(diva)logues

"Turn up the music, I need it in my life yeah... turn up the music, just turn it up louder..."

 Happy Monday! 

I've received a several emails from out-of-town friends about the storms in our area over the weekend, since it made national news.  The weather was different for everyone around here.  My parents, who live a half hour away, only had rain.  We had 2 separate hail storms on Saturday night.  The first one happened around 6pm and shortly after that a tornado siren was sounding.  No tornadoes touched near our home, thankfully, and we were only under the warning for an hour... which was good since we had dinner reservations for Bob's birthday.  LOL  The 2nd hailstorm happened around midnight that night.  Very unusual to have hail twice in the same day. 

Bob's State Farm office is in a different area of St Louis and that area probably sustained the worst hail damage of anywhere.  Needless to say, he & his staff will be very busy taking claims today & probably all week.  The airport is also in the area & my sister's car was parked in an uncovered lot over the weekend while she was out of town.  She came home to a badly beat-up car.  Add that to the list of claims from Bob's policyholders...  ;-)   

Bob turned another year older yesterday.  We celebrated his birthday on Saturday night at a restaurant and then again on Sunday night at our house with family.  Bob also went to the Cardinals game with my dad yesterday.  They each got a mini replica of the 2011 World Series trophy with their paid admission.  Their seats were in the Champions Club (an all-inclusive area with food + drinks) which was a Christmas gift from my sister.  Fun day for them, except the Cardinals lost. 

In addition to celebrating his birthday, I also managed to get quite a bit accomplished.  I finished choreographing a new Zumba routine that I'll be using in class today and finished 4 new scrapbook pages.  Slowly trying to get through old photos from last year that I still haven't used yet. 

Like this event.  My friend's daughter & I share the same birthday.  And I always tell her we're cool girls.  Well even without the shared birthday we're cool girls, but that's beside the point... 

I used a random mix of Echo Park paper & letter stickers, Nikki Sivils scalloped border strips, SRM border stickers and American Crafts + the Twinery for my "balloons"...

Time to put on my dancing shoes & go teach ZUMBA!

Have a great week, everyone! 

Currently...

• Finishing choreographing a new Zumba dance to Turn Up The Music.
• Working on projects to meet a May 1st deadline.
• Downloading the book Fifty Shades of Grey, but waiting to read it since I have a feeling I won't put it down once I start it...and I have to meet that deadline first!
• Taking Bryn to the brand new American Girl store... and reigniting her interest in dolls.  Love that!
• Running on the treadmill.
• Watching my face peel off all weekend from the strongest peel my spa offers.  Younger looking skin please.
• Cleaning the house.
• Attempting to put a HUGE stack of completed scrapbook pages into the books... chronologically.  Why do I wait so long to do this??
• Thinking of all the events I HAVEN'T documented from 2011 yet.
• Listening to Bob mow the lawn.
• Getting ready to go out to dinner for Bob's birthday tonight and having family over for dinner tomorrow to celebrate.
• Looking through my closet for an outfit to wear with a hat tonight, to conceal some of the face peeling... LOL
• Drinking Decaf Soy Lattes from Starbucks.
• Planning to teach Zumba for another middle school field trip next week.
• Trying to steal extra hugs + kisses from Bryn.
• Shopping for birthday and congratulations gifts.
• Wondering if Bob will get me Crazy Bowls for lunch today... 

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Nikki Sivils + Glue Arts...

Head over to the Nikki Sivils blog to check out the product swap going on with Glue Arts today & tomorrow! 

Glue Arts was very generous with our team in sending several different adhesives!  I made a card for "dad" using the Nikki Sivils Noah collection .  I used Glue Glider Pro under my Father Knows Best sentiment and the U Cut It 3D Adhesive Foam Blanks under my patterned paper to raise it up a bit so I could wrap my twine around my paper.  I also put a small square under my star.  Both adhesives ROCK.  Very easy to use & adhere well to paper...

(The paper used for my card was cut from the cover sheet to this collection...can't waste one bit of it!)

And since Bob's birthday is this weekend... guess who will be receiving this card? 

Check out all the inspiring ways we used these products and MORE on the Nikki Sivils blog and on the Glue Arts blog!  Leave a comment at each manufacturer's blog today & tomorrow for a chance to win some prizes! 

