First Glimpse of the new SU Catalog

Oh my. I have to sell a lot more stamp sets on Ebay. There are so many new and fun things in this new catalog that I can totally live without what I had considered selling but then chickened out on. I can part with probably 20 more sets to get some of that new stuff! :-) There are six new colors too!! They are really pretty, especially the cool caribbean color. It's a really soft turquoise. Lovely. There are lots of new letter sets. Tons of new papers, two sided, no less! I'm gonna have a good party even if I'm the only one buying anything, cuz I'm gonna save up! :-)

Tonight Dave and I finally got out alone for a bit. We grabbed a roast beef sandwich after dropping of the kiddos at my folk's. Then we headed to the shooting range on the wildlife preserve. I shot really well tonight. Dave seems impressed and I don't think he is just being kind. My thumb is sore tonight from loading the magazine for the 22. It is really more fun than I thought it would be. It makes me focus. I really have to concentrate on the target and line up the sight. I was able to get two or three bullseyes. It was fun. The weather was GORGEOUS to boot! We finished our evening with a blizzard from DQ. I have gravitated to the chocolate dipped strawberry, with extra strawberries. MMMM. I could do with liss chocolate and more strawberried even. MMMM.

I need to get some shut eye now. I have a teeny baby coming to stay in the morning. Her name is Ava and she was born dramatically on April 11th. She is a very dear freind's grandbaby. I watched her on Monday and I truly enjoyed the infant snuggles, without losing sleep!

Hope anyone reading this has a great sleep and a fabulous day tomorrow!
Good night!

All's Quiet on the Homefront.

It's Tuesday. I usually have Madison today, but her daddy decided to take a day off, so it was just me and my two today. We had a lazy morning. In fact, Spence slept until 10:30!! We re-measured them on the wall downstairs and OH MY they both grew so much in only a month. I suspected Hannah would've because of how she's been eating. But even Spence has grown at least 1/2 inch!!

Tonight Dave and I are going shooting. It will be fun and it will be good for him as he has had two very stressful days at work. The kids will go and play at Grandma and Grandpa's. They will have a blast, and probably get Happy Meals to try to get some more toys from the movie, Cars.

Now, I'm going to try to stamp at least ONE thing today. The new Stampin Up catalog is getting to my friend Lisa's house today. But I probably won't see it til Friday, unless she's feeling like sharing early! :-). Sold a bunch of my stuff on Ebay so I could splurge in the new catty. I can't wait to see what there is to choose from!

Okay, off to find a snack and do some stampin! Can't believe my kids are sleeping!

Nature Girl- NOT!

So the other night, Wednesday, after seeing the dress that my friend picked out for the wedding next year, I decided that we should take a family walk that night. Keep in mind that it was about 95 degrees and humid at 7:00 in the evening. We chose to head to Bush Wildlife, a MO conservation area that has a paved trail through the woods. Thought it might be a bit cooler in the shade the whole time. Wrong. It was just as miserable. At first we were having fun. We stopped at the fishless pond, which is filled with toads. We like to watch for them to leap into the water and have yet to catch one. We then walked along the path and came across a deer--quite close to it even. After that, it turned into a not so fun or relaxing event. Try as I do to enjoy the great outdoors, I am just an indoor kind of girl, or at least not a woodsy type of gal. As the trail got a little steeper, I began to get attacked by a horse fly. Over and over it kept buzzing my head, until at some point I became frantic trying to get rid of it. I started running, not good for an out of shape gal, and waving my arms like a lunatic. Made my kids anxious and worry about me and we were all out of breath and sweaty by the time we reached the car again. It was nuts.

On Thursday, Mom and I went to the Muny. The Muny is an outdoor theater in Forest Park here in St. Louis. Each summer they feature seven musical shows. This week was The King and I. It was great. It rained and rained Thursday, so I was worried that it would be a washout. But we were pleasantly surprised that it let up and the weather was much more comfortable than the day before. If you're ever in the St. Louis area in the summer time, check it out. You can even sit in free seats for each performance, only you have to be there earlier. Their website is www.Muny.org.

Friday was spent running all around town. Mom and I were getting stuff for my sister Megan's baby shower on Sunday. Thankfully the weather is turning out to be lovely and we will certainly be able to enjoy an outdoor shower.

