My Graduating Senior...she did it!!

My 17 year old daughter, Stephanie, has finally graduated from High School this past Thursday. We are so happy and proud of her for completing this first step in her life and pray and wish her the best in whatever avenue she decides to pursue.

The past week has been really hectic making preparation for her graduation and preparing for my MIL's visit. We spent two days making leis and of course trying to squeeze in a little sight seeing and beach going for Nanny. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I was going to teach my mother-in-law how to make candy leis and staying true to my word, that is what I did the first two days she was here.


Here are some of the leis we made. Stephanie wanted to make at least thirty leis for her friends and I wanted every single member of my family plus my MIL and nephew who came with her to have a lei to present to Stephanie after the graduation. Have I mentioned how big of a deal leis are here in Hawaii? Here are some pictures of some of the leis we made...we made candy, ribbon and I made a special lei made out of money just for her.


These are just a few of the bundle we made. The ribbon lei on the right was made by my son Jonathan.

Most of the candy leis were made by my MIL..the kids call her Nanny. She had a lot of fun making those. That means I must be one awesome teacher..lol.



This is the money lei I made for her. This was my first attempt at making this lei and although it turned out great, it was a lot of work. The most tedious part was folding all those dollar bill to make them look like flowers.

I had 30 one dollar bills that I folded individually and two 10 dollar bills added. As you can add them up, this is a 50 dollar lei, I was going to fold all 50 one-dollar bills but I got really tired..lol. I love how it turned out and she loves it too.

This lei was made up of her favorite candies and they are bigger bars too, unlike the other candy leis.


Now, here she is...my High School graduate. This was taken just before the graduation. Isn't she adorable?





The presentation of the diplomas. She did it!!



There she is again...after the ceremony. See all those leis, we have to take some off so we can see her face. Those are some of the leis she got from her friends and friends of the family.

Oh yeah, we have to make the poster so all our friends can see where she was and come congratulate her. Our poster is very simple compared to the other posters...man, people really go all out for this kind of stuff.




And there they are, the proud parents of the graduate..lol. I have to say that I was very proud of myself because I didn't cry at all...I am such a wuss and I get totally emotional when my kids something I'm very proud of that I cry like a baby but for some reason I didn't cry at all, even though I wanted to. My first baby has gone and grown up on me. So one down and six more to go..lol.
{We ♥ you, Stephanie, so proud of you for completing High School.}

These are just a few of the pictures I can squeeze in here. I'm putting the pictures I have on a slide show at the top so you all can see. Enjoy and hope you all have a great week.

{My son Jonathan will be graduating from Sixth grade this coming Friday and on Sunday, my daughter, Jen is off to her Carnegie Hall/Smithsonian tour so if I'm MIA again, it's only because I will be held at gun-point to be at their peck and call to prepare them for their adventures...LOL.}

My Little Weekend Creation

So I've finally figure out what's been plaguing me lately. Yes, I have a visitor right now...you know the kind of visitor that visits WOMEN only and once a month? It seems before this visitor made an appearance, she would do all kinds of weird things to my physical and mental state that pretty much makes me the most impatient and the least kind person in the world. Well, now that she's actually here and I can physically see her (lol), I can deal with her...ahahah.

Well, now that I've at least come to terms with what's been plaguing me, I can put that to rest and move on to something more pleasant. I wasn't aware that this is a Memorial day weekend and therefore there will be kids underfoot another extra day so I will definitely use that to my advantage. My mother-in-law is visiting and will be here this Tuesday so I'm going to need all the extra hands I can get to help me put my house in something that resembles a bit of order before she gets here. I'm actually looking forward to seeing her..haven't seen in her in a long time and the kids are really excited to see Nanny.

Ok so my weekend is going ok. I joined my friend to go do the "Relay for Life" at midnite on Friday and I found out that was a really neat and fun thing to do. We did an hour walk, I didn't count how many laps we did and it was great. I mean I killed two birds with one stone, I did a good thing for a good cause and I burned some calories...who said good causes supposed to benefit only the receiver? LOL

On a more creative note....our card group had our swap on Friday night and I was the demonstrator. I had a blast again, as always. The ladies love my card I made for swapping and my demo was easy, fun yet cute. My friend called me later to rave about how much she loved my card...I admit, of all the cards I made, the one I made this month is my favorite. And not just because it's cute and I had to combine at least two different ideas to create it but because of my daughter's graduation coming up in a few days, she was my inspiration behind the card. So do you guys want to see my card I made to swap with the ladies? Do you? Ok...here we go!


