Oo-La-La!

Oo-La-La! I just finished another scrapbook page for the website gallery this month, and I photographed my little decorated cupcake box and cupcake decoration. Both photos are made with goodies from the April ScrapRoom Kit. I've been wanting to do some scrapbooking, and the website gallery deadline seemed like the best motivator. :)

Last year, Jeremiah wrote on my Mother's Day card, "You Shine My Day Up!" How precious is that! It is just the most perfect expression of love from my sweet 7 year old boy. It was what he felt in his heart, so he wrote it down in words that made sense to him. He knows how much I love that expression, so he uses it on his cards and projects again from time to time. Gosh, this is the stuff of parenting that I just love!

And, this is my newly decorated cupcake box and decorated cupcake topper! I wanted to use the April kit, but I don't have anyone to give it to. My sweet friends, Ryan and Jessica, are having a baby ANY DAY NOW, and if I lived closer, I'd give it to them. But, I don't think the cupcake would fare very well through the mail. So, we'll eat the cupcakes in honor of Baby Hill, and I'll save my little box for a local new delivery. :)

I am just loving these little cupcake boxes. Cupcakes are the perfect size - just enough - and how fun to get a yummy cupcake delivered in a fun decorated package. The box has an insert that holds the cupcake in place so the icing doesn't get all over the inside of the box. (Genious!) Anyway, I've made two batches of cupcakes in the past week. I'm on a search for the perfect cupcake recipe so that I can make some yummy cupcakes and give them as gifts whenever the need arises! I tried a new recipe for my Grandmother's 86th Birthday Party, and they were good, but I think I can do better. I made a different batch yesterday, and they were just alright.

So, if you've got a GREAT cupcake recipe, send it to me at admin@scrap-room.com. :)

I won!

Yea! I was one of the winners from Stacy Julian's Blog Party this past weekend. I will be getting a copy of her new book, "Photo Freedom." She also posted my picture on her blog, along with the layout that I made about Jesse being his friend, Bryan's, role model. That is so cool! She is such a big-whig in the scrapbooking industry, and it is super fun to have one of my layouts on her blog! I look so bad in the picture. I decided late in the day to enter the contest, so I threw on a sweater and had Josiah take my picture - no make-up, no nice hairstyle, just me looking all of my 37 years! I'm sure I'll be mortified in a few days, after the "new" has worn off, when I think about all of the people that might see my bad picture on Stacy's blog - but I don't care today. I'm just happy to have won. I can hardly wait for my new book! Yippeee!! :)

SEE STACY'S BLOG HERE!

Favorite Sweater

In honor of what would have been Mister Rogers' 80th birthday for Stacy Julian's Blog Party, I am wearing my favorite sweater, a zip-front red cardigan. :)We really did have a beautiful day here in Northern Illinois, which is always a welcome surprise in March. It's Easter, and I made the most of this day by taking the opportunity to explain in a little bit more detail to my growing boys why we celebrate Easter and what Jesus' death and resurrection means to us. I am always grateful to be there for those "magic moments" when they are able to understand and appreciate a little bit more truth.

And since I mentioned Stacy Julian's blog party above and I'm hoping that she might actually follow the link that will take her here and see this, I wanted to write just a brief note of thanks to Stacy for sharing her Library of Memories scrapbooking system with me. I have been a scrapbooker for years and years, and when I began to get serious about it, I always found myself a little bit frustrated. While I loved the opportunity to preserve my precious photos and family stories, I felt like I wasn't able to really tell those stories that I most wanted to remember - you know, the ones that you sit around the table and tell over and over. Those stories never seemed to make it into the scrapbooks. I had countless pages about the first day of school or our trip to the apple orchard, but those weren't the real stories that capture our family. Stacy's Big Picture Scrapbooking concept allowed me the freedom to use the photos I want and tell the stories I want and then be able to share these random layouts in my scrapbooks. I enjoy scrapbooking again because I can scrapbook the things and the moments that I think are important, regardless of when it happened in the chronology of our lives. It truly is Photo Freedom. Thank you Stacy. I am grateful for your creativity and your organizational thinking and your ability and willingness to share this with others. Because of the freedom that I found with your system, I was able to create the layout about my son, Jesse, below. This memory never would have found a voice in my choronological albums a few years ago. :)

California Pics!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the sound of the surf and could sit there there hours listening to and watching the waves wash onto the shore - definitely a God thing! We found a great little tide pool and were able to see lots of little sea creatures hanging around and doing their little sea creature activities - too cool (and a little gross)! The boys would have LOVED it!









We also had an opportunity to visit the old mission at San Juan Capistrano. It was a gorgeous day, and the the mission was really beautiful.







