What a wonderful Xmas!!!!

Well Dan surprised me to bits with the gift of a Nikon D50 camera, that by far was my favorite part of this Xmas, (as materealistic as that may sound), I was truly shocked!!

The kids were spoiled as they always are, and loved every minute of our 2 family gatherings.

I seldom take pictures of Xmas, I am usually taking a toy out of the million twisties they put on them or running the video camera, I prefer to have these holidays captured live, but this year I made more of an effort being the scrapbooker I am ;)

I hope you had a great holiday and got to spend some quality time with your loved ones.

here are some pics I took with my new baby....

Close to my Heart, Heart of Winter campaign starts today!!!!!

if your in the market for some amazing stamping and scrapbooking supplies today is the start of an amazing sale, you can get all the details here!!! Happy shopping!

Oh Christmas Tree.........

just a little picture to get you in the holiday mood. After all there are only 12 more days until Christmas!! The kids are getting so excited and keep wondering what Santa will bring.

Tonight is the night I have been looking forward to for a month or so now, I'm meeting up with Vicki Boutin, Jen Backler , Patti Thompson, Patti Miller and Elia for dinner tonight. These girls are the best, and I wish we all lived closer so I could see them more often!! I am so glad the weather is going to be nice and safe for driving, this time of year you can never be sure!!!

A cleaning house sale

well since I have been cleaning up to clear out for Xmas I had another pile to list on EBAY so if you would like take a peak and see if anything tickles your fancy. and I can't believe there is only 14 days til Christmas, thanks goodness I'm ready!

Happy 11th Birthday!!!

my how time flies!!!

Happy 4th Birthday!!

to my baby girl~~~

My heart is

healing. I miss my boy, but he's called everyday since he left so that makes me feel better. I so want him to be happy and live the life he deserves. Thank you so much to everyone for their thoughts and hugs. It;s nice to know that people think i did him some good, I really needed it.!

For Zack...

always know how much we loved you, always know we'll forever be there, we shall miss you dear boy and hope and pray that the happiness you deserve finds you and stays with you, now and always!

It's official

Zack is going home on Friday, I don't know how the system can fail so miserably, don't get me wrong I am totally for reuniting the family, but in this case, as noted by psychiatrist's and doctors that have told this agency he SHOULD NOT return home ever, it saddens me to know that he is, I feel a great loss for the potential he had if he would have been placed for adoption, I really feel that this little boy feel through the cracks :(

Just listed a tonne of rubber stamps and scrapping goodies

in my new venture to sell Close to my Heart i figured i better clean out the scrap closet. so I have listed a bunch of my unloved scrap goodies and some old stamps, some are unused on EBAY thanks for peeking!

Open for business!!!!!!! and some sad news

I got my consultant kit from CLose to my Heart today, I am so excited!!! and overwhelmed, so much to read and learn and make so I have some artwork up on my Consultant site. So much to do.

Now my sad news, as many of you know I am a foster parent, we have had Zack with us since March 31, 2004, and I learned today that there is an extremely good chance he will be returning home to his mom on the 24th of this month, I'm happy a family will be reuinted but for those of you that know us IRL, it is honestly not the best thing for my dear son. I ask those of you that do to say a prayer for Zack that he will be safe and happy should this happen, I will never erase from my mind the reasons and condition he was in when he came to my home almost 3 years ago, keep him in your thoughts

A new Business venture

I signed up to become a Close to my Heart consultant. I am addicted to their Bonding Memories Glue as well as their unique acylic stamps and thought why not try to sell them. You can check out the link to my online shopping and website, although I don't have any artwork up yet, I haven't received my starter kit yet. But feel free to purchase some goodies for the scrapbooker/stamper in your life!! Thanks for peeking, the link is on the right---->

Happy Halloween!!!!!!!!

