Love Fest - a - Rama...

It's a bona-fide love fest around these parts!


We had so much fun finishing up our Christmas goodies and making the rounds to deliver them to family (amid much present unwrapping of course!). The kids were sooooo in love with the trampoline that Santa left! It's been assembled in the back yard and getting as much use as possible when there's a freak artic blast winding its way through North Texas.


New Years was met with our usual low-key party...pizza dinner, chocolate chip cookies, movies, and falling asleep before midnight! LOL :) It's tough being in your 30s in suburbia. ;)


Since then, and with the talk therapy of a good friend, I've chosen my "word of the year" for 2010. With all the crazy that swirls around me, and my typical response to either go along with it or avoid it at all costs, my word of the year is ENGAGE. I want to ENGAGE in my life...live to the priorities I say I have. No procrastination, no avoidance...just jump in with both feet...into every moment!


Holding hands with ^that^ is my renewed energy to finish up some of these blasted house projects! I'm total decorator by nature...there's always a to-do list with projects, stuff to research, ideas to design. But my list has gotten longer and longer, instead of shorter. So we're getting some goodies done, starting with Van's room. I'm working on getting everything in tip-top shape too. Signed up for Motivated Moms and with my list-lovin' self, I'm super-excited to check, check, check off line items everyday! :) So far, so good...house is looking cleaner than in ages and...(holding back tears of joy)...my laundry room is empty!!!! For reals...no stuff in hampers, no stuff in baskets, no stuff on hanging rod...EMPTY! I even scavenged all the sheets & blankets off the kids beds to have something to wash today...and they're already clean and replaced! Yes, I'm feeling a little Martha-esque! :)


Been scrap-happy too. Having stuff done around the house makes me feel not so guilty about staying up late to do a "me thing" like scrap! :) Actually created some goodies that I love and had FUN making. Check 'em out...












Sweet little side note...keep your fingers crossed for me! I think I actually have a *job opportunity* hitting next week. I've got an interview on Monday and already had an audition that went great. Woo Hoo! :)

XOXO...Stac :)

Baking and Crafting...

Couldn't be better! :)

For the KI 12 Days of Christmas blog party, I volunteered to make candy/cookie containers because that's pretty much what I spend 2 weeks doing in December anyways. :)

Everything from my (in)famous double doozies, brownie bites, cake balls, white chocolate popcorn, apple bread, and more gets mixed, baked, and prettied up in the E*Crew house! :) And then I just have to stay out of it and keep the kids out of it! LOL :) Which is even harder than it sounds! ;)

I made pretty little containers for the teachers gifts that I hope made the yummies inside taste even better! :) Here's the pics...

There's step-by-steps for each project on the KI Blog if you want to check them out.

For now, I'm back into the kitchen. I've got double doozies cooling in the fridge, apple bread to mix, and popcorn to make. Bob is working on the grandmas' photo albums. The kidlets are playing happily in the toy room, unaware that its about to be reading time (aka "quiet time") in thier rooms for a bit.

LOVE a nice cozy day at home, chilling and loving! :)

XOXO...Stac :)

KI Lovin'...Havin' a Blast...

trust me...you're lucky you can't hear me singing along with that title. My singing is NOT something you want to hear. ;)


Point is...

I'm up for the blog challenge at the KI Memories blog (http://www.kimemories.typepad.com/) and had a blast with the layout I made. I got to play with one of the supa-fab pics I took on our recent photo tour downtown. The kidlets were sooooo good and had sooo much fun playing on the railroad tracks, which makes me love this pic even more! :) (family members who are reading...act surprised when you see these pics in your Christmas albums, 'k?) ;)


My challenge is called "Blank Slate" and I challenged the KI blog girls to take a patterned paper and blank it out with paint. It lets just a bit of the pattern peek through prettily. I left the block where my pics/goodies were going paint-less so the pattern would help make that area pop!


Got a nice little surprise too when I came home from a day of running around to find my layout in the Top 10 Votes on 2Peas! Sah-weet! :)


So without further chattering on, here's the layout...








Now that Tayvan is napping and won't catch me, I'm off to eat a little ice cream for lunch. Sssshhhhh! ;)
XOXO...Stac :)

doo...doo...doo...doooooo UPDATE! :)

I warned y'all it was crazy around here in October, right? And I was really hoping for a slower November, but I swear that my calendar went straight from November 1st to November 30th in one big blink!

Quick run-down of this month...

