Happy Halloween!

Abbey wanted to be a fairy this year and she wanted her build a bears to be fairies as well but we couldn't find outfits for the bears so last weekend we headed out to party city to look for something else. She found this adorable Mother Nature costume and looks so cute in it we just couldn't resist. Here are a few photos of before and after Trick or Treating.

Daniel took her Trick or Treating in his mother's neighborhood with his nieces and nephews, They all came back loaded down with goodies. It was nice day but the weather was a little too cold to stay out for long.

Second chair!!

Abigail had her Regional Choir competition on Saturday and won second chair!!! She placed second out of about 160 girls (Advanced Soprano division 1) and is now (again) in the districts Advanced combined choir for JH and HS Choir members. One of the judges came out to tell us personally and was in tears over how beautifully Abigail sang. :) She said Abbey had the 6 judges so moved they all had to take 5 after her audition. Awwww that's so sweet. Before we had the results one of the judges came out and asked us to wait on the results because we were going to be really happy with the placement of one of our kids (4 auditioned for various divisions) We were very excited to hear that all 4 children placed: boys bass 12th chair, intermediate soprano 15th chair, and advanced alto 14th chair.

Peachy Keen Stamps blog Candy!

Check out the fabulous candy up for grabs at Peachy Keen Stamps Challenge blog! Good luck!!

http://peachykeenstampschallenge.blogspot.com/2009/09/blog-candy-good-through-oct-23-2009.html

Abbey

This month just seems to be flying by. Our schedule has been jam packed. Thankfully we are finally settling in with the routine of School. I've even stopped following the bus to the HS. LOL Abbey's 13th Birthday camping trip went well ... even with the rain off and on. School functions, meetings and outings have taken a bite out of the month and quite frankly most of them were a waste of time. Daniel has been working 70+ hours a week so we hardly have time with him, that makes me sad and grumpy. Mother's almost daily doctor appointments are at least giving me a lot of reading time, I've finished 5 books this month. lol I'm hoping the rest of the month will move a bit slower and give us all time to catch up. Here are some photos from the month. Thanks for looking!

1. Abbey with Daniel at our favorite Karaoke restaurant to celebrate her "Almost" Birthday.
2. Abbey the some of the girls at her Birthday weekend camping trip.
3. Abbey looking so grown up at one of Mother's doctor appointments.
4. Abbey with her Summer reading project. They had to either make a book jacket or a puppet of one of the characters. Hers is Kira from Lois Lowery's Gathering Blue.
5. Abbey at her Choir skate party.

Abbey's 1st day of 8th grade.

Abbey started 8th grade today. She was a little nervous this morning but ended up have a pretty good day ... basically they just sat around in homeroom all day. One if her best friends is in her homeroom class so she was happy. lol Tomorrow she'll start her classes at the High School and be bussed back for her remaining classes at the Junior High. All the back and forth makes me nervous, but I'll try to calm my momma bear over protective instincts and just wait to see how it goes. I can't believe my sweet baby girl is turning 13 next month!!! I'm not sure where the time went but oh boy it sure went by fast!! This year for her birthday she wanted something a little different and since you only turn 13 once we are throwing her a big weekend camping / birthday party at Garner State Park. We've arranged for three connecting camping sites and so far have a guest list of 8 little girls for the weekend and about 40 friends and family for the celebration on Sunday. Now the fun begins ... shopping for the party, making invitations and thinking about playing in the nice cool river!!! :-)

Abigail and Ella

This adorable little one is my new niece Ella, she's my baby sister Elizabeth's new baby. She was 30 days early, weighs 6.3 and is 18 inches long. She's so tiny, like one of Abbey's baby dolls. Abbey was over the moon happy to have been allowed up to my sister's room to visit and hold Ella. Elizabeth's baby shower was supposed to be tomorrow. lol Ella just didn't want to miss out on the fun.

DT call for La La Land Crafts.

Irina has sent out a DT call! Be sure to stop by her blog to check out the details. http://lalalandcrafts.blogspot.com/
Also, if you haven't entered her Blog Candy, click http://lalalandcrafts.blogspot.com/2009/07/winner-one-more-sneak-peek-and-yet.html to sign up. Good luck!
Hugs, Christine

Irina's Sneek peek!

