Merry Christmas to All!

Merry Christmas!! I hope this finds you well and I hope you had a wonderful Christmas with family or friends. This morning I told my husband that I was a little sad that Christmas was over and he reminded me that Christmas is not over! The twelve days of Christmas begin today and ends on January 6th with Epiphany! Of course as Christians we carry Christmas in our hearts throughout the year but the celebration in December brings it to the forefront of our busy lives. So, since we have 12 more days of Christmas I have a good excuse to keep my tree up until at least Jan 6th :)
With the ending of this Christmas season the new year quickly approaches and I'm eagerly awaiting the start of my New Year's resolutions. I don't know what they are going to be yet - I'm still working on it, but trust me, I'll have a list! I do love resolutions even if some fall by the wayside mid-year. So, for the next few days I'm going to be doing some thinking and I'll let you know what I come up with. The good thing is that I already started my exercising/lose weight resolution back in August. I got a jump-start on that one so I won't have to stand in a mile long line at the Y to sign-up. Well, it's off to some more holiday eating and fun before Jan 1 rolls around! Credits for Christmas card here.

Puppy Love

Amy's Miscellany
Well, it feels like the holidays are in fulls swing. The in-laws are in town, school is winding down, spending and food consumption are at their annual high I have one more Christmas luncheon today. For some reason I'm having a really hard time feeling the Christmas spirit this year. I don't know if it is because we've been insanely busy with church parties and I've been finishing up photo Christmas gifts but by this point in the season I've usually watched all my "must see" Christmas movies" and just chilled in front of the tree for hours on end. I have taken a two week sebatical from the Y. I know, I know, that's not what you're supposed to give up amid the stress of the holiday season, but I give you my word I'll get right back in there ;) Well, amid all the stress I have certainly been scrapping - that's my stress reliever. This LO is of Connor and his favorite girlfriend, Jenna. He does have another one and I'll be scrappin' her too if we ever get a pic of them together! Credits here.

Scrap Reviews
I've been seeing this blinkie around digitown lately and finally decided to investigate! Well, it belongs to the website Faith Sisters which is a Christian Digital Scrapbooking Community. They have all kinds of inspirations and challenges to get you motivated to scrap about your faith. I'm looking forward to joining in some of the challenges in 2008.

My Favorite Things
Well, once again before I sign off I'll leave you with one of my favorite things. My favorite Christmas ornament I ever received was a glass bride and groom -and dangling from it was my diamond. My then boyfriend, Dale, proposed to me as we were decorating his tree. The story behind this is that Dale and I had met in September '98 in my hometown where he had come to perform a wedding of two of his college students (the bride attended my home church). He was their college pastor and they had asked him to officiate. My mom was the wedding director and I was helping her. Let's just say that I was smitten the first time I saw him and 3 1/2 months later we were engaged. I had come to Nashville to visit him a few weeks before Christmas and he popped the question. Four months later we were married and it has been the most wonderful eight years of my life - not saying we don't have our ups and downs :) So, do you have a favorite ornament?

Shutteryfly Book One - Mission Completed!!

Remember that Shutterfly book I've been rambling on about? Well as of 1:30 am it was completed and paid for. This is the front cover of the book. Now, I'm anxiously awaiting it's arrival! It's a little nervewracking to pay that much money and not be able to see the finished product! Oh well, if it's not perfect I'll make the changes and print my - this one is going home with my MIL. I know have to get my Christmas card LOs done - do you think I'm cutting it a little close? Maybe they should be Happy New Years card:) Here are the credits for the cover.

Scrappin' News
The other day in the Chatter forum at DST someone posted a thread about being intimated by really awesome scrappers! I clicked right on that thread because that is where I used to live. I would browse through the galleries and look at all the amazing, collage-style LOs! For me it was never even an option of doing one - it would be like putting a Calculus problem in front of a kindergatdner. I didn't even know where to start - it boggled my mind.

But then, one day I came across this book, Clean and Simple Scrapbooking by Cathy Zielske that took me from being a completely frustrated, feeling like a failure scrapper to being completely okay with my style of scrappbooking. After reading what Cathy had to say I realized that it is okay to make Clean and Simple LOs (thus the name of the book:) She also teaches in the book the elements of good design, the art of type, and the importance of journaling, or lack there of. I read this book in one afternoon (while sitting in a business meeting with my husband :) and came away with so many simple tools that improved my scrapbooking. So, if you're looking for someone/something to validate your style of scrapping this is a must read! P.S. the sequel is really great too!

