Got things on my mind....

can I just unload my brain of overwhelming things? just for today.....

I have to....
clean my house. Can't stand it that I'm behind on cleaning. I got the kids to help me out on Monday but the perfectionist in me is struggling that the tabletops are not fully cleared of dust and the mirrors and windows have a weird streak still on them.

Finish all my April projects. I can't stand that I only have one more week of March. I like it when I'm done with April before it even starts.

Start sewing up some costumes and painting some simple sceneries on butcher paper. The whole family is a part of an Easter program at church and I've been collecting props and supplies for our presentation and now I'm down to the wire to get it all put together in time for the activity.

Upload all the photos that I've been taking this week. This week was the kid's Spring break and we have not been taking any break from fun! There's about 300 photos to sort through.

and I want to......
Get halfway done with the knitting project I've started. I'm attempting to make my very first sampler knit blanket/throw. So far I've only done one block and halfway on the second.

Bake and cook. Watching too much cooking shows and I'm itching to try new recipes.

change my blog banner. It's springtime already and I'm tired of seeing my feet on snow photo.

Take a trip to Goodwill. There's a few ideas in my mind that I want supplies for.

Whew! That helped a little. Sometimes I wonder how people that are fulfilling their dreams do it? There's so many moments this week where I feel like just retreating in my scrapbook room to create but then there's things that I HAVE to do first!

Enough of that!

Before I leave, let me leave you with a batch of Spring themed cards...


In my hopes of trying new things this year....I joined in a card swap in my lss. We were to make 10 cards (of the same design) and then we'll get 10 other cards back.


I thought it was a great idea of using some supplies that I've been holding on to plus when I get the cards that the other swap ladies have made, I will hopefully get some new techniques and ideas that I might not have known before.


I'm not sure how good my cards were compared to the other ones that have participated. We shall see. I'm suppose to get my share of the swap by tomorrow. I'll let you know how that turns out.

So that's it. Sorry for some of the absence here. As you can see, my life is filled. Filled with blessings and duties. Now off to check some of those "duties" off!

Have a great weekend.

Till next time,
Grace

March UDD cards

Now that I've posted all the photos I wanted to post, it's time for some crafting share.

In March, all the Upsy Daisy Design team members were asked to make some cards showing off some of the wonderful rubons UDD has to offer.

I made three and here they are...



here's some close ups....

I used some Circle of Friends papers and rubons.


In this one, I used the Enchanted line and this rubons.


With this one, I used papers from the Tweet line and rubons.

So that's it. Make sure you check out the site for more information and inspiration.

Till next time,
Grace

Ute Valley park + Dunkin Donuts

On Saturday we went on another exploring trip. We went on a hike around Ute Valley park.


We've been here before. This is where our photoshoot was done. The kids wanted to explore after the shoot but because we weren't dress for hiking we decided to go home but promised ourselves that we will go back, aptly dressed!


I love how this park is in the middle of many housing communities. Even though it is in the middle of the suburbs, once you've reached the top of the hills, you feel so close to nature. I mean look at the view of the valley? I definitely love the different views we see here in Colorado.


Here's the family resting a bit.


Here's me. You see the sweaters hanging on my camera bag? It got warm on us while hiking so me and Maddie took off our sweaters.


There were parts of the hike where the wind was blowing so for the rest of the hike, it was a game of taking off and on with our sweaters.

After the hike, I've told the family that I spotted a Dunkin Donuts shop on our way to the park. We were all planning on having some yummy donuts after our 2 hour hike. We figured we needed to get back the calories we burned up from our hike, right?!

Well when we got to the store it was close and after checking with our GPS, we found out that the nearest Dunkin would be about 9 miles away from where we were. I guess you can blame it on our tired and hungry behinds that we didn't mind driving a bit just so we can get our donut fix!


I'm so excited to know that Dunkin Donuts exist in Colorado. That's something that we didn't have in California.


Mitch eating a glazed donut


Marcus with his chocolate one.


Maddie with her caramel topped donut.


and me....wearing mine!!!


playing peak-a-boo with my donuts was so much fun. Just as fun as eating them.

BTW so we each picked three donuts and Marcus was the only one that was able to eat all of his donuts in one seating. Both Maddie and Mitch got to two and I was only able to eat 1 1/2. I have forgotten how heavy donuts can be in your stomach!

So that's it. We had a great Saturday and I hope you did too.

Till next time,
Grace

The Leprechaun came....

For St. Patrick's Day, Marcus didn't have any school because of Parent-teacher conference. Since both kids were going to be home, I decided to do a little bit of "green" fun with them.


