A day to Embrace Doing NOTHING!

This is what I woke up to this morning!!! My son had made me Jelly toast and milk!!

"Happy Birthday Mommy" - I must say it was the most delicious jelly toast I have ever eaten!

Yes, today is my birthday!! My one day a year I strive to do Absolutely Nothing AND not feel guilty about it!!! Of course there's plenty of days the rest of the year I strive to do nothing, the big difference is today I don't feel bad about it!!

Maybe it's a "mom-thing", not sure, but it is a real struggle (for me anyways) to do things for myself without the guilt of feeling I should be doing something else, whether it's something with the kids, cleaning the house, work calling my name, a million little things

So, today was "guilt-free" I had a fire, lit my favorite candles and curled up in this chair with a book and the TV remote. What a fantastically relaxing day!!

The reality that is the craziness of my life will just have to wait until tomorrow!!

I am in love with Microsoft One-Note

Microsoft One-Note totally rocks for Project Life!! You can create notebooks - so I made a "Project Life" notebook. Then you can create tabs-you can see in the top left I have a "January" tab and a "February" tab. Then under each tab you can create "pages" - so on the right side you'll see a "page" for each day. On each page you'll see I journaled on top and then added the picture for the day! So now, even though I haven't had a chance to print up all my pictures and get them in my album, I have everything ready to go! AND...I can organize my pictures and write my journaling on my lunch hour at work ...sweet!!

I am SOLD on One-Note - I plan to start "notebooks" for each of my kids and start keeping my journaling about their lives on there. Than, when I am ready to scrapbook their stories - they'll be in their "notebooks" and ready to scrap!

The Beautiful Box on My Porch!

I was Soooooo excited when I got home on Friday night and there on my porch was a beautiful box!!! (Enter Alleluia chorus playing in the background :-)

Alas, my long awaited Project Life kit had arrived!! The Turquoise addition with all it's fun circles!

I have boys, so I am loving the primary colors and festive geometric designs

Even the boxes the journaling cards come in are styling! I just love it all.

My goal tonight is to get it all put together - we'll see...

My son's birthday party was last night -11 boys- and us with the bright idea of getting them Nerf shooters - it was a war zone in our basement -absolutely hilarious! And a sleepover to boot!! Fun stuff - I think they finally settled down about 1am to watch a movie! I am exhausted - ready to go back to work just for the break!!

But....Project Life is on my mind and I'm so excited to get started. I've been keeping up on the daily pictures and Journaling using Microsoft One-Note. If you haven't had a chance to use this program - I highly recommend it - it's AWESOME and Totally PERFECT for Project Life! I'll post more on that later - For now it's time to play with the new dart board my son got from a friend, yep a 6 and almost 10 year old throwing sharp metal objects, nothing could go wrong there...:-) Can anyone say "trip to the ER"? But my boys just smile their irresistible smiles and say "Mommy worries too much", and I tell them "it's my job" :-)

The Good Stuff!!!

Yep - the holidays are over - but who says the "good dishes" are only for the holidays and only for extended family visits! So I say Use the good dishes AND light the good candles!! Just for your own family! Aren't they worth it after all!!! Everyone saves the good stuff for visitors - not me, not anymore!! I say start a NEW tradition!

A sign of HOPE for 2011!!

As we ate dinner tonight this beautiful rainbow appeared out our backyard. I take this as a wonderous sign of hope for 2011, for better things to come!

This will be my very first entry for Project Life!

I hope everyone out there had a fantastic holiday season!

Mine was blessed with Family and Friends!

After 9 years of not having everyone in my family in the same place at the same time,

Everyone made their way "home for the holidays"

4 separate states, bedrooms filled with air mattresses, cots and suitcases,

A pantry that has never held so much food,

One nasty stomach flu that ran crazy and took down 11 out of 15 people in the house

despite it - it didn't stop us!!!

Games, cards, and more presents than could fit under the tree,

a house filled with LOVE and LAUGHTER

that only a family can bring

I am sooo thankful for one glorious week with the family I miss so much!

Embrace the Chaos!

The Dining area in my kitchen has been turned into "scrap storage"!! It's absolute madness!! We're getting the carpets cleaned in our house this week - so things needed to be "re-arranged"

Here's my empty scrap room - doesn't it look sad!! See that little shadow in the carpet? The carpet needs to be stretched. But..... to do that all the furniture needed to be moved. My desk was actually built in that room, and much to our suprise would not be taken out easily. We had to remove the top and separate the 2 sides of the desk!! Thank goodness I wasn't here to see it!! My "baby" taken out in pieces!! So I'm doing my best to "embrace the chaos" until the carpets are done and I can get the pieces back together again!

And you know chaos loves chaos.... On top of the madness today with moving stuff around my scrap room, my washing machine has "issues"... something has gotten stuck and is rolling around in there...no doubt a lego piece from my son's jeans. So it's in pieces as well. So...here' wishing all you a "chaos free" day :-)

Cute Kids Picture Frame!

My boys went camping with scouts this weekend and made this adorable picture frame from sticks, acorns and string! I just love it - had to share!