A Give Away...

The great scrapbook clean out from yesterday is complete!  It took a lot longer than I thought it would, but it is so nice to have everything organized (at least for today...)

I've been very lucky lately winning things (not sure why!) and I thought it was time to give back.

So I'm having a give away!  Below is a photo of various things that I have not used...some rub ons, 12 x 12 paper, chip board items, mini scrapbook kits, a few cute containers...a couple of stamps!

If you're interested in winning, please leave a comment and I'll randomly draw someone Thursday night around 9 pm.

Hope you are all having a great weekend!

Jennifer McGuire is hosting a Cards for Kids drive for ill children and their families. I have been wanting to do this for a while...so I finally made some simple cards to send to all eight children.


I took pink or green card stock and embossed it with my Swiss Dots embossing folder and then stamped one of two phrases on it and did a little coloring.

My heart breaks for the families of these children and hope that receiving cards will give them an extra smile as they go through their treatments.

Dear Friends

I had said I'd have more Christmas pictures this morning, but I haven't quite gotten around to sorting through all the pictures yet!

Last night we had friends over for a post-Christmas, pre-New Year's get together.  These are our neighbors that we have raised our children with.  Our kids now range from 4 to 21 (with mine being the youngest).  We were laughing about Candice and Bryan possibly being a few years away from grandchildren and the cycle starting all over again!  We've known each other for 13 years and have shared some of the best times together (raising our children) and some of the worst (losing Danielle's dear husband and our wonderful friend, Bill).

We laughed and laughed and laughed last night, our kids kept coming up from the basement or outside where they were playing ghost in the graveyard (in 30 degree weather) and looking at us like we were completely crazy.  If you haven't gotten good friends together in a while, go for it.  We had an absolutely wonderful night!

The whole gang...including Candice & Bryan's son, Drew, who turned 21 last week and shared a glass of wine with us!

The guys...Pat, Rob and Bryan...this picture breaks my heart as Bill should be in it.

And Johnny...showing off his dance moves that he used to win the 5th grade dance off...his dad, Bill, was a hilarious dancer...and Johnny takes after him without a doubt!

It's time...

...for vacation! One sure sign it's time for vacation. A pile of books ready to go for me. There is no particular rhyme or reason to which books I choose. The primary similarity to all of them is that they tend to be mindless reading. These were all picked up in about 10 minutes on a trip to Barnes & Noble this weekend. When I have a little more time, I use this website that a friend suggested: paperbackswap.com. Of course, my stack wouldn't be complete without the new Creating Keepsakes magazine. I haven't read this in years and picked up the last couple of issues...it contains a ton of great ideas! Thanks to Laura Vegas for reintroducing the magazine to me through her blog!

You might ask how I can read with four boys and a hubby on a long trip... It started many years ago! Pat always talks about the first long trip we took together how I read the entire 12+ hours from Cincinnati to New England. He couldn't believe that I talked very little. My theory is that every couple should go on a long trip together before they get married to see how they handle it. The trip to Mike's wedding was when we were engaged and we got along very well! I guess my theory is correct...we'll be heading back from vacation on our 17th wedding anniversary!