Isn't it cute? The owl is graduating...lol. Red, white and black is my daughter's school's color. The owl was made with different hole punches.

But wait, there's more...look closely, see what the owl is hiding behind him. Yep, when you lift the flap behind the owl, there's a little envelope where a dollar bill or even a gift card lay safely awaiting to be discovered...isn't that cute?

And then when you open the card itself, the sentiments are written in there, like this. (Click on the images to see it enlarge so you can read what it says.)

And for the demo, I did this card. Our theme was either Graduation card or Wedding card. I had to go with graduation because of my daughter. So here's another graduation card that I demo for the group...it was very easy and the ladies loved it. This is a money card...

You pull out the band in the front and then the card is then able to open. There's a little pouch inside where the money goes. Isn't it cute? I got this idea from Dawn at her stamping studio and if anyone is interested to see how to make it, go here. She has step by step video of how to make it. I love the versatility of this card, you can also use it for birthday, and of course wedding and any other occasion that calls for money giving.
Don't you just love it?

Anyways, doing something creative like this is such a big stress-reliever for me. My next project or at least for this week is making leis. I've mentioned before how leis are big here in Hawaii. People use leis for every occasion and with graduation in a few days, my daughter have a ton of friends she wants to give leis to so I can't wait to get started on them. I have three different leis that I will be working on...candy lei, the ever popular among kids, ribbon lei and money lei. A lot of work but a lot of fun too. That's why I'm so glad my MIL will be coming in a couple of days, she can help Steph and I make the leis and she gets to learn how to make a lei. Who knows she just might start trend when she goes back to Arizona...woohoo...lol. For this kind of creation I would gladly ignore my kids for a few days and I wouldn't mind that at all...lol....kidding. So, aside from this little creation of mine, this weekend is proving to be a peaceful one.

By the way...thank you all for the support and understanding as I was trying to ramble my thoughts out of my head..it's such a relief to be able to ramble on knowing there are people who care what one's experiencing at the moment. Hope you all are having a nice peaceful Memorial weekend. God bless!!

I'm kind of in a bind....

I'm kind of in a fickle situation lately. I've got so much things to do, to get to, projects to finish but yet I just can't seem to bring myself to do anything. The same goes with my blogging. I can't seem to think of anything worthwhile to blog about yet I have so many thoughts going through my head.

I'm mentioned once before that part of the reason I started blogging was because my head is constantly filled with thoughts. Some of the thoughts are good ones like dreams or goals of things I would like to accomplish in my lifetime and other thoughts are the non-helpful kinds...you know those kinds, the ones that sometimes hold you captive because they feed on your insecurities about your worth as a person and if you are actually worthy of any kind of love from anyone.

So today, I woke up feeling totally boggled down with thoughts....thoughts, thoughts and thoughts!!! And I am having both kinds of thoughts, they're warring with each other right now that's why I can't seem to make up my mind about anything today. Like I said, I have loads of things/projects I'd like to get to or finish but I just can't seem to make myself get to any of it.

Since I can't do that, I might as well come on today and just ramble on today. After all that is the name of this blog, no? I hope you don't mind me rambling on today...you will get probably confused and frustrated because there is no set pattern to my post today so if that happens to you, my deepest and most humble apology.

I feel frustrated a little with my hubby and my oldest child today yet at the same time, I am also excited for my oldest child. She will be graduating from High School next week (I will be dedicating a whole post to her next week) so I'm excited for her. But at the same time, lately she's been such a pain in my butt...she's usually the least demanding of my kids but lately she's been such a snob...a really bossy sort, to ME of all people. And my hubby, well, since he got his new job close to our home, he's been in such good mood and an over-all pleasant person to be around but at the same time it's driving me nuts because he's constantly doing things around the house and I feel like I'm not doing enough...now isn't that the craziest thing you've ever heard? Do you think maybe I need to get my head examined because I may be feeling jealous of my hubby because he actually found a job he enjoys, a boss he adores and co-workers who are wonderfully good to him? ME?! I can't even make up my own mind what I want to do with the measly few projects I should be working on? And no...if you're thinking that I'm feeling jealous because he might not be paying more attention to me...well it's the opposite, he pays too close attention to me...LOL. Maybe that's my problem. I think I'm just being paranoid that if he's this close and he actually scrutinize me, he'll find that I'm lacking in so may things.

