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can't believe it's over ...

I say it every year, and I'll say it again.  Christmas comes and goes way too fast.  I wish Christmas can be a few days long.  Spending time with family is so special, and it is always special around the holidays.  I wish I could have been with all of my family, but distance keeps a lot of us apart.  Everyone was in my thoughts and heart and I celebrated with them, even though they were not near.

It was an Angry Birds / Wimpy Kids kind of Christmas for us.  Nicholas is into the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and very much into playing the Angry Birds game (actually I love the game too), so a lot of his gifts were related to those two things.  He also received a DSi XL from Grandma and Pop-Pop and an iPod Touch from Nanny and Poppy (lucky kid).

Rebecca received a kitchen (she LOVES it), a doll house, a baby carriage, and several other things.  Oh, she also received a Zsu Zsu pet which she thinks is so "cute."

We had friends over on Christmas Eve, spent Christmas morning at mom and dad's, and then we came home and I made the four of us Christmas dinner.  It was quiet, but very enjoyable.  I just loved being home in the early afternoon and then relaxing the rest of the day, just the four of us.

How were your holidays?  What are some of the traditions you do every year at Christmas time?

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the days leading up to and on Christmas Day.

Thanks for stopping by!

something in gold ...

The color last week at Project 64: Out of the Box was gold.

There were several items I could have captured in the house, but I went with the frame of one of our pictures hanging in the dining room.

For other entries go here.

 
As always, thanks for stopping by!

they found some insects ...

Last weekend, we spent quite a bit of time outside since the weather was just gorgeous.  Now we are supposed to get snow tomorrow in NJ ... what is up with that?

Anyway, the kids had fun playing on the swing-set and then walking around the yard.  Nicholas,my little explorer, came across two "treasures" (at least to him).

They found a wholly catepiller and some kind of slug (or maybe it isn't a slug).

(can you see the black insect to the right)

And here are the kids observing their finds.

I love that my kids have such an incredible bond ... Hope it lasts for a very long time.

Thanks for stopping by ... enjoy your weekend!

we are still without power ...

Yes, you read it right ... we have been without FULL power since the wee hours on Sunday morning.  I'm thankful that we have a generator, but not having hot water for 5 whole days now is KILLING me (and everyone else in the house). 

I have been taking ice-cold showers the past few mornings.  Yes, the cold water sure wakes me up, but that really is the only positive thing to say about it.  Rob hooked the router up to the generator today, so that is why I am able to type this post.

The power company is saying at BEST we should have our power back by tomorrow evening.  It better be sooner than later!

I want to thank all my friends and family for offering assistance of using their generator, offering their houses for us to take hot showers/bathes for the kids, etc.  It really is appreciated.

I managed to squeeze in time to take a picture for the color last week over at Project 64: Out of the Box.  The color last week was blue.

 
And my photo ...

 
Sad to know that summer is coming to an end soon and we will be closing the pool.  There was a lot of swimming done by my little fish Nicholas this summer.  He has gotten braver in the pool by going underwater and jumping in more ... so proud of him.

For more Project 64: Out of the Box photos, go here.

 

Hope to be back before another seven days go by.

Thanks for stopping by ... enjoy your evening!

last four layouts ...

I hope everyone had a great weekend.  We spent the weekend hanging out at home getting some things done.  I actually love to be home the entire weekend most of the time. 

We got some rainy weather, so I did some purging of one of the closets upstairs, washed the floors, dusted, did loads of laundry, and got in some scrapbooking time.

Below are my LOAD layouts from Thursday-Sunday.  I ran out of my regular adhesive on Saturday, so I have been using glue dots to stick everything down on my pages.  Yes, it does keep things down on my pages better, but it is very time consuming.  I need to get out to the store today to pick up some adhesive before I do today's layout. 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy your day everyone!

h is for happy place ...

What a perfect opportunity to tell you a little bit about my happy place, by using "H" for the A to Z challenge.

If you didn't know, my happy place is my scrapbook corner in my basement.  I would LOVE to have my own room one day, but my corner suits me for now, even though it can be a bit chilly down there at times.

Some of the things I love in my space are:

My ribbon jars ...

 
Some of my magazines (yes, even dating back to 2004). I definitely need to purge.

 
My idea books (especially the sketch books) ...

 
Some of my Cricut cartridges ...

 
Plus all my paper (cardstock and patterned paper), my hundreds of embellishments, my tools, and of course my photos.

Let's just say whenever I have free time (which is not very often), my "happy" little corner is where you can usually find me.

Thanks for stopping by ... enjoy your evening!

a little glimpse ...

Rebecca's room is FINALLY painted ... she is only 14-month's old now.  Now I just need to go out and get her a rug for in front of her crib and curtains for the windows.  I can't wait to get her back into her room.  We moved her crib into the spare room this week, and I think she feels misplaced in there.

Here is a glimpse of the color of her room.

 
Can you see the paint splattered on the can?  I will show you her room when everything is back in its place and there are curtains on her windows.

Tomorrow is a BIG day for me.  My dear friend (who married my cousin ... thanks to me), my cousin, and their twins are coming for a visit.  I haven't seen them in almost eight years.  They were living in Florida, but now currently live in NC.  They came up to visit family in Connecticut this week, and they are going to cruise through NJ to see us.  I CAN'T WAIT.

Thanks it for today folks.  Enjoy your evening!

so much snow ...

We are getting hammered already this year with snow, and the scary thing is that it is only January.  Yesterday and last night, we were left with about 24 inches of snow (and there was some freezing rain mixed in there too). 

