Quick question...

Babies are springing up all over the place here at work and I'm planning another shower. The mom-to-be didn't register and her "big" gift will be to a charity of her choice. However, so that there's something to open I want to get her a bunch of books. So my question is, what are the "must have" children's books? Not sure how many books I'll be getting. Probably will depend on cost.

Mel's baby album

I want to let Mel tell the story of her shower, but since some of you have been asking, she loved her album, as did all of the other guests who looked at it. So I'll tell the album story and she can talk more about the shower in general as well as post more pictures.

It was kind of funny because Dan had arrived when Mel was about 1/2 way through oppening presents. Her sister Alyson had just handed them the album to open when Mel decided she needed a bathroom break and that Dan could open with out her. Um, no. I told her she probably wanted to stay for this one.

So Dan opens the card, reads it, and then hands it to Mel who then reads all the names. To me: "You got Sharon to help?" and then to Sharon: "Is this why you asked for Chris' email address?"

So Dan opens up the package and sees the album which had an "A" on the cover. I think at first he thought it was just an album and then he realizes that there are pages inside it. So of course he very quickly flips through the pages as Mel tries to get him to slow down. I think in the end she just took it away from him so she could look through a bit more. Then, instead of putting it on the pile of other gifts that were opened it was set aside so that people could look at it.

After she was done opening presents many people came over and looked through it and everyone commented on how nice it was. So thank you to everyone who helped make this incredible album. If you'd like to see all of it, I posted it up on my website. You can see it here.

And one more...

Here's one more from tonight. But now it's time for bed. I'm not entirely thrilled with where I have all of the names, but I knew I wanted to label who everyone is. There were a few family members there who we don't get to see every year.

Productive day!

Woo hoo! Finally finished up two LOs that I had started a few weeks ago. Plus did a LO for CKU. Now I just need to scrap those Minneapolis photos. :)

So, for your viewing pleasure, in addition to CKU we have a birthday/ homecoming LO and hiking Mt. Monadnock. Now I'm "caught up" to Thanksgiving. Could be worse. Only 7 or 8 pages for my chronological albums and then a few other LOs in mind for other albums. In two weeks I'm going to a crop with Tami so maybe I'll get a lot done there.

It's picture time

First off is from Friday night. It was my work's 'holiday" party. The invitation said business attire but there was a huge range. A few were in jeans, some in business casual, and quite a few others were in suits and cocktail dresses. I had thougth about going more casual, but then I remembered that I had this dress. I had bought it around this time last year thinking I would wear it for Chris' high school reunion, but then we ended up not going. So it sat in my closet with the tags on until last night.

This next picture is from today. Went and had my hair cut and colored. Yeah, there's some bright red highlights now! I'm liking it though. My hairdresser was so excited. She's been wanting to give me some bold color for a while now. She keeps wishing she could do even more bold and drastic color. Maybe someday, when I don't have to have a "professional" job anymore. Ah, to be independently wealthy.

I scrapped!

I threw this together really quickly (less than an hour) as an entry for the Ugly Betty challenge over on the Fiskateers blog.

I was originally thinking I would use a different picture, but then when looking through my stack of old photos I saw this one and immediately knew what to do with it. And the best part? I got to use a couple of my new Quickutz dies taht I bought because they were cute but that I had no idea when I would use. 'Cause really, how often does one use alien and space ship dies?

Creative Escape

Creative Escape info has finally been updated! Yikes, it's more expensive than I thought. However, sharing a room with enough people the cost probably comes out to be kind of close to what CKU would end up costing. Looks like I can get flights for about $250. Not too bad. So what's the word? Who's in?

"Happy To You"

Darlene lived with a family one summer who had a 3-year-old. And she had a toy birthday cake with candles that could be "blown out". And she would always sing "happy to you" when playing with that cake.

And then one day Darlene and Steve baked a "cake" and they called it the Happy To You, Penguin Crunch Surprise Cake, Eh?

No idea why I suddenly thought of that, but "Happy to you" sprung into my head as I was thinking of a title for this post.

No, we don't have really old family members. However, we did have Liz turning 51 and Hanna turning 12. Might as well share a candle. Besides, we only have one of each number.

Hope you all had a fun weekend!

Random Obscure Claim to Fame

I am the "Chris" mentioned over on Cathy's blog in Issue No. 1. I saw it on Boston.com yesterday and knowing that a) she's in love with all Apple products and was drooling over the iPhone, and b) she lives in Minnesota; I figured she should know that it may be a while until she can have an iPhone.

A Very Merry Un-Birthday, to you!

A couple of cards I made for Liz and Hanna. I'm not sure I'm thrilled with how the pink one turned out, but I don't think the 12-year-old will mind.

I think that I'm losing my scrap mojo. Started a couple of LOs almost 2 weeks ago and no thoughts on how I'm going to finish them. Instead I kind of want to start a few more LOs, but again, I'm not completely sure of how to finish them. Plus, I hate to leave LOs unfinished because then I never want to go back and complete them.

I was going to go to an all-day crop on Saturday but instead decided to save my money. Hopefully I'll have a productive day at home instead. I have a few other things to do besides scrapping, so for sanity's sake it's probably better for me to stay at home.

