Weekend Recap

What a wonderful Thanksgiving/weekend we had! The weather was absolutely gorgeous.....in the high 50's to around 60 all weekend & Jim & I managed to get a LOT accomplished. Thanksgiving Day, Shawn came over for dinner & it was really nice seeing him. The turkey turned out great, according to Jim & Shawn :) Even though I don't eat turkey, I gotta admit, it did look pretty good (see picture above).

Here's Jim at work, carving the bird. He takes this job very seriously :) And he takes pride in his turkey!

I finally got him to look up & sorta smile :)

Here's Shawn....he just knew that I was going to take some pictures of him :) Hey, that's your scrapbooking mom for ya!

On Friday, Jim & I decided to sleep in a little instead of hitting all the sales & crowds early. But we did manage to go out to The Scrapbook Zone since they were having Freaky Friday. I spent WAY too much there & then we headed to the mall, thinking that it wouldn't be too crowded since it was 1:00 in the afternoon. WRONG! It was packed! After finally finding a parking space, we just walked around & only did a little bit of shopping. I bought some new rugs for our entryways at JC Penney's, a new purse for myself :) & a few gifts for Cassie. Then Jim & I separated so we could do some shopping for each other. After we got home & relaxed for a while, we decided to go to the movies. We went to see Stranger Than Fiction with Will Ferrell. I thought it was really good, but Jim was hoping for it to be more of a comedy, since that's what Will Ferrell is mostly known for.

On Saturday, we decided to rearrange some furniture to get ready for our Christmas Tree. We were originally going to wait another week to go get our tree, but then when we looked at the 10-day forecast for next weekend (it's only supposed to be around 30!), we decided we better get it now instead. After walking around the tree farm for about 45 minutes, we finally decided on this one.....an 8 1/2-9 foot Frasier Fir.

Here's Jim hard at work cutting it down.....he'd probably kick my butt if he knew I was posting this picture, but I just couldn't resist :)

And here's the tree in our home. Still not decorated.....I think we're going to start decorating it tonight. At first, we put the tree in the dining room, but then I changed my mind & wanted to move it to the family room so we could see it & enjoy it more. Note to self.....decide where you're going to put the tree BEFORE you put it in the stand & water it! What a mess! We had to tilt the stand to get the tree through the kitchen doorway & needless to say, our kitchen floor took a bath in the process!

Sunday, we drove up to Clare to pick Cassie back up & along the way, Jim & I stopped at Birch Run to do a little shopping there. She had a good time in Traverse City, but Thanksgiving just wasn't the same without her here!

Then this morning, we finally got our thermostat replaced. When our house got struck by lightning back in July, we thought that the thermostat was okay, but it seems that it wasn't. We just installed a very expensive modular furnace last year, so the modular part of the thermostat wasn't working right. The heating guy said that we wouldn't have noticed it not working during the summer since it didn't affect the a/c part of the furnace. I never thought I'd be thrilled by a thermostat before, but let me tell you, this thing is awesome! It's all digital & you actually touch the screen to turn it on & off & to program it. What will they think of next?

Well, that's my recap of the long 4-day weekend. It's nice to get back into my routine again, but at the same time, I'm sad that it went by so fast.

Have a great week,
Benita

The Things We Do For Our Kids!

Saturday night & into Sunday morning, Jim & I camped out at Target to purchase the newly released Nintendo Wii game system for Cassie. First, we drove up to Walmart to see how long the line was there. When we saw that they had 'rules' posted about how they were going to sell the Wii, we immediately left & drove out to a ToysRUs that was going to open back up at 12:01 a.m. to sell the Wii. When we saw the line wrapping around to the side of the building, we took off! I was starting to think that we wouldn't stand a chance getting the Wii.