Living in NJ, you would think that I would be used to snow, and don't get me wrong, I do love to see it on the trees after the storm, but as soon as it's done snowing and I can look at it from my window for about a day, I want it all to go away. 

With that said, I thought today's picture for my One Little Word - Captured assignment would be a picture of the snow we've been battling for weeks now.  A good lesson for me ... have patience with the weather.  I just have to realize that I'm safe inside, and there is nothing I can do with what Mother Nature brings us.

 
For more One Little Word - Captured photos, go here.

Enjoy your day everyone!

in the evening ...

The theme for 52 Photos - 52 Weeks last week was to take an "evening" picture.  This could have been a picture of anything you do during the evening hours ... eating, homework, giving the kids bathes, watching TV, etc. 

I decided to take a picture of the swing set in our backyard during one of the nights this past week.  It shows you that we still have snow on the ground (and are expecting more snow tonight).  It makes be sad to not be able to enjoy the swingset year round ... but it gives us something to look forward to in the spring.

 
When I find the time, I want to play around with this photo in PhotoShop.  I think I can definitely bring out more of the colors and not have it look so dark (even though it was shot at night).

Hopping over to the site to see what the challenge is for this week ... You can go to the site too to see more photos from each of the challenges.

Enjoy the rest of the day!

what a mess ...

I have come to realize that having a baby in the house is going to lead to a daily mess in our living room.  We don't have a designated play room in the house.  We have the basement which has tiled carpeting on one side, but it's not a finished basement and the temperature down there most of the time is 65 degrees.

So, with that said, my photo for my One Little Word - Captured this week, is a photo of Becca sitting amongst just of few of her toys in the living room.  I need to have patience in dealing with this mess everyday.

 
You can see more entries here.

So, who will be watching American Idol tonight (the auditions)?  I'm hoping to catch some (if not all) of the show since the auditions on tonight's show were held in NJ.  Should be entertaining.

Have a great day everyone!

it's definitely fall ...

The weather has been getting cooler by us.  I LOVE this time of year.  I don't mind the chill in the air, I just need to dig out my sweaters.  The colors are really "popping," and Rob was able to capture this yesterday.

 
 
 
 
This barn belongs to the people that live across the street from us.  They completely renovated it about a year ago.  Isn't it beautiful!  And Traci ... this would be such a great photo op site.

 And my layout for LOAD Day 13 ...

 

Enjoy the day!

a little pool time ...

I've only ventured into our pool a few times so far this summer.  Nicholas and Rob are in the pool almost everyday, and they stay in for what it seems like hours. 

Here are some photos of their pool fun the other day. 

      We will most likely be spending time in the pool this long weekend.  The weather is supposed to be in the 90's and humid.  Maybe we can even get Becca in the pool ... she's gotta break in the cute little swimsuit that I bought her.

I hope everyone has a fun-filled 4th of July.  Be safe!

a puzzle and a picture...

For all my puzzle loving friends ... the puzzle on my calendar from a few days back was fun to do, so I thought I'd share it with you in case you want to play along.

Rules:  Create a word chain starting with FOOTBALL in which the next word in the chain has a strong association with the word that precedes it.  For example, FOOTBALL leads to TOUCHDOWN which leads to LANDING which leads to ... The chain will come full circle back to FOOTBALL.

The Words:  Airplane - Beach - Bird - Butter - Cereal - Field - Flamingo - Florida - Football - Landing - Milk - Movie - Popcorn - Rain - The Wizard of Oz - Tornado - Touchdown - Umbrella - Wheat - Wind

If you play along, let me know how you do ... especially you Christine!

And today, I'll share with you a picture that I took of one of the flowers that bloomed from the seeds that Rob planted a few weeks ago.  I'm not sure if it is a Gerber Daisy, but whatever it is, it's so pretty, and now there are more popping up.

  Enjoy your evening everyone!

a favorite thing to do ...

One of my favorite things to do is visit Barnes & Noble or Borders, browse through the latest books or books that catch my eye (just by the cover), read through the cover of the book, and decide if it's a book that I would want to read in the future.  I would then grab my little notebook that is stashed in my purse and write down the titles of the books that I want to add to my GoodReads list.  I love GoodReads ... it helps me keep track of what books I have read and what books I want to read.  It's also a great site to see what others are reading and to get reviews of books.

The pictures from the below layout were taken in 2008 when the boys decided to camp outside in the backyard one evening ... this is also my LOAD #5 layout.  The journaling came straight from my blog post ... so glad that I blogged about it, because I forgot some of the details from the evening (like putting together a scavenger hunt for Nicholas and Thomas).

 
Enjoy the rest of your day everyone!

cool photo captured ...

Nicholas had his Spring party/egg hunt at school this morning.  They had fun making their project, which was a duck flower pot.  Then all the moms set up eggs in the cafeteria for the kids to find (even though none of them were hidden).  They had cupcakes and fruit for their snacks, and then they got to color a picture.  It seemed like everyone had a good time (except for Nicholas in the end).  Nicholas was upset because he picked out eggs during the egg hunt that had all the same things in them ... oh well, he'll get over it.

I'm so excited for the weather forecast for the next few days ... it is supposed to be in the seventies through the weekend.  Yeah ... time to get outside (hope the sun hardens the ground so it's not so muddy).

Today I'll leave you with a picture Rob took a few weeks ago.  I never would have thought of taking a picture like this, so I applaud him.

 

Enjoy the rest of your day everyone!