It's a Party!!!

Happy Graduation to Chris!!!

Here is my crafty share (besides the invites). When I was making these, I kept thinking how proud Mara, my crafty buddy, would be of me!

Cheryl helped me with the hats. We used melted chocolate chips to glue together, a Reece's Peanut Butter Cup, a Ghirardelli square, a mini M&M, and a strip of mango Fruit Rollup. The Fruit Rollup wasn't as yellow as I hoped, but oh well... They went together very quickly! A tip... freeze the peanut butter cups. It keeps them from falling apart when unwrapping.

The finished product!

But wait! These are not ordinary cupcakes! They are topped with a BIG dollop of whipped cream; filled with cream cheese and a mini Oreo! YUM! Everybody LOVED them!

My friend Mary is always interested in what kind of food we serve. My mom was a BIG help... she brought sushi, spam musubi, fruit, rice, and jello. That just left me to make green salad, macaroni salad, spicy fried chicken, sesame chicken, pizza and munchies. Everyone ate a lot :oD

I wish I had taken some pictures backyard. Jim worked really hard cleaning up the yard and it looked GREAT! Most everyone was outside enjoying the backyard.

Here is the grad... what a handsome guy! He'll be attending Saddleback Community College in the fall.

We actually have two grads. Cheryl graduated from Saddleback with a AA in Liberal Arts. She'll be starting at Cal Poly Pomona in the Fall. She said that we shouldn't celebrate until she finished her PHD, but notice that she's not objecting to presents, hehehe... Here she is checking out the digital recorder we got for her to take to lectures in the fall.

Jena-girl went next door to play with Jammer while this was going on. Here is Jena helping Jim and Chris fix the screen on the sliding glass door before the party.

That's it! Schools over! Bring on Summer!

Oreo Cupcakes

1 pkg. (2-layer size) chocolate cake mix (I used devil's food)
1 pkg. (8 ox) Cream Cheese, softened
1 egg
2 T. sugar
24 mini Oreos
1.5 cups cool whip

Prepare cake batter per package directions. Mix cream cheese, egg and sugar until wll blended.
Spoon half the cake batter into 24 paper-lined muffin cups. Top each with about 1.5 tsp. cream cheese mixture and 1 cookie; cover with remaining cake batter.
Bake 350 degrees for 22 minutes o runtil toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean.
Frost with Cool Whip.

Congratulations Chris!!!

Yesterday was Chris's High School Graduation! That's it for us! No more High School-ers! There were 664 graduating seniors... smaller than Cheryl's class, which was just over 800.

The night of graduation is Grad Night. Chris went back to school at 9pm where there was a dance in one of the gyms. After a couple hours, they all piled onto buses and went out to Bellflower for a night of entertainment. Chris had a GREAT time and was in very high spirits when I picked him up at 6am this morning. That didn't last long... he was out within 10 minutes of his head hitting his pillow.

Anyway, back to graduation... it was a pleasantly breezy day as we sat and watched the ceremony... trying to pick Chris out of a sea of black.

Hey, LOOK!!! THERE HE IS!!!

Grandma, papa, my SIL and all the kids came to cheer Chris on!

Here are the obligatory posed shots... Of our family...

And with Grandma and Papa...

After the ceremony, we went back to the house for cake. I actually tried to make a reservation at Farrell's. It took me a couple of hours of trying to get through, and then when I asked to make a reservation, they laughed at me! I think that was very unprofessional of them, but then I guess they were overrun with graduation parties.

So, We had a nice relaxing family time at home...

Look! It's the first graduate from the class of 2020!

Happy Papa Day!

Happy Papa Day, everyone!

I had my camera with me, hoping to get some photos of the papas... but I didn't even take my camera out! So, today, all you will get to see are some Father's Day cards.

This one is for my dad. Kinda fun and playful, just like my dad!

Here's the one I made for Jim. This one is made using a two sided stamp.

