A crafty kind of snow day

Oh, how I love a snow day!  A bonus day.  A gift of a day.  A nothing planned because I should be at work day.  That is what today was. 
I've already covered how much I love snow... that's one of the reason I loved today.  I watched a lot of snow ball fights and playing in our back yard.  But the best part about today was getting to do some fun crafty things. 
Since my dining table was still covered in craft things from last weekends fun, I decided I could clean it up today or keep playing in the mess... I chose the mess.  We ate popcorn and watched movies in our P.J.'s while we crafted...

I am forcing a "Valentine Luncheon" on my girls in a couple of weeks.  When they were little we had a Valentine tea every year but the last couple of years they wouldn't agree to it... but this year I told them I was giving them a lunch for their friends and they couldn't stop me.  They have come around some, I think they are even getting excited about it now.  So, one of my projects I needed to get done was the invitation...

I had ran across an idea for a cute wreath made from burlap and since I have a love of burlap I knew I needed to make it...

When I looked back at the site today, she is having a "valentine party" with links to other blogs with valentine crafts.  That may take up the rest of my night tonight...

                                                    

It was very easy and basic but I really like it hanging on the mirror...

I also made a little Love garland for the entertainment center...

And while the glue gun was on.... when Jennifer was here with her cute headband she had made, the girls asked for me to make them a few ...

I guess tomorrow I should really clean the dining room....

I think maybe I am part Eskimo after all

I was born in Alaska and adopted at birth by my very pale, very Southern parents.  They then sent pictures of their sweet new baby back to their family and the family thought by looking at the pictures of the not so pale, jet black crazy haired baby that they had surely adopted an Eskimo.   We left Alaska when I was a toddler to go back to South Mississippi where I'm not sure if I ever saw a snow flake. 
 
I realize that my favorite memories of places I have lived have been places with a real winter...in Iran and in Colorado Springs I remember the winter as my favorite time!  And now in Lubbock.  Who knew I would ever say that??? 

I heart snowy weather!!!

 I know I won't like it when we have a day to make up at school but I am glad we are having a snow day tomorrow. 
I stopped by the grocery store on the way home for a few things.  I quickly realized that everyone in the area must also be having chili for dinner tonight as the mix I usually buy, or any mix for that matter, was gone from the shelf...

So, Chili from scratch is on the stove, the fireplace is burning, and two wet dogs are asleep by it.  (The dogs also love the snow)

shortly after this picture, my oh so sweet girl was babbling about a problem with getting snow out of a "crack"

Do you see these brand new boots?  Why did she not think to wear the old boots????

"they have to get old sometime" was her reply

gotta love her...

And I'm going to spend my unexpected day off looking for a new job for us in Alaska or Canada or Maine.  Oh, and a new igloo to live in...

My favorite kind of day

I know I often mention my favorite kind of day.  Today was one of those days.  It had almost all of the ingredients of the perfect day...

• I fixed a yummy, girly lunch for a couple of friends who came over. 
• They came over for crafting. 
• I never left the house.  
• My kids were around all day and not fighting.
• It even rained for a very little while.

We enjoyed a day of crafting and fun.  One friend wanted to make a new address book, one wanted to make journals for a woman's retreat.  I had to find a project to work on too of course!

And my favorite thing I made for the lunch...

Homemade Ranch dressing - yummmy!

Buttermilk Ranch Dressing

(adapted from Harmony House cookbook)

1 cup Buttermilk

1 cup Mayonnaise

1 Tbsp Parsley Flakes

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 pod grated garlic

1/2 tsp grated onion

mix all ingredients and store in refrigerator

There is no such thing as a truly selfless good deed

Remember that quote???

I've thought a lot about that quote the last couple of days.  I'm pretty sure it's true...

I have been involved in helping a family in need the last few days.  I did it because it's part of my job.  It became personal because, well, because I think I take everything personally whether I want to our not... but it has touched my heart. 

It was as enjoyable to me to provide assistance as it was for this family to recieve it.  No, more so, I feel certain.  It's not often that you know made a difference right that minute.  It has been a blessing to help and pray for this family.

As Jennifer said, she even thought about the story last night when she went to get a snack and had choices of what to eat.  Some people don't.  

If only it was that easy to help all the time....A few phone calls and we have more than what was needed...

It sure has made me more aware of our blessings, more prayerful, and oh so thankful.

Friends and fun

My sweet friend and her daughter were here for the weekend.  We enjoyed hanging out and visiting with them so much.  The girls had a great time!  We watched movies, ate (even at the "derDog"), and spent many hours just talking and talking while working on our planners.