* Bob got a nasty buggie and spent about a week lounging on the couch, sure that he was dying...from a really bad case of the coughs. ;) No worries, he's all better now and of course, is my big strong manly man again. ;)

* Super-Duper Exciting News...I got my ZUMBA certification! A dark (& way toooo fast) drive to Oklahoma, a long day of dancing, dancing, dancing, and Woo Hoo...I'm for real! :) I'm so excited to have this new opportunity in my life...something that brings me joy, that I can share with others, and that I'm actually a bit good at (not bragging, just happy to find my *thing*). I'm looking into teaching locally, another FUN opportunity. I'm really blessed to not *need* to work, and have the luxury of patiently and actively looking for a regular class that I can do while the kids are at school. In the meantime, you know I'm shigglin' it every chance I get, especially now that I have the cd's at home and can practice 24/7! :)

* Lilli is a ROCKSTAR gymnast! :) After some mega-rough weeks (to the point that her coach threatened to put her back on Level 3), she has really blossomed. He had her set some concrete goals and work towards them. She's been crossing them off the list, one by one...including her biggie...front handsprings on the trampoline and tumble-track, which she did successfully last week! :) But even more that the physical skills she's been improving lately, her attitude towards hard work, repeated practice, and "failure" have been sooooo much better. She's been thinking positively (she told her coach that she's "keeping happy thoughts in her head b/c she stays on the beam better that way!"), being engaged in her school projects, and just overall ROCKIN' it! :) Love that chickadee and am so thrilled to see her have so much positive reinforcement from a teacher/coach for a change!

* Thanksgiving was the usual...well, for us anyways! That means...no turkey in sight, no huge family gatherings, and no drama! Sah-weet! :) We only do "mom Thanksgiving" b/c both Bob's and my dad go to other family get togethers. So we headed down to MawMaw's to start cooking. The last 2 years, I've had the pleasure of showing my mom and grandma that I can actually cook like a grown-up now (last year, I made chicken cordon bleu; this year it was homemade pork taquitos). They made the sides and fixins' so that I could just fry, fry, fry. Yummy lunch was had by all...then we made our plan of attack for Black Friday. Dinner at my SIL's is always a bit crazy b/c of all the kiddos (our 3, plus her 5 in a tiny house!), but it's *awesome* b/c we always end up playing card games. Soooo fun! :) Learned a new one called KIMPS and Bob and I actually won! :)

Some seriously fun KI goodies this month too...

I've been playing with some "embroidery" stitching lately. I saw "embroidery" b/c I truly don't know what I'm doing...I just stitch and see how it looks. If it looks bad, I pull it out. If it looks good, then I go with it. I made a cupcake with silver sequin "sprinkles" from a KI digi brush (Lucy kit). I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the cupcake yet...although I think it might be turned into a pillow for a friend's Christmas present! :)

The layouts I posted this month are an old and a new...

newer one is a quick & easy one using paper scraps. (stripe is from KI digi Roxie...altered to match Heirloom paper). The notebook papers behind the pic are letters the kids wrote to each other, paperclipped in place so that they can be removed and read without disturbing the picture.

older one is the one I did for Kim and Ira to celebrate their new baby Austin! The sheer wings are cardstock backed, the ribbon is popped up so that she can slip pics in without disturbing it, and the stamps are mixed in with buttons and glitter glue dots.

So that's me in a nutshell right now! :) I promise to be back soon...before Christmas at least! Ok, ok...WELL BEFORE Christmas. December got to be less crazy, right? (please say "right!" so I won't go crazy!) LOL :)

XOXO...Stac :)

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

hee hee...I LOVE Dori! ;)

October is always the craziest month of all for us and this year is no different. Lots of busy bees buzzing around here and my calendar looks ridunkulous if I say so myself! But it'll all get done, or it won't, but it's all good either way. :)

Scrappy news...

I had some messy fun last night, inking and distressing my paper till it cried for mercy! Take that! ;) Check it out...

You might notice some little "stitchy" dots around the edges. Yeah, I cheated a little. Okay, okay...a lot! I want to sew so badly but time hasn't magically multiplied enough for me to actually have some time to learn. My pretty little sewing machine sits here, lonely and begging for love. But I want the sewn look, so I pulled out my trusty Cutter Bee Bug to do the holes. It's really great to pre-poke holes to hand-stitch, but I'm going with the "doesn't it look like there's clear thread there?" (say yes) That's my story and I'm sticking to it! ;)

In Mom Identity Crisis news, I've been nudged again to try something a bit left of my comfort zone...teaching Zumba. I'm totally Zumba obsessed, taking around 4 classes a week and have loads of the choreography memorized already (thank you high school drill team!). But the idea of getting up on stage, with a mic to blare my admittedly twangy voice, and leading the way with my shigglin' is +more+ than a little scary! But I figure that I have a chance to try just about anything right now, so I might as well go with something that I know I'll enjoy (once I get over my nausea-inducing nerves!) So, I'm registering for training and then I'll have to market myself to local gyms (this might be where my Marla-directed PR dept comes in! LOL)

House-wise...spent all.day Saturday hitting garage sale after garage sale. Lots of goodies for crazy cheap...including a cute little set of steps for Van's bed ($2), an already-black distressed kid chair ($2), a gothic iron & wood mini-screen ($2), a huge red bead necklace ($1), several kids books, a Justice outfit for Lilli ($1), a huge sterling silver serving platter with a tree on it (.50!), and more! The steps are going to be an upcoming project for Van's room. Oh, and my piece de resistance (don't check my spelling on that, just go with it) was the craigslist bedroom suite I got for $75! For a headboard, dresser, mattress, box spring, and frame! Woo Hoo!!! I'm going to resell the headboard and dresser I think b/c I've suddenly found myself dresser-full! LOL :) I can't wait to get going on Van's room...especially now that I've got most of the stuff and can really make a difference in the cute-ness of her space! :)

Got to get ready to shiggle tonight. I'm thinking its going to be a grilled cheese for dinner kinda night. Shhhh! ;)

XOXO...Stac :)

Pantry Pics and a Return to Scrapping...

