I hit the jackpot! :)

Look at all these fabric sample books I found! :)
So many projects ahead of me now! :)

Scan & use as digital paper, make cards with, sew pillows, etc.. ;) tons of stuff!

My husband hates when I bring home new finds...but I was driving out of our development, and saw someone was throwing these all out...I couldn't let them meet their fate with the garbage truck now could I?!? :) LOL

Now I have to figure out how to release the studs that are holding them together...so I can get the best use out of the fabrics I want! :) Anyone have luck with that before? Let me know please!!!

Abby's Birthday

Abby's 3 now! What a big girl!
She started the day with her special Birthday Donuts (our family tradition). She played the day away! We went to Toys R Us so she could get her balloons and her special birthday crown, and they said "Happy Birthday Abby" over the load speaker!







Abby dug into her cake and ice-cream! Of course she had to lick the icing! She blew out 3 candles this year! That last candle was hard for her to blow out...I hope that doesn't mean this will be a hard year! :) LOL


Abby loves to dress up! She got lots of play shoes (which was her favorite gift) and a beautifully fluffy pink stole! Abby got a CareBear DVD, Baby bottles and her FIRST BARBIE!!!!! :)

There's another suprise that didn't quite make it yet...it should have already been here, so maybe today! I'll share pictures once it arrives. I'll share with you now what she's getting. :)
For Abby & For Abby's doll

Abby's last day of being 2 was Monday. She fell asleep while Daddy was holding her (I was finishing up dinner) and didn't wake up for dinner, she slept even while he carried her up to bed (which never happens, she generally wakes up the moment you try to pick her up). She slept in on Tuesday until 7:30. I laughed about it telling Bobby that being 2 was hard work and she was catching up on all her sleep so that she could start year 3 fresh and full of energy! :)

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

If anything could go wrong it did! First off....we rented movies from Blockbuster yesterday....Abby picked a Strawberry Shortcake DVD....when we open it up, the wrong movie is inside! :( So off to Blockbuster to exchange it for the right one. (No biggie - just aggrevating) but after this first errand the girls are whining that they're ready to go back home. :(

Next stop...Tomorrows Child, to drop off clothes to see if they'll accept them and give me a qoute. They're not accepting spring/summer clothes so that trip was wasted!

Forgot to go to Salvation Army to drop off a ton of clothes that are riding along in the back of the car....No biggie, can do that another day.

Next stop, the bank....no problems there thankfully! The girls get lollipops....and I'm asked if I want to donate some $$ to help some kids go to camp....so I do.... then off we go to Kohls.

At Kohls, I need to get a bridal registry printed off so I can buy some gifts for some friends of ours that are getting married next month. I ask an associate where I'd find this...she mummbles something and says "back there"...I'm like "oh that's helpful, just where is 'back there?'"...I find the kiosk, print it off, it jams, with no help anywhere in sight, I stick my hand through the small slot and try and pull my papers out. There are print offs for about 3 other people...I turn these in to the customer service area and tell them about the jam.
I'm searching for what I want, I have my trusty little pink calculator out and trying to stay in my predetermined budget. I drop it, and it gives up it's ghost. The darn thing just quit working! Ugh...so I have to do the math in my head! Joy! Of course the whole time the girls are misbehaving, Kohls doesn't have the riding carts anymore, so Abby's touching EVERYTHING!
I finally get out of there (don't get me wrong, I LOVE Kohls, but it was rough!).

