Birthday Girls

We celebrated both girls birthdays Sunday. Remi turned 4 on November 15th. Kennedy will be 3 on December the 18th. Vanessa picked a time in between . It works for now. Probably not so much when they are older.

 The theme this year was "Hello Kitty".

They rented a bounce house. This is Remi climbing into it. It was a beautiful day so we were able to have the party outside.

Remi's gifts are on the left and Kennedy's on the right.

The birthday girls!

Remi and Kennedy each had the same cake with their name on it.

We had a surprise guest come to the party!

Vanessa had asked her what she would think if "Hello Kitty" came to her party and Remi told her she didn't think Hello Kitty would come. Remi was so surprised!

Everyone poses with Hello Kitty!

Kennedy and Remi enjoying the slide on the bounce house.

Waiting for us to quit singing so she can blow out the candles.

Kennedy looks so grown up here!

Opening presents

Mommy and Daddy gave the girls bikes. It was a great birthday party!

Full Thanksgiving Holiday

I'm glad I didn't do much on Thanksgiving Day because I ran non-stop after that!

We had Thanksgiving dinner with all the family at Keannon and Vanessa's this year. She had more dining room area.

Playing a game while waiting for dinner to cook.

About to "give thanks" before we chow down. This is the left side of the circle.

The rest of the bunch except the one behind the camera :)

Kennedy carrying her kitty Tinkerbell

Mom with Kajen

We took LOTS of family photos but I'll not bore you with those. Here's everyone. Even Kajen managed to get in the shot. I didn't notice that until now! The girls were insistent on putting on their jammies. I decided it really didn't matter.

Remi took a nap before dinner. I knew she was tired. She and Kennedy had spent the night with me so Mommy and Daddy could "Black Friday" shop. She had gone to bed late and got up early.

I managed to sneak away and sleep in my own bed! Now back to the family gathering

After dinner and photos we played Taboo and then a domino game called "Spinner". 

Very serious score keeper.

The girls crashed while we played dominoes. This is Kennedy with Remi's kitty Cinderella. It was a lot of fun.  We played games until about 1am!

More about the weekend next time! Have a good one!

Birthday Cards

We celebrated the girls birthdays with a party Sunday. I will have another blog about that for details. It's quite entertaining!

Remi is all about "princesses" so I found an adorable colored digital image at Dearie Dolls Digis. The papers are Echo Park.

For Kennedy's card I used a digital image from Sliekje digi Stamps.

I colored with my Copic Markers. The papers are Moxie. The sentiment I got from Doodle Pantry.

It's WOW Wednesday over at Cat's Creations where I got all these papers, markers and countless other things! Leave me a comment for a chance at some blog candy. A random commenter is picked from all comments made to any blogs that participates in WOW Wednesday.

Have a good one!

Very Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving! We will be celebrating my family Thanksgiving tomorrow since several couldn't be here today. So I was able to really relax and enjoy today. More about that later.

Last night I created a card to enter in Digi Haven: Giving Thanks Challenge. The challenge is to find a free digital image (forever free or at least free during the challenge) and make a card with either a "thanksgiving" theme or a "thank you".

I used sketch# 146 from Operation Write Home.

Here's my card

This is from Dearie Dolls Digis Stamps. She has adorable images. She has colored and uncolored images. I chose to use a pre-colored version of this image.The papers are scraps from several different lines. The sentiment was a stamp I had but don't know where it came from. I was pleased with how it turned out.

It was a quiet day. Hubby was working, the kids went to the other side of the family so it was me and Mom. We had a great time. First she came over for coffee. Then I suggested going to pickup pecans out of the kids yard. This is one of Mother's favorite pastimes!

I got a little concerned about her bending over so she grabbed a chair from the porch.

 These nuts weren't as big as the first we picked. They are plentiful!

Look at our haul! Not bad for an hour and a half!

When we got home I began getting out the Christmas decorations. Mom stayed to make sure I didn't fall off the roof! She cracked pecans while she supervised.

 View from the roof.

 After a little instruction on how to use the camera on my phone. She took a couple of pics of me.

Tomorrow will be my busy day as my daughter and I will be fixing dinner tomorrow for the family. Hope you had  a great day with your family and continue to enjoy this season of Thanksgiving.

Have a good one!

My Sister

I actually did a 2 page layout! I need to do MANY more but maybe I'm started back in the process again. I used my faithful Sketch Inspiration site for "inspiration". I actually only used the sketch for the left side. Here's Sketch #346

Here is my page

I used papers and embellishments from Fancy Pants new collection "The Good Life" I purchased at my LSS Cat's Creations. You'll be seeing this hanging in the store. One Sunday afternoon when Remi was here I took the girls to a little park about 10 blks from the house pulling them in their wagon my mother helped me buy for them.

This is the other page.

Hmmm....now that I'm looking at it again...I'm thinking I may make some changes...or maybe not.

