Christmas Lights

After we left Brock and Erin's on Christmas Eve we drove just down the road to Pleasant Grove Farm to see the Christmas lights they had displayed and set to music. It was wonderful! I love the shots of the lights reflecting off the lake!

Teachers' Gifts

For the boys' teachers I made altered some clipboards and some pails for them. The clipboards are spray painted with black chalkboard paint, letters cut from "Plantin Schoolbook" Cricut cartridge, and cardinals were cut by a friend using the "50 States" Cricut cartridge. The lettering and cardinal on the pails were done the same way. Before giving the gifts to the teachers, I will fill the pails with candy, pencils, pens, erasers, maybe a small hand lotion, small hand sanitizer, and a few other items teachers use regularly.

Tri Kappa Christmas Social Favors and Door Prizes

As favors for every guests at the Tri Kappa Christmas Social, I made these adorable photo holders using 2" binder clips and my scrapbooking supplies. The frames were door prizes for our games. They were made using the $1 wooden frames from Michael's and covered with scrapbooking paper, then embellished using different supplies I had on hand and my Cricut.

Tri Kappa "Make, Bake, or Grow" Auction Items

Just a few things I made last week for my Tri Kappa chapter's "Make, Bake, or Grow" auction for our inner-chapter fundraiser.
1. "Noel" banner
2. "Thanks" banner
3. Paper Tree

Darian's 1st School Dance

Saturday night Darian got all dressed up to attend his first school dance. It was hosted by "Joyful Noise" -the elementary choir- as a fundraiser for their spring trip. The dance was for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders in the high school cafeteria. I'm not sure if Darian would have gone or not if one of his classmates, Maddie, hadn't asked him to go. He said he did get to dance with her another gal, Summer, for about 3 seconds each before their friends dragged them away. Darian did say he had a good time though.

After the dance, we picked Darian's friend, Adam, up too to take him home, except he didn't stay home long. Adam was home long enough to get a bag packed and jump back in our van to spend the night with Darian. I think that made the night just about perfect for both boys!

Since Darian was all dressed up, I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of my baby, although he's not much of a baby anymore.

Red Ribbon Week Balloon Launch

Darian is one of the fourth grade members of the Bloomfield Elementary Student Council. The Student Council sponsors "Red Ribbon Week" each year and has a balloon launch at the end of the week. Due to an unfavorable weather forecast for tomorrow (Friday) the balloon launch was moved up to today. This meant that student council members and their parents that could help had to be at school to air up balloons starting at 6:00 this morning. I was very surprised how easy it was to get Darian out of bed! I went in to wake him up and he practically jumped out of bed he was so excited! He's enjoying his time on Student Council and I hope he gets to serve again.

1st Day of School

FREEDOM!!!!! Oh, I mean, its the first day of school. The boys got off on the bus okay this morning and I'm sure I'll find out this afternoon whether they found their classrooms okay or not. I'm also sure that they will tell me all about what their friends did over the summer and many other things, plus bring me home a stack of paper work to fill out. Why is it that Mom gets a ton of homework on the first day of school? Haven't I already done my fair share of homework during my lifetime? LOL!

Later today I will get to pick my boys up and take them to Dairy Queen for ice cream. This has become our little tradition, plus I need to make it up to them for 'torturing' them yesterday with a dentist appointment and an eye doctor appointment. Oh the cruel and unusual punishments that moms come up with!

Fore!!!!!

I have found something else my boys got from their father....how to cheat! Michel 'cheats' at "Monopoly" (all of the sudden when he starts to lose, he teams up with someone) and the boys cheat at putt-putt. They have decided that you can take as many practice strokes as necessary until you get a hole in one or you can get a score that is on par. By the end of the 18 holes, I started using their philosophy too. Why not, it worked for them?! I still didn't win though, but neither did Dillon. Darian took that honor - although if we counted all of his practice strokes, Dillon would've come closer to winning. LOL!

Sunset

A couple of gorgeous sunsets from a wonderful vantage point- my porch! Actually, standing on my porch in front of my kitchen window. Can't beat that.

Kings Island

We left bright and early last Thursday morning (July 16) for a couple days of fun at Kings Island with some of our friends. We didn't tell the boys we were going, we just told them that we were going to get up early and go out to breakfast before Dad had to go to work. Since it was early we told them they could take their pillows and maybe a blanket in case they get cold in the car or they get tired and want to sleep. I also made sure that they had their Nintendo DS's and chargers. When we got to the east side of Bloomington, Dillon asked why we couldn't eat breakfast at the Burger King by the credit union. We told him we wanted to eat at one on the east side. He was satified with that answer and we kept going. We finally stopped to eat at Columbus and the boys noticed we weren't in Bloomington anymore but they still didn't suspect much of anything. About 10:00 Dillon asked about Dad being late for work. Michel's reply was "I've got plenty of time." Finally when we got to the Ohio state line and they saw the "Welcome to Ohio" sign the boys decided to put their DS's down and pay attention because something was going on. They did not realize where exactly we were going until we within a couple of miles and you could start to see the rollercoaters and the Eiffel Tower peek up through the tree line.