Today I have given my aunt a haircut, weeded some "weed" beds and Dave has cut down a bunch of brush out of the corner of the backyard. We are closely watching our ebay auctions as they end tomorrow. I'm hoping to make a bunch of bucks to be able to spend on the new stampin up catalog. Still need to mow the yard (Dave's job) and make some individual cheesecakes for tomorrow. Also need to clean up but since my shedding neice (my sister Caryn's dog) is here, we'll wait on the major cleaning, cuz otherwise it will just need to be redone tomorrow. :-)

So, now I'll just rest a while and surf Splitcoast and think about what to do next.

Happy Anniversary!

Eight years ago on this day, I married the love of my life, David. I am so blessed by God to have been given the gift of my husband. He and I have so much fun! We love to be silly and stupid together. We love to just hang out together. We have perfected the art of dating. At least once a week, we try to go out, even if it's just to have a quiet dinner without kids. We have two children. They are such fun.

Today Dave stayed home from work, and we will take the kids with us to lunch. We go to Steak-N-Shake each year on our anniversary. On our wedding day, we were starving by the time we finished pictures, so we went to our apartment, and changed into regular clothes, and stopped at Steak-N-Shake to eat lunch. It was so tasty!! Now we go there each year to celebrate. It's a fun tradition. Later on, the kids will go hang with Grandma and Grandpa, and we'll go out for a nice dinner alone and catch a local ballgame possibly. Whatever we do, we'll just enjoy doing it together. We just like to be together.

If you read this sweetie, I love you a ton!

Father's day.

Today is Father's Day. Dave is an awesome dad. One of my favorite things about him is how he lets me get out for "me" time. He encourages it. Our kids are 5 and 3. Fun times in the discipline department. :-) NOT! Our kids are really super good, but they do test our patience when we are at home. I love them. Dave loves them too. I'm so blessed to have a husband who will go to a job that he doesn't really love, to provide so much for us. He takes excellent care of us. Today we let "daddy" choose whatever he wanted to do. He chose to go shoot in an IDPA tournament. It's a pistol shooting tournament. He said it was harder than usual, but he did have fun. When he got home, we hung around here a little while. Then we took the kids to see the movie "Cars"... it was a WAY fun movie. The kids had seen it while spending a week in Indiana with their grandparents. But they still had fun. Then we met my folks at an ice cream place and treated my dad to ice cream for Father's day. It was a really fun day.

Yesterday we worked in the yard all day. We've lived in our house for 5 years now, and we've really been slow in the landscaping department. Well we got a lot done out there yesterday.. At least in the front yard. We had some ornamental grass that was dying off, so we broke it apart and hopefully 4 pieces of it survived. Also got a hydraenga bush and some wave petunias and a couple magnolia bushes. Oh and peony plant. I have one at my mailbox and I LOVE it in the spring...Big ol pink blossoms...smell just like roses. My aunt has some lovely flowers in her yard, and she also said she may have some to share with me, perennials, which would be very exciting to have! I would love to have some that I didn't have to plant each year.
My sister has a knack for gardening that I wish I had. But at least I am trying. My mother in law is an excellent gardener as well. I hope that it will rub off on me sooner or later.

Tomorrow is Monday. The kids and I are having a playdate with some friends. Then in the afternoon, we are venturing to the swimming pool for some fun. They should be good and tired tomorrow night.

I'll be working on cleaning house this week cuz I'm hosting my baby sister's baby shower on Sunday. There will be a, pardon my phrase, butt-load of people here. We're gonna have it in the back yard, because I know I cannot fit potentially 50 people in my house. I'm looking forward to it, though. I cannot wait till my new niece is born, Haley Jane. I look forward to a baby fix! :-)

Okay, off to finish watching a really good movie... called, "An Unfinished Life" with Robert Redfort and Morgan Freeman. It's really good. I highly recommend it.

What a day-Wednesday!

So, today started out pretty normally. Got up, got ready for the day. Met our friend Lillie and we hung out most of the day. It was fun, and we got to see her pictures from her trip to Indonesia to visit her brother and sister-in-law. She saw some amazing things, and barely missed some really scary things, like earthquakes and volcano erruptions. God was protecting them. So anyway, we ended up getting my friend, Lisa's daughter Courtney too. Lisa was not feeling well, and having some numbness and pressure on the right side of her head, so she was going to the ER. They found nothing wrong and sent her home, with a snide comment about, "if it's a tumor, it won't change before you see your regular doctor on Monday." CRAZY! I think my husband would flip if anyone said that to me. Most likely they say it was a migrane without the pain. I hope that is all it was.