Here's a fabulous sneak peek from the animal line of stamps from Irina's, La La Land Crafts, Opening August 12!! How adorable is this little cow? Her name is Maya and she's part of Irina's new line of stamps at http://lalalandcrafts.com/ The artist of this line of animal stamps for La La Land Crafts is Aleksandar Alexov. Irina has some links for his work on her page. http://everythingpapercrafts.blogspot.com/ Doesn't this sweet cow make you smile?!! She's just adorable and you can enter Irina's celebration blog candy to win her. Just stop by Irina's new La La Land Crafts site and enter for your chance to win!
Good luck! Christine

Irina's New stamp store opening soon!

This adorable sneak peek is Lala, she's one of twelve stamps soon to be released at Irina's new stamp store. La~La Land Crafts. https://www.lalalandcrafts.com/

Irina will release 12 stamps by two new artists in late August. Lala is by artist Kathy R. Jeffords. The second release will feature three artist. If Lala is any indication of the talent the stamp artists have, I think Irina's new store will certainly do well! Good Luck Irina!!!

Be sure to stop by her blog and check out her fabulous celebration candy, you can be the first to own Lala!! http://everythingpapercrafts.blogspot.com/

Celebration card

Here is my Celebration card I'm posting for Crystal's 10,000 hits! Now that is something to celebrate!! Congrats Crystal.

Journey too 1000 with The Cuttlebug Spot!!

BIG NEWS from The Cuttlebug Spot!!! http://thecuttlebugspot.blogspot.com/2009/07/journey-to-1000-starts-today.html

"Our next goal is to reach 1,000 followers and what better way to celebrate than to give away a prize worth $1,000! That's right, we're giving away a $1,000 gift certificate to Custom Crops! And if that's not enough, we're going to give away a $50 Custom Crops gift certificate each Friday until we reach our goal!"

The Cuttlebug Spot is trying to reach 1000 followers by the end of July and to celebrate they are giving away a $1,000 dollar gift certificate to Custom Crops!!! All you have to do is spread the news and post your name on the link. So be fast!! Head on over to http://www.thecuttlebugspot.com/ , be one of their 1000 and try your luck at a FANTABULOUS prize!! Good luck every one!!

Abbey and Bebe

This sweet little "My Buddy" baby doll has been in our family since 1985. My brother Joseph moved to Georgia, and he was so lonely over there that he would make the trip back to Texas nearly every weekend. So my sister Anna Marie bought him this My Buddy doll for Christmas ... to keep him company. Well, he still came home nearly every weekend but now Bebe, the doll, was coming too. LOL One day our father fell asleep with Bebe in his arms and Joseph didn't have the heart to take him back to Georgia. So he lived at Daddy's house with three girls that bought him baby clothes and sat him in the living room watching TV with Daddy. When Daddy passed Anna Marie took Bebe and every so often she lets him "visit" us. LOL When the kids came to spend the 4th weekend with us, we brought along Bebe. :-) I love these photos of Abbey and Bebe ... I have some just like this from when she was about 1 and almost every year after. When Bebe came home with us this past weekend, Daniel said I know why Roo likes to baby her dolls, you still do. :-) Yes, I do. lol

Abbey's card for Unscripted Sketches and a blackout!

Abbey and I spent a bit of time in the evening playing in our craft room. She made this card from the sketch provided by Unscripted Sketches. Too cute!!! We had just taken this photo and were trying to decide what we wanted for Dinner .... when the entire neighborhood had a blackout. It was just before 7pm. Our electricity stayed out until about 1:20 am. Ugh boy oh boy it was hot! It was 103 when the lights went out and only dropped to 92 by 11 pm. Luckily Daniel and I both have a weird thing for collecting flashlights and lanterns so we had plenty of light in the house and some to loan to neighbors. Daniel was working so Abbey and I played Upwords and Mancalla a few times, ate sandwiches for dinner and drank a lot of water. lol I had her take a quick cool shower and then I put her to bed, really late about about 11, because it was just too hot to sleep. I sat on the edge of her bed fanning her with a large piece of cardboard until the electricity turned back on. It was kind of funny really, when it turned back on. I had been humming and then thought well, I'll say my prayers now, because I was getting really tired, and when I finished I was talking to God in my head and said God, I know this is selfish of me but the baby is just too hot and I'm worried about the elderly in the neighborhood. And as soon as I thought that, buzzzz! I could hear the AC kick on and the lights went on. :-)

Nicole's DT celebration candy!

