October ALREADY

I just finished my computer desktop image for October. I always use the freebie desktop from the Shabby Princess blog and the one for October is lovely (as always!). Here's what I did with mine.

Go grab one for yourself. She offers it to fit both standard screens and wide screens. Don't you just love how there is room for all your icons on the left so your great photos don't get covered up?

Happy Scrappin' ya'll!

Sticks and Stone May Break His Bones...

AGAIN!

Jacob (my oldest) has broken his wrist once again. The last time was when he was in the 3rd grade so I suppose that this repeat performance isn't so bad.

His first break was in the 3rd grade on someone else's skates. The kids were trying to see who could jump off a ramp and land the furthest.... He won! And he broke both his ulna and radius bones in his right wrist.

This time, he was looking over his shoulder while on his long board (skateboard) and somehow fell and fractured a small bone in his wrist.

Luck for us he has become a frequent flier at the urgent care.

This photo is from Mother's Day when he smacked his head into a tether ball pole and we spent a whole evening at the urgent care and they recommended an ambulance ride to the hospital to get him a cat scan on his head. Of course he was fine (I always said he was hard headed!)

So how was your weekend?

Remedial Typist

I found this typing test while reading Sweet Shoppe Design blog this morning. They do this thing called From Our Blog To Yours and you are supposed to post something they request on your blog then go back and comment in their blog with a link to your posting. It lets you earn points...but I'm not going to play along just because I don't need one more thing to keep up with. LOL! BUT, I did take the test just to see how fast I type. And it's not very fast.
53 words

Typing Test

So now when you read my posts, you'll realize all the time I took to share my life with you. It ain't easy! LOL. Did I tell you that I got a "D" in typing in high school?

My latest project

Last week I finally did some scrapbooking. I had been planning to make a coaster album for a long time and when I saw the quick page pack from Little Dreamer Designs on sale I figured it was time. I totally copied the example for my cover page, but you know, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Here are some pictures of the little 4" X 4" album....




While I was taking these pictures, my cat Elvis figured it should be all about him and he came and flopped his silky body on the desk.

So now I'm ready to get another album completed. I am really enjoying the hybrid thing. I just need to find a great way to display my projects at home. I just have them sitting in a basket on my coffee table now.

Yesterday I helped my sister Beverly make her daughter a fun craft project as a baby shower gift. Kaity's shower is October 3 so I'll have to wait to post any pictures of her gift until after that.

So that's it for today folks... Hope everyone enjoys the rest of their weekend!

Yup, I'm a copycat!

So Suzee blogged about a cool mosaic. And of course I have to do my own...so with much ado, here is mine....


1. Dedicated to Christine aka show me ur pix!'s, 2. 241/365: My Sunday Lunch, 3. Good Morning Glendale, 4. Bliss, 5. Gerard Butler, 6. Cd Art, 7. Home, 8. Tiramisù, 9. Hot stuff!, 10. take me to the light, 11. friendly roses, 12. Domestic Godess

To make your own: a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search. b. Using only the first page, pick an image.c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name (or your blog name or handle or whatever)

Uh, I had to cheat a little...I actually went on to the second page on flikr once (or twice).

Cool...thanks Suzee! And like she says, Now it's your turn.

Birds and moths and lizards. Oh My!

I just love cats. We always had them while I was growing up. My two cats are so sweet and silky. Now, let me tell you why I want to shoot them. They love to bring creatures into the house that have NO business being indoors. You probably remember the post about the dead bird in my bed. Well, they just keep sharing their friends with the family. Like this mutant moth...

Ugly thing, isn't it! But this first picture doesn't show just how big it really is so I included a shot of "it" with the cat. Look how small Elvis' paw is in comparison.

Pretty creepy. And the sound of it's wings beating against the floor sent chills down my spine. Then Elvis caught another bird...and brought him inside to share with his brother. The poor guy was wounded pretty bad. I just picked him up in a paper towel and put him under a bush out front. Jason said he'd just suffer and die out there but I couldn't bring myself to kill it or to let the cats continue to torment it.
This bird is the only play thing they've brought in that didn't totally gross me out. Just so long as it stays out of my bed! Then just this morning I found these little dead treasures in the downstairs hall....
In case you can't tell, those are lizards. I actually stepped on one of the little corpses before I was aware they were there.

I was hoping someone could put me in touch with the Kitty Whisperer so she can tell my cats that they need to play with their friends outside only. My schedule is pretty flexible so any time she can meet with them is good.

You're kidding, right?

