A Birthday Wish For Taylor And A Golf Tournament

Happy Birthday dear Taylor, Happy Birthday dear Taylor, Happy Birthday dear Taylorrrrrrrrrr, Happy Birthday to YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!
We have another birthday girl at our house this month! Taylor is celebrating her 15th birthday today. {Sigh, where has the time gone?} Taylor requested that I not make her a scrapbook (like I did for her sister's birthday). Nope, instead she asked for cold hard $$$$$...hey, that's easy enough and everybody's happy!!! Her only other request was for a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. That's it...she's easy to please. Believe it or not, Taylor is actually going over to her friend's house today (whose name is also Taylor...isn't that funny?!) to celebrate the other Taylor's birthday (it was a few weeks ago). So our family celebration will happen tomorrow.
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Do you remember this??? You know, when my brother-in-law won the World Series of Golf tournament?
http://www.worldseriesofgolf.com/articles.aspx?id=191

Today & tomorrow are the days when it will be broadcast on CBS Sports. It's gonna be on right before the Buick Open tournament that's being played in my hometown of Grand Blanc, Michigan.

So be sure to tune in to catch a glimpse of our famous relative! We're proud of our Andy boy!

Spray Paint Tips?

Got a few questions about spray painting furniture. It seems like I've never had much success when I spray paint. I try to put on light coats but they always seem to be too heavy. Then the end result looks streaky. The project I have in mind right now is to redo my outdoor table & chairs for the deck. I bought a new umbrella for this season and I'm planning to make slipcovers for the cushions. I can envision everything all pulled together...the table & chairs all done in a new color, the table set, flowers in pots, a new gazebo (ah, I'm dreaming about that!)...but first I've gotta get that furniture redone! So, bring on the tips, okay? Any and all will be much appreciated...oh, and thanks in advance :-)

Gearin' Up For Some Fun!

I have to tell you something....I LOVE playing air hockey! Not that I play all the time or I'm exactly good at it, mind you, but I think it's such a blast! My brother was getting rid of this air hockey table at my dad's garage sale. Guess nobody wanted to buy it so he offered it to me...yay! And it was FREE...how cool is that?! Taylor & I picked it up from my dad's last night.

We have a finished basement and my plan is to create a fun hang out space for the kids. (That's where the air hockey table is going.) The color scheme is black/white/tan and I'm planning to decorate with various "Far Side" stuff. Part of the basement is also Tyler's bedroom (he's recovering quite well, by the way) as well as my craft/sewing/scrapbooking area. I'll have to share photos of the finished area when I'm done.

Thanks for birthday wishes for Tess - she says THANK YOU!!! Thanks also for the kind words about the scrapbook :-)

Tess the Mess Celebrates The Big "1-2"

Beautiful flowers, beautiful girl! Tess is growing up to be a lovely young lady.
I LOVE this picture of Tess. So cute, huh?!

Everything was waiting for the birthday girl that morning. Taylor couldn't stand it (the suspense of the gift was killing her) so she woke Tess up!

I enjoy making and giving handmade cards. There's just something so special about that, I think.
I cut out the back pocket of an old pair of jeans that once belonged to Taylor & Tess (they share clothes now, ya know!), then just added a flower sticker for the cover.
"T" is for Tess!
"The Many Faces of Tess"...

"You & Me"...
"Life Is Good!"...
"Unforgettable Times"...
"Laughter" and "Fun Fun Fun"...
"Dream Big" and "Use Your Imagination"...
Tess said these two were her favorite pages out of the whole book. The pages say "Look at us" and "Hangin' out".
See that "12" right under the girl's feet on the right hand page of the book? Well, I intentionally did that so we'd remember what birthday year this was! ('Cause I've had those years when the only thing that saved me was counting how many candles were on the cake in the picture! Have you ever done that?!) ha ha ha I obviously didn't show each and every page of the scrapbook but you get the general idea of how it turned out.

Tess enjoyed a fun birthday celebration. The girls & I met Bobby for lunch (Tyler was out of town), then it was off to the mall for Tess to spend some of her birthday cash! She's quite a savvy shopper, I have to tell ya. For $20 she was able to get TWO dresses, TWO necklaces and a handbag...WOW! (She's definitely her mother's daughter shopping on those sales racks! ha ha) Last night Tess invited one of her good friends to go see a movie and stay overnight.