Family Haps and Other Ramblings
The in-laws are arriving today which means that my scrapping room will have to turn back into the guest bedroom. It really is sad my guest bedroom looks like and office with a bed slapped in it. What's even sadder is that I have a real office downstairs but I like being to work up where the kids are - did you notice I called it "work?" :) I figure I am working - my pay is the free kits that I receive from my designers! My husband says that I am very good at justifying things! Hey - whatever it takes!! Anyway, one of my resolutions for the New Year is to turn my guest bedroom into an inviting and welcoming room. Of course if it's not comfy company won't stay so long. Okay, just kidding!!

Finally, remember the cookie recipe search I was on? Well, no one came to my rescue until last night when my friend, jennylongfingers (don't even ask) told me about this SmittenKitchen website with a chocolate chip cookie recipe that looked really yummy! What looks even yummier are all those pics she has posted on her site! It's making me hungry!

My Favorite Things
Last night, my above mentioned friend, jennylongfingers, mentioned that she was a little disappointed at my list of favorite things. She was hoping for some more materialistic things - you know, so she could run right out to the store and buy me a gift for our gift exchange next week. I, of course, told her that Christmas isn't about materialism (grin)! So, jennylongfingers - even though you've already bought me a gift that you're not sure I'm gonna like, here's one for you.

I love watching the Grinch - the old and the new. It is a must see every Christmas - well really my son wants to watch it year round. We have the original Grinch movie but not the new one with Jim Carrey. So - that is definitely on my Christmas list (my husband usually busy be a Christmas CD but this year I asked him to get me that in lieu of a CD.)

Well, that about does it. I have a house to finish cleaning before the in-laws arrive on my doorstep for their 13 day visit!!! :)

Well, the Shutterfly book has yet to be ordered. I missed out on the free shipping although I spent hours on it yesterday. So, today is the new deadline :) What can I say - that just means I'm flexible, right? Just a word of caution to those of you who have yet to make a book. When you do two page LOs make sure that all the elements (such as ribbon that spans both pages) are aligned perfectly. I had to split my 12x24 LO into two 12x12s and somehow things got a little whacky. But, it's all taken care of and hopefully everything will print perfectly. I am getting ready to start on the cover using a template from Wendyzine. I'm all out of creative mojo so we're just going the simple route. Did I mention that I made two LOs yesterday to go in the book so I wouldn't feel bad about who I left out? Here's one of them. Credits here.

Scrappin' News
My TOOT for today is that KristinCronin-Barrow over at the SweetShoppe asked me to join her team. Check out her designs - they are really fabulous. I also want to share another amazing gallery that I found yesterday over at the Shabby Shoppe by Sheri R. You won't be disappointed and you'll definitely be inspired!

Family Happenings
Yesterday morning as we were discussing Brooke's allergies to chocolate (she's become the food Nazi) she was wondering where chocolate milk came from. Here's the conversation:
Brooke: Mommy, where does chocolate milk come from?
Me: They take chocolate and add it to the milk. (I'm the practical one in the family)
Brooke: Oh, well, I thought that maybe it came from brown cows - or, you know those two things on the cow that the milk comes from (the udders) maybe one is for white and one is chocolate.
Me: You know, Brooke, that is a very smart idea. Maybe that is where chocolate milk comes from (giggle.)

My Favorite Things
Well, before I go I'll share another favorite thing with you. Today, my favorite is hot chocolate. I can remember my mom always mixing up a big batch and we would have it all winter. So now, at the first sign of cool weather I run to the store for my ingredients and make up enough to last the whole winter. Here's a great recipe to keep around the house or mix up and give away.

Hot Chocolate
1 lb confectioner's sugar
6 c Nestle Quick
2 1/2 c powdered creamer
8 c instant milk

Mix all ingredients together. 1/4 c to 6 ounces boiling water. Enjoy!

Well, that's it for now folks. Have a good day!

My Favorite Things

Do you need a really good laugh today? Visit this mockumentary that pays tribute to die-hard scrappers like us. My sis over at Thinks by Me sent it to me the other day and anything she sends is always hilarious!

Well, I am working on my first Shutterfly Photobook! I downloaded the actions from Wendyzine and let me say that they have made life so much simpler. I have to have the book done today though because free shipping ends today and I certainly wouldn't want to lose out on the six or eight dollars. The other thing I have realized is that I have a gadzillion layouts of Brooke, a few of Connor and like three of Liam! How did that happen?!? So, my New Year's Scrapping Resolution is to not forget about my youngest child. I was the youngest of three and I have the least amount of pics of me - you would think I would be sensitive to that. So, I'll be doing a few LOs of him today to add to the book.