We started off by decorating some bags, St. Patrick's day style.


I got these small white bags from the party store. I believe it was 2 for $1. I also picked up a shamrock sticker pack for a buck.


I used my protractor to make curves so the kids can make a rainbow on their bags. Maddie added a pot of gold on the end of one of her rainbow.


While Marcus placed his underneath the rainbow and flooded his bag with shamrock stickers.


Maddie even added a leprechaun on hers.


While they were making their bags, I went in the backyard and scattered some "gold" chocolates. Both my kids don't believe in Leprechauns (I had to tell Maddie that he's make believe after she freaked out about Leprechauns a couple of years ago while in a preschool party) so it was easy for me to be the "little man with gold" that morning.


Using the bag they decorated, they were off to gather the gold treats.


The party store was selling candy in bulk and I was able to purchase small gold candies like rolo's and kisses without spending way too much money on candy. I also got them each a pack of gold coin covered chocolates.


and here are the two happy "gold" collectors.

It was definitely a fun morning. Maybe we'll make it a tradition!

Till next time,
Grace

Irish dinner

Sorry I've been a bit MIA lately at the blog. I've been trying to cope up with a nasty cold plus my tooth extraction was still bothering me. And here I thought I was bionic woman! :(

Anyways, I have ton of stories to share and I'll start with my Irish dinner....

On Wednesday, we had the LDS missionaries for dinner. We try to invite them to our home once a month and since the dinner fell a day before St. Patrick's day, I thought an Irish dinner would be a fun theme.


I enjoy it when we have the missionaries over. There's only two more people to feed that means, I don't have to scale my dishes too much; I can put out my nice china (I only have plate settings for 6) and I get to experiment on new dishes. I'm very happy that so far, my experiments have turned out edible enough and that the missionaries plus my family are still willing to be my guinea pigs.


I bought some green plastic necklaces at the party supply store for about 30 cents a piece and used that to loosely wrap the table napkins. These necklaces also became my party favors. Now, I don't go all out all the time when it comes to our missionary dinners but this time I felt the need to just be a "tad" overboard. *wink*

Here's the dishes I made.....

Irish Soda Bread with raisins


Steamed green beans


Glazed corned beef. I got the recipe for this dish from a lady I met at Maddie's Preschool in California. She made it one time for our class (during a St. Patrick's day celebration) and I've been wanting to make one myself. It was super easy and very delicious. This corned beef was about 4 lbs. which, according to the recipe, will feed 8-10 people. There were 4 adults and two kids at our dinner table that night and there were no leftovers of this meat. What does that mean? either we loved it so much that we over ate or the recipe scale was a bit off.


Colconnan. I did a bit of research for authentic Irish meal and this mashed potatoes/cabbage combo was a popular one that people served with their Corned beef. It was good. The recipe told me to put the cooked dish and make a well in the middle for the melted butter. Being that this was my first time to make it, I followed it to the T. I don't really know the reason why they'd have the melted butter in the middle, just before serving we mixed it up so that the butter can be mixed all through out the dish.


With my research, I found out that most of the desserts for an authentic Irish dinner had Irish beer in them. I didn't want to serve a dish with some alcohol in it (wether it's going to be cooked or not) to my guests so I made a simple Key Lime Pie. Hey, it's green and I think that still counts!

So that was our Irish experience. I can definitely say that the Irish people have some great food.

Till next time,
Grace

Feeling lucky today?

Happy St. Patrick's day to all. So are you feeling the luck of Irish today?

I made this lucky banner using Clear Scraps acrylic banner.


and you are "lucky" today cause I made a tutorial on how I made the project over at the Clear Scraps blog. Check it out here.


and for even more luck and maybe some prizes....

Glue arts are having some wonderful contests and deals this weekend. Check out more info here.

That's all from me today. Have a great day everyone.

Till next time,
Grace

All about a boy

this post is dedicated to my wonderful son, who at times baffles me at how smart he's become when it comes to the Gospel and also on how fast he picks up on things of the world. Sometimes I wonder if the latter will outweigh the first being that right now he's dream job when he grows up is to own a video game store so as he puts it in his own words...."so I can play video games all day long!". But for now I'm hoping that it'll just be a phase.....just a simple "boy" phase!!!

He's been keeping busy lately with things 'other' than video games and here's some of pics to show for them.....