My foster son Zack as Dracula, I blacked out his eyes for privacy reasons and Nicks face is covered by his mask for privacy reasons

My foster son Nick as Batman

My nephew Carson as Elmo

My nephew, Brayden as Darth Vader

My neice, Abbygale, as Cookie Monster

Victoria as Sleeping Beauty

Marissa the cheerleader

Trick or treating was fun as always, the kids got a tonned of goodies, I could not get one clear picture of Victoria, she was constantly moving :)

Well it's

still the same around here damage wise, the tree is still laying across the yard and the town is still recovering, there are Disaster Service vehicles at homes all over, lots of people lost their basements. I am so thankful that the tree was our biggest loss and that it missed the house when it fell!

On a happy note, I went for a girls weekend away with Patti and Elia last weekend to Ohio. I got al little scrappin stuff that I hadn't seen anywhere around me and a lot of Christmas gifts for the kids. It's hard to believe it's just 8 weeks away!!! We went to the Cracker Barrel for breakfast out last day there and WOW!!! if you've never been to a Cracker Barrel you really should go what a totally neat place!!! We had a million laughs and a Forest Gump waiter at dinner one night, I got a Starbucks Chai latte which is a big deal cause the closest one to me is a 30 min drive, alittle to far to go for coffee :)

I'm still deciding whether or not i want to enter HOF for Creating Keepsakes magazine, just not confident enough yet, but i do have some ideas floating around in my head!! We'll see what happens!!!

84 hours without power!!! and snow in October!

My poor tree

Friday morning

Well after 84 hours without power, things are getting back to normal, I got up at 5 when the power came on this morning to tackle the mountain of laundry that built up over the past 4 days. The kids and I spent 2 nights at my mom's staying warm and entertained while Dan held down the house and his parents house 5 min away, They picked the perfect time to go on vacation!!!
We had to go to Burlington to get a generator as there wasn't one anywhere to be found in this area!
I am tired and do not know how people lived without power so many years ago, it is something we sure take for granted! and this morning I couldn't love anyone more than the hydro guys who have been working round the clock to restore power to our home and city!!!

Christmas Card photos shoot

I took the girls for a shoot yesterday, the weather was so nice here!! After all the rain this past week, I was so glad. I took about 50 shots, these were my favorite 3, CC welcome, I'm really trying to improve my photography!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

How can it

already be October? This year has truly flown by. I started my Christmas shopping yesterday, Walmart has some gret deals on stuff for their anniversary sale!!! I'm trying to get my neice a TMX Elmo for Xmas, good luck with that Auntie Kim, LOL. I can't believe the price of them on EBAY, WOW it's crazy what people will pay for one toy and in a year or 2 they will be all over Value Villiage and garage sales just like the ones ten years ago.

I'm very excited about the scrapbooking forum that my dear friend Patti set up it has a great forum and a storefront, which i had the pleasure of choosing some merchandise for if your a scrapbooker be sure to check it out here!!!

Started

a new scrap resume/portfoilio. the link is on the sidebar, please let me know what you think!

could the weekend

get any better??!!! After my post from yesterday I sent some layouts to Scrapbook and Cards Today magazine and within a few hours I got an email back requesting one of them. Talk about a turn around weekend, I wonder if getting a lottery ticket would be pushing it?!!LOL

and so to my dear friend Tina who advised me to submit I send you.....

What an awesome weekend!!!!!

On Saturday I went to a crop with my gal pals from Scraptivity, as usual I laughed lots, ate tons of junk and this time, I know some of you won't even believe it, but I actually cropped!!!!! I did 4 pages, if you don't believe it you can see it on my girl Tina's Blog.

And to top off the day, which was already awesome!!! I get home and my dh had a huge surprise for me:

Rewind a few days, DH comes home with a 32" TV/monitor for his computer, I suggest that we go to buy a dishwasher on Sunday and get a nasty" do we have money for a dishwasher?" "uh yeah maybe if you hadn't spent $1000 on that monitor" anyway, I was complaining about it at the crop, I get home and lo and behold a new dishwasher, installed ready to go, I almost cried, he totally blew me away!!! maybe people really can change!!!