Fathers Day

Here are some pix...and the story follows....




Well on Saturday my sons and their girls and I drove down to Beaufort where my Grandson Michael is stationed. As I've said before, he's in the Marines.
However, he's now scheduled to get out in September because they told him their scaling back personnell?? (Really...how come more just went to Afghanistan?)
Well, any way they say there's no job for him. His plan was to go back to NC and look for work. But they really didn't want to go back, as there are no jobs to speak of. So he checked in with the military to see what they would do for him. Well it turns out they'll pay for him to go to school! And....they're buying a house (it's all been approved!) So they'll be moving into a nice new house soon, he's already taking classes, and Nicole will be going to work while he's in school. I'm so happy they're staying in SC! Now they're about an hour and a half from us! In NC they would have been about 4 hours from us!
They love living in the Beaufort area. I'm so happy for them, they were both so excited that we talked about the house and how we can visit more often. So the day was wonderful, we were almost all together. Pete and Marianne, Matthew and Tina, and Tina's lovely daughter Tiffany. Mariannes mom Virginia came along too. We all had a great time. The only ones missing were my Mom, and Michaels brother Joseph, and Tina's son David. My mom can't make trips that far, Joseph was working, and David was visiting a friend. Well...maybe next time.
The other reason for the visit was that Pete and Matthew's dad, has been gone for a long time. He was in the Navy, so when the time came he was buried in the nearest National Cemetary, which is in Beaufort SC. So we went to Ruby Tuesaday...all 9 and 3/4's of us! Then we had a 3 car caravan over to the cemetary. After a bit of searching, the boys found their dad. It had been many years since they had come to visit. So they reminisced, and we answered questions about their dad from every body else. It was a grand day. So the next time we go down the kids will be moved in... or it may even be a help them move in day! I'm really looking forward to the next visit. My sweetie Don stayed home with my mom. What a guy! He gave me the best gift ever! A day with my guys that was free of worry and stress.
The best part....smiling faces everywhere! Oh and did you notice the ultrasound pic in the midst... Matthew and Tina are expecting his first baby in early December! We'll know the gender next month. We're so excited. She miscarried before... so this time we didn't spread the word too quickly. But there it is a little baby Smith! The age difference between her last child and this one.... 16 years!!! Better them than me! lol But Tiffany is excited, and she loves kids, so she'll be a big help to her mom. My Matthew is beaming! So that's our story for this time.
I hope all is well with you and yours.

Oops

Well... In an effort to be better at posting to my blog, I erased a couple of pictures that I didn't want to. I still have them... just not here... Grrrrr!
I'll try to load a couple of pix of my Great Grandaughter Hailey. I had done one... I thought...but one turned out to be half a dozen! I didn't want them all here just the one, or maybe 2! I just never seem to be able to do what I need to do to get pictures loaded when and where I want them. I guess it's a good thing I decided against a career in computer programming huh ;-)
Ok, Here goes another try at a pic of my lovely little sweetie, standing...all by herself.
Whooo hoooo! I did it.
Yep that's her, isn't she adorable? She's not a year old yet but is almost walking! Can you hear the buttons popping off my chest? Stand back people they could take an eye out! Sorry I get carried away sometimes. (Frustrate writer without out a story)

Tomorrow I'm going to try to upload some pix of more reorganizing of my scrap space. Hopefully I'll get them from my camera to the computer without incident!

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's day. Mine was quiet, which is the way I prefer it. My boys both called me, to say they love me. Which is what I want to hear. I don't know why, but Mother's day is never one of my faves. It never has been. And this was Don's first without his mom. So he was grappling with the loss again. He handled it well. But each of the firsts will be hard for him. So a quiet day was best for us.
So I'm off to do some laundry, etc. So have a happy day.
Hugs.....................me
What a sweet little sleeping princess! Don't you think she's the sweetest thing!