Besides my Shutterfly book (for which I am laying out out of kicking to complete - after I blog that is :) I need to clean my house because my inlaws are coming in town on Friday which means my Scrapping computer will not be available to me 24/7. I suppose I'll survive. I also need to make 6 dozen cookies for a cookie swap. My girlfriend, Emma, who is hosting this has decided that this is going to be an upscale cookie swap - I don't think your standard chocolate chip cookies are gonna cut it. So if you have any yummy cookie recipes that taste and look like they are really hard to make but really are very simple, please send them my way!! You can email me at amyscraps at comcast dot net. (Ps - that's not amys craps - that's amy scraps :)

On another note, here's the LO of the day. This is one I did several months ago for the Stand Up and Scrap contest. I did three LOs for it, got stressed and quit :) Contests really aren't my thing but I did get an awesome kit from it. Anyway, I took these photos one morning while the kids were just laying around on my bed. The light was just perfect so I grabbed my camera and shot a few pics. Just take a look at all those rolls Liam has! Credits here.

Well, before I go I thought I would share one of my favorite things. I was thinking about that song this morning, "My Favorite Things" and it inspired me to start from now until Christmas to list my Favorite Things. So here's the first...

My favorite Christmas Song (Religious): Welcome To Our World by Chris Rice

Tears are falling, hearts are breaking
How we need to hear from God
You've been promised, we've been waiting

Welcome Holy Child
Welcome Holy Child

Hope that you don't mind our manger
How I wish we would have known
But long-awaited Holy Stranger
Make Yourself at home
Please make Yourself at home
Bring Your peace into our violence
Bid our hungry souls be filled
Word now breaking Heaven's silence

Welcome to our world
Welcome to our world

Fragile finger sent to heal us
Tender brow prepared for thorn
Tiny heart whose blood will save us
Unto us is born
Unto us is born
So wrap our injured flesh around You
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sin and make us holy

Perfect Son of God
Perfect Son of God
Welcome to our world

Well, that's it for today! I hope you have a wonderful day and we'll chat again tomorrow. Well, maybe.

The Benson Pharmacy

Last night we picked up all the prescriptions from our pharmacy and this is what we came home with. I've never been sent home with a brown shopping back from a pharmacy before. We usually come home with the really small white bags. Between Dale and Brooke these are all the medications they are taking. They better be squeaky clean after 6 weeks of all these meds and $180 later! Why do we schedule these appointments at Christmas time? Bad timing....oh well, they'll be feeling fine and dandy for the New Year!

So I finally got the bright idea to take pictures of the children for our Christmas card which has yet to be designed. Maybe it will be a New Year's card! Anyway, this is what I got from Connor! He has this little penchant of turning sulky and pouty for an reason under the sun and getting him out of that mood is impossible! Even the promise of candy didn't get me a smile so after much cajoling from me and much whining from him I just sent him to his room to play until he can work himself into a better mood! We'll try again later maybe...or maybe I'll Christmas card will be of only a family of four this year :)

Finally, here's a page I did over the weekend. I used Cori Gammon's Snow Angels kit. It has lots of pretty, wintery blue papers and elements. It is a scraplift from tnkbuzan @ DST. Her work is absolutely gorgeous - you'll be seeing lots of scraplifts of her in the future :) If you haven't seen any of her work take a moment to visit her gallery. You'll be most inspired!
Credits here.

Allergic to Chocolate?!?

It's 4:30 pm and I'm just now updating my blog, but for good reason. Dale and Brooke had an appointment this morning - the full-blown deal - all the pricks, x-rays, shots, etc... It took almost 5 hours and Brooke was such a little trooper. She didn't cry at all with the series of pricks on her back. Once she found out that they had to give her 6 "shots" after her daddy only had to have two she panicked a little and cried for a minute or two. But, she was really, really brave. The outcome was that they both have LOTS of allergies. Poor Brooke is allergic to chocolate. How unfair is that for a little girl?!? Anyway, we came home with quite a regimen of medication for the next 6 weeks until our follow-up to see how she and Dale are doing.

In other news, it was quite a laid back weekend except for the 3 parties we attended - 1 on Friday and 2 on Saturday evening. I did quite a bit of scrapping Friday and Saturday. We did nothing on Saturday except lay around the house which was awesome!

This is a LO I did using the collab kit, Merry Holiday by Jomi and Jackie Eckles. Credits here.

Yay! It's Friday!! It's rainy and chilly here but I don't really care because I can stay in the house most of the day. Dale is off to SMART this morning with Brooke and he took Connor along so I'm here with only Liam. I've got the laundry going and that's about all I'm going to be doing today. We have a Christmas party to go to tonight so it will be kind of date for Dale and me.

