Happy 4th of July!

Long may our Star Spangled banner wave...

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Happy Independence Day! And happy birthday America!

This 4th of July was great! It was spent in NC visiting my parents at their new place, having a cookout with friends I haven't seen in 7 or 8 years, swimming in the neighborhood pool, a wee bit of crafting, and a firework (yes...just one, lol). Matt, Jacqueline and I drove out to see fireworks but ended up missing them. We heard the neighbors apparently put on a fantastic show which we also missed. But when we drove home one of the neighbors across the street set off a mortar in the street and it was quite beautiful. :) I didn't get a picture of that one, but this is one we barely saw over the treetops on our drive home that night. I just love fireworks.

All in all it was a very nice day. I am thankful that my parents are settled into their new home and are in a good area. I think they are excited to be here. I'm thankful that I live in this country, regardless of its problems.
I'm enjoying my vacation here in NC! We went to the beach today which is where I took the picture of the American flag kite. I'll write more about our visit here later. In the meantime, I hope everyone else had wonderful celebrations! I'm signing out for the evening! Too much sun has me exhausted! :)

Happy 4th of July!

From the mountains....

To the prairies...
To the oceans white with foam...
(photo taken by my sister, Jacqueline)

God bless America. My home sweet home.

Happy Father's Day!

The Father's Day card Holly and Adam picked out. The Ten Commandments of Dad. I accidentally deleted the picture of the front of the card.
I would like to say that my Dad doesn't curse or swear, but he does tell us to turn off lights in rooms that aren't being used!
Happy Father's Day, Dad!

PS: Dad said he loved his card! I think it was a hit!

An early Mother's day card!

I brought this upstairs today and said to my mom, "Happy Mother's Day!" She laughed (!) and said, "Mother's Day isn't until next week! Holly gave me a card too!" Last week Holly told me that this Sunday was Mother's day so I stayed up last night and made this card for my Mom. I guess we both should have checked the calendar and realized that we were a little bit early. Now that I think about it Mother's day isn't usually the first Sunday of the month, is it?Well, I think being early is better than being late and this way we can celebrate again next week. My mom deserves to be celebrated a lot anyway. :)

The only thing I don't like about this card is that I wrote Happy Mother's Day of the front. I wish I had a stamp that said that so I could have stamped it or perhaps if I had some kind of a rub-on transfer that would have worked well too. Unfortunately I didn't have either so I wrote on it. But I like the flowers. :)

Scenes from our Christmas

Dad, Adam, Holly, Solomon and I went to Harper's Ferry for a few hours on Christmas day. It's such a beautiful place!From the bridge looking toward the town.

Jefferson Rock

(Pardon the sappy picture of the dog...it's a weakness with me.)

One of my favorite places to walk around and just be. It's very relaxing and although whenever we go none of the shops or even restaurants are open, that is just fine with me because my favorite thing to do is just walk around and snap bunches of pictures. And that's exactly what I did. It was a fun thing to do on Christmas with my family (or some of my family, the other half stayed home and missed out!).

What started as this:
Ended up as this:Lots of 'homemade' cookies for my co-workers and a whole bunch of extras to take to the other office I worked at and a Christmas party. Yep, I made tons of cookies this year, and it's showing. Unfortunately. So no more for awhile. I was going to make a bunch of danishes for Christmas too. I usually make them at Thanksgiving, but it didn't happen this year. I'm thinking of making them for my sister's baby shower in a couple of months. I'm so excited for that! Other than card-making and cookie-baking I didn't really do very much crafting. Not nearly as much as I would have liked to do. I've been so exhausted this year. I've been getting up at 9:30 and am ready to fall asleep by about 10. I need to take more vitamins or something because I have very low stamina these days.

But back to Christmas preparations: I had a lot of fun putting together the cards and cookies and hopefully next year I will plan better and have more handmade items to give away.

Well lookee here...

I did a leetle tiny bit of crafting on my break after all. The first batch of Christmas cards I made for this season. Holly and Mom made a few too, but these are just the ones I made. Special thanks goes to glittery foam stickers from Walmart (these stickers stuck really well, I worry about stickers falling off, but these weren't going to go anywhere.) and to rub-on transfers from Target. Allow me to say a few words about rub-on transfers: I LOVE THEM! Seriously, they are addictive and are really good on homemade cards. I also got a chance to use the embossing kit I got at the craft fair a few weeks ago. It was a little more complicated for me than it was for the guy at the fair who was demonstrating how to use them. I guess I need a little more practice. :)
I made a whole bunch more, but I didn't take any pictures of those. Maybe next year...

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to wish everyone a beautiful day. I hope you all had a beautiful day and got to spend it with those you love! Today was so great. I enjoyed spending time with my family and friends who I consider to be family. And of course I ate more than I needed to, although I think I did better than I do most years. Definitely something to be thankful for. ;)