In the beginning of February we got a flyer from his school about a 10-week Wrestling program that is being held at the local high school for kids grade 1-8. When I saw it, I immdediately asked him if he wanted to sign up. The answer was no but after Mitch got a hold of the flyer, there was no question he was signing up. (background....Mitch wrestled in High school and is a huge MMA fan)


So we bought him some shoes and for about 6 weeks (when we signed him up,the course was already starting) on Monday and Thursday afternoons (5-6pm) he was going to wrestling practice.


Mitch usually took him so I can cook while they're at wrestling. But there's also times when I've had to take him bec. Mitch was still at work. I didn't mind since I was able to take photos of Marcus hard at work. My family just had to eat later on those days. :)
So the session is done but the coaches have high hopes for next season and even going to start the program in October instead of January like what they did this year. We are hoping this will help Marcus mature a bit and he'll be able to understand sportsmanship better.


Marcus was not only working on being physically active, but he was also practicing his reading a lot by participating in the Karate reading program at school. In the beginning of February, the teachers for 1st and 2nd graders implemented a reading program for the month to inspire the kids to read, read, read. Everytime they read 5 books, they go up a color on belt, just like in Karate. And last week they had their recognition day.


Here's Marcus shaking his teacher's (Mrs. Larson) hands after receiving the green belt certificate. Green belt meant that he was able to read 20 books for the duration of the program.


Here he is shaking a girl who is training in the Olympics for rifle shooting (who was the guest speaker for the event). We have an Olympic training facility in town so there's a few Olympians living in the area.


At the end of the program, the teachers held up a banner which stated how many books the kids (in total) have read for the month. That was definitely a whopping huge number.

I was floored at how many books some of these kids read. Marcus' number was on the whimpy side. The kids that have earned their black belts read 70 books. Now that's understandable but can you believe this....there were some that earned a black belt with three red stripes that have read 110 books in the month. It was unbelievable. Either they read preK books or that's all they did all day! At first I was proud of the 20 that my son read, I mean that makes it about 5 books a week in 4 weeks. I honestly thought that was a good number but after going through the recognition day I felt that we didn't push the reading enough. Oh well,I guess we have next year to redeem ourselves. oh the competitiveness in me!!!

So that's it. Our boy, our sweet, loving boy is growing up and trying all sorts of things. Things that hopefully will make him an upstanding member of society one day. :)

***ooopppss totally forgot to say Thank you for all the wonderful comments coming my way because of the announcement of the new Glue Arts DT and being in the GCD Studios Guest DT list. It seems like I have been in cloud 9 for the entire month of March and it's not even over yet. I feel so blessed and thank you all for celebrating with me. :)******

Till next time,
Grace

This is for my mom

today's post is layouts galore!!!!

The other day, I was talking on the phone with my mom and she asked me if I was still making layouts. I was surprised by her question, I mean, me? not make anymore scrapbook pages? that's just inconceivable!!!

Anyways, I told her that I still am but have kept them under wraps because I've been trying to submit them for publication.

But today I decided to post a few of them......just for my mom. :)

He's aging!

I made this page about my husband and his reading glasses. Last year when he came back to California from his initial trip to Colorado (for work), he came back with some new pair or reading glasses. I chuckled when I saw it and of course gave a few jokes about "aging". He told me that he's noticing that he has been having a harder time to read his scriptures and these glasses (not prescription kind) is magnifying the words for him. I took photos of him and his new "accessory" and made this page.


I've been trying to use up my stash and in here, I rummaged through my chipboard collection and used a few. I covered most of the circles with pattern paper and used two to hold my title. While in the others, I added stickles (glitter glue) for some shine and texture.

Yellow Mellow

a page I made because I'm sooooo looking forward to Spring. I love bright and cheery colors and this page just makes me happy all over.


I added a homemade accent by punched a circle from kraft cardstock, adding some circle lines with pen and then adding a punched out heart in the middle with pop up dot.

Shy no more

This page is about celebrating how my super shy son have come out of his shell and started participating in school programs like this one last year. Because it's a celebratory type of layout, I used the banners for the title.


I punched out some circles from pattern paper, added my letters on it before adhering it to the banner stickers from Pink Paislee. The circles bring the letters pop out better against the red background.

Anniversary date 2010
PULLED OUT FOR PUBLICATION
a double page spread. Here's photos of our anniversary date last year. We took a break from getting our home ready for sale (painting and cleaning) to celebrate with a dinner and movie.

PULLED OUT FOR PUBLICATION
I kept the chipboard shape's raw color here so it'll stand out against the busy patterns of the paper in the background. I did however, sprayed some glimmer mist on it for some shine before adding the title letters.

So that's it. Thanks for stopping by.

Till next time,
Grace