Good Old Days

Happy birthday to my DH. You always loved when the boys came to visit.

My Birthday

I couldn't have had better weather on my birthday if I had special ordered it from God! My grandma would have said I must have been a good girl this year. (I think she only made that comment on birthdays when the weather was nice.) It was sunny with clear skies ALL weekend with temperatures in the mid 70's. That's perfection if you ask me! 

I had a wonderful birthday lunch with my former co-workers yesterday. The store we worked at closed eight years ago, but 5-8 of us still get together several times a year. I love that! Next weekend I will celebrate with my family. 

Belated Birthday Celebration

Last night I went out with some girlfriends to celebrate my birthday. Never mind that my birthday was over two months ago. That's just the way we roll! Actually, I don't think we have celebrated the birthdays in this group of friends anywhere near our actual birthday dates in years!

Almost better than the gifts is the packaging of the gifts from these creative girls.

This one is my favorite because the paper bow is just some packing material tied with seam binding and a handmade tag. Who would have thought to use packing paper to decorate the outside of a package? I usually save everything and I know I have gotten things shipped in this kind of brown paper. Now I wish I would have saved some of it!

And I love the glitzy shabby chic look of this gift bag adorned with monogram initial ornaments from Michaels. Those will look great hanging in my office/studio. Too cute!

Happy Birthday, Baby of Mine

It's hard to believe, but exactly 30 years ago, this beautiful little girl entered the world.

Her father and I couldn't have been more proud!

 

All our favorite memories revolve around her.

 She has brought so much happiness into our lives (and she still does).

 This mischievous little girl . . .

. . . Grew into this gorgeous, bright woman.

She married this wonderful man,

and eventually started a family of her own.

 Life has come full circle 

And now she understands the love a parent has for their child.

Happy 30th birthday my dear Natalie Jane!

I Love You!!!!

Party Time!

This weekend I had my brother and sister-in-law over to celebrate her birthday. I decided to make a Strawberry Cake from a recipe I found in Southern Living Magazine. It was supposed to be a triple layer cake, but since I only have two 9-inch cake pans, I converted it to a two-layer cake. No one seemed to really care how many layers it was when they were eating it! For the recipe, you can click here.

A Special Day

61 years ago today my dear George was born.

(Shooter and Hank aren't the only ones who love and miss you.)

Girl's Night Out

It's almost October and I never posted about the fun little birthday party a few of my gal-pals had for me at Anna Shea's Chocolates and Lounge earlier this month. We had dinner together first and then went to Anna Shea's for dessert and it was just heavenly!

We had the difficult task of choosing 4 of their decadent cupcakes, which we cut into fourths so we could have a taste of each of them.

There was a bridal shower going on in one part of the lounge and a little girl's party going on in another. You can reserve the lounge for whatever type of party you want.

And as if the dinner and the cupcakes weren't enough to eat, we decided to order 3 of Anna Shea's to-die-for Frozen Hot Chocolates . . .

and one Hot Chocolate loaded with whipped cream - YUM!

Thanks girls for a night full of birthday fun!

We Love Lucy

Today is the 100th anniversary of Lucille Ball's birthday. The "I Love Lucy" show brings back such fond memories of my childhood! Oh how we giggled and laughed at her and Ethel's silly antics. Now that was great television!!! My mother-in-law especially loved to watch videos tapes of Lucy's past shows. She could watch the episodes over and over again and they still would make her laugh. Those shows certainly brought her a lot of joy in her later years.

Happy birthday Lucy - and thanks for all those happy memories!

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl

The photo above was taken 27 years ago ~ right after our daughter was born.

Here she is 24 hours old.

At two years old, she's the sweetest little pumpkin at the Pumpkin Patch.

She is married now and on her own, but she will always be our little girl.

Happy Birthday Honey!

Lots of Love,

Mom and Dad

xoxo

Happy Birthday. . .

Drum Roll Please

Here are the winners of my birthday celebration giveaway:

Dawn won the handmade journal

and

Amy Elise won the book, A Note To Self

CONGRATULATIONS GIRLS!

