WINTER WONDERLAND

BRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!! This is what welcomed us to Washington on Saturday. We left AZ and 80 degree weather and walked off the plane in WA to snow and freezing weather. We had forgotten how cold it gets up here.

We have done a lot of mad dashes to and from the car and the house to try to escape those blasts of cold air on our faces. But it is all worth it be able to spend time with Bre, Kyle and the boys. Bre has been spoiling us with her delicious new recipes each night. It just feels good to be curled up on the couch with these two sweet little boys.

Cole and Cade pulled on their snowsuits and went out to play. Cole worked on building a snow castle .........

while Cade spent his time eating the snow!

Papa has spent a ton of time wrestling with his grandsons and chasing them around the house. Those are their two favorite things to do. We've colored, played the Wii, watched cartoons, eaten popcorn and cookies, jumped on the trampoline, had dance parties and......

played the guitar!

Those boys missed school yesterday due to ear and eye infections, but are now on antibiotics and will both be back in class tomorrow. Kyle starts the graveyard shift at work tonight at midnight. So their routine will be disrupted for the next 4 months. Luckily, Kyle only has to work tonight and tomorrow night while we are here. We are getting a real kick out of the boys and all the funny things they say and do. They entertain us daily. We are going to miss not having them crawl in bed with us in the mornings when we return home. Being a grandparent is the best!!!

WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!!

I began today running around doing laundry, errands, and packing, getting ready to fly to Washington to see my daughter, son-in-law and grandsons. Nothing like putting everything off till the last minute! In the past I was so organized...but now, well, it leaves a lot to be desired. Frank took off for his Friday golf game and I hit the washing machine with laundry, did some ironing, packed, and ran to the bank and Costco. I managed to sneak in a Netflix movie while doing some things around the house. I can't make up my mind on what I should pack since the weather forecast is for snow! YIKES!! Oh well, the only thing that matters to us is spending time with our kids and grandchildren. We can hardly wait.
MEANWHILE, our daughter, Jami and son-in-law, Mike, invited our dear friends Chuck and Rosie to join us for dinner at the kid's house tonight to celebrate my 56th birthday. Rosie brought a pitcher of her famous chocolate martinis and we didn't waste any time finishing those off. They were a hit....at least with Rosie, my mom and I!!!
Hanna got her hair cut and her toes polished today! A special treat from her mom. Doesn't she look SMASHING!!!

OOOH, what pretty toes you have....

Yesterday while I was babysitting (Jami was at the gym working on getting her before pregnancy figure back) Hanna and I decided to work on a "art project". We cut out mermaids from a Valentine card she had received and made tissue paper pleated skirts for them.

She continued to work on it after I left and here is her finished picture...along with her NEW HAIRCUT!!!! What a doll!
Here are some pics from my birthday celebration at the kids house with the girls and Rosie. SOOOOOOoooo much fun!! Rosie and Chuck gave me 8 really neat martini glasses for a birthday gift. So of course we had to try them out! They work great!
Hanna helped her mommy make this yummy birthday cake for me. She decorated it with tons of colorful candy confetti.
Birthdays are so much fun. It doesn't matter how old you are. What matters is who you chose to spend it with. Family and friends are my first choice.

Thank you to Mike, Jami, Hanna, Sofia, Mom, Rosie , Chuck and my dear Hubby for making this evening so wonderful. I love you all and appreciate that you made my birthday so special. Who could ask for anything more.
Now I am off to bed and will travel to Washington to spend the next 7 days with my youngest daughter, Bre and her huby, Kyle and my darling grandsons, Cole and Cade. WOW, what an awesome birthday I am having. I am in heaven when I can spend time with my kids and their families. Life doesn't get better then this!!

Does Time Have Wings?

Woweee, these past 5 days have flown by.......like time has wings! I didn't mean to take so long to make another blog entry. We've entertained two sets of company (on different days), decorated my daughter's house for Easter, done several stints of babysitting my granddaughters, finished making some jewelry, played in the pool in the 90 degree weather and yada, yada, yada!!!! OK, does that sound like enough excuses for neglecting my blog? But it is all true. REALLY!! And here's some pictures to prove it:
I was working on several different small projects here. But most importantly, I was able to almost finish some more soldered jewelry. I just need to add some hanging "bling" to a few more pieces.
These are two bunnies that just needed some glitter to be ready for Easter.
This is a sampling of some of the decorating that I did at my daughter's house this week.