Re-organization Before

The first 6 pix are of my scrap space, which is in the last few feet of our living room. The next 3 are of the things that I moved to my son's bedroom. The boxes in the back right are his, and the ones stacked in the left aren't craft stuff.
What a mess!
The last picture is of the beginning of the reorganization. I've moved my craft table to the wall and am using my card table to work on. This gives me more table space, which I filled up way too quickly. (Don always says if there's a flat surface, I'll fill it up. (And he's right too!)
So I've got to reevaluate the way I work, then decide what I need on the table, and what can be somewhere else.
Things are moving slowly as I got off track due to carpet cleaning. I still have to go through the things in the bedroom, and finish purging. I hope to move some of these pix to our Reorganizing Webinar face book page. So I can share them with the other members of our group. I've been having trouble uploading them until today.
So I'm off to give it another try.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cards

A couple of these cards(the flag and fireworks) are from a batch that I made to get to someone who delivers thank you cards to our military folks overseas. And with what has recently happened in Lybia, it appears that we'll need a lot more of them. I had been thinking that our military folks would be coming home from Iraq soon. But now it looks as though there is another place to send them! I have a grandson in the Marines, and a couple of friends in the army and I live in a town with an Air Force base. So I am sure that there will be a real need for our continued support. If you know someone who's over there, let them know you care about their sacrifice. And the spouses and children at home too. See if there is something you can do for them. There are a lot of military families who may have a need that you could fill.
But if you can't provide a service... just say a simple prayer. That will be a great help too.







The long card is for my adopted grand-daughter. When she got her braces on her mom wanted her to know that she knew it would be hard. So she got these cute stickers, and I made her a card.
I never know how the pix will load, so they are all out of order. The card with the truck is a birthday card for a friend this month. It's a new stamp set from Stampin' Up. I love it. There's a wooden wheelbarrow, a rooster, an apple and an old fashioned pump with a wooden bucket. Very rustic. My son's both love old trucks, and are both 'country boys'. And one of them has Chickens, so this set is perfect for cards and layouts for them, and most of the other guys I know.
Well, I'll get this up while I can. (I've only been editing it for a week!) I hope all is well with y'all.
Take care

Reason's to celebrate... Do you really need a reason?

I keep hitting the wrong keys! So if you keep getting notifications of an upload from me... I apologize for my clumsy keyboard skills. And to think, when I still worked, I could type 60WPM with very few errors. That's what happens when you don't use a skill. Even though I use this keyboard every day, it just isn't the same.
OK... onward and upward...I hope ;)

Don and I don't celebrate Valentine's day. We both think it's sort of a "Hallmark" holiday. You know what I mean??? You gotta rush out and buy cards, flowers, candy, stuffed toys, diamonds even! Trust me... if she/he doesn't already know you love them, a diamond will only mean you'll have to go bigger next year! Well...who says... where is it written? Who is St Valentine anyway? Do we even know what we're supposed to be celebrating? I don't think I've ever heard anything about Mr. Valentine. Does anyone know the meaning behind the celebration? I may have to go 'google' it.

Anyway, I've always thought that if you see something that says "Hey, you... wouldn't so and so like me?' That's when you should get it for them. We don't have to wait for a specific day to give a gift do we?
So around the end of the February, Don cam through the door with these lovelies! What a lovely surprise! A bunch of roses, just because he loves me! How cool is that! They were lovely, but I didn't think to take pix until they had opened up. They lasted for over a week! Aren't they beautiful!



So, between these flowers and the 'Donut Stick' cake My year has started off with a bang! Didn't I show you the donut stick cake? Well if you are a facebook friend, you've seen it. But if not... here it is. Yes there's a a story. Simple...I love donut sticks, and when ever he's going out and asks me if I want a treat, I almost always say 'donut sticks please'. It's gotten so that when ever he asks me I just look at him, and that's all he kneeds. When my son came to the house the weekend, after my birthday. Matt and Tina took Don to the store. It never occured to me, that they would bring me somehing. Other than the donut sticks, of course. Don had decided he wanted a cake with donut sticks for candles. It's a good thing he didn't want to put all 62 candles on the cake... it would have been all donut stick, and no cake... well a little vanilla ice cream and I'd have been a happy camper either way.



Silly... of course, that's what he does best.
I'll be back later with a post about my paper cretions. (Which is why I started this blog in the firt place!)
Have a great day y'all!
Hugs, Jessica

Such a slouch!

