Sep 2, 2009 | Big Shot, Chipboard, Designer Series Paper, family, Summer Fun Cookout |
Surprise Tyler!
That was what we yelled Sunday night when we had a surprise party for Tyler. Tyler turned 16 on Saturday and had a most uneventful day. What he didn’t know was that I was planning a surprise party for Sunday! If you only want to see the stamping related stuff go to page 2 of this post.
I have been asking Tyler for about a month if he wanted a party for his 16th birthday – yes, then no, then yes, then finally he said no. So Friday night we went out as a family to dinner, came home, opened presents and ate cake. Below you can see the card and the little gift I made him. Saturday, Greg was gone all day at a tennis/golf tournament, and I was in and out – shopping for the party, taking stuff to my friend, Gina’s house – and by the way – the Best Friend ever – how many people would let a bunch of teenagers that they don’t even know come and have a party at their house. Since it was a surprise I couldn’t have it at my house. So Saturday was a boring day for Tyler – except that he did get his birthday balloon and I made him breakfast in bed!
Sunday I quietly went to Gina’s house to help with final preparation and plan B since it turned out to be a rainy Sunday so all the outside entertainment was a bust. My one concern – was anybody coming to the party….. Just an FYI – not a good idea to put a 17 year old boy in charge of inviting other teenagers to a surprise party – first I didn’t know who ended up getting invited and second teenagers don’t RSVP – maybe they don’t know what that means…..But it all worked out and teenagers did appear at Gina’s door, some on time and some later. We were able to get Tyler up to Gina’s house without any clue and I think Tyler had a fun party and celebration for his 16th birthday. Later that night he told me that he really did want a surprise party – hmmm did I know that somehow ’cause I don’t remember him telling me that…
Here are a few party pictures and on the next page are some stamping projects. (Click on page 2)
kids hiding
some of the kids
gotta have a pinata - and this one was a car!
Aug 29, 2009 | family, Wildlife |
Look who’s back….not the best picture, unfortunately. I took it through the glass window and it didn’t focus well. This would have been great with all three of them turned facing me and listening. What are they listening too? It happens to be Aspen and Magnolia barking at them…..
This is my neighbors yard across the street. Trudy and John aren’t going to be happy that the deer were eating all their plants yesterday.
I did get a good picture of the mom with one of the babies. The mom would pull up a mouth full and the baby started eating from what was hanging out of her mouth. Cute – don’t you think?
I hope they stay safe. There are some woods behind Trudy’s house but not much and there used to be a small creek – I’m not sure if it still has water in it though. Then more houses on the other side. We are in a large neighborhood that backs up to Corps of Engineer property. There is golf course in our neighborhood and we see a lot of deer in the woods along the course. And then we aren’t too far from a lake.
Have a great weekend! I’ll be posting some stamping projects over the weekend so check back.
Tomorrow (ok today since it is after midnight here now) is Tyler’s 16th birthday! Now I have 2 kids officially old enough to drive. But mine aren’t really interested in driving so it will still be a while before Tyler actually gets his driver’s license – right now he has his learner’s permit. Kyle is finally driving more – now that he is going to Kennesaw State instead of to the high school he has a much longer commute and has to deal with a college campus and parking decks and maybe a little bit of traffic. He only has class 4 days a week though and he likes that and the days he does have class he is home either by 12:30 or by 1:00.
Well it’s late and I’m off to bed.
Aug 27, 2009 | family |
A friend of mine told me about this company that she started using to get fresh fruits and vegetables – it is called Nature’s Garden Delivered. I got one order last week of a “small” box delivered directly to my house. If I can get a group together to form a co-op then everyone in my co-op would get a discount. If you live near me in Woodstock, Georgia check out this website and let me know if you would be interested.
http://ga.naturesgardendelivered.com/
Send me an email if you think you might want to do this with me. I had my first delivery last week and we have eaten just about everything. My next delivery is next Thursday because I set it up for every other week – but I may need to do it every week or get a bigger box. Let me know what you think and email me at [email protected].
Maybe we can even share recipes. I made twice-baked potatoes – Greg and Tyler liked those – I froze the extras. We had baked Vidalia onions one night – yum. The other onions I used in a chicken dish that had caramelized onions on top. I still have to use the peppers – I’m really the only one that eats those. And the corn I just cooked but then no one else wanted to eat it on the cobb – so I have to cut it off and make creamed corn instead. The fruit we just ate – but we like our bananas green (I know – I get weird faces) and these we had to eat quick cause a soon as they get spots they don’t go over well in our house – unless I make banana bread out of them – that’s what I have to do with ripe bananas – freeze them for later.
Jul 22, 2009 | All in the Family, Chipboard, family, Scrapbook Pages, Stamps |
Yes – we are still happy together after 20 years. Today is our 20th wedding anniversary – can you believe it? I just really don’t feel like I have been married for 20 years – that sounds like such a long time but like they say time flies when you are having fun – and I must be having fun!
This is the card I made Greg for our anniversary.
I used the All in the Family set and the Family Phrases set – stamped on Whisper White with Black ink and colored in with Stampin’ Write Markers.