Good luck and have a great day!  I'm off to do ZUMBA!  Woot woooot!

Girls weekend...

Happy Monday... aka ZUMBA day!  Love it!  Had a great class with quite a few girls today + an impromptu lunch afterward with my 2 oh-so-fabulous friends...at our favorite place with lots of laughs.  Now I'm anxiously awaiting the plumber's arrival so I can finally get a shower after my workout.  Yay me.   

Girls Weekend in Phoenix was a blast.  I got back home last night.  We accomplished a LOT in a short time in helping my friend get boxed up, moved & ready to close on her house.  It wasn't just all work & no play though.  We had time for a fun night out together too!  I have known these 2 forever.  They are like family to me.  The 3 of us don't have a chance to get together very often, but when we do... there's always much to talk about & many laughs... 

... and Justin Bieber showed up to help us with the move.  Wasn't that so nice of him?  LOL

Have a GREAT week, everyone!!!

"If you're looking for me... I'm with the girls on the dance floor...

... I'm easy to see I'm with the girls on the dance floor..."

LOVE that song.

We had a fun weekend... especially on Saturday night at my sister's going-away party.  She's moving to Denver next month.  Even though she travels A LOT and I don't get to see her regularly, I'm not looking forward to her living in another state again.  She lived in Dallas for a few years after college, but moved back here right after Bryn & Sydney were born.  So she's been here for almost 11 years now.  Everyone keeps telling me it's a new place to visit, but I like visiting with her here thank-you-very-much.  I travel enough as it is.  I've been to Denver once to ski... over 20 years ago... so I guess I'm looking forward to going back?  Really I have no choice though.  I'm going.  She can't get rid of me that easy! 

 

I have a mess of scrapbooking products all over my craft room floor for an upcoming project I've been working on... which has been making practicing Zumba interesting.  I haven't slipped on any paper yet, so all is good so far.  So... with these projects in mind, I had been going through all my photos on my laptop and ran across my Mud Run photos from last year.  I had been planning to make a mini book, since I already had all the photos printed... over 100 of them.  But... I decided to use these photo collages I had made last year for my blog and went with a pretty simple design that allowed for 24 photos + a boat load of journaling.  The journaling was pretty much cut + pasted from my blog post last year and is probably easier to read here if you're interested. 

My HELLO tag sticker came from the Simple Stories Fabulous collection... 

Did Spin class + a little running this morning.  Came very close to having to sub an abs class + a Zumba class tonight, but someone else offered at the last minute after I was still getting texted & begged this morning.  Thank goodness!!  I've never taught an abs class.  In fact, I don't think I've ever taken an abs class.  I prefer flabby abs.  LOL.  Bryn has her Zumba class tonight.  And yes... I will be checking for shaking body parts if you remember that conversation.  Then I'm getting up at the crack of dawn for Spin class tomorrow morning and subbing a Zumba class at 10:45am.  If you're local... please come dance with me! 

And this weekend is Girls Weekend in Phoenix.  So extra work-outs before I leave are definitely in order! 

April is already half over...

Just a quickie... as today is my day to share a few projects on the Nikki Sivils' blog.  I almost forgot it was the 15th already.  This month is certainly flying by!   

I used the new Audrey collection to create a page about the Garth Brooks show we recently attended.  The musical notes patterned paper made me think "concert page." 

My journaling was taken from my blog post about our Vegas trip.  Just copied + pasted it into Word... then printed.  Easy peasy.  I used the Maraschino twine from The Twinery to finish off my flag banner...

I also made a boy's birthday card with the Noah collection.  I added some Want 2 Scrap bling for the tires and some Shore twine from The Twinery...

Hope you're all enjoying your weekend!  Ours has been a TON of FUN! 

"Are you happy now, Clark? She's deaf."