Brooke has been quite funny lately. Actually, she always is. She is just so matter of fact about things and she just says whatever is on her mind. (Kind of like her mommy - Dale says I have no inner monologue!) I don't think I'm quite that bad - well, I know what what I'm thinking that never get said :)

Anyway, I went in to her class to sub on Monday so her teacher could go out to lunch with all the other Kindergarten teachers. I was there for 1 1/2 hours so I sent about 45 min in the classroom "teaching" and then the rest of the time was spent at lunch. Mrs Barnhill had them all on the reading rug and so I read them a story and we reviewed some "I" words and did a few other things. Well, as the kids got used to me they got increasingly more rowdy so I kept having to give them "looks" and firmly, but sweetly :) tell them to sit down and be quiet. Well, Brooke suggested several times that I pull their cards (Mrs. Barnhill's discipline measure - by the 3rd pulled card you are in big trouble), but I refrained. Well, when Dale got home that night he asked Brooke if she was excited that Mommy got to come to her class. Her response was, "Yes, but I don't think she handled the kids very well! She had to get yelly several times." Apparently I'm not quite as accomplished at substituting as I thought I was :) Well, that's fine by me - it just gives me an excuse to stay home and scrap!

Here's a LO I did with Jomi's new Grateful kit found at www.thedigichick.com. This picture is of me, my amazing sister and my sweet Aunt Bunni. The journaling reads:
Aunt Bunni, You have always been such an important part of our lives. Many times you have been like a mom to us - you certainly love us as much as any mother would. We have so many wonderful memories of you and our family gatherings are never complete without you. I love you so much and I know that Jennifer would say the same. So, from us to you, the most wonderful Aunt a niece could have...we love you! Amy & Jennifer

Credits here.

Jomi has a beautiful kit out today at the DigiChick called Grateful. The colors are really gorgeous and I can't wait to use it later today. I think I know of just the pictures that will be perfect for this kit. So be watching for a LO to come.

I got this little Christmas Survey from Monique's Scrappin' Blog. I thought I'd fill it out for myself.

1. Christmas tree up yet? Two of them. The family tree that we all decorate and Mommy's tree with all the breakable ornaments

2. Any Christmas decorations up yet? Everything that is going to be put up is up.

3. What are you asking for for Christmas? A kitchen table and a camera. Well, I'm not really asking for them because I don't want Dale to spend the money on them but if I were asking that's what it would be.

4.What do you usually do on Christmas Eve? We go to our 6 pm Christmas Eve service and then we come home and set out cookies and carrots for Santa and the reindeer and write Santa a Thank You note. When the kids are in bed I finish wrapping presents while I'm watching a Christmas movie.

5. What do you usually do on Christmas Day? We get up early and open gifts and then the in-laws come over and we do it all again. Somewhere in there we start cooking for lunch and cleaning up. This year I'm thinking that eating out might be a good idea ;)

6. Do you own any Christmas clothes or jewelry? A few pairs of socks

7. Do you use white or colored Christmas lights? I switch back and forth...this year I'm using all white.

8. Do you bake Christmas cookies? I do and I eat most of them myself ;)

9. Do you buy Christmas presents for your whole family? For my side yes, for the in-laws we drew names this year.

10. How many friends do you buy presents for? A few.

11. Is there a Santa Claus? Am I reading this question right? How can somebody even ask that ?!? Of course there's a Santa Clause...he lives right near the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.

12. Favorite Christmas Carol? This isn't really a carol but my favorite Christmas song is Chris Rice's, "Welcome to Our World"

13. Would you rather it be a white Christmas, or a warm Christmas? White, White White!!! We lived in Naples, FL for several years and my in-laws would come for Christmas and want to go to the beach on Christmas Eve. I boycotted. I stayed home and baked and did Christmasy things - and turned the A/C way down.

14. Was last year a good christmas? Yes

15. Which Christmas color do you like better? RED or GREEN? Green

16. Do you get a real Christmas tree, or is it artificial? We got a real one for several years but right now we are only doing artificial. Soon we'll go back to getting a real one again.

17. When you get older, will you get a real or artificial tree? Hmmm....hadn't thought about it.

18. Do you hang stockings? Yes

19. When opening presents, does your family all open them at the same time? We try to open them in an orderly fashion but the kids get really excited.

20. What is usually in your stocking? Always Avon lotion from my MIL.

21. Do you get up early on Christmas day? Yes

22. Does your family eat breakfast before or after opening presents? After

23. Do you have a favorite ornament you hang on the tree? I have several.....my Grandmother started getting me the White House ornament every year and now my mom buys it for me so I have a whole set of those. Then when I was maybe five my mom bought me a little angel ornament and I just LOVE it. My favorite ornament though is one I don't hang on the tree. My husband (then boyfriend) bought me a bride and groom glass ornament and put the ring on it and proposed to me when we were putting up his Christmas tree one year.