So I'm cruising the blogs out there and I see that the funny lady who sold her kids Pokemon cards on EBay (Because I Said So) has a great blog where she reviews products and gives her opinion about them. Well, here is a REAL product that I laughed out loud when I saw the web site


Yup, it's real folks! I haven't seen a commercial THIS good in a long time. Click this link (Batter Blaster) and watch the video demo! Well, apparently, these make GREAT pancakes and waffles. Dawn from the blog review said that it would be great to take when you go camping or just want to fix yourself something for a late night snack with no extra clean-up.

I've GOT to find this stuff and try it for myself!

I WON!!

OK, so this is just a bit of old news, but I had this screen shot from when I actually won something! If you look closely, you can see my name on the top right.

I played along with the Weeds & Wildflowers digital scavenger hunt last month and figured that I probably had some of the clues wrong. Turns out that I got them all, just not the first one to submit them. Then they randomly selected 3 people who got them all right and handed out some digital freebies.

If you want to see the original posting, just click on the link.

Would you want them for neighbors?

I just want to vent today about our next door neighbors. At first glance they seem to be nice people. This family sent a beautiful bouquet of flowers to our house on the day of our wedding when only that very morning they learned we were to get married and they always say "Hi" when they see us. The gripe I have is that they ALWAYS park right in front of our house. ALWAYS. There will be nobody parked in front of their own house, but they don't seem to want to park there. They have 4 vehicles for a family of 4. They could easily park the 2 extra vehicle in front of their own house. The neighbor on the opposite side of them has their driveway on the far side so the space of their 2 yards makes a large area. On the other hand, WE have only the space of our own yard between their driveway and ours.

I know it seems like it's not such a big deal, but it is annoying to us. Imagine that every time you look out your front window you see a car right in front of your house. Many times it is their company so the first thought when I see a strange car outside my house is "who is coming to see us?" Well, last night when I went out to look for Elvis (my cat) this is what I saw...

And, NO the car isn't running, that brake light just looks like that from my camera flash. There is about 5 feet of space between the Honda Element and the neighbor's truck. Here's a big surprise... there was NOBODY parked in front of ANY other house including the neighbor where this car's owner was visiting. So I ask you, Would you want them to be your neighbor? Let's not even discuss how they let their little rat dog come right up to our front door to bark at us and then take a pee right on the bushes by our front door, or how their son (who just graduated high school) and his friends have been caught jumping on our trampoline in the middle of the night. No, lets save that for another day.

Way to go Grizzlies!

Last night my hubby's Montana Grizzlies won their season opener again Cal Poly 30-28. UM's passing game pretty much sucked so it was a good thing they can run the ball. We were at Dukes watching the game with friends of ours and other Montana fans. Right up to the end I wasn't sure they would pull it off. The last 38 seconds remaining of the game had Cal Poly attempting a 27 yard field goal that would have won them the game. Luck was with the Griz because the kick went wide left! WOOHOO!!

It was fun but I think I'd have had more fun if I wouldn't have been ready to come down with something. I've had terrible sinus congestion and today have run a fever. My sweet Jason has been feeling the pain of sinus, too. Let's hope we are on the mend...

It all happened on Friday

Yesterday was quite a day! It was the day after a HUGE storm ripped through the greater Phoenix area Thursday night. This storm brought lightening, wind, rain and hail larger than peas. And as we saw the next day, lots of trees ripped out of the ground by their roots and many more with huge limbs snapped off. It came in two waves (that I know of). The first one was before our kids went to bed. Of course we had to go outside because we are true Arizonans and we actually think a good storm is like a show. "But Crissie, isn't it dangerous to be outside while there is an electrical storm?" Of course it's dangerous but at least here at my house we are willing to risk the odds on being struck by lightening.

Round two of the storm came after Jason was sleeping. I was in the kitchen and I heard something hit the house (I'm still not sure what it was). I went to the back door and saw the rain in the glow of a streetlight blowing sideways. This was one powerful storm! I went to bed and during the VERY early hours between 2 and 3 a.m. I was awakened by Jason tossing a cat out of our bed. He said that Elvis had been digging under my extra sheet I use to keep me warmer. He had been awakened earlier by the cats wrestling around in the bathroom over something. So he tosses my extra sheet back and I can tell there is something in the bed. I remember thinking to myself, "Please don't let that be a turd". So Jason goes over to the light switch and asks me if I'm ready. On goes the light and this is what is in bed with us....

OMG! It's a dead bird!

I can only assume this not so little bird was wounded in the storm and one of my cats came across him. I'm sure which ever one of them brought this thing in must have been thinking he was a total warrior! And when we went downstairs for the day, we found feathers all over the floor in the downstairs hallway and family room. Downstairs was obviously where they had the most fun with their new friend.

