Pictures you requested...........

okay for all the requests for pics from last week at the double digit birthday party....hold on to your seats! Here we goooo....

this is A winning 500 tickets out of a machine....which by the way is NO easy task....

Taking a chance with his friend on a game.....

a little wall climbing.....

WHEW!!!!

750 tickets here ~ another BIG win..............

Let the party begin.....a few friends, an arcade, cheese pizza, pop, brownies & chocolate chip cookies...what more could a 10-year-old ask for?

What a good time we had....lots of good clean fun!!!

Hey Friends.....remember this.....

To the world you may be just one person, but to one person YOU may be the WORLD!

(I can't take credit for it but I am unsure where credit is due? - just love that quote though!)

Birthday Party.....

Today was Angelo's birthday party.......
we went to Bumpers....he had six friends come. They were all pretty nice kids - wait, they were all extremely nice kids! I think they all had a load of fun hanging out and spending tokens on games. Pizza, pop, cookies & brownies......I will post photos tomorrow maybe - I am too tired to have the patience to wait for the downloading process tonight.

The party was nice and relaxing - don't get me wrong I am exhausted but it was a nice low key party and the kids were great and the parents were great! I managed to sink a few coins into the machines myself....

I finally bit the bullet and bought Twilight for myself today.....everyone is raving about it so I will give it a try! I am usually not into those kinds of books but I will "try" to do my best to read it!

Not much else happening at the moment ~ I am going to crochet some more on my latest work of art! Although I am extremely jealious of the quilting that is going on in someone elses life! GRRR!

Recent creations....

This is one of my latest layouts - it was from summer vacation....

This is part of the above layout - Summer 2008 - Ang & his best friend!

These are the bookmark/tags I made for my sorority project......

Ang's party invites....you requested - you received! They were a little plain but I liked the simpleness....All with my CRICUT.....

What a HUGE day yesterday.....

First & foremost.....



HAPPY BIRTHDAY MS. SAUSAGE GRAVY.....AKA AMBER!



CELEBRATE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN WITH YOUR LITTLE ONE IN YOUR TUMMY!



BIRTHDAY BLESSINGS TO YOU!



~*~*~*~****~*~*~*~*~****~~~**~*~*~****~~~



Yesterday was a busy day - I had myself scheduled for a meeting bright & early on customer service - very informative - mandatory by my employer - it was enlightening to understand what customers expect from businesses - much more than a few years ago as we are more informed & knowledgeable as consumers and so many options available for potential customers.

Interesting and fun to meet some of the new people at work since I am working at home most of the time.



Anyhow.....I didn't realize I had scheduled myself for this mandatory meeting on the Inauguration Day! So I DVR'd it hoping to get some glimpses later! What a day huh? Lots of different insights and stories! I am so excited for a new start.....fresh ideas.....hopefully things will be better for all in America eventually, though I realize it will take lots of time and work and don't expect things to change overnight. I am happy for the Obama family but I also think about how much those girls little lives will change now and forever. I may think about odd things....but I wonder will they have slumber parties at the Whitehouse? Will dad still have tea parties with them in the midst of his new life? What will it be like for these girls down the road....only time will tell. They are now performing for the whole world and have secret service watching over them. God Bless those girls! I worry about something happening to our new president, I have since he won the election - hopefully my worries are never validated.



Last night it was off to sorority. I was in charge of the program so I had to "think" of something to do....I did sweat over this one believe me! I had thoughts about doing something meaningful and not a lot of work like in the past when I have done things. Then last week I had an idea, the idea arose because my Sunday school teacher passed away at age 98 - she was older when she was our teacher and most of the kids dreaded Sunday School with her but I always admired her knowledge and love of God. Anyhow, thinking about her and the meaningful things she did for me and our class. She at one time had us take little pieces of paper and write one or two words about each person in our class. Positive and uplifting words - nothing negative! Then we were each given our pieces of paper. I still have these pieces of paper in my bible today. It was just an meaningful thing to me! Sooo, anyhow for sorority last night I designed these little gift tags - that we can use as bookmarks, then I gave a heart to each person to write positive things about each person on and then we strung them on our bookmark (tags)! I thought it was a nice thing to do and uplifting but I am not sure what others were thinking. Sometimes it is just nice to read positive things about one's self.