See? Those ugly (insecure) thoughts are showing their faces...they're actually close to popping out of my head now.

Anyways, last Friday, I promised in this post that this week I will dazzle you all with my incredibly amazing mommy skill if you took pity on me and not tell on me for neglectful parenting skill. I will make good on my promise as soon as I organize all the wild thoughts in my head, how's that? I promise I will dazzle you with some of my most creative artful skillz dedicated to my kids as soon as I get all those in an organized bin..lol...and create a photographic evidence so you all can carry me around on your shoulders and shouting "hip hip hooray!!", deal? But for today, you'll just have to settle for this pathetic attempt of this would-pass-for-a-post nonsence of mine.

Did I ever tell you all how much I appreciate you all for reading this blog? Even though I don't get a gazillion comments in my comment box (being a vain human being, I also love to get comments), I know you guys are reading me and it means a great deal to this little islander! So for that, thank you.

Again, I apologize for this pathetic post but if you're up to something really dirty and nitty gritty, you can check me out again on this blog, I'm today's poster or contributor. If you are a member of my extended family, in-laws, to be specific, I would advice that you not read that post on that blog for today. But if you do decide to check out my post, I apologize in advance. That's all I can say for now.

As a parting thought....I LY all and hope you are all having a splendid week!!

A Simple Explanation

In Primary, the kids were often asked to identify the general authorities, esp. the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve. I thought today I would play this cute video that describes the new arrangement in the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. My kids love this video. Whoever made this is such a genius. I love how songs make learning or memorizing things so much easier.



I'm teaching the Beehive class today again and the MiaMaid teacher called yesterday and asked if I can add her class to my class today. She was going off island so she wouldn't be able to make it to church today to teach her class. So I was preparing my lesson this morning and I came across this Article of Faith...it totally goes with the video so I thought I'd include this in here today. I borrowed the picture from 2Busy..thanks Lisa..hope you don't mind, I like your picture. And it goes great with what I have in mind for today.

Here goes...the Fifth Article of Faith:

We believe that a man must be called of God,
by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands
by those who are in authority,
to preach the Gospel and
administer in the ordinances thereof."


This is truly something I believe in and I am so happy to be able to share this with you today. Hope you all have a wonderful Sabbath day!!

Another NPSA Post

Hello out there!! Is anybody reading me? LOL

Ok folks....I got a major/serious problem. Yes, you heard me, I have a problem. I have this totally awful habit of immersing myself in new obsessions that I tend to neglect everything else..for example my children.

These last couple of weeks, all I did was camp out on my computer. There are so many distractions on the computer that makes me practically spent all day, everyday for the last couple of weeks doing. What are these distractions? Well, for one, blogging. Not that I'm posting everyday or commenting on other bloggers' post but mainly reading. I was reading blog after blog and when I wasn't reading, I was playing games. One game I am totally addicted to right now is "Express"...it's one of those games that doesn't do anything for the mind but it does have speed factor, finishing a task before the time ends so that's what got me occupied most of the time when I wasn't reading blogs. Hubby saw me playing the game all the time and asked me one day if I was getting anything out of playing the same game over and over and I told him "no". He asked why play it then and I told him "just because". So you see, there's absolutely no useful reason for the game yet I can't seem to stay away from it.

So these past weeks, I get up in the morning, get my kids ready for school and sent them off to school with their dad. Fed my two year old, turned on her favorite shows and then planted myself in front of the computer. First I just told myself I will just check my email and respond to whatever needed responding. Then when that's done, I tell myself I will check my blog roll and see what the other bloggers have posted...so of course, since they have new posts, I just had to check them out. And hey, I've made it to their blog, they can clearly see me on their detector, so it would be rude of me not to leave a comment. So then when I am done with that, I'm thinking, hey I'll just play a little game and then get off....and before you know it, the whole morning is gone.