The ’20’ is chipboard from the On Board Lots of Letters set. I colored them with a sponge dauber and Old Olive craft ink.
“Anniversary” comes from the Fundamental Phrases stamp set and is punched with the Modern Label punch.
The Designer Series Paper is retired it was the Maine Blueberry paper from last year that I really liked. That gave me the colors that I used – Not Quite Navy, Bashful Blue and Old Olive.
Something that I didn’t think about was that 20 years ago we didn’t have digital cameras. I can’t think of when that started really but my digital pictures start in 2002 and we were 
probably a few years behind the trend anyway. I wanted to share a picture of what I looked like on my wedding day 20 years ago. I found a scrapbook page that I made using some of my pictures that were taken at the wedding reception (the non-professional ones). This was an old Simply Scrappin’ Kit that Stampin’ Up! had several years ago.
My dress was what I call a Southern Belle dress with lots of ruffles on it – probably not what anyone would want to wear today. I made my hat – got the plain white hat and added trim and pearls and stuff to it. I even made the hoop that I needed for my dress (I didn’t bustle it but carried it instead). Our reception was in one of the historic homes in Roswell, GA.
So it’s 20 years later and we are still happily married. We went away over the weekend on an anniversary trip – no kids. I found a secluded mountain cabin in North Carolina – it was a really nice place to stay. They had everything you could want or need in that cabin. The only thing I didn’t like was the drive up the mountain to get there – gravel road, very steep and curvy! It was like being on a roller coaster – and I don’t like roller coasters. You had to go fast to get up but if you hadn’t already been up you didn’t know where the turns were. So when we first arrived it took us three tries to get up in our SUV. Now I wish we had the 4-wheel drive. Once we were up I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave until we went home. But Greg said it would be fine and we would get back up so we did end up going out during the day on Friday and Saturday. Aside from the ride up and down the mountain to actually get to the cabin everything else was perfect – an awesome view of the mountains and the sunset.
Saturday we found a little road that took us to the Appalachian Trail (if you aren’t from somewhere east that is the trail that you can hike from Georgia to Maine). We have been on short day hikes here and there. This time we took a 1-1/2 mile hike in (and up) to the top of the mountain where there was an observation tour . We climbed the tower (up 2 flights of stairs to get to the top) and had a 360 degree view of the mountains! It was quite amazing! Our picture is below with the mountains in the background. The view was like that all the way around the tower.
Have a great day!
Jul 17, 2009 | family |
Tyler started band camp this week. Well, this week was Rookie camp (for the new kids) and Leadership camp (for all the leaders). Tyler earned a leadership postition this year so he was very excited. I volunteered Tuesday morning while they worked on marching with the rookies. Here are a few pictures of Tyler.
Full band camp is next week and I hope to get some pictures of the big group. There were about 45 kids there this week.
Have a great weekend.
Jul 15, 2009 | Big Shot, family, In Colors, Party Hearty, Stamps |
Ryan - 13 years old
Yesterday was Ryan’s 13th birthday!
Yep – I have THREE teenage boys! Oh my!
I made Ryan a Tennis Racket Cake and Tennis Ball cupcakes. Actually, my mom helped me with the cake. She put on the frosting and did the writing. He took about 2 dozen cupcakes to tennis camp. And then my parents and Greg’s mom came for dinner and the cake.
I made Ryan a birthday card using the new Stampin’ Up! Pop-Up LOOK HERE die for the Big Shot. The die creates the inside part of the card that is a pop-up with arrows and a gift card holder – all the arrows point to the gift card – as in “look here there is a gift card for you”.
You could just put a piece of card stock with a message right there too or a picture. You could cut off the arrows and use them on cards or scrapbook pages. This should be a fun die to play with. 
Here are pictures of the outside of the card and the inside. The colors I used are Crushed Curry, Pumpkin Pie and Whisper White.
The stamp set is Party Hearty and I added orange beads from the Bead Duos to the cupcake for the sprinkles. The way I did this was put a small puddle of Crystal Effects on a piece of scratch paper. Use a straight pin or toothpick and pick up a tiny bit of Crystal Effects and put it on the stamped image where you want the bead. I used a straight pin to grab a bead from the container and then placed it in the Crystal Effects on the card. This was I don’t get too much Crystal Effects in places where I don’t want it. You need a very small amount and it will hold the beads tight. I used markers to ink the candle – Yep – the new In-Colors come in a set of markers this year! A very popular request from both demonstrators and customers alike. The arrow on the front is one of the punch outs from the Look Here die. The actual cut of the die is on the inside of the card.
I did find a matching gift card. Well actually I had my die-cut piece done in the Pumpkin Pie. So when I looked for a gift card I found one with orange in it. Then came home to make the card and Crushed Curry was the other color in the gift card so it worked out perfect. It was a quick card that I made in just a few minutes. I could have dressed it up but decided to keep it pretty simple.
The Happy Birthday stamp is one of the Under $10 stamps that were in the last catalog. Most of these are still available to order they just aren’t shown in the new catalog. I have been using this one a lot.
Ryan is headed to California tomorrow with Greg’s mom. Thank you to anyone that offered suggestions on places he should visit. He has a long list. I have to finish getting him packed.
Have a great day!
