Thanks for all the wonderful emails and well wishes ...

You all are just so sweet with all of your wonderful comments you have sent me. The funeral is on Saturday at 11 am. I was hoping it would be Monday as Amy would've gone home on Saturday and I could've had a few more days to get things ready before I leave but for some reason, they chose to do it on Saturday. It will be a small graveside funeral. Amy is cutting her visit short so she will fly out tomorrow morning and I will be driving down to FL after I drop her off at the airport. The airfare was $700 (they no longer have bereavement airfares offered) if I flew plus I would've had to rent a car and I just think this is easier if I just drive my own car. I will probably come back Monday or Tuesday. It depends who I get to see while I am down there.

This morning we woke up to see these beautiful deer grazing on this side of our fence. They just kept staring at us while we took their photos.

My grandma passed away this morning down in FL

She would've turned 87 in a week. She had been recently put into a nursing home right before Christmas. Had a heart attack this morning and died. This is my grandma Feyh which is my mom's mother. I will be either flying down or driving down for the funeral once I hear when it is. The funeral will be in Sebring. I am hoping for Monday so I have plenty of time to make my arrangements. Also, we realized that my grandpa Feyh (her husband) passed away this same exact day 27 years ago. That is just hard to believe.

With the Superbowl being this Sunday,

here is what i will be making for appetizers among other things:

Swedish Meatballs

1 lb ground beef 1egg
1/2 cup bread crumbs 1 tsp salt
1/3 cup minced onion 1/8 tsp pepper
1/4 cup milk 1/2 tsp worcheshire sauce

Mix these ingredients together and make 1" meatballs. Microwave for 2 min on 1 side, flip over and cook another 2 minutes.

12 oz chili sauce
10 oz grape jelly

Mix the above 2 ingedients in bowl and zap in microwave for about 2 minutes to get it not so thick. Pour into crockpot, add meatballs. Simmer 2 hours. Makes 36 meatballs

Layered Nacho Dip

1 lb beefPkg taco seasoning
8 oz sour cream
4 oz chopped olives, drained
2 large tomatoes, diced and drained (or 14 oz can tomatoes)
1 1/2 cups monterey cheese
lettuce, shredded
onions, optional

Brown beef, drain. Mix in 1/2 taco seasoning mix and put in botto of round pie plate. Mix other 1/2 taco seasoning with sour cream. Layer on top of beef. Next layer with olives, then next layer, tomatoes, next layer onions (optional), next layer with cheese, last layer lettuce on top. Serve with plain tostidoes separately (to dip). Mmmmm Good!!

Amy's here visiting from a very cold Wisconsin

I think it was getting down to the minus digits there last night and here it was 64 degrees. Felt great!!! I started off the morning by making homemade cranberry orange bread yesterday. Ok, it wasn't EXACTLY homemade but it was from a mix from Trader Joe's and it was really easy! It was hot and fresh when all woke up. We ate our yummy bread and off we go to Lazy 5 Ranch (drive through zoo). We get to the zoo 30 minutes later ONLY TO FIND OUT THEY ARE CLOSED. This place is closed? How can this be? This place is open 365 days a year, rain or shine... there is a sign hanging up saying they are closed for one month for maintenance. Oh man, were we disappointed!! So instead we did the next best thing ... went shopping!!!!! We went to Kohls, Ross, Rack Room Shoes, Target, Stein Mart, local scrapbook store (where I picked up a few sheets of the new Basic Grey Two Scoops paper - love it!), stamp store (but didn't buy a thing there!) After all that, we were starved so we all went out for seafood. Emily's "friend" Tyler went with us. Yes Tyler and Emily are still just friends, so they say :). Today I think we will go to Southpark Mall for some more shopping and stop by Costco. Amy loves Costco and they don't have one in WI.

Another Elzybell card

Hmmmm, she's daydreaming about something ... what do you think it is?? I did make this into a Valentines' card since she had the hearts above her head. Isn't she adorable??

If you don't hear from me on my blog in the next week, this is why ...

My best friend Amy is coming from Wisconsin tomorrow. COLD Wisconsin ... she cannot wait for some warmer weather! I am sure this NC weather will be like a heat wave to Amy! LOL So she comes tomorrow and I am cleaning house today. I am making a key lime pie this afternoon and I will make my homemade spaghetti tomorrow. Then we plan to eat out all week after that. HA HA

So that is where I will be in case you are wondering ...

My new Elzybell stamps came today ...

Aren't they cute???

