The big 6-0!

Here is a fun little layout of Lynette's birthday. A few years ago we celebrated her 60th birthday. We knew we couldn't let this milestone pass without having a very special celebration. So we made reservations in Anthony Kansas for Diva Day Out. They have a little house devoted to fun lunches and after your lunch then you walk around their town and shop. There are several really neat little shops there. It was something different to do and I think we all had a good time. It was about an hours drive from here so we got in a lot of good "girl gab". The house is just an ordinary house but the inside is decorated up so cute with bright colors. They serve lunch on some very uniquely painted dishes. It was just a great time! Of coarse since it was her 60th we had to raz her about her age, just a little, and she was a good sport about it too.

For this layout I used Bazzil Bling Cardstock it has that fun shimmer to it (I picked it up at Hobby Lobby on a 50% off sale) and the stickers are all Jolee's.

Now on to cookies...Oreo cookies to be exact.

Have I told you how much I enjoy my job and my co-workers? Well interestingly enough I got into this conversation yesterday about Oreo cookies with a friend at work. My favorite kind is the regular old Oreo. I love to dunk them in milk but not all the way...just half way so half of the cookie is soggy, I eat that first then I proceed to eat the crunchy part. YUM-O! My friend likes the Oreo with the chocolate filling...I haven't tried this one yet. Just for the fun of it I looked up to see how many different kinds of Oreo's there are....did you know there are 7? Mind boggling isn't it? As I said in my survey in my last post around that time of the month these are my favorite thing to eat. Every woman has to have some chocolate at that time don't they? This picture resembles me at that very time.
Well, hope you are having a wonderful weekend. Talk to you soon!

A new do!

Hi friends! Today at lunch I went to get my hair cut. I have been growing my hair out for some time now and I looked in the mirror last week and decided that there was just no style there and I really don't like that. So I set out looking at all sorts of photos trying to decide what I wanted and I decided on this little angled cut. She took about 4 inches off the back. What do you think? I love it!

So a friend of mine tagged me and asked me to post 25 things about Toni you really want to know...you know, one of those getting to know you posts so here it goes:

1. I love to sing. I am not as good as I used to be but I still love to do it and every now and then I will even sing karaoke.
2. I have many grey hairs right in the middle of my head. You normally can't see them because I color my hair.
3. In the spring time I love to take road trips. They don't have to be very far but I love to get out on the open road and crank up the "road tunes".
4. I love to read books about my catholic faith, particularly ones about different saints.
5. I would love to visit Italy especially Vatican City with my girls and Mike.
6. I love lighthouses. I was so excited when Mike and I got to drive up the coast of Washington state and visit several lighthouses.
7. I never knew how great life could be married to your best friend. I love Mike more and more each day.
8. I secretly wish I was obsessive compulsive about cleaning the house. I envy women that have such clean homes with children, because as we all know, children are slobs.
9. Around that time of the month I could eat 15 Oreo cookies and milk at one sitting.
10. I can't swim. In fact I am scared to death of the deep end of the swimming pool and we have a pool in our back yard.
11. I love to be silly and make my girls laugh.
12. I should belong to a 12 step program for scrapbookers. I buy way too much stuff.
13. I am a planner. I have a schedule for everything, except I can't seem to plan dinners for the week. I like to do that on the fly!
14. My heart is so touched when I hear my girls say that I am their role model.
15. I worry too much about things I have no control over.
16. I like to make people laugh. Sometimes you just need a little laugh to get you through the day.
17. I love to take photos. This love started growing more in the last 2 years.
18. My sister is one of my best friends. We have this odd sense of humor that only we get.
19. My daughter Haley is going to be a Freshman next year and I am excited and nervous for her all at once. Let's not forget that when I walked into the high school a few weeks ago I got all choked up!
20. I can't imagine my life with out my girls. It is amazing what children bring to your life.
21. In my life I have found that the most valuable tool is communication. Mike and I have the best relationship that I have ever had. We have no secrets and we never go to bed mad.
22. Most of my friends are older than I am.
23. I would love to be able to dance but I have two left feet. When Mike and I dance together somewhere he says that I always take the lead.
24. I love to quote movie lines from chick flicks.
25. I love shopping at Lowes. Mike hates it when I go to Lowes. I usually find all kinds of things I want to remodel.

