

Hello all!!!! Seems like changes are all around me right now! We have known for months (since July) that our office would need to move out of our current location by the end of December. So our corporate office did what any paper pusher in another state would do....they waited until the middle of December to have us move. I guess a little snow, sleet, ice, and rain is good for a move....RIGHT???? Anyway, I have my office all unpacked and everything put away. I feel very blessed that I still have my own office. It is much smaller, but still I don't have to have a roommate which most of the other gals do.

About 3-4 months ago I got it in my head that it was time to trade our van in for a car. With my new job, I travel quite a bit and we don't really need the van and all of the space (just seemed to get dirty constantly!!!). So I asked my FIL (who loves to car shop) to be on the look out for a car that I could do an even exchange for our van. We waited patiently until we found what we thought would be a good trade. So I go to sign the papers.....then we pull out to get some gas and then the new to us car does not start. So they think it is the battery....no biggie. So my dear FIL takes the car to get a new battery and two front tires. It just went down hill from there. I won't go into all of the details, but we have put ALOT of money into the car and I have yet to drive it ONCE! So my loving husband realizes that I am getting stressed and says to me, "just take my car for the day so you don't have to worry." So I take his car and I am almost to work when I smell a horrible rubber smell.....so I barely make it to my new office and YUP...the tire is VERY flat! So I call for road side assistance (love this feature of our insurance!!) and the guy comes to change it to the spare and.....yes, you guessed it the spare is flat! So I barely make it over to the repair shop and to make this looooooong story shorter, it was not a normal flat tire, no the springs, shocks, and struts are all bad and that is what caused the flat tire! FUN!!!!! So right now we have one car back and fixed and hopefully will have the second car back on Monday. Remind me of this little story the next time I want to trade cars will ya??

So another new thing is that I have decided to go back to school! Yup, I am grabbing my pencils, pens, and paper and hitting the books. Although I have a feeling that students don't use pens and pencils anymore....rather it is laptops and printers! I have decided to go and get my Masters in Social Work. I am starting out by taking some pre-requisite classes for a while and then I will jump into the Master's program. I am excited, but nervous! Been a long time since I have gone to school!!!!

I think that is enough for one post! Sorry no layouts to share...no time to scrap with all of this craziness going on!!!

Hope you all have a wonderful week before the Holidays!!!!

We had a GREAT LONG WEEKEND HERE...

What a wonderful long weekend! We only had to work a 1/2 day on Wednesday and then had Thursday-Sunday off from work!!!! Not too long ago I worked retail, and I would have been working my little tail off this past weekend!!! So, I think that makes me relish the long weekend even more! Not that we did anything super exciting, we just spent time together and that was perfect!

We did catch a movie over the weekend...we saw the new Bee Movie. It was very cute and a great movie for the whole family. It managed to keep Collin's and our interest! Of course movie popcorn and milk duds always help!!

We had a wonderful time with my parents on Thanksgiving and let me tell you the food was spectacular!!! Definitely good food and wonderful conversation! Collin was lucky enough to get to go home with Nana and Papa. They had big plans that included: setting up the new train for Christmas, attending to the horses/barn cats and dogs, and visiting the animal shelter that my mom volunteers at. Needless to say there was not a dull moment in their visit and Collin loves going out there!!!

My dad gave me an extra hard drive that he did not need anymore and on the drive were hundreds of photos!!! I was so excited to get home and start pouring over them! I think I have already used up a cartridge of ink printing pictures out! Love the older pictures of myself and family and I can't wait to scrap them! It will be nice to use feminine colors, flowers, and some bling in my layouts!!!!! In fact I did a layout over the weekend....see below! Yes, this is me at age 3!!!! Love that look!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful week....have you started your Holiday shopping yet???

The week before Thanksgiving...

I can't believe that next Thursday is Thanksgiving! Time has been flying by at warp speed! Don't worry, I do realize that I say something similar to this on every post! I know that I need to just accept that time flies!

This week brought some very sad news of the passing of someone that I admired as a strong, caring, family oriented, and very friendly woman. With her passing, I am reminded of my friends and how very important they are to me! I am truly blessed in my life to have friends that I can call on in times of need and in times of joy! So here is a huge "thank you" to all of my friends from the bottom of my heart! I love you all and am so proud that I can call you my friend!!!!

We are not busy at our house getting ready for Thanksgiving as we celebrate this holiday with my family. We all get dressed up and go out to a fancy dinner where we are wined and dined for hours and have great conversation. I absolutely love it!!!! After we are done, we usually stop over the in-laws house to say a quick "hello", and then off to watch some football and relax together as a family of three. It has taken our family a while to figure out what 'fits' for this holiday between the two families, but since we have been doing this for the last couple of years, I simply LOVE it!

I was very fortunate this week/weekend to get some scrappin' done! I completed two layouts for the Design Team that I am on over at Paper Popsicle . You should go over there and check it out! If you scroll down on the home page, you will see two of my layouts!!!! Very exciting! I also did a few layouts for the album I am doing for my mom and all of her animals. I am happy to report that I am almost done with the album!!! Only a few more pages to complete...which I hope to do today while watching the Colts play! When I finish it, I will post it!

I hope that all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving week and I also hope that you know how truly THANKFUL I am for each of you in my life!

Here are the two layouts that I finished....sorry the scan makes the colors look so weird! Maybe Santa will bring me a 12 x 12 scanner for Christmas??!!??

Seems like we are busy....

but not really much going on! Does that even make sense? I can't believe that in less than two weeks we will be having Thanksgiving!!! I must admit that this is my favorite holiday! I love to get together with family and then well, the food is always a plus as well! I feel so fortunate that my family is close by and that we can be together!

This past Friday we had a surprise party for my brother-in-law as he just got back from Iraq. I am so glad that he came back safe and sound and I thank everyone who is over there serving our country AND their families! They are making a huge sacrifice for our freedom and our country!

So the first nine weeks of school has ended and Collin did very well! He made the High Honor Roll and received an award for his Christian Outlook. We are very proud of him!!!! I feel lucky that he really enjoys school! He has also decided to play basketball for the school team. The first week he had conditioning in which they basically run for two hours! I thought he would die and want to quit, but he said it was hard, but necessary....what a kid! I was tired just watching them!!!!

Collin had fun on Halloween. This was the first year that we let him be something scary and he got to go Trick or' Treating with two of his buddies! I have tried to steer him away from the scary/gory costumes, but this year we let him make his own decisions....man was it hard! Without even talking about it, he and his friends basically looked the same! Made me laugh! Guess for these pictures I will have to find some gory paper to use to scrapbook them!

Well, that is about all for now! I hope everyone has a great week...and have fun getting ready for Thanksgiving!!!!

Here are a couple of pictures of Collin on Halloween.....warning they may scare you..LOL!