Another Great photo...

And this one is my baby boy!!! Ain't he cute (all sweaty and everything....)

Long Time No Blog!

OK, not gonna apologize for not blogging lately... I am just gonna jump in here to show you a few pictures I have taken with my new Baby! Yep, that's right, I got a new camera! It is the Olympus SP-565UZ. It is a 10 MP, 20X optical zoom camera... All I can say is wow! I like what I have seen so far!!! Here's a few photos I just took playing around...

The first one is taken with just the zoom.... this is my bleeding heart, I can't wait for it to get bigger and bloom!

This was taken with the macro and zoomed in. (I talk so technical huh? LOL) It is the red bud tree, which actually has purple blooms.

The last 2 were taken on super macro setting. I love these oh so close up shots!!! My poor pitiful hyacinths only half bloomed this year, I am assuming cause of the crazy weather!

Interesting photos..

So... Katie took this photo of her eye...



I thought it would be fun to play around with... and even my old as crap Microsoft Picture it came up with some cool effects!!




Kinda cool huh? Wonser what Katie will think? LOL

Quartet Competition

So this year's competition.. no surprise. The girls took 2nd place again. I am so proud of them all, but they walked away very frustrated! I just think they were gorgeous!!!

Here's Katie before we went...



And here are the girls with their medals...

***WINNERS***

Yes I said Winners, Plural!!


I have had so much fun this past week with the cupcake craze! Thanks everyone for leaving comments!!!

So, I have numbered all the comments (one per person Beffy..LOL) and put you all in a hat. Here is are the winners and their comments:



Casie said...
Those look sooooo good!! I'm still resisting the urge to make some though... must stay away from the cupcakes... must try!!! Hee hee...



And.....ironically......


cakescraps said...
Your cuppyckakes look sooo good! Well, I mainly want the icing. And i'm trying really hard not to just go make a batch and eat it with a spoon right now!


SO Casie, and Carla.. PM me your addresses and when your super duper giftie gets to me, I will mail it to you. It may take awhile, but I want you to know I picked out the most special gift you could imagine... want a peek??? this is just a sneaky peeky...




And just to make it more exciting, cause there is enough for THREE winners, well, I chose one special person to also send the giftie too.. so it'll be a big ole surprise!!!

Adventures in Cupcakes

So, for days I had been wanting a cupcake. Kristin over on Scrapfreak had the cutest cupcakes made for her by her sister for her birthday. This started my obsession. Then the Pioneer Woman site posted the most awesome looking cupcakes ever. That really got my obsession going. So much so that I knew I had to have a cupcake.

The tragedy struck. I received a letter in the mail from my doctor and lo and behold my cholesterol was high. Bye bye cupcakes... you don't belong here.

After that, it seemed everywhere I turned, all I saw were cupcakes, people making cupcakes, eating cupcakes... it was pure torture! All of my friends over on Scrapfreak added to the torture by teasing me. All I saw were threads with my name and a cupcake somewhere there... whether it was avitar cuppy cakes or pictures!


What's a girl to do? Well, I will tell you.... you run to the store and you buy the fixings for cup cakes! That's right, I am not strong... I have no will power. I needed my cuppy cake!!!

It was a joyous process from start to finish... I cheated, I will admit it. I used a box mix for the cup cake itself. But I mean really, they are just as good right?



They came out so goldenly, perfectly, yummily delicious looking!


So, next the icing. Well, after reading the ingredients in the Pioneer Woman's chocolate icing recipe, I knew there could be no other icing to make. I mean come on, did you see the ingredients in that stuff??



I will say this was about the easiest icing ever made... but I do understand now why she made mini cuppy cakes. That stuff has enough sweet in it to send you into a diabetic coma!!! Oh and it thickens really quick, so frost them fast!



In conclusion, I will say THANK YOU to all my FREAKY friends for pushing me to make these yummy cup cakes!!! (and on Friday, when weigh in day rolls around, you owe me...but we'll discuss that later! LOL)

So if you're now wanting a cup cake, I will invite you to come on over and have one... I have a few left!

And for everyone of my friends who leave a comment here... I will add your name to a hat for a nice RAK from me! You have until Friday AM to get your comments in!!!

Some February Pages!

Seems like I am on a roll so far this month! Hope I can keep up and get all my pictures scrapped (that I have printed...) Here are three I did this week!

More pages..

so to fill in the blanks since I have nothing exciting to post, I will share afew more pages I have done recently!

CHA Goodies!

Paper Trunk is having an AWESOME giveaway on their blog... Check it out here... Paper Trunk

New stuff..

Thought I would share 2 pages I have done this week... since I have nothing much to talk about! LOL

Snow Day!

Wow, we haven't had a sno day in AGES! I was so excited to wake up this morning to lots of white fluffy stuff on the ground! As of now, it is still snowing! Here are a few pictures I have taken this morning... I will go out and take more later when it stops snowing!

A few Pages!

So, obviously not much going on for us, I haven't blogged in awhile... Oops... But hey, I did scrap some last week! Here are a few of my current pages!!

Christmas Goodies!

So, I don't usually do a lot of baking and such for the holidays, but there are some things I annually make... Fudge is one of them... dipped cookies or pretzels is another. Well, today, I went crazy! First I dipped 2 bags of Oreos in white chocolate and red and green candy melts. Katie wanted a gift to give to some friends, and we thought this was a great idea! Then I decided to make Chex Mix... cheesy ranch Chex mix to be exact. Then there was the fudge... peanut butter fudge, and then of course my favorite chocolate fudge with walnuts!