Oh yeah...I had bought Abby's gifts & party supplies at Toys R' Us Saturday evening but now she said she wants Care Bears...so now I have to return the Hello Kitty supplies. :( (I'll do that tomorrow when I go to pick up her balloons)

So I'm off to Wal-Mart to more supplies....I'm driving up the parking lot and see an open spot right up in the front, my blinkers on and I'm about to pull into the spot and some woman in a van just whips in and takes my spot. Did you hear that?! She stole MY spot!!! Are people really this rude? I've never in my life ever thought about taking a spot from someone like that. So I wait there, I roll my window down and wait for her to get out. People from sorrounding cars see this and stop what they're doing and watch me. She gets out and I simply say "Did you not see my blinker?" I pause for a second then say "Thanks a lot! I have 2 kids!" then I drive off, to the far end of the parking lot where there are open spots and I just cried! I cried for a good 5 minutes. My day has been bad (okay it doesn't really look like it was that bad....but with the way the kids were acting, how hot it was and with me PMSing it was bad - just take my word for it) and then I practically yell at a complete stranger. (I didn't yell, I really tried to watch my tone of voice when I spoke to her too - honestly)

We do our thing in Wal-Mart and come home.

I'm tired, my head hurts, I know I need to go clean the kitchen and cook dinner but instead I just want to vegg for 30 mins (less than thanks to Tivo) then get busy....but will these kids of mine let me?! No! They have to fight with each other, then interupt me for no reasong really...it's just driving me crazy!!!!!!! I can't take another second of this day! DH will be home in 15 min...I've still got to clean & cook. Think I can do it? I'll try! :)

Now for a positive note....I'm so thankful I have air conditioning in the car & central air in the house), I'm thankful that I have 2 wonderful kids that do drive me crazy, I'm thankful for the house that I have that's a mess, I'm thankful for my husband who's at work, working so that I can stay home with these 2 great kids, and finally I'm thankful for 8:00 when bedtime comes rolling around tonight!

Kids say the darndest things

(darndest - is that the correct spelling?!) Thought I'd share a few stories that have happened recently.

We had lunch with our friends at Panara Bread today after church and they were telling us about their daughter Selena (The little girl is 6, she's a real tough girl and a climber to boot). She was on top of a slide, and climbed uptop of the roofed portion, and fell off (thankfully she wasn't hurt). Later she told her parents that when she was falling it felt like heaven, but when she landed it felt like hell! :) LOL They said that she was so sincere about it too! My husband of course said "I guess it hurt liked hell!" :)

I was out shopping at Toys R Us with Catherine while Bobby was watching Abby. She had fallen asleep on the chaise lounge, took a good 2 hour nap and she woke herself up by rolling over and landing square on her back. He said he waited to see if she was going to cry (come on, this is the kid that has fallen down cement steps gotten up and brushed herself off then running off to play) she popped up, held up 3 fingers and said "3!" LOL .....only Abby! :)

While we were out shopping one day, we were near the undergarments section, and Catherine says "Momma, I don't think these overalls (her word for bra, don't know how she came up with that one, I correct her every time, but it just hasn't sunk in yet) these are big enough for your boobies" (Oh gee....thanks dear, shout it to the whole store!)

More progress made on my scrapbooking area!

So as I've mentioned before, my scrap area is in two spots in my house since the moving of bedrooms.

Lately I've been scrapbooking on a 6ft table that somehow got burried in a huge creative jumble of mess! Underneath the table was even worse, it had piles of outgrown, tired clothes.

Last week, I paid the girls $.50 (they love the big shiny new quarters!) :) to carry all the clothesw downstairs for me. I bagged them up in (managable sized) plastic bags and they unloaded them on the couch for me to later sort.
I've sorted them for 1) resale at "Tomorrows Child" 2) Coat Closet (our new church has a room where you can drop off clothes and people who are in need can take as many clothes as they need for FREE!) & 3) Salvation Army bags.

It was a huge job, since there were tons of clothes, I purged our closets a few months ago, and didn't do this last step...but Abby's outgrown lots more clothes, and I know I'll be doing this again soon.

But for now, I feel good because my bedroom doesn't look like a dumping ground anymore! :)

Bobby brought my white credenza up, and I'm organizing all my scrapbook stuff in there. This is a tidious job but fun since I love to organize. I'm finding that my 12x12 papers don't fit in the cabinet, so I've got to come up with some system soon. I'll be over at 2Peas searching past posts and viewing rooms again. :)

I need two shelves to hold my containers that I altered, and other boxes. But it looks better already. Soon I'll be taking my 6' table down, the top is cleared (yeah!) that was a big job!