I get off and do a real quick pick-up around the house...not even sufficient to call that house cleaning but to me it would have to do for the time being. After I pick up the kids at school, I give them an hour or so to do their homework and off I go again..back to the computer. Kids are coming in and out of my room asking me what they can snack on. Can they eat so & so in the fridge or the pantry?...I give them a nay or yay answer and go right back to staring at the computer. Seriously, the poor kids are having to fend for themselves everyday because mom is not doing her duty. I am surprise I actually take a little time out to make dinner for them.

So, do you agree that I have a major problem? If there is such a thing as an award for the Worse Mother of the Year, I will be the big time WINNER!! I would probably be wearing that title every year...don't you think?


~~~~~~sighs~~~~~~Yep, this is my NPSA confession for this week. I know most of you are disappointed in me but oh well!!

But I pinkie promise, I will remedy this problem of mine this week. I pinkie swear that I will start making a goal to limit my computer usage time and will only use my computer time wisely and spend it on more important stuff like blogging and that's it. If I promise to do that, will you stop looking at me like that? After all, I did confess my neglectful attitude already. If you give a poor girl a break this time, I will pinkie promise to come back next week and dazzle you with my mommy hood skillz....LOL.

Anyways, thank you for listening or reading, I feel like a whole load is lifted off my shoulder. Have a great Aloha Friday....on me!! LOL

A Birthday Tribute to the cleverest DUMMY

Guess what peeps? My most favorite of all time DUMMY is having a birthday today. Peeps, I have to tell you a little bit about her. I knew her from when we were both residents of the married student housing at BYUH. Ok, so I knew her through a friend..and she and her hubby were our resident parents of the year or something like that. Hey, it's been over ten years already so sue me!!

She's married to one of the best looking jock slash nerd(as in smart, aight?) with four of the most beautiful and handsome offsprings a dummy can ask for. But of course that's to be expected since both her and her hubby look absolutely gorgeous together. Does this sound like I'm in lub with the dummy from all the praises? Hmmmmm...of course I am (not in the sick way, aight, please get those minds out of the gutter....sheesh).

I wanted to pay this tribute to her because she's one of those bloggers whose great wit and funny posts that keep me logging on everyday and because of her great sense of humor and ability to turn everyday living to something funny that I just had to read her every posts she writes. Let's face it, everyone needs a laugh now and then...I need a laugh everyday. I find when I don't feel like laughing or finding the sense of humor in life, all I have to do is log on and read her post and I got me a good doze of laughter. She's smart and funny. I guess you could say I am addicted to her or her writing..whichever floats your boat. No, don't get me wrong, I love every single one of the blogs I follow...each of them has their own unique qualities.

Anyways, today is Crash's (I like to call her dummy, not that she's a dummy by any means whatsoever, she's actually one of the smartest person I know) birthday so I just want to give a shout-out in her honor. I've been trying to come up with something witty or cleverish like a poem or something..she's an Enlish Professor at BYUH...to gift her with but alas, I am soooo not a poet and I can't come up with things that rhyme or some smart limericks so I'm going to borrow something from a show I saw on Gosby way back when......so here goes!!

What's older than the DUMMY?
*EARTH is older than the DUMMY.
*The SUN and the rest of the planets in the galaxy is older than the DUMMY.
*The GROUND is older than the DUMMY.
*HAWAII is older than the DUMMY.
*BYUH is older than the DUMMY.
*The OCEAN is older than the DUMMY.
And my favorite
*The MOUNTAIN and the DEW on greens are older than the DUMMY.

There Crash, this is for all the laughs I get on your blog. May you forever be funny and older and wiser than ME...lol, ok I know, sounds kinda lame but hey, at least I did try, no?

Ok peeps, you can hop on over to her blog and poke her in the eye. She love a good poke in the eye so if you do that to her, not only will lub you but she will literally stand on her comment box and bust-a-move-and-shake-her-groove thang for ya. She's good I tell ya, you don't want to miss it. If you've never read her blog before, then you definitely don't want to pass up this chance to check her out. You will not be disappointed at all.

Happy Birthday Crash!!!

A Mother's Day I can actually call the BEST!!

