Father's Day

Here's a picture of my two favorite people. This was Sunday morning before we headed out for breakfast and church.

Afterwards we came home and napped because we had tickets to see the local baseball team the Frisco Rough Riders play a double header. This baseball park is just 10 miles from our house and we had never been there (we usually go to see the major leagues teams play the "Texas Rangers" more than an hour away). We arrived a little early so Micaela got to watch the stadium fill up with people. It was HOT (like over 100 degrees) and we learned the seats behind home plate aren't shaded until about 7!Hope your Father's Day is wonderful!

Traveling Texas!

Well since the last post on June 6th, just 10 days ago, we've made two family trips to San Antonio and I made a business trip to Houston. I've seen more of the Texas Interstates this month, than I have in a while. All three trips were fast & furious, and I am glad that the next two weekends we'll actually be home.

We had a great time in San Antonio visiting with my parents. We stayed at the Hilton Palacio del Rio which is right in the heart of the San Antonio River Walk. Micaela's favorite part of the hotel was the rooftop pool, here she is fearlessly diving to Daddy!

While in Houston I stopped by a scrapbook store that I had not visited in more than 6 years, the Lone Star Scrapbook Company. I was so glad it was still open, (so many privately owned scrapbook stores don't make it). They were loaded with great paper, wonderful accessories and tools. I had to restrain myself but I did purchase a couple of Quik Kutz embossing Folders and some specialty Texas 12x12 paper. If you are ever traveling North on I45 out of Houston, they are right on the service road off The Woodlands exit-- stop, you won't regret it!

That's the last ten days, we'll go back to regular programming. Thanks for stopping by!

Backyard Update

Our backyard patio is coming along slowly but surely. Putting together the "rock puzzle" I mentioned in early March was hard. We only work on this project during the weekends so it is really taking longer than we expected. We have the sod in and as you can see it is actually green, thank God for all the rain! The flowers in the pots are blooming, Alleluhua! Most of the rock work is done, we just need another two loads of rock to finish that. More updates to come....

Seeing Pink... again

I am fighting Pink Eye for the second time in two weeks. Last week I was home for two days and today I had to leave work again. UGH! I was surprised to find out Human Resources has a strict policy on Pink Eye-- basically you have you leave the premises immediately. So I came home, used more of the drops from last week a took a nice afternoon nap. I must admit it has been nice to be home BUT I really can't craft since my vision is not 100%. Thankfully no one else in the family has gotten it.

Celebrating Four

Our little girl turned four today! We'll be celebrating big later on in the month, in the meantime we had cake, popsicles and sunshine at her church school before recess.

Bluebonnets in McKinney Texas!

We stopped by a Bluebonnet Patch on our way to the square today after church. We had so much fun taking pictures.

It was incredibly windy so our hair looks like we stuck our finger in an electric socket in most of the pictures .... (see new profile picture). I got some good ones of hubby with with Micaela-- he doesn't have much hair on his head so he did not get the socket effect that I did. LOL.

Hope you are having a great Sunday with your family.

Eggstravaganza

We had a great time today at the Eggstravaganza sponsored by the Parks, Rec & Open Space Department in our city. Micaela was excited to take a picture with the Easter Bunny.

They had a tremendous turnout. It was incredible to see 25,000 eggs spread out! The largest Egg Hunt in Texas, right here in our "back yard".

Hope your Saturday was great, thanks for stopping by...

Oh what a week...

Our daughter caught a yucky stomach bug last week. Within a couple of days we all had the bug and were homebound for five long days. 20-something loads of laundry, countless bottles of Sprite and packages of crackers and four visits to the doctor we are all better. I kept trying to squeeze in a few minutes of stamping here and there but it was virtually impossible-- Slowly our home and our bodies are recovering, thank the Lord!

Coming Up for Air Again...

I blink and a month goes by, what's up with that? We've been busy with so many things I can't even list. Right now our daughter is spending Spring Break with my parents in South Texas so I have a little more evening time than usual to update my blog. I have been stamping and crafting, just have not had time to take pictures. Hopefully I will get caught up and back into the swing of things this week. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

A Rock Puzzle

In the last year and a half I've mentioned a little or should I say GIANT project we have going on in our back yard.... What started out as a retaining wall and some additional dirt has lead to a flag stone patio and landscaping. We've had this vision for our backyard and it's finally coming along. This is the first truck load of rocks for our patio. We've started to put the pieces together, OMG this is hard! Stay tuned for future updates.

Puzzles with Papo

My parents came to visit for a few days. Micaela had a ball with my Dad putting puzzles together. I don't think my Dad had worked on a puzzle in well over 30-something years, it was so cute to watch Micaela helping Dad through the whole "process".

