another day - another trip to the e.r.

another day
another trip to the ER

well, the day after the drunk driver hit stan, we went by the chiropractor... but before we could even stan on the table he blacked out. so one firetruck and two aid cars later. they loaded him up and took him back to the ER for the second time in two days.

well, we'd been planning to take some pics of the car for the insurance today. so lucky for us i had the camera in tow. in our half a day spent at the hospital we got some fun pictures.

all of the major tests came back ok. now i'm just trying to keep the do-it-yourself man resting and recovering!

there's us being goofy while waiting for the doc. stan's still strapped to the back board. poor guy was on that baby for a couple of hours.

we just thought it was funny that when they wheeled him into the CT scan they gave him a hall pass.

apparently pain meds make stan's pupils REALLY small! i took this pic in the hospital so he could see how small they were. and a quick shout out to the amazing {and very funny} nurses in the the providence ER {and really, nurses everywhere} thanks for making our day there full of laughs... being great about our constant caravan of visitors... and taking such good care of stan! you guys are great!

the car that is no more

the car that is no more
thanks be to God that everyone is safe & sound

GOD had his hand on stan today. he was heading home from work, stopped at a stop light when a drunk driver slammed into him at 40mph. the airbags deployed. he ran into the car in front of him then that car hit the car in front of them. they took stan via ambulance to the hospital. he's in a lot of pain, but is generally ok. i'm just so thankful that no one was seriously injured, and the drunk driver is behind bars.

stan says, "my car has gone to the place where all good cougars go when they are no more... but then it's probably the same place bad cougars go when they are no more." the goofy picture is a couple of years old, but it's the only picture we had of that car. goodbye cougar... we will miss you.

merry christmas!

a very merry christmas to you & yours

just wanted to wish everyone a very merry christmas from our family to yours!

snow days

snow days

washington state has been socked in with snow for a bit (well, at least according to our standards). our family has been more than thrilled with the weather. lots of sledding, playing and hot chocolate sipping has been happening here.

this being our first winter in our new house, i ran across the yard a couple of days ago with a plastic bag over my camera to get some pics of the house in the snow. and let me just say again how blessed i feel to live here! wow!

sunrise from our porch this morning.

we even have icicles! they are out the living room window glowing the LED blue'ish-white of the christmas lights. i grabbed my tripod and camera remote and got these two shots tonight as it was snowing again.

simiple teacher gifts

simple teacher gifts

well, with our snow stormy weather, the girls' teachers won't be getting their christmas gifts until new years. with our crazy weather and school cancellations, we started christmas break 3 days earlier than planned! anyhow, these are the gifts their teachers will be receiving. this first one is a fun filebox from target, that emma and i altered a bit to customize and jazz it up a bit.

we added the flowers with a rhinestone brad... then added the prima rhinestone flourishes. the top damask is an flocked iron on design by sei. we tried to make it nice and sturdy for use in a first grade class.


the stocking is what torrey and i made for her teacher. we took a piece of large art paper, and traced our stockings and stamped the damask design in blue (we made two for the front and back of the stocking). next we sewed the two pieces together to make the stocking.

for the top: we took fabric, lined it with fusable cotton batting, finished the edges and sewed it onto the paper stocking. to keep it simiple, we simply cut out the tag with the big shot, stamped it and added the letters. we attached it to the fabric with spray adhesive.

we used diamond stickles to add a little sparkle to the stamped damask on the stocking. since she was in need of some teaching supplies, we stuffed the stocking full of teachers goodies!



sorry for the crummy pictures. that's what happens when you have lots of snowy days, not much light, and a TON of snow playing. :D

lights... camera... snow!

i know i promised more sledding pictures, but it's pretty much been dumping snow for three days. i took my camera out once and got a few of the house, but didn't take it out sledding for fear of destroying my favorite toy. (that and i didn't want to interfere with my sledding time!)

all that to say, i decided to put up a few pics from one of our very favorite christmas destinations. the lights of christmas at warm beach camp.

now the pictures aren't that hot since i had the iso way up and no tripod or flash. but either way the preserve the memory of the million plus lights for another year.

emma checking out some lights

torrey reading the christmas story in the prayer chapel

the girls with santa (obviously)

so this one looks like torrey is telling her secret wishes to santa. but in reality she's telling santa a christmas joke. :D

woo hoo goodies glisten& snow, too!

woo hoo - goodies that glisten & snow too!

today was my lucky day! i woke up to a beautiful sunrise over our snow covered yard, got an extra two hours to hang with my girlies with school starting late... and this evening i got an email saying i won 2nd prize on the hostess with the mostess blog for this fabulous jewlery by LilyGirl!!! what a unexpected early birthday & christms gift. yahoo!

i mentioned the snow we got this weekend, which for us is very exciting. we've been dying to try out our wickedly cool sledding hill since we first laid our eyes on our new house this summer! well we got our wish on saturday, about 4 inches worth. the snow brought out an amazing definition in the mountains and hills (the picture above is the view from our deck).

i love how snow seems to give an extra definition to each individual branch on every tree. our flowering cherry is one of my favorites in the snow.

