Hi

Wow!! Almost a whole month since I blogged last!

'Tis the season! We've been busy doing all kinds of fun holiday activities!

Here is our Christmas card picture. I just need to get to the post office for stamps and then they'll go out in the mail!


The house has been decorated for 2 weeks, the tree is beautiful and is now surrounded by presents! We decided to put it in the family room this year, instead of the living room, so we could enjoy it more. It didn't feel quite right to not have any trees in the living room, so I went out and bought a set of 3 pine trees for in there! I still need to get some pics off all the decorating. It's so festive though!

It's such a special time of year. I hope everyone takes time to enjoy it and remember the real reason for the season!!

Friends!

A few weeks ago, me and three of my most favorite friends got together for our October birthday celebrations. My friend Mary and I both have October birthdays.

We went to Fancy That Scrapbook store in Hummelstown, PA, had lunch at The Wick and stopped at the Fractured Prune and picked up some of the most delicious donuts on the way home.

We always have such a wonderful time together. We made sure to set our next date already since we are always having a hard time coordinating schedules anymore!

I'd like to share the card I got from them. If only you could do this! It's totally us!


Mary's card had a picture of a lady in a lingerie store. The lady was holding a fancy bra and was saying "do you have this in a 34 LONG"! Ha!

Soooo, Twilight hits the theatres on Friday!! I'm going with a bunch of friends! I'm hoping they will not disown me when I show up with my TEAM JACOB shirt on!! They are all for Edward! I loved him in the first book, but after that, I just couldn't stand how possessive he is! Anyone else on TEAM JACOB? They seem to be rare!

I've finally uploaded the pics from our last camping trip of the season! I just need to go through them and I'll post them in a few days!!

Shockingly, I also have a half completed layout sitting on my desk now! AND, I am actually really liking it! Perhaps I'll have some artwork to share next time!

Have a great rest of the week!!

Halloween 2008

This year we decided that we'd throw our own costumes together instead of spending $100 plus on store bought ones! That was so much nicer!!

Macy decided she wanted to be a witch - perfect! Jack wanted to be a train engineer, then decided a few hours beforehand that he wanted to be a banana! Well, it was too late to rig up some kind of banana costume, so we stuck with the engineer!

Macy had the usual school Halloween parade. There were a ton of witches this year! I went in to help out with her 1st grade party after I dropped Jack off at school. Let me just say that I am SO glad I do not have to do that everyday!! I stayed and ate lunch with Macy. We had the choice of eating in the hall at a special table or eating in the caf with the rest of the kids. She wanted me to sit in the caf. Oh. My. Goodness! Can you say loud??? Wow! I was glad to get out of there!! They have a traffic light in there. It's on green when the noise level is acceptable. They move it to yellow when it gets louder and all the kids put their hands up to hopefully make silence. Well, it got to yellow while I was there and I don't even want to know what red sounds like!! Here she is in the parade.


Here they both are, in separate pictures. Apparently it is just wrong for them to be in a picture together without one trying to beat up the other!



I totally forgot to put on Jack's red bandana! Chris was working until 7pm that night. If he was home, I know it wouldn't have been forgotten!

Here is our jack-o-lantern. We actually had another to carve but we ran out of time! Nothing fancy! We do it the old fashioned way like we did when I was a kid - with a paring knife!


Hope everyone had a fun night!! Thanks for reading!

No scrapbooking!

I have no scrapbooking projects to do!! Still have no motivation for that! We've been having fun with our new camper still, so that has been occupying our time!

Last weekend we went to Elk Neck State Park in Maryland. We went with another couple. What a beautiful place! It is on a penninsula at the top of the Chesapeake Bay.

We had some heavy rains Saturday afternoon and through the night, but other than that it was beautiful.

Friday we went into town, North East, Md. It's such a cute little town that I wish we would've had a longer time to explore. It reminded me a bit of Jim Thorpe or Cape May. We ate at a cute crab place called Woody's.

Saturday, we got up and went for a hike to the Turkey Point lighthouse. It's a cute lighthouse, I think it's a 37 foot climb to the top. It's not your usual tall lighthouse. The kids got a kick out of climbing to the top!