On card #1, I CASED how this girl did her ribbon at the top of her card. I just love that look. I used my ribbon slot punch and it was easy. On card #2, I totally CASED this card too. (Are you wondering "why is Sherri casing all these cards?") LOL I didn't mean to make it exactly like it but I did and so I must give her credit. You can see her card here. At the time I was making these cards, I was watching The Biggest Loser so I got carried away and just copied it exactly. I hope she doesn't mind. Card #3 is totally MY CREATION. I came up with this all my own. I paper pieced the car and it was a little hard at first (took me 2 tries to get it just right) but I think it came out cute. I might use this card for the many sweet 16 birthdays we have coming up soon!!

If you want to order these cute Elzybell stamps, click here. I got them in 6 days all the way from Washington state. More cards to follow :)

I'm thinking of submitting some cards to Just Cards Magazine ...

Here is what i am sending in today which may take several months to get in so I will post them here and show them off :).

And the winner of my blog candy is .... #11

Who is that? Well, it Heather Grow!! WOO HOO Heather. You are the lucky winner. Please contact me and I will get it right out. I aksed Nicholas to pick a number from 1-26 (that's how many comments I had) and he picked #11 and it's Heather. Thanks everyone for answering my question :).

I woke up this morning at 10 am, yes I got to sleep in ...

Actually the dogs woke me up at 6:30 (which is late!) and then i went back to bed after feeding them and taking them outside so they could do their business. Anyway, Charlie wakes me up saying "There are 3 alpacas for sale in the paper. A mommy, her baby and a daddy". So I got up and called the phone number in the paper. He is about 40 minutes from us so we decided to go take a look. He is a retired guy with lots and lots of animals. Besides the 3 alpacas, he has 50 mini donkeys, lots of sheep, ducks, birds, rabbits, mini horses, I can't remember what else. We know NOTHING about alpacas or donkeys so he was filling us in on everything. The mommy and daddy are each about 7 yo and the baby is only 4 months old so she is real small. The mommy is pregnant again and due this summer. The daddy was beautiful (as far as an alpaca goes). He was 3 different colors, black, white and red. The baby was a cinnamon color and the mommy was all white but she looked different than the other 2. Charlie kept calling her scrawny but I think she was a different "type" of alpaca, I really think she had long hair that hadn't been brushed in a few months and just needed some TLC. Poor thing, needs a good hair brushing!! (can you see me out there in 15 degree weather brushing her long hair?) ha ha

He is also selling some of his donkeys so we looked at them. They were all very friendly and wanted to be petted, where the alcapas were "shy". So that is that ... still don't know if we want to get into all this. I took my camera but forgot my card for my camera so i could not take any photos. Found this cute photo of these 3 baby alcapas in the "net", these are NOT the ones we saw today but they are still cute, don't you think so?

I guess our snow is over and we got none that stuck to the ground

The kids and I are so disappointed!! Oh well. I am sure we will get lots more before winter is over. LOL

The big snow storm of the Carolinas is here ....

Its not sticking to the ground yet but it is dropping to 20 degrees tonight so my bet is the ground will be all white when we wake up in the morning, if not before. Isn't it pretty???

Over 20,000 hits on my blog deserves some blog candy to be given away

OMG - how in the heck did I get over 20,000 blog hits in less than a year?!?!? WOW!! How exciting!! Ok, I have a few stamps and 8 blank coasters to alter for a giveaway. Answer the following questions and I will pick a random winner:

1) What do you like the most about my blog?

That's it. Nice & simple. LOL If I don't know you, please leave an email address so I can get in touch with you if you are the winner.

Winner will be announced on Monday Jan 21st. Good luck!!

So we woke up to about 1" of snow

Yep, that was it!! Oh well, better than nothing I say. The school automated system woke me up at 5 am to tell me school was cancelled for today and our make up day is next Wednesday. We had a long weekend coming up but now its been shortened by 1 day. We'll see if we have school tomorrow. Nicholas was determined to try the sled out, even if you could still see the grass poking through the snow :). He didn't go too fast but he went down the hill a few times.

Time to go drink some hot chocolate and get warmed up :).

Snow in the Carolinas tonight?

Ok everyone is on pins & needles around here ... Oh wait ... everyone but Charlie. They are predicting 1-3" of snow tonight so we'll see what happens when we wake up. School or no school? That is the question of the day!! Brrrrrr its already down to 37 degrees.

Over at Splitcoast there are alot of cute cards using a pocket heart

so of course, I had to make one too. You can find the template here and its super easy. This is what I made for my godchild Mindy for Valentine's Day.

Sympathy cards always "stump" me ...

I found out today a stamping friend of mine in California who I met in Vegas 2 years ago, her mother passed away last week. So I made this sympathy card for her. I just so happened to get my new Stampin Up photo corner punch today so I decided to make a card using that punch. I love that punch!! See how you can layer the punches?

