The Day After Turkey Day!

We had a marvelous time yesterday. The food was wonderful. We all ate too much as always.

Before dinner my brother Mike and his wife Patty stopped by before they went to have dinner with Patty's daughter. Mike came walking in with a "Grandpa Ralph" hat on his head! We all laughed, but he actually looked good in it! ( I didn't get a pic of it. That doesn't happen often!) My grandpa Ralph always wore a hat and usually just a certain type....well, Mike found one just like he always wore. He also said he wore it in honor of our brother Steve, who isn't with us any longer, but he always wore some goofy hat almost daily! It brought back good family memories. We also had a visit from Lisa's dad and his wife, they were having dinner at her daughter's, but stopped by to say hi. It was nice seeing them.

I always love Thanksgiving, because we get two days off work!!! A 4 day holiday....thank you!!! I did get up early and worked on finishing a scrap layout that I started a few days ago. I'm almost done with an album that I have been commissioned to make for Jacob's friend Matt. It's a surprise for his girlfriend. Matt and Jake have been friends since grade school and Matt will be leaving for his second term in Iraq right after Christmas. He's our hero!

Enjoy our Thanksgiving slideshow below!

HAPPY TURKEY DAY!!!!

I will be spending the day at Lisa and Steve's. I'm picking up Noni on the way. It's nice having someone to talk to on the ride there. I'm bringing the veggies this year. I'm making a Broccoli Cheese dish (a Paula Dean recipe......I love that woman!) and fresh steamed green beans with a little olive oil and black pepper!! I'm also bringing the Champagne and OJ for Mamosas!!! We aren't really drinkers, but we each have one or two, they taste so good while we are getting the food ready. Jack (Steve's dad) is our official Turkey cooker!! This will be the third year Jack has been in charge of the turkey......he has the magic touch!! He also makes a mean stuffing and a delicious gravy. Melissa (Jack's wife) makes awesome homemade rolls! If she doesn't hide them before dinner, Steve can eat them all....hehehe!! Lisa is charge of the mashed taters and all the snackies before dinner. Lisa set her table yesterday, she made beaded napkin rings, I can't wait to see them. Maybe some of my craftyness has rubbed off on her!!! She told me her and the kids made the rings, and I said, "oh out of construction paper"........no mom she said.......I went to Michael's and bought glass beads!! I was so impressed!! I can't wait to see her table. She always puts a lot of work into setting a nice table.

The only sad part of this day is that Michael, Sally and the kids are not going to be with us. They drove to Arizona yesterday to be with some of Sally's family. We are going to miss them. But.......I know I've got to share them.....right?

Again.......HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU ALL!!! I'll be back with photo's later!!!!

Time with Mia!

This gramma got to have some Mia time yesterday. Mommy was working and Daddy had a surprise birthday party to go to......so gramma got her Mia time!

She is now 11 months old and is on the go! Daddy brought her over sportin' the cutest jeans and hooded top! She was wearing her new Nike's too!! I know Daddy had to have picked those out. He has always been a Nike guy! I so remember the cost of those Jordan's he used to have to wear!! I must have been nuts to buy those shoes!!

Thanks kids for the Mia time!

What Puts a Big Smile on Gramma's Face?

The answer......is checking my e-mail after work to find the cutest little photograph of my darling little grandson DOMINICK!!

Lisa had a little photo shoot today posing Dominick in his Thanksgiving outfit. Well, she had to stuff him into it. It barely fit him!! She said thankfully she still had the tags attached and she also had the receipt. So she took a few photo's and is taking the outfit back to the store. He is growing so darned fast. He's already over 13 lbs at 10 weeks old. He's such a doll!! PS......I better get him posted here with a Yankee's outfit on soon or I'll be in a heap of trouble with daddy Steve!!!

Recent Family Photo's

My thrift store purchase!!!

I bought this chubby little chipboard children's book at a thrift shop near my work for 60 cents last week. I was not sure what I was going to do with it! I brought it home and tossed it on my scrap table and then remembered I had a bunch of Halloween pic's from carving night that I needed to scrap. So I made a mini album out of it.

First I painted it black....making sure to let each page dry before painting the next. I tore pieces of Halloween paper and added it to each page using Royal Coat....also making sure to let each page dry. I also added little stickers of owls, pumpkins and cats. I also used Royal Coat on each one of those. Before I added the photo's I Royal Coated strips of ribbon and ric-rak to each page. I used lots of Royal Coat on this little album!!! The last thing I did was to tie a strip of ribbon through the book binding and then I tied different ribbons and ric-rak to that strip of ribbon. That just fancied up the album binding edge a bit. To keep the album closed I tied a piece of ribbon around it.

This was my first time altering a little book like this and it won't be my last. I bought 6 of them!! I gave this one to Michael and Sally yesterday and they really loved it. Lisa and Steve asked where their little album was???? I told them they will get one of our Thanksgiving together. Steve said, he wanted their little album to be made from a bigger book!!!!

Halloween Post Cards

These are 3 of the 16 post cards that I made to send to my Scrapbook.com Critique group members. Each one was a little different and everyone in the group said they enjoyed receiving their post card.

I printed the blank post card images, inked each one, added stamping and the cut out vintage Halloween images to each card. They were fun to make. They were sent to members living all over the United States and one was even sent to Scotland.

We are currently working on our Christmas card and recipe swap.

Trick-or-Treat

Michael and Sally picked me up Friday evening and we all drove up to Lisa and Steve's. We wanted the babies to be together on their 1st Halloween!! They were dressed up so cute. Mia as a PUMPKIN and Dominick as SUPERMAN! Steve and Lisa had their front porch decorated so neat, I'd say rather SPOOKY! So we decided that would be the best place for a photo shoot! The lighting wasn't the best, but I think I got some cute pic's. Mia was so darned cute, she was a little afraid of that ugly, ugly person sitting next to her, but she really handled it well. We were all just cracking up. Little Dominick is still to young to realize what was going on....so he just went with it. My 5 other grandkidlets were trick-or-treating with their mom or dad. Maybe next year we can have all 7 dressed up and trick-or-treating together! What a photo shoot we would have. Now I have to get scrapbooking these darling photo's!

Photo's from HALLOWEEN NIGHT!!