Just Another Manic Monday

Actually this is a very nice relaxed Monday... even if school is closed! The weekend was nice too. Seeing as how we decided to postpone the once every blue moon night out, we decided to go for a fishfry on Friday evening. The Friday fishfry was a tradition that began for me as a little girl. Every Friday my grandparents would take me to a fishfry. My earliest memories of them were at VFW halls and places of that sort. Then around the mid "80s we started going to the restaurant located in Carlisle's department store. When that closed we went to a little restaurant in Madison, Ohio called Potbellys. Alas, Potbellys has now closed for business. I decided to try the fishfry at Sammy's in Grand River (on a recommendation). It was very good, and I think we now have a new Friday fishfry haunt! Rhiannon stayed the night at Grandma's Friday evening so it was just Corey, the baby, and I.

On Saturday we picked Rhiannon up and went to my girlfriend Tammy's house. She does our hair for us. I decided to go back to blonde and cut bangs again. It has been a few years since I have had my hair cut this way. It turned out really nice! We have a pretty sweet deal worked out with Tammy. Corey laid all new stone tile in the lower level of their split level a year and a half ago. In trade, she cuts and colors our hair for us. I personally think the barter system is awesome!

Yesterday we had a 4th birthday party for Rhiannon's cousin Rileigh. Rileigh is Rhiannon's dad's nephew Shaun's daughter. Can you follow that? So I suppose technically she is Rhiannon's second cousin. I am very good friends with Shaun's wife Yvonne. Just an FYI for those of you reading this that don't know me; Rhiannon's dad and I broke things off when Rhiannon was 6 months old. I met my husband Corey 5 minutes later...... just kidding more like 10 :) So many stories for another time....

Anyway, here is my weekend creation

This was created using Douce Fraicheur by Nanine.

Here are some pictures from the birthday party:

Rileigh and Rhiannon

Rhiannon taking pinata inventory.

This was Adrian's two hour long party expression!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Unfortunately, I have a very nasty head cold this Valentine's Day! I am usually prepared with gifts for everyone, but not this year. I purchased my cards ahead of time, but I am making my husband stop after work to pick up gifts for the kids. This should be good! He probably won't be able to find the Valentine gift bags (which will be right in front of him of course), and bring home gift bags that say Happy Birthday! Just kidding... he is a vary good gift giver, but he is still a man.

We have postponed our night out that was scheduled for this Saturday. We were going to go to my favorite seafood restaurant, Pickle Bill's, for all-you-can-eat crab legs. A celebratory night out for my birthday and Valentine's Day. Pickle Bill's is an awesome place, on Lake Erie, right at the mouth of the Grand River. Grandma was going to watch the kids and I was looking oh so forward, but what good is it when your taste buds are on the fritz from being sick. Oh well. A real quick story about Pickle Bill's.... They have a floating bar out in the river. Once every couple years the bar disconnects from it's dock and floats out into Lake Erie. This usually happens when the ice starts to thaw or when there has been an uncommon amount of rain and the river gets too high. So, they have to head out there and tow it back in. Kind of funny!

Anyway, here are my Valentine pages. The first one is one of my favorite photos of my mom and I. I lost my mom to cancer when she was only 42. I was 18. I will write about that sometime, but not now. The second one is a page I made at my husband's request. He wanted me to make a page using the photos that I have of him and I as children with our pooches. I keep them in frames on my desk. I thought the Valentine layout would be nice.

Iused Lie Fhung's Amorette kit to create the page above, and Retrodiva's Be Mine kit below.

My First Blog

Well.. here it is, my first post! Unfortunately I don't have anything extremely exciting to post except that the weather is really really lousy in Northeast Ohio today! I am organizing my newly moved office. It used to be in the third bedroom, but now we need that third room for the baby. Shortly before Christmas we installed hardwood floors (real wood NOT laminate) into the living room and dining room. Originally we were going to leave the big screen and current furniture in the family room, and make the living room more formal... to be used when the company was here etc. Those plans changed with the addition of our newest family member; Adrian Michael. The family room is now my new office / play room, and we will be watching TV in the living room. Pretty cool except that the brick fireplace will be wasted in a room that serves as the office. Oh well. We didn't use it much when we hung out in that room anyway.



Moving things has been a real chore! You don't realize how many hiding places you have for your "stuff" until you dismantle a room. Stuff is something Ihave a lot of, and I will explain in another post.



I have to get to work now. Here are a couple of new scrapbook pages I did. I am new to that scene too, thanks to my friend Rachel. You can check out some of her awesome pages at http://www.simplyracheluncensored.blogspot.com/.











These were made using Sophia Sarducci's Swim With the Fishies.