So, tell me what is your favorite Christmas treat? What do you bake? What do you have to have some the holiday season? Share with me on your blog your favorite holiday recipe.

Here is mine:

Fudge:
6 tablespoons margarine
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 pound powdered sugar
4 tabespoons milk
1 tablespoon vanilla

Mix all this together in a pot and bring to a boil. Once the color changes to a nice rich chocolate brown, turn it off, and remove from heat. Then you can add a cup of nuts or not... pour into buttered 8x8 or 9x9 pan and chill until set.

Here's a picture I leave with you of my Yummy dipped Oreos, (the fudge is not ready so you'll have to settle for this!) and remember please share your fave recipe and leave a comment here so I know you have done so!

Decorating the tree.... Take 2!

OK, so I have been severely "down" so far this holiday season, and I have figured a lot of it has had to do with the fact taht I was just not happy with my tree. Now now now... it is not ALLLLLL the cats fault. My tree is a live tree, and my ornaments tend to be heavy, so the whole tree was being drug down. It just looked sad, and it made me sad and I didn't even wanna look at it, or turn it on, or be near it! So today, I decided I was taking off all the ornaments, and I replaced them with lighter ornaments that fit this live tree better! Since we (Timothy and I) redecorated, I feel 100% better!!! Take a look at our new tree.... oh and don't pay attention to the crooked star, I fixed it! And if you notice to the right of the tree, someone is eyeing up to see what he is gonna tear off of it already!

Twas the Night Before Christmas!

This was shared by my great friend Joanne on our yahoo group! And sadly... how true it is! LOL Enjoy!

Twas the night before Christmas, I'm glued to the tree.
I'm wondering what Santa brought just for me.
Could it be cardstock, or chipboard or lace?
Or a Cricut, I said, with a smile on my face.
And that's when I heard him, "Hi Santa, " I said
"You know....good little girls should be in their
beds."

"I know I should Santa, and now I've got caught.
But I was just so excited, to see what you brought."
"Well, let's take a look in this room where you work.
He shook his head quickly, and left with a jerk.
I heard him exclaim as he put it in gear.
"You've got enough crap, I'll see you next year!"

Cards!

I love Christmas Cards!!! I love making Christmas Cards and sending Christmas Cards and getting Christmas cards! I love my Snowman Christmas card holder. It's feeling rather empty. The cards are sloooooooooowwwwwwlllllllllllllyyyyyy trickling in this year! This holder is usually full!!! So, I wanna see from now till Christmas just how full it gets.... so, let's compare...

Here it is today, and I will take another photo on Christmas Day to compare!



As you can see... most all of my cards are from my scrappy friends... gotta love em!!!

I also wanted to share a visitor we had today! Don't know where he (or she) came from, but my boys were quite intrigued by him(her).



A gorgeous kitty... don't know who it belongs to, but it is very skiddish. Take a closer look.... (had to get the picture through the glass, cause it ran away when it heard me making noise in the house...)

December 8 and 9

OK, so I actually missed a day.... I have just been so tired! This running back and forth to the hospital and trying to get things done around here has nearly killed me! Anyway, I was hoping tonight to have a nice post about Christmas shopping. The kids and I went to the mall with high hopes of getting a huge dent in our Christmas shopping, and all we managed to do was eat dinner and walk around for awhile and come home. I just couldn't get myself together enough to actually shop and buy things! Oh well! So tonight I will share my Winter House I have been working on for awhile. It is now 98% finished. I just need to add a couple more things, and I will be all done!!!





All I need is a little more of the Pom Pom ball ribbon, and something to look like Smoke coming out of the chimney! My awesome friend Bethany punched me out some snowflakes to add to the house! Thanks so much Beffy, it made the house look so much more awesome!!!

December 7

Short post tonight, but I didn't want to miss a day! Been at work all day, and then in the ER this evening with Dad. (he's ok, but staying overnight at the hospital..)


Today I want to share a new ornament I got this year! I just think it is absolutely adorable. I bought it at my favorite store at Myrtle Beach over Thanksgiving... The Christmas Mouse....

Here's a replica of my boys... And if they don't leave my Christmas tree alone... it may be a reminder of what they USED to look like!!! LOL

Christmas Party...

Last night I went to my WMU group Christmas Party at church. I did the decorating for this party, and if I must say so myself, it looked awesome! I had to decorate 8 long tables, and this is what I came up with for simple yet elegant looking table decor.

The centerpiece was a clear plastic plate with a candle hot glued on. Then around the candle I just randomly placed some silver and blue ornaments. I did light the candles...



On either side of the candle/plate I placed a round styrofoam disc and inserted 3 snowflake suckers I made and then between and around it all I just randomly laid silver tinsel.



At the end of the night, everyone got to take home a sucker!

Here is the full view of a table... I really love the color scheme, it is so different from the "norm" of Christmas red and green!



This was my 2nd year doing the decorating, and I am already thinking of what I should do next year!!!

As a bonus, I am throwing in a picture of me all dressed up for the evening... remember this, cause the dressing up and the picture taking do not happen often! LOL

Stay Tuned...

The December 6 post will not occur until the evening due to me working tomorrow! I guess I could post tonight, but then it doesn't seem quite right to post a day early! LOL See ya tomorrow night!