Lots and lots of photos here! It's party time!

Hello all! Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Mine went by way too quickly this weekend. Yesterday was the birthday celebration for my grandfather and niece (and my cousin too!) and today I was really tired and didn't feel 100% so I took it easy, uploaded some photos and took a nap and I am still not feeling perferct but I think it was just being so busy yesterday. Back to work tomorrow so I better feel ok!!!

Back to the goodies-photos of course! Yesterday we celebrated my grandfather's 85th birthday and my niece's 8th birthday along with my cousin's birthday too (Which was DEcember.) It's also when me and my cousin exchange christmas stockings and her kids get their gifts from me. It is always a fun time and the biggest gathering of the family each year. Last year we brought back the tradition of taking a family photo of everyone who is in attendance. This year Ben and I were there along with my cousin and her kids, my siter and her kids, my grandfather, my dad and his wife. Ben's cousin stopped in to give Tara gift and we got him to stay for dinner as well. It was weird without my brother there and my other cousin and his wife and their daughter were not there either although I don't know that we could have handled another child-there were so many!!!LOL

It was a long night but a good one. Had dinner that my grandfather made, then dessert, gift openings and then we talked to my brother on the computer for a little bit. I was annoyed because I could not get my laptop to connect to my grandfather's internet for some reason which was really weird and annoying but we just used my grandfathers computer instead. The only problem with that is something always seems to happen with his video cam, and I think I just need to update the software but we were already running late to meet Shaun online I didn't want to mess with it. We were not able to see him but he was able to see us and he got to see the new baby and how big all the other kids got. We could hear him and talk to him and Dylan had quite a kick out of hearing shaun through the computer but not seeing him. It was so funny. After that, it was late and so we all pretty much packed up headed home. It was a long day but full of excitement. There were so many kids there we were almost out numbered! It is funny to think that just two years ago there were only two (Tara and Dylan) and now there are 5 (technically 6 but one wasn't there!) It seemed like everytime we turned around there was a little kid at our feet. The good thing was that Dylan is old enough now to be able to play with Tara and she has no problem playing with younger kids. They were playing and occuping themselves pretty good. Peyton just sort of wanders around and follows them, stays pretty quite and if Dylan isn't in sight then mom is! Luke, has no care in the world and just walks around playing by himself although he does seem to have a knack for throwing things onto the ground. He is all boy and just sort of gets into anything he can and climbs up on EVERYTHING he can. At one point he was standing on a chair at the table, reaching for something and as he did that, the chair moved out from under his feet and I looked over at the right moment and grabbed him before he tried to put his feet back on the chair that wasn't there. It was all quite comical actually and I am convinced he would have just fallen down, laughed and gotten back up again! And Samantha, she pretty much slept or ate the whole time!

Here are some photos from the party:

Newest addition to the family, sleeping soundly-Samantha:


Dylan and his "air guitar"

Tara and Peyton

Tara playing "shutterbug" again. I let her shoot some photos for fun:
(My dad is the one making the silly face!)








Here is Tara and Josh when he came by with gift for her. He is just like another uncle to her-and she adores him as much as he adores her!

Josh and Tara

All the kids on the couch-quite a cute bunch if you ask me!


This is probably the best "family shot" we could get which sort of sucked b/c we couldn't really see Dylan in any but his head shows in this one!


And this is grandpa with all the kids who were there.


We also started the old tradition of marking the height of the kids on the doorway to the kitchen, "the next generation" and we started on a new wall:) It was cute to see them all standing up against the wall for their markings!



Luke and my dad aka "grandpop"



Dylan laughing at the computer


Here is Dylan and Tara having fun with Ben. They decided it was fun to clapse onto ben's legs and have him walk around the room. They had quite a good time!


Me and my cousin Laura


Cake Time!





It's all about the icing!




There was this moment where Peyton and my grandfather were "playing" and she was laughing at him-I just thought they were cute.



Present Time!