Saturday afternoon and evening we stayed in and did crafts. The electric to the campground went out for about 5 hours. Yay for battery backup!

Sunday we went and explored the penninsula. We saw a ton of sailboats, a huge barge and a boat that looked like it could've been from Goonies! The kids enjoyed walking along the coastline and finding shells and old bones, climbing the rocks and getting through some six inches of seaweed!!

We'd love to go back and visit again for a longer period of time so we can explore more!!

Here are some pics. Click on them to make them bigger!
The captain and his ship:




On the way home, we stopped and got gas for $2.29!!! Then, we went down the road and spotted it for $2.17! I was happy when I got it at BJ's for $2.69 a few days before! It was still $2.55 when we got home!


There were also a ton of these signs on the way there!


We're heading out on Friday again for our last trip of the season!! Can't wait!!

I'll update in a few days with our Halloween pictures!

Hike pictures

Chris and I went for a hike yesterday.

We went up on the mountain by our house. There are a bunch of lookouts up there as well as an old fire tower that they are restoring and the Pagoda. The Pagoda is also being fixed up, it had scaffolding all around it, so I didn't get any pics of that.

Here are some pictures. Maybe tomorrow we'll go get some pictures by the lake and waterfall.

Isn't this bird hole neat?

We love fall!!

It's been so beautiful lately!

There are so many fun family things to do this time of year! We love going on hayrides, pumpkin picking, hiking, camping, hay jumping and anything that has to do with fall!

Saturday we went for a quick trip to a local farm and did their fall festivities. They have some great things for kids as well as for adults. Chris even did some scootering!










We'll probably go pumpkin picking and through a corn maze one day after school this week or next. I still need to get the corn shocks and hay bale for the front porch too!

We've got a week and a half until we go on our next camping trip! We can't wait!! We're going to Elk Neck State Park in Maryland this time around with some friends! All that family time is the best!! I wouldn't trade it for anything!

I'll leave you with a layout. I don't think I posted this one before. I did it for one of the September sketches for Scrapbook News and Review.



Have a great week!

Sadness

A very, very dear friend of mine lost her husband yesterday morning.
He was 38.
They have two children, ages 4 and 7.
No words can express how sad I feel for her and her family.
I wish I could take away all of their pain.

There is a group of us that talk several times a day on a message board. We are all trying to pull together for her, to help her and her sons. Everyone has made such generous contributions.

Lisa Pace has an auction up on her blog now. 100% of the proceeds will go to our friend. I ask you to please check it out right here.

Thanks so much!

Maiden voyage and a new layout!

Last weekend we had the maiden voyage with our new camper!! Tropical Storm Kyle was trying to ruin our weekend, but we didn't let him! It actually wasn't so bad, the heavy rain was at night and we just had some showers during the day. The clouds broke away for some blue skies and sunshine a few times too! I didn't take many pics, only 18 to be exact! I know I've said it before, it's so nice just enjoying the moment instead of trying to stop things and take pictures constantly! All I need are a few pics to go with the eternal memories!

We went to a campground called Spring Gulch which is in New Holland, PA. It's only about 40 minutes from our house. It was very nice there, we had a great site and were right in the heart of the campground. They had tons of activities including candy bar bingo, hay rides, ceramics, scavenger hunt and even a live band on Saturday night. It was 50's and 60's weekend. Because of growing up with a motown loving dad, I knew all the songs! I actually enjoy that music much more than what is on the radio these days! So much more danceable! LOL

Here are a few shots from the weekend!









We were in an area with a ton of walnut trees. The kids loved collecting them and then playing store!

I almost forgot to report that we had no incidents this trip! No falling out of the camper, no kid deserting another kid, no riding bikes off of a cliff! The truck handled the camper well too! And, of course, it's always a great bonding time!! We are so excited for our next trip out in a few weeks! This time we're going to Maryland!

No other news to report except for this:


Yep, that's our boy! Jack came home from school with this last week! Puts a smile on my face every time I read it!

I managed to get a layout done this week too! I snuck it in one day right before I went to work! I gave myself a time frame and stuck to it! It took me about 45 minutes.


That's all for now! Chris and I have a debate date for tonight! I need to go finish prepping the food!

Thanks for reading! Have a great weekend!

Happy Fall!!