I wanted to continue on from where I left off last time about Mother's Day. It was actually the best Mother's day ever. After my last post on Saturday, our family went to a Mother's day barbecue that some of my friends and I planned. The hubbies were the cooks for this barbecue. There were so many different kinds of food, omg, I was literally stuffed like a turkey..lol. We even had live music at the party. And because the party was all about us moms, we were totally the center of attention. One of my favorite part of the party was the dancing..we, moms, were learning all kinds of different Tahitian dances and had such fun entertaining our men..lol. It was definitely a great party.

Mother's day, I was awaken with breakfast in bed...my daughter Jen and son Danny made me pancakes and omelette(my favorite kinda breakfast). How sweet is that? Then in Sacrament, Joey gave a talk. He was reluctant to do it at first so his dad offered to go up with him and his talk was full of all the reasons he loves me...awwww. Cool thing about his talk is that he wrote it all by himself, he was just a little too nervous to be in front of everyone. After his talk, the Primary sang a song, "My Mother Dear" and then the Bishop gave out a little surprise for the moms. Unfortunately I still had to teach my Beehive class but they were such great girls I didn't mind. I even had them make a card for their moms.

All day my son Chris kept offering to do something for me. It was really sweet. The kids totally came through for me....Jon didn't complain once, there was no fighting or bickering from any of them. They were actually cooperative with each other. I had my long awaited nap without any fuss and ohhh, I got my coupon's worth and got me a foot rub..can you say Heaven? LOL

Then my daughter, Steph made the best dinner ever. She made shrimp and ribs. She went online and found some recipe on spare ribs and totally dazzled us with her incredibly amazing cooking skill. Don't tell her this but she literally put my cooking to shame. Everyone was sooo impressed with her cooking, we've all voted to make her a chief chef in this house. It was the BEST mother's day ever.

I know this sound like such a brag post but I can't help myself. I just love it when the kids do something sweet. But I think what even made it a great mother's day is the fact that I was actually able to give something for Mother's Day. I made this post about sending a card to my special people, the ones who follow my post that I would send each of them a hand-made card, for them to send me their mailing address...there were seven people who responded, so I was able to send out six cards to six people. One of the people who responded, her email came a little late so I wasn't able to send her a card to make it to her for Mother's Day so I'm going to be sending her a different card, hope she doesn't mind. Anyways, that was actually an highlight for me, I love getting hand made gifts so giving hand made stuff is even double the fun. Those of you who are on my follower list that I've missed this time, there are still special days coming up, you can still email me your mailing address and I will send you a card for any occasion you want. The topper, I get to play Santa for Mother's day and stop by Crash and Swirl's houses to surprise them each with a card.

It truly was the best day ever. I was really impressed with how my family pulled together to make sure I enjoyed my day to the fullest.

Happy Mother's Day to all

Yesterday I picked up my Elementary school boys from school and each of them had a special Mother's Day gift for me. Awwww, wasn't that sweet? And all three gifts were hand-made....have I mentioned how much I love hand/home-made gifts? My favorite kind of gifts because I know the maker/giver put some very creative thought and time into making them. Not that any store bought gifts don't mean anything to me, they do but there's just something about the hand-made kind that I just loooove.

I don't know what the three older kids are making or doing for me for Mother's Day so I can't wait to see..lol. So without boring any of you further, I'm going to show you all what my three very sweet boys made for me.

This is what Danny made for me. It's a card but inside he wrote what Mothers mean to him. I love his hand-writing. This is what he wrote: Mothers
Mom makes me feel happy.
Open things.
Told me I'm next (When asked what this means, he said for next in line for birthday, silly thing.).
Help me eat my food (I had to be creative since he's not a eater.).
Embraces me (wow, big word!).
Remember my birthday (how can I forget?lol).
Serves me lunch (interesting, since he hardly eat lunch at home).
Isn't that cute? I just love how creative he is for coming up with what each of those letters stand for. The next one is Joey's gift he made for me.

I love this one. It's a big heart he cut out, colored the flowers (look how beautiful his coloring is) and then fold the heart into a cone. Inside the cone, there was little bag of potpouri and little hearts with things he wrote about what he would be doing for me for Mother's Day.