Thanks for looking! Hope everyone enjoys a wonderful weekend :)

My Baby Isn't So Little Anymore

My "baby" will be another year older tomorrow! Tess the Mess, as she is affectionately known around our house, will be celebrating her 12th birthday.

I'll share pictures of Tessie's big day in the next few days. In the meantime, I gotta scoot so I can go work on a special birthday gift {shhhh, it's a surprise!} and take care of a few other things. Stay tuned!

Morning Glories

Got a question. Can anyone offer some good advice on planting morning glories to climb up an arbor? Already have an arbor in my side yard and today I'm getting some morning glory plants from a gal who thinned hers out. So please feel free to offer any tips! I was also given some canna bulbs but I'm not sure really where to plant them (I know they've gotta be in sun). Bring on the advice...I'm listening! Oh, and I live in Michigan but don't know what zone that is right off the top of my head :) Thanks in advance!

A Surprise From My Husband!

Last week I got a HUGE surprise from my husband...and it would be the car you see in the picture! (It's a 2009 Pontiac Vibe.) WOW, I was pretty shocked and pleased - to say the least :)

Now, I'm not some kind of spokesperson for Pontiac or anything, but as I've previously mentioned - my husband is a sales manager at a dealership so I do know quite a bit about the new cars they sell. I have to tell ya...that Vibe gets GREAT gas mileage and it's not really as small inside as what it might appear. It rides quite smoothly. Another Pontiac that's good on gas is a G-6. With the price of gas being so high & all right now, just thought I'd pass that along :)

Anyhow, I'm so thankful for the awesome blessing!

Thinking of Mom

Today is a sad day for me. It marks 16 years since my mom passed away. I miss her so much...

Graduation Scrapbooks (Made By Me!)

Just thought I'd share a few photos of some of the scrapbook pages. I've mentioned my uh, "issue" with procrastination...LOL Can we say POWER SCRAPBOOKING?! ha ha ha Yep, I put 40 some pages together within a span of 2 days. I don't know WHY I do that to myself (put stuff off until the last possible moment)! I've actually got one more book to finish but that open house isn't until 6/21 so I'll be fine :) (No, I'm NOT gonna leave it until the day before! Nope, I'm gonna work on it THIS WEEK and have it all wrapped up, ready to go!!!)

Gift Giving

OK, I've got a question for all of you...

With the rising prices of what seems to be EVERYTHING these days, has your gift giving changed as a result? What do you prefer to give as a gift...money or something a little more personal?

I've always been the kind of person who enjoys giving a handmade gift I've especially made for that person or at least something I've gone to the store and picked out. I enjoy the whole process, especially the presentation of the gift with creative wrapping, etc.

This year we were invited to 8 graduation open houses. Now, I'm not sure about you, but I don't have an extra $160 just laying around to give as gifts - all within the span of a couple of weeks.

So this is what I opted to do. I found these keepsake boxes for $10 so I bought 4 of them to give as gifts. There's also a photo album, 2 picture frames and a small gift book inside the box - in addition to the storage space for cards. The outside of the box is a royal blue suede.

The other 4 graduates received ready-made scrapbooks I put together. The scrapbooks were 20 pages each that started at birth and went all the way through high school graduation. All they have to do is insert their pictures. The mom of one of the girls who received a scrapbook made a comment to me that she & her daughter had been talking about having someone make a scrapbook for her...they said they were gonna ask me to do one!

I would love to hear about your gift giving so please leave a comment and tell me all about it!

The I-75 Parking Lot

Let's just say it took QUITE a bit longer than expected to get to our destination today, as I'm sure you can tell just by looking at this picture! Yep, the interstate turned into a parking lot. We sat there for almost an hour - sometimes at a complete standstill and other times inching along. All told, what normally is about a 45 minute trip took us an hour & a half...grrr! Oh well, sometimes stuff like that happens :)

I Don't Think I'd Survive If I Lived Out In The Country...Seriously!

