Leavin on a jetplane...

tonight, we're headed to TN.

I hope all of you that pop in to my blog have a VERY Merry Christmas!

I look forward to "seeing" you in the New Year and I'll have pictures of craftiness to post!

12 Tags of Christmas...

I know, I'm posting this late, Tim's on Day 11, but I just have to share the link in case someone who pops into my blog doesn't know Tim Holtz and his extraordinary techniques.

This man is a genius! I am learning so many awesome techniques from reading his blog, but that's kind of a bad thing because now I want to buy everything that he uses so I can make awesome distressed works of art, ya know, when I ever get time to scrap again. ;)

Masks - you must watch his video. It was such a light-bulb moment for me when I watched this - I was talking to my monitor (sounds more sane than "talking to myself", right?!), telling it how cool the techniqes were. The last minute of the video is what makes me want to run out and buy everything Tim Holtz!! I am such a visual person and wouldn't you know when the man in brown rang my doorbell yesterday with my box of goodies from Studio Calico that that last piece of pattern paper that Tim demos is in that box?!?! So you know that my Making Memories Snowflake paper needs to be sanded over a mask!! How cool is that?

Okay, enough gushing. I hope you'll tune in tomorrow over at Tim's blog to see what he has in store, it will incredible I'm sure!

Monster Truck Jam!!!!

Dawn and Liz guessed it, we went to the Monster Truck Jam Saturday night at the Minneapolis Metrodome.

Alex LOVED it!

His favorite was the Batman car, he even got a Batman shirt that is now his favorite thing to wear!


No Monster Truck Jam would be complete without the Grave Digger:



There were lots of crashing, flying through the air:

but, it was a fun night for everyone!

Guess what we did...

Saturday?

Your hints are:
Batman
Metrodome in Minneapolis
Ear plugs
Cotton Candy for Alex

I'll be back later to give you the answer, with pictures!!

Burning the midnight oil...

on decorating my house, but I think I'm almost done - just have to decorate the little tree in Alex's playroom, hopefully he'll help!

I've also been doing more shopping over at Etsy!! If you are looking for some bling for someone on your list, please check out Simply Shell's Design - she is a wonderfully talented girlie that I had the pleasure of meeting when we both lived in OK. Her jewelry is fab and she's not only been published many times in Bead magazines, but also in scrapbook mags with her amazing paper creations!
Speaking of paper creations, Just4Keeps just opened up an Etsy store - gorgeous goodies there too!
Did I ever tell you about Becky Rose Designs' felted soap? Oh my, I ordered one to give as a gift, it arrived yesterday and it is just divine - smells good and it is pretty. (and she just added more of them to her store!)

I'm getting sleepy, so I'm headed to bed, but before I go, I just need to do a little "journaling" for a future scrapbook page...
Today at lunch:
Me: How's your pizza?
A: Good. I'm eating like a man.
Me: Really, what does that mean?
A: I'm taking big bites (he chomps down on pizza to demonstrate!)

Award...

My bloggie friend Dawn gave me this:

How fun! Thanks Dawn :p

The Rules are : 1. The winner may put the logo on their blog. 2. Put a link to the person who sent you the award. 3. Nominate 5 blogs. 4. Put links to their blogs. 5. Leave a message for your nominees. So I would like to nominate : Jenny, Amy J., Amy, Erin and April.

I wish I had some fun pictures of all of the stuff I've been creating, but since they're for gifts, I'll have to wait to post until after Christmas!! You won't believe how much I've been sewing, it's addicting:)

I'm off to decorate for Christmas, I have a spiked eggnog, Christmas tunes and it's snowing, couldn't be more festive:)

Get you Nie Nie shirts...

Here!
They ran another batch, so if you want one like the one I'm wearing here, get it now before they sell out! (they run on the smaller size in my opinion, but that's because they're a really cute flattering cut!)

BASB Challenge...

I love a good challenge, so when a few wonderful scrappers were brought together by the beautifully talented Aleida Franklin and they started a scrapbook site, BASB, offering challenges, RAKs and great chat, I jumped in!

They are on their 2nd challenge and my friend Dawn gave the challenge to create your own kit from your scrap supplies.

This is my kit:

Pattern Paper: College Press, October Afternoon, Elsie; Flowers: Prima; Tags & vintage dictionary paper: Donna Salazar; chipboard: My Minds Eye; adhesive paper ribbon: K & Co; twine: Stampin Up!

Here's my layout made from the kit:

And a card from the leftovers (making me ON the ball since my nephew's b'day isn't until 12-10! Maybe it'll get there on time;) or be on "Jonnelle" time!):

Thanks for the great challenge BASB girlies and I nabbed a blinkie while I was there - it's great to keep Aleida's dream alive, she was such an inspiration!

Happiness in the mail...

Today was a good mail day!

