I know what I'm going to request for my birthday....

Hopping around the internet, I found this! And it's only like a 3 hour drive from here! I am SOOOOO going!

I would love it if some of my other scrappy friends would come to, that way we could room together.....anywho I am too excited. Yay!

This weekend felt like it was 100 years long. I was sick and miserable. Dave helped with the baby alot and I am so glad. I took some cute photos of the baby on friday (like I've ever taken one of him that wasn't cute, LOL) I'll post them today or tomorrow.

I'm still trying to get back to feeling totally normal.

Also, I did some scrapping this weekend, but I can't show you because it's all stuff I've submitted for possible publication....and you know how that goes! Hopefully one or two of my layouts will get picked up!

Happy Monday!

Today is the lazy day

Well yesterday I ended up kind of doing both of the things I discussed. When Jackson went down for his morning nap, I did too.

We woke up around lunch time and then went out shopping. It was a pretty good time too. I went to Hobby Lobby and got a few nice things, including some St. Patty's Decor @ 80% off for next year! I cannot resist a good sale!

Today, however will be a rest day. I feel like I might be coming down with something so I'm just going to take it easy.

Hope you have a great day!

The daily grind

I'm torn today. I could A: go out today and run errands, even do some shopping because my house is clean and the laundry is caught up....or I could B: curl up in the bed and be lazy all day.

There are benefits to both, I'm just not sure which I'll be doing just yet.

I'm excited because my Crop Night is on Friday! I can't wait. :-)

Something else I'm excited about is that I'll be going to an all night pajama crop at my LSS with my BFF Rachel! Yay! It's on April the 4th and I know we are going to have a blast! Hubby was nice enough to offer to keep Baby J so that I could go!

Another cool thing is that I was nominated for layout of the week this week(for this lo) on one of my FAVE scrapbooking sites, and I also won the weekly contest there for my 6x12 lo that you can see here!

So it's been a pretty good scrappy week so far! I'm trying not to scrap until Friday, so that I will have ideas and energy saved up! I hope that doesn't backfire on me.

Hope you have an awesome day!


Oh, and if anyone wants to get me an early birthday present, this would be awesome! :D

Easter Photos!

"Look mom! This basket has plastic on it that makes a crunchy noise when I touch it!" - Once Jackson realized this, it was near impossible to get a photo of him not looking at or touching the basket! LOL

Jackson with his first bunny!

"Can we open this already?"

"I like my baskets and my new bunny pal!"

"Since I can't eat a chocolate bunny this year, I'll just eat this stuffed one instead!"


So there you have it. Jackson's first Easter! The gorgeous yellow basket came from the BEST grandma in the world (my mom), and the little green basket came with the stuffed bunny and was from Mommy and Daddy. It had also been wrapped beautifully the night before, but met the fate of our cat......and you know what that means. (It means that when I came downstairs Easter morning the contents of said basket were strewn everywhere!)

Regardless, Jackson was happy to play with plastic eggs and his stuffed bunny.

Happy Tuesday!

My St. Patty's Day Boy!

I should probably be posting a photo from Easter since that was yesterday, but I haven't uploaded those pics yet, so this will have to suffice for today.

Jackson was cutting teeth and dealing with a cold on St. Patty's Day, so really it's a wonder he's not sobbing in this photo.

He still looks sweet though, at least to me! You also have a lovely view of my wall air freshener and the pack and play.....as you can see I was just desperate to grab the photo before he burst into tears.

Shockingly, he just turned 7 months old on this past friday! 7 Months !?!?!?! Gosh....it just is going too fast!

This weekend was ok. My asthma was terrible until about half-way through the day on Sunday, when I finally got some new medication (Thanks Mommy!) that helped a whole lot. So I spent most of the weekend hobbling around wheezing.

I did however sweep and mop the kitchen in the late afternoon on Easter (and OH how it needed it!) and it looks a million times better.

Floors are my least favorite cleaning duty, and therefore I will let them go the longest before the mess bothers me(really it bothers me constantly, but I just live in denial for a certain period before I begin to loathe the mess) . And now that I've tackled the kitchen, I believe today I will be vacuuming the living room and shampooing the carpet (boy, the excitement in my life is at an all time high!)

Besides the usual need for spring cleaning, I'm doing alot of this because I want things to be extra nice for my crop on Friday! Only 3 spots remain! If you would like more info, go here. Which is a little weird too, considering most of the people coming are my good friends who wouldn't care about how clean the carpet is, but I figure it's all in good measure.

Well, I'm off to keep cleaning. Hope you have a wonderful week! :-)

So after a week long scrapbooking lul....I made THIS!