Look at that...yuk! Do you see that little snake? I'm SUCH a baby when it comes to things like that...snakes, mice, etc. ! I think I'd really, really, really have a hard time living out in the country somewhere! LOL

I happened upon this dumb snake when I was out cleaning the yard a couple days ago. I saw it and I was like, 'Ya know what? Those leaves can just stay right there for now!' - ooh, I don't like snakes...they scare me! What's kinda funny is I never, ever saw one when we lived in NC (except at the Asheboro Zoo! ha ha) and I heard all kinds of stuff about the size of the snakes there.

We live in a neighborhood and our yard needed to be mowed sooooooo badly but obviously I've had several other things going on right now (Tyler's accident; then taking care of him). But I finally got out there and worked a full day mowing, pulling weeds, putting down mulch, hanging my flower baskets, etc. etc.

So it's finally Friday and the weekend's here...woo hoo! What's everyone up to this weekend? I'd love to hear! We've got graduation parties both tomorrow & Sunday. They're both an hour away so we'll be on the road. What's the price of gas by you? Ours is about $3.92/gallon - give or take a penny or two, depending on which station ya go to.

Whatever you end up doing, enjoy yourself! Have an awesome weekend!

The Crazy Candy Bouquet Lady

Ooooh, I'm afraid if I don't stop making these candy bouquets, that's what I'm gonna become known as....THE CRAZY CANDY BOUQUET LADY....ha ha ha ha ha I'm just kidding!

Seriously, though, someone saw the one I'd made for Mary (look a few posts back) and asked my husband if I already had any made up. I didn't, but he checked with me, then told this person I'd be happy to make one....so I got my first real order! (Finished project pictured above.) What's so hilarious is I didn't set out to start selling these things!

I also included that adorable little "M & M" tag with the bouquet. It's just scrapbook paper applied to a plain old white tag. I added a "For You" label I'd made with my handy dandy label maker. (I LOVE my little label maker!)

The first picture shows a candy bouquet given as a "Sweet 16" gift for one of my daughter Taylor's friends. Taylor said her friend LOVED it, as well as other people at the party. I was really glad to hear that :) I later found out the birthday girl's grandma wants to order one!

It's Graduation Party Season

Yep, it's that time of year again...graduations. Some years we've known a lot of graduates (like this year) and other years we've only known of 1 or 2. What has your experience been? So far we've been invited to 8 graduation parties. Only a couple overlap each other so we'll be able to attend almost all of them.

I've been making a lot of cards lately. Some graduation ones (as shown above), as well as thank you ones for the kindness so many people showed to us after Ty's accident.

Oh, don't ya just LOVE the latest picture of our kids?! LOL Tyler was telling me not to take the picture, Taylor was fine with it and Tess? Well, as you can plainly see by her expression, she was rather less than enthused! (By the way, Tess really does have another eye and doesn't always curl her lip like that! HA HA HA HA) We were at a graduation party and not one of our kids wanted to be there...it was for the daughter of one of Bobby's cousins. The kids didn't know her and were not real happy when we told them we were going to the party as a family :) Gotta love that adolescent attitude! LOL

A Creative Thank-You

I finally got my little project done to say "THANK YOU" to the hospital staff who took care of Tyler after his accident. I made a trip to the hospital yesterday afternoon to deliver it. They all loved it and expressed how much they'd enjoyed taking care of him!

I made the card reflective of Tyler's personality. Notice the music theme?! I included a note inside updating them on Tyler's recovery. See that tag? It was attached to the arrangement and had our names on the back of it.

That vase was something I'd picked up at Goodwill a couple years ago. The ribbon for the flowers came from a large bag of assorted ribbon from the dollar store. The candy was also rather inexpensive. Overall, it's a pretty cheap, creative way to thank someone :)

I'm Back And I've Been Tagged!

Things have been busy, busy, busy lately so I really haven't been around Blogland too much! I've been tagged by Kathi @ Feathering My Nest blog to show my teacup collection. Well, I don't exactly have a collection - that I drink tea out of anyway. I used to have a teacup theme decor in my dining room when we lived in another house. But all that stuff is packed away; otherwise I'd show ya.

I don't drink hot tea too much anymore...just cold sweet tea. But I DO drink coffee every single morning so I'll show ya some of our coffee mugs :)

But we had a little challenge with being able to take coffee on-the-go in the morning. I made a little trip to our local Gordon Food Service store and took care of that by buying styrofoam cups & lids. So THAT'S what I usually use every morning :)

Thanks, Kathi, for tagging me to play along!