Nicole is giving away a collection of K & Company goodies ... It's from their Berry Sweet Collection. I love this oh so bright and fun set! Pop on over to her blog to enter for your chance to win! http://pinknickels.blogspot.com/2009/07/blog-candy-alert.html

4th Of July

My niece Jillian and Nephew Bryce spent the 4th with us, so I packed up some snacks and we headed to the park to take some photos. It was really hot, about 104, so we didn't stay long. We ended up watching a movie with their dad since my sister was at work and having dinner there too before heading back to my house. Out of ... oh about 130 photos, these two (with all three of them) were the best I got. My nephew is just not into standing still for more than a heart beat and no matter how many times I ask him to look at me, he just won't and all Jillie wanted to do was climb the trees. lol Still, they are ADORABLE!!!

Museum

Since my sister Anna Marie and her children didn't go with us to the Museum last week so Abbey and I decided to pick up Jillian and Bryce and head over there today. I love this photo of the kids on the Hertzberg Circus Museum Elephant. I remember climbing on every time my baby sister and I would pass the Circus Museum downtown as we walked from one bus stop to the next to ride to her apartment. Sadly the Museum closed years ago but the Witte now has this adorable elephant at it's front doors. It just received a new paint job last week and luckily it's all dry and available for photos.

Crafting and Stamptacular Sunday Challenge

Abbey and I spent most of the evening playing in my scrap room. She's quite the talented scrapper and is becoming more and more sure of herself when it comes to card making. Today she helped me do a bit of catch up image coloring. The canvas is for the Stamptacular Sunday Challenge ... Red, White, Blue and a Star Too. She's base painting the canvas we made into a little 4th of July decoration for her door.

Garner State Park

Daniel, Abbey and I decided to beat the 100 degree heat and head to Garner for the day. We thought about camping but since Abbey wants to go shopping tomorrow she was quick to vote no on it. The first photo is of the two of them snorkeling, they are looking for fish to use as bait. eww. The second photo is of Abbey jumping off the swinging rope into the water. She loves doing this and it makes me so nervous that we now have a sign to signal she is okay after each jump. Yes, I'm over protective. :-) The last photo is of Abbey, of course. lol just being adorable floating around in the water.

Abbey and Holly at the Witte Museum.

Abbey and I went to a movie this morning and then to Barns and Nobles to pick up two more books from her Summer reading list. She is just flying though them and in another week or so will be at the end of her list. The only problem with her reading them so fast is I have to read the books first because last year one of her books was about a little 11 year old girl who was murdered by her Uncle keep her from telling that he molested her!!! Good Grief! NOT a book I want my little girl reading. A few of the books on last years list were not books I'd recommend for a middle school child. Good thing the 8 we've read so far were all pretty good. Only 11 more to go and she can get back to her her own choices.

Anywho, The photos for today are from the Witte Museum. We had invited my sister and her children to the Museum in the afternoon so we left the book store and headed home for lunch and to call her. She decided they'd skip this time so we invited Holly, my other niece to join us. The girls had a good time and even let me get a few pictures taken. lol The first is a picture of Abbey outside the Museum acting silly. :-) The second is of the girls having a cookie break and the third is of my sweet angel faced Holly as we waited outside of her mom's shop to take them home. We had dinner at Elizabeth's and played Barbie dolls for about an hour. It was a nice day. I only wish it wasn't so hot! It was another day of over 100* temps. Ugh. Luckily tomorrow, Daniel, Abbey and I are heading to the river to play in the nice cool water.

:-)

The Heart Breakers.

Today was the Talent show at Abbey's school. Abbey and her two friends, Lexie and Melody, danced to Listen to your Heart, techno remix. They called their group The Heart breakers. Abbey was the singer ... of course. lol This is a quick picture I took before they headed out to the stage. They were soooooooo cute and the kids loved it.