I loved watching Luke open his gift from Laura. I was glad she had something for him b/c all I had for him was a small stuffed alligator and I knew the other kids would all be opening things. He was SOO excited and happy when he opened his gift and saw it was a truck. It was a priceless moment.







I got my grandfather a creme brulee kit b/c he loves desserts and trying to make new things but I think he liked the torch best!


Like I said...all boy!


And my dad got my grandfather a book on Ebay. I think he will be interested in selling stuff-he asked me about it before and said one of these days he wanted to check it out. Hopefully with the book he can do some reading then we can check it out:)


Laura and I opening our stockings:
(A LOT of my stuff was from her work, all the "goodies" they have to give out.This bag is one of my gifts [i love bags!] and what was funny was when i saw it in the hallway, i meant to tell her it was nice and then when it was gift time I realized it was for me!)



One of Laura's gifts from my work!


And my gift to laura, Peanut Butter! Its a joke between us from YEARS ago-we were in hysterics and everyone else thought we were crazy.


I think that is enough eye candy for tonight. I also took photos of Dylan and Peyton by themselves to try and get a good brother-sister dressed up photo and I will make a post with those photos later. For now, I say good night!

Weekend Recap 1-21-08

Hello all! Sorry things have been weak this past week with my postings. I know I started out good in 2008 but work was busy this week. A good friend of mine from work also lost her Aunt who she was very close with and we have all been sort of distracted and thinking of her. Its been a rough few months for her especially with losing her grandmother, then our friend Larry and now her aunt all in a matter of 4 months. Needless to say, posting was not my #1 priority this past week.

I think I mentioned before Ben's cousin asked me to take some headshots of him and so I did that on saturday after the funeral and all for my friend's aunt. I will post some highlights of that when I am done sorting through them.

So Saturday was event filled with the funeral stuff in the morning, then i stopped to visit a friend of my dad's who is like an aunt and we chatted for a little over an hour.She has been sick for a while so I dont get to see her much so it was a great chance to spend some time with her. After that I went over to Ben's cousin Josh's house to do the big "photo shoot". After that we went to dinner at one of my face places were I got some good south jersey cheese fries and panzarottis! I had been hoping my sister would have the baby on saturday to sneak in seeing her before heading home but no such luck.

So sunday morning I woke up to a text message let me know she had finally had the baby. Its a girl, Samantha, born at 9:36am weighing in at 9lbs, 5oz, 20in! So, instead of sitting around all day playing online or with my photos, I drove back down to south jersey to see the baby. When I got there, my sister's friends were there with her other kids so it was a full room. Tara was getting a little restless so I let her try taking some photos with my good camera which was a big deal b/c usually she is only allowed to play with my pocket point and shoot. But, she is 8 now and has always been good with my other camera I thought it would be good treat to let her try it with the good camera. And I can say, she did really well. I wasn't worried about her handling it, she knows how to treat a camera but I wasn't sure how she would do with the focus and stuff but she did well. She was having a lot fun so I let her play.She took more photos than me!

Anyway, here is what I am sure you are waiting for, the eye candy!

New baby Samantha:


Me, Sami and Tara


Mom, Sami and Tara


Tara holding her sister



Me and Luke (tara took the photo)


So after I finished visiting, I snagged a few hoagies and headed home to be there in time for the big football game. While I can say I had originally been hoping for Green Bay, I really didn't have a favorite either way although I can honestly say I am not disappointed that Giants are in the Superbowl. Both teams played well and overtime is tough with a first score. For me, the Giants being in the superbowl just means I will hear about it a lot more b/c I Have friends who are fans given the area I live in but I will have no trouble rooting for them in the big game either. It would be amazing for NE to get that "PERFECT SEASON" but I still would not be upset to see Giants win. For me, the Giants are like the Eagles in that most of the time, they have their fans but are never one of the top teams that EVERYONE roots for so its nice to see them do well.

