Yeah for Wednesday!

Anyone who is in love with reality TV (like I am), knows that tonight is the Top Chef Finale! YEAH! I just have to say...GO Stephanie! GO Richard! Anyone but Lisa can win! WOO HOO!

Note: Isn't this picture funny! I have a feeling that there was a lot of editing going on in there! HA!

Friday's 10!

Hey everyone! I thought that it was about time for another Friday Top Ten. So here goes. It's just going to be about the First 10 things I can think about...here goes!

#1 - I am very glad that it's so nice outside these days. Today to work I am wearing capris and flip flops! I love that! And when I go home and get ready to head to my in-laws for dinner I will put on a tank top! YEAH!

#2 - The wind has been too much this year! I don't remember it being nearly as windy as it has been in Kansas these past few months. We have had to stake every one of our little trees down because they have either (a) fallen over OR (b) looked like they were going to fall over. We planted them about a year ago and I just feel so sorry for them. They are just trying to survive!

#3 - I wish I was on Deck 10 of the Vision of the Seas, laying in the sun!

#4 - Who wishes that Lisa would have been kicked off of Top Chef instead of Antonia. I can't believe that Lisa was so rude and said to the other two contestants, "I know that Antonia was your freind and everything but it would be nice of you both to congratulate me for making it to the finals." Ummmm...HELLO! I liked how Richard put it in his private interview, "Ummm...congrats on getting the bronze medal and coming in 3rd?" News flash Lisa...Stephanie and Richard beat you, you should be congratulating THEM! But who cares...one of them will win anyway!

#5 - Only 2 hours left of work today. I'm leaving at 4:30. I have to get out to the in-laws to swim and make smores before it rains! YES!

#6 - Speaking of smores...my healthy lifestyle begins again on Monday! On the cruise I gained 4 pounds! But it was totally worth it. I have lost all of that since being home but I need to get back to the gym so it doesn't come creeping back! You just eat so much on a cruise! There are points when I was like, "I'm not even hungry but this looks so good." I think I said that once right before I ate Keylime Pie! YUM!

#7 - Speaking of healthy lifestyle...I regret to inform you that I will no longer (or very rarely will) be drinking Diet Coke as of Monday, 6/9. Cutting pop out of my diet will help me to lose another few pounds very quickly and it's not great to have all of those chemicals in there anyway. So it will be water for me! Lots of Crystal light probably! I'm going to limit to one a week right now or maybe I can go cold turkey! This will be hard. Support will be needed!

#8 - When I got home from vacation I had about 20 stamp sets to cut out for customers! I still have 3 waiting for me to cut out before Sunday morning and one of them is an alphabet set! The things that I do for my customers that I love!!! My hand hurts! (just kidding)

#9 - I have had the most unproductive week every at work. I think I'm still in vacation mode. Atleast today I did manage to get a report sent to a customer. I need to get my butt in gear! Hopefully Monday will be a new beginning!

#10 - I'm excited about next weekend. My family: Mom, Dad, Sister, Husband, and me, will be heading to IL for my cousins wedding. We will be riding in one car...to conserve gas. We will be leaving early on Saturday morning and will drive up there, spend the night, and return on Sunday. It should be FUN! There is already talk about DVDs, games, snacks! WOO HOO!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Can't wait to stamp with you soon!

Color Difference...

As Sam and I were going through our pictures on our camera we flipped from the very first picture that we took (featured below)...

To the very last picture that we had taken at the time (featured below)...

And were surprised at the color difference! What do you think? Don't worry mom's we used sunscreen everyday!

Ocean + Sun = Great Pictures

Well we got back from the cruise last night and I finished my first offical day back to work. Booo... But we did have a great time and over the next few days I will share that great time with you. But today as I was uploading all of the 397 pictures from my camera, I found that "Ocean + Sun = Great Pictures". So I thought I would share some with you. Here are the top ten where I really love the lighting and you can see the ocean too!

#1 - This picture of Sam and I was taken as the ship was leaving the port in LA. It was a self portrait with my SLR. I don't just hand it to anyone to take our picture. I kinda scope out if there is someone else who also has an SLR so that I know they will have respect for my camera! Anyone else do that?

#2 - As we were exploring the ship on the first day, I spotted this just off the pool deck! So beautiful!

#3 - I think that this was the first sun set that we caught on the ship. We were headed to dinner and I spotted this on deck 5 and just had to step out to take a few pictures. I love how it looks like the sun is just resting on top of the clouds!