Today we took footprints of Sofia for the shadow box that Jami put together for her nursery.
I don't think I ever posted a picture of the headband hangers that I made for Sofia's room, so here they are:



And now I saved the BEST FOR LAST! Isn't Sofia growing so fast. She is starting to smile quit often and gets her arms and legs waving around as she coos. So dang cute!!

Here favorite spot..............Snuggled up against mommy in her sling.
Tonight we had a delicious dinner of pizza and Caprese salad at Grimaldi's in San Tan Village. My mom treated the family. Then Frank took us to Paradise Bakery to get cookies. Hanna loved that.
I signed us up for Netflix and received our first two movies today. I think this is going to be a fun way to stay on top of all the movies we have missed. Now we just need to find the time to watch them. Thank goodness we can keep them as long as we want without any penalty. We might have gotten signed up just in time since we read today that Blockbuster is going to declare bankruptcy.
Looks like Frank is going to be teaching a Men's Yoga/Strength and Flexibility class here at Trilogy. If there is enough interest he hopes to add a couples class.
Only two more days until we fly to WA to see our grandsons. We are so excited. At some point we need to get our act together and start packing!! But not tonight, it's time for bed......

Mixed Bag

These past two days have really been a 'mixed bag". I've jumped around from creating jewelry to decorating for Easter, to babysitting my granddaughters, to pampering myself. But what I was really wishing for was to go lay out by the pool in the hot sun. Just ran out of time for that!
I had a special request for a soldered necklace so I have been digging through my supplies looking for just the right items to create it.
It's fun to dig into all these goodies. It really stirs up the creative juices. I'm trying not to get too carried away with starting too many necklaces since I will be leaving shortly for a weeks vacation to see our grandsons.
After realizing that it is the end of February and time to take down all the Valentine decorations I started putting out Easter. Here are a few pics of some of what I have gotten done so far.







After all this I decided it was time to pamper myself. So I headed off for a much needed pedicure and then a haircut. I just love getting a pedicure. I finally found a place that really does get rid of all the calluses and gives an awesome and long massage on the legs and feet. I was trying to read my book for March's book club meeting but I found myself dozing in the pedicure chair as I was so incredibly relaxed. I was so bummed when she told me I was done and needed to go sit with my toes under the dryer........get out of that comfy massage chair and WALK!!! Was she kidding???

My feet were not ashamed to show off in sandals last night at the dinner party we were invited to. Good thing since it would have been too warm for closed toe shoes.
This morning I was hit with the disappointing news that the Curves where Rosie and I go to exercise is closing their doors due to the poor economy. DANG! Now what. I will need to have a pow-wow with Rosie to figure out where we will go now.
The good news is that Frank won our Men's Golf Club Championship this week!! Very exciting!

Tonight we have our oldest granddaughter, Hanna, spending the night. We are giving her parents a little break and hopefully a chance to sleep in tomorrow.
Hope you all have a nice weekend as we say good bye to February and hello March!

Glue, Glitter, Brushes and Camera

Frank and I really need to get our "karma's" in line with each other.......when I have to get up at 5:30 am to exercise, he can sleep in. When I finally have a day to sleep in, he has a golf game at the crack of dawn!! Ugh! Guess you figured out that this was suppose to be my day for some extra sleep....NOT!! So why not get out the glue and glitter and make the best of it. I decided that I wasn't that fond of the original butterfly paper clay wings that I had originally put on my angel music box, so I took them off and put on the feathers. But first I covered the top and sides of the box with glitter. What do you think? Better, or not?

Then it was off to paint at Art Group. I was such a dork though, I got up there and all set up to begin to paint when I realized I had left my paints at home......so a quick trip back to the house to grab my watercolors. I had already sketched out this picture. This would be my first attempt at painting a whole picture without the help of a teacher. This is how it looked when I left the group at noon today.


And here it is after I finished it up this afternoon.

Tonight we had Jami and her family and my mom over for dinner on the patio. Again we had awesome weather. Arizona has such incredible sunsets. The sky turns these vivid shades of yellow and orange with the dark outline of the mountains against the skyline. Then when the sun goes down out pops these bright stars in a crystal clear dark blue sky. So beautiful. That's when I light all my outside candles around the patio, our solar pool balls light up in a continuous color changing show and out little twinkle lights surrounding the roof of our patio come on. This might be my favorite time of the day, warm and peaceful. Well, that is, IF our little granddaughter isn't talking 90 miles an hour as she was tonight! Oh, heck, we wouldn't have it any other way! Except to have our 2 grandsons joining in. LOL!!!
I snapped this pic of Sofia this evening while she was enjoying the warm, outside air. Such a serious look!
Now I must get some paperwork done. Then it's off to bed.......bye!

Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

Our granddaughter, Sofia, turned a month old last weekend and a sweet friend of Jami's gave her a photo shoot as a shower gift. Christine Lowell of www.giggleboxcreative@hotmail.com did an awesome job. It's going to be hard to pick just a couple out of so many good shots. We think Hanna looks so pretty in these pictures with her sister. How lucky are we to have such darling grandchildren! You can take a peek below.



Yesterday was our 9-hole couples golf game. It was the first time I have had a golf club in my hands in 12 years! An hour before our tee time we headed out to the driving range and putting green to see what I could remember. I was a nervous wreck. Even though the weather was perfect and it meant getting ride around a beautiful golf course with my hubby for two hours, all I could think about was what excuse could I come up with to get out of doing this. I finally started to calm down when I found out that we were paired with our good friends the Smiths. Sue has golfed about as much as me so the pressure was off..........a little, anyway! Needless to say, we didn't embarrass ourselves too much and managed to have a very nice time. AND we got to eat dinner out too. So we are thinking that this is going to be a nice way to spend our Sunday afternoons.
Frank and I hosted 8 friends for a chicken enchilada dinner on our patio this evening. We drank Frank's delicious, fresh strawberry margaritas and ended the evening playing Scattagories. Our weather continues to be so nice and warm....in the 80's.
I'm off to Art Group to work on my watercolor painting in the morning. Hope all of you had a wonderful weekend and a good Monday. Time for me to hit the hay!

CUPCAKES AND ANGEL FACES

As I rub my dry, chapped hands together I realize that this is part of the price you pay when you love to be creative. Broken off fingernails, tons of little hang nails and small cuts are just remnants of creative bliss! But man, it sure would be nice to have pretty nails and soft, smooth hands. Oh well, at least I get to take pleasure in looking at what I have made and the knowledge I have gained spending two days at Blissful Living Studio. Not to mention the eye strain from looking so hard at all the wonderful items in the studio. Take a look for yourself.......it's truly like eye candy!!



this is just a little taste of the studio.....there are so many wonderful things tucked all over the store, the walls, on the floor and hanging from the ceiling. It just makes you smile to be able to create in this colorful atmosphere. And the best part is that it is constantly changing with the seasons and artists that teach there.
Anyways, on Thursday I took my niece, Jenny, with me to learn how to make cupcakes out of sweaters. This is Katie who taught us how to make them. Isn't she a doll. And a sweet teacher.

The two in the background are Katie's samples and the one in the front is mine.
I was happy with the outcome. These are so cute and not hard to make. Now all I need is to find wool sweaters that I can cut up! So if any of you are intending on getting rid of any please let me know and I will pay for the postage to send them to me! Might even thank you with a cupcake of your own!!
On Friday evening I went back for another class with the amazing, Julie Haymaker Thompson.
She is a darling mixed media artist with a bubbly personality and lots of positive patience. If you haven't heard of her you really must check out her incredible creations on her website:
www.juliehaymaker.com. Taking the class with me was another talented artist, Mai Lepore. So that was an extra special treat for me.
Here is a smaller sample of the little angel music box that she taught us how to make.
We began with a heart shaped cardboard box, added a music box, glued the lid shut and covered the box with mod podged torn pages from an old book.
The really fun part for me was learning how to work with paper clay. We formed our faces and wings out of it and put them on heaters to dry. Meanwhile, we painted the ball legs and glued them to the bottom of the box. Then we did some aging with stabela pencil and paint. Acrylic paint was used to paint the face and wings. The pearls were strung into a small circle and crimped off and glued around the face. We embellished the box with ribbons and.........
..........TA-DA!!! The finished product! My angel has butterfly wings with crackle paint and glitter.

I think I could have spent the whole day playing with paper clay. There are endless ideas for all the things you can create with it. Oh dear, another group of supplies are on my shopping list for Michaels. I might have to sneak this bag of goodies past my hubby. We are suppose to be tightening our belts with the economy crunch, but I am finding it so hard to pull back on my art supplies. This was such a fun way to end my week. I hope to make several more cupcakes and angel music boxes soon.
We said good bye to my niece and her husband and son today. It was so nice to have them here for the week. Little Zachary is darling and we will miss them.
Now I must head to bed to get some sleep as I will be playing in a little 9-hole couples golf tournament tomorrow after church. This will be the first time I have golfed in years! YIKES!! Something tells me it won't be pretty! But at least I will be out in the 80 degree sun all afternoon. Nightie, nite everyone!!!