First, I ordered some pendants from HomeStudio and they arrived. I cannot even tell you how much cuter they are irl than on their Etsy site (didn't think it was possible!). If you need a unique gift for someone, go there, they have something for everyone - I cannot wait to give them this Christmas, everyone is going to love them. Here's mine (I love owls, they remind me of my Grandma Chapin and I like to think that these owls represent Alex and me!):

btw - their customer service ROCKS - I emailed them quite a few times asking could they make this one but in a different color, could I change the necklaces in the gift set, could I order multiples of that one - they responded quickly and were willing to do whatever I wanted! So great when you come across a store like that, especially since I did all of my ordering in my jammies!

Next, my Nie shirt came. Love it, it's just so sweet - I can just see Nie and her sisters all wearing it, it's so fun, fresh, such a Clark sister shirt! If you haven't read about the Neilson's, you must go here. I cannot tell you how many prayers I've said for this family and how many tears I've shed while reading about them - they are just a blessing. This past week, my prayers for them have been prayers of thanks, God truly answered the prayers that have been said for them.

Oh shoot, I took the picture in the mirror - silly me, so the words are backwards anyhow, it says "for the Love of Nie".

Hope you have a great Friday and I hope to have some scrappy goodness to share with you soon - right now the sickies have zapped my energy, but I'm swiggin Theraflu in hopes that it goes away quickly and I get some energy to create!

A birthday wish and to help a crafty lady...

crowdSPRING, hire Kelly Purkey for your new Community Marketing Manager!

Really nothing going on around here, no layouts to post (busy making some Christmas presents that I cannot post here until after Christmas!).

A big HAPPY Birthday to my sweet neice Katy - she's two today and is the most aDORAble bug ever!!

20 Wishes...

I'm working on a new scrappy project, 20 Wishes Mini-album. This is for Trisha's Wednesday Challenge at Just4Keeps. We're counting down starting with 20, everyone's albums so far are just so creative, love them!

Here's my cover - you'll see that it's smaller than #20 and #19...hmmm....have to wait till the end to see it all put together to see what I came up with!!

I made my own transparency following April's Saturday Inspiration video, check it out, she's rockin the tutorials!

#20:

(that's my cool number stamp from Studio Calico, LOVE it!)

#19:

I'm trying to keep it simple, a picture or two, three buttons, scallop edges, ribbon border and focus on journaling.

*Just in case you didn't know, my brother was killed in a car accident at 17, so this is just a small piece of how I want to help Alex to come to know his Uncle!

Thanks for coming to peek!

Happenings around here...

I've been busy, starting to buy some Christmas gifts and am sewing/crafting some Christmas gifts. My theme with gifts this year is "made with love" with the subtitle, "trying to save money!". My subtitle isn't working too well as I have quite expensive taste in fabric;) I've bought a few things off of Etsy - very inspired by this lady who last year took an oath to only buy homemade for Christmas! I'm not completely going homemade, but very close for the ladies in my family:)

Alex finished swimming lessons, he passed Level 1!!

He passed backstroke:

He passed treading water:


And went off the diving board (if you look up in the top left in the stands, the man in the blue shirt is daddy cheering!):


To celebrate, daddy bought him his first 3-D movie (To the Middle of the Earth - or something like that - I watched a few minutes, it made me dizzy, but it was fun!).

Occupational and Speech Therapies are going very well - we've started doing therapeutic listening at home twice a day while exercising, doing a puzzle, eating, anything that doesn't include electronics! The therapists and his Sunday school teacher have both commented on a nice change they've seen so far - yay!

We went to Pump-It-Up one day - Alex had a blast, but I couldn't get a good picture of him on anything except in the red car that he is definitely too big for now!

I am 2 cards away from being caught up on my Deck of Me (it will be the first time in my scrapping career that I can actually say I was caught up on something!):

Kathy's Sunday Challenge at Just 4Keeps was to scrap a picture without people, I chose some shots that I took of my delights from the Farmer's Market here in Lakeville, of course using a random mix of papers from various Studio Calico kits:

We're off to check out a new bowling ally/arcade/laser tag/restaurant super play place that just opened here in Lakeville, man is their timing good, just in time for winter - a great place to hang out inside, they're smart:)

Hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Apples

I just realized that I never posted my creations from the apples that Alex and I picked.

First I went to Kraft.com because they have such good yet easy recipes - love it, if you haven't signed up for it, do it, it's free, they send you a magazine four times a year and weekly emails filled to the brim with ideas!

I made the Apple-Walnut Chicken Bake - so simple and delicious, reminded me of Thanksgiving.

Next up was Apple Cream Crumble Tart - cream cheese with apples and strueselly topping, how can you go wrong?! I didn't have a tart pan, so I used my springform pan (the one that usually used for cheesecakes) and I didn't roll out my pie crust because I used the Pillsbury one that's already rolled in a circle - love it!! It was yuuuhhuum.