Okay, and this final picture is a little bit funny to Chris and I. We were sitting there waiting to board the plane and Chris noticed that the airline would call the first class passengers and tell them that they could board by walking across the red carpet. They would undo that little barricade across the carpet square and route the first class passengers across that little patch of carpet. We thought it was so funny that the "Red Carpet Treatment" for the fancy first-class passengers involved a little red carpet square. I took a photo of the coveted Red Carpet on our way home - and I even had a bit of a rebellious spirit and actually wiped my foot on the carpet when the airline people weren't looking. :)

Just For Fun!

Okay, I was reading down through the old blog posts tonight just before getting ready to post that Mother Theresa quote (see below). I saw that I already posted the quote last year, and I haven't even blogged enough since then to move it to another page. So, I won't post it again. But, it is a great quote and speaks volumes to me as I struggle with balance and my annual case of the "chuglies." Her final line sums it up, I think, "You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway."

On a lighter note, as I perused my old blog entries, I did come across a quiz I answered last year, so I thought it might be fun to run that baby again with today's answers and see how they compare. (Stacia, if you read this, I'd like to see this quiz appear on your blog with your answers, so as they say in "blogdom," "Tag! You're It!") Okay, here goes...

1. where is your cell phone? charging in the kitchen
2. your boyfriend/girlfriend? Chris, my handsome husband for 17-1/2 years
3. your hair? driving me crazy; I can't do anything with it. It seems to be fried... (hmmm... no change here!) (In honesty, I'm just really way overdue for a trim. My hair is getting really long, and I don't know if that is good or bad for a 37 year old woman! In our family, we jokingly refer to my hair as my crown. Sandy, my mother-in-law, asked me at Christmas time, how long I was going to let it get. I told her that I liked it long because it made me feel like a Princess, thus the crown.)
4. where is your father? probably asleep in his chair in front of the TV
5. your favorite thing to do? enjoy an unhurried breakfast with my husband, especially when he is in the mood to chat
6. your dream last night? I can't remember it, but it was long and a little odd.
7. your dream car? a convertible Beetle :)
8. the room you're in? my bedroom, sitting in bed under the electric blanket, which is turned up to a 9 and is quite toasty
9. who did you hang out with last night? nobody - Chris took the boys to church, and I stayed home and filled ScrapRoom boxes for shipment
10. your fears? failure
11. what aren't you good at? many more things than I'm good at
12. muffins? not when I can have a scone (YUM!)
13. one of your wish list items? for complete wisdom and clarity in all things that I am responsible for; for my house to be decorated; to not have to be concerned with weight management issues (okay, I know that's three things, but the first one was too big and the last two are constantly hanging over my head!)
14. the last thing you did? finally saw the "praying woman" in the floral pattern of my comforter cover. Joe has seen it repeating all over the comforter for a long time and he was asking me tonight if I saw it - finally did! (It really does look like the silhouette of a praying woman. She's everywhere!)
15. your computer? I LOVE my laptop and my high-speed wireless internet connection. When it's all working, it's a thing of beauty!
16. your pet? Still no.
17. you are wearing? a pink SEI t-shirt that says "Make Your Scrapbook Splendid" in little velvet letters (What kind of slogan is that... "Make Your Scrapbook Splendid"? Nobody talks like that!)
18. your life? blessed with an amazing husband, amazing children, and a God who loves me even when I can't see Him clearly.
19. your mood? slightly melancholy; a little blah
20. missing? warm sunny days
21. your car? sometimes starts; sometimes doesn't - we finally replaced the battery in the red van, and I'm starting to trust it again. Big Green, however... there's this finicky anti-theft device embedded in the guts of this van, and this anti-theft system sometimes engages of it's own free will, and we are unsure of the proper way to disengage. We think it might involve a rhyming chant, some burning incense, and a very elaborate yoga-type pose done while clicking a series of buttons, but we are still unsure whether the door has to be open or closed while doing this. When the anti-theft system engages, we cannot start the car until the system has been reassured in our most calming voice that we are not burglars and promising it all sorts of treats after it starts again. We have been stranded in numerous places because of said device, including Yellowstone National Park (twice). We now say altogether as a family, "Good Stop" when the van starts again after we have turned it off. It is a shame that the quality of our roadside stop is determined by whether or not the van will start up again. At any rate, our little anti-theft friend kicked in today, and the van wouldn't start at the post office (AGAIN!) after we unloaded our boxes this morning. Chris must have completed the required appeasement techniques to start her up again, but the problem is that he doesn't know what it was that actually did the trick...)
22. what are you thinking about now? that I should probably stop typing in answers to these stupid questions and get to bed
23. your work? raising my boys and www.scrap-room.com
24. your summer? COMING!
25. your relationship status? Married with children
26. your favorite color(s)? to wear - black; just because I like it right now - aqua!
27. when is the last time you cried? I can't remember. I seem to be a little numb these days.
28. when was the last time you laughed? about an hour ago, when discovering the "praying woman" hidden in the pattern on my comforter
29. school? Thank God it's over for me. Thank God it's on for the kids!
30. favorite 90's group? I have no idea what any of the 90's groups were. I was in Bible College. Does Steven Curtis Chapman count?