This puzzle is so neat, the whole alphabet and it's 30 feet long. I got this on sale at Target when Micaela was a baby and now I wish I had purchased a dozen of them for gifts.

Little Brother off the Market

My little brother is off the market, finally! Here he is minutes before the wedding ceremony. I am not sure who cried more, me and my Mother or all the girls he left behind.

Here's his bride, patiently waiting before the ceremony.

And finally, here's the happy couple.....

Always a Flower Girl...

Always a Flower Girl, this time a Ring Bearer. Micaela has been a flower girl several times. When my brother announced he was getting married, he wanted Micaela to be the ring bearer.

Micaela took the job very seriously and she was thrilled to carry the actual rings on the pillow. Can you tell she's guarding the rings with her life...lol.

Got the bug...

I got a Cricut Create for Christmas from my parents. Yippee, I am so excited! Can't wait to craft when we get back home.

Merry Christmas from us...

Merry Christmas from my family to yours.

This was our Christmas card. It was a flat card, and measured 8.5 x 5.5. I had fun making these while watching Christmas movies. Originally I had planned to send out everyone the photocards you get printed at the store but when our portrait package included 32 wallet size photos I decided to design a handmade card instead of just inserting the card with our Christmas letter. I wish I had planned in advance so I could have made all 100+ cards (I always want everyone to get the exact same card) for our family but doing just 32 took long enough.

The Garden Green base was half of an 8.5x11 sheet and inked with Gold Craft Ink. The next layer is Very Vanilla. I printed all the wording on the computer and also inked with Gold. Our picture was matted in Real Red, placed on the the scallopped rectangle and then added to the Very Vanilla layer with dimensionals. The ribbon knotted in the center finished it off.

The scallopped rectangle was done with Spellbinders Nestabilities (I love those things) and punched with the 1/8 inch circle punch. I can't believe I punched out all those circles, it was 32 rectangles and each one had 34 holes. Do the math and it's 1088 holes!! I must admit that I punched the holes while I was driving in traffic to Irma's rehearsal. It took me two hours to cross the whole city of Dallas last Friday night, everytime I was at a stand still on the interstate, I would punch a few holes. By the time I got to Red Oak which is on the other side of the world from McKinney, all the holes were punched. How's that for multi-tasking!

Hope your Christmas was full of the things money can't buy-- friends, family, love and happiness!

Warning: Hole punching while driving on the interstate is not recommended.

12 hours and 550 miles

Twelve hours and 550+ miles later, we finally made it to Mission. It was nice to watch the temperature rise from the 30's windy drizzle in Dallas to the balmy 70's when we arrived in my hometown. It was a long drive but Micaela was a trooper. She was so excited to see Nana & Papo. We listened to Christmas CD's the whole way, I think I sang Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Christmas Rock and Feliz Navidad about 50 times each! When Micaela loves a song, she wants to listen to it over and over and over and over. Daddy is flying down to catch up to us in a few days, we'll spend Christmas here, take part in my brother's wedding and celebrate my parents 40th wedding anniversary. It's going to be four full days of family celebrations, we're excited....

One Wedding down, one to go

My dear friend Irma was married this weekend. She and her daughters were in our wedding four and a half years ago.

I was honored to be her Matron of Honor, here's a quick snapshot we took right before the ceremony and another of the Happy New Family.

Decking the Halls at work....

The HR department sponsors a Christmas decorating contest every year. This is my first Christmas with the city but from what I understand the Finance Department has ALWAYS won all the contests. The Public Works department had never even participated. Well, a few of us newbies talked some of the oldies into entering the contests. We decorated a little every day, everyone pitched in and by the time the day of the judging came the halls were decked!

We went with a red and white theme and called our office Peppermint Place. We hung ornaments and candy canes from the 14 foot ceiling, wrapped empty boxes and placed them everywhere, we had the street department make up an actual street sign that said Peppermint Place & Candy Cane Lane and placed it in the middle of our area, resurrected a Christmas tree that had been abandoned in the attic, spread peppermint candies on all the counters, and hung garland everywhere.

The day of the judging, we had one of the superintendents to dress up as Santa and one of the office ladies to dress up as Mrs. Claus, we played Christmas carols and shared Christmas cookies, hot apple cider and egg nog. It was really wonderful.

Needless to say, the place was festive and there was alot of excitement in the office. The best part was not only did we have a great time but we WON both contests!!!
Here are a few pictures...

Hope you've decked the halls at your work....

Our little Picasso

Micaela loves drawing...

Do you know...

Do you know....what happens when a 3 year old squeezes a dog's neck? It's eyes turn blue!

Here's a cute picture of Maxi and Micaela by the tree. Hope you are having a good day! Please no letters from animal activists-- I am just kidding...