On the way home, we drove by one Target & saw that they also had a line, although it wasn't very long. So we decided to keep driving & go by the Target closer to our home. We were surprised to see that there wasn't even a line started yet, so I dropped Jim off there & while he sat on the bench, I drove home to grab our comforter, warmer coats, snacks & some reading material. We were in it for the long haul now :) And what a LONG night it was! The temps were in the low 30's, which didn't help, but as other people started showing up, everyone was just putting chairs out & then staying in their cars, so that's what we did as well. Around 4:00 a.m., Jim & I walked over to Meijer (thank goodness that they were right across the street & open 24 hours) to use the bathroom & we just walked around for a while to pass some time. When we got back to Target, we saw that the line was getting longer, so we decidded to sit outside so we wouldn't lose our spot in line.....afterall, we were 1st & 2nd :) At 6:00 a.m., Jim walked back over to Meijer to get us both something hot to drink from Starbucks (I got a hot chocolate since I don't drink coffee). Finally, at 7:00 a.m., 2 Target employees came out & announced that they would be handing out vouchers for the Wii's & they had 60 of them available. By that time, there was probably close to 100 people in line. Jim & I debated about buying 2 of them, but after freezing all night, we decided to go for it & figured we would just sell the extra one. By 8:05 a.m., we had 2 Wii's & several games in our possession :) I gotta say, though that I was thoroughly impressed with the way Target handled the crowd. They were super nice & even brought us all out some drinks & popcorn for free after they handed out the vouchers. Just another reason why I love Target :)

Was it worth it? You betcha! Would we do it again? Probably not ;) Hehehe. We were originally going to wait until Christmas to give it to Cassie, but well, we changed our minds & gave it to her now. Afterall, she's worth it :) Now we're not so sure that we even want to sell the other one.....after seeing Cassie play it, we may keep the extra one for ourselves ;)
I also kept myself busy this weekend finally finishing up an altered 'house' that I started working on several months ago & I'm thrilled with the way it turned out! Here are a few pictures of it (click on each picture to view it larger). Now when I take Cassie up to Traverse City tomorrow, I need to make another pitstop at Hobby Lobby & buy some more of these :) Yeah, Cassie will be spending Thanksgiving with her best friend & their family. It's gonna be hard not having her here with us, but I know that she'll have fun up there.
Here are some close-up shots of the house.
Not sure how good you can see the beads underneath the inside of the roof.
View of the bottom part.
Love that picture of Jim.....I took it while we were at Niagara Falls back in August & he just looks like he was doing some deep thinking or something :)
I also finished the altered caddy for my Mom & absolutely love the way it turned out! Now I just hope that she likes it as much, or more, than I do! I used Wild Asparagus paper & lots of embellishments.....too many to list :)
Here's a view of the other side.

That's all for now.....still have a lot of cleaning & laundry to do since I didn't do it this weekend.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving & don't eat too much :)

Benita

Homemade Gifts & Advice Needed

A few months ago, I decided to make these Lazy Susan Caddies as Christmas gifts for my family this year. But first, I had to make one for myself, sort of like a trial run to make sure I could do them. I posted a picture of the purple one I did for our family room a while back & then last week, I made this one, also for myself because I decided that I needed one in my scraproom, too :) I used Junkitz patterned paper so that it would match my altered Ikea drawer chests (also in a previous post). I just LOVE the way this one turned out! On this end, I used Heidi Swapp, Bazzill & Prima Flowers.
View of the other side. Ribbons, chipboard flower, button from Walmart, "Cherish" word from JoAnns.
Close-up of other end. Here I used a couple of flowers that I layered, some Christina Cole Epoxy Stickers, chipboard bookplate, lace ribbon, black rhinestones & a fabric arrow that I cut out myself.
And yet another view. Chipboard alphabet is Bazzill, Rick-Rack is Li'l Davis Designs.
And now I've finally started making the Christmas gift ones :) Here is the one that I'm making for my Dad. It's not completely finished yet.....still have to add more embellishments, but I couldn't wait to post it :) Now, the question is, do I really give it to my Dad, or do I keep it for myself? Hehehe ;) My Dad & I are both HUGE Kasey Kahne fans, so this one is going to be hard to give away! I may just have to make another one like this for myself. Hope my Dad isn't reading my blog :)

Now I'm stuck with a difficult decision about how to make one for my Mom & need some advice. Originally, I had planned making one for her with dogs on it since she loves dogs & always owned at least one. But when she had to go live in a nursing home, she had to give her 2 dogs to a new home (luckily, they both went to the same home together). But this was the hardest thing my Mom has ever had to do! So now I guess I'm second guessing myself about making one with dogs on it because I'm not quite sure how she would react to it. She also loves wolves, but I can't find any scrapbook paper with wolves on it.....anyone know if it even exists? I would love to hear your opinions on this. Do you think it would be hurtful to make one with dogs on it for my Mom? Or should I do something else?

