Some Christmas photos

We have started having our little family celebration on Christmas Eve. Now that Karen has her own family, they should spend Christmas morning alone. We fixed a ham, some salad and some green beans. Nothing elaborate but it was good. Allison brought her boyfriend, Ryan. The boy is an only child and is amazed at the hoopla a great big family has to offer but he fits in well.

I told you it was huge!

Here is what is on sale at Memorable Seasons. You can click on the logo in the top right hand corner of this blog to get there.

Today is THE sale....the BIGGEST Sale Memorable Seasons has ever had.....Want to know what the deals are you can't pass up?

ALL Stamping Products are 50%OFF....this includes stamps, ink, acrylic blocks and MORE

-and-

ALL Printed Paper is 70%OFF....this even includes the New Items listed yesterday...Imaginisce's Twitterpated Papers!!!!

This sale lasts until December 31st!!! Happy Shopping!!

Psst, I have really big news that I need to share!

Memorable Seasons is having a really huge sale starting on Dec 26. The rumor is that

PATTERNED PAPER WILL BE 70% OFF FOR A WEEK!

See, I told you it is huge. There will be lots of other great things on sale, too, so spread the word!

A Brian Andreas Christmas message

Purple Madonna

One time on Hollywood Boulevard I saw a young girl with a baby. It was a crisp winter morning & her hair shone dark purple in the sun. She was panhandling outside the Holiday Inn & the door clerk came out & told her to be on her way & I wondered if anyone would recognize the Christ child if they happened to meet. I remember thinking it's not like there are any published pictures & purple seemed like a good color for a Madonna so I gave her a dollar just in case.

I get a daily dose of Brian Andreas in my inbox every morning. Some of them make me smile. Some of them make me laugh out loud. Many of them make me think, like this one. It is the perfect Christmas message. Treat everyone you meet as if you are meeting God and you will be blessed for He is in everyone you meet. I hope you have a blessed Christmas.

Christmas cookies

I have been baking and decorating Christmas cookies using this same Traditional Sugar Cookie Recipe from the Betty Crocker cookbook since I was a newlywed 31 years ago. Back then, I spent hours and hours baking and decorating the cookies to perfection. Back then, I had numerous cookie cutters with lots of detail and would pipe icing on them. Several years ago, I downsized my method and started doing only trees and bells and stars. When Allison started UT, I added the longhorn. To save time, I simply iced them and added sprinkles. About 4 or 5 years ago, the girls and Curtis started to help decorate. They get elaborate with their color schemes and details. I still just ice and sprinkle mine. We have quite a bit of fun with it. These days, there is now a grandson, a new husband and a boyfriend helping, too. Of course, at least one of the decorators had to be reminded not to eat every single cookie he decorated!

My weekend in San Antonio

I spent the weekend in San Antonio. My niece, Lauren graduated from St. Mary's University with a BA on Biology. Her plans are to attend physician's assistant school in the fall. On Saturday morning, I picked up my mother and hit the road picking up Allison in Austin on our way. We met my brother and his wife, their younger daughter, and another brother of mine at the campus. After the ceremony, we had dinner on the riverwalk and then strolled on the water's edge looking at the lights and people watching. After we dropped our mother off at the hotel, the rest of us met Lauren and her friends at a small bar and we talked and laughed. Those of us over the age of 25 did not make it past midnight but I had a really great time.

I've been scrapping!

Catching up on my December Daily

Day 3: I attended a breakfast benefitting the March of Dimes sponsored by Tom Thumb (my employer)

Day 4, I did a little shopping
on Day 5, the ladies at work decorated the office tree and Seth has decided tangerines are the best food ever.
Day 6, I went to a card making party and I stamped tons of these little Christmas trees to put on my cards. I'm thinking about buying cards, though, cause I am running out of time.
Day 7, We got our tree down from the attic. This is the day I was amazed at my husband's knowledge! I bought this prelit tree last year after Christmas and we put it up in the attic still in the box. We got it down and discovered that all of the inside parts were wrapped in bubble wrap and the tape was impossible to peel after baking in the attic all summer. I grabbed a pair of scissors to cut the wrap and immediately cut a cord!"Curtis," I said, " I just screwed up." When he learned what I had done, he said "no problem. I can fix it." He had tools and he spliced those wires together, melted it with a lighter and it actually works! I was amazed and delighted. Go, Baby!
Day 8, Seth set up the nativity scene for me but his mom came for him before were decorated the tree.

