The ball is rolling...

So, you all know that we just painted our family room and our entryway. (BIG THANKS TO KRISTEN RAY IN TEXAS FOR INSPIRING ME TO DO SO!!!! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!) Anyway, if you look in the previous post at the pic of the entryway, the lamp that hangs down is totally heinous. Glass and brass - very 80's. So, we ordered a new one from Pottery Barn! I can't wait to get it and put it up. The only question is how the heck we're going to get up there to do so... (Enter Gordon Hayes - handyman extraordinaire)

Here's a pic of the new one...


Take a look at it and picture it in the entryway in place of the other. WOO HOO!

Surprise Trip to Orlando....

POST COMING SOON. AS SOON AS LITTLE SISTER CAN GET THE PICS TO ME!!!

Funny things for you to look forward to reading about...

1) Recognized on an airplane
2) Surprise to Doug
3) Lesley lost her license
4) Boy almost drowned
5) Bad Jokes at Disney
6) Snoring

Send me your blog addresses!!

I may be really lazy in asking this, but if you know me, send me your blog address! I'd like to add more people on my 'blog list'! Hopefully, if you're really the friend that you say you are, you'll add me to yours!

The smell of fresh paint...

Last Christmas, I got Dave a big LCD flat screen for the family room. It's been mounted on the wall ever since, but all of the bazillion cords were just hanging down from it. Being that it has been over ten years since we both were in college, I thought it best to finally pay a little bit more and have the cords installed behind the wall! And then, because the cords being behind the wall would prevent us from ever taking the TV down, I convinced Dave that we needed to paint the walls now.

I've been wanting color on the wall ever since we moved in. After much eye batting, I finally got my wish!

One and a half days of having painters at the house and my entryway and my family room are now so pretty! The entryway is stone brown and the family room is sunset cloud. We also painted the brick in our family room an off-white. It was a hideous pinkish color before! While the pictures don't show the two brown colors as very different, they actually are and they complement each other nicely...

Happy Halloween!!!

So it was a good several days of celebration for the McClendon household. Gabriella from High School Musical (Annie) and Woody from Toy Story (Ryan) had several parties to attend. There was the neighborhood Halloween festival in which Annie won a cake during the cake walk! There was Trick or Treat Street at Columbine High School that Grandma and Grandpa took them to! There was their parade at their school. And there was, of course, trick or treating. Annie is full on into it now. She asked why everyone doesn't run more when they trick or treat! And Ryan did a courtesy 'Yee-Haw' to everyone that gave him some candy!

Johhny Cash (Dave) & June Carter (me) also had some fun parties to attend! Lots of fun! We even performed!

A small break in the action...

Last Thursday, I had a chance to go over to my friend, Heather's house to scrap for the evening. There is a big group of us that try to get together on a monthly basis to scrap, but this particular night, it was just Heather and me. We had a nice time, chatting and making fun of all the ladies that weren't there (again, people, joke). I got about 5 pages completed with this one being my favorite.

It's from February of 2007 when Dave and I went to California for me to run in the Pacific Shoreline Half-Marathon. I call it 'Goin' Back To Cali' because I had just been there less than a week earlier for the 2007 CHA Winter Tradeshow.

Busy being busy...

So much to do, not enough time. I have been a complete airhead lately. I forgot a birthday party that Ryan was supposed to go to. I forgot to bring snacks to Annie's school when it was her day. I forgot to bring my niece and nephew their birthday gifts. My house is a mess. My office is a mess! Not like a pig-sty mess, just cluttered. It's cluttering my brain, now too! The biggest deal is just the Stuff (with a capital S). What do you do with it all?

I'm telling ya! I need organization! So I'm determined to turn over a new leaf!

So far, it's been going OK. The kitchen has remained clean for about a week! SHOCKER! The stuff isn't accumulating quite as quickly. But my office needs an overhaul and that will be the next thing. And, my dear friend, Alex, gave me a weekly planner! Now, it's not the one I will use forever (as it's a 2007 one and is only useful for another 2 1/2 months. You'd think if she was going to get me something, she would have at least sprung for a new one! (That's a joke - for those of you who don't know me.)) That's helped quite a bit. I mean, don't get me wrong, I had a calendar. But it was only a wall one.

So there. While the kids are at school tomorrow, I am going to clean my office. Maybe, if you're lucky, I'll take before and after pics!

But for now, I'm going to go write Annie's thank you notes (from her birthday part that was almost a month ago!) Sheesh!

GUTEN TAG!

The best party ever!!! Our friends, Alex and Brian hosted an Oktoberfest Party - and they did it up right! We got there around 7:00 to find the backyard set up similar to the real Oktober fest - long tables under tents, German music in the background, brats and sauerkraut served, beer flowing.

Before long, the Jagermeister started getting passed around as well!

By 1:00 a.m., the remaining guests turned the outside into 'Club Muhal' dance party. The music changed. According to Dave, we were still listening to German music because he put in 'VON Halen'!

