Fun With (Grown-Up) Friends.

Saturday night we had dinner with John, Cindy and baby Matthew at Red Robin. It's always so nice to get together with The Matejka's ... and honestly we need to do it more often!!


Griffin and Matthew meet for the first time.


Awwwwww ... I want another one. Seriously.


Cindy is such a good Mommy ... she's so calm and relaxed.


Griffin had a good time singing the Happy Birthday song with the group of employees as they made the rounds around the restaurant.


Awwww ... and John is a good Daddy too!


Cindy, John and Matthew ... such a sweet family.

We had a great time ... we have to get together again ... and soon!

It's His Turn.

One of Griffin's favorite things in the entire world is to get on the lawn mower with Daddy. He looks forward to this every year and enjoys it SO much!


Friday Mike got the mower out for the first time, and Griffin patiently waited for his turn.


It's almost time ...


Woo Hoo ... it's time ... it's Griffin's turn!


My boys mowing together ... I sure hope Griffin is this excited about mowing when he gets older and can do it all by himself.


Rounding the corner after mowing the side of our property.


I don't know what it is about this picture ... but I'm loving it!

I tell you what ... mowing grass and being on the lawn mower with Daddy gives Griffin the biggest joy and makes him SO happy!

Tricia & Chelsea Meet Rosie!

I received an email from my dear friend Tricia yesterday sharing the news that she and her daughter Chelsea met Rosie O'Donnell at a book signing in New York! Rosie has this amazing new craft book and she was at Border's to promote it.

Those that know me, know that I LOVE ROSIE O'DONNELL!! No, I do NOT agree with her politics ... but I've loved her since her Rosie O'Donnell show days. I think she is a wonderful mother, an awesome crafter and an all around good person.

Tricia gave me permission to share some of her wonderful pictures with you.


Chelsea, Tricia and Rosie


Chelsea and Rosie chatting


Rosie signing her autograph just for Chelsea

Tricia also shared that Rosie had posted Chelsea's picture on her video blog.

You can view that here:
Click here to see Chelsea on Rosie's Blog!
It's the one titled 1 2 1

I'm blogging about this as if it's my very own experience ... lol ... I can live vicariously through friends, right?

Thank you Tricia for sharing this experience with us!!

The Last Lecture.

Last night we watched the most amazing interview on ABC with Diane Sawyer.

The interview was called "The Last Lecture: A Love Story For Your Life" and it was with Randy Pausch a 47-year-old professor who has terminal cancer. He had been highlighted as a "Person of the Week" on the ABC News awhile back and Mike and I were both moved by that little interview.


Imagine our delight when they did a full hour with him! It was an amazing inspirational interview. It's so wonderful to see someone choosing to LIVE the life they have left.

He has this new book out called "The Last Lecture" ... and I can not wait to read it!

Anniversary Fun.

We had a wonderful anniversary this year.


(Although not the best of pictures ... it's all 3 of us together at Bertucci's)

We decided to go to Bertucci's for dinner. It was awesome as usual. They have wonderful italian food, great service and a nice atmosphere.

We also stopped by Best Buy before dinner. I've had the same printer for about 10 years (HP G85) and it's been giving me trouble. Plus, Griffin keeps ripping this one part out and Mike has to keep putting it back. Mike decided he wanted to buy me a new printer for our anniversary. I was so happy!

We chose an HP Photosmart C7280 All-In-One Printer. I am SO loving this thing. Not only does it fax, print, copy and scan ... it prints pictures too! Woo Hoo!

I'll be the first to admit I do not like new technology. It scares me and really, it just makes me mad. I do NOT like change. If I know how to use something, I want to use it forever. Really, I just figured out how to use the scanner on our old printer/scanner about a year ago because my dinosaur of a scanner finally bit the dust. But I digress.

I've been using HP Image Editor to resize my photos. It was so easy to use. When Mike loaded this new printer, that program went away. Fear set in. This morning Griffin is sleeping in (it's almost 8:00!), so I have a little time to experiment with the new software that came with the new printer. It's called Photo Impact 12 and I must say I *LOVE* it!! I made that nifty little frame around the picture with it.