Behold the LO (that's layout for those who don't know scrappy lingo) of greatness (at least for this week!)
When I took it to show Dave he even said "I think this is some of your best work!" :D

Anyway, I made it for this contest they have going on at Scrapdragon. You should totally go and enter! They are giving away $15 dollar gift certificate to Crop Addict! Basically you had to make a LO based off of an album cover.

Well, here is the cover I used. It is DMB of course!

So, what do you guys think? Pretty good interpretation or what?

Easter Funny...

I got this off Annie's blog! Too funny!

You know what's great about where I live in Texas?

• You can just decide to hop in the car mid-afternoon go to the beach.
• You can play at the beach without freezing and even get in the water...in late March!
• You can get your first tan of the year in just one day!

Anyway, as you can tell I didn't post yesterday because it was so beautiful outside I went down to Galveston with Baby J, my mom, and Mckenna.


The weather was gorgeous, and the beach was just perfect. We had the best time. Especially Baby J, who laughed and giggled and played the whole time we were there...I guess because all the sights and sounds were so exciting.


But, I'm not surprised. I was such a beach/water baby and to this day I just LOVE spending time in the gorgeous outdoors....so it's no shock that Jackson feels the same way!



We are going to take him back to the beach and camping (at my fave state park ever!) in just a few weeks! I can't wait! There is nothing better in this world than getting outside and taking in all the beautiful things God put on this planet for us. What a gift to have given His Children!

Likewise, I feel it is extremely important for me to share the beauty the world offers with my child. I want him to know that spending a day out in the wilderness can be far more valuable than going to see a movie, or playing a video game. But to be honest, I don't think it's going to be an issue, like I said it seems like he is most happy in nature already! :D



Hope you have a great day!

Happy Everything!

Here is the make-and-take card we will be doing at my crop night! Yes, it is simple, but some of the poeple coming have never stamped before, so we are starting off small.

Perhaps every month the make-and-take will grow and get more complicated as we all learn more techniques together! :-)

Only 7 spots remain for the March 28th crop night! Reserve yours now! Go here for more info or send me a comment or email.

Proceed with caution... I just got on my soapbox

*** If you are looking for the UBP 2008 Winners post, scroll down Thanks!***


***Warning, while this post contains no profanity, it does contain some words which you may find uncomfortable or forceful, please use your own discretion as far as reading it is concerned, it won't hurt my feelings if you choose not to***


So, I'm a little T'd off about the fact that I got my first SPAM email as a result of having this blog. Because I have awesome filters on my email I get SPAM rarely, if ever, so to have that message arrive the other day was irritating.

But not just in the "oh man I have to waste 5 seconds to block this address and delete this message" way...... I was mad because the message actually tricked me for a second.

It happens from time to time that when a new person comments on my blog that the message sent from blogger to tell me so will end up in my SPAM folder because I've never received mail from that person before.

So, when I received such a message like that I wasn't alarmed. I proceeded to open the message expecting a nice comment, nothing more.

The comment I got was nice, I guess, but was written in poor English, clearly by someone in another country paid next to nothing to send messages out to people to sell crap or make money, or whatever other underhanded thing they can think to do. It had a link to his website and his comment said I should totally check it out. GRRR!

I know. People like this are not new to the internet, but I'm really freakin' mad about THIS scenario because the idiot tried to sound like he cared about my blog in his comment.....all to sell me something or increase his pay per click rating or whatever.

Regardless, I feel that it is a dirty, cheap practice....and I guess I'm especially upset because my blogs are my personal space, the last thing I want is for someone to pretend to relate to me for their benefit!!!!

(I would never trick people into buying anything off My Etsy or from my Stampin' Up business, and I expect others to treat me with the same respect....clearly that is too much to ask in this case!)

What prompted this post you're reading though was a similar comment selling something else, that I saw on another bloggers personal page. She had written a heart warming post about growing old reflecting on an elderly persons birthday, and then the jerk (who I do not believe has anything to do with whoever left the comment on my post) leaves some retarded comment about how he felt like her post was so good (except he said that in pathetic broken english) and he was going to add her to his blog roll.....and THEN he conveniently left her a link to something he was selling.

GRRRRRRR! That just burns me up! I think I'd be less bothered by a solicitor at my front door, at least they don't pretend to be something their not!

**sighs** I'll step down now...i just wanted to express my frustrations with you. Sorry I spoke forcefully.

Ultimate Blog Party 2008! ***Winners***

Well, what an awesome party it was! People stopped by here and got to know me, and stopped around a few blogs myself and got to know some new people, so all in all I'd say it went well!

Of course, I know YOU want to know who the WINNERS for my contest are!

Well, after a random drawing the winners are.........

Shannon

Janice

Lara

The Single Mom

Nouveau Soccer Mom (Shannon)

Congrats to the Winners!!!!!!! And what did they win you ask....well let me tell you.

