Stampin' Up!

After raving about the products to anyone that will listen, and making many beautiful things, I've finally become a Stampin' Up! demonstrator. I'm really excited about this, because now I get to have my business be something that I really enjoy doing. I added my SU website to my list of favorite sites on this blog so please look at it. With only a few stamps, ink pads and paper, and a little imagination, there are so many things to create. Scrapbooking and greeting cards would be enough, but there are many other crafts (a lot great for kids!) that you can make. I just can't talk enough about this stuff. I absolutely love it!

I'm going to start a club (which I know, sounds awfully corny), where anyone that would want to come could and make about a dozen greeting cards for much less than it would cost to buy them. Plus, you get the fun part of making them while hanging out with friends.

I can also demonstrate at a party for anyone that wants to host (similar to a pampered chef party), and I can also do other events and even birthday parties. If there's anyone that's interested, contact me and I'll set up what's best for you! If you do want to host a party, there is the ability to earn a ton of free stuff, and let's face it, everyone loves free! If you're not into hosting a party, but after looking at the catalogue you find something you'd like, there is a "shop now" feature that you can just buy something for yourself if you want it.

I hope to hear from you!

Who's wrinkly???

Some time ago, shortly after visiting Rob's Nanny in the nursing home, Melody finished her bath and was looking at her hands. We told her that her hands were wrinkly. She added, "Oh, I'm wrinkly like Nanny!" Since then it's been part of our bath time routine. I ask her, "Who's wrinkly?" And she says, "Me! I'm wrinkly like my Nanny!"

The other day I got her out of the bath and asked her who was wrinkly. She smiles a little too mischievously, and says, "Mommy!"

Time to clean the floor!

Melody walks into our kitchen in her socks and says, "Mommy, the floor is sticky like an old apple". Don't ask me how she would know that an old apple would be sticky, but I guess I need to clean my floor!

The cake

For those that read our Mom's group blog, this may be old news because Aimee is so much better at keeping up with the blog scene than I am. Regardless, I think this is pretty amazing. I have a love for baking, especially cakes. I have an awesome butter cream frosting recipe from my Mom, which I love dearly, but I have the hardest time always making it do what I want it to do. If the weather is too hot, or too humid, the frosting frizzles. If the consistency isn't right, then it gets crunchy. I have always loved the way fondant looked, but hated it's taste. I also heard rumor that it was a real pain to make. So, on to the web I go to find a recipe that I could handle that would taste good. To my avail, I found it! (and no, I'm not giving it up... find your own recipe!). The result was amazing. I not only made fondant, but was able to color it, shape it, and make this cake for our friend Meridith's baby shower. It may seem odd that this is a cake for a baby shower, but it matches her room decor, so it worked.

Take me out to the ballgame

As baseball season is coming to a close (thank goodness!!!), we salute the very long season that it is with a little song. Let's just hope we can get past this month where we have baseball, football, and hockey all on at the same time! I feel like I live in the ESPN office!

Jack is Back!

Part of the Howl-O-Scream fun is the show they perform a few times a night called Jack is Back. The back story is about how people centuries ago would carve jack-o-lanterns to scare away evil spirits. Well, Jack is not scared, and he's here to party. The show starts off pretty scary with Jack talking in an scary voice, then there's an explosion from one of the rooftops where he comes from. There's scarecrows on stilts that come out. It's pretty scary for a lot of the kids and many don't like it. But, after Jack comes out, he starts playing fun songs that everyone (including the scarecrows) dance to. Melody LOVED Jack! She kept asking to see the show, and would sit on our shoulders and dance her little heart out. We must have seen the show at least 6 times!

The picture's a little blurry, but there's a lot of lights and pumpkins around when Jack comes out.

Melody's watching and dancing!

Look! Here's Jack! I can make a face just like him!

I love running around with my pumpkin necklace!

The other show was Monster Stomp. It's like regular stomp, but the characters are all dressed up and spooky. The music in this one was really loud, so I thought she might be a little scared, but she wasn't! She asked to see this one a couple of times too. At one point Melody got all excited because she has a shaker like the characters do. As soon as we got home all she wanted to do was play Monster Stomp. So the whole family has to grab a stick or a shaker and stomp around the house making music. Ahhh, the fun things we do in our house!