I don't want to forget

Abby's 2nd year! In only 5 days my baby is turning 3!!!

• She talks so much now
• She calls herself "Ya-Ya" and her sister Catherine is "Rah-yah"
• She got her ears pierced (by her request) she still points to her ears and say "ears - pinched"
• She's potty trained
• She gives the best hugs and kisses
• She loves her friends - she takes awhile to warm up to new people, but once she does, she's really friendly.
• She loves Pooh Bear, Dora, Elmo, Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears, My lil' ponies, Barbies, Princesses, Minnie Mouse and Baby Dolls.
• She loves her accessories; backpacks, purses, shoes, scarfs, jewelry, etc...
• She loves for me to blow dry her hair, she's also very specific of how her hair will be fixed on any given day (1 or 2 hair barrettes, head band, Pony tail, kitty ears, etc..)
• If she's been away from us for any amount of time she'll say "I misshed you" ;)
• She's a great eater...eats almost everything (meat, veggies, fruits, etc...)
• She's going to be a dare devil...she can roller-skate, ride a scooter, tri-cycle and almost has the hang of riding her bike.
• She blows kisses & catches mine
• She likes helping me in the kitchen & with laundry
• She wants to learn to use the computer so badly, but gets so frustrated when it won't do what she wants it to do....that darn mouse!
• She dresses herself.....and she'll change outfits about 3 times a day or else she'll dress in her dress up clothes and wear them all day. She loves to wear gowns too!
• She loves getting money and putting it in her piggy bank.
• She doesn't need a crowd of friends....she's happy to disappear up to her room and play with her toys for awhile.
• The girl is constantly covered in bruises all along her shins & knees.
• She loves her sister, when she isn't fighting with her, she wants to be just like her.
• & so much more...
  

I wanna play!

Today was a really great day. My husband was off work today (He puts in 1 extra hour each day to get a 3 day weekend every two weeks), and since he had to work this Sunday...I really felt like I missed him! :) LOL

Anyways....our neighbor invited Catherine to go to the pool today with them and their daughter...so Bobby, Abby & I were off to the mall and shopping like we had planned...then when she got back we played games. We played Uno, Barbie Bingo, Yatzee (with pink dice I might add) :) gold fish didn't make it in today, put perhaps tomorrow.

It was great playing games...with Catherine being 5, she can really play well without being pouty or taking "forever" during her turn.

This fun evening got me to thinking about how much I love playing games. I've always loved playing and can be (okay, I AM) very competitive. Last summer we played Spades (card game) with friends every other week...but now our schedules have kept us all really busy and hard to get together as often. I've never played Bunco....but I really, really, really would love to play in a group. I just don't know 11 other women.

We're in the middle of switching churches (very long story that I just won't get into), hopefully I'll make lots of new friends...and maybe they'll be a few that enjoy playing cards/games as much as I do! ;)

Have a great evening....play a game with your family....it can be fun! ;)

Back from Vacation

We really didn't plan to do a "visit family" vacation...but we ended up doing it anyways! :)

We drove to Baltimore, MD spent the night, then we flew into Atlanta, where we got a rental then drove to a beautiful small town where my husband grew up with his family in Alabama.

His sisters and brother and their families came in for the 4th of July holiday. We enjoyed visiting with each other watching all the fireworks, and all the food! ;)

Before we left, we didn't tell the girls we were going, at 5 and almost 3 I would have to answer endless questions about how much longer until we'd leave and all that! :) So I was trying to subtly reinforce their good manners. They have great manners, but not deep south worthy! I knew I'd heard it too, if they didn't approve of thier manners! :) I guess they did all right. I didn't hear otherwise...unless it was talked about when I wasn't around! :) LOL Which I wouln't doubt! :) LOL

I hope everyone had a great holiday and celebrated our freedom!
Happy 4th of July!!!!!!!