That's me... such a slouch about posting on my own blog! I get so wound up in tuning in on other peeps blogs and websites. Plus I have about 50 emails to get through each day. (I know, some of you have WAY more than that!) But I get so excited about learning something new, or trying to get into participating in a challenge. Which is almost always too late by the time I get it ready. That's the reason I don't want to enter something with a deadline. That's me: Classic under achiever!
Add to that, I've tried several times to brush up these photos so they would be viewable here. I'm not sure I've done it. But I'm posting them anyway. I find it odd that on the camera, they look great, lighting is great etc. Then I get them onto the computer to upload... anywhere... and they are dark and blurry etc. I'm assuming it's my photo editing program. But there's not much I can do about that at the moment. So... without further ado, here's is my sweet little Great Grandaughter Hailey and her Mom and Dad(whom I had not seen in many years!) Oh and Nicole (Hailey's Mama) is making bows to sell. So if you like the one Hailey wore on that day, then let me know and I'll connect you and Nicole. Ok, now, really without further ado...





The first pic is of all my favorite boys...well men I guess. From left to right: Joseph (Pete's younger), Matt (my younger),Pete (the elder) and Michael, (Pete's elder.) Sounds like a bad novel! lol And of course Pete is holding his first grandchild, Hailey, as she slept. Then Hailey with her Daddy,(who was talking to his great grandmother). Then Hailey with Granddaddy after she just woke up. I do have several pix of Nicole, but she was so shy about them, that I didn't want to post them until I checked with her. I also have some 5 generation photos, but the lighting is really bad, so I don't want to upload them anywhere til I figure out how to fix them.

I have made some cards and am tryng to finish a set for my friend Mike to use to raise money for a cause that is near and dear to him. I think I've found the perfect focal for them all, and as soon as I get them stamped, colored and mounted I'll be sending them out. I've also had a bit of a re-shuffle with my scrappy leftovers. I have a plastic set of drawers of the type you get at Walmart or the like. Though the piece is large, it isn't meant to hold heavy things. So I've switched around where I keep my paper scraps.

Well, I hope you enjoy looking at my kids, grandkids and Great-Granddaughter. I promise next time it'll be all about creating!
I just got my Gypsy, so I'm learning how to use it. It won't be long before I'll have made some things with it. There have been a few near misses with the size of the cut. But I'll get it.
Thanks for stopping by, I hope you are all well, and are enjoying warmer weather!
Hugs, Jessica

The Christmas Miracle Part II

 
What a day we all had! Saturday was so wonderful. I took lots of pix of every one. Some of which I'll upload here and on my facebook page as soon as I finish 'fixing' them.
This was taken by my cell phone. But so far it's my fave of the day. It's of my eldest son, Pete with his sweet little Grandaughter Hailey asleep on Grampa's cheast. Held her for a long time, and then when one of us were ready to give her up, he'd take her again. We took several 5 generations pix. And lots more. We were all flash blind for a while. But I couldn't let the day go without commemorating it with pictures. And poor Nicole said she doesn't like having her pix taken. But I convinced her that this is a very special occasion, so she let us take pix. Thanks sweetie, you're so pretty, I don't know why you wouldn't want your pic taken. But I'm grateful you allowed us to snap away!
We hugged and talked, and took pix, and talked. And ate, and talked, and took pix, and talked. I'm still smiling at the memories. I posed all of my boys together which I love too! What a wonderful day! I think one of the best things that happened that day is when I heard our sweet Nicole murmer, "I'm so glad we came here today." And Nicole, my sweet Granddaughter, so am I. The best part of that day was that it all felt so natural, as though we had just seen each other last week! We were all excited, but beyond that, there was no stiffness or nervousness. We all just fit together. So now, that missing part of our family puzzle, is where it should be.
I'll work on the rest of the pix in the next day or two. I haven't felt well the last couple of days,so I have done absolutely nothing creative. Unless you call looking at my Stampin Up catalog, and making lists creative. I am feeling a bit better today. So it's probably just a 48 hour thing. I hope.
Well back to the email, I just had to share this.
Thanks for stopping by, I'm amazed that I have more than one or two followers! So thank you all for reading my humble little blog,
Hugs to you all,
Jess