Each of those lucky ladies will get a surprise scrapbooking gift from me in the mail, but even better than that, they each get a $10 credit towards the purchase of anything from the Stampin' Up catalog! Congrats ladies!

Please email me your contact info and the product numbers of the items you would like from the SU! catalog. If you have any questions please let me know.



I'll be back with a St. Patty's day post a little later!

Wanna see my first publication???

Well then hop on over to Ready Set Create! and check out their Birthday Sampler Issue! I'm on page 104.

Enjoy!

My other publication will be in their April/May Issue so I'll be waiting for that!

There's a reason we call him The Most Handsome!

Check out the newest additions to my living room! :-)

Here's one I took at lunch time today! So sweet. And yes, I know I cut his head off, but he was mid-bounce! It was the best I could do, hehe!

Try that on for size!

I recently made this layout for a contest, and let me tell you, it was so hard to break out of my 12x12 rut (which was the point of the contest)....but once I got going it was really kind of refreshing!

6x12 means only half as much space to worry about filling! You think that would be logical, but it still surprised me. I'm just a goof, what can I say.

I'm not crazy about that photo of myself, but oh well. I think the layout turned out nice.

I used papers and embellishments from my Crop Addict March 08 kit, the only things that aren't from it are the orange scallop cardstock which is Bazzill, the flowers which are by Colorbok, and the "I" and "you" letter stickers which are from the SU! Simply Scrappin' Crew Kids Boy Kit.

I like that I'm trying to do challenges all the time because it really keeps my creative juices flowing.

If you need a challenge, go here. At Scrapdragon they have cool challenges twice a month and giveaway neat prizes (like right now a $15 dollar gift certificate to the Crop Addict store!). You should check it out.

Finally, only eight spots remain for my Crop Night, so if you would like to join us, please contact me through a comment or email! Thanks!

Busy day today

I just now realized I didn't post this morning. Oh well. I was just really wrapped up in cleaning. So far today I've scrubbed the bathroom down, cleaned the kitchen, tidied the living room, and done 4 loads of laundry...I guess I just woke up feeling productive!

I've also been brainstorming about what I'm going to do with my new Stampin' Up business. See my last post if your interested in attending my first crop. (and you know you are, right??? :-)

Tonight for dinner were having this. I haven't cooked in so long that I have to say I'm very excited to get going with it again.

Well I've lost 15 lbs on the diet, and was shocked to find how much thinner I feel with 15lbs off of me! That being said, we are trying to eat more healthily now, but aren't necessarily dieting any more.

I'm going to continue my workout routine 3 days a week and we have replaced sugar with splenda, regular salad dressing with fat free, 2% milk with fat free, and we have added 5 fruits and veggies to our daily routine.

All in all I feel tons better! Getting in shape really has given me tons more energy than I expected!

Off to finish working on the house! Hope you have a great afternoon!

Come to my first ever Crop Night!

It is to celebrate my start with Stampin' Up!...but I will be having one the last Friday of every month as a fun and crafty tradition!

I would LOVE for you to join me!

For more info, go here.

Springish Cards!

Sorry the photos aren't very good, but it rained all day and my house lacks windows and natural light, so that's as good as I got for today! :-)

(Look Erica, more of your paper! And I did stamping too! Are you proud?)

I must sat that card making is VERY new to me and I have not gotten nearly where I want to as far as honing my skills with this kind of art. I have a great mentor in this department though, so I'm trying to get better as I go here!

Also, you get a tiny peek of my Easter decor there! Seriously, I have little bowls or containers of eggs in almost every room, LOL, it's kind of crazy.

Have you done anything crafty lately? I'd love to see!

10 Reasons I'm glad I'm not pregnant anymore

1. I get to spend everyday with the most amazing little boy in the world (see my last post if you have doubts :-)

2. I'm thinner- 52 lbs thinner than I was @ 8 months pregnant

3. I can wear heels again without my feet swelling like balloons and killing me

4. I can shop for hours on end (in heels) again! Oh how happy this makes me!

5. I can have as much Starbucks as I want! Thank goodness for that or I'd have no pep

6. I can sleep comfortably

7. I can sit in one position for an hour or more without being in complete agony

8. I don't want to sleep all day (oh wait, I don't know about this one...) :-P

9. I can eat what I want (although now I'm watching it too, just how much I eat instead of what)

10. I get to spend everyday with the most amazing little boy in the world (see my last post if you have doubts :-)

Yes. My pregnancy was VERY hard. But the outcome made every second so worth it! To anyone who is pregnant right now and reading this, I feel your pain (wherever it may be) and I admire you for trudging through it, just like I did.

Pregnancy and babies are such a gift, even if they test our limits sometimes.

Oh, and speaking of motherhood... Happy Birthday to my Mommy! :-)

Happy Monday!