As promised, I've got pics of our Pantry Makeover Extravaganza!

First off, I have to explain the uselessness of our builder grade pantry.

Its under the stairs, so super narrow (just 36in wide) and had a whopping one built-in shelving unit. Granted, the unit had 5 shelves, but they were super wide-spaced, so I had resorted to a combination of wire stacking units and baskets to make the space work a bit. Oh, and had to add in some random Sterilite drawer units for kid snacks and such.

Unfortunately, I don't have a full-on "before" pic. That man of mine decided it was time to start demo before I could get in there with the camera. But I wasn't about to stop his momentum to get this project rolling! LOL :) So here's a semi-before shot, so you can see the yucky floor & useless shelves.

After one day of super-man work, Bob had made awesome progress! He'd managed to demolish the cabinet, paint the walls & ceiling, replace the floor, and (unseen) install a new light fixture.

Next up was an admittedly expensive trip to Container Store. Between my organizer-extradinaire friend Amy and the fab lady at TCS, we got a great system set-up. I've got shelves galore now...literally have EMPTY spots! Whooo Hoooo! :) Love my new baskets and airtight bins too! :)

On the scrapping front, I've been so busy that I haven't had a chance to scrap at all in weeks. But that all changed this weekend! Sooo happy to be back in the saddle, but its always hard to get the mojo flowing at first. Here's one of the layouts I did with bits of goodies I found on my recent desk clean-up...

Off to bed! Got a busy day tomorrow...kids at school, I've a knee doc appt, hair appt, hit the JCPenny sale, assembly at the kiddo's school, gymnastics, costume shopping, dance class, and picking up the truck at mechanic. Yeah, that sounds do-able, right? Right??? ;)

XOXO...Stac :)

Check, check, check...

and check again!

I gotta say...My new House to Home focus is totally rockin'! :) I'm actually making progress here people! This week, I've...

* searched out the fabric to back my kitchen cabinets, bought, chopped, ironed (yes, IRONED), and hung it...looks great if I say so myself. Just gonna finish up some shelf doo-dollyin' and I'll show ya.

* hit 2 Joann's for my new curtain fabric. No luck, but its supposed to be in tomorrow...tomorrow...I love ya tomorrow. ;) I'll have to hit both Joann's again to get enough, but I'm going for it with my coupons!

* bought some cute little grapevine wreaths to hang over ^those^ curtains. They're part of my "fall decor". ;)

* painted Declan's armoire. The hunter green was never my choice (it came to us that way), so I'm thrilled to finally have it a little more "me". It'll be finished up tomorrow with the old table runner that I'm chopping to bits to fill in the door frames.

* been obsessing about Tayvan's room re-do for her big birthday gift. I think I found a bed (wish me luck tomorrow when I go check it out...craigslist can be soooo good or uhm, not).

* hit a flea market and found an awesome 50's plastic faux milk-glass mirror. Even better than the faux milk-glass look is that it's *hobnail* milk glass with a fluted edge all around. To quote Rachel Zoe... I die. ;) It's going to find a home asap...maybe as a part of Van's new room! :)

* and in the project that never ends, I got a whole 'nother section of wall exposed in my laundry room. Yes, the exploded cow look continues. LOL :)

Other happenings...

PTA--of course. Spirit Gear goes out tomorrow! I can't tell you how excited I am! I did it. All by myself...figured it out, made mistakes, learned better ways for next time, but I did it. :) Fingers crossed that everyone agrees when they start getting their orders! LOL

Kiddos--Same crazy stuffs...running from school to Girl Scouts to gymnastics and more! The best kiddo news is...

Tayvan is 4 years old today! :)

Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday dear Tayvan. Happy Birthday to you. :)

We followed e*crew family tradition and headed to Magic Time Machine for dinner. She was thrilled to have Ariel as our waitress, but as always Jack Sparrow stole the show! The guy that plays Cap'n Jack is soooo great...totally hilariously quick witted and has the whole stumbling randomness down perfectly. Fun was had by all! Van's party is coming up this weekend. So far, she wants guinea pig cupcakes. Uhm, yeah...don't know what to do with that business, but I might see if I can find some sort of cupcake pick with Wonder Pets and call it a happy. LOL :)

Scrappy Goodness--The KI Wicked Party was AWESOME! Seeing everyone's cool projects and doing the Q&A's totally got me in the Halloween spirit! :) I can share my projects now too!! Check 'em out...

Well, I'm off to bed! Hey, its only midnight...that's pretty good for me! LOL :) Keep your fingers crossed for me that spirit gear goes well, Joann's has my fabric, and the bed is perfect! That's not to much to ask for in 5 hours is it? ;) LOL

XOXO...Stac :)