and the wickedly cool sledding hill did not disappoint! stan, the girls and i flew down the hill a bunch. my mom and dad even came over and i'm sure the chiropractor thanks me for their visits! :) and apparently my back side weighs more than my front side, since it flipped around backwards halfway down the hill on the disk sled. that's the look of me with snow shooting up my back and down my pants as i flew down the hill. it really doesn't get much more fun than that!

kids in photoshop, quick gift tags & funny feet

kids in photoshop, quick tags & funny feet

i took a few pictures of some quick (and easy to mass produce christmas tags) this afternoon as we're waiting for snow to actually accumulate so we can go sledding. so far no accumulation, but we did do something else cool. torrey was hanging with me, so we did some kids in photoshop lessons. we worked on brightening pictures, sharpening them and saving them for uploading and for print. we worked with levels, filters and blending modes. she knocked my socks off! so all of these photos were edited by torrey the amazing 8 year old!

all tag supplies are by stampin up.

and what makes a snowy day more fun that sweet santa's elf socks? i just think these are way too fun. hope your super saturday is as enjoyable as ours has been so far.

torrey's new specs

the new specs

my big girl is among the visually impaired. we got her checked out last week after a few things tipped us off that glasses may be in her future. with both mom and dad in that boat, we figured it was best to check it out. the eye doc confirmed our suspicions, and this week we picked up the new specs.

she was so excited, telling me she's always wanted glasses. she told me after trying on a few pairs that, "i'm just glad i have one of those faces where you look like a librarian when i wear glasses, and not the other kind of face." i'm not sure what "the other kind of face" looks like, but her face looks stinkin cute with the new addition. the lighting was terrible, and the pictures are funny colored. i'm sure we'll get some good natural light shots soon... but we were just so excited for torrey today.

torrey getting her first look at herself with the new glasses.

we have a winner!!!

we have a winner!

i am so overwhelmed with the response, and all of the yummy recipes. i really want to scrap a little cookbook of go to recipes now! thank you everyone. now onto our winner... i just plugged in the info to random.org, and ::drum roll:: it chose...

Veronica said...

Wow, so many great recipes so far! What can I contribute? Hmmm. How about some easy meatballs?
I take some of my favorite store bought meatballs, put into a crockpot and add my fave BBQ sauce and a small jar of grape jelly! Mix well and heat! Easiest and the yummiest! Have a GREAT party!!

congratulaions veronica! email me your addy and i'll get your box of goodies out to you. :)

more glitz giveaway goodness

more glitz giveaway goodness
+
another giveaway here!

laura just informed me that they've got another fab stocking full of glitz goodness to giveaway on the glitz blog. all you need to do to be entered to win is post on the glitz blog your favorite holiday treat (and the recipe, if you have it)!

and since it's the season for giving...

i'd love to share some goodies, too! i'm having a christmas party at my house this weekend, i'd love your holiday treatie recipes too! so anyone who posts a holiday recipe here will be entered to win a box full of scrappy goodies. i'll draw at random on friday to be shipped in time for christmas!

happy scrappy christmas goodies!

glitz giveaway

glitz christmas
giveaway

just a quick reminder to drop everything you're doing and head over to the glitz blog to enter to win this fabulous stocking filled with glitzy goodness! my fabulous friends laura, ginger & erin picked out some of their wonderful products to giveaway... and this is only the first of several this holiday season! lucky us!!! the drawing for this stocking will be today, so head over there and post your comment. :D

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas

it's beginning to look a lot like
christmas

since i was a little girl, the day after thanksgiving always meant putting up the christmas tree and getting ready for christmas. as a kid it meant cutting down the biggest tree we could find, bringing it home, then watching my dad try to figure out how in the world to fit a fourteen foot christmas tree into a stand that was never made to accomodate a fourteen foot christmas tree. it often involved wiring the tree to several walls, and a lot of laughter.

now that i'm all grown up (and lucky for me i'm married to mr. christmas!) we start decking the house out as soon as the thanksgiving dishes are in the dishwasher. although we used a fake tree for the second time in my life this year, we found it barely fit into it's designated spot in the new house. hence, the oddly placed star zip-tied to the top the tree (below). the girls get such a kick out of putting their handmade ornaments from over the years up on the tree... not to mention the handmade ornaments i made as a kid. there's always so many memories tied up in hanging each ornament on the tree.




i picked up some really pretty glass ornaments and hung them from my dining room ceiling over my table. to hang them i raided stan's tackle box. (he says he doesn't own any craft supplies! ha!) then hung them with clear tacks. after i assured stan that the holes wouldn't be THAT noticable. hopefully after christmas i'm not in big trouble. hee hee.


the fireplace mantle ended up as a garland magnet. we stacked three different types of garland on top of each other. the little lamps we bought the first year we were married. so they were a fun addition to the garland mountain. the stockings are my personal attempt at making knock of pottery barn items. my mom has an embriodery machine, so i used that and sewed the stockings myself several years back. i'm pretty sure this is the most complicated sewing project i had done since jr high home economics.

at night the front door is surrounded by lighted garland. but this is the day time view. the welcome is an uppercase living wall sticky, and the big bow above the door i made myself.

this is me sneaking a picture of stan reading in our christmas wonderland of a living room. as soon as we have a night that's not too foggy, i'll try to get some pics of the outside of the house all aglow.