SUMMARY OF MY LAST YEAR ON THE COMPUTER

I got this email from my aunt recently and thought it was funny. I think what is even funnier about it is that she's forwarded along a few things that I've then gone to Snopes to verify (frequently they were not true).

I must send my thanks to whoever sent me the one about rat poop in the glue on envelopes because I know to use a wet towel with every envelope that needs sealing.

Also, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa's novena has granted my every wish.

I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

Thanks to you, I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an email to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains.

I no longer can buy gasoline without taking a man along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm pumping gas.

I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr. Pepper since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put "Under God" on their cans.

I no longer use Saran Wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer.

And thanks for letting me know I can't boil a cup water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face...disfiguring me for life.

I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me.

I no longer receive packages from UPS or Fed Ex since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise.

I no longer shop at Target since they are French and don't support our American troops or the Salvation Army.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore, and Uzbekistan.

I no longer have any sneakers -- but that will change once I receive my free replacement pair from Nike.

I no longer buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus since I now have their recipe.

Thanks to you, I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my butt.

Thank you too for all the endless advice Andy Rooney has given us. I can live a better life now because he's told us how to fix every thing.

And thanks to your great advice, I can't ever pick up $5.00 I dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg.

Oh, and don't forget this one either! I can no longer drive my car because I can't buy gas from certain gas companies!

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 PM this afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician...

Have a wonderful day....

A South American scientist from Argentina, after a lengthy study, has discovered that people with insufficient brain and sexual activity read their e-mail with their hand on the mouse. Don't bother taking it off now, it's too late.

Merry (belated) Christmas

Remember how big our table was at Thanksgiving? Well our Christmas celebration was quite a bit smaller. I thought a cousin would be there with her family (which would have been an additional 4 people) but they were in Vermont skiing/snowboarding. (One of her sons is on a snowboard team so they go every weekend.) In the end there were only 7 of us. This is nice though because we all get to sit around and talk much more than we do at other gatherings. Also, with the gift giving, it's nice to be able to see what everyone has received from other people. I remember the chaos of previous years. It was a bit out of control!

I also think I failed as a photographer with this visit because this is the only picture that I took. My aunt took a few more of everybody, so maybe I'll be able to get copies from her.

Friday Night Bowling

On Friday night Chris and I went bowling with one of his co-workers and his girlfriend. Not sure why the bowling alley was open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Who goes bowling at 4 am?

Anyway, here you can see our scores from the three games. (This was candlepin, which may or may not account for our insanely low scores.) I almost won the third game. What was interesting was that I was routinely getting to throw a fourth ball, but it didn't seem to help my scores that much. For some reason it wasn't registering a number of the balls, generally if you bowled them too close together or perhaps too lightly? Anyway, I gladly took my "bonus" balls since my scores were so pitifull. I think next time we're going to play big-ball to see if we can get better scores.

Tami- what do you think?

I'd like to try to fix the color difference between the two pics, but I'm not sure the best way to go about that. May need to call my brother for some advice. But this was a quick attempt. Actually, this is a second attempt. Like this much better than the first.

This is just a low-resolution image, so if you're happy with it, let me know and I'll send as is, but otherwise I'll try to play with it a bit to get rid of the line down the middle.

And I haven't done anything with banners, so I don't know what I would need to know to make it into a banner for you, but I can try to find out if you want.

Edited:

I just played around with borders a bit and did this. Like/not like? Don't worry about hurting my feelings if you don't like it. This is really my first time playing around with this kind of thing. I tried pulling some of the colors of the border out of their clothes.

Creative Escape

Does anyone else find it odd that Creative Escape registration opens on February 3rd and there's no info yet on the website? I would think at least cost information would be posted. Oh, and then there's the issue of why do we need to register in early February when the event won't happen until September? 7 months early is a bit ridiculous!

Part of me wants to go, and part of me wants to take a break from events this year. And part of me is still considering CKU Nashville or Orlando. Ugh.

What are other people thinking about?

Busy January!

January and February are usually very quiet months for me. However, this year, I feel like I have a lot of stuff going on! Every single weekend this month I have something happening, and I already have a Feb. date scehduled.

Last weekend- scrapped with Mel on Saturday. Well, some scrapping (she was much more productive than I was) and lots of talking. We hadn't seen each other since September!

This weekend- running a million errands on Saturday. Need to finish my Christmas shopping, grocery shopping, and a few other stops. On Sunday I have to go to NJ to celebrate my final Christmas of the season. We usually end up getting together in January just because our schedules are too hectic. This year though I really don't want to go. Andrew's not going and he doesn't have a good excuse. But I'm the good kid, so I get to drive my mom. Blech.

Next weekend- might go to an all day crop on Saturday at one of the LSS semi in the area. And then on Sunday we're celebrating Liz and Hanna's birthdays at my place.

Final weekend in Jan- Sat I have a hair appointment and I bet I'll be running lots of other errands and Sunday is Mel's shower.

Ugh. So much going on. My summer's are usually this packed with various things, but not January. Looking forward to a day where I have nothing to do.

How to Write a Fugue

How to Write a Fugue
Andrew sent this to me. And my dad. We normally don't have similar tastes in these types of things, but he figured we woul deach appreciate different parts of it. He was right.

Mel, you'll probably like it as well.