I made another tag. This design isn't original. It was based off the tag Nanci made as a sample at the last Tim Holtz tag class last Thursday.

I used an embossing folder on the tag. Then inked with Distress Salty Ocean, Mowed Lawn, and Barn Door. I pierced tag and ran dark brown twine through. I stamped the Cowboy & horse from TH Wild West Collection, colored with Distress Inks using a blender pen and cut it out. The wreath is a TH die cut. The pine branches is a slim die by Impression Obsession. I used red bling for the berries on the wreath. The sign I made by stamping with a wood grain image with Distress Gathered Twigs and using clear embossing powder. I then went over the image again with Gathered Twigs. The sentiment was from the new TH stamp collection "Christmas Memories". I stamped with Black Archival Ink then used Distress Pine Needles and cut out the sentiment and attached with foam tape.

Well, it's Thanksgiving Eve. Hope everyone has a wonderful time with family, friends and just taking a moment to "give thanks". We really are a blessed people. God is good!

Have a good one!

Welcome Christmas Into Your Heart

I am entering this card in The Stamping Shack "Anything Goes Challenge". My friend Sandy blogged about a new online Digital Store and new blog challenge. I'm all about helping someone out so I went and checked it out. I encourage you to do the same. I checked out their digital stamps and found some I liked.

The challenge is "Anything Goes". You can check out the details and the rules here. Here is my card.

Since I need to make Christmas cards I used the image  Polar Bear Love from The Stamping Shack. Instead of coloring the bear with my Copic Markers I used Liquid Pearls "white opal". It's actually prettier in person than in this photo. I did color the heart with Copic Marker R29 and matted the image with black cardstock. The background of the card I used World Win Metallic Glitter white and used a Tim Holtz snowflake embossing folder. The sentiment is from Stampin Up and I used red embossing powder on the same metallic paper and matted it with black cardstock. I used foam tape on both the image and sentiment for dimension.

On another note, the girls helped Mommy make cookies tonight to have for Thanksgiving.

I wonder if there will really be any left by then?! As you can see in the background, Daddy got the tree up and Mommy with the help of the girls got the lights on. Daddy also got all the outside lights on the house. The weather is so nice they sat outside to enjoy his handywork.

I am hoping to get mine up in a few days. Probably will start working on it Thanksgiving Day. We aren't celebrating as a family until Friday.

Although not quite as colorful as last nights the sunset was still beautiful.

Have a good one!

Beautiful Day for a Ride

I know, it's three days before Thanksgiving and I SHOULD be preparing but I just couldn't resist a chance to enjoy the gorgeous weather today! I actually get another day to prepare as we aren't celebrating until Friday night.

I decided to ride at Lake Mineral Wells State Park. I just love it out there. Nearly always see wildlife. It's so quiet and I rarely ever see anyone else on the trail as I usually ride during the day in the middle of the week. It's very beautiful and for the duration that I'm out there nothing else exists.

Here we go!

I took a pic of this same view not long ago but it's still beautiful. I really liked the clouds.

This photo I tried to capture so many elements that I was seeing. The first thing that caught my eye was the circling vultures. (You may have to click on the photo to get a better look). There were so many of them when I first saw them and much closer than they are here. For the first time I tried carrying my digital SLR camera with me. Clyde doesn't like to go fast and I decided that today I was going to let him poke along all he wanted and just take in all the scenery. I had to stop him to get the camera out. By the time I got ready to take a picture they had moved farther away from me. The other element I noticed was the beautiful formation of the clouds. Then there's the tail from a plane and the moon.

It's hard to see here but if you click on the photo you can see who I ran into on this trail. This was the first of several I saw on my ride.

My riding buddy tagging along.

Once again I couldn't resist taking pictures of these clouds. Just loved them!

I just LOVE deer!

This little doe wasn't afraid of us....at least not like the others. She watched as we rode the trail and as I stopped to take her picture.

She's checking us out. Not sure if she has grown accustom to humans or is just overly curious. Either way it made for a fun photo op!

Posing so pretty!

Then I got surprised by this guy! I used to see these guys all the time when I rode but I hadn't seen any in a long time then on the last leg of the ride on the way back to the trailer I saw this guy out of the corner of my eye. I had already put up my camera. So I got it back out.  He was across the fence and far enough away I decided to put my zoom on. Then he started making his way towards me and ran right in front of the horse! Kaidence spotted him and began to chase him. He made what sounded like a growling sound but kept running. I called her off before she went too far.

I got Clyde back to the barn just as the sun was setting.

This is taken behind Southside Church of Christ. I didn't go straight home but took a route that would let me see more of the beautiful colors in the sky.

Pictures just don't do the colors justice!

I just love to capture a sunset with a windmill. I usually like to get a close shot of one but that would have required me climbing a fence...which I'm not opposed to doing...but not tonight.

It was a great afternoon! It's the best therapy!

Have a good one!