I also watched the Amazing Race last night and I was happy with the outcome. I had really wanted either of the top two teams to win so I was happy and looking forward to the next season!

Today, Monday, I have off work and Ben had work. I had planned to do a lot of cleaning and finally take down all my christmas stuff that I have not had time to put away. BUT, ben came home early and interrupted that b/c they finished all the cars early so needless to say, my decorations are still up. Oh well-they arent in the way!LOL I start making meatbals which is the thing I usually make when I am home and Ben is working-so that will be good for dinner. Plus this way I have left overs for lunch tomorrow too.

This coming weekend is Tara and my grandfather's birthday party along with celebrating my cousin's birthday and my other cousin's daughters birthday. AND we have ben's brothers son Owen's bithday too. I need to hit Target before the weekend! Plus, I have to finish shopping for my cousin's stocking since we exchange them for christmas but havent' seen each other yet. All that fun should be on saturday so sunday maybe I will rest!

I didn't go to the Zumba class I had mentioned before b/c my friend who was going with mee was the same one whose aunt died. We are going to try again this week.

My brother is doing ok in Japan. He loves it there but is not happy with the company so if you can all keep your fingers crossed he finds a better job in Japan that would be great.He seems happy otherwise and even met a girl so on a whole things are going ok.

I have been a little slow on my creative memoreis stuff this month.Besides being behind on some projects I haven't really done anything to help the "business" side but I am going to try and get an email out about having a "catalog party" where basically I just send some catalogs to people and they can gather whatever sales possible in a certain time frame and it will count as a party so they can get credit towards free stuff. I want to see what the host incentives are and if anything is coming up.I am also hoping for some new templates being available for the software soon too!

I did finish scanning in all my holiday cards and I am going to try and make those pages soon too. I am trying to get in the habit of using the Memory Manager software too for organizing but I have so much in so many places its been a process.

Other than that, I think things are going ok. I hope everyone else is doing well and I will be back again soon!!

Weekend Recap 1-13-08

So as I had stated earlier in the week, this Saturday was expected to be a bit hectic. It was busy, and I was exhausted today but it all turned out well.

Friday, work was work. We had a staff meeting to talk about some training they are going to be able to get us after waiting for the $$ for it for over a year. I think it sounds interesting and will hopefully be helpful but there are others who are just afraid of change.

Saturday I got up and get ready to head to south jersey. I wanted to dress appropriate for the funeral/memorial service I was going to first but I didn't want to dress up b/c I didn't know what I would end up doing with Tara. I ended up just wearing some black jeans, black sweater shirt like I would for work, with another sweater and wore my fancier jacket. Its not like anyone REALLY cares what I am wearing but for me its just a show of respect to dress up a little for a wedding or a funeral or other related events. Its like going to a theater show for me-if its an evening performance, I can NOT dress in jeans. Its just me, and I know plenty of other people do and that is fine, but for me, the Theater is a special occassion and part of that is dressing for it. I know I am strange but I am who I am!

Anyway, I was a little worried about some traffic in south jersey after I got off the turnpike and making it to the funeral parlor in time but it worked out. I don't know if I mentioned who I was going to a funeral for, it was a good childhood friend of mine's mother. She was a wonderful woman and had really struggled with health the last few years. It was a nice turn out, I saw my friend and her husband who is also a friend and I got to meet their son officially. They live in NC but b/c she and her mom are from NJ they came up here for the service. When I saw(my friend) she had told me to be sure to introduce myself to her son b/c he really wanted to meet "the lady that introduced his mom and dad" which is how he apparently knows me:) So I did that. The service was nice, a good turn out which I am sure made her feel good to be comforted that her mother made an impact on that many people's lives. I didn't stay for the reception, just said my good-byes after the service and drove over to pick up Tara.

