I've been up to here with it...

that would be stuff. We've celebrated 2 birthdays, visited family, worked on projects for school and home, and basically have been busy with the want to's and the have to's.  

Here's an action shot of Monkey blowing out his candles.  He had a little party with some friends, and boy did they have fun. He wanted a pirate party, so I made a treasure map cake, with ideas from some cakes I found online.  I made two 9x13 cakes, but lined the pans with foil to make it easier to get them out of the pan in one piece.  Then I inverted them on the board side by side and frosted them with half chocolate and half tinted blue frosting,  The sand is crushed graham crackers which didn't taste that great with the cake, but looked great.  The flag has a skull and crossbones on the other side, and the x is made with red sugar because I forgot to buy some red icing.  Oh, well.  We just roll with it around here!

I've also been doing some crafting.  I'm working on putting things away where I want them.  Luckily there is a hallway to our bedroom that has plenty of room for a couple of bookshelves I bought used and a small dresser that are housing all of my scrapbooking and sewing supplies.  Since I'm trying to organize them I've been wanting to play a little.

I did a little bit of the opposite of what I usually do...I made some cards, then put together a page from the scraps.  Just a little different from putting together the page and making cards from the scraps!  The big red rectangle is the mat for the picture of Natty in the sombrero.

I've gotten a little bit of inspiration from the Winter issue of the Somerset Life magazine.  I don't usually buy it since it's not in the budget, but I found it at Costco, and it was 1/3 off the cover price.  I had to buy it since I had actual heart palpitations when I thumbed through it.  Seriously.

The next few pictures are my Christmas present to my Mom.  I altered a plain house cutout from Say it with Letters and made it into a mini album by drilling a couple of holes in it for book rings.  I had fun putting it together and used a favorite quote for the front.  The pages are random sized tags and paper scraps with a bit of this and that for the trims, and of course some paint under all of that.

Even though it feels and looks like spring here, everyone in the Midwest is under a blanket of snow and ice, including my family.  You are all in my thoughts and prayers! 

I'm comfy right here on my couch, sitting next to Monkey, who is snoring softly.  He's thoroughly worn out.  Up too early this morning, and now he's sporting a huge shiner after being clocked in the eye by a baseball thrown by his brother the birthday boy.  (Pictures to follow when I can get him to let me take one.) 

I can't believe my first born baby is 16 today!  I brought him home a Whopper for lunch, since I call him my Whopper Baby.  And that's for two reasons:  I loved to indulge in a Whopper (Jr.) when I was pregnant with him, and he was also a whopper of a baby. 

Well, I'm off to bed.  I'm hoping to get a good night's rest despite thinking about everything that is on the news tonight.  Egypt, the weather, and everything else.  Oh, my.