Thanks in advance for your suggestions/advice/help.

Have a great Monday,
Benita

Lots Of Pics

As promised, here are some more pictures from the Godsmack concert. Above is the picture that the lady from ILoveAllAccess.com took. Unfortunately, it's a little blurry :(, but it'll have to do. I'm on the end next to Sully (see, told you he was short!) & Jim's on the opposite end. And yep, I had my arm around Sully ;)

Here's a picture of Jim & I while we were waiting for Godsmack to show up. Jim doesn't like this picture because he needs a haircut badly (which he's getting tomorrow), but I like it & yep, it will be scrapped :)

On Wednesday when I drove up to Traverse City to pick Cassie up, I knew I wanted to stop by the Bay & get some pictures. It was gorgeous out, except for being extremely cold by the Bay & dummy me forgot a coat.

Most of the fall colors were gone, but you can still see them a little in these next 2 pictures. The water was so clear & pretty. If it wouldn't have been so cold out, I might have been tempted to jump in for a swim :)

This picture shows what's left of the colors. Jim & I are already planning on taking a vacation up there next summer because we never realized just how beautiful Traverse City is.

On Sunday, we drove to downtown Detroit as Cassie needed to get a picture of a building for an art project she's doing. I haven't been downtown since the auto show in January, so it was fun just driving around. And of course, we had to take some pictures of Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers :)

I'm still really sad that they didn't win the World Series, but there's always next year. The new stadium is so cool.....I love the bats in the photo above & also how the Tigers have baseballs in their mouths in this photo. One of these days, we need to go see a game at the new stadium. The last time (and only time, for that matter) that I actually saw the Tigers play was back in 1998, I think, when they were still at the old stadium. And the only reason I even went to that game was because they were giving away Beanie Babies ;) Yep, I used to be a HUGE Beanie Baby collector.....still have them all, too (in storage containers in the basement, lol).

Here is Cobo Hall. This is where they hold the Detroit Auto Show every year among other things. Cassie wanted to take a picture of this because she was considering using this picture for her art project, but then changed her mind because she said it would probably be too hard to do all those squares.

And here is the Fox Theater, one of the many landmarks of Detroit. We weren't able to get a picture of Ford Field because there was a Lions game in progress & I didn't even want to attempt to get close to it. But hey, I can say that I was downtown when the Lions actually won a game ;)

Hope you enjoyed my little tour of Michigan :)

A few days ago (okay, so it's actually been over a week.....I'm WAY behind), I was tagged by Lorrie. I'm to list 5 weird things about me or my pets. Hmmm......not so sure I should be mentioning this stuff, but here goes :)

1. I like to dip Potato Chips in my Ice Cream :)

2. I don't eat any meat except for Bacon, but you probably already knew that one if you read my blog enough.

3. I can't stand carbonated drinks, which is why I don't drink any soft drinks at all & I also don't like coffee or tea. I have NesQuik in the morning for breakfast & then the rest of the day, I only drink ice water.

4. I absolutely hate thunderstorms, even moreso now after our house got struck by lightning back in July! Whenever a storm wakes me up in the middle of the night, I immediately wake up Jim & make him go downstairs with me until the storm is over. I finally have a reason to like Winter.....no thunderstorms :)

5. I can't stand nuts in my food, whether it's candy bars, brownies, etc., but I'll eat nuts alone.

6. (Okay, so I thought of another one & had to add it). My kitchen is completely decorated in grapes, but I don't eat grapes. Figure that one out :)

Now, I'm tagging Emily, Kelley, Sue, Carrie, Jewls & anyone else that's reading this :)

Have a great week,

Benita