So there they are. 25 things about me you might not have known. So now it's your turn. If you are reading this then I am tagging you. Be sure to leave me a comment that you have done this on your blog so I can get to know you too! Good night friends!

O dear another year!

Another frigid day here in Kansas and I understand that we may get ice overnight! YUCK! I don't mind snow but I hate ice, especially driving on it! But today was great because Mike didn't have to work today. His brother Rusty offered to work the day for him so he could have a Sunday off with us! Isn't that sweet? I sure thought so. We spent the whole day together playing games and watching movies.

Here is a fun little layout that I did not too long ago of a casual birthday celebration for my dad. The older he gets the more he insists on us not doing any "big celebrating" for his birthday. So we usually just stop by or have dinner.

Now, since it is such a cold day out I decided to make potato soup for dinner. Yum ola! This is a family favorite here. So I am going to share the recipe with you. The first time I had it was at this little tea room, Riverside Cup of Tea, and I loved it so much that I bought their little cookbook.

Golden Potato Soup

6 potatoes - peeled & diced

1 carrot

1 stick celery

5 c chicken broth (or 5 c. water and 2 boullion cubes)

1 tsp. salt

dash of pepper

1 can (13 oz) evaporated milk

1 tsp. parsley

1/3 c. Velveeta

2 Tbsp. butter or margarine

Cook vegetables in broth, salt, and pepper till tender. Stir in milk, cheese, butter and parsley. Heat slowly. To extend soup add a bit more milk, salt and potato flakes. Serves 8-10.

Enjoy!

Girlfriends

Happy Saturday everyone! It was soo cold here today in doo dah! I don't know why it is but after Christmas in my mind I think enough with the cold let's have some spring weather now! Unfortunately that is definitely not the case today! This has been such a busy day for us. The kids had activities at school today and then they wanted to go play for a while at a friends house so I have been the taxi driver today! Every time I start feeling tired (and maybe a little cranky) about making all the errands I remind myself that in a few short years they won't need me to drive them everywhere *sniff* and then I just snap right out of it!

Any way here is a layout I managed to crank out pretty quick this evening. This is a fabulous group of ladies that I met while working at the bank. There are only two of us that still work there but every year at Christmas we have our annual "Girls Dinner". We take our time and visit, no time limits or other appointments that we have to be running off to. We just have a nice leisurely dinner. This happens to be 2004. I have several years to catch up on don't I? The blue patterned paper is Daisy D's and the cardstock is Bazzil. The red ribbon is some something I picked up at Hobby Lobby and the white titling letters are vinyl Thickers. Man I love those things! They add such nice dimension to projects.

Stay warm my little friends!

Kansas City...Kansas City Here I Come!

Ok so I have been dying to tell you this story. Monday I took a little road trip with some girlfriends up to Kansas City. We thought we needed to go fondle some scrapbook merchandise. So we made our plan to leave Wichita and head out for Kansas City around 8:30 am. Mary drove as we were in hot pursuit of scrapbook stuff and we simply couldn't drive the speed limit. So I picked up Sarah since we live so close to eachother and we headed over to Mary's. Sarah was telling me how her hubby was reminding her to take the AAA card just incase. We both giggled and thought how sweet but we won't need that. So we are on our merry little way talking and laughing and all of a sudden we hear this noise similar to what a large truck comming up from behind you would sound like then I yelled out...we've got a flat! Sure enough!

So Sarah pulled out the good ol' trusty AAA card and called (thanks hubby)!

When she finally got a live person on the line she told them where we were and they asked her what mile marker we were close to. I looked out the back window and noticed a mile marker not that far back so I decided to run to it and get the number. I've been walking on the treadmill for 3 weeks now this will be a piece of cake. Umm...yeah right.