We also stopped by the pet store and Target ... we made a night of it. It was so wonderful to spend some quality time with my boys.

Griffin's New Toy Box.

In March when Ray & Jeri (Pop & Nana) came to visit, they drove into the drive-way with some beautiful cypress wood attached to the top of their van. I had no idea what they had in mind ... but Ray planned to build Griffin a toy box while they were visiting.


This is Pop getting ready to start working on the toy box.

Let me tell you ... this was no ordinary cypress wood. Pop actually cut it from a downed cypress tree (lost in the Florida hurricanes), took it to the saw mill and had some beautiful boards cut for Griffin's toy box!


Here we find Mike and Griffin giving Pop a little help.


And a little more help from Nana and Griffin.


The toy box all completed ... it is SO beautiful!! He used these cool decorative nails on the top about 1" apart and it gives it sort of a treasure chest feel.


And of course one of the most special touches is the handwritten note to Griffin from his Pop.


(Click image for a larger view)
How about a little peek into Griffin's bedroom?

It's one of my favorite rooms in the house. Mike and I had such fun decorating his room when I was pregnant. We painted the walls an oatmeal color. The ceiling we painted this really pretty country blue. And we finished it off by adding a sweet airplane wallpaper border that matched the crib linens.

Of course over the past three years we've added many more personal touches. Let me just point out some fun things. See that cute John Deere throw? Our neighbor Cyndi made that for him for his first birthday. He loves it and sleeps with it every night. The little wooden chest that Elmo & his teddy bear sits on ... well, that's another "Pop Original". He made that for Mike and me for our wedding day. How about that old dark wooden dresser you may ask. Well ... that belonged to Mike's Grandfather. That would be Griffin's Great-Grandfather ... and the person he shares his name with. There are so many personal things in his room. Things that we will treasure, forever.


This was Griffin's current toy box. Plastic hampers. Not so cute right?


This is MUCH, MUCH better!! Look how nice it looks here.


It's actually sitting in this little nook in his room. It's kind of bare there right now. That poster is from Griffin's first airplane fly-in in Florida when he was only 2 months old! I want to find one of those long frames with the word FRIENDS cut out. You know the kind of frames where the letters are the places you add the pictures? I'm keeping my eye out for one!

I hope you enjoyed our little tour.

And ... finally ... Adam Carolla was voted off Dancing With The Stars last night. I must say, I think he had the best EVER leaving speech. He said "I've lost 20 pounds of fat, but gained 105 pounds of angel". He was talking about his partner Julianne Hough. Is that not one of the sweetest things you've ever heard? Awwwww ...

My Fave Things Layout.

One more layout to share ... I made this one this past weekend too. It's all about Griffin's favorite things.

When I was at the scrapbook store on Saturday, I saw some K&Company stickers with airplanes, helicopters, cars, buses and tractors. The first thing that popped into my mind was "gosh, those are all of Griffin's favorite things". So, I got them and was inspired to create this page.

But the truth is ... I'm not sure that I really like the stickers on the page or not. Maybe you can help me decide ...


Here's the layout WITHOUT stickers ... well, okay ... this one has ONE helicopter sticker on it.


And the exact same layout WITH the stickers ... in addition to the helicopter sticker, it has an airplane, a tractor and a car.

Which way do you like the best with the stickers or without??


I had this circle paper in my stash and I wanted to use it for the page. It was really kind of busy, so I thought I needed to find a way to take away from the busy-ness. I decided to make a top and bottom border with a teal colored paper. Then I punched out circles with my handy circle punch from papers the same colors as the circles on the patterned paper. Finally, I decided to make little tags and write what his favorite things are ... and I used punched circles to kind of anchor them on the page.

I went back and forth (I do that alot when scrapping) about the title.

My ideas were:
G's fave things
his fave things
my fave things

Obviously "my fave things" won out.


I also had this fun little boy circle die cut in my stash and it fit right in with the circle theme and it matched! So ... I used it ... and I think it fits well on the layout.

Mike and I are celebrating our 13th wedding anniversary today! We are going out to dinner tonight, I'm just not sure where. Griffin woke up with a cold (congested nose and coughing) ... so we are staying home today. Hopefully he will feel better tonight so we can go out to dinner.

