Today's Mama - Giveaways!!!

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme

TodaysMama (link to: http://bit.ly/tmwishlist) and GameStop (link to:http://bit.ly/gamestop10) are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What is your holiday wish for your family?  To be healthy as we've had our share of bumps and bruises over the past few months.  

2. What is your Christmas morning tradition?  Sleep in!!  Really - the kids aren't allowed downstairs until mom and dad get up :)

3. If you could ask Santa for one, completely decadent wish for yourself, what would it be? A completely made-over scrapbook room.  

4. How do you make the holidays special without spending any money?  Try to remember the real reason for the season - the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

5. What games did you play with your family growing up?  Milles Borne (card game), CandyLand, Chutes and Ladders

6. What holiday tradition have you carried on from your own childhood?  Leaving carrots and milk out with the letter to Santa.  

7. Where would you go for a Christmas-away-from-home trip?  Somewhere lush and tropical!!

8. Check out GameStop (link to: http://bit.ly/gamestop10) and tell us, what are the three top items on your GameStop Wish List this year?  1.)  Zumba Fitness   2.)  Mario Party 8  3.)  Sonic Colors

You can win, too - just go the TodaysMama site (here) and follow the instructions!!  Good Luck!!

Currently...

School shopping with Olivia last weekend...

OK...I'm hopping on the "Currently..." train.  I like the idea of interviewing myself once and awhile.  Seems like a good status check (and a great idea for a scrapbook page...thanks Dares!!)

listening / "Raditude" (Weezer)...looking forward to their new album "Hurley" on Sept. 14th.
eating / Wonka Exceptionals Fruit Jellies - Goji Berry.  Yum!
drinking / water.  Wishing it was a margarita.  Thanks, Meg!!
wearing / yellow, black and green tee w/ these denim trousers.  Except I wish my bum looked like that in them :)
feeling / old.  Especially after snapping the above photo of Olivia.  She's looking so grown up -   I'm certain I didn't look that put together in 3rd grade!!
weather / getting chilly.  I'm not ready yet...
wanting / to read another Paul Auster book.  Invisible was amazing.  Thanks, NPR, for this suggestion.
needing / to scrap more.  It's been too long!!
thinking / about my mom a lot lately.  It'll be 19 years next Monday since she's been gone. 
enjoying / my new Droid X.  This phone rocks.  And I've only used it as a phone 4x since I got it...LOL!
wondering / what I won in the NY State Fair.  I entered two scrapbook pages and received notifications that both were "winners"...but nothing specific.  I guess I'll find out this weekend when we go to the Fair :)


Here are the pages I entered:

I applied for three more design teams...keeping my fingers crossed!!!  

We're a family of four doncha' know?

So I was home sick from work yesterday and was positively miserable.  I watched The Taking of Pelham 123 (which wasn't too bad...maybe it's because I felt so awful as I'm pretty sure it got panned) and the first episode of 30 Days (Morgan Spurlock of "Super Size Me" fame enlists people to live for 30 days in someone else's shoes) which was fantastic.  He and his fiancée leave their NYC lifestyle (all of their money, credit cards, health insurance stays behind, too) and move to Columbus, OH to work for (and live off of) minimum wage for 30 days.  Really eye opening.

I also read a superb book (pretty much all of it yesterday, too, it was a fairly easy read) - Invisible by Paul Auster.  The story could be considered disturbing (the subject matter is socially taboo) but is so beautifully written you are able to put prejudices aside.  It may be my new favorite (replacing Immortality by Milan Kundera).

I was able to get a little scrappy last night after the kids were in bed.  I've had an idea for some time to use just a bunch of #4 on a layout so once we got a decent family photo at the Outer Banks I knew it was time to get the idea onto paper.  Here's how it turned out:

that's 112 different 4s...some from back when I started scrapping (2003/4)

I'm very pleased with the result!!!

Here's another page I did awhile back...just for fun:

based on a Fiskars sketch...

Well, back at it.  Ava has her 5 year well-child visit today.  That means FOUR shots (for kindergarten).  Ugh.  I'm not looking forward to it...and I know she's not, too :( :(

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your day!!!

PageMaps Sketch Contest

Becky Fleck, of PageMaps fame, is having a contest on her site this month.  Here is the sketch you had to use (and the prize package from ScrapAttackScrapbooking.com, too!):

From PageMaps

Here's my take on it:

Supplies: Making Memories, American Crafts, Martha Stewart flower border punch

The journaling reads:  You received your dance costume after practice and could not wait to get home to put it on.  Of course, you were excited to have some pictures taken.  I was happy to oblige.  This year's dance was to "Holiday" by Madonna.  The costumes fit the theme perfectly!!!

Here's a detail shot of the ribbon:

ribbon scrunched using Fabri-Tac...I love this stuff!!!

I love, love, love these pictures of Olivia in her dance costume and was pleased that the Making Memories Sabrina line matched so perfectly!!!

Fred is off to his Tuesday night race tonight - defending the yellow jersey he won last week :)  Allez, Fred!!  So, the girls and I are on our own for dinner...Robbie T's?????  Probably...*blush*.  Enjoy your evening!!!

What I did with my weekend...