Isn't this FUN? I really like how it came out!

Here is the model for the the dog on the card. It's a good thing I have a lot of different shades of brown copics!

Happy Birthday Sweet 16! (and a crafty share)

Happy Birthday to my niece!

All the kids are getting big so fast! Look out everyone! She'll be driving now before you know it... Notice the Happy Birthday hat? We have now passed it down to the next generation of birthday kids. Cheryl has been dying to get that hat out of the house... now I can't make her wear it on her birthday anymore.

Here are a few photos of today's SWEET celebration...

Cheers, Chris!

"The cake is a lie"? I don't really understand this one... can someone explain it to me?

Now, this I understand! CAKE~

... and PRESENTS!!!

Speaking of presents... We picked up a couple of video games for the birthday girl, and I made a cute birthday box to put them in. I used the PTI Game On Stamp set...

... and I altered the Timeless Templates Captured Card Case so that they would fit in there perfectly!

Add a cute tag from the PTI Birthday Tags collection, and it's a go!

Hugs to the Birthday Girl! Make a Wish!!!

Friday Ramblings...

I've been so busy at work these last couple of weeks that I haven't blogged for a while...

I think I need one of these workout tanks from Another Mother Runner to wear during my lunchtime workouts. Depending on how hard boot camp is (walking lunges are KILLERS) workout is not the easiest part of the day, but as long as I keep beating most of the guys, cocky bravado reigns supreme.

I usually run 4-6 miles on M, W, F; go to a 40 minute lunchtime boot camp on T, TH; and do a long run with Cheryl and Jena at least one day on the weekend. The other weekend day is my rest day... ahhhh.... resting is definitely the easiest part of my day, hahaha!

Speaking of boot camp... We had a guest instructor and he videoed our Panasonic group. In the video, he told me that I was doing a good job twice, so I must have been doing a really GOOD JOB!

Cross Fit Forest Panasonic Video

Exercise isn't necessarily the easiest part of my day, though certain days it works wonders at changing my outlook. It has become the most non-negotiable part of my day... as in, if I don't go out at lunchtime and work off some of this frustration, someone is going to get hurt this afternoon! If the choice is between "working through lunch and maybe staying late" or "working out and lunch and then definitely staying late," I take door #2 every time!

As I ramble on here, I find I have no real purpose to this post. I'll leave this rambling post with a couple of photos from our last race.

Chris doesn't even look like he's breathing hard!

Make it Monday - Tissue Paper Texture!

Here is my card for PTI Make it Monday!

I cut out a cloud image, attached to blue cardstock and covered the whole thing with white tissue. I thought it would lend a softer image to the background cloud.

The PTI products I used in this card:
For the Graduate stamp set
Everyday Button Bits stamp set
Cloud 1 & 2 Die Collection

We have lots of graduations this month, so stay tuned for more graduation cards!

On a totally unrelated side note... Does anyone know where I can get curtains like this?

Look at my BIG girl!

Was it only 7 months ago we brought home a scared little puppy from the pound? Look at the BIG HAPPY girl we have now!

Happy Birthday, Cookie!

Another new layout for me! This is another one for Chris's birthday... And the HUGE cookie that he got from his friend Thalita.

I followed the May Mojo Challenge at Scrapping Mojo. This really isn't my style... I prefer my photos to take most of the room on my layouts, but I'm okay with how this one came out; even though that blank area in the upper left really BUGS me!

I used my die cutter A LOT on this layout! Add some Stickle sparkle, and it makes great cute embellies.

I'm going to end off with a BIG-NOSE picture of Jena! We've been trying to get a BIG-NOSE picture of our girl, like the one Chris took of BJ. BUT, everytime we try to put the camera in Jena's face she tries to lick it. Well, here she is after our 7 mile run... FINALLY, so tired that we got the picture. Not as good the one of BJ, but we'll keep trying...

Thanks for stopping by!