My mom & my sister are nuts.  Thank goodness, I'm totally normal.  Ahem.  I just know the cooking instructor was glad to see the 3 of us return for another class, considering how much we'd rather chat & drink Sangria than actually cook.  We participated in the cooking though and had a ton of fun at this Spanish-themed class.  Paella was the main course.... ummm YUMMO!  Or maybe all the fruit in the Sangria was the main course?  LOL 

At one point, my mom was given the task of flipping the slices of bread (to be served with the tapenade we made) on the open flames on the grill.  The idea was to put them on the grill & flip each one to the other side before they burned.  Only the flames were so high that the smoke was getting in my mom's eyes, so she was stopping to rub her eyes frequently, while each piece was getting a bit too black.  Finally Marci said, "Geez, Mom.  Just let me do it.  You're not doing it right."  Marci quickly figured out how hot it was by the grill though, and that it wasn't as easy as it looked & said, "Are you happy now, Clark?  She's deaf."  I burst out laughing!  It's just one of the many stupidly hilarious quotes from the movie Vacation... which she quotes from all the time.  My mom, on the other hand, had no idea what she was talking about. 

Oh.... the laughs.  

Insanity not only runs in my family... it sprints!

"I wanna dance... and love... and dance.... again..."

Last night as I was tucking Bryn into bed & saying good-night, I told her I'd see her in the morning after my 6:30 Spin class.  She said, "Yeah... I'll just be waking up & eating breakfast when you get home and you'll come in the door yelling, I'm ready to start the day!"  I laughed... because really I do usually say something obnoxious like that when I'm coming home from a butt-kicking workout that early in the morning.  At 5:55am when my alarm goes off, however, I'm not exactly thinking "I'm ready to start the day" though.  And just to aggravate her, I burst through the door this morning and yelled that.  She smiled.  She loves me.  

I registered Bryn for the new Zumbatomic class at the Y (Zumba for kids) and her first class was last night.  The instructor for the class couldn't make it though, so I subbed the class.  I had 9 awesome girls, aged 6-12.  It was lots of fun!  Well... minus the part when we got in the car & Bryn said, "Did you have to shake your boobs?"  Not only don't I have much in that department to shake, but I told her I wasn't shaking them & I did try to change the dances and make them appropriate for kids. 

Seriously?  Like I would stand in front of her class & shake my boobs?  

Welcome to the tween years.  I'm still wrapping my brain around this phase we are now in, of whatever I do being questioned.  Next week, we shall see if the real instructor shakes her boobs too.  LOL 

Ok, so what else...

Mother's Day is around the corner, so I needed to come up with a Mother's Day card for the next Nikki Sivils E-Blast that goes out to all the retail stores.  Also... it will be nice to have a card already made for the occasion, since I seem to be doing things at the last minute lately.  I used the Audrey collection to assemble my card... 

I added a staple to the center of each of the heart cut-ups and then pulled each side of the heart away from the paper to add some dimension...

I'm attending another cooking class with my mom & sister tonight.  I'm sure there will be something amusing that happens... there always is... so more on that tomorrow!  You can be sure, though, that I won't set my wine glass on the food prep counter this time... just incase the wine police is watching.   

And PS...

I'm LOVING this new Jennifer Lopez song. 

Monday = FUN day...

Happy Monday... now one of my favorite days of the week.  And I know... most people dread Mondays.  It's a FUN day for me though... umm... my Zumba class, of course!  I had lots of fun people dancing with me today... and even had a handful of young "Spring-Breakers" that came to my class after their Easter sleep-over.  Bryn was off school & partipated in my class today, too!  So much FUN! 

Our Easter was awesome.  The weather was incredible yesterday... so once church was over, we spent the majority of the day outside.  Lunch with family and then dinner with friends... it was a special day from beginning to end... 

And making my Monday even better... I received an email today that made me pretty excited.  And nope... it wasn't a publication request, but it's pretty dang cool!    

Monday = FUN day!  

Nikki Sivils + PSA Essentials promotional feature...

It's Day #2 of the 2-day PSA Essentials + Nikki Sivils promotional feature on the Nikki Sivils blog.  Make sure to check out Nikki's blog for a chance to win one of her new collections!  There's also a blog hop happening on the PSA Essentials blog this weekend, so head over there for the details and a chance to win more prizes! 

PSA Essentials sent me their Peel + Stick "Carriage" stamps.  Simply peel them off the sheet & stick them onto a clear stamping block.  So easy...

