Happy Birthday Mom!!

Bengals, Egyptian Maus or Mixed Breeds

We are in the beginning stages of looking for a cat. A cat that wold be an indoor pet. We need one that would be a good lover. One that would love you and enjoy being a part of the family. One that would get along with Max, our Labrador. So we have been looking at 2 different breeds online. These are the two that my son would like to have. One is the Bengal and the other is an Egyptian Mau. Both of these are very expensive breeds, so I am thinking we just need to adopt one from a pound or from Pet Smart, some place like that. We have searched and searched the internet but nothing so far. I have emailed 3 or 4 catteries but no one has any kittens yet. My son is so excited and just can't wait to get a cat. I think a mixed breed. Would be just fine and a whole lot cheaper. Well we'll just have to wait and see.

My Mother-in-Law, Joan

This lovely lady was my mother-in-law, Joan Smith (Joanne). Unfortunately she had a stroke on Dec 25, and passed away on Dec 27, 2010. The Christmas and New Year holidays took on a whole new feeling. While the rest of the world was celebrating we were in shock and in mourning. It was hard to read all of my favorite blogs and hear them talk about what a wonderful time they had and tell of their New Year's resolutions. All of that did not seem to matter this year.

We spent the first week of 2011 driving back to Indiana for a memorial service with all of our family. It was wonderful seeing everyone but also bittersweet.

The memorial we had here in Colorado, at our church, Yuma Christian Church, was a celebration. We celebrated her life and her love for all the people who had come to know her as "Grandma". The church was packed with standing room only. Some came because they wanted to honor her and others came to honor her son, my husband, Don. It was a wonderful service.

This picture is of her at her favorite places in all of the world, Estes Park, Colorado, at her favorite restaurant, Nick's Steak House, and her favorite hotel, Deer Crest Resort. She and her husband used to stay here when they would vacation in Estes Park.

She will be forever loved and missed. (Our home seems way to big now.) But we have the assurance of knowing that we will be reunited with her and all of our loved ones that have gone on before us. We all will meet in our Father's House.

For all of you who are out there that sent cards or flowers or even sent up a prayer for our family, we just want to say thank you for everything.

Thanks for visiting with me today.

You Tube

December was a complete roller coaster of a month. I will post more on that as time goes by. I'm not really ready to talk about everything that has happened. But until then here is a you tubes that I would like for you to look at. On Sunday December 26 my son presented his first communion and offering devotions at church. Unfortunately my husband and I were not able to be there. (When I explain more about Dec you will understand why.) A friend of ours took a video of them and posted them on you tube so that we could see him. His dad and I are very proud of him. I hope you not only enjoy the video but that you will enjoy his message.
Sorry but I'm not able to get the video to upload, so I hope you will go to You Tube and search the title Two videos will come up, please look at both of them.
Thanks for visiting with me today.
">"Sam Smith Devotions" .
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1-7-11 Update - I am now home on my own computer and I was able to download the two videos that I was talking about. I hope you enjoy.

PSA Essentials

This is a card that I made for PSA Essentials. I used their Peel & Stick stamps to stamp the Christmas tree and the saying on the inside and also the border around these. If you would like to find out more about their stamps go to their website here.

Beautiful Hazel Eyes

My son took a picture of his own eye. Sometimes he gets very artsy with the camera. He wanted to take the pic to place on his computer. When I saw the pics I really loved them. So I thought I'd share the pictures of my son's beautiful eyes.

We always have thought that his eyes were beautiful. When he was a baby they were a very pretty shade of blue and as he grew older they turned into what you see here. His eye lashes are so long and beautiful too. When he was about 5 or 6 we caught him cutting his eye lashes. We were so freaked out that he would take scissors up that close to his eyes but also because he cut his gorgeous eye lashes. He didn't like them being so long because he thought they looked like girl's lashes. But all is well, I guess they grew back because they are still gorgeous.

I loved pictures of hands, eyes, arms, feet, etc., of your loved ones. They in them self tell a story. I once did a page of a picture of Sam's foot. My husband had told me to just throw away the picture (it had been taken by mistake). I looked at the picture and realized that his foot would soon be bigger and that little baby foot would be gone. So I saved the picture and love the page that I did for it.

Well I hope you enjoy!

Thanksgiving Feast

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

We had a very lazy day Thursday, we woke up and ate, we laid around then ate, then more laying around and more eating.

We didn't have anyone over to share in our Thanksgiving feast, so we had the whole turkey to ourselves. We've been eating turkey sandwiches ever since. ;)

Being so far from our families the holiday feeling sometimes isn't there. Don tries to invite people over, those who also don't have family in town. It does help to get that holiday feeling. But this year we didn't start inviting until it was a little to late. Really it turned out okay because we all got some much needed rest.

Scrabble

On Friday, Nov 19, we had a Family Game Night here at the church. We had a very good turn out of adults and children. Sam asked if I would play Scrabble with he and his friends. We had a great time playing. It is so cool to think that Sam enjoys playing this game. When I was young, Sam's age and younger, my family, on my mother's side, would all get together on Sunday afternoons and play Scrabble. I remember how fierce of a competition it would be with my Grandfather Nelson. (He would not allow the dictionary to be cracked open unless someone disputed a word.) Now here Sam and I are playing together. This is one of those neat memories I will always keep and I hope someday he will enjoy playing the game with his family. (We are much more easy going with the dictionary thing. HA!)

As you can see I didn't win, Sam's friend Marcos won pretty easy. I got stuck with Z and J and no where to put them.

Do you have a favorite game you like to play with your family? If you do let me know.

The craft fair is done. I'm glad that it is because I was so stressed out before and during. I will post some of the pics from the fair at a later date. Right now I've got to get home and get some work done for PSA Essentials.

First Snow

We received our first snow of the season today. We woke up to maybe 1 or 2 inches. By 11:00am it had started to melt. It has been cold and we have kept the fire going all day.

The local craft fair starts Saturday and I'm not ready for it. So I worked on these note pads today. I'd like to give these away to those who visit my booth. I'll have some cards and tags there to sell, but mostly I just want to get my name out there and to show my work in scrapbook design. Hopefully I'll have some clients after this. People here really like to make scrapbooks for their graduating seniors. I don't know how it will go, so pray for me Saturday if you think of it.

Thanks for visiting.

Ride on the Train

This is a page I made about our trip on the Amtrak Train. We rode the train from Ft. Morgan to Glenwood Springs CO. It is a beautiful trip, you ride through the Rockies and it is gorgeous. The town is a lovely town too. We stay at the Hotel Denver which sits directly across from the Amtrak Station. Plus their restaurant is wonderful. This was Sam's first time riding the train and I think he really enjoyed it. The lounge car is the best place to ride. If you can see in the one picture, there are windows at the top of the car so when you go through the mountains you can see up to the top of the cliffs. On this trip we saw deer running through the trees and the best thing is, we saw 2 bald eagles!

Hope you enjoy!

Background paper is from Rusty Pickle

tags from the office store

Actual ticket

and the rest is just scraps from my scrap pile