Anyhow - I posted some pictures in the above post of my latest creations!

Soo....

As usual the weekend is a fly by - where did that go?

I hung out with some friends on Friday night at a Scentsy Party! I almost forgot about the whole party invite but "thankfully" I called my friend to talk with her and and she asked if I was coming and I said....well never mind what I said....but I went and had a load of fun - never mind I was supposed to go to dinner with my family....OOPS! Ang had fun with my friend's daughter and J hung out with her husband - ummm ya, so at 10:00 p.m. when he came up the stairs to tell me we were leaving "I knew it was time".....

We hung at home on Saturday. I made a great recipe I got from http://hannahandlily.blogspot.com/ "Death by Potatoes" - wow that is one rich dish but it was good. I did manage to get some more scrapbooking, cricutting, cardmaking (invites for Ang's 10th b-day) and crocheting on my pink and brown afghan done. This will be a gift....I already know who the lucky recipient is! It will make its way in a box to SLC to my SIL, I know she will LOVE it through all the little errors and mistakes I made, it is turning out pretty nice - I tried to make my stitches a little tighter this time and used a smaller crochet hook - it has made it quite a bit smaller too but she is petite so it will work out great for her.

Sunday I buzzed around the house and organized my scrapbooking stuff a bit, funny how it can become so spread out in such a little amount of time. I headed out with some friends to have a little "us" time and hang! I was supposed to go with "Sausage Gravy" and get a facial but Joe wanted to have dinner out with some friends and so I knew I didn't want to battle that battle with him after the Friday night dinner out that didn't happen (oopsie!) - thankfully he understood!

I had to watch Desperate Housewives 100th episode last night and then Brothers & Sisters (for whatever reason - I love these two shows). Was that good or what? I made a bag of popcorn for me & my guy and we just enjoyed the shows!

Next weekend is the big double digit birthday for Ang....my baby turns 10. Amazing how fast that happened! He is such a great kid - hopefully through the next few years it will remain that way. We are having a birthday bash for him, we took him to Bumpers (it is an arcade/fun center) a few weeks ago to check it out and when we asked if he wanted to have his birthday party there his eyes lit up, of course he didn't want to react to "excited" but you could see those eyes saying "YES"! He hasn't had a big party for a couple of years so this is the year!

Well hi-hoe, hi-hoe it is off to work I go! Gotta get some morning buzz juice going and then hit those keys!

Love this quote......

"Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one."

~ Jane Howard~

Up notes...........

So....I have been busy again working on scrapbook pages - Sunday I was with my groupies at CPS and I "almost" completed 2 layouts for a total of 4 pages.....I had some sewing to do on one and some "blogging" to put on the pages. Last night I finished that up and started another layout, all I want to say is WHAT??? was I thinking - I started at about 9:00 p.m. cuz Joe was watching something I am not that interested in.....at 10:00 p.m. True Beauty came on (which I only watch because the local dude on the show.....Billy Scharnhorst), I mean if it wasn't for him I would NOT watch it because some of those people are so brainless it is truly sad, no depth to their beauty that is for sure! Anyhow, I started doing a mosaic around some pics of Angelo swimming last summer. I cut little pieces of water out from the trimmings off of the actual pics....that is time consuming, at this point I am 2/3 done, it is fun - kind of like making your own little puzzle. Not sure I am 100% cool with it but it is a start - I have seen mosaics done with little squares of pics in scrapbook magazines and thought I would try my hand at it - so it is a step out of my comfort zone. I will post when I am completed.....

Ang had some exciting news on Friday - he is one of three kids in his class who are tied to compete in the school spelling bee.....GOOD JOB! He is way good on spelling and math - he was working on pre-geometry in his advanced class this weekend which I thought I was going to pull my hair out trying to help him - I was a bonehead math student - you know ALGEBRA.....basic algebra.....it is bad when he is in the 4th grade and is way beyond me! He gets frustrated because he needs help and I can't help him - which then leads to stress! I hate not knowing how to help him.