Our main plan for the weekend was to update our planners that I made a couple of years ago.  She brought boxes and boxes of pictures!  She spent time sorting and finding pictures while I put it together.   Debbie had left with hers before I remembered I didn't take good pictures of hers!

Inside front of Deb's

My new planner

Front

back

inside front cover

think the back area with all my friend pictures may be my favorite part...

I am thrilled with how it turned out!  I still have a couple of months to finish today.  I used my last one daily for about 2 years, I loved it so much that I hated to change it to a new one.  Now I'm excited about this one, new type, new look, better calendar pages.

Love it!!!

I've tried to tell them it's different here...

I have a sweet friend from the Dallas area who drove out to spend the weekend with us.  She had a bit of trouble finding her way through the middle of no where to find us and upon arrival she stood outside the door and said "I'm not coming in, get your things, you're coming with me....we have to get you out of here... everything is just big fields of dirt out here..."
She comes inside to notice that Kellie's glasses have broken (just before she arrived and the optical shop was already closed) and I have hot glued them together... she then tells Kellie to get her things, she's coming back with her and she'll get her glasses and not make her wear the glued ones...
But then.  We leave to go pick up Katie and she notices that just around the corner from us is a Wienerschnitzel (or DerDog as she lovingly referred to it) and across the street from that is a Whataburger.  Her opinion of where we lived was greatly increased, I believe her words were "It's Heaven"...
Who knew... Guess she loves the DerDog....

We have it down to an art

We went for our very short weekend of fun.  I have made an art of squeezing as much as fun as possible into short visits! 

We started with dinner with friends. 

The funniest part of this was watching Katie and a friends son (who have known each other forever and spent every afternoon after school playing together) act all uncomfortable when they saw each other.  They couldn't even speak to each other.

 He proposed to her when they were in first or second grade.  Now they can't even stand by each other without acting all weird and teenager-ish...

We forced them to stand by each other for a picture.  Look likes the wedding is on hold....

edited to add an earlier picture of the two, back when they were still talking marriage...or at least weren't afraid to stand next to each other

We started the next morning off with the cousin trip to the Galleria and breakfast at the American Girl store.

Breakfast was wonderful, even the dolls had menu's

Katie brought a friend since she didn't want to do the American Girl store. The were inside the mall without us before we could get out of the car good! Think they enjoyed their big girl time. Of course, they wouldn't want me to tell this, but they wanted to play with the dolls later that night...

                                    

The dolls went shopping with us

They had a cozy locker to stay in while the girls ice skated

Jennifer tried to to get Kellie ice skating

Aren't the best friends sweet?

We visited our favorite stores

I  L.O.V.E. Williams-Sonoma.

We celebrated J's birthday at the Magic Time Machine for dinner

I think they enjoyed it!

One of my favorite things of the weekend was the two beautiful swans in the hotel lobby.  I could just sit and watch them all day...

We headed back this morning and I've gotten caught up with all the weekend jobs... even made a cake for a birthday at work tomorrow.

It was all fun but I am tired!

And we're off...

We are headed to Dallas today for the weekend.  A very quick girl trip is all it is.  Mike insists on referring to it as another one of our "vacations" but I have explained if I am in Dallas it isn't a vacation, it's just going home for the weekend AND if it's only for a weekend it doesn't qualify as a vacation...
 I realized that going from all the down time we had over the holidays to back to work and immediatly out of town for the weekend is not what I should have planned! I'm not ready to drive there again yet, not ready to not have a day to just hang out at home.  Oh, it will be fun but I'll have to wear real clothes and make up.  Oh well...
We're meeting cousins for some girly, Dallas type playing.  The bad news, it's freezing there too...
Here we go!

Let's try this again...

Hey - you still out there???  This internet thing still around?

I just thought I was loving the new lap top!  That was, for the hour I used it at my sisters house where the wireless worked so well.  Back home was another story.  Routers and such have kept us living the old fashioned life for the last two weeks.  It wasn't all bad.  We have played lots of games, read, etc and no one fought over the computer.  Now, it wasn't easy, but we did it.  We had a hard time finding movie times and such as we really didn't remember how we did it before the internet....

Christmas was wonderful.  Relaxing.  Not stressful at all this year.  We all got way more than we should have!  Snow and ice was so bad we didn't make it to church Christmas eve, that was weird...

Highlights from the last few weeks:

Snow

Being a small part of a little blessing for another family that is having a very stressful Christmas.

Snow!!!!

Time with family

Did I mention how much we loved the snow!?!