Santa's Helpers

When I saw this I just had to do it with my family. I plan on looking at it anytime I'm sad for a good laugh. I hope you do the same! Nothing like a good laugh to kick off the holiday season! (Double click on pic to view video).

Catching Up!!

I feel like I haven't blogged in forever. I've been so busy so I thought I would make a random post to catch up on things. I've been really busy with the daycare. A couple weeks ago we had a illness spread throughout the daycare and resulted in a thorough cleaning and scrubbing of everything, and I mean EVERYTHING! Then, just when I thought I had dodged any sickness, I contracted Bronchitis, which kicked my butt!!

We are all well now (knocking on wood as I type this), so things are pretty much back to normal.

We had our "Jungle Day" this past week since we've been learning about jungle animals and the rain forest. We turned the daycare into a jungle safari! The kids had a lot of fun playing jungle games, hunting for bugs in the dark (with their flashlights), making paper elephants, breaking open a tiger pinata, and eating a jungle lunch!

This is Coraline posing with Diego.

They each got a rescue pack filled with goodies that they needed throughout the day.

Nicholas getting ready to eat his curly worms (hot dogs cut lengthwise in fours), crock teeth (apples cut in triangles), dried ants (raisins), beetle wings (potato chips), and green juice.

Then, last Wednesday we had our annual Thanksgiving Feast, where everyone brings a dish to pass. They love to eat, and Carole and I love that they take a nice long nap every year after the feast!

OK...Isn't she just about the cutest little thing you ever did see? Little Brooke really dressed up for the occasion!

And these little yummies brought by little Samantha were a big hit!

Then, on Thursday we were off to our good friends, Bob and Carole's house for a huge Thanksgiving Feast of our own. They always make Thanksgiving so special and this year was no exception!

Bob cracks me up!!

The fam.

Every year, Joe digs into that drumstick!

And Matthew made a Thanksgiving word search. Alyssa won first place for finishing hers first, winning her a medal (made of paper) made by Matthew. I came in second.

Even though he doesn't look like it, Luke had a great time too. Isn't he a cutie?!?

Me and my BFF, Carole!

OK...I know this is getting long...and boring for some, so I will say goodbye for now and will not wait so long before I post again!

Nice, Relaxing Door County Weekend!

We had a fun weekend in Door County again, as usual. I love being up there and enjoying all the silence and peacefulness, although being up there with my 7 year old niece, makes it a little less peaceful than usual (I mean that in a good way). She's such a busy little thing. I think that someday, when she can sit still long enough, she'll make for a great scrapbooker. She makes me tired just watching her! She's a pretty funny kid. I did, however, manage to get done a few layouts, as well as a weekly page kit for the store, while listening to The Little Mermaid II and Spy Kids over and over on the dvd.

Since I started working on Nicholas' book, most of these pages are for him. I did manage to start Halloween with one layout using pictures taken at our annual Halloween party for past daycare goers! By the way, in case you don't notice, I only used bling in one layout this whole weekend!! Those of you that know me, you know what a challange that is for me...

Click on image to enlarge.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA!!

I know, I know. I already posted this layout that I did for Bella Blvd. But since my grandma is truly my hero, I figured she deserved another post. This woman traveled to California when I was a year old to take me back to Milwaukee with her after learning my mother, a pregnant mother of four, was just diagnosed with cervical cancer. I lived with her for a year, until the rest of my family could re-join us. For the next ten years to follow, I stayed with her on and off when my mom would receive cancer treatments. Once my mom died, a couple weeks after my eleventh birthday, I pretty much stayed with her on weekends. We would talk, and talk , and talk until all hours. She would tell me stories...so many stories, and I loved listening, even if I had heard it before. So many nights we'd stay up playing Scrable, Rummy 500, and many other games.

As I got older, our relationship grew even stronger. I could talk to her about anything. We would talk every night on the phone, and I remember every New Years Eve (when I wasn't with her), I would call her a minute or two before midnight and we'd do the countdown into the new year.

My one regret is that my children will never be able to experience such a bond with their Grandmother. But for now, I hold all those wonderful stories deep in my heart, and share them when I get the opportunity. And , of course, that's what scrapbooks are for!

