Peace and Quiet.....

is rare these days; so it makes me all the more appreciative of it when it comes. Yep, you guessed it - the kids are gone for the night!! (Thank goodness for grandparents that live close by!!) Tonight is Richard's staff Christmas party, so we're really looking forward to a night out for the two of us. We're going to have dinner & see a Yuk Yuks show, so that should be fun. He's been working at that Meridian branch for almost a year, and this will be the first time that I'm meeting his fellow staff members! That's what happens when the branch is an hour away, I guess.

I haven't done anything scrappy since Thursday *gasp* - I'm all scrapped out for the week I think. I've managed to conquer the mountain of laundry in the living room & the house looks somewhat decent again, so I've been relaxing with a book or two to pass the time.

Richard (with the help of his Dad) replaced a couple of older windows in the porch today - now there's only one old window left to replace in the whole house! I'm going to miss the old ones this winter though, they were double paned and the space between them was just big enough to hold a can of pop - kinda like an extra fridge!!

Now off to get ready - have a great weekend!!!

DONE!!.....

all my December LOs!! Woo Hoo!! I didn't think that I'd get them done in time, but by not cleaning the house all week long, I managed to get them done!

Here's a peek at the December kit :

And here's the pages and projects I made with it :

You should take a minute and head over to the December Gallery to check out what the rest of the Design Team did with the kit, there's so many awesome ideas there!! Now I'm off to attack the messy house and then I have to get ready to head over to choir practice again tonight!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my State side friends!!

Yipee!!!.....

My December kit arrived today at noon!! I've started playing, and already have 2 LOs on the go! So excited and a bit nervous at the same time because I really want to do a good job.

This past weekend we watched Wall-e with the kids - SO super cute!! If you get the chance and you haven't seen it yet, you should give it a try. Also, as a bit of a spoiler, my sister (a HUGE Twilight fan) went to see Twilight the movie this weekend in the theatre. She says that it's awesome & and she'd go see it again. I want to read the books first, so I guess I'm waiting until it comes out on DVD.

Since I was still waiting for the kit this morning, I played with the November kit a bit more & made this for the Nov. 15 Blessings Challenge over on the ScrapFaith blog & for half of Challenge #4 on the SPV (I just realized - no folded paper!! eek!):

Now, back to work some more with the December kit!! Have a great night all!

Swappin'.....

So, I signed up for my very first swap ever tonight over at Renee's blog. Jenn told me that I had too. No really, I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else comes up with!! I already have something in mind for it too!

Today was a quiet day with not much happening. Last month Richard flew out to Alberta to visit his Grandma and came back with this game. We spent some time playing it this afternoon & wonder of wonders, I managed to win a game!! That almost never happens because I'm just not very good at strategy. The kids really love to play it & it's kind of neat. I'm loving that they're finally getting old enough to start playing board games with. You can find out more about it here.

I spent some time tonight looking into flights, trains & buses to Ottawa. I really want to go see Jon, Christine & Aydon, but don't want to drive the 8 hour trip there by myself. The train seemed to be the best deal, but still requires driving into Toronto & for me that's scary!! I can drive a big 72 seat school bus loaded with primary students, but I'm a chicken when it comes to driving on the major highways. Go figure, eh? Anyways, I'm still trying to work out all the logistics of the trip, too, and right now it's not looking too hopeful. Sometime in the new year might end up working out better for me.

Now I'm gonna go dive into a good book!
Have a great night, all!

Halfway Done.....

my Christmas shopping that is. Our families changed things up a bit this year & so we're not buying presents for the adults; just the nieces and nephews. Which is good, because that's easy, having only 1 niece and 3 nephews to buy for. Add in my 3 kids and that's still only 6 people instead of 10. In less than an hour, I've finished half of the shopping and at only ONE store!! Whew. It's going to be a WebKinz & gift card Christmas that's for sure!

So, the December kit hasn't come yet, so it's fingers crossed for Monday now. I'm starting to stress a little that I'll be late with my projects for my first month on the design team!!!

