Where Have I Been???..

I am just realizing (looking at my blog) that I have not updated all month. It's not like I haven't been sitting here. VERY peculiar:)

Anyway, it does seem like the month went by SUPER fast. Summer is just around the corner. V is very excited about that and keeps counting the days until school is over:) I can't believe she'll be in the second grade next year and next year will be Mattie's last year in middle school!!! He'll be a Freshman the following year. OMG!!! Freaking out here!!! :)

So Fiesta has come and gone. We did one night of Oyster Bake. It was nice; ideal weather...except towards the end of the night it got pretty windy and dirt was blowing around and I got the worst allergy headache:(

We dropped an easy $100 plus there. With tickets, parking and food and drink...We met up with some friends and had a good time:)

I have spent the last two days doing yard work. Not very good for my allergies, but it hasn't affected me very much at all...Plus:) I trimmed down the hedges in front ALOT. It has made a HUGE difference. Cleaned up the courtyard. Gotta work on that soon too. Get the fountain in and those pavers out and the river rock and some plants in there too:)

Hopefully we'll be getting some nice weather so I can work out there in the mornings or early evenings. We had some really nice ones this past week. We REALLY need some rain though. I've been watering up front like every other morning after I get the kids off to school. Running the sprinkler for about an hour and a half.

We have decided that this year we are not getting Fiesta Texas season passes. We didn't use them too much last year. So we are putting in one of those metal framed pools instead. The kids will get more use out of that since they can use it EVERYDAY:) Plus we really want to limit our driving with gas prices being so outrageous.

Funny thing yesterday though. I went out in the morning and gas was $3.43 at this one gas station by my house that usually has the cheapest gas, then in the afternoon, I went by there again and the price had gone DOWN to $3.39!!! That is a first. I have not seen gas go DOWN in a while. I was tempted to fill up, but I was still a little over half a tank. No telling what the price will be today or tomorrow or ten minutes from now for that matter:)

I've also been doing some serious shopping. I SO Need to cut that out. I'd post pics, but seeing it makes it more REAL...LOL...I'll just list things I can think of off the top of my head...hee hee

Lots of really cool stuff at M's. Got two Prima paper pads (96 sheets each), 3 bottles of Primas and 3 "boxes"...YES, they have Prima stuff!!! I got all my stuff with a 40% off coupon. Can't beat that. Got lots of cool AC felt, chipboard canisters and rubons at BL for $2!!! At 911 the other night I picked up some of the Pink Paislee (they still had some:) and two of the Fancy Pants 12x12 chipboards. Hit HL and got BG paper packs; Sultry, Archaic and Periphery for 1/2 off!!! Also got the new Cogsmo line from Cosmo Cricket. Stocked up on adhesive and got a new punch. Oh...and I got two of the new Martha Stewart border punches at M's too; the lace doilie one and the zig zag embossing one. I tried them out earlier and they are WAY cool.

I've been getting some scrapping done too. Maybe not as much to justify my spending...but still:) I set a goal of completing 100 LOs for the year. I am at 43 so far. Not bad;) Here's some of my lastest...

OK...Think I'll close with this overload of LOs. TFL :)

Mid-week Update...

Last week was kind of rough. My computer went out and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. I was so worried about losing all my pics. I kept meaning to back them up to disc and just kept putting it off:( Boy was I wishing I'd done it...boo hoo.

We took it in to Best Buy and got it fixed (THANKFULLY). So $200 later plus another $130 for an external hard drive to back up all my pics, I am back:) SUCH a relief to know all my pics were saved. I have over 3 yrs worth of pics on here; birthdays, vacations, First Day of School...you name it. Anyway...

I think the whole computer situation totally threw me off. I'd been on a scrapping roll, but after that, I hadn't been able to get back into the grove of things until today:) I got this one done...

I used the MME Tres Jolie pad I got at HL recently. I am SO loving MME papers as of late. I used my Sizzix stem die yet AGAIN. Tres Jolie die cut and Prima daisies and MM In Bloom mini brads. The pic is of Victoria on the disc swing in the front yard. She LOVES that thing. She always has. We got those disc swings for Mattie and Stevie when they were a little younger than V and ever since V was old enough, she's loved to swing on it. When we moved here we set it up on the tree in the front yard. She's spent countless hours swinging away or having someone push her:) TFL

Twofer Tuesday...Except it's Wednesday:)

I got some scrapping done today. I was still in the shabby chic mood from yesterday so I lifted this one off of 2Peas. I had to go by 911 last night to get some of the BG Sugared papers that I needed and didn't get the last time;) So here it is:

As stated above, the papers are Basic Grey Sugared. I used a piece of some corrugated paper I bought at M's and inked with Tim Holtz Old Paper. All the inking was in Old Paper:) Used a 7 Gypsies card, MME Tres Jolie die cut, some Rusty Pickle buttons, May Arts lace, some other lace I got at J's and Glimmer Mist on my butterfly. The butterfly is Sizzix cut from chipboard. The flourish...not sure who makes that. It was in a baggie I had others in as well:( I used one of my stacking daisy punches and my retro flower punch on some Daisy D's paper to make my flower up top. White staples to hold down the lace. I think that about does it for that one.I whipped this one up later in the evening. Didn't take long at all. This one was inspired by an chipboard wall hanging someone made on 2 Peas as well. I finally used one of my sheets of MM Love...I still have two more of that one;) Jenni Bowlin bingo card, MM Vintage Hip Favoirte Findings flower, Sizzix cut flourish on the bottom, Plain Jane on top, MM paint in Asphalt on both, Paper Studio flourish rubon and some adhesive gems around the photo:) The pic was taken on the 30th of March. V lost another tooth:)

I went by HL today to get me a pearlized looking Scribbles. I used it for the butterfly antenna on the first LO and then ran to Hancock Fabrics next door real quick. I was looking for some of those like stick pins...not sure if that's what you call them...Like the Heidi Grace ones. I want some with large little "tops" in black and cream, but no luck:( I did however find a Bag of Lace for only $1.50!!! It has 10 yds. of lace; 2 yds of 5 different ones. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it. I think I might go back for some more:)

That was my day. Not much else. Add to more LOs to my goal. I think this puts me at like 28 or 29...not too sure. Gotta go check my ticker;)

Shabby Chic Challenge...

This week's challenge theme was Country. We had to do Shabby Chic. Yay!!! I love Shabby Chic. I got some of it together last night and worked on it today. It is a lift off Spinnvild on sb.com. She has an awesome gallery:) Here it is:

The pic isn't so great since it was pretty cloudy and hard to get a good one.

I used stitching, tearing, sanding and crumpling. I also did distress inking and crackle paint. My products were lace, buttons, flowers...and I forget what the last one was:)

The papers are Basic Grey Blitzen solid pp, Miss Elizabeth's light blue flowered pp, MM Chelsea's Place stamped edge pp and MME Wild Asparagus flowered pp. Also used...Bazzill paper flower, Imaginisce bloom, Marcella by Kay pearl brad, Melissa Frances vintage key hole, Scenic Route chipboard bird, Life's Journey metal accent, MAMBI Coastal accent, Sizzix cut vines, gingham ribbon and lace. TFL