I am so happy that inside I feel so regenerated and wanting to complete stuff and organize. It has been a long time since I have had this energy inside and feeling so excited about life. I love it! I love the ember that is burning in my life! Sure, my life is NOT 100% but I am trying to focus on regeneration and joys. Life IS good - even in the midst of bad things in my life and friends nearby - life is good, the blessings we all have bestowed on us - you really don't have to look far to find something you are privileged to have - a spouse or significant other, a child, a home, a vehicle, an animal buddy, memories of vacations, friends or loved ones who touched our lives.....we all gottem somewhere we just need to find them and dust them off!

I am so grateful for the friends I have and the love they show me in whatever form it may be;

a smile
a note
a phone call
an e-mail
a picture
sharing
forgiving me for my imperfections and loving me anyway
gently prodding me to pick up my cross and trudge on
standing by me as a support when I feel like I can't do something
making me laugh when I feel like crying inside
helping me to see the good in things
encouraging me to forgive when I may not want to
Helping me STRAP my rose colored goggles on and leaving them on
just being there for me....encouraging.....cheering me on to the finish line!

You see....I am truly blessed!

THANK YOU friends!

Hopefully UP times just around the corner.....

I am hoping for better times around the corner...you know once President Obama is in office. I don't expect miracles but this economy stuff sucks.....you see my friends lost their job and my heart is very sad for them and up until now the jobless news hasn't hit home....but suddenly it slammed into me - REALITY....it sucks big time! I hate that bad things happen to good people.....I will never understand that..... The worst part is that some high up idiot leaked the news out to the local TRIBUNE before the company even informed people and sent everyone into a panic! THANKS DUDE or DUDETTE - you are a loser ya know - perhaps you should apply for some "GOSSIP" magazine and get paid for your dirty deeds.....you have heard the song with the lyrics "DIRTY DEEDS DONE DIRT CHEAP".....ya, you should haul your kahooter down somewhere and get a gossip job! Your mouth has caused pain in a lot of local families! To bad it wasn't your kahooter that was on the line to lose your position! Can you say "LOSER" as you look in the mirror each morning?

Okay - so more on the up note! I know, know, know that somehow this family will make it through this torrential rainstorm in their life and will come out the other side stronger! It sucks and I can't begin to image this but I know that they will make it! Rely on your friends if need be! If you need to talk pick up the phone and call any of us we will be there!

And can we all say Ba BYE to President Bush when he closed the whitehouse door for the last time ..... like really soon!

An opportunity rings.....

Angelo's 4th grade class is raising money for their upcoming jet boat trip up the Snake River this Spring. They are needing to raise $2,000.00 for their class alone to go.

They have a great deal on a Southway Pizzeria card;

Cost: $10.00 for the card
You would buy one large specialty pizza and get one large 2 topping pizza free - Dine In or pickup only - NO DELIVERIES
This $10.00 card is good for 6 purchases and expires in June 2009

If you would like to help Angelo's class out by purchasing a card please let me know. I need to turn my order in for the cards the end of next week with the money.

Thank you in advance for considering a purchase.

Feel free to buy more than one card.

Again, thank you

Brenda

More LO from Sunday morning.....

This is a 2 page layout from Ang's 4th B-day at the gymnastics gym. I am only a "few" years behind.

This is a 2 page layout from the Summer of 2007 when we went to the Pioneer Park and just hung out while Joe was at work on a Sunday afternoon.

An art project Ang did this year. I never know quite what to do with these treasures so I thought I would scrap it. Besides I thought he was a cute little turkey too!

I loved this layout. It is a picture from the 3rd grade rocket launch last year. I used aluminum foil to cut out stars and place behind my cricut letters. I though it turned out kind of funky, simple bu with a little spice from the foil!

Anyway, thought I would share my creations - shows I am busy - you know idle hands are the devils tools so I have been bizzeeee!

Just love this quote.....

Enjoy your own life without comparing it with that of another.

― Marquis de Condorcet