We had a lovely weekend here in the Harle household, I must say (even with a few hiccups)!!  We received a call early Friday morning from some good friends inquiring if the little Harles would like to spend the night.  An unexpected night alone???  Sign me up!!  Both girls were super excited as they haven't seen these friends in some time.  So, I packed up their bags and dropped them off after I got home from work.  I ran over to Wegmans to pick up some grass-fed beef to grill, grabbed a bottle of Plungerhead from Liquor City and headed home.  Fred finished up in the garden and we proceeded to make dinner - broccoli, tomato/cucumber/dill salad (all from the garden), grilled green beans, guacamole and the beef...yummy!!!  I really should have taken a picture of the spread - everything was delicious!!

Unfortunately, our neighbor's neglected pit bull decided she wanted to make her presence known and barked for ...no kidding...FOUR straight hours.  We finally decided to call 911 (at the suggestion of another neighbor whose dog was attacked by said pit bull a few weeks ago.  Nina, the pit bull, broke her chain, jumped the fence and flattened their dog - a standard poodle - without even breaking a sweat.  Lovely.  Thankfully Delilah wasn't hurt.) and were trying to figure out Nina's owners address (that's not strange is it?  we don't know our neighbors address...) when Delilah's owner comes over and says they're on the phone w/ the police as well...as is another neighbor.  So, they send two patrol cars (by now it's 9:00pm) and one of the neighbors and I give the officers the complete run down (needless to say they had a lot of information already from previous calls about this dog).  Of course, Nina's owner isn't home...but the officer goes to the door anyway.  He waits for about 1/2 hour then comes to our house and gives us the options: he can ticket the guy...$25 (nuisance charge, I guess) or we can talk to him about the dog.  We decide to talk to him - he's not a bad guy...a bit odd...we just wish he'd take better care of the dog.  Whew.  So much for a romantic dinner, huh??!!

Anyway...we headed inside and watched Year One on Netflix (via the Wii...we are LOVING this option. In fact, we're cancelling cable this week because of the variety of programs and movies it offers).  It's no wonder this movie was panned...but we found ourselves laughing at a lot of it :)

Saturday morning I packed my bags and headed to We B' Scrappin' for some much needed table time w/ Jen and Shelley.  It felt good to dedicate some time to scrapping even though I was there for 6.5 hours I only made two pages and one card :)  Then we went to CopperTop for dinner (holy huge portions!!).  I was battling a headache all day so I didn't stay for drinks but still had an amazing time and am already looking forward to our next crop!!!  Here's what I made:

both made with the StudioCalico June kit

made with the StudioCalico August kit...the color is a bit off here...looks like I should re-photograph this...

And...I just received some great news...I'm a finalist over at My Scrapbook Nook for their Design Team call.  I'm having a great time getting to know the fun group of ladies over there already.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!!

Enjoy your day, friends!!!

A day on Lake Ontario...

The Harles, The Edsons and the LaTrays were invited by Olivia's kindergarten teacher (with whom we've become good friends) to travel up to her family's camp/house on Lake Ontario last week.  I took a half day from work, applied my motion sickness patch and off we went.  It only took us about an hour to get up to Sandy Pond but WOW did it feel like another world.  Even after having spent a glorious week on the ocean being at the Lake felt "right".  I grew up on Lake Erie so going up to Lake Ontario really made me feel comfortable.  I love the walk over the dunes to the water, the super soft, sandy beaches and the waves that, while quite vigorous, don't knock you over.  The water was a perfect temperature, too.  Olivia spent a majority of the time in the water along with Tracey and Riley.  The boys played games and ran around.  Even Ava kept herself occupied for most of the day/evening.  

We had some good drinks, some good conversation and some really good dinner right down at the beach.  Thanks to the Torrens and the Palins for showing us a wonderful time.  And for bringing me back to my childhood.

whew...I need to get my lens/camera cleaned!!

all the kids

the adults

Dunkin the doggy

 a beautiful end to a beautiful day

Tracey and Riley

OBX 2010 in collage

We were in Duck, NC from July 17-25. I decided to make some photo collages rather than post individual photos. Although it took me 4 hours to figure out how to use these super cool photos collages from Katie Pertiet (you can find them here) I now feel like I can conquer the digital world :)

So...without further ado...OBX 2010 in collage:

Some recent cards and pages

my word for 2010...understand...

using a Studio Calico stamp and wood veneer

finally jumping onto the misting bandwagon (pennants, too!)

for my friend Noel's surprise 40th birthday

mmm...love The Girl's Paperie...

more Girl's Paperie...(this one will be in an upcoming issue of scrapstreet.com magazine...yippee!!)

Inaugural Post

Allez Fred!!

Well, I'm finally jumping into the world of blogging...better late than never, I guess?!?!

We packed up the Harle Family Truckster and headed down to the Catskills this past weekend for the Tour of the Catskills. Fred only raced one of the three days (The Assault on Devil's Kitchen - sounds horrid doesn't it?) but placed THIRD on a very hard course. We are so proud of him!!!

We stayed at the home of one of Fred's very generous and gracious Ommegang teammates (Michael Wentland) and had a fantastic time. Mike's wife, Jen, was so fun and easy to hang out with. We really hit it off. Olivia and Ava loved getting to know Sophia, their six year old and also playing around with Isabelle, their 9 month old. Oh, how I miss that baby stage. She was soooooo adorable!!!

Olivia, Isabelle, Sophia and Ava

I'm looking forward to seeing the Wentland family in Cooperstown in October for the Ommegang CX event. Should be a fun time!!!