Now, I've mentioned before that I'm a pansy and get scared really easily. There's one section of Busch Gardens that they call Werefolf Alley. During the day, there are stuffed werewolves all around hiding behind trees, crawling through the woods, etc. Well, at night, they change the stuffed ones for real people, and their job is to scare the pants off everyone walking by. I'm an easy target, but a lot of screams can be heard there because they really catch people off guard. Whenever we had to walk thorugh this section, I tried myself to be brave, but I didn't want Melody to be scared. The staff really try to not scare the kids, but sometimes they can't help it. Well, Melly would go up to the werewolves, and scream at them to scare them away, and then laugh! At one point she yelled at one of them, "Don't scare my Mommy!"

Vacation Recap (FINALLY!!)

Day 8, 9 & 10:

Back to Busch Gardens! We didn't spend full days there, but most of the day. It's just so much fun! Melody wouldn't go on any more of the rides in the kiddy part, only run around on the obstacles. Nana even went on the rope climb gym and made it through!

Melody loves all of the dragons in the kiddy section.

She can even be one!

Now THIS is the kind of ride she's waiting to be big enough for. The seat fits her good enough!

Vacation Recap (FINALLY!!)

Day 7:

It rained almost the whole day. We needed the down time anyway, so we headed off to the library. We spent a few hours there, and got some different books to read to Melody. Nana has one book about being afraid of a monster, and how you tell it to go away. Melody loved it, and had Nana read it, without exaggeration, 60 times. Maybe even more. It was a sweet book, but I could probably recite the entire thing from memory. Later on, we had some arts and crafts of making the monster in the book, and making some pumpkins with construction paper. Melody has a flair for the crafts, so it's always nice when you can actually take the time to do it.

Another funny thing involves one of the gourds from the pumpkin patch. She was playing with one, and I guess she decided it looked like a bird with it's stem, because she named him Pecker. I'm hoping it was short for Woodpecker, but she never called it that. So, we're trying to keep our composure as Melly is walking around with this funny looking gourd, asking everyone to play with her Pecker.

She was in a reading mood, because she grabbed my book that was on the table, and page by page, told a big involved story of what was on the cover. She must have "read" this book for about 10 minutes and had an entire story about what she felt the book was about. Pretty imaginative!

Vacation Recap (FINALLY!!)

Day 6:

We had a special treat of having The Today Show filmed right in Williamsburg! Carol told me about it while we were driving down (although thankfully we looked up the info, or else we would have been hanging out a few days too early!) We had to wake Melody up to get there for 7:00, and even Nana & Grandpa were up in time! Unfortunately, the entire campus of William & Mary were also there, so we didn't really get very close to anyone. Matt Lauer did come close to where we were, but I didn't' want to push people out of my way with a toddler on my shoulders. Melody did wave and say "Hi Matt Lauer" when he came around, whether he saw her or not, I have no idea. I'll tell her he did when she gets bigger though.

We had to make a sign!

Poor Rob & Melody were not very thrilled about being up and about so early.

Here we are when Matt came closer to us. Nana's holding up our sign and Melly's on my shoulders on the right side of the picture.

Since we were up and about so early, we walked around the town of Williamsburg. Whenever you walk through the streets, you always have to be mindful of the horse droppings that end up there. They try to keep the town authentic, and apparently colonial people had an issue with horse poop. I remind Melody to look out for it, and not step in it. She does a fantastic job of that, but then yells at everyone she sees to not step in the poop. I had her on my shoulders later on, and there was a wet spot on the ground. Could have been from a horse, could have been a spilled soda. Who knows. But, Melly yells from on top of my shoulders, "Mommy, that horsie pissed on the ground!"

After Williamsburg, we drove to Jamestown. I don't want to down play all of that, but we've done it a bundle of times. It's still enjoyable, and I'm always amazed at how much history is right there. The start of our country as we know it is in Williamsburg. If anyone has never been there, it's a great place to go.

More pictures from the zoo

We could get really close to the elephants (well, as close as I'd ever want to be to one!)

There's that black tongue again!

Pretty peacock. They were running around free, and we had one try and follow us into the world of darkness.

Please don't pee on us prairie dog!

I'm a giant spider!

Vacation Recap (FINALLY!!)