#4 - Sam was the photographer on this one. This was on the second day, our first full day at sea! We were just exploring in the morning before we decided on what we wanted to do and Sam stopped to take this very good picture of myself! I love the color of the picture! Everything is so bright and crisp!

#5 - This picture is of Land's End in Cabo San Lucas. This was on Day 3 of the cruise. These rock formations were formed by the water and this arch is a big highlight in Cabo. The water around these rocks and the lighting just makes me love this picture so much! The water seems to be about 4 different shades of blue and green all blended together. Love it!

#6 - This picture was taken on Day 5 in Peurto Vallerta. This guy offered to take a picture of us and he wasn't actually in the ocean with us so I let him use the camera to capture this great picture. At the end of our excursion we got to visit a beach and swim a little. This is as far as I got in but Sam had fun swimming a little.

#7 - This is another picture from Day 5 on the beach. That is Sam in the bottom of the picture. I just love the ocean, the sun, the man...everything about it!

#8 - On Day 6 (an at Sea day) we left the theater on the way to another activity right before dinner when I saw the sun setting in the distance and I just had to stop and take in that moment. It was much better than attending "Battle of the Sexes" anyway!

#9 - I had fun playing with the setting on my camera to get just the right lighting as the sun was setting and taking that light away from me. I love this picture...mostly because that is my hot husband...but for other reasons too. I like how the image is soft around the edges but sharp when it comes to his suit.

#10 - This was also on Day 6 while watching the sun set. I love the levels of color! So great!

There will be more pictures and memories to come. Also...I only recieved one card for my challenge while I was gone. If you still have one that you haven't submitted yet please do so and I will post them later this week! Thanks.

Your Challenge

Challenge...So, on Mother's Day my Mother-in-Law had these napkins. I figured that this would be a good start for a challenge.

Here are the rules:

Colors: Certainly Celery, Barely Banana, Bashful Blue, and Chocolate Chip.

You must use circles on your card in some way.

You must use ribbon.

You must use vellum or a transparency.

AND you have until Sunday June 1st to complete it because I will be cruising all next week! I hope to have some updates for you from the ship...no promises! Have a good one!

In the Mood

I am feeling the need to scrapbook today! So I am posting a few of the recent scrapbook pages that I have created. They are fun!

I found this cute "My Husband" embellishment at Archiver's and I just had to get it. It was only .39! So I built this page around that embellishment. That's always fun!

For this layout I wanted to use these clear letters. I have had them for a few months now and I haven't had the perfect place to use them so I figured that this layout would be the place. I really like them. I took a permanent marker to the edges so that they would stand out...I'm too impatient for paint!

And of course it's the season of graduations and wedding so here are a few graduation cards that I sent to my cousins today! I found those cute little graduation hats at Archivers too. They were $5 for 10 of them!

Tomorrow I will be posting your next challenge so come back and check it out!

Weight Loss

Today marks a big milestone in my weight loss journey!

In the year 2007, I only lost 10 pounds. (I wasn't too motivated.) BUT...so far in the year 2008, I have lost 20 pounds! I hope to hold steady through the cruise (maybe) and then come back to lose 10 -12 more this year!

It's so hard...but it really does feel good when you can go to the mall (like I did on Sunday) and try on clothes that are 2 sizes smaller than a year ago! YEAH!

How was your Mother's Day?

How was your Mother's Day? I know I'm a little late but I just had so much to blog about this week!

Mine started on Saturday (the day before Mother's Day) when I received this card from Jessica. She is working with a student ministry training and discipleship program at our church called Kairos. She has been on staff with them for almost 2 full years after completing the program. She has also lived with us for those past 2 years.

I guess we aren't the traditional host parents. We are younger (a few years older than Jess) and are more like roommates than parents. But it's a family joke that we are her parents and sometimes it's fun to play like she is our daughter. I can only hope that my kids turn out like her! She is super.

Anyway...She left to go out of town for 3 weeks and she left me this card for Mother's Day!

Isn't her message so cute?! (I think you can click on it to make it larger.)

I made these to hold pictures that I gave to our grandmas for Mother's Day. They are just little envelopes that I made out of designer series paper. Tied with the wonderful satin ribbon! So cute!

These were the cards that I gave to our moms. They loved them!

Here is Samuel with his mommy. Aren't they cute?!

And here is me with my Mother-in-law. We did try to take a good picture. But the photographer (Sam) wasn't being very nice so the others turned out a little weird too. This was the best. But I kinda like it! And check out my shirt. I got it at Old Navy a few years back...love it!

Here is my mom with her mom.