We took 125 pics, but these are the few I have uploaded!

Sehr Gut!!

I am sooo very excited about Scrapbook Sussies right now. I have just ordered product for a bunch of upcoming kits. Every day, I anxiously wait for either the postlady, the UPS guy, or the FedEx guy to come by the house. It's the best when the doorbell rings or when I pull up to the house and see that brown box waiting there on the front porch for me. Even more fun to open it up and look at what's inside.

So... technically, I'm not supposed to be revealing what's in the kits. I'm not sure where this little tradition started. Is it to keep people in anticipation? Is it to keep other kit clubs from stealing ideas? (Which, to be honest, is silly because it's not like these same products weren't available to all kit clubs at CHA...) In any case, I started taking Sneak Peek pics and I just adore how they look. I WANT TO SHARE!!

So I'm do-ING it! The following show just little tiny amounts of upcoming product in future Scrapbook Sussies kits and Add-Ons. http://www.scrapbooksussies.com/index.html

















Don't they look pretty???

AND! I've got some fun Special Edition kits in mind. Think Santa Sussies, Sassy Sussies, and SUPER-SIZED SUSSIES!! Thanks for look-ING!

Best Family Trip You Never Took

I've been planning a big Back East trip for a while now. We spent 12 days on the East Coast this month. We packed 6 suitcases, 2 car seats, and 8 carry-ons. It was crazy!! But the trip was lots of fun! When I told my little sister about all the fun things we had planned, she told me it was the 'best family trip that she never took!'

We arrived in DC at my Grandmother's / Uncle's house in Arlington. Annie's favorite thing was the neighborhood cat that would come around...

It was nice to just hang out on their back deck. Unfortunately, the first night, we didn't use bug spray. BIG MISTAKE for Ryan and me! He got about 15 bites - poor little thing! I got about 30. Dave and Annie got zero!

The best part was getting to hang out with my grandmother. She's 92 and still gets around great. She taught me how to make her best Norweigan cookies (which suits me just fine!) Watching her with the kids was wonderful. Here she is with Ryan, teaching him about how good cookie crumbs and blueberries are on ice cream!

We visited the memorials...

I love this pic of Annie. She is standing at the bottom of the Washington Monument looking up to the top...

So, I was taking this picture of one of the flags that surrounds the monuments...

And I looked down and saw Annie standing in it's shadow. I thought it was pretty cool....

On our way to Hershey, PA, we stopped to pick blueberries...


At the Hershey Chocolate World, the kids got to be part of the production line and make their own box of Hershey Kisses...

That evening, we made s'mores by the campfire at the resort.
So, off to the Crayola Factory....

The Crayola Factory was OK. A great spot for the locals, but very similar to a lot of Children's Museums. They did, however, have this really cool room where a computer took your image as you moved around the room and put it on the screen in different colors... Here's Annie and Ryan...

The next day was Sesame Place. Annie rode this rollercoaster FIVE TIMES!!! Dave and Annie are in the very front...

My favorite part was the area they had built to look just like Sesame Street
Ryan took a while to warm up to the characters. He had to have me with him at first...

We got rained on on our beach day. We had a bit of beach time, then had to run for cover into a diner. Annie acting the movie star role...

AAAHHH! NYC!! Times Square! (Waiting for Toys R Us to open)

It was a bit chilly in the a.m. in the shade of the buildings with the wind going. Our NYC Starbucks stop! (And there's only hot cocoa in Ryan's cup, not coffee!! ;) )

One of my favorite shots. We stopped at a little pizza place to eat lunch. The only spot left to sit was at the counter at the window. I went outside the shop to take this pic. So it looks cool with the kids in it, but also the NYC reflection

Annie and I got to go to her first NYC Broadway play!

Don't even ask!

Annie was crazy for all the taxis...

We stayed with our friends, Bill & Dana Fleming one evening. Annie and their daughter, Mia, share the same birthday (one year apart). After 2 minutes, you'd think they had been friends forever!

There was so much more to share, but these represent the gist of the trip!

Well, here I am...

So, with the help of a fellow Willow, I have started a blog! A big, big thank you to Liz (lizscraps) who came up with the brilliant title of my blog. It suits me so perfectly.

A lot of my friends tell me that they are amazed at how much I can get done in one day. And I've always said that I feel so much more efficient when I am busy, busy, busy. I actually enjoy being busy. It forces me to get organized and allows me to make lists of all the things I need to be do-ing!

So, when she suggested the Art of Ing for my title, I couldn't resist. It was perfect for me. Absolutely perfect!

So an official thank you to Liz is in order! Here it is... THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! (And an unofficial thank you will be sent your way, full of lots of fun scrapbooking goodies!)

I'm so excited to finally have a blog out there in cyber-space. I hope it will be a fantastic way of shar-ing my thoughts and my life. Hop on board - it'll be fun!