I'm sorry to say the video is pretty bad. :-( I was helping in the choir room I didn't get the best seat for the show and was stuck with some heads in the video and not enough time to program my camera for a decent video. Oh well, you can still see the three totally adorable girls doing their thing. :-)

Final Choir concert and awards night

Tonight was the last Choir concert of the year and a small awards ceremony. Abbey received two medals, for her solos. And one very special red medal from The SA Children's Choir. The ones she's wearing are both for Outstanding achievement ... the most 1st place wins throughout the school year. The white one is from the school for her grade level and the other is from the school district for the combined JH and HS Advanced Choir. Only three red, white, and blue medals were given throughout the district. She is holding the red one that was for her being invited to join the San Antonio Children's Choir. As soon as I took this photos she took them off and shoved them in her pocket. LOL On the drive home I asked her if she was embarrassed to wear them and why she never put the red one on ... she said "Not really but you and everyone make a big deal out of it and it's like bragging" What??? Me, brag ?!?!?! hahahha YES, ME!! And it was a big deal. :-) Side note ... she was happy she got to wear her "Together We Sing" shirt for a second time ... the Principal wouldn't allow it for Spirit Fridays because she said it was teasing the other kids that didn't go. WHAT?? Seriously! I think that's where she gets the bragging thing from. Anywho, I'm off to admire fellow bloggers scrappy things.

Abbey

Abbey has a week of free dress days at School, because she bought her Year Book. She's been excited about it for weeks. :-) I tried to remind myself to take a photo daily of her looking oh so cute! But things got in the way on Monday and by the time things were settled down she was bathed and ready for bed. So today ... I made sure to get one. She looked super cute in the adorable outfit she put together. She was a little disappointed when one of her teachers told her how happy they were she still dresses like a little girl. :-) Compared to what I saw at School today ... I'm thankful she still lets me help pick out her clothes. LOL

The Nation of Why Not. lol

Abbey and I spent a few minutes ... well more like 40, a few weeks ago playing on the Royal Caribbean website. After filling in all the clues we had the chance to spin the prize wheel and this was what we won. A Crayola Crayon Glow Station. It's pretty cool and really glows in the dark.

Not me!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

This is my first Not Me! Monday post.

• I'd never oversleep and miss Church, so yesterday never happened! I'd never blame low platelets and dehydration on over sleeping either ... well and not staying up until 3 to read had NOTHING to do with it!! James Patterson is so not worth loosing sleep over.

• I certainly did not pass half my dinner to Abbey last night at my sister's house because I really really love Mickey Mouse shaped chicken nuggets! :-) And before said visit to sister's house I did not tell Abbey to finish her homework in the car!! I'd NEVER do that!

• At my Dr's office, this morning, I didn't tear out an article I wanted to finish reading and stick it in my handbag when they called my name ... no way that's so rude!

• I also didn't ask the nurse to draw blood from my right arm instead of my left because I carry my shopping bags on my left and I knew I was going to be good and NOT head straight to Michael's after.

• I didn't almost cry when my Dr said I needed an IV for dehydration because I just LOVE needles and I didn't get grumpy and really cry when he came back in after the IV and said I needed blood because my platelets were low. I sure as heck didn't say can we do this tomorrow because I all I really wanted to do was NOT go shopping.

• At Michael's I didn't make faces at the lady that was picking her nose, well I tried really hard not to. UGHHHHHHHHHH

• I didn't spend too much :-) Nope not me.

• I didn't take my band aids off and say "No change" to my Daniel just so he won't worry.
• I also didn't send him off shoe shopping at the mall after school with the Roo so I could play with all the stuff I didn't buy :-) ... they needed some daddy & daughter time. :-)

• I"m not ignoring the oven's timer that's been going off for the last 2 minutes so I can finish this blog. LOL I don't think the bread will suffer much. :-)

What did you NOT do today??

