Goodbye 2008

Christmas was tough around here...we all got the stomach flu and Awesome Guy had to have surgery yesterday. Everyone is okay now and thank goodness for that! :) We'll be spending New Year's Eve at home this year, as he recovers.

I found a video for you...love this song, and it's the original version too. Okay, so I'm also a sucker for anything Scottish as I hope to get to go there someday. I could spend hours and hours in a pub somewhere listening to a guy like this. I've spent a few hours in pubs around here doing that actually! lol

I want to thank you for being a part of my 2008. I look forward to another whole year with my blogging friends, and I'm so glad to have "met" you all. I also want to wish my sweet real life friend, Lindsey, a safe journey to Oregon...she is moving there today. I love you...thank you for being such a great friend.

Everybody Charleston! :)

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Blog Fun and Bits of Christmas

I need to acknowledge some awards and tags that I have gotten...I have to say that I'm very fond of all my blog friends and I wish you all a great holiday. My year has been BETTER for simply knowing you! Azul Valentina gave me the Marie Antoinette award...thank you Azul! :) If you love her avatar, just wait until you see her blog! I LOVE her paintings!
Ginger of Loves to Dream is such a dear...she was my first ever swap partner. She links to tutorials and list cool trivia in her posts just about everyday. Thank you sweet Ginger! :)


Pease Porridge of Hot Tamale tagged me with a me-me. It's been a while since I've done one of those! :)

1. In the picture above, the one in the middle is my ABSOLUTE favorite of hers! It's so icy...I can remember the cold snows of PA! :)
2. My ears are super small...they stopped growing when I was little.
3. I long to be a gardener, but I kill everything I touch. lol
4. I wish I could wear dresses like in the 1860's. I did once for a ball, and the weight of it got to
be too much, but it was still fun!
5. I love to dance with Awesome Guy...especially swing!
6. My favorite Christmas song is Frank Sinatra's Jingle Bells. Sa boo ba dobie. :)

Each year, we buy one ornament for Awesome Guy and I, and one for the girls. This is ours...isn't it great?! It's by Dani of Ambitions Design...if you read my blog even a little you know I'm a big fan! I couldn't believe all the detail that went into this...the picture does not do it justice, but there it is on the prime spot of our tree. :) Thanks Dani!
I made this for Awesome Guy's secret santa gift. It's a candle with a personalized cozy. I DO so much love my embroidery machine! :)

I made up some Christmas ornaments using a print of my Santa painting. They are on etsy right now. :)

Before I leave, how about that little bit of Frankie? :)

P.S. I see everyone commenting about how they are taking a break from blogging until the new year. Not me...I'm right here...this IS my break! lol :)

Twas the Night Before Christmas

I'm so excited! This is my first ever treasury! A big thank you to bebeandalice for finding such a neat way to tell this famous story!

P.S. I stumbled across a great drink last night! I'm starting to get a sore throat and our lemonade was a little sour. Too lazy to get regular sugar out of the pantry, I threw the little bit of cinnamon sugar I had left into the lemonade and WOW! was it good! :) Has anyone else ever had that? It actually tastes a bit Christmas-y! Let me know if you try it! :)

Ahhh...the Traditions of Christmas

As with many of you, our house has been buzzing with holiday activity.

There's decorating the tree...

Listening to the Christmas story at the Courthouse Lighting in Prescott...

Stopping by the casino to see the amazing gingerbread houses on display...

Caroling at the retirement home...Carving the pumpkin....

WAIT.....Carving the WHAT??? I admit it. That bit of Halloween got away from me. I BOUGHT the pumpkin with plenty of time, but it just never happened. We were TOO busy. The amazing thing is, this pumpkin never rotted! Not even a teensy bit! I saw my chance to make it up to my girls. We went to work and made an....
ELF-O-LANTERN!!

A perfect mixture of Christmas and Halloween...kind of like this gingerbread house that won a prize in Prescott last weekend.

OR like

This site is great and they just posted all new items at midnight last night.

I'm off to go look...are you?

