Finally- the last day of school!

The last day of school has finally arrived. These are the teacher gifts I made for Noah's teachers. I either got the idea from Two Peas in a Bucket or from Cricut.com. I can't remember at this point. It's a combination of a few ideas I saw posted. I thought this one was the most practical. A lot of the gifts posted were really cute, but not very practical and I just pictured them getting thrown away in a few days. It doesn't matter if these get thrown away.. they're disposable gifts!



Now for the details. The plastic bags are just sandwich bags folded over. All of the paper used is DCWV Citrus Stack. The lemon cut is from the Life's a Beach Cricut cartridge. The scallop is a 2" punch and I used a Martha Stewart butterfly punch. The border punch is also Martha Stewart and the pinwheels are just made out of 4 " squares slit at the corners with alternate corners folded in. I stuck a straight pin through the middle and into a pencil eraser ( the pencil is the stick for the pinwheel) and covered the straight pin with the butterfly. Then I glittered them up with Stickles.

Following Zoe

Zoe is not the kind of girl that you can sit in one spot and get her to pose for a picture. She doesn't want to sit and she doesn't want to be still. So, every once in awhile, when I have nothing else planned for the day, I dress her up and just follow her around the house snapping photos. I end up with a lot of bad photos and hope for great ones. She was in a particularly good mood Friday and I managed to get a few good ones. I just put the dress on her, SHE grabbed the purse on the way out of her room and refused to put it down. It's from her birthday party last year ( Pink Poodles in Paris). At least it matches!

I handed her a silk hydrangea hoping for a cute shot, and she started swinging it like a baseball bat!

This is one of my favorites, too bad she has her finger up her nose!

Rare Zoe "sweet" moments, loving on her baby.

Jersey Boy

Noah was born here in NJ and we've had many discussions about if someone is a product of their environment, their genetics or both. Many times, Noah has popped out with a pronunciation that is so very southern it stuns us. We figure that must have come through the gene pool since we have both mostly lost our drawl. But, none too often, he reminds us that he IS a Jersey boy.


First a little history for my non-Jersey/Philadelphia friends. Wawa is a local ( NJ, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia) convenience store type place that also has a sandwich bar where you can order sandwiches, hot sides, soups and other specials of the day. The sandwiches are custom made to your liking, like a Subway sandwich, but much much better!


Here is Wawa:

They currently have a promotion going on called "Hoagie Fest" and the television is inundated with commercials regarding their groovy campaign during which a cartoon man floats around in a "Wawa Hoagie Balloon".

So, today, Noah came home from school with a wrapped gift and a picture they colored for Father's Day. The idea was to finish this sentence, " My father and I like to _____." ; and draw a picture of the aforementioned activity. Noah is in kindergarten and therefore, cannot spell a lot of things, but they do what they call "kid writing" where they just think about it in their head and write is phonetically however they think it should be spelled. Here is Noah's picture:

It says, " ...riyd the Wawa Hoge Blon" which is ".. ride the Wawa Hoagie Balloon."

The things we do for our offspring....

As previously mentioned, Noah's party is this weekend. I have just completed the cake. Whew... and before midnight at that!

I would like to first say that I HATE decorating cakes. I know "hate" is a strong word, but seriously, nothing else does it justice. If it weren't for my sweet little boy asking me to make him a Lego cake, I would have never EVER done it! That is your warning... the cake is sloppy and the actual Legos were an almost-disaster. If you squint, it actually looks pretty good.. bring it into focus and it is a different story. I seriously don't care. If I cared I would never post a picture of it on here, but the most important thing to me is Noah thinks it is "the most awesomest cake EVER!" and that is all that matters to me.

And in case you were wondering, http://www.lego.com/ sells a silicone cake/jello mould that I used to make the legos. I covered them in pourable fondant.

Banner for Noah's party

I've been working on a banner for Noah's party this weekend.  His birthday isn't until August, but I told him we could celebrate early this year so he could have his friends from school over.  It's kind of a end-of-year/birthday party!  He's only got 10 more school days left!

The banner is made from a Basic Grey scallop chipboard album covered with paper from Basic Grey's Cupcake line and We R Memory Keeper's White Out - Stash.  The letters are cut from Lego paper.  You can't see it in the photos, but the paper is textured like a lego.  

The Cricut cartridges used are" Accent Essentials for the jagged circles, Lyrical Letters- Jumbo for the letters and Doodlecharms for the birthday hat.

I Scream, You Scream....

...well, you know the rest!

and there he goes again....

Momma's Girl...

In sharp contrast to the last post... I love this picture so much, I just thought it needed it's own blog. This is a girl after my own heart...

The Most Popular Girl at the Frat House

Setting: Fall 2025, University of Texas campus, inside one of the numerous frat houses- the most popular freshman on campus,red-head Zoe C, is holding court. Before the fall semester is complete, she will be kicked out of the university, sent home to her parents where she will embark on her "exotic dancing" career.

"Where did we go wrong?" her parents wonder.

Then we flashback to a scene in late spring of 2009 when Zoe was not yet two....

" Yes, we should have seen it coming" sighed her father.

" I TOLD you two she was rotten when she was a baby!!" pointed out her older brother Noah, now a highly-successful scientist doing research for NASA. " I don't know what we are going to do with her, but she is ruining my good name and if you don't reel her in soon, I will be forced to cut ties with the entire family. I mean, a man of my stature, cannot be associated with such tomfoolery!!"