The great artist has "struck" again

Emily's art 2 class is about to end and these are the rest of her projects she did in class. I just love them!

80% chance of snow this Thursday ...

The kids and I can't wait! Getting those sleds all ready :). The sleds we never use because we never get snow. lol Charlie of course, would rather be down in FL in the HEAT and sunshine. Nah, not me!!! Do a snow dance for us please!!!

I must show off my cute little pink doll I got from my friend Kim ...

Isn't she just the cutest thing?!?!?! What did I do to deserve this cute little girl? Let me tell you. One day Nicholas was cleaning out his Playmobil toys and I was in the chat room with Kim. She has 2 younger boys and Nicholas thought it would be nice to mail them to her boys so we did. She made me this cute little doll as a thank you. How sweet is she!!!! I don't have the full instructions how she made her but I do know she worked from a pattern, sewed her, dabbed her in coffee and then baked her and then sewed her dress to fit. Of course, her hair is made of yarn and her eyes are buttons. Just so adorable!! Thanks so much Kim!! I just love her!!!

Emily's ski photos

Here are a few photos of Emily & Elizabeth when they went skiing this past weekend. It was Emily's very first time skiing.

2 more skunk cards ....

The first skunk card I totally copied how Pam Downs did her tab here. I used the round tab punch , the 1 3/8" circle punch and I drew a oval using my Creative Memories template. Then I attached it using brads. I typed the sentiment on my computer. The 2nd card had too much white space so I just used my "bonker" (as Amy & I call it) and stippled it with some blue ink. I think that helped it some. What do you think?

My new TAC stamps came today and I had to ink them up

I made this card using 2 stamps. The one stamp is the skunk with the flower and the other stamp is a script background. First I stamped the skunk, made a mask and put it over him so I could place the script background on top of the skunk without it covering the skunk. I love this new script saying. It reads What is Life? It is the flash of a firefly, in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset. The skunk set is called Sweet Skunks. Its brand new in the catalog. The script background is called "Script Background" and is also brand new in this TAC catalog. How do you like her?

BIG NEWS AROUND HERE!!

Looks like I have been published AGAIN. WOO HOO. I do not have just 1 card posted, not 2 cards - but 9 cards, yes, that is 9 of MY cards in Just Cards magazine. Its the Winter issue, Volume VIII. How exciting! Here is a copy of it in case you want to check me out and I posted 4 of the 9 cards so you can check them out too. Aren't they BEAUTIFUL!??! LOL Sorry the photos aren't the best but I took them right out of the magazine so I kept getting a glare. Sorry about that!!

I am also in an owl swap that I am hosting ...

First, I made the first one and it was missing "something". Then I added clouds to the 2nd one along with some blue paper underneath. Yeah, that's a little better. Third, I added a tree with a tire swing. If the owls are ice skating, would there be leaves on the tree? LOL So here they are. I would love to hear what you think. Is #3 really that much better than #1 ATC?

I made some ATC's today for a cow swap I am in

I think this is my all time favorite cow stamp LOL

I also decorated more mailboxes. I will add the stamped images later when I know who I am giving them to. Here they are:

Brrr!!!! It was 13 degrees this morning ...

Did I see that right? 13 degrees with frost everywhere. Yep, that is the temp right now. Brrr, that is cold! Makes me want to go back to bed and get back under the covers to keep warm!! lol But will I do that? No. Emily is going skiing this weekend at Sugar Mountain with her friend and their church group. They have a live webcam set up so Nicholas thinks if we watch it all day tomorrow we can see Emily fall a few times (she has never skiied). Isn't he nice??? Here's the webcam you want to check it out. http://www.skisugar.com/sugarlive/ Its about a 2 hour drive from Charlotte.

Look what I found at Target ...

These were in the $1 spot at Target for Valentine's Day but I know lots of people who fill them with goodies for every holiday and birthdays. I got 6 today and wanted to make one to see how it came out. Super easy and it went pretty quick. Hmmm, now who has a birthday coming up that I can mail this to?

Happy New Year to all my friends/family!!!

Its 2008. How long will it take us to get used to writing 2008? LOL How do you like my awesome banner? I do not know if I can reveal my secret source but she is just the bestest person ever and made this banner for me using Emilys' flip flop drawing. I just love it!! Thank you secret blog header person!! LOL

Emily had 2 friends over last night and they left around 1 am. Now today I will spend putting all the Christmas decorations away - that may take me all day!! Better go get started right now.

Here's to a happy, healthy, prosperous 2008!!!