I stamped onto plain white cardstock and then used my circle punch on my stamped images.  I punched a couple more circles out of the polka dot paper to finish up my "banner" and then inked all the edges with a black ink pad.  I added some of my Pink Sorbet twine from The Twinery to finish off the ends and put each circle onto a pop dot to add some dimension.  My card was made using Nikki Sivils' Noah collection...

Love that blue + red paper with all the words on it.  And the polka dot paper is too cute...

Don't forget to check out the Nikki Sivils' blog for details on how to win a brand new Nikki Sivils collection + some PSA Essentials stamps! 

Hope you all have a very blessed & HAPPY EASTER tomorrow! 

Well, peeps, it's almost Easter...

Back home... back to Zumba & Spin... back to buying groceries & filling Easter baskets!  I love being home.  Easter isn't my favorite holiday though.  When my sister passed away 10 years ago on March 31, it was Easter morning.  Hard to believe it's been 10 years already.  Hard to believe I'm actually happy again, when at the time all I wanted to do was get in my car, keep driving & never look back.  Having a 9-month old "angel" to get out of bed for every day, saved me though.  Thank God for the angels that come into our lives & save us.

Actually I'm looking forward to spending time with family & friends this weekend!  And Bryn has a friend spending the night tonight, so she'll have someone to dye our Easter eggs with besides me for once.  Speaking of which, did I mention that she gave me her birthday list the other day?  There were only 2 things on it:

1. A cell phone. 
2. Adopt a baby.  Preferably a girl.

She's been asking for a cell phone since she could talk.  The baby is a new one.  I think she came up with that grand idea when my cousin recently adopted a baby.  Needless to say, I told her she better come up with a new list because she wasn't getting either of those things. 

Fairly confident she's going to be a sales person some day.  And the good news is, she'll be very prepared to hear the word NO from potential customers... as she hears it all the time from us.   

Anyway... back to Easter.  Making a couple cards is much easier than adopting a baby, so I'll just stick with what I'm good at.  I decided to get a little crazy & use the Exit Here collection from Nikki Sivils (a travel-themed collection) to make a couple Easter cards.  I think the colors in the collection are very Spring-like, so I thought it could work.  I drew my own bunny shape onto the yellow-patterned paper & then cut it out.  I pulled off the end of a Q-Tip to make my cotton tail and ahered it with Beacon's 3-in-1 Craft Glue... my new favorite adhesive.  I also added a couple blue Burlap Buttons to the ends of my flag banner...

I made a similar card using the same collection, except on this one I added some lined paper to the middle.  My "eggs" are oval-striped punch-outs that are included in the collection.  Perfect as an egg, I say! 

And speaking of Nikki Sivils... we have another 2-day cross promotional feature going on that started today... this time with PSA Essentials!  I'll be back tomorrow on day #2 of the feature with my project, so I hope you can join me again then! 

Happy GOOD FRIDAY, everyone peeps!

All good things must come to an end...

...or must they?

Since I'm coming back to AZ in a couple weeks for a rescheduled girls weekend, I'm not so sad about leaving our home-away-from-home today.

Our home-away-from-home means... Yard House for happy hour, Green for vegan ice cream, Whole Foods for lunch, PF Changs for carry-out, lots of time at the pool, Gordon Biersch, lots of running on the treadmill, a little shopping, fun times with my friend Sally, who lives in Phoenix & just sold her house in 24 HOURS, and much, much more!  We packed in a LOT in just a matter of a few short days...

Really SAD that Picnik, the free photo editing site, is coming to an end soon, but did find the Diptic app, so at least I can still create photo collages using my iPhone with a bit of funky editing.  But I am still pouting about Picnik... POO!  Guess I better keep using my phone instead of my camera?  If nothing else, it is a LOT lighter to carry. 

And why did I even bring my camera on this trip when all I ended up using was my phone??? 

As much as I LOVE to travel though, there's no place I'd rather be than HOME...

Happy Birthday, Nikki Sivils!

Happy Birthday to you... happy birthday to you... happy birthday, Nikki Sivils... happy birthday to you!!!

My card was made using the new Nikki Sivils' Audrey collection + a Basically Bare dress form + some Want 2 Scrap bling + Glossy Accents on my shoes to give them the look of patent leather... 

Head over to the Nikki Sivils' blog today to check out all the birthday action. 

There's even a little giveaway going on... just incase you're interested!