~Goodbye to Fall~

I can't believe it's time to say Goodbye to fall already. We enjoyed a few last S'mores and toasted marshmallows at our family campfires. Bring on the snow!

My newly painted kitchen was host to it's first dinner date for my parents not too long ago.

The centerpiece was a very simple couple of stems from an aging bush from the garden. It made for the perfect brown and pink palette I was using for this table setting.The silverware and napkin bundles were tied with lace, seam binding and a small chandelier prism. We enjoyed Cajun chicken pasta and Caramelized apples with vanilla bean ice cream for dessert.

This is the congratulatory dinner for my husband who just got a promotion at work. The kids & I made him a banner and I cooked up his favorite Mexican meal.

YourAngil Christmas Adornments

This year so far has been extremely exciting. After a few years of moving into my home away from my parents 4 years ago and getting married and having kids. I made the transition all this year from working girl to stay at home mother and wife. It's been very nice and relaxing. Any stress and commitment was what I asked for by going out and looking for things to make me happy and keep me busy.

After working 6 years at Michaels arts and crafts when Christmas starts in August and ends in February. I hurts to say now but I was so sick of Christmas. While fully pregnant I would deal with cranky customers and lack of experienced cashiers. Me at 8 months round bending over and cleaning stems with glitter glued to every inch. Yuck. Everything in my house shimmered with glitter. This year though. I've had limited introduction to Christmas and the idea that it is coming up is almost too much to handle.
My Mom and Dad put on a huge party production for our immediate family every year. Food all day and presents all morning. I can't wait! I've been keeping myself busy though. I've been making Scrapbooks on Snapfish.com . There are Pros and cons to doing your album digitally. I personally have conflicting opinions about it. I'd obviously much rather have 3d real embellishments and take the time to personally put it all together but I also refuse to have all of my photos on the computer exclusively or in a photo box. So I went ahead and made a book for our Family album for 2007 and 2008 as well as each of their baby books and our California Vacation. Someday I will have time maybe when the kids go to school or maybe I won't have time until they leave the house. Either way for now I want to have the photos gathered so we can enjoy them. So even though the costs can add up it's still cheaper than 5.00 for each scrapbook layout page. After embellishments ,paper and photos it would be comparable.
I had a great time putting these new tag series together. I actually sat down on the living room floor to make these after the kids went to bed. Since it's winter weather now the little critters have discovered my house as a safe haven. My husband & I are NOT pet people but we actually think it's kind of fun to have a nightly sighting of the itty bitty mouse. It's not so cute anymore because we've caught 5! Aaah! I told my husband I'm not amused anymore. Get them out of here before they make beds in my crepe paper stash. Ha:)

Halloween Past

Our Halloween Activities this year were all planned out at a big church near our house. This program they have every year is so cool! A great alternative for trick or treating. Especially for younger trick or treaters who don't like to walk as much. Out in the cold and dark. This is much safer. They had a bracelet system and all.

We played about 30 games and for each game they got to pick their candy. The church even provided peanut and dairy free candy! The kids loved it.

It's a tradition now to go and show Grandma the kids costumes after we've gone to our church.

Grandma works at Bed Bath & Beyond and almost always works Christmas night.
I would highly recommend checking in with your local churches to see if they have a program like this or even putting one on yourself!

Playing with Pink

On New years day 2004 my then fiance and I moved into our first home. I was working at Michaels Arts & Crafts full time and was 6 months pregnant. Being at work all day with the Christmas decorations was nice but made me lust for the Shabby Romantic Cottage ornaments and decor. When I had Matt come up to work with me for customer appreciation so we could pick out our Christmas decorations together for our new house we quickly realized that our tastes wern't exactly on the same page. I wanted all white lights and pink and pastel colored ornaments.

He could not understand why anyone would not use colored lights and he wanted bright red and blue ornaments. So we decided we would by one tree and 2 sets of decorations. We would switch back and forth every other year. Last year we had a Shabby Chic Christmas as you can see in my vague posts from last year. So this year while taking out our Christmas decorations I mourned the pretty pink glass balls and shabby chic stockings. I had to set up a photo shoot to rejoice in my pretty decorations I won't see much of this year.

It's such a shame. They would have looked so pretty hanging from the chandeliers. I'm sure the red and blue will be pretty too. Next tueday is our designated putting up the tree and decorations day so I'll be showing you next week.

First Haircut

My beautiful Princess Valencia getting her first Haircut!

She was very nervous. As you can see in this photo. She never really did relax her shoulders. So now she has one lock of hair hanging down that didn't get trimmed with the rest of them. Fortunately she only had to have 1 and a half inch cut off because it was healthy. You know I saved the lock of hair and placed it in an envelope for her baby box.

The other kids waited very patiently and suprisingly quiet. I think due to them thinking if they disobeyed they would be punished with a hair cut. They were all very content to get suckers when we left though.

That is one Full back seat!

Missed you!

Hey guys! I've missed writing you this week. My computer had to be sent away for a few days longer than I expected to be cleaned and formatted. I've used this time away from the computer to work on some new projects for my Etsy shop. Above is a photo of my new favorite thing to make. Crepe Paper Frills with an added touch of beauty in pretty colors of seam binding ribbon. I made a project earlier and added these paper frills to the bottom. I love the way it looks on a collage.

New color collections of the Vintage Lace Roses.
Here is a beautiful bunch of Goldenrod Crepe Paper roses I made as a special order for Love LUcy to surround her wedding cake.

New colors of crepe paper roses are available.

I'm enjoying this month so much so far. When I think of November I think mostly of the crisp air. I love to bundle the kids and myself up and have the windows open all day. This kind of air feels like you breathe it in and it just cleans out your body.

Once again. I'm reading another Francine Rivers book. It's called Redeeming Love and it's an amazingly sweet story so far. Thank goodness Jenny recommended her to me. I highly recommend any of her books.

Along with my reading I've also been sewing everything in sight. The most relaxing of which has been my new Crepe Paper Frills boxes I've been putting together. I now have new color combinations available.