James' Reflections Project

This past fall, James participated in his school's Reflections Program.  Reflections  is a National PTA/PTSA program to encourage students in the various areas of Art. Both James & Hannah have participated in the program for the last several years.

James chose the category of Photography for his project this year. This years' theme was "Diversity Means". Instead of doing something related to racial diversity as many of the students did, he went with the diversity in pizza toppings.

Here is his project.

He placed 1st in his category at his school, then 3rd place in his division/category at the district level.

He was very proud of winning a trophy at the school level. The art teacher handed them out in December, but he was not able to get it then. He just brought it home this week.

Scrapbooking Goal {Week 18}

Here are the pages for week 18 which should have been earlier this month.


The first 3 layouts use kits that I purchased from Out on a Limb Scrapbooking.

The kit from this last layout is by Lotts to Scrap About.

Goal Update: 155/188 pages

Medieval Celebration

The gifted program at Hannah's school has been studying the medieval period and had their end of the unit celebration on Friday. Students had to dress in the appropriate attire and assume the identity of someone belonging to the middle ages.

Hannah decided to be a duchess.

The students went to various centers. I got to lead the soap making center which was a lot of fun. The kids also dipped candles, made tin can lanterns, made butter, made beautiful illuminated letters, and many other activities. Then they had a small feast of various items that they had to eat without the use of silverware.


Here are some pictures of Hannah with some of her girlfriends.

Family Tree

Hannah had to make a family tree for a school assignment. She made an actual tree, then cut out little leaves using my Sizzix.

 She wrote the name of each relative on a leaf. The leaves were pretty small, so she didn't put any additional information.

Hannah got very confused while talking to Chris about his side of the family. One of Chris' grandmothers was named Anna Mary and the other one was Ann Marie. There was a short time when she thought they were both the same person.

Hannah is studying immigration in Social Studies, so she enjoyed learning where her family came from. My side of the family is from England, Wales, and Ireland and they all arrived in the US around the Revolutionary War period. The great-great grandmother of Hannah's great-grandfather was a Chippewa Indian.

Chris' side is from Italy and Germany. His father's side came from Palermo, Sicily in the mid to late 1880s. Hannah learned that Chris' great-grandmother married his great-grandfather when she was only 14 years old!


Here she is with her family tree. She was very proud of it and plans to hang it in her room when she gets it back.

What Am I Reading?

I finished "A Weekend with Mr. Darcy". It was about a literature professor who goes to a Jane Austen event for the weekend as a speaker. She falls in love with a man who is keeping the fact that he is the author of regency style romance books a secret. Not only is it one of her favorite authors, but he writes as a woman. I liked the book well enough, but I did not enjoy it as much as some of the other modern day Jane Austen themed books. 

I was super excited to read Murder by Mocha, the latest in the Coffeehouse Mystery series by Cleo Coyle. The book came out a few months ago, but I decided to wait until it came out in paperback because I was too cheap to pay the hardcover price. Finally, I broke down and bought the book.  I was ordering something from Amazon and needed $12 more to get the free shipping. I am a big fan of the Coffeehouse Mysteries and this book did not disappoint. I love reading all the coffee descriptions that Coyle puts in her books. One thing I really like about these books is that the heroine is not some young 20 something. She's in her young forties and more relateable to me. I am looking forward to the next one in the series.

I read Claimed by a Cowboy by Tanya Michna. I read a lot of romances, but more what I call "chick lit" as opposed to Harlequin Romances. Tanya participates in the same book club as I do,  and I think it's pretty cool having an author in the group, so I like to support her by reading her books. This one has been my favorite of hers so far. I couldn't put it down.

I also finished Buttercream Bump Off by Jenn McKinlay. I started it a few weeks ago, but I kept reading other things instead. I loved the cupcake descriptions - I was constantly hungry while reading this.

I read Victoria Dahl's Good Girls Don't. I saw it recommended on Chick Lit = The New Black, so I ordered it for my Kindle. I absolutely LOVED it! It's nice and light. The main character and her brothers own a Brewery and gets involved with a police dectective with a somewhat "wild" past. I could not put it down. I was thrilled to learn that it was the first in a series! So guess what I am reading now?

In case you didn't guess,  I had to start the second one in the series! And that is what I am currently reading.

Happy Reading!



Painting Class

During the last year, there have been several canvas painting places sprout up all over the metro Atlanta area. I have been wanting to try one, but it just hadn't worked out until now. I recently went with a few girlfriends for a Girls Night Out at Corkscrews and Canvas in Marietta.


We were given lovely zebra print aprons to protect our clothing.

We were led step by step through the painting process. We started with the background.