On Halloween, in 1995, it was my grandmas 85th birthday, and the whole family went over to her house that year, and every Halloween to celebrate. All the kids would be in costume and she loved seeing everyone. On this particular morning, I was talking to Grandma, and she told me that she never, ever dressed up for Halloween. Well, I just wasn't gonna hear of that, so I quickly made a witches costume, and got over to her house early. She dressed in the costume, and as the various families arrived, she greeted them at the door. When Alyssa saw her, she said, "Grandma, you already have a real witches' nose!" Oops...but Grandma had such a great sense of humor, it made her laugh so hard. The picture looks a little scary, but I think it was the angle... oh well, witches are supposed to look scary anyway!

Happy Birthday, Grandma! I love and Miss you!!!

That's Alyssa as Princess Jasmine

THE GREAT PUMPKINS!!

Next to Christmas, Halloween is definately my favorite holiday. It's just such a fun holiday where you can pretend to be anything you want to be. I love all the scary decorations, the spooky marathon weekends on TV...speaking of that, can I just say, the Exorcist is still the scarriest movie of all time to me. I watched it the other night and even though it was cut, it freaked me out. I remember seeing it for the first time back when I was 15 years old. My good friend Claudette and I snuck into the theater (you were supposed to be 17). I thought my older brother was exaggerating when he came home from seeing it and drank a whole bottle of holy water. From that point on , I knew I had to see it. Well, after the movie, we went back to her house and neither one of us would sleep in the bed and I was begging for some holy water! Scary movies freak me out, but I'm still drawn to them! Anyway...

...another thing I love about halloween is pumpkin carving! Tonight Me, Paul, Kelly, Alyssa, and Jose carved some kick butt pumpkins...

What a Great Weekend!!!

I just love getting together with friends!! We had such a great time talking, laughing, and oh yeah, scrapboking! I have to say, I was also enlightened and a bit educated thanks to Angie, Donna and Stephanie...I learned more than I needed to about triangles and "Q" words, and saw some pretty wierd videos... but I think that's all I can say about that.

Anyway, here's a few layouts that I managed to get done; Daycare kids, of course...

Nicholas and Dylan

Johanna

Nicholas and Dylan

Pretty Coraline

And here are some projects I did for Bella Blvd. recently;

My very special Grandma, whom I miss soooooo much!
Cute little guy, Dylan!

My Sweet Gracie!

and a wreath using the flowered paper from the Honey, I'm Home line.

"C" is for Cookie!

So...every once in a while we have a special day here at my daycare. This week we focused on learning the letter "C". In honor of that, I decided to have a cookie exchange, where each child brought in different kinds of cookies to pass out to their friends. All the cookies were great and might I say, extremely Delicious, and most were homemade which made them extra special. I just had to share these unbelievable, extra yummy goodies that Dylan brought in. Let me tell you, these were a frosting lovers' dream! Thanks Dylan!!

Alyssa and I kicked off this past weekend getting pedicures Friday night. Normally I love to do this and it usually takes about an hour, but wouldn't you know on a night where we had other plans the place would be empty so we got extra special treatment. Two hours later we walked out of there, almost making us late for a movie. We picked up Jose and went on to see Toy Story 1 and 2 in 3D. These are two of my favorite Disney movies (I have many), so I just had to see them. They did a pretty good job of converting the movies into 3D.

Saturday morning I went to see Matthews soccer team beat the pants off the other team!! These kids are so cute, playing their little hearts out. But of course Matthew was by far the cutest!

Saturday night we went out to dinner and drinks with Bob and Carole, and then back to our house to play some cards. I love spending fun times with good friends!

Then Sunday it was off to Oconomowoc for Rebecca's 7th (golden) birthday. It was an American Girl birthday if I ever saw one. I can't believe my little niece is already 7 years old. Where does the time go??

Some New Bella Layouts!

I've been working on some new layouts for Bella. Below are three layouts using the Flirty, Plastino, and Super Stud paper lines.

This first layout is of Alyssa's friend, Monica (her boyfriends sister). As you can see, she is very photogenic. The Flirty line is so much fun to work with and of course, I had to Stickle the flowers because I am the sparkle queen!

This layout is of Cute little Hailey. Remember her from one of my older posts? She's so much fun to take care of. She smiles all the time, except when I'm aiming a camera at her! Go figure!
She loves to pick my flowers. I used the Plastino line for this layout since it's all about summer!

Lastly, this is Dylan. I just love him! He's such a sweet boy. If I had a son, I'd want him to be just like Dylan. He's one of the few boys I have here at the daycare at the moment. The Super Stud line was perfect for this layout.