This is the most creative of all the Mother's Day gifts I've gotten so far. (Hope the other kids don't find out I said this..lol.) But seriously, don't you think this is the most clever and creative gift? (A big mahalo to his teacher for coming up with this idea and helping him made this.)


This is what Jon made me...a coupon book. I love coupon books..the home made kind where the kids list things they would be doing for me. Notice the first coupon he wrote "no complaining"? I guess he know how much it bothers me when he complain about doing his chores so for the whole day tomorrow, I can tell him to do anything and he will not complain one bit. Can't wait to start collecting on these coupons...he said they are only good for one day...tomorrow. (You can click on any of the pictures to see a bigger version of them if you want to read the words in the pictures.)

One of the coupons he has in there is a foot massage coupon...Oh I love getting foot massage. One of my most favorite thing to get as far as pamper goes. Both him and Joey said they would watch their baby sister so I can nap...so yeah!! I get to nap tomorrow. I will so totally use those coupons tomorrow...I will sleep and make sure I get my foot massage...I couldn't ask for a better Mother's day present. I am soooo proud of these very creative boys of mine and I will definitely cherish these gifts. I have to remember to send them to school on Monday with a "thank you" cards to their teachers.

So folks, you like my gifts? I haven't forgotten you guys...I have something for all of you mothers out there. The next gift or award is for all the moms, grandmoms, soon-to-be moms, the women who are thinking about starting a family soon...this is for you. You can copy this gift or award and paste it on your blog...my gift to you. (I didn't make it, mind you but I know we moms deserve to be recognized for all that we do, can I get an AMEN to that?) So here it it, hold out your hand....or is it you PC..lol.

What do you think? Isn't is beautiful? Yes, mothers are special...means YOU, yes you are special. Take this and display it on your blog with pride, aight? While you display that on your blog, here's a little something else to put a smile on your face...see how very nice and considerate I am? I can't just enjoy my gifts and not share something with you lovely people.

I just love her beautiful voice ..this is the same lady who was the voice of Ariel in Little Mermaid. I thought this is just the perfect ending for my post...after all, those little people running around in our house are the reason we women earn our "Mother" title...no?

Hope you all have a great Mother's Day and that you do remember that it is your special day, to make sure you enjoy it to the fullest, leave the cooking, cleaning, dishes and all those other things that keep you so busy that you never take time out for yourself, to someone else and focus on yourself. If anyone deserve to take a whole day off from their load, it's you, mothers out there. With that said, I wish you the best Mother's Day ever.!!

Love ya and God bless!!

May Day and Banquet Post

Finally a post about the first of May. Friday, which was May 1st was May Day for Laie Elementary School. This is a HUGE event that the school kids put on for the parents. The coordinators picked a theme for that year, mostly the theme is different cultural dances and then they spent the last few weeks of April preparing the kids for. If any of you Mainlander ever ended up in Hawaii on May 1st, make a point to go see this show. This is one of those times where moms and dads get to see how incredibly talented their children are and quite frankly are so proud that they just can't stop talking about it...at least for me anyways.

This year's May Day was simply to die for...the theme is "We are the world" and they had dances from Tahiti to Old and New America, to England to Italy and on to Africa. The preschool kids did Tahitian and it was one of my favorites...to see those little three year old shaking their booties like that. The Kindergartners did a kind of an opera from Italy...every year the Kindergarteners class always put on the cutest. This year however, all the grade class did a beautiful job. I'm just going to post some pictures to show what they look like..at least my kids.

The First Graders did a Native America dance...there's my son Danny.


The 2nd Graders did Bollywood..my son Joey is in the back, I gave up trying to capture him on this darn camera.

Sixth Graders did a number from Africa...my camera has definitely worn out its usefulness, see how blurry the image is? Every time I try to zoom in the camera always ended up shaking, not me, the camera so I gave up taking pictures. Luckily my hubby was video taping most of the show.

I ran into a couple of my friends outside the theater with their kids who were in the program so I took pictures of them. Missing from this photo are Swirl's kids.