Then we used chalk to place our poppies.



 Painting poppies

Here we are with our finished masterpieces.

Here's a close up of my painting. Not sure what I am going to do with it. The kids were impressed with it.

Valentine Decorations

I took down all of the Christmas decorations in late December. I left my fireplace mantel empty. I really didn't want to get all of my non-holiday mantel decorations out just for a few weeks before it was time to put out the Valentine decor. I waited as long as I could, then I dragged out the box of the pink and red stuff.

I just recently started decorating the mantel for each holiday. I used to only decorate it for Christmas. But over the years I have become very unhappy with my everyday mantle decor, so I started purchasing items each holiday.


Here is the picture of the whole mantel.

A few close ups of the decorations.

I also hang a few holiday items in the front hall. 

Ever since the kids were little, I have decorated the windows by the front door with holiday gel clings. I used to try and reuse them each year, but they tend to get covered in pet hair, so I just throw them away at the end of the season. I have gotten in the habit of buying them on clearance after the holidays.

The front door.

None of my decorations are anything spectacular, but I enjoying getting them all out. Maybe one of these days I'll find some really fabulous items for my mantel and I'll stop decorating for the little holidays. I'll keep these up through February. In March, I will put up St. Patrick's Day decorations. Then in April, the Easter stuff goes up. Then I'm done until July when the patriotic decor comes up.

Reading Bowl

James joined the school reading club this year. The team participated in the Cobb County Reading Bowl this past Saturday. The students were given a list of 20 books to read. James' team divided up the books, so James was responsible for knowing the ins and outs for 4 or 5 books, though he had read a few more on the list.

The event started with a parade of schools. A few students from each team marched across the stage with the school's banner. Here are the students' from James' team.

The competition involved 6 rounds. Each round was a face off between two different middle schools. They were asked 10 questions and had fancy buzzers.

James' team didn't win, but it was a good experience and they had a fun time. Here is James' team with their participation trophy.

Hannah is looking forward to joining the team next year.

Scrapbooking Goal {Week 17}

I did it again. I got behind with my scrapbooking goal. This is week 17. It should have been done during the last week of school before the Christmas break. That didn't happen. I was so pleased to be caught up there for a little while. Oh well.....


This first layout was for a trip to World of Coke. I just printed out some Coke images on the computer. Nothing fancy.

The remaining layouts are kits from Out on a Limb Scrapbooking.

Goal Update: 147/188 pages

Traveling with Kittens

When we drove to Indianapolis in January, we took the kitties with us. Partly to show them off to our Indiana family, and partly because we didn't want to be away from them for that long. Our previous felines did not enjoy traveling, so we were hoping that if we started while these guys were young, we might be successful with it.

We had a large pet carrier that was big enough to fit a small litter box in the back plus have room to accommodate the 2 kittens. The kittens started the trip in the carrier, but once we were on the road, we let them out.

Scout did extremely well on the trip. He seemed to enjoy looking out the window. He slept pretty much the entire trip.

Kay-C, did not do as well. She cried almost non-stop for the first few hours. We joked that we were "Ferberizing" her. (A reference to the Ferber method of letting baby cry itself to sleep.). Kay-C finally fell asleep about 3 or 4 hours into the trip.

One good thing about the drive was that the kittens became friendlier to Snickers. They slept next to her at times and walked over her as needed. Here's a picture of Kay-C sleeping up against Snickers.

Here are a few more pictures from our traveling.


Kay-C perched on top of the pet carrier. This was taken on the trip home. She did much better and only cried a little bit.

Scout slept on a pillow which was on my lap for a long cat nap.

Kay-C sleeping on Hannah's lap. 

New sleeping position.

Scout discovered a sunny spot. 

The jury is still out on whether or not they will be traveling with us on future trips.

Girl Scout Lock In

For the second year in a row, our Girl Scout troop has chosen to attend an all night lock in at Stars & Strikes. And I mean ALL night! We arrived at Stars & Strikes a little before midnight on the Sunday of MLK weekend.

We did a little bowling. Here is Hannah with one of her BFF's.

The girls hung out and read tween celebrity magazines while my co-leader and I did some troop planning.

We played games and earned tickets.

We played lazer tag. This was one of my favorite parts of the evening!

Sometime after 4 am, my co-leader and I "rested".

My co-leader's daughter fell asleep.

At about 5:30 am we started packing up our things. I posed for a picture with Hannah.

Here's a group picture of the girls in our troop.

We left at 6 am. Then went straight to bed. I woke up around 10:30. Hannah woke up after 1:30. Then we both fell asleep for another couple of hours.