It's sad when our government uses our money for this...

The link below is a story about how the Obama's and the Spanish Prime Minister's family posed for a photo shoot at a reception for visiting foreign dignitaries. I'm fine with that - hey, that's what President's do - a pretty cool perk, even if the smiling gets tiring...

Kink in the photo session... Spanish law prohibits the media from publishing pictures of the Spanish Prime Minister's daughters. Ok - no problem - I don't really see "Star" magazine headlining their next issue with this political snoozer of an event.

Everything was fine - right up until this point... and I quote... "all of (the pictures) which were later posted to the State Department's Flickr page."

Stop - reread that sentence. THE STATE DEPARTMENT'S FLICKR PAGE... Who might I ask is the official State Department Flickr page poster?? What does that position pay?? Do they not research the rules of whose photos can and can't be broadcast to the media?

I'm waiting to be friended by the United States Government on Facebook, or better yet, maybe I can follow the Department of Defense on Twitter.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts930

If this is wrong, I don't want to be right...

I am in love with "jillibean soup" - a scrapbook company. Get a load of the names of the "Alphabet Soup" line: Ground Round, Vegetable Juice, Mixed Veggies, Alphabet Pasta, Hot Water and Beef Bouillon. And their buttons are my apple pie for dessert - I LOVE the sizes and designs. And as if I needed more reason to love jillibean, the papers are double-sided... here they are...

These are, of course, available at Scrapbook and Co. where we had an awesome all day crop on Saturday. It was a "Back to School" theme, so as instructed, I wore my high school uniform. For the record, I was the ONLY one who wore her uniform!!!

Sadly, my original uniform school shoes, penny loafers (pennies included) were destroyed after four years of continuous wear - and NO ONE got new penny loafers during high school. You started freshman year in a pair and you graduated in that pair.

Another new line at Scrapbook and Co. is the Bazzill Heritage Paper. Normally this is a TOTAL snoozer for me... I have no desire to fill in family trees or research my ancestors (maybe one day), but I LOVE the journaling cards. I'm going to cut these apart and keep them in my crop bag so I always have a cute journaling block. I can just ink it to match any color scheme...

And I couldn't resist, because Avery "finger and toes" are just too cute. We had a Mommy and Avery day on Sunday and this is how Miss Avery came home...

Heading off to work now, but not before I check what's new at www.jillibean-soup.com

heather

I haven't posted any fun pictures in a while...

With help from Teri, I may finish the Disney book before we go back! Teri R. created this page and I "borrowed" the idea :)



Since I am decorting my scraproom - I wanted to show you my "design with what you have" idea - I'm going to copyright that - so don't try to use it...

I had some flowers from the $ Store, a ribbon from a gift, and this set of bottles from Walmart. I put some Bazzil Bling paper through the shredder and stuffed it into the "vase" (used loosely) for cute arrangement. I love it and it was all "junk" I had!



How precious is Parker on his Baptism? Look at my sister's face when Parker started "singing" - could her eyes get any bigger??



Then in August we went to Corks and Canvas to celebrate Jen and Ash's birthdays. This was Ashley's idea - even knowing she would be completely stressed - It was a blast - you have got to go with a bunch of friends, and bring LARGE MARGARITAS - oh and call me - I wanna come!




That's it for today. I made it through a day of work. I'm back in action!!!

Update on the health scene...

So the migraine is gone, but I either had the flu and that brought on the migraine, or I got the flu as the migraine was going away. Either way - it stinks! But I'm feeling better now and I should be back at work on Thursday.

After I picked the girls up from school today, we went to the grocery - for some strange reason I decided to cook dinner (which was a great idea until I started to cook and the nauseau hit), but back to the grocery... Of course, M&A asked if they could get a treat. I assumed ice cream or cookies - normal kid stuff - but noooooo - what did they pick? SUSHI! yep, they are the weirdest kids on the planet.

