don't give up on me yet!

Wow! I can't believe it's been over a month since my last post! I hate that about other blogs and hope you can forgive me. I am posting this one from my phone since we are still without Internet in this new house. Yes, we are moved in as of 2 weeks ago though still very much living out of boxes. It has been crazy. We hosted our annual Christmas party for our college friends (over 40 people) on the 20th. So I had to get the house in somewhat of a habitable space so everyone could be comfortable not to mention well fed. Don't worry, we do potluck for this shindig. But then it was Christmas #1 at my dad's on the 24th. Then #2 here at the house with the girls on Christmas morning. #3 at my mom's mom's house in the afternoon, #4 at my dad's mom's that night, and then #5 up at Joel's parent's this whole past weekend. I feel like I have been in a large state of chaos for the past 2 months what with moving out of old house into my dad's and then into our new house from there. Fortunately the hurdles of moving and holidays are behind me and I can attempt to focus on unpacking. I wish I could say I have pictures of various Scrapbooking projects/ gifts to post but none are complete. Not even my Christmas cards. They're still a work in progress. But darn it all, I WILL be sending them out, even if they are a week or two late!!!

Joel, Hannah and I had a great time today in the snow up in Tehachapi (where the inlaws live). Here in So. CA, we don't get much snow so I am in awe when I get to experience it firsthand. Hopefully my phone and Blogger will let me upload a pic from my phone so you can get a small sense of what I saw. It was beautiful!!! I promise to post more pics from the digital camera soon. I just need Internet (ahem ... Joel?).

Hopefully I can post again soon, but if not everyone please have a Happy New Year!!!

So Thankful ...

... for so many things.


For God.


For a beautiful and loving ...

For daughters Hannah, Makaela and the best husband, Joel.

For wonderful friends.

For health.

For food on the table.

For a job.

For the ability to buy a new home.

For a roof over our head when in between homes (thanks Dad).

For the chance to wake up each day and decide to become a better person.

For my dog, Buddy.

For lessons learned.

For lessons to be learned.

For perspective.

For laughter.

For tears.

For emotions.

For choice.

For freedom.

For a military who serves to protect that freedom.

For creative talent that directs me to the theraputic hobby of scrapbooking.

For you who take a small interest in my life by reading this blog.

Happy Thanksgiving. May you be as blessed as I am and may you have the power to recognize your blessings.

That "FAMILY" project was designed by Cindy Farbach. I LOVE it. It was a class she taught a couple of weeks ago at SGT. I can't stop staring at it. The colors are so me and I just know it will bring me great inspiration.

Quick Update!

I know I know. I have been terrible about blogging. And I totally miss it. It's kind of hard here at my dad's to get on the computer and really devote a large amount of time to it. Gotta make sure the kids aren't destroying Papa's house or disrupting them by making too much noise. Gotta make sure I am not hogging the computer. I do have to share with my dad, his wife, and of course hubby Joel. Then there's just every day life not to mention a cold that has worked its way through all of us now. Groan! Oh and I recently discovered Facebook and have been spending some time there reconnecting with long lost friends. Pretty cool but can be addicting.

So anyways, what's up with me? Well I am sure I mentioned we sold our house and were officially out of it in late October. Began the house hunting process and am pleased to announce we are in escrow on a lovely home in Chino Hills. We're essentially doubling the size our home!!! Sadly we're sacrificing the yard, but we'll be in a great neighborhood with a huge park that's a 2 minute walk up from our house. It's also a huge walking neighborhood, so we've promised to get Buddy dog out often for walks. Here's a pic of the front. I'll post more and tell the VERY interesting story behind this house once escrow has closed. Don't want to jinx it too much. It's not mine yet.

Did you vote?

So I am about to step out the door to go vote. I am dragging my poor, unsuspecting girls with me. Please Lord let me make it through this task!

I hope that you all will vote. I feel it's such an important thing to do. Do I like the chore of actually doing it? Heck no! But I will. Because as I heard someone commenting on NFL Football of all things, "It's your duty and your privilege." I think back to how hard people fought and worked so that I, a woman, could vote. And those who fought so that my husband, a Filipino man, could vote.

I wish I could say I felt more confident in my choices of what I am voting for. Or maybe I wish I had better choices. Nonetheless, they are what they are. I feel like I can't bitch and complain about anything if I didn't take a few hours out of my day to vote on the direction I hope my country will go in. We all have a voice. My theory is that if we could get this lazy nation of ours to show up in numbers of 90% or more to vote, the politicians would not be able to lie to us anymore. They would have to be accountable because if not, then the next election, 90% of the population would show up to vote them out of office. I think Americans have NO idea what power we could have if we all got out and voiced our wants throug voting. People argue, that we don't want "all those idiots" voting. Well I will admit that there are people that understand the issues of this election a LOT more than I do, but am I an idiot for going out and performing my civic duty? I think not!

So I encourage you to vote today. I don't care who you vote for, but use the power of your voice that our democracy allows us. And don't use the old "I don't know where my polling location is", or "I didn't receive a sample ballot" as an excuse not to. I didn't receive a sample ballot and am going to have to go through the extra rigmarole to get them to allow me to vote.

Happy Election Day!

I know I am late ... what else is new?

Finally the Halloween pictures!

Makaela, the mermaid ...

Hannah the dragon (she wasn't feeling very well)...

A happy mermaid ...

Sisters in costume ...

Ready to hit the streets for candy ...
The mermaid couldn't hang while trick-or-treating ...

Hannah and a "fat car" (fast car) ...

I hope your Halloween was as wonderful as ours. Now on to Thanksgiving!

Gettin in the mood

I saw this idea on Martha Stewart's website and fell in love. I am inspired in so many ways by this picture. I love the pumpkin sconces themselves. They're made of a medium sized pumpkin with a mini pumpkin topper. You can see the instructions here.

But I really love the pile of pumpkins and gourds on the ground! How cool is that?! And I am thinking this might even be a good layout design. A pile of embellishments at the bottom of a page (buttons, flowers, sequins, etc.) and then three scattered images floating above. I'll have to play with it, but it might work.

I just love Fall. It's amazing how the temperature can be the same as a Summer day, but there's something different. A smell; a feeling; I don't know. It's just different. Hannah is loving all the Halloween decorations popping up in front of people's houses. I remember last year having to explain where they all went after Halloween had passed. We told her they were sleeping. So now they're all waking up and it's great. If only I had a house to decorate. Sigh!

Free Online Class at JessicaSprague.com

Here's an exciting bit. Jessica Sprague (a well renowned scrapbooker who does a lot digitally) will be offering a free online class with no limit on the class size. This class is geared towards scrapbooking stories in your life. The ones that tend to occur outside of the big holidays and such we all tend to scrapbook. I am going to participate. This will be my first time doing anything like this. Visit her blog here for more details. I think it's going to be fun. Registration for the class opens on 10/20/08.

Love this!

What are you going to do?

Happy Birthday Special Girl!

My baby's 3! I still am not sure how this happened. But what a wonderful 3 year old I have. As you can see she got a brand new bike with handle bar streamers and all. May you ride like the wind my love!

Nothing to say ...

OK, in order to update my blog list, I think I have to make a post. This will allow me to see the little icon I need to click on to get in there and do my thing. So sorry for the wasted blog. Enjoy the last day of September. Tomorrow my first baby will be THREE years old. Holy cow! I can't believe how quickly time has passed. Today we'll be making her cake since mommy has to work tomorrow. If I can leave her for a moment to snap a picture, I will try to post later today. Ta-ta.