Originally, Tara was going to go out with Josh in the morning but it turned out the place they were suppossed to go was closed for a private party that morning so they are going to go another time. (instead my sister took Tara out to eat for breakfast for her birthday). But Josh and his friend and her daughter did meet us at Friendly's for Lunch so that was fun. We had the people sing happy birthday to Tara which she loved and she got a balloon so our day was off to a good start. Here she is with her ice-cream when they were singing:

and then with me (not a flattering photo at all but all I have from the day) and then one of her with Josh:



Its actually really cool her and Josh get along so well. He just tells her he is her cousin but he acts like an Uncle and I think it works out well for both of them:)

After lunch Josh and his friend left and Tara and I went upstairs to Build A Bear. She had a special coupon for a free bear up to $12 or $12 off a bigger one that weekend only b/c it was her birthday. I told her she could pick which ever one she wanted and I would pay the difference and some clothes for it for her birthday gift. She was happy with that. She picked out the husky and I had to say I was so impressed by her when she then went into a story telling me how she knew it was a husky and had seen them pull sleds on a WHYY tv program about animals. It was adorable. So we built the bear, gave it a bath, brushed it and then picked out an outfit for her dog. Build a Bear also started a "bearville" or something like that similiar to the idea of webkinz so we got codes for that too. I haven't checked it out yet but I will report back when I do.
Here are some photos of her building her bear and then getting the clothes on it and everything:








After Build A Bear we went to Barnes and Noble. I told her that Uncle Shaun in Japan had said Happy Birthday and asked me to let her get a book or something from him. She was happy about that. She also had her birthday money from my grandfather and $30 on a Barnes and Noble gift card left over from Christmas so she was excited to do some shopping at Barnes and Noble. They were having a buy 2 DVDs get 1 free sale and this worked out perfect for her b/c she really wanted to get Seasons 6-7-8 of Full House (she has the other seasons) and with the sale she was able to get all three by using her gift card and some of her christmas money! And then after she bought the DVDs we looked around for a book or something and ended up getting a book and another Hannah Montana DVD "from Uncle Shaun". She did tape a video message for him too though thanking him and telling him she missed him!It was cute! Here she is at Barnes and Noble with her goodies:


After Barnes and Noble I drove her home. It was almost 4pm and I was doing good on time. On the drive home she said her stomach was starting to hurt so I am sure it was good to be done for the day. I did see Luke too when I dropped her off-cute as ever but didn't take any photos. My sister looks very ready to have the baby so I am sure that will be soon too. She is due the 22nd.

As I was dropping Tara off, I got a call from my good friend Kim. I had called her in the morning to see if on an off chance she had nothing to do, her and her girls might like to meet us for lunch. I thought it would have been fun to have a mini celebration:) She had called me back earlier and said she couldn't do that b/c they had plans but as it turned out they would be up closer to where I would be than normal. So, it turned out they finished what they had going on and since I had a little bit of time to spare I went back over to the mall to meet them and hang out for a bit. It worked out well too b/c when I was about 2 min from the mall my sister called to say Tara's cell phone was not in her purse and so we figured it had falled out in my car so I told her I was almost to the mall and I would check then and let her know and if it wasn't I would run to Friendly's and BN to check. Thankfully it was in the backseat like I thought but if I hadn't been going to the mall I would have already been on the turnpike and it would have been more work to turn around and bring it back. Since I was going to the mall I just dropped it off after I saw Kim before I headed home.

So I got to the mall and walked around with Kim, her husband and their 4 girls. Here is a photo of her triplets with their toy they bought with the $ their grandmother gave them that day:


And I don't think you get the same effect looking at this photo as you would if you saw it in the mall but I just think its adorable. Its a photo of the triplets walking down the stairs with their Dad right behind them.


After I left the mall, I drove back to my sister's apt to drop off the cell phone then jumped on the turnpike for the drive home. I have been on an "old school" music kick lately (songs of 80s 90s from jr high through college) so it was fun to listen to a little Debbie Gibson and such on the way home on my ipod through the car stereo. Usually I listen to Harry Potter and I am only up to mid of book 3 since I started over after reading the books but it was a nice break. I will get back on Harry Potter soon enough!

