well, i'm still stunned. after 5 years in a row, the 6th is a charm. i finally won a blue ribbon at the nys fair! and a 2nd place ribbon too!! happy day!!

just had a lovely visit with megan. she was one of our very first honey bear students. tomorrow she is off to st lawrence university.

i just finished my layouts for the fair. it always takes me much longer to complete fair layouts than any others. {{{the pressure}}} ha ha!!
here is one quick layout I did of my sweetie. love this photo!!


ps: dropping my entry at the fair tomorrow and getting my instructions/pass for my demo!!

well, i got my "a child's year" cricut cartridge 5 days ago and i've gone a little crazy with it. i am in love. it is the most exciting cartridge since "paper doll dressup"!! there is so much on it and as you can see, it doesn't have to be for children only (hansel and gretel). i can't wait to use if for my state fair entry, ive been planning that out a bit! it is my next big project.
well, im off to mom and dads to spend the night with prancer!!

i'm puppy sitting tonight and tomorrow night. so, i'm away from my cricut and all my scrapping gear... :( ,but it is nice to spend time with the little peach. she is such a sweetie.
i just had the most lovely couple of days spending time with colin. we spent sunday at nonni and papa's house. then on monday we spent the day together at my house with auntie erica. we played and listened to music. we read books and had a wonderful time, it was to short! then i made dinner and we invited nonni and papa over. we had sloppy colins (aka: sloppy joes), salad and ice cream for dessert. it was colin's idea and it was a fun time had by all!<3

**update** i was not one of the lucky winners....bummer!!


provo craft is giving a way 3 of their new gypsy hand held design studio device. to enter you had to post to a message thread on their message board by midnight last night. when i posted last night @ 6pm i was poster #425 and i was on page 22. i just checked the thread and there are now 84 pages of posts and the last person posting was #1662!

so do you think a lot of people really want this gypsy????

here is what it's all about
gypsy!

we had our floors done last week. oh how beautiful they look!! this first picture (with gretel) is of the front pre-school room looking to the back room. the second photo is of the corner where the floor was really bad. the last photo (with hansel) is of that same spot now after it was refinished!! lovely!



i had to add one more.

hansel and gretel have been playing with a tiny ball that has a bell in it for days. well, today it went under the dinosaur mountain in blocks. first hansel tried to get it out (honestly, i think he just liked it in there)

then it was gretel's turn. I think it might still be in there.

here are a few layouts from the country house in vermont. it was beautiful there in april and it was a lovely vacation. except for the coonie we had a relaxing and restful time. oh, i really should scrap that coonie!!

i found these cute jammies at target for catherine. i love them b/c they have gingerbread boys and snowmen on them. i had rolled her hair too. she has the little bonnet on that mom made for colonial days back in the 1990s when we took the honey bears to the french fort. catie looks so cute!

colin and i went to see the rudolph ballet in december. this is our third year going. it is so awesome. this year we sat in box seats. they said not to take photos but omgosh, i couldn't resist. that is our mayor matt driscol giving out an award to the choreographer of the ballet b/c this was the 30th year. you can see her on the far left holding the huge enormous bouquet of roses.

i just finished this layout of the kids on halloween. the second halloween layout i did last year. it's funny i used the same papers. i didnt realize it until i finished the second layout and pulled the first one out of a stack of completed layouts. i really do love these halloween papers.

they closed webbers. really! im so sad. we went to danzers for lunch on friday. dad decided to drive by webbers on the way home just to see if it had reopened. well, there is a new restaurant comming soon. :(

it monsooned here yesterday!

ive been crocheting these little christmas stockings. they are alot of fun and im hoping to give them to my students in my class at christmas time. i have 7 finished and im going to make about 25 b/c i do not know how many students i'll have this year.

you can also get the pattern at the art of crochet.

they are really quick and easy. i was watching knit and crochet today this week. they were talking about stranding or fair isle. i thought id try it on these stockings. i did try it on the red stocking with the red cuff. it came out cute but i think i'll write up a pattern so that the design will look like something. maybe a heart or christmas bell. :)

i am so behind on my scrapping, ive been trying to catch up a little. you would never know it b/c i have 14 albums for colin and almost 3 for catherine. but i still feel so behind!