Scrapbook and Co. is having an All Day Crop this Saturday (which is sold out) - but there will be plenty of fun for shoppers too. Check out the blog for more details www.scrapbookandcompany.blogspot.com
And if you have been waiting for new $11 kits, I have 5 kits ready to bring out on Saturday. The pictures are on the Company blog if you want a preview. If you decide you want a kit, it's best to call the store or e-mail me and we'll put it aside for you - sometimes they go really fast.

hope you're laughing!

Head hurts...

So I don't feel stressed, but I've had a four day migraine anyway. Went to Urgent Care at 4pm yesterday for the "Migraine Cocktail" - Benadryl and Phenergan in one hip and Toradol in the other hip. Even after the shots, I was suffering... But my friendly doctor gave me prescriptions for Phenergan and Darvocet to take at home. So I've taken the cocktail in pill form three times, and (cross my fingers), I'm starting to feel human again.

What a bummer that I was home from work and didn't get to do any scrapbbooking...

My mom came over to check on my and she did all of the laundry, loaded the dishwasher, straightened the den and picked up the girls from school and fed them dinner - she's a RocKsTar!

Tomorrow should be interesting - I'm taking the girls to the dentist for the first time. Oh hush - I know they should have gone already, but I wasn't ready for the terrified meltdown that will ensue...

Sorry - no pics this time. I do have some new layouts to post - I'll do that tomorrow. And I also have 5 new $11 kits that are going on sale this Saturday at Scrapbook and Co. I'll post those tomorrow too.

Have a good week!

Back to Basics...

I started this blog for scrapbooking, so I better post some scrapbooking "stuff". This blog was not intended to be a running commentary of my life - that just happened along the way...

First, a little something I made for M & A's babysitter. I've had these big clothespins for - oh, I don't know, 4 years... The other day, my friend Melanie asked me - have you ever decorated one of those honkin' big clothespins? (I've heard her say "honkin'" more than once, so I'm sure that's what she said...) Which pretty much reminded me that I owned them and they may have dry rotted. But I dug them out and they still work, so I pulled out scrap paper and made this. And I am not the kind of person who pulls fantastic things together out of scraps - I hate scraps! But this time it worked out. I think I just might make some more - hopefully Scrapbook and Co has some more - don't try to beat me to them!

I finally got to scrapbook last weekend and I totally got to hang out with the "cool chicks". I stayed until 4:30 in the morning! Didn't get a hell of a lot done, but I had fun - and I laughed so hard I cried - now tHAT's a good time! What I did manage to do was tear into one of my Girl's Loft kits. Apparently I was collecting them instead of using them. I had looked at the first, still had the second one if the box and third one had just arrived. So I used the third on this Children's Museum layout. The kit was school related and since I was dying to use it, I decided to take a learning approach to everything we saw at the museum. Here's how it turned out...

It was so cool to play with brand new things coordinated just for me (and the four zillion other people buying the kits - but I pretend they are just for me). If you want to learn more about the kits - see the link on the side of my blog.

Lastly, my poor All About Me students have been waiting to see the August layout. First let me warn you that do not have the large pink sheet on the right side. I didn't have the correct sheet, so I improvised, but your kits do have the correct amount of pink paper - so don't fret.

Here is the left page of the layout with a close up of the peacock (which is not on the sample from Basic Grey - but how could I resisit using that cuteness?) Oh and pretend you don't see the pencil tracing of the circle for the brad placement - that's one of those finishing touches that I haven't finished...

The theme of this layout is "The Real Me" - hmmmmm - do they know me? because that could be difficult to describe. How many words do I get?? Most importantly, I'm a work in progress. So I knew I was safe with that title. As for the rest - I'm workin' on it...

Here's the right page with some detail shots:

That's it for now. I went back to the doctor on Tuesday, so now I'm on a regular antibiotic (so long z-pack...), a steroid and a decongestant - do you know what that equals? - WIDE awake and cold sweats - ahhh now that's good stuff. Hopefully you are having a laughable week just like me!

take care, heather

While most people read the morning paper...

My friend Angel surfs the net - and luckily she sends me the most hysterical sites. And since we have a similar warped sense of humor, she has never sent a dud...

If you need a laugh, I recommend checking this site daily - you will NOT be disappointed!

http://peopleofwalmart.com/

Just trying to spread laughter across the world... Happy laughing!

