Stampin' & Scrappin' with Tina

It's Almost Here!

Our DIL, Dulce, has been living with us for the past 6 weeks as we wait for our son, Dane's, tour in Korea to end (he comes home next Tuesday!!) And I am sure you can all imagine what I have gotten her to just love.... that's right- STAMPING!!

And boy is she good!!!  I cannot believe how quickly she took to it and just stamps her little heart out!  I am so enjoying this time with her- every day she says "Mom, can we stamp today?"  Could I have asked for more?????????????  My boys sure know how to pick great girls.....  think that falls into the 'you marry someone like your mother' theory??????

So here is my girl-

38 weeks pregnant and

weighing in at a whopping 108 lbs.

Again, just like her MIL :-) 

Holiday Traditions...

First of all, I am an extremist (oh how I can see those who know me shaking their heads on that line!)   AND I really love the Holidays....  everything about them (except the stress which I really try to work on all the time!) and one of my most favorite parts is following thru with the traditions we have carried on thruout the years....

For instance, every year I make a gift for my kids.  I have since they were little- just something special from me to them.  One year I made all the boys these huge stuffed dinosaur pillows- I will never forget how much fun they had hitting each other with them and then I found one that they had put a little too close to the heater and it was smoking.  Ok, so that was the end of oversize pillows....  I have learned that boys need less flammable homemade gifts...

We also have an ornament tradition.  Each child has a theme that they chose to collect and each year I add an ornament to that.  When they were little I used to put a tree in each of their rooms with their ornaments on it (starting to see the extreme thing here?) For our family tree, we would add one special ornament that commemorated a significant event from that year....  like getting a dog....  buying a house..... when our darling nephew was adopted...  those sort of things.

This year 2 of my boys won't be able to come home for Christmas- not saying another word about that or I will cry.  BUT- I decided it was time to start celebrating their milestones with ornaments too- so I made them each one and sent it along with their holiday packages.  I thought the ornaments came out so darling that I wanted to post them here! 

This is for Dane & Dulce to celebrate their first Christmas as a married couple.  I still put the ornament our landlady made us 30 years ago for our first Christmas on our tree!

And for Marc and Atar- these 2 kids just bought their first home right outside of Sedona, Arizona!  Another wonderful event to celebrate!

For me, the holidays are all about the traditions- it is the piece that gives me that warm feeling no matter what else is going on....

I will share more of my little quirks over the next few weeks...  maybe one of them will help you create a new tradition of your own!

Lovin' my hubby....

This past weekend we had my monthly Girl's Nite Out Scrap Party- a place to come and scrapbook with friends, sharing ideas and just having lots of fun!  I was thrilled to have finished 6 pages and couldn't wait to show Jim and Chelsea what I had done.

Well, as they were looking at it and remembering the adventures I starting thinking (yes, I am a girl and prone to thinking too much!) ... who is really going to want all these albums after I am gone???  After all, my dad just moved the remains of his house into mine and I am now overrun with extra kitchen gadgets, blankets and dried flower arrangements all waiting to see the next garage sale.....  could my albums meet that same fate one day?????

So I asked my hubby, "Do you think I should keep on scrapbooking and making more albums?  Will anyone really want them?"  And he looked me straight in the eye and said "Tina, are you kidding????  When the kids all come home now its the first thing they go to! Think about how much you would love to see who your parents really were, not as parents, but as people... with dreams and hopes and as kids with the world at their feet!."  He went on to remind me that our grandchildren will see a part of their parents lives that we were never able to see of our parents...  and how we lived and loved and what made us, thus them, who we all are......

Jim sure convinced me that I need to keep on scrapping! (like I was gonna stop anyway!!) But to me it sure felt great to also have a guy who 'gets it'- and I savor those moments and store them for the next time he does something not-quite-as- connected!!!

Here are some of the pages from the weekend- I used our new Simply Scrappin' kits and fell in love with them!!  They are SO easy!!

What a Slacker.....

I feel like my poor blog has become August's forgotten child!!  I totally apologize for that!!