24. What Christmas movie do you like to watch the most? My absolute favorite is White Christmas, but I must also watch "The Grinch" (old and new), "While You Were Sleeping" "Miracle on 34th Street" (new), Holiday Inn, When Harry Met Sally (they end up together on New Year's Eve) and any Christmas movie on TV.

25. What do you like better, Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? Christmas Eve. I'm always a little bit sad when Christmas day arrives. I love the whole preparation and excitement up to Christmas Day.

Christmas Cheer

For a little Christmas cheer take a look at this!

It has been an insanely busy past few days. I kind of don't know what to do with myself today. I went to kickboxing this morning and when I got home I realized that I just don't have anything to do except to catch up on blogging and scrapbookin! Well, except for the laundry that has been ignored the last few days while I have been in my cleaning and decorating frenzy. Oh, and I do need to clean up a little from last night, and design my Christmas cards, and order some magnets for stocking stuffers, etc... I guess I do have some things to do today but I think I'll ignore them and wait until tomorrow :) A girl does need a bit of downtime in this busy holiday season. Jomi is coming out with a new kit tomorrow, (I think?) and so of course I need to do a LO or two with it.

Anyhoo, back to the party last night. We had a really great time. We went out to dinner to Monell's which is a family style restaurant in downtown Franklin. From the front it looks very small but once you get inside it is quite large. In fact, it was the original jail (Frankin at one time was the capital of TN) and so they still have some of the bars up AND they have not removed the part of the floor that would drop out when people were hanged. Now, that does sound quite gruesome but there are no hangings on record. They have the records of where people were sentenced to hang but apparently the judge never went through with the hanging sentences (and if he did they didn't record it.)

After dinner we came back to our house for coffee and White Elephant gifts (gag gifts and anything you find around your house you don't want.) I think the best gift was the NFCN 2007 Ornament Collection. Kim, the office manager got a little crafty as you can see here. Dale ended up with it and he has tucked neatly in the back of his closet because it will come out again for next year's gift exchange ;) After the adults finished with their gift exchange Santa arrived with presents for the little ones.


They had such a great time and Bill (a man from our church) is an awesome Santa. He starts growing his beard and hair out at the end of summer so he has perfect "Santa hair" :) Here are some pics of the kids with Santa.

Monday again!?!

Wow! The weekend just flew by. We of course went to see White Christmas Friday night and then Saturday morning we had an event at church and then a SS party Saturday night. Yesterday morning the children had their Christmas program, we had a birthday lunch for Megan and then last night after church we went out to eat with some friends. It sure would be nice to have a day to recuperate from the weekend.

Well, amid all the craziness I did carve out a little time to scrap (I had to stay up till 1am to do it ;) I couldn't really get into the Christmas spirit on my blog until I decorated it (with my banner) and then I did a cute LO of Dale and Brooke. This picture was taken last Christmas morning but the traditional Christmas kits jut didn't fit it so I used a mix of things from my favorite designers. Credits here.

I don't usually blog on Saturday b/c there's either not much going on or not enough time to sit down for a few minutes at the computer. But, I thought I'd share my little surprise from yesterday.

Yesterday morning I was sitting at this very spot blogging and browsing blogs (just taking a break from all my cleaning and decorating:) when my hubby called me to tell me a few things and then to remind me to be ready by 5pm b/c some friends were coming by to pick us up. Well, I immediately went into panic mode b/c I had arranged the babysitter for 5pm TONIGHT for our SS Class party and I thought I had made the arrangements for the wrong date. (We have about 8 parties we have to attend in the next 2 weeks so I've been a little stressed about the schedule/babysitting anyway) Well after a minute or so of panic he told me he was taking me to see Irving Berlin's White Christmas at TPAC. That is my FAVORITE Christmas movie and I was ecstatic all day!! We had a nice, relaxing dinner out with our friends and then we went to see the show.

We got home about 11:30 and I was so exhausted I could hardly keep my eyes open. For some reason, unbeknowst to logical part of my brain, I turned the TV on and started watching For the Love of the Game. I thought it was probably half-way through. Nope, I caught it at the very beginning and ended up watching the whole thing! Well, thankfully Dale let me sleep till 9:30 while he got the kids dressed and took them into church for a family Christmas event at church. I'm off to get dressed and head there myself in a few minutes. Daddy is being very good this Christmas - I'm thinking Santa might be bringing him something very nice!