Santa's Cookie Break

It's tough delivering all those packages in one night! Santa takes a much needed cookie break before getting started again. He's munching down over on ebay. I've been having fun with the metallics and glitters lately...good season to be playing with them! His beard has a tint of glitter and the green is shimmery, but subtle.

So you saw the tree I did for Lil, but I'm having such a hard time with Madeline's Wizard of Oz tree! It's a white tree, with a white feather boa and marabou boa...that much looked good. Then I added red balls with blue gingham ribbon and now it looks awful. :( Definitely not stuffed! So far I've thought of using yellow ribbon for the yellow brick road. Something emerald-y maybe? What do you think?

I'm sure you are all super busy this time of year and have a lot to do on your plates. I just wanted to say THANK YOU for stopping by to visit me! :)

Please help! :0

I can't seem to get my header to show ever since I changed to three columns. Has anyone had this problem before? Would anyone be willing to help me out? Thanks!

A Watched Pot...

Or rather a watched ebay page, never gets any bids. I have 10 items ending today and I'm checking it every 5 minutes. On days it's not ending I check like 4 times a day just because I get to do a little happy dance when I get a bid! lol

It's not healthy though, so I am going to distract myself by sharing some goodies with you!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We went to my in-laws and it was SO nice. My MIL even made pretty butter so you know the rest was great if the butter is pretty! Every little detail was appreciated! :)

Lillian's been practicing on the sewing machine...It tickles me how sweet and crafty she is!

My Christmas angel sold before I finished her...can't complain when that happens! :) Their last name is going to be on the ribbon she's holding...like she is watching over their family. I have time to make one more if anyone else is interested. :)
Last year I bought the girls little trees for their rooms for $5 each after Christmas. I have decorated Lil's so far...she has a Tinkerbell room that I keep meaning to post about.
I used to work retail and was one of the lucky ones that got to decorate the trees in the Christmas department. Lucky until you realize that you have to fit 3000 ornaments on one tree, not to mention push a bunch of stuffed animals in there too! I loved it though...and if there is one thing I learned it is stuff, stuff, and STUFF that tree! I covered the stool it's sitting on with a lace shawl I bought in a antique store when I was just a teenager...love that thing!
I filled the tree up with two feather boas in pink, purple, and white. Then baby pink balls with mint green ribbons.
I took a bunch of extra silk flowers and sprayed adhesive on them before dusting them with pink and white glitter. They were so easy to stick in.
The topper is made from three huge pink flowers and a blue fairy from my party business resting on top. I glittered her wings up a bit too. The tree is on a timer so we'll never forget to turn it on and off. The tree and balls cost me $10 and the rest was from what my mom calls my own "Mini-Michaels" here in the house! lol

Do you decorate more than one tree? Themed trees? What is your most unique ornament? Have fun stuffing those trees! :)

Grosgrain: Recital Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

This little dress is so cute! I hope that I win it for Madeline! :)

Grosgrain: Recital Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

I Heart the Muppets!

Ready for a good laugh? These three are my favorite! I love this...especially Beaker's solo. Couldn't wait until March to share...may the luck of the Irish be with you! :)

*Update- There is something going on today with embedded videos. So I took this out, but you can safely view it on youtube here.

Sheez! It's been over two weeks! Where have I been hiding?

At a birthday party...

At a GrEaT cafe with some even GrEaTeR friends...and no kiddos to watch either!

(Thanks Mom!)

In the teacher's lounge for Teacher Appreciation Day...

Co-leading Lillian's Daisy Troop...she was even in a parade...

Hosting a diva party for 7 year olds and other things...

but....

I did manage to start this...

Get my hands on an oRiGiNaL Polka Dot Pixie...that I aDoRe!!!

(Thanks Jenny and Dani!)

P.S. You can see one of Dani's paintings in there too!

And paint this little angel! I think it's funny that she started out the editor of Woman's Day...a clipping from a magazine! tRy It...it's fun! :)

Thank you to ALL who left great horse stories on my last post! I tRuLy enjoyed reading them! I really like getting to know you!