So I got home with plenty of time to spare. We left around 7pm to go meet our friends at Airiang (hibachi) for a birthday dinner. I LOVE this restaurant so I was happy to go. We had a nice time, food was good as always and the wait wasn't too bad with the reservation. Here is pic of the birthday boy with the guy singing Happy Birthday!



After dinner we hung out just talking outside for a while. They were reminicing about their college days. It was nice to hear the stories but its hard to contribute b/c I didn't go to school with the rest of them but its still fun.

Sunday-didn't do much of anything. Went to the grocery store to get some food for dinner and stuff and everyone was asking each other "you stocking up for the snow?" and I kept telling people it wasn't going to snow-and it didn't :( The rest of sunday I just worked on condesing some photos. I have a lot of duplicates from just dropping copies to my external drive for backup and I want to get the duplicates out-sort of like sorting through boxes of photos for doubles-just easier:) and less space needed to do it! I am almost done and when I feel like I have a little more organized I can leave it for a while. I have a ton of books I want to make this year-some from last year things we did some from things even older including my College days where I really want to do a Circle K book and a Canisius one. The good thing with my software is I can create a 12x12 book and then decide if I want to get a 12x12 printed bound book or just have the pages printed and put into one of the picfolios I have.Only time will tell...

I guess that is all for today. I have some work stuff I will put in a separate post later.
Ta ta for now!!

My Machine got the best of me!!!

Ok, I have to tell a quick story that almost got my DS lite thrown through the wall:)

I got have a DS Lite and I got Brain Age 2 for Christmas. I love it. For me its great b/c I spend about 10-15min each night doing the training and testing my "brain age" and then I put it away and play again tomorrow:) I started playing with I think on Dec 30 or 31 but Since Jan 1 I have been doing it every day [B][I](You get a "stamp" for each day you do at least one training exercise and the more you do the bigger the stamp gets-so I usually try to do at least 3!)[/I][/B] Anyway, so I have diligently acquiring my stamps and the more you get the more games/trainings it opens.

Anyway, so over the last few days my "Brain Age" has been pretty good-right around my actual age. I think last nights might have been 29. (and I am actually 31 almost 32!) So tonight I do the brain age check after I do the trainings and you do a set of 3 different activities for the brain age. Well, I made a new record in two of the three activities and the third would have come off better but my touch screen didn't agree with me. Anyway....so I get done and go to where the little guy gives you your brain age and he tells me I am [B]71[/B]!!!
I was mad. I started saying "How can I be 71 when I broke two new records?" And I am thinking something must be wrong with this thing and I was not happy. Then the little guy on the screen goes "Oh I am sorry, I think I made a mistake on your brain age. Your real brain age is 29! Ha, ha, hoo hoo!!

I couldn't believe it. The little man in my DS was laughing at me from my machine-and he got him. He completely got me.Oye!

So that is my story for the day. I really don't have anything else new to write about right now. I had a CM meeting last night and tonight I want to save my CC journal and then scan my christmas cards in so I can put them into a digital book:) I keep the photo ones but this way I can keep them all together digitally too and get rid of the non-photo ones for now:)

Tomorrow will probably a long day at work. I think we might be going for pizza again this week for lunch but we have a staff meeting at 1:30 and that should be interesting-haven't had one in awhile and it can get good. Which reminds me I need to have my PDA all charged up so I can play some games while we are in there!

Saturday will be incredibly busy with my friends mother's funeral (in south jersey) in the morning, then lunch/build a bear/barnes and noble with my 8 year old niece (still in south jersey) and then drive back home to central jersey by 5pm so I am definately home in time to go to dinner around 6pm for our friend's birthday. I am not doing anything sunday!

So if you don't see me for a few days don't worry and feel free to keep it warm here. I promise to come back with photos!