You know whats cool?

People actually search for "baby Jackson" on Google to end up at my website! :D I think that is sweet and funny.

Because he really is most of what I blog about anyway. I mean I started blogging when I was pregnant with him, and he has supplied tons of blog fodder since his birth, but to see that today just made me smile! (I know, that sentence has too many commas...but that's how I wanted to say it, ok? :-)

I'm glad he sticks in peoples minds. That is as it should be (arrogant mama much?).



Anyway, speaking of the Most Handsome, he is doing great!

He just had his 6 month shots and as of today has finally warded off a cold (I hope). He can roll from front to back and then go back again, and LOOKOUT WORLD!, but he has been making so pretty successful attempts at crawling.

Babygates will be purchased tomorrow, that's how serious I am!

He babbles and coos and laughs constantly, and even though he was cutting teeth and had a cold this week, was still just a doll to be around! I love my baby boy!

The sweetest new thing he does is blow raspberries with his tongue at you after you do it to him, he thinks that is so hilarious!

Hope you have a restful Sunday.

It's Official! I'm a published Scrapbooker!

Yep! You read that right! As of today I am published!!! I was informed this afternoon that not one but TWO of my creations will be featured in a certain magazine for their April/May 08 issue! :D When it is realeased I'll tell you what and where, I can't right now.

Can you say JUMPING OUT OF MY SKIN EXCITING?!!?!!!?!!!!?!

OMG! It's just the best feeling ever.....oh yeah.....my epic sand pail is partially what made it happen.

I told you....it was destined for greatness from the beginning!

SOOOOOO Happy! :D

Share in my joy by leaving a comment my wonderful readers! :-) You guys often make my day as much as this did!

Ultimate Blog Party 2008!

Hiya! I'm Haley! If this is your first time here then Welcome!!!! If not, I'm really glad you came back! I'm so excited to make a ton of new friends during The Ultimate Blog Party 2008!!!

I'm a mom to beautiful 6 month old boy and wife to an amazing man! I spend my days at home with Jackson. When he's napping and after he goes to bed I scrapbook as much as I can! I live for it! In fact, I post about scrapbooking on my blog almost everyday!

I also love shopping, junk food, movies, and Dave Matthews Band!

I want to get to know some more Bloggy Friends this week, so go ahead and feel free to leave me your questions and thoughts in a comment on THIS POST this week!

Sometime on March 17th I will be giving away 5 awesome Scrapbooking related prizes! I will randomly draw names from all those who commented to pick the winners! So get to commenting silly!! :-)

I can't wait to make new friends!!!!

The Prizes they are giving away @ 5 minutes for mom are awesome! If I win my top three choices for a prize would be #32 A living the Dream shirt,#34 a custom tutu (for my niece, not Jackson LOL), or #84 a cool baby sling!

If I didn't get one of those I would be happy with a randomly chosen prize! :-)

What does your name mean?

I saw this over at Virginia's blog and it looked cool, so I did it too. It's not totally spot on with everything, but pretty darn close I'd say!

What Haley Means

You are truly an original person. You have amazing ideas, and the power to carry them out. Success comes rather easily for you... especially in business and academia. Some people find you to be selfish and a bit overbearing. You're a strong person. You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic "Type A" personality. You are relaxed, chill, and very likely to go with the flow. You are light hearted and accepting. You don't get worked up easily. Well adjusted and incredibly happy, many people wonder what your secret to life is. You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone. You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together. At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together. You are a free spirit, and you resent anyone who tries to fence you in. You are unpredictable, adventurous, and always a little surprising. You may miss out by not settling down, but you're too busy having fun to care.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

Fridays Feast! (I haven't done one of these in forever!)

Appetizer

If you could be any current celebrity for one whole week, who would you want to be?

Reese Witherspoon. She is gorgeous, a great mom, and very classy and well behaved as far as celebrities go. I think it would be neat to see what her life is like from day to day.

Soup

On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being highest), how much do you enjoy talking on the phone?

I'd say an 8. But that's when I want to talk to the person who is calling, there are days when I don't want to talk at all.

Salad

Name a charitable organization to which you have donated (or would like to).

(RED), The ONE Campaign, Paralyzed Veterans of America, SAAFE House (our local battered womens shelter, our local animal shelter, the Petsmart animal placement program, Adopt A Cat Rescue in Houston, and our local homeless shelter The Good Shepard Mission. There are probably more, but I can't remember.

Main Course

What is a food you like so much you could eat it every single day for a month?

Pizza. I love pizza. Yum.

Dessert

Have you or anyone in your family had the flu this year?

No thankfully! And that's saying alot because I have a lowered immunity and almost always get it, but the shot has been fairly good to me these past few years!