On a happier note, my oldest daughter Renee won first place for her colour poster in the local Royal Canadian Legion contest. It's her second year in a row!! She received a certificate and a small cash prize. Last year we let her spend a little of her prize money on whatever she liked & we did the same this time too. So, our WebKinz family's newest member is an orca whale named Whistler.

We got MORE snow again last night - UGH!! Have I mentioned how much I love to shovel yet? It's bright and sunny today, though, so the kids will be sent out to get some fresh air while I finish up my LO for this weeks Color Combo. I love the challenge of mixing together colours you wouldn't normally think to do.

Then I might starting cleaning up around the house a bit and *gasp* get out the Christmas decorations. Early this year for me, usually I'm not starting until after Dec 1st. It'll be a good chance for me to purge out some stuff though, as that closet is really getting full of stuff that never gets used.

Off to play, have a great day all!!

Still Waiting.....

So, my December kit hasn't come yet. Disappointing, because I'm so excited to get started & I have all my LO's planned in my head. However, I did play with the November kit this week, and I finished up this LO yesterday:

This is my hubby and I on our 11Th anniversary. Good friends of ours happened to get married on that day, and Richard was the best man. So not only did we get to get away to Niagara Falls for a kid free weekend, we now get to celebrate our anniversary every year with 2 awesome people!!! I've been saving that LUCKY card since April just for this LO - hoping that we'd get some nice pics at the wedding. Their photographer Stacy was gracious enough to shoot some pics. Her work is awesome!! As a gift for our friends I finally finished up these (more pics from Stacy here) :

Of course, the making these LO's totally necessitated the purchase of the entire Ambrosia line..... =D After we checked out the price of having custom frames made ($80 + EACH!!! *gasp*) hubby helped me make some shadow box frames for them. I think they turned out OK & our friends liked them too. I was glad for that, because I worried they wouldn't like them.

Choir practice went well last night, we have to learn a total of eight (yep, that's right *8*) songs. The choir leader said that this will be the whole service, so now even more pressure is on!!!

We got more snow overnight & I hate it. I'm now going to be cold for the next 6 months. I hate winter and shoveling. I suppose if I skied I'd feel better about it, but that would require being active & I wouldn't want that..... I might be inclined to break out the skates once or twice this year, though, since the kids really like to skate.

Well, fingers crossed that my kit comes today; I don't have to work this weekend, so that gives me lots of time to sit & play!!

Have a great weekend, all!!

Well, I did it.....

here it is - my first post on my brand new blog.

I have started it because I was recently named a 2009 DT member for Sweet Pea Scraps an awesome kit club that I adore!! Everyone else on the team has one, so I felt the pressure... Just kidding. =D I want to be able to document this exciting time in my life & I know that there's going to be stuff that I'll forget (I blame my Momnesia for that). I'll also probably post about my regular everyday life with hubby, kids, my job & maybe even share a LO or two if I can figure out how to add a picture here.

I suppose I should explain the title a bit - it's not gross, just a play on a nickname that I've been stuck with forever. My husbands name is Richard, but his friends call him Ichy. Because I'm married to the guy, I'm stuck with Mrs.Ichy or sometimes Scratchy. (those who watch the Simpsons should recognize where that comes from)

I'm excited to say that I have a brand new nephew - Aydon Austin!! He arrived a week ago, and while I haven't held him yet (because he lives 8 hours away), he sure is a cutie patootie!! I'm for sure going to be making a LO or two about him! His mom Christine, says that he's a good baby & she and my brother Jon and Aydon are adjusting well to being a family. I remember those days & how tiring babies could be.

Tonight is choir practice at my church - we're singing a cantata(a series of songs with readings in between) for Christmas but the timing is important, so we're spending twice as much time getting ready for it. I sing soprano, so I worry about being able to hit those high notes. I can't read music so it's important for me to stand next to someone who's singing the same part as I am. My oldest daughter Renee is going to be singing a little solo in the middle of it with the choir, and I'm looking forward to that!! She's excited about it too.

So now I'm going to go see if my December kit has come today & hopefully I'll be able to play for awhile before heading out to go to work! Have a great day, all!!