After getting rid of the bird and changing the sheets we caught a few more hours of sleep. Later that day we took my sister Bev out for lunch to celebrate her birthday. Here are a couple pics of the little Rolodex scrapbook I made for her. I wish I would have had more photos to use but there were none to be had.

There were a few more pages but this gives you the general idea.

Then, I went with Bev and her girlfriends Teri and Becky out for her birthday dinner to a fabulous Italian restaurant called Vincitorio's. http://vincitoriosrestaurant.com/

This was my first time there and I will tell you that it will NOT be my last. For starters, the atmosphere is lovely. But most important, the food is wonderful! And I will tell you that even though I was totally stuffed after eating almost all of my Capellini Campagnola (that tasted SO good) I still had my share of sampling the 3 desserts we ordered to share. YUMMY!! And Bev had a wonderful time. Which is the reason we chose to be gluttons for the night.

Yes, it was a VERY long day. Some great, some not so great, and all of it just another day in my life....

Am I wasting time again?

So here I am taking another Blogthings quiz. I figured since I love to download great fonts that this was a good quiz for me.

What font are you? You Are Palatino

You consider yourself to be creative and artistic. And you'd like everyone else to know it! You take design and aesthetics seriously. You like everything in your life to be unique and beautiful - but never gaudy!

What Font Are You?

Oh boy!

I don't know where the time goes. It's almost the end of August already. My oldest sister Bev has a birthday coming up on the 29th (also my niece Sarah) and I still haven't finished my gift to her. I think I may have to get my old pictures out and scan them so I can complete the project.

I also have a birthday coming up on the 13th of September. I hit the big 39. But at least I'll always be younger than my sisters! LOL! I have no idea what I want for my birthday. When I think about it all I can hear in my head is my mom's voice saying what she ALWAYS said when asked what she wanted for her birthday or Christmas... "A CLEAN HOUSE". Ah, yes! I finally understand how that was always her greatest wish. Of course, I think I do much more of my own house cleaning than I remember my mom doing. I'm pretty sure she and my dad had kids to do the cleaning. It's been more than 4 1/2 years since she died. I really miss her.


I used to keep my cats indoors because we seem to be helping the food chain here in our neighborhood with my last 2 cats. They both found their way out through our doggy door and soon after were never seen again. Well, I had this idea of making a cage to butt againts the house outside the doggy door and I would house their litter box in it. It worked great. Cats would go out there and do their business and do the death chant while bird watching. It was so safe. But one day Elvis and JB had reached my last nerve after they thought that walking on me at 3:30 in the morning and pawing my head was a good idea. They had been waking me and Jason up pretty regularly through the night and poor Jason has to leave by 3:30 a.m. (hence the cats assumption I should be up, too). So that morning I opened the trap door that used to keep them in the cage. I told them that there was a coyote out there somewhere needing a meal. Well, so far they haven't become coyote chow. Of course I hope they never do. I think they are pretty fun most of the time. Let me show you some photos of my brats...

JB and Elvis in the cage of safety and misery.

JB practices his "Mighty Hunter" move.

Elvis is most likely making JB laugh!

Now remember folks, my birthday is still a couple weeks away so you have time to get me something nice. LOL!!

New header!

I got tired of the photos in my blog header so I redid it. I thought it would be nice to go for a girlie look. As you can see, I ended up leaving the layout like it was. In case you're wondering, I used the digital kit "Princess of Lala Land" by Sweet Shoppe Design. Such a fun kit!

You animal!

I took this quiz this morning.

ANIMOLOGY: What Animal Are You? Your Result: Tan Giraffe Loner. You're a sort of a loner, but you are very brave and a quick thinker. You have a little secret: you like to help others. Soul Mate is the Red Jaguar, but you hate the Marroon Panda.
Ocre and Gray Dolphin
Silver and Red Wolf
Gold Falcon
Teal Cat
Red Jaguar
Blue Fox
Yellow Trout
ANIMOLOGY: What Animal Are You? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

I think that being a Tan Giraffe sounds cool... but who in my life is the hated Maroon Panda?

Where have you been?

I have just been waiting around for something good to happen so I could blog about it, but if I keep that up I will never get around to my blog.

This month I was trying to do the "Photo a Day" to scrapbook some pages but I missed a couple days. I suppose on those days I can just say "oops". Let me tell you, finding something interesting to take a picture of every day is hard. And how bad of a mother do you have to be to not take ANY pictures of your kid on his birthday? Yup, Jacob's 15th b-day came and went and I didn't even get any pics of him on his big day. It's not like he was here all day...it was his dad's weekend and the boys didn't get home until after dinner so I'm going to use that as my excuse. Do you suppose I should make another cake and fake some pics? I'm sure Jacob would go along with it if it meant more cake!