I'm off to save the bread. hahahhaa

NISD "Together We Sing" concert

Daniel and Abbey (her sweet cheeks are all rosy from the dancing) at the NISD Choir's "Together We Sing" concert. Over 800 kids sang and danced to some of Broadway's best musical numbers. They all did such a great job learning a dance to 9 or 10 songs in just a few hours. I took some video as well ... I'm just not that computer savvy and I need Abbey to show me how to share a clip with you all. :-). So look forward to that tomorrow. hahahha Have a wonderful and Blessed Sunday! Hugs, Christine Oh how funny, I just noticed Abbey is Daniel's height ... she was standing on the bleacher seat next to him. lol

I think we are fast becoming the CAT house!

This is Omelette and her kittens Poached and Sunny.

This is a conversation I had with my neighbor lady this morning ...
Me: Hi (As I'm getting out of the van and a little startled she is now standing at my door)
her (I don't know her name): Where have you been??????!!!
Me: uhhhhh I took my daughter to school, is everything ok?
Her: NO! I've been waiting for you for an hour!!!
Me: OK, Well, I had to run an errand. Are you ok? Is my mother ok?
Her: I don't care! Take this. (As she shoves a box at me)
Me: Thank you, what is it?
Her: A CAT!!!!! Take it, it's sick or something.
Me: Oh no, what's wrong with it? Where did you find it?
Her: It was on your front porch and my dog was trying to get to it. (she is yelling this as she huffs away)
Me: Oh, well, Thanks.

Now I just adjust the box and go in because, well because she was very cranky and I was excited over a cat and scared it was hurt. I set the box on my bed and took off my heels and peeked in the box ... what do I see???? This sweet stray cat was giving birth! Thankfully she was not hurt like my neighbor thought but just needing some love, food and attention. Now I have to tell you this is actually the third time a stray has shown up literally on our door and given birth. That's how we came to own Golden and Waffle Ann her Kitten. Then came Spicy and her kitten Cupcake ... We had her fixed and gave her away to some friends of Daniel's and kept Cupcake. Our next was Vanilla Wafer with Apple her kitten, Vanilla was also fixed and given away. Apple stayed. When Daniel came home from work I kissed him and said "Guess what my love, we have a new cat and two kittens " he patted the sofa and said "Come here and tell me all about it." LOL He's a cutie through and through. Since we already own 4 cats it's just not going to work with more so we will let her stay here until the kittens are weaned then have her fixed and find them good homes. Abbey named the mommy Omelette and the kittens Poached and Sunny ... as in sunny side up. LOL We have a food theme going and it just couldn't be broken. hahhah

How high will they go?

I went out to Girl Scout Council today and on my way back took this photo right through my windshield. I get so nervous driving under this crazy maze of Highways. There are actually tire marks going over the edge on the highest one. Yikes .... THAT makes me nervous!ugh! I'd hate to be under that when something flies off. There are even higher bridges in town but for some reason those tire marks make this one the worst for me.

Fiesta Parade!

San Antonio is knows for many things ... The Alamo, our amazing river walk, Sea World, Fiesta TX, the Museums, world class shopping, roller coaster"ish" highways, and of course the Spurs but if you really want to experience San Antonio, you have to come during Fiesta week! There are so many things to see and do, including the Battle of Flowers day parade. We were lucky enough to get tickets right behind my baby sister Elizabeth and her family. Even though it rained for a good half hour before the start of the parade, Abbey, Daniel and I had such a good time cheering on the bands, picking out our favorite hoses from the groups as they cantered by, ooh"ing" and ahh"ing" over the beautiful Princesses, their amazing gowns and their choice of silly shoes, eating over priced goodies (funnel cake ... YUMMY) and waving till our arms were sore.

Abbey and I both thought this float was the best ... Daniel, of course, liked a space themed one. Oh and Abbey picked out another monkey to add to our growing silly collection.

I love a bargain!

First I have to say I love how clean the Michael's on 1604 and Culebra is. I've never gone in and found it untidy ... Oh the goofy neat freak in me just loves that!