so, i thought i was doing such a great job making this album for one of my preschoolers who just graduated from high school!! well, i thought i counted the pages out correctly as it turns out I Did Not! :(
i put all the pages in last night around 10pm, thinking to myself, yeah im done. well, i was 4 pages short. bummer
so, im scanning a few more photos and i'll finish up those extra pages tonight. luckily i found one more page of patterned paper that goes with the scenic route line of paper that i'm using. i really love how the album is turning out. coordinated albums are so fun to make. and they look so nice when finished b/c everything goes together!!

wow, i can't believe that summer is here. today was the last day of school and now the summer begins!
i organized all my 12x12 albums. omgosh, what a huge job that was. colin has 14 albums, catherine has 3, 2 pets, 3 heritage, 3 bom and 2 of giebel family. i don't even want to look at the honey bear layouts. they are in a box. that is easily another 4 albums not counting all the albums i did before i switched to 12x12.
ive got a couple more layouts to scan in but i got impatient and i just put layouts into albums with out scanning them. o-well!
now im going to organize some photos to make a few mini albums for some old honey bear's who are graduating from highschool. :)

mike came and spread the gravel out on the drive way today. it's so nice!! i can't believe we haven't gotten new grave in over 10 years. wow what a difference it makes.
i had dinner with christine tonight. we talked about old times, college times and what we've been doing since then. i can't believe her oldest is 20! wow where does the time fly?

first layout done in clean scraproom!!

well, i gave hansel one more day before i called the vet and the medicine finally kicked in. he's back to his normal self. :)
i got the scrap room all put back in order. it took almost two weeks. well, two weekends. it was awful. i have my whole life in this one room and trying to sort through it and toss stuff was overwhelming but it is done now. i just have to figure out how to pack my scrapbooks. they are so big and there are so many of them.
now i'm going to spend a little while just scrapping. i haven't done this in so long.

i can't believe how hot it was today. it gave me a bad headache. luckily i went grocery shopping early and was done by 10am, but even at 10am it was 87. tomorrow is suppose to be rainy and hopefully cool down.
hansel's eye is still red and he seems worn out but extra lovey which is nice. im calling the vet tomorrow.

hansel is sick, he had conjunctivitis in his right eye. it's making him tired and droopy. gretel on the other hand is her crazy self, except every once in a while she stops and goes over to hansel just to check on him...soo sweet!
we had the house power washed tonight. i havent gone out to take a look b/c it was late when the guys finished, i'll look tomorrow.
i've applied for 14 jobs on the olas. i sent out another 30 resumes and hopefully something will come through.
i updated the scrap blog tonight. i'm missing two columns....grrrr, hopefully i can find them or get them from a friend? syracuse scraps link
here comes the rain....goodnight

first post of 2009, wow!

well, it's the end of 2008. i sure has been quite the year. i was able to do lots of fun things with colin, i lost a close friend, found two new friends to love and i started a new job.

i went to work yesterday. i took down all the christmas decorations and put up snowmen. i also lesson planned for the first week back after the holiday break. i still have to scan some of my students writing to post on the blog.

i havent had much scrapping time in the past five months or knitting for that matter! i'll be scrapping with the we b gals on tuesday. im very excited about it.
i have been scrapping a bit today using my gorgeous expressions cricut that mom and dad gave me for my b-day!

i've been so neglectful with my blog, but, i started a classroom blog with my 2nd graders.

http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=222239

they are working so hard on their writing. they are super, uber excited about posting their writing to this classroom blog!

tonight is mom's play. she is so excited. i can't wait to see it.

tomorrow, chris is leaving. it's going to be hard, especially on colin, but he'll be back before we know it!

next week is a short week. i'll be testing the kids on unit 3 in math and unit b in science. wheewh!! i cant believe it's almost thanksgiving! the fall has flown by!

my next observation is jan. 23 with the superintendent of instruction. thank goodness it's after the holidays.