Well, that's about it for tonight folks. I'll just leave you with this photo of my kitties...

Elvis & JB: Just showin' the love

WOOHOO! School is back in session!

I have to tell you how glad I am that the kids are back in school. My boys are out of the house and I have peace and quiet again. This means I now have a sophomore in high school and a 7th grader and my hubby has an 8th grader and 4th grader. Jason and I joke that we only have 9 more years and then we can move away! Or maybe we aren't joking...

This Sunday, Jacob (my oldest) turns 15. I won't see him until that evening since this is their weekend with their dad. I plan on baking a cake so we can celebrate when he gets home. German chocolate is always popular with our kids so that's probably what I'll end up making. Hopefully they will eat most of it because cake tends to call to me when I'm in the house with it.

I'm trying to find some great recipes for dinners. I plan to put together a recipe file filled with meals that have proven to be eaten by most of us. Jason and I both hate to cook if nobody is going to eat. A while back I came across a recipe for Bourbon Chicken on Miss Kim's blog http://misskim.typepad.com/justmisskim/. It's wonderful! She has others I plan to try. Thanks Miss Kim! If you have any meals that are well received by children, let me know.

This morning I realized there was no milk in the house. I hate when that happens. My boys are HUGE milk drinkers but terrible informers about the milk status. Also, we have the whole gang here tonight and I need to make sure there is food to eat so it's off to the store! Guess that means my day has to start for real. Bummer.

A little more Montana

I thought that since I am still keyed up from work that I'd share some more photos from vacation.

I let the kids loose with my camera while we were at Quinn's Restaurant and they had lots of fun taking pictures...

Here are our 3 oldest posing for their youngest sister.

"I'm crushing your head!"

Just how bad is the cellular service in Plains? Well, if you have T-mobile, you might just have to find the "spots" to talk where your phone won't drop a call.

"Dad, can you hear me now?"

We were surprised to see a helicopter out at the cabins. They were scooping water right out of the river just up the road from us.

Don't let those power lines fool you into thinking there is electricity at the cabins...unless you bring your generator to hook up to the lines you are using propane, baby!

This next one is just something Samantha found while out taking a walk.

It's the circle of life, kids.

We spent many fun hours at Twin Lakes because Jason found us a rope swing! He added some extra rope to it so the kids could swing easier.

...and me, too! Thanks Jason!!

The kids all got a shooting lesson thanks to Beau leaving us his rifle to use.

Here's Jason setting it up for the kids.

Jacob taking aim.

And finally, how can you call it camping without a campfire and SMORES!

Believe it or not, it's about 9 o'clock at night in this photo!

So that's it for tonight, folks. Hope you've enjoyed the second round of vacation pictures.

Facebook & Flair

I have a new addiction....it's Facebook. Of course my oldest tells me that it's lame and is not as good as MySpace. I just have to say that if MySpace had FLAIR it would be the bomb! I just love the flair on Facebook. If you've seen Office Space, then you know what I'm talking about when I say Flair. Here are a couple examples of some flair boards...

So this is an open invitation to all my friends and family to join Facebook and get on my "flair" bandwagon. What are you waiting for? Go on, go sign up... then look me up.

Where does the time go?

It's been a while since I posted. I have been really lazy ever since we got home from Montana. It's like I forgot how to do all the things I used to do.


2 weeks is a long time, but it didn't feel that long when we were there. We kept moving around from place to place. Here are some pictures from our 4th of July fireworks show we put on at Marcie and Keith's house.
Look how they are mesmerized by the fire. I'm not sure but I think that is a flaming pile of poo.

This one is a bit blurry, but here we are laying in the grass to get a better view.

Yay Sparklers!! I remember having these when I was a kid.

The kids had a great time. They got to light the fireworks themselves and I'm not sure but I think they enjoyed that part more than the fireworks show itself.

While we were at breakfast at Benji's (in Plains) we read on a place mat that cows outnumber people 3 to 1 in Montana. Of course those place mats haven't changed in the past couple years (that I've been going there) but there really are a lot of cows in Montana.

These lovely ladies are on the road we drive to get to the cabin.

They all stare at us when we drive past.

This sign had me laughing! I asked Jason if he thought they were also armed and dangerous.

Not only are there lots of cows, we also saw moose while we were there.

This is a cow moose. Another time when we were on the highway, some folks risked getting run over by getting out of their car and rushing across the road to get a closer look at a bull moose in a river. People really do some stupid things. Moose aren't friendly like Bullwinkle would have you believe. If the cars don't kill you, that bull moose just might!

I'm going to share some more pictures on my next post, so check back in a couple days to see them!