My favorite part of today was sharing the news of a very dear friend. She is unofficially engaged. She and her intended are planning a June 2007 wedding and I am helping her with a lot of it, and most excitingly, I have been asked to be the matron of honor. I am SO excited! It's the most exciting thing to me because she is like the most beautiful friend I have, who thinks she's nothing special. She has found a wonderful man, who thinks she is the BOMB. And he is treating her like a princess and I just think it is so cool! She told me about all of this before her mother! That makes me feel so special.

She went with us to dinner, which was fun. We flipped through a bridal magazine while we sat there waiting for our food. However, the kids! Wow! They were a mess tonight. Hannah actually cried because, get this, Spencer got a scrape--and it was worse than hers! I cannot believe she cried about it! THEN she told us that she thought she would have more fun here when she came home from Grandma's. Talked to Grandma tonight and she mentioned that she got to experience for herself that special dose of drama that our daughter is so gifted in. *insert eye roll*

I'm looking forward to a slower day tomorrow. Will have Maddi, but other than that, pretty uneventful. Oh, except for the fact that my sister returns from Florida tomorrow...which means our doggie sitting is ending tomorrow. We've really enjoyed having Belle here. I know the kids will be bummed.

Well, off to bed I go. Three kids keep me busy. Need that extra sleep, and I've already enjoyed a relaxing hot shower. Here's to a good night's sleep.

Tuesday Morning.

*Yawn*

It was too short of a night. Dave was up late working, and so I stayed awake too long for having to get up this morning. I'm whipped. It was a great night to sleep with windows open. Very unusual for MO in June. Almost cool. So sleep was wonderful last night. We are dog-sitting this week for my sister's dog, Belle. She's a large black shed-like-crazy lab. Sweetest dog evah!
She woke me right at 7:00 to go outside. Ah well, had to get up anyhow to greet Maddi, the little one-year old that I watch. So we are ALL up now. Dave is back off to work and we begin our day.

My goals for today, if all children are co-operative...go to this awesome resale shop, where I've been making lots of money selling the kids' and my clothes. I have $90.00 waiting for me. Next, head to Hobby Lobby, where the acrylic stamps are 1/3 off. I just discovered them while working on my wedding album. I'm really liking them, especially the fact that I can see through to where I am stamping exactly. Aside from that, I'm hoping that Spencer and Maddi will take naps today. Hannah, being 5, is not really into napping any longer, which is fine. But I'd like to have some stamp time this afternoon.

Tonight, Dave and I have Base Camp, which is a small group Bible study with our church. We are just starting to get into it again, at least we are trying. We have participated in it for 5 years now, and have just taken the last 6 months to lay off for a while, and it's been nice. Mostly because my parents keep the kids every Tuesday night, which means we've had date nights at least once a week for 6 months. Can't argue with that! I love date nights with my hubby! But we will make every attempt to make it there tonight. Our friend, Lillie has just returned from a trip to Indonesia and I'm anxious to hear all about it. Sounds like it was an amazing trip.

Well, off to get this day going. It is 10:00 afterall! :-) Here is to a peaceful and productive day!

Something New

Well, this whole blogging thing seems to be taking over the world. "Everyone's doing it!" Oh, that may not be the best reason to start this. Actually, one of my reason's for beginning this is to make myself, hopefully, accountable to some things I've been thinking of. Like losing some weight. Being consistent in some areas of my life, such as exercising, journalling(which is why I'm trying this), and just keeping track of some thoughts.

I'm certain this will not be as interesting as some blogs I've read, but my hope is that as I grow accustomed to it, I will venture into more creativity in writing and that that creativity will weave its way into other areas of my life.

I think it will be fun to post some pictures and some of my stamp art onto the site as well. My husband's blog is quite a creation, if I do say so myself. He is a gifted writer in my opinion and sometimes I'm amazed at his thoughts that are shared there. Here is a link to his blog (hope this works). http://web.mac.com/darodecap/iWeb/CornerPost/Blog/Blog.html

And so, I'm off! Off to try something new. Wish me luck!