The last thing that I made was Ms. Windle's Fresh Apple Pound Cake. Here's a picture of it:


See that little spot on the bottom right that's missing? I nabbed it as soon as it came out of the oven, it's a tradition for me to do that with Ms. Windle's pound cakes!!
Sorry, no recipe for this one:(
You can thank my sister (Jen) for that - when I told her that Julie (Ms. Windle's youngest daughter) had sent me a recipe for an apple pound cake that "might be as good as Ms. Windle's original pound cake" (Julie's words, not mine, it was delish, but the original is still the bomb!), Jen asked me to send her the recipe and I said, "I'll put it on my blog if it's okay with Ms. Windle."
Boy howdy, you should heard the high pitch her voice took! She said, "NO way. Ms. Windle's recipes are family secrets, you cannot put them out there for all of the world. Our family needs some secret recipes and they are Ms. Windle's pound cakes!"
So, even though Ms. Windle isn't technically related to us (her daughter Paula, aka Pokie, is my oldest friend from back in our teen days and her family is my second family in Tally!), she has kindly shared her recipes with us and made them for us over the years (knowing that I was going to pick at the crunchy top before it got sliced and served!), so they'll remain our family secret! I owe it to my sis for all of the times that I was such a brat to her growing up (even though she has repaid me with being blond, skinny and gorgeous even at 40!), Ms. Windle's original pound cake was the first cake that my sister ever made (at the age of 30 which resulting in setting of the smoke alarms, but that's a whole other post!), so my sis has kindof the say on all pound cakes that are Ms. Windle's!

Well, thanks for hanging in there for this super-long post:) I know, such a teaser post with a picture of a delicious cake and no recipe to go along with it, man I stink! Would it help if I told you that there was shredded coconut in the apple pound cake as well. That only makes it worse, doesn't it? Sorry;)

Hope you're Thursday is terrific!

Happy Veteran's Day...

such a wonderful holiday, honoring those who have served our country!

It's a cold sleeting day here filled with lots of laundry and paperwork/phone calls, but the bright spot is that I created a layout and some of my Deck of Me cards! Here they are...

Jaime's Tuesday Challenge at Just4Keeps was to lift her pieced layout, so I grabbed my Studio Calico kits (plus a random sheet of brown flowered paper) and came up with this:

(another layout for Haley's album - woo hoo!)

Deck of Me #31 - they don't make them like they used to:

Deck of Me #37 - Vacation:

Deck of Me #39 - fur friend:

Deck of Me #43 - what scares you? What are you afraid of? What "boo" sends shivers down your spine?:

Deck of Me #44 - your Mom:

Deck of Me #45 - "I am a...":

Thanks for popping by to take a peak!

Baby it's cold outside...

Alex wanted to wave good morning to you from his front porch:


Yep, we woke up to SNOW!

Guess leaving my mum out in the rain to get some fresh water backfired on me:



We're off to Occupational Therapy, Pump-it-Up for a playdate then shopping for Alex a winter coat (yes, I know, shouldn't have waited - aauugh, I've been in complete denial that I live in MN!).

Happy Friday friends:)

Fall fun and layouts...

It's raining, it's pouring...well, not pouring but it's just drizzly, gloomy outside. It's making me especially grateful that we got to play outside with our neighbor and have some fun in the crisp leaves:

I helped the boys make a pile of leaves so they could jump in (and I could take pictures for some super cute layouts!) - they worked hard, but it was so worth it:

Their favorite part was throwing leaves at each other, such boys!

I have been taking advantage of the gloominess by retreating to my room to create!

I used my September and October kits from Studio Calico to make this one for a challenge at Just4Keeps - Jennifer's Monday Challenge to use die cuts. I have had that pencil die for a couple of years, so glad to use it:


Used my October Studio Calico kit for another one of Jennifer's Monday Challenges over at Just4Keeps - make a "thank you" layout. This one is for Haley's album, which is coming together slooooooooooooowwwly:

I've had Cathy Blackstone's layout from Scrapbooks Etc. sitting on my desk for ages, just waiting for me to lift her cute hand-cut/sewn pumpkin, so when Kathy's Sunday challenge was to hand-cut a major embellishment on your page, I went in search for a picture just so I could make that pumpkin!

Thanks for popping in!

Tagged...

I've been tagged (by my wonderful friend Kristi) to do the following:

1) Choose the 4th picture folder on my computer


2) Choose the 4th picture


3) Explain the picture


4) Tag 4 other people





Here's my picture:

This is Alex, the morning of his 5th birthday, opening an Easter present that Andy's parent's included with his birthday gift.

I choose to tag: Dawn, Krista, Jenny and Jess!

Congratulations...

To our wonderful friends, the Browns on Corey being elected as a state Senator for South Dakota!

We miss you very much and are so excited for this new chapter of your lives!

Scrappin and Skatin...

We are keeping busy here in our little world, here are a few things we've been doing...

I entered an ATC (Artist Trading Card) swap at Studio Calico (thanks Jenn for organizing it!). Here are mine that I sent:

The back of both look just like this:

Had a couple of birthday cards to send out, here's one (the other looks almost just like it, I would have made a 3rd one just to have on hand, but ran out of that striped paper - I told you, I mass produce cards!):

On Saturdays, we can be found at the local indoor ice rink.

Here's my cute lil skater:

And there he goes:

We have one last swimming lesson and I would have pictures to share if my battery had not died, but I'll take pictures on Wednesday. Alex is an awesome swimmer and the instructor gave him flippers, so he shoots across the pool with them on in no time flat! He says when he puts the flippers on he turns into a "swimming robot".

Hope your Tuesday is terrific!!