The two boys standing are Jocelyn's kids...the little boy is a Kindergartner with his Italian costume. The older boy was one of the MC..next them is their sister Jadelyn...they did England. Next to her is Ashley, my friend Belinda's daughter, she's in 4th grade and they did something America-ish. Then my three in the front...Joey with Bollywood costume, Danny in his Native America and Jonathan in Africa get-up....cute kids uh?

Here's one of just the boys.

The May Day program was in the morning and that evening was the Freshmen and Sophmore Banquet. My daughter Jen invited two of her friends over to our house after school to get ready for the banquet and I get to play hair and make-up artist. Ok, so not really a hair dresser, I just straightened Jen's hair out because she didn't like the way her hair look.

So here are some of the pictures after their very short hour of preparation. These two pictures are taken outside our house. Jen's friend's mom wanted photos taken since she wasn't able to help her daughter get ready.


(Can't really tell if Jen's hair is straightened out, she kept messing with it.)

Here are a couple more pictures taken at the school.



Here's Jen by herself. By the time I took this picture, she was so ready to get rid of me...she saw a few more of her friends that she was dying to catch up with but I was keeping them to take pictures. But hey, I took the time to get her ready, not to mention help her friends out and drove them to the school...I am entitled to take pictures, no? LOL

It was one hectic but exciting day. The kids had a great day...so did I.

Card Challenge & Mother's Day Tribute to my Followers!!

Ok folks...Ter's card challenge is back and I am really excited to participate in it again. I made two cards so I decided to submit them both to the challenge. Our group card exchange was held last week and this is the card I made for the swap. The theme was Mother's Day or Father's Day card. I chose to make a Mother's day for the swap and since this weekend is Mother's day, I decided to enter this card in Ter's Card Challenge. Very appropriate, don't you think?

I have so much fun making this card...had a little bit of a challenge trying to coordinate the colors the way I want them. The emboss look of the background paper was done using cuttle bug and then I used a scallop circle tie cut in pink to make that cute pocket. The flower was done using water color crayon. I tried to make this card using different technique and it was really fun.

This is what the outside looks like.
I stamped the Happy Mother's day inside.

This is the card I made at the swap. My friend wanted to show the ladies how to do resist technique and that is done by first stamping the images on glossy paper using Versa Mark then using a brayer, you roll the ink over the Versa Mark image a few times til the paper is covered with the green color. Wipe off any excess ink and it'll bring out the image in white.
Another idea for this card she wanted to show the ladies was how to make a pop-up card using our Word Window punch. This is what it looks like on the inside. Very simple yet has a bit of an elegance to it. When the card is opened, the flower popped out, isn't it cute? Another fun card to make.
So there you go folks...those are the cards I'm submitting at Ter's card challenge for this week. If you want to see cards other people submit to her challenge, go here and check it out.



Now.....if you are one of my followers and you can see it on my right sidebar if you are and of course I know who you are, the rest of this post is for you. If you are curious and would like to see what the rest of the post is about but you are not on my follower list, then take a short step to my right side bar and put your name on my follower list and then proceed on to the rest of the post....I am not trying to bribe anyone but I just thought I'd like to do something special for my peeps.

So to those special and wonderful people who are following this very humble blog, I want to return your kindness and love by giving you something for this upcoming special occasion. In honor of Mother's Day, I want to send each of you a beautiful home-made card made by yours truly and the ladies in my card swap as a token of my appreciation and love for your time and thoughtfulness in signing on to follow my blog and leaving me comment love. It may be something insignificant to some of you but it means a great deal to me so that's why I am doing this for you.

I will post a slide show of the cards I will be sending you wonderful ladies on my sidebar so you can see what you will be getting. No two people are getting the same card...each one of you will be getting your own. So, go to my profile and email me your mailing address so I can mail each of you your card before Mother's Day. I know, I procrastinate a lot that's why I am just posting about this now...but I am hoping that y'all will respond quickly so you can get your card before Sunday.

Oh yeah, those local followers, you know who you are, I can easily find you so you don't need to email me your address..lol.

Ok...I'll be waiting on your email folks...mahalo!!

God bless!!