I know I've said this a lot lately, but I just cannot keep up with my blog postings!! We just seem to always have something going on that I can't find the time to write something up!!

I'm so happy that today is the first day of fall!! It is my favorite time of the year! Crisp air, gorgeous colors, so many fun family activities!!!

Jack celebrated his 4th birthday about 2 weeks ago! I can't believe my baby boy is 4! Wow!! He has grown so much in this last year. He's really matured, if you can say that about a 4 year old! He loves going to school and is so smart! He has also been put on monitor to exit status for his speech therapy. He tested in right at his age level, so in 4 months, his therapist will call us and see how he's doing. If he's still on the right track, he'll be fully discharged from the program! Here he is on his birthday!



Macy lost her 5th tooth on Sept 11th. It was the first top one she lost. We called her snaggletooth for a few weeks because it would just hang on, not wanting to fall out!! It finally fell out at school and she came home with it in a tooth container necklace!


We've been spending most of our days outside riding bikes, climbing in the tree and playing on the tree swing.



Macy also started Brownies this week and they both started AWANA, which is like a church based scouting program.

Our biggest family news is the addition of our "second home"! This came about a year earlier than we were anticipating, but we fell in love and couldn't pass up the deal!







It's a brand new 2008 Forest River 26ft travel trailer! It has everything we could ever need! We went from falling over each other in our pop up to having so much room in here that we won't know what to do!

We picked it up on Wednesday and have been getting it stocked full of the necessities! We cannot wait for our first trip out in it this coming weekend!! We're going with my friend Andrea and her family! We've got so many fun trips planned including Disney World in the spring of 2010!

Here is a layout I did a few weeks ago. I haven't been scrapping much at all. I don't really have the desire, plus there is just no time! These are the photo booth pics of Chris and I from down the shore in August.


Thanks for reading! Have a great week!

Life is good!

It's been a great week here.

Jack started 4 year old preschool on Tuesday. He did great!! No crying this year!! I'm so proud of him, he's grown up so much over the summer!! I can't believe he'll be 4 on Monday! Wow!!


We signed him up for the 5 days a week program this year, instead of 3 days a week. We thought the extra socialization time would be good for him, since he did have such separation anxiety last year!! Soooo, that means that Mommy and/or Daddy have 2 1/2 hours of free time every Monday through Friday!! It's been great!! Tuesday we did some birthday shopping and just enjoyed the free quiet time the rest of the days! It's nice to be back on some sort of routine again after the craziness of summer! Maybe I'll actually be able to scrapbook again!

Today, Jack and Daddy went to a train show and will check out the hobby store too. When we asked Jack what he wanted to do for his birthday, he wanted to go somewhere wtih trains and go to the hobby store! Of course, getting a snack was also in that mix! So, that's exactly what they are doing. They left a little bit ago with my brother in law and his son.

So, today is girly day!! Macy and I will do a little shopping and get some lunch! Perhaps we'll scrapbook too! It's such a gorgeous day today, amazing since yesterday was so nasty from Hannah!

Jaime and Celeste were so kind to tag me for . . .

They are such super talented, nice, friendly gals!! I got to meet Celeste back around Christmas time! I swear, you meet the nicest people through scrapbooking!!

So, I am going to tag:
Tracy: She's such a great friend, I can count on her for anything!! She always comes up with the neatest idea for pages!
Mimi: Another wonderful friend, that I know will always have my back!! She can rock out a mini album like no other!!
Andrea: We've only known each other for less than a year, but she's become such a great friend and camping buddy! She's another one who can rock out an awesome mini album!!
Marlene: She's a crazy chick and I love it!! She's another fabulous friend!! She hasn't been scrapping that long, I think a little over a year, but she has caught on quickly and has gotten just as addicted as me!
Lea: Super, super sweet and an amazing scrapbooker!! She makes the most beautiful cards and can really rock out a great, clean layout!! I never tire of her layouts!

Here are the rules:
(1) The winner can put the logo on their blog.(2) Link the person you received your award from.(3) Nominate at least 6 other blogs. (4) Put links of those on yours.(5) Leave a message on the blogs of the people you’ve nominated.

Hope you are all having a great weekend!! Thanks for reading!