And a great big hug to everyone for all the lovely birthday wishes and comments!

Last Chance!

Here's a fun new swap that I recently signed up for. Natasha Burns has designed this one with a little twist. Check out the details on her blog here.

This is your last chance to sign up for my Birthday Giveaway. One winner will receive a handmade Follow Your Dreams Journal and a second winner will receive the book, Note to Self.  To read all the details and sign up click here. Sign-ups end at midnight tonight!

Are you a Design Star fan? Did you watch the finale last night? I was very disappointed that Dan didn't win. I thought his house was much better designed than Antonio's. Just as I thought Lonnie's room was a hundred times better than Antonio's the week before. Dan's house was gorgeous and the mother/daughter homeowners truly loved everything he did for them. He really listened to everything they said and executed it all beautifully.  Don't get me wrong - I like Antonio and his rough-tough-teddy-bear personality. I think because of that he will be a refreshing addition to the HGTV line-up. I think HGTV thought that also and feel "the fix" was in weeks ago that he would win, regardless of his design skills. What do you think?

Back Home

We're back from a long weekend trip to the cottage. As you can see by the photo above, many other people had the same idea. I snapped this photo mainly because I spotted that robin's egg blue vintage VW Beetle in front of us. It's the predecessor to the newer version that I have. Back when we bought the car we were told the color was a retro color (Aquarius Blue) and this is only the second one I have seen on the road. 

We had a wonderful time - the weather couldn't have been more perfect. Did some more painting of the trimwork on the cottage - will it ever be done???  But we also did some fun things too which I will share with you later in the week after I sort through the photos. 

~ Birthday Flowers From My DH ~

Thank you so much for all your birthday wishes! I really do appreciate each and every one of you. You are such an inspiration to me through your comments, your own blog posts, your beautiful artwork, photos, your support. You'll never know how much it all means to me:) 

It's not too late to sign up for my birthday celebration GIVEAWAY.  You can sign up all week by clicking here.  

Birthday Giveaway!

Happy birthday to me!  It sounds so funny to say that, but I haven't had a giveaway on my blog for quite a while and thought my birthday was a good excuse to have one! 

SO. . . . 

Help me celebrate by leaving a comment on this post and at the end of the week I'll let the trusty old Random Number Generator select a couple of people to win the prizes shown below:

Winner #1 will win this handmade journal created by "moi" and winner #2 will win a copy of the book, "A Note To Self" by Samara O'Shea, which is a great book I discovered about keeping a journal.

Good luck!

Art Journaling

Have you seen the new issue of Stampington's Art Journaling?

The premier issue of this publication was a huge, huge hit. I can understand why, because art journaling seems to have really taken off in the art community lately.  So everyone has been anxiously awaiting this next issue. The cover features the artwork of Dina Wakley from Get It Scrapped. I've taken a couple of online journaling classes from Dina - Art Journaling 102 and Masterful Art Journaling. Her classes are great and I especially like the videos she uses to teach her techniques. Below is one of my journal pages from her Art Journaling 102 class, which uses some of the same techniques she used on her cover artwork above.

The arrival of the new issue of Art Journaling really got my journal juices flowing, so I got out the various journals I'm currently working in and played in each of them. I even put together some new journals for a few special projects I am working on!  

Speaking of special projects, with my birthday coming up next week I thought the perfect way to celebrate would be to have a GIVEAWAY!  Stop by back here on Monday for all the details. 

Happy Belated Birthday!

Yesterday (November 2, 1755) was Marie Antoinette's Birthday and sweet blogger Joy from Cupid's Charm hosted a birthday soiree in honor of the Queen's special day. With all the commotion of water flooding my house, it completely slipped my mind to post my pic. I hope you all will forgive me for being a little late. And if you want to treat yourself to lots of yummy and luscious eye candy, go on over to Joy's blog where she has a list with links to all the party participants! Happy Birthday Marie!!!