We arrived at the park on Thursday just before 11:00 and stayed until the fireworks were over that night. We went down the road to stay at a hotel and were back at the park about 10:00 on Friday morning. We stayed until about 4:00 on Friday before heading to IKEA and Microcenter on the way home.

We got the boys to ride several rollercoasters during the two days. Dillon would say he didn't want to ride something but we would make him ride it anyways and then when he got off he would say he loved it. There were a few that Dillon was too short for, so he got to sit out and I got to sit out with him. Darian braved "The Beast," "Flight of Fear," and "The Crypt" with Michel while I sat out with Dillon which was probably good as I was getting a bad headache that wanted to progress to migraine status. I was also very content to sit and watch and take pictures. Maybe that's why I took over 100 pictures in two days? LOL!

The highlight of the trip for the boys was probably getting to play one of the games and winning. (Winning is really easy when its a minimum of two players and Dillon is playing against me, while Darian played against Dad.) The prizes were stuffed Pokemon. Dillon won a Turtwig and Darian won a Pichu.

Pictures = 1. Darian & Dillon before we entered the park. 2. Dillon and Turtwig 3. Vortex in its loop ( Our friend James is in the middle part of the train in the red shirt.) 4. Darian and Pichu 5. Michel, Darian, & Dillon in front of the fountains and Eifel Tower. 6. "Delirium" with Michel and our friends the Byrds riding. 7. Michel, Tonya and Marcus buckled in on the "Drop Tower." 8. "Drop Tower" at the top before it dropped. 9. "Diamondback" at the beginning. 10. "Diamondback at the end. 11. Michel & Darian

A Feathered Friend

As we were working on the front porch of the house this weekend, we had several guest stop by to grab a drink from the feeder. One of them was nice enough to pose for me. LOL!

Weekend at Brown County State Park

Last Friday we went with my Mom's college group to spend the weekend at the Abe Martin Lodge in Brown County State Park, near Nashville, IN. Although my guys whined about taking the 2 mile trail on Friday night and shopping in Nashville on Saturday afternoon, we all had a great time!

We especially loved the "Aquatic Center" at the inn. The boys were scared to go on the water slide for about the first hour we were there (Darian did try it once when we first got there but his head went under the water at the bottom of the slide and it took him awhile to work up the courage to go down the slide again.) but we finally convinced them to really give it a try. Michel had to take Dillon down with him the first half dozen times or so before Dillon would go by himself. We talked Darian into trying it again after we told him to put a life vest on. When he got confident enough that he could prevent himself from going under the water, he returned the vest and just went. We spent two hours at the Aquatic Center on Saturday morning, then returned after supper for about another 1.5 hours. We were definitely worn out and slept really well that night!

Aaaahhhhhhhh....Cute and Cuddly....until they grow up!

The neighbor's cat decided to come over to Nanny Ruth's last weekend while we were holding a yard sale and brought with her something for the sale....five kittens. The boys fell in love with them, watching to make sure they didn't get stepped on or ran under a car. We did manage to give away a couple of the kittens (which caused both of my boys to shed some tears), but there are still three available if anyone is interested. *hint, hint* The one little kitten that we really fell in love with, just because of her neat feature is "Lovely" (that's what I named her, "Love" for short). Look at the picture of Lovely that I have posted and see why she is deserving of her name. Nothing like wear wearing your heart on your um, side. LOL!

Swap sets

Here are some swap sets I finished up this morning and stuck in the mail this afternoon. They are for a summer-themed swap on ScrapShare.

Las Vegas Album - Part 3

This post has the layouts of Caesar's Palace and one of Monte Carlo. We stayed at Caesar's in 2007, our second trip out to Vegas. We only got to stay there a couple of nights before we had to move down the strip to the Riviera because Michel's conference moved. Staying at the Riviera after Caesar's was like going to "Holiday Inn" after staying at the "Ritz-Carlton" or something. But then the whirlpool tub at Caesar's had me drooling, so nothing was going to be able to top that. It even made our room at "The Mirage" a couple of years before look like a second-class hotel room. LOL!

Pages are: "Caesars Palace", "Fountains", around the interior of the resort and our room, "Caesars Palace at Night", and "Monte Carlo."