Note: As of 8:30pm, the link is not working. The link worked earlier, so maybe the site is having problems now. Hopefully it will be up soon...

little minds, random thoughts...

I guess my children have learned some valuable lessons from Noggin, PBS and the Disney Channel - so I'm shrugging off the Catholic guilt for letting them watch it so much.

Thursday I started the Z-pack which always rocks my world in a not good way. Shane went to the Saints game. And Morgan decides she wants some pickles. This would be a new, unopened very hard to open, especially when you are weak and want to die pickle jar. So I tapped the lid on the counter, I ran hot water on it, I used the gripper pad - all to no avail - feeling like a failure while my child is just looking at me wondering my I can't get the frazzlin pickle jar open...

So here's the point of this long winded story... Morgan says, "Mommy, let's try it together." So we both put our hands on the jar, and because she was so sweet I probably found a little strength to try a little harder and shazamm - we opened the jar! And she says in that all knowing 6 year old voice, "Mommy, we just needed a little teamwork!"

Then, when I walked into the kitchen this morning I saw and heard some beautiful. It may not strike you as beautiful, but here it is...




Two normally yelling, screaming, wrestling girls were harmoniously working together on a Fancy Nancy puzzle. Laughing and giggling and perfectly happy. So as I make my coffee, I tell them how proud I am of how they are working together on the puzzle and then I had to take it one step further and say, "I'm going to call the Backyardigans and tell them about this teamwork".... Why? Why did I say this? Maybe because I just knew the responses would make me laugh out loud. So here's how it went...

Morgan: "Mommy - it's the Wonder Pets" (the all knowing six year old)
Avery: "Do you have their phone number?" (the VERY literal almost 5 year old)
Mommy: "Oh, sorry, I forgot it was the Wonder Pets, and no Avery, I don't have their phone number, I was just pretending" (I then stir my coffee clinking the spoon against the mug a max of three times)
Avery: "That sound is annoying me" (clearly upset that I DON'T have the number for the Wonder Pets)

I used to almost dread the long weekend days because a) I was not properly medicated and b) it was a constant battle to keep my children from killing each other

But now, I'm just sitting back and laughing a lot more...

the week in review...

The girls are asleep and Ironman is at the Saints game, so I have a chance to reflect on this week. Let's review...

1. 60 people rsvp'ed with a "Hell, yeah" to Morgan's 6th birthday party on Saturday.
2. I normally steer clear of meat and refined sugar - but not on party day - and Sunday was pretty ugly for my GI "system"
3. Sunday the washing broke with a drum full of soap, clothes and water. And since I can't fathom a day without completing a load of laundry (shocking, I know), I have been to my mom's house a lot this week.
4. On Monday, Shane and Morgan woke up sick. Morgan came to work with me which always makes for a productive day. Shane - sinus infection, Morgan - bronchitis, Heather - ignoring the fact that glands are swollen in hopes that they will shrink back to normal size. Finally by today, I caved and started the z-pack.
5. My office is still in disarray from the a/c pan overflowing in the attic. Meanwhile landlord is in Indianapolis with his racecar - unconcerned about the chaos.
6. Attorneys - oh, I mean, our Procrastinating Clients, are coming in at the last minute to get their returns filed by the October 15th deadline. Each one of them couldn't possibly owe tax, because a) they don't make much money and b) (and this is my favorite) they don't have a lot of cash. EVERY year I explain this phenomena. Cash does not equal income. Your cash went to your new Beemer, your trip to Vail, your daughter's summer in Paris, your wife's new 3 carat diamond and your hair plugs... You were able to buy that BECAUSE you had income...
7. New clients are flocking in to take advantage of the LA Tax Amnesty program, and these are people with multiple years of tax returns to do.

So why am I boring you with this?? Because normally just one of these things could stress me out - but I have been rather calm this week. The girls bickering hasn't really phased me either. You know what this means???

The drugs are FINALLY working. The quadzilla combo may finally be in the right dosage and timing. If that's true - there will be a LOT more laughing at the Bellanger house! Wish me luck!