Anywho ... just today I was telling my Daniel that I wanted to move around my office/scrap area and I'd need to pick up a few things to reorganize some. So this evening while he took Abbey to the Fiesta carnival I headed to Micheal's and found this really cute MM desktop carousel in the clearance aisle for $8, the regular price is 39.99! I used a 40% off coupon and since everything else was on sale the discount was applied to this and I got it for about 5 dollars. Wowee. It's not damaged or anything but it does have a tiny little dirt smudge on the corner. I love a bargain! :-)

Star Trek!!

So, today I was in the grocery store and I almost walked right past this FANTABULOUS banner promoting the new Star Trek motion picture. Long story short ('cause ya know I babble!) we 3 are HUGE fans of just about anything SciFi and let me tell you .... Star Trek is at the very tippy top of that long list of favorites. We are just way too excited about this new movie coming out this Summer and Daniel has already set it all up for us to see a midnight viewing at one of his very good friend's Theatre. It's a sneak peek family and friends kind of thing ... we've seen every SciFi movie that way and it's just great. No crowds, no line for pop corn and no waiting for a free stall in the ladies room. Hummm ... I guess that was still sort of long. LOL Anywho ... I bought all 4 promo packages of sugar loaded "apple" flavored, marshmallow, "fruity" loopy, sugar coated flake cereals, even though we don't eat cereal. Abbey's excited to try them all. I foresee an outrageous sugar high coming up this weekend.

1st place!

These silly photos were taken after Abbey's Solo Choir competition. She won First place out of about 300 of the Advanced Choir kids. She was too excited to stand still right after and all those photos were blurry with kids jumping up and down. As we were leaving I saw this statue and she immediately wanted to sit on it ... of course! Luckily, because I was afraid of being caught! lol, it was not stable enough so she posed with it instead. In the second photo she wanted it to look like she had horns! She is giggling so hard right now as I type (of course we all know she is on my lap ... always!) She said oh and my handbag is on my horn, I'm ready to shop. hahahaha silly thing.

A week in review

I've been neglecting to up load photos for my 365 since I've been having so much fun participating in blog challenges. So, I made another blog just for my paper crafting and will leave this one just for my 365 ... hopefully :-)

Top:

#1 The oh so cute photo of Abbey in the rocket was taken Sat at the mall before we headed out to a new Scrapbook store I found. I'm happy they let kids scrap since most of the stores here will only let them in the back if it is a Mommy and Me day. I know a lot of ladies probably like that but I don't.

#2 Easter Sunday at my Elizabeth's house. I took over 200 photos on Easter but I loved this one so much with Elizabeth's neighbors pretty flowers. I don't have a green thumb so everything I try to grow dies a sad death. :-( Although I do have to say my Poinsettia from Christmas loves me bunches and is sticking it out with me. It even still blooms. Yay!

Bottom:

#3 This amazing Noah's Ark mural was hand drawn and painted by one of the lovely ladies at my sister's Church where we have our Mom to Mom Bible study group. I wish I knew her name. The vestibule is round and three stories high. The painting goes around the whole room upstairs and down. It's just amazing and I find something new each week..

#4 Abbey relaxing in her computer room after doing her homework. She was watching Myth Busters and I took a photo of her watching the television but decided I needed to capture her precious smile for the next one so I told her don't move but look at me and smile. LOL She did :-) She looks like such a big girl in this photo ... what you don't see is her baby doll Zack, her build a Bears and her Easter basket on the couch next to her. LOL What a cutie!!

Basic Grey Challenge #30

This week at Basic Grey the challenge is to take inspiration from your favorite chocolate goodies. I used their oh so yummy Bittersweet papers to create this chocolaty card for my sister Anna Marie. The photo didn't come out all that great because it's so overcast here today. Abbey and I had planned to take some Easter photos but the weather is just not cooperating with us ... so we are off to go shopping. :-) Thanks for looking, Have a great Saturday!

The Cuttle Bug Spot challenge #25

This week at The Cuttlebug spot the challenge was to create an Easter treat container. Perfect timing because over at CafeMom Lizzie posted a challenge in PCJ to make this adorable basket. It seemed like an perfectionist's nightmare and I put off making one for days and days and days. Until another cafemom momma (Callie) gave it a go and it was just adorable so ... I tried it and it actually turned out really cute. Yay me! TFL, have a Blessed Good Friday.