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. :-)