It has been a whirlwind here, like I am sure it has for many of you!  Saturday, 9/9 we held a fabulous Fall Fest Extravaganza in Denville- 100 demonstrators joined us for a day of stamping, learning, games and lots of fun!!  We even had a few guests join us and by days end several of them decided they TOO wanted to have this much fun in their lives and signed on to be demonstrators!!  It was great! 

And the stamping ideas we shared!!  Unbelievable!!!  One was more fabulous than the next!  I can't wait to try some of them out myself!

Here is a photo of the Bitty Book we all made as one of the make and takes- it was such fun and a great way to have a little album of something you love- in my case it was my precious family!!

I know, I still need to add Chelsea and my puppies- but I have to say that I cannot look at this book without smiling!!!

Busy August!

I can't believe the summer has just one month left....  and a busy month this will be!  My best friend, Joan and I (plus 50 other crazy women) are spending the first weekend in August away at a local hotel scrapbooking!!  No kids, no hubbies, no phones, no stress!!  Just 3 full days of fun, massages, new pj's, a couple of cocktails and lots and lots of laughs!

After that we will be having an Engagement party here for another one of my sons, Marc and his most precious fiance, Atar.  She has been like a daughter to me from the first day I met her and I love her as if she were my very own....  they are flying in from Sedona, AZ and I cannot wait!  I will remember to put the scrapbook pages of him proposing to her up here- it is such a great story!!

Of course, after that is the sad part........ no, not the end of summer.......  but taking my son, Scott, back to school in North Carolina.  I really hate when we do that as we are all so sad after he leaves.......  I am just thankful he has promised to let me support him and his family for the rest of my life so I always know this is temporary!  haha....

So, what do I do when I have too much to think about????  I run away!  Yup, all I can think about is escaping to the house upstate so I don't have to think about all the things I have to do!!  Do tell me that I am not alone there- we all do that, don't we???? Here are a few photos of Life at the Lake House...  you'll see why I always want to be there!

Home Again

I am back from our convention in Salt Lake City and came home to a whirlwind....  lots of stuff happened while I was gone and it makes me, again, appreciate the fragility of life.  My best friend's husband passed away- a life cut short but with a legacy of love. 

Gathering after the funeral and telling all the stories was so cathartic.  Reconnecting with old friends and finding that no length of time spent apart changes the bonds- we were all able to remember the happy times and share them with those we love.  And more important than that we were able to support Joan and her family when they needed it most.  After all, isn't that what life is really all about.....  being there for those you love? 

Joan and I go back to Kindergarten- and she has been that very special person in my life for too many years to count...  I could not imagine what or where I would be if I hadn't had her in my corner...  She is truly a blessing in my life....

Baby Shower Fun!

I had a baby shower for my niece, Karlie, yesterday.  Actually, it was for her way-too-cute baby boy, Logan.  And to be sure we are all on the same page, this is the same niece who never wanted to go to school and got Barbie Dolls for staying home!  <<sidebar: she DID graduate, Barbies or not>>

Well, check out how much fun I had making all the decorations!! I just love this stamp set and was thrilled to see it will be in our new catalog!  Some of you may think I went a little overboard, but boy did I have fun!  I will post more shower photos, too- no, not of the guests, of the cute things I stamped! (and one of the mom, dad and baby too!!- they are one good lookin family! I think they could give Brangelina a run for their money!!) 

I wanted to keep the shower with a whole 'frog, snails, etc. ' theme....  Just so you don't miss a single thing, here are some of the too-stinkin'-cute stamped stuff I did for the shower...

• stamped all the favors in the form of flower pots filled with cookies and a poem
• stamped a container to hold all the utensils
• table decorations included a frame stamped with Logan's name
• yup, I cut those cute critters out and stuck them on skewers to put in all the plants and flowers
• and just in case you are thinking I might stop there I cut one out and put it on every single toothpick for our sliced sandwiches!!!

It was a great day, everyone was thrilled!  And I went to bed with lots of personal and stampin' satisfaction!!