December Design Team Kit layouts

This month we got the gorgeous October Afternoon Weathervane collection. Very fun papers, letter stickers,. rub ons and sticker elements. Buy these items here.

Happiness is contagious

I could have told you this but I bet whoever did this study made lots more money than me.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081205/hl_nm/us_happiness

What do you think? I agree. I know that smiling tends to create more smiles around you so it goes to reason that being a happy person would make those around you happy, too.

My friend, Rita gave me this award. Thank you, Rita. She is an awesome scrapper, an amazing artist and an inspiring woman. Go visit her blog. You will be glad you did. Because I have so many wonderful blogs that I visit often, there is just no way I can narrow it down to just a few to pass this on to. Just know that if I have ever left a comment on your blog, I love your blog.

College girl moves on

Allison called yesterday to tell me she had just listened to her last lecture. She has finals next week and then she is done. She begins student teaching in January and will graduate in May. What an exciting time for her. What an exciting time for me! I can see the end of the tunnel. It will be like getting a $10,ooo a year raise. LOL

It's been a busy week. I went to a benefit breakfast for the March of Dimes on Wednesday. I got to hear Nolan Ryan speak and I got to cry real tears listening to the story of Karen and Jack Ryne and their little boy, Brett. What miracles modern medicine has brought this family but they've suffered some real heartaches, too. Their little boy is now 3 years old and was so darned cute walking around on the stage sucking on a lollypop and looking out at the crowd.

I need to work on my Dec Daily today. I will post some more pages later this weekend.

Dec 2 page and photo

Got my first Christmas card today. My cousin David and his wife, Marcy always get their cards out before any one else and they are always so creative and clever. Their kids are just as cute as they can be, too. I also love that they always send a letter. Love it so much.

Dec 1 pages and photo

Since I lost part of my title when the thickers just would not stick. I took them off and moved my DEC letters over so you can see the photo behind the acrylic cover. I took this picture of my self on my front porch to welcome you to my December. As always, if you click on the picture, you can read the journaling.

My tripod has a broken leg

Allison did not come home for Thanksgiving. She stayed in Austin to watch the Longhorns totally trounce those Aggies. She came home Friday, though and brought the boyfriend with her. He lives only a couple of miles from here but they did not meet until they both went to college. Funny how life works, huh? Anyway, the boy is an only child so his parents waited Thanksgiving dinner for him and invited Allison to join them. So, we had everyone over on Saturday night for dinner. Curtis fixed chicken and hot links on the grill, cooked a pot of his wonderful beans, made a macaroni salad that is to die for and I baked a cake. After all, my birthday was just a few days before and my new son in law, Joe, turned 30 on the 26th.

I told everyone to be here before the sun went down because I intended to take a family picture. When I started to set up my tripod, one of the legs broke. Joe tried to fix it but it was a goner. We used a flower pot outside to prop up the broken leg and took the picture anyway. I wasn't able to adjust the height of the camera very well, so our feet are all cut off but our faces are what is important, right? I made every one line up against the brick wall. They all griped because they had to stand in wet leaves. I told them to shut up and act happy cause I wanted a family portrait. LOL I lined them all up the way I wanted, set the timer on the camera and ran to join them. Got a few without me and a couple that looked like I ran to join them. haha. This one looks okay to me. Oh, and Ryan, Allison's boyfriend showed up after we were done.....

After dinner, I lit the candles for my own birthday cake and told everyone to sing to me. I blew them out, relit them and then told them to sing to Joe. It was a great evening. Ryan fit in well. We laughed and acted silly and looked at photo albums. Love my grown up kids....