Maybe you could tell me more...what's your guilty pleasure? The thing you do when you decide to take a moment for yourself?

Mine would have to be reading all your blogs...I tried to explain it to Awesome Guy as "the best magazine I've ever read!"

Tell me and then go do your one thing...you know what they say...you have to take care of yourself in order to be able to take care of others! :)

Til next time!

Now I Miss Riding Horses!

Here is the painting I did last night...little cloudy cause it is still drying. SO tired! lol

My first time riding a horse ever was on a beautiful beach in South Padre at 15. I fell in LOVE! Can you imagine? Galloping through the surf? I could have rode FOREVER!

When Awesome Guy and I first started dating, I wanted to take him riding. I requested a horse that I knew and wanted the old one for him since it was his first time. They switched us by accident and said they would switch us again if there was a problem. Well there WAS a problem. Mine was so old that he kept going straight to the barn...Awesome Guy's horse was so feisty that his first 10 seconds on a horse included a jump over a ditch!

He seemed to be doing okay after that, but I changed to a GORGEOUS Arabian that was very easy to handle. I told Awesome Guy to follow me to the corral to do some laps, and off I went. Where was Awesome Guy? I turned around.

His horse was running off into a meadow...with only his saddle! I look back to see Awesome Guy brushing himself off. When he saw me, he quickly put his hands on his hips in a sort of superhero way. I ran over to him...concerned that he fell, but also laughing because of the way he was trying not to appear less cool for having done it. (We were only 17 by the way!)

He proceeds to tell me that he jumped off the horse ON PURPOSE because the horse took him into a tree. Uh huh. Right. We tried to get him back on, but there was no way.

He's working overtime this morning. I told him how now I miss riding horses...he quickly said..."I don't!" lol Gotta love him! :)

Your turn? What's your horse story? Or boyfriend/husband saving face story? Should be good for some laughs!

So Much to Catch You Up On! :)

Hello All! :) I'm up SuPeR late again and wanted to end the night by sending you all an update! I hope you all enjoyed your night of dress up! Halloween was great...one of the best! Here we are with what we like to call, The Cousins. A collective group that is as tight as a wool sweater washed in hot water! We go trick or treating with them as a family every year. One of my nephews, the charming chatterbox, was so excited in a story he was telling me as he was walking backwards, that he walked right into a parked car! It was hilarious! It almost didn't happen this year, but we sure were happy to run into them and so were they! We had a great time! :)

Here's my little Judy Garland fan! We even play her music in the car at Lil's request. She LOVES the trolley song!

We had Maddie all set to trick or treat as a Lady Pirate Captain! She was saying Arg!, looking for treasure, trick or treat, and thank you...until we starting ringing doorbells. Then she only gathered up her courage right as we were leaving and would shout "Thank You" and "I love you!" This one SWEET lady kept yelling it back to her until we were off the driveway! It's nice to know that even though there are grumps in this world, there are nice people too! I bet you she blogs! :)

Lillian also had her birthday! My little girl is SEVEN!!!! It was during fall break so we did something every day, but on her actual birthday we took her to Organ Stop...they play a beautiful organ with lots of special effects...it is SO much fun!

Here she is with her friends from school celebrating her birthday- they saw HSM 3. I so very happy with the friends she's made...I mean look at the personality on these girls! Such cute little sweeties! We had glow in the dark goodies for in the theater and pom poms to use when dancing along with the songs...they had a great girls day!

Here's a video from dinner last night. Maddie surprised us with this...we didn't know she could do this! Once we clapped for her, she wanted to do it over and over and over. lol

Lil has a birthday party tomorrow and the birthday girl loves horses! She has the prettiest brown, long, curly hair too so you know I HAD to do a painting of her with a horse! lol

Oh! I also got Lil some striped tights on clearance! She loves the stockings I sometimes do on the girls, so I thought I could dress her up like one...a 3 d painting, right?! lol

I better go to bed before it is morning! Good night all!