I started out with the theme to Chariots of Fire in my mind...I am running for a cause...scrapbook supplies...the wind was blowing and it was pretty cold, the ground was uneven and hard to run on but...I made it...I reached out for the sign to catch my breath...I thought my throat was getting frostbite I looked at the sign. 166, great I can head back...all the way back. I didn't think I could run all the way back but I started out and then these men pulled up and asked if I was okay and needed help. Struggling to get my breath I said "Oh...yes....could...you...please help...us change...the tire?" There was a lot of gasping just to get that out. See we didn't know how to get the spare off. It was under the vehicle and there is a release lever that you push in the trunk to release the wheel. So needless to say these Good Samaritans got us back on the road in nothing flat. After a short stint in the Walmart in Ottawa we were back on the road to Kansas City.

Our first stop was the Cheesecake Factory. So here we are in all of our glory eating this wonderful stuff. Too bad they don't have one here. Then again it might be a good idea that we don't have one here.

Mary and her Snickers Cheesecake.

Me and my Peanutbutter Cup Cheesecake.

Sarah and her Banana Cheesecake...which I loved and have vowed to get the next time!

Here's Linda and the 30th Anniversary edition Cheesecake.

After our decadent lunch and desert we headed over to JoAnn's Fabric where Mary and Linda swore that this was going to blow us away. Their scrapbook department was twice the size of Hobby Lobby's. Sarah and I thought they were embellishing a little bit but no way! Sarah was so excited to see one of her newest favorite lines. I am so jazzed that I could catch her excitement!

It was funny because we were all so excited and being so loud that this group of ladies on the next isle came over to see what all the racket was because there were people getting as excited as they do over scrapbooking! One of them even called her friend and said "listen to this...see we're not the only people who get excited over scrapbook stuff!"

Our last stop of the day was Archivers which was equally as fun but after all the food and jumping at JoAnn's we were ready to head home.

Here are my fabulous finds. I highly recommend that if you are in the Overland Park area you stop and browse at JoAnn's. You won't be sorry.

Here are the Cloud Nine goods.

This is a new line from Colorbok that Sarah got me hooked on.

And who couldn't live (in a scrapbook room) without Bobunny's Double Dot Cardstock?

And now my friends I think I better end the longest blog post in my blogging history. Thanks for peekin' in. Love to get your feedback!

Birthday Fun

Hi everyone. Hope you had a wonderful weekend. Mine was a little busy but I did get to scrapbook with a friend this weekend. I didn't get too many layouts done but this was one of my favorite ones. My birthday 2006. That empty box on the second page is for journaling so once I finish that up I will be putting that in an album! Yay! So excited to be getting some pages done. Seems like I go in spurts as to how often I scrap and how much I get done.

Tomorrow is a very exciting day. I have tomorrow off for the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday so I am going to Kansas City with a group of friends to go scrapbook shopping! HELLO I CAN'T WAIT!
We are planing on eating lunch at the Cheesecake Factory...YUM-O! So I will post some pictures of our trip later.

So what do you think of the new background? I wanted a change. I had the old template and heading for over a year and I have seen so many of you girls use The Cutest Blog On The Block so I thought what the heck. It was so easy to apply and the great part is if I feel like changing to something else next week I can do that because they have so many designs...the hard part was choosing one! Hope you have a great week. Thanks for stoppin' by!

She's A Star!!

Remember I told you guys that we always try to make my sister's birthday special? Well this year was her 30th birthday...shhh...don't tell!! We decided to make the theme Hollywood Star. So we got these great metallic decorations that hang down from the ceiling. There were stars, camera and movie reels. Then we put down a red carpet and we all wore some fun hats. My girls were the MC's for the night and they wore the glittery top hats and beads to match, the rest of us wore these black gangster looking hats. When Teri walked in the girls greeted her with a speech about how she was a star and we did interviews with her on her way down the red carpet! We had dinner and birthday cake and ended the evening with Wii Bowling! She loved it and I think it was a special birthday!