Here is where I attacked my mom. She's not too sure what is going on.

The gradnkids got Grandma this t-shirt. It says, "Best Grandma of the Best Grandkids". So true!

And we ended the day by giving our mama a smooch. That is my little sister, Erica on the left.

Wicked Review...

I have to admit that when I heard about Wicked, I wanted to see it right away. I had to wait about a year in order for it to come to KC though. So for Christmas my parents gave me a ticket and I couldn't have been happier. I have had a copy of the CD for a few months prior to Christmas and had memorized some of the songs already.

The CD takes you through the story to a certain extent but it doesn't fill in the gaps. So you kinda make them up as you are listening. You think that this is what happens, you think that might happen, and so on.

Well from the beginning of the musical I knew that I had it all wrong in my head. I had it pegged as a drama and it was a total comedy. I think that misconception came from starting to read the book. I didn't really get all that into the book. It was hard to read. But I loved the twist that they put on it for the musical! It was more my style!

Here you can see Glinda (Katie Clarke) and Elphaba (Carmen Cusack) as Glinda sings "Popular"...one of my favorite songs! This picture was taken in Kansas City so these are the girls that we saw as the characters. This song was so funny mostly because Glinda was flying about like a giddy little school girl. It was hilarious. My sister and I laughed out loud numerous times...and we weren't the only ones (most of the time)! HA!

Another favorite part was during "Defying Gravity" when Elphaba learned to fly. It was just a great set design and lighting and singing...it was amazing. This picture isn't from KC but it was exactly the same so you can get the picture too!

Then I have to say that our Fiyero was rather ummmm...HOT! His name is Cliffton Hall...look him up. There were some picture that I couldn't save to add to the blog but I did find this one when he was singing "As Long As You're Mine" with Elphaba (although this wasn't Carmen or in KC). Anyway...he's HOT! I know because we had binoculars! (Thanks mom!)

If you have never seen Wicked, I highly recommend it. I can't tell you all about it or I would give away secrets! Or atleast get the CD...you won't be disappointed!

Challenge Results

Well here are the results from the challenge that I posted last Friday. The Challenge was to create a card or scrapbook page using the colors: Basic Black, Whisper White, Wild Wasabi, and you could add in Basic Grey if you wanted to. Then you had to use patterned paper (or make your own with stamps), use words/numbers as a focal instead of an image, use a tool that you haven't used in a while, and use an embellishment. I have to say that I love these colors!

This first card was created by my mom, Kathy. She used a patterned paper that she had in her stash as well as using the Always stamp set to make some patterned paper of her own. She used the Happy Everything stamp set to make the words of her focal point. Her embellishment was that cute black and white polka dot brad. Her tool that she hasn't used in a while was the paper piercer to make the faux stitching. Very cute!

This card was created by Jessica, my neighbor and stamp club member! She used the patterned paper that you can get as a Level 1 hostess gift. She also used the hostess stamp set, For a Friend to create the words of her focal point. She had two embellishment: Wild Wasabi double stitched ribbon and a cute jewel brad for the middle of her flower. So cute!

This is the card that I made for my sister for her birthday (Happy birthday Erica...if you are reading this your won't receive your card until tomorrow!). I used a black and white paper that I bought at a local craft store as well as textured Wild Wasabi cardstock to make the larger circle (I love textured cardstock). My focal point "24" was made with chipboard stickers that I had in my stash. I also used rub ons to have the card say, "Make a Wish". My embellishment was a large jewel brad. My tool that I haven't used in a while was the Coluzzle! I have to admit that I love that thing!!!

This scrapbook page was created by my freiend, and Stampin Up mama, Colette. She took some of the patterned paper that I had used. She used our trusty little Cricut to create the word "Friends" on her scrapbook page. Her embellishment was a few jewel brads. And the tool that she hasn't used in a while was the piece that roughs up edges from the cutter kit. You can see the rough edge better in the picture below. (Hey Colette...I saw Josh and Geri downtown yesterday!)

I thought that this was a really neat way to do journaling! Love it!

This is a scrapbook page that I created. I used a patterned paper that I found in my big box of paper that I hardly ever use! I'm a patterned-paper-aholic! Is that a real disease? Anyway...I used the acrylic "r" that I have had for a few years now as a focal point along with the quote, "Live, Laugh, Love." It's my favorite quote. My embellishments were black and white flowers with big jewel brads in the middle of them. And the tool that I haven't used in a while was my silver gel pen to write out the quote.

This was a fun challenge. I will have another one this week! Thanks for playing along and I can't wait to see what you come up with next!