December Pagemaps

I got to do a sample page for Becky Fleck's December pagemaps newsletter. You can see the sketch here. This is the first wedding layout I did after Karen's wedding. The text behind the title is the lyrics from "Name" by the Goo Goo Dolls. That is the song that Karen and Joe danced to. I typed out the lyrics and then just repeated them over and over and printed it out on a piece of white cardstock. The papers used here are all My Mind's Eye. The butterflies are cut and embossed using a cuttlebug die and and embossing folder. They really look pretty up close.

Guest Design Team call at Memorable Seasons

I would love to see some of my friends try for this.

http://www.memorableseasons.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1702

I'm ready to do my December Daily. Are you?

This was so much fun to put together yesterday afternoon. It is 6x6. I just grabbed all the scraps in my Christmas paper stash and cut them all into 6x6 squares. A couple of them are a little smaller and a few pages are actually cut up tranparencies and vellum that have been in my stash forever. I threw in some journaling pages and spots. I made each day a two page spread so I could write and add a picture or two if I want. I have done la few page a day type albums before but never made one ahead of time. I am looking forward to this. Who else is doing this?

The bottom photo is a Making Memores mini magnet photo frame. I added the Daisy D rubons and the Basic Grey letters are on top of the plastic "window." Behind the window is some Daisy D red paper.

Happy Thanksgiving

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

— John Fitzgerald Kennedy

On cleaning my scrap room

Every so often, I decide to clean and organize my scrap room. One of these days, I intend to actually finish, too. I always have really good intentions. I am going to put everything in its designated place. I am going to actually put my vinyl words on the wall. I am even planning to vacuum in there someday. What generally happens is, like today, I get everything out of the floor so I don't trip and break my neck by putting all of the papers in a stack and all of the little embellishments and tools and stamps in a basket. I clear off my counter top and throw away all the bits and pieces that are too small to use. Then it always happens. A picture calls out to me. A piece of patterned paper catches my eye. A paintbrush jumps into my hand. I have to create something. I never finish the cleaning. Those little things stay in the basket and the paper stays in the stack until I go through them and spread them out all over the floor again. That room is just not meant to be clean. Today, I did this. I just reached for stuff that was out and it was fun.

Is anyone thinking about Christmas cards, yet?

I made all of these using Daisy D's Snowflake and Holly Collection that I got in my Memorable Seasons design team kit. I love the muted colors and old fashioned feel to this line. As an added bonus, all of this line is on sale. The paper is only 19 cents!

Some more nostalgia

During our mini crop at Memorable Seasons last week, Jude posted a challenge to use an older photo and scrap a holiday memory. I pulled this one out. It was very orange like most of my 70 era photos are. With a little PSE magic, I got these colors. We still have that painting but Curtis is not that skinny, anymore. LOL

The Daisy D papers and embellishments all came from my DT kit at Memorable Seasons and they are on sale.

49 years ago

I was born. 49 is a strange age. I am still in my 40's but most certainly "50ish." I like being the age I am. I like that I am able to be my own person on my own terms. I like that there is no one at home to take care of but Curtis and myself. I like the quiet time I have before Curtis gets home. While there are times that I miss having children in the house, it only takes a couple of hours of Seth to make me, once again, thankful that part of my life is finished. I like being a friend to my girls and not having to nag them to clean their rooms or finish their dinner. I like the smile lines around my eyes. I like that wearing comfortable shoes is more important than style. I like that no one will judge if I eat ice cream for dinner. I like being me.

on my starbucks cup

"Success in life is that your kids want to spend time with you once they've grown up."

Paul Orfalea.

I've got to get that one on a scrapbook page......

not just a boy thing, I promise

We use to have these type of conversations at the dinner table when Curtis and the girls would be cracking up and finally Curtis would say, "okay, girls, I think your mother would like to eat her dinner without hearing about burps and farts." Although I was being stern mom at the table, I was laughing inside, too. If you click on the picture, it will get big enough for you to read.