Day 5:

We went to the zoo for most of the day. Everybody loves going, but we picked a perfect day. It was a little bit cooler out, so all of the animals were right where we could see them. Melody particularly liked the giraffes. She first giggled at their long black tongues. She made up a song about it and was dancing around singing, "You have a black tongue, I have a pink tongue!"

Then we saw one of the giraffes bend down to get some grass, and she started laughing. She spent a few minutes after that trying to spread her feet and put her nose on the ground just like they do.

She wanted to be a part of the zoo too!

Who doesn't love a giant turtle (tortoise?)

Look at me! I'm a prairie dog too!

Pictures from Pumpkin Picking

Very happy about seeing the big pumpkins!

Searching for the biggest one

My two pumpkins in the pumpkin patch!

Vacation Recap (FINALLY!!)

Okay, so here we go!

Day 1:

We left at the crack of dawn to head down to the PRS Guitar factory which is on the way (sort of) to Virginia. They were having their annual "We Love Guitar" thing (I made that up... I have no idea what it's really called. This clearly was an event for Rob to do for work and not something I would have picked). It was OK. They fed us, and we got to see a bunch of really old and brand new guitars. I'm just not a guitar person. Melly would have loved it more, but the event was during her nap time so she was a tad cranky. So a big "I'm sorry" goes out to Rob for us being sticks in the mud on day 1 of our vacation.

We didn't get to Williamsburg until kind of late so not much happened.

Day 2:

Nana & Grandpa were driving back to VA from NY, so we went to Busch Gardens without them. What a fun day! We love it there, and so does Melly. They are all decked out in their "Howl-O-Scream" stuff, so it's interesting. I'm a big pansy, so I'm scared of everything, but not my Melody! She loved talking to the pirates (any skeleton), and liked to look at and try and touch the doggies (werewolves). We took her to the kiddy section, and she went on all the rides and laughed the whole time. We spent the entire day there, from opening to almost closing. She napped well while we were there (thank goodness we brought the big stroller with us!), and enjoyed all the shows. The animal tricks one is her favorite, along with Jack is Back (but more on that later on). Now, it was a Saturday, and I can't believe how packed it was! We hear that Friday during the day, and Sunday evening are the times to go so there won't be that many people there.

We got back to Nana & Grandpa's house late, and she Melly fell asleep on the way there so Nana had to settle for a sleepy kiss instead of all the playing she had hoped for.

Day 3:

Hurray! We get to go to Busch Gardens with Nana & Grandpa! Melody was starting to not want to go on the kiddy rides anymore. She started getting this bored look on her face. Now, when she went on the teacups and the other bigger rides, that's a whole different story. I think she's a carnival ride junkie, and she keeps needing a bigger adrenalin rush to get the same fix! She'll be skydiving in no time! Another long day, but Nana & Grandpa really enjoyed watching Melly enjoy herself.

Day 4:

We took it a little easier on Monday. We hung around the house during the day, and let Melly play in Nana's playroom. I think she may have more toys that we do! The other difference is the playroom is still set up from all the boys. Meaning, a ton of Power Ranger action figures, toy bugs and robots, etc. Well, Melody thought this was the best room ever! She plays like a little boy and loves "being" the Power Rangers. She even called herself the Pink Ranger when she was in her pink jammies.

In the afternoon, we went to pick pumpkins. There's a cute little place that you have to take the ferry to, and the pumpkin patch is nice. We ran around there, and picked a bunch of pumpkins that we thought we would carve, and just ran out of time to do it.

For dinner, we went and ate my favorite meal in VA. We went to Sal's! I hear the pizza is good, but who could eat pizza when you can get 4 cheese tortellini in alfredo sauce? This is the only place that I can clean my plate, then use the bread to scrape every last bit of sauce that was left. It's amazing. That's one of my requests when we go to VA, is to eat at Sal's!

The face of the Earth

Although it may seem like it, I didn't actually fall off the face of the Earth! I went on vacation, had some social engagements, got a new heating system for the house (meaning a new wood stove), and I continue to chase after my never stopping 2 year old. So my apologies go out to all that have logged on to see the same funny, yet getting old story about the cat. I am back, and will add all the stuff that's been going on (in detail) as the next few days go on. For now, hang in there, and I'll give you new stuff to look at soon!