Frisbee Dog!

Jena was never really a tennis ball kind of dog. She'd chase it a few times, but would stop bringing the ball back. She's better with a soccer ball, but when she brings it back, she won't let it go. We found Jena's "go fetch" toy of choice! FRISBEE!!!

Look at her GO! This is a soft fabric Frisbee and she can even catch it!


What a BIG DOG she's getting to be!!!

Awww... well, she's still not too big to CUDDLE! Jena must have her cuddle time...

Laguna Hills Half Marathon

I usually wait until I get race pictures before I post times, but I'm super excited! I ran a 1:52! That's 5 minutes faster than my fastest half-marathon time! This was a very hilly course, but it was a perfect day for running (not too hot and not too windy). I still only came in 4th place in my age group... yes, first loser again!

Jena and Jim came down to see us off. Jena really loves to go running, and was very bummed that she wasn't running with us.

And we're off! Chris didn't do as badly as he thought (he hasn't been running for 2 weeks). Once track season ended, he joined scuba. Anyway, he finished somewhere in the mid 1:40's.

This is our second half-marathon in May, so we have run a FULL marathon in May! We even have a medal to prove it!



EDITED:------------------------------------------------
Official results: Me
Overall: 343 out of 1414
Women: 88 out of 708
F 50-54: 4 out of 69
Age/Grade: 66.90% Place: 101
Finish: 1:52:52 Pace: 8:37
Tag Time: 1:52:52
Gun Time: 1:53:23

Offical results: Chris
Overall: 253 out of 1414
Men: 193 out of 706
M 13-18: 16 out of 40
Age/Grade: 57.13% Place: 427
Finish: 1:47:31 Pace: 8:13
Tag Time: 1:47:31
Gun Time: 1:48:02

Diaper Cake...

A couple ladies at work are putting on an impromptu baby shower for one of the other ladies. They contacted me on Friday and asked if I would bring decorations. I said I would bring a diaper cake centerpiece. I've always wanted to make one of these! Chris said that he would help me. We downloaded directions from the web, and they said we needed 54 diapers. I went down to the store and bought a package of 56.

The first disaster was that the diapers were BLUE printed fabric! Min is having a GIRL!!! When did diapers turn blue?!!! The last time I used diapers they were white and plastic. So the color scheme has changed... the cake will be blue and pink (with emphasis on PINK).

Second disaster is that 56 diapers is not near enough! We decided to use a paper towel core to fill out cake. This worked GREAT because it holds all the layers together! It's going to be a lot easier getting this to work than I thought.

The height of the paper towel roll dictated a 3 tier cake. Chris rolled most of the diapers, twice! I won't bore you with the reason why we did it twice... just call it a problem with indecision.

The bottom layer has 34 rolled diapers, the middle layer has 14 rolled diapers, the top layer has 4 flat diapers wrapped around the top of the paper towel roll. That left me 4 diapers left over that we just stuffed in the top.

The first decoration we needed was something for the top. I got a pink/green toy that is connected to a carrier handle... I guess it would be called a mobile?

I think it looks GREAT! Now I need something to bring in more pink. Time to breakout the scrapping supplies!

This paper from Basic Grey is just the thing. I didn't have enough paper, but this paper happens to be available as a digital download from BG! I printed off 6 strips of paper to cover the layers.

Add some pink ribbon, tie on a few teething rings and pacifiers, add some pink silk flowers to cover up the blue diapers AND TA DA!!! A pretty diaper cake centerpiece!

Of course, it wouldn't be complete without a matching card for the mama-to-be! (made with more BG paper and a cute stamp from Unity Stamp Co).

Oh one more thing... as I was looking at the diaper cakes, I couldn't find where anyone listed how big it would be! Our diaper cake came out 16" tall, and the base is 12" across.

Thanks for joining us on this diaper cake journey. My only regret? I didn't get a picture of Chris rolling baby diapers, lol!