And just a note ... my sister Joy is having gall bladder surgery today. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. It's an out-patient procedure and hopefully she will be well on her way to recovery tonight at home. I love you Joy.

Another New Layout.

Yesterday I took the time to make another layout.

I've been wanting to scrap these particular pictures for a REALLY long time! I am so, so happy with the way this turned out.

For some reason, the images look blurrier than normal when I posted them ... so please click on the image for a bigger, more clear view if you are interested! I'd love for you to see the detail!


There's a funny story behind these pictures. To get the idea, just look at the pictures and read the tagged captions from left to right as if you were reading a book. I was cooking one day and had chopped up some onions for the recipe. Griffin was "helping" me and thought the onions looked yummy and sweet. I kept telling him they were not sweet, they were hot. But the wonderful mommy that I am ... well, I let him decide for himself.


A close-up of the left side of the layout ...


And a close-up of the right side of the layout ...


I wanted to incorporate something onion-y looking on the page ... so I made these onions with different sizes of circles and Tim Holtz Distress Ink. I love that ink! I use it on practically every page I make these days.


Another close up look ...


I decided to add the black/white gingham ribbon ... I don't know ... do you think it gives it a "kitchen-y" feel to the page? And here, you can see another close up of one of the onions I paper pieced.


And this is a close up of one of the tags. I decided to use my own handwriting (I think it's SO important to do this!). I think they kind of look like little menus. And the round thing at the top ... well, those are supposed to be mini onions.

I tell you ... I am having ALOT of fun scrapbooking. I forgot how much fun and relaxing it is! Now ... I just have to find the time to do some more personal scrapbooking for "me" ... and get back to work making things for my online store Missy Made It!

Life Is Good.

(Children's Museum of Richmond ~ Friday ~ April 4, 2008)

Some of my fellow bloggers have started adding cute/funny things their children say to their blog. Wow ... this is a great way to remember these sweet, funny and cute things that come out of their mouths. So, guess what? I'm following suit.

Yesterday we were getting ready to go to Sam's Club:

Mommy: Griffin let's get ready ... we are going to Sam's.

Griffin: Wanna see Car-wol ...

Mommy (trying to figure out where this is going): No, Buddy ... we are going to Sam's

Griffin: I wanna go to Sam's house ... wanna see Car-wol ...

LOL ... he thought we were going to his buddy Sam's house and he wanted to see Sam's Mommy Carol (he loves her!). I thought that was pretty cute.

And ... I must say ... I was presently surprised when I woke up this morning to ...
"Happy Anniversary ... I Love You" from my dear sweet husband. You see, today is our 23 year anniversary. Twenty three years ago today we went to our high school prom (you've all seen the picture MANY times!). We started dating a few weeks before prom, but decided that April 6th would be our anniversary date. Our wedding anniversary is Tuesday (April 8th) ... we'll be married 13 years.

Those five little words meant the world to me today. I didn't know if he would remember. He did. I love you sweetheart!!

Strawberry Picking Layout.

Look ... I made another page last night. This time a two-page spread!

After dinner, I did something that I've never done before. Instead of going in the living room with Mike and Griffin, I left the boys to themselves and I went into the dining room to scrapbook. It felt really good to do something that I wanted to do. And Griffin and Daddy enjoyed some alone time.


Last Mother's Day we went to Chesterfield Berry Farm to pick strawberries. I had a ton of pictures I wanted to add to the page, so I decided to make a two-page spread.


I wanted to make the page as "boyish" as possible ... but then I put the green gingham ribbon on there and decided I would go more "countryish".


This was such a FUN day ... Griffin's first day at the strawberry patch ... and mine too!


I paper pieced this little barrel using my Cricut and the strawberries were made using a Quickutz die. I love those two tools!


And I also paper pieced this little tag. It's made using one of my Accucut tag dies, and my Quickutz strawberry and grass dies.

I'm thinking about going to the scrapbook store today. I went through a few of my 1,000s of pictures last night and pulled out some that I want to scrapbook.