Kevin's Change of Command Ceremony

This is going to be a little longer post so please take time to view all the photos.  My brother, Kevin is an officer in the Nebraska National Guard's Helicopter unit.  On Sunday 12/6 he took command of his Brigade in a special ceremony.  I was fortunate to have the day off so we made the trip to NE for the installment.  It was a great Ceramony and I was honored to be able to attend.  Here is a picture of the whole gang.

From Drop Box

This is my Brother and his family. His wife, Anita, and children Eli, Gretchen and Sophie

From Drop Box

This one makes me smile. Kevin is wearing his Army issue glasses.  One of the officers bet him a dollar he would not wear them during his speech, so of course he did, but not without apologizing to Anita before he put them on. He had told her he would not wear them in public.  Added a little lighted humor to the ceremony, which is so typical for my brother.

From Drop Box

It was such a great day and my brother is so deserving.  It renewed my sense of pride for my family, my brother and the service men who work so hard everyday to keep us safe. 
Here is one last collage of pictures from the day. These were taken during the ceremony. I especially like the pasing of the command flag from the outgoing commander to my brother, and then he passed it to the unit commander to symbolize his trust in his troops. It was very touching.

From Drop Box

back in the blog relm

I have been very bad and have neglected my blog site for over a month.  I have no good excuse.  I just have been focused on other things.  For those of you who have been following I have a very exciting update on my sister, Shelly who is battling ovarian cancer. She has completed her chemo treatments and is starting to feel better.  There is going to be a benefit in her honor in Lincoln NE in January.  I will be working on a project to include in the silent auction.  As I get it complete I will post more info on the project and how you can bid on it.  Shelly tells me there is work under way to have a sight where people can bid on the silent auction items so when I have that info I will send it your way.  I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  I am including a couple of pictures of some of my fall produce and some of my canning I did.  I made apple and cherry pies from the fruit from my trees, but did not take pictures of them, but they were pretty and best of all yummy!
Here is one of the sinks of apples I peeled, cored and cooked to make apple butter and canned apples slices for pies and apple crisp.  They were about 3inch diameter and I had  about 3 bushels from my tree.

From fall canning pics

From fall canning pics

Here are some of the canned apple butter.  These have been very popular with my friends and family and I made lots of 1/2 pint size to use as Christmas gifts, but didn't get pictures of them.  Maybe when I get them gift ready I will take some more pictures and post along with pictures of the canned apples slices. 

'Jetson'esk' Christmas card

These are some cards I made with my daughter, Kelli, while I was spending some vacation time with her in Minesota. We even got a little snow to help set the mood and we listened to Christmas music while we worked.  It was so much fun and I love this look.  I will be making some more of these to use for a benefit for my sister to help defray some of the costs she is encuring with her Cancer and chemo treatments.   I think they remind me of the 60's Jetson era.  I used embossing powders and ribbon in neon colors on dark cardstock to get this look and I love it.  Hope you enjoy as well.

World Card Making Day (WCMD)

Here is the first card I made yesterday for WCMD.  This is based on a card design from the CTMH book "Wishes".  All the colors and papers are CTMH.  Colors are Juniper, Creme Brulee, Olive and Tulip (and undertones of blush)  Stamp sets are Holiday Trinkets and Holiday Comentary.

This card uses the same paperpack and I tried to show the versatility of this pack to be used for more than just Christmas.  The little gifts are from the stamp set that comes with the Jingle cardmaking kit for this paperpack.  The Happy Brithday is from the stamp set For every occassion. 

 I was out of the loop and did not know that Oct. 3rd was WCMD (world card making day)  but to me any day is a good day to make cards so as soon as I found out I set to work.  Better to post late than to miss the opportunity all together right?  Enoy and I will be back soon with more Christmas card ideas.  I also hope to post some ideas and instructions this month.  So be sure to check back. 

Isn't she lovely, our B5 blue baby

The car, not a real girl.  This is our new car.  It's a '09 Dodge Challenger in B5 blue.  A real throw back to the '70's but the engine purrs instead of roars.  My husband, Steve is the one in the hat in the far side.  He was like a kid at Christmas.  Even though he tried to hide it I could tell how excited he was.  He ordered it from the Dealership several months ago and then the dealership we ordered it from went bankrupt and closed.  He was like a lost puppy and was just sure someone else was going to get his car.  He had kind of given up hope, when we received a call from the dealer who was working with us called and assured him it was still coming and he would get it because his name was on the build sheet.  We had to go pick it up at a different dealership, but it is home now and safely tucked away in the garage.  By the way, I have wanted that garage cleaned for about 3 years.  I told him if I had known tha was what it was going to take to get the garage cleaned out, I might have let him get one sooner! My car sill does not sit in the garage, but maybe by next week I will oficially have a parking spot in the garage as well.  Let the good times roll.  It is so fun to get a new car.  She has already gotten a car wash 2 times and it has only been 3 day!

Kelly Jo's color challenge

This is a repost of a card I made a coupl of weeks ago that fits Kelly Jo's color challenge for Orange. brown and green.  I loved this fall cards, it was one of the favorites that I made.

Tag card

 

Here's a cute little card made by using 3 differnt sizes of the scallop punch's, the largest is about 21/2 diameter. If you look at the pictures you can see I folded down on side of one of the large scallops and adhered to the back of the matching scallop to make it into a card that opens. I saw this as a swap make and take at a stamping expo and thought it was such a cute idea and will be great for gift tags for Christmas too.

I'm back in the swing

 
Here's another fall thank you card I made today. I've been a little out of comission as I had my gallbladder removed last Thursday. I really feel pretty good now, the first 2-3 days were a little sluggish, but I am glad it is over with now. Didn't have the energy to be creative for a few days, but it is all coming back to me now.

Progress on my burn healing

 
Ok, if you are squeemish, I aplogize right off the bat. This is my burn on the back of my left leg down by my ankle. I got it three weeks ago from the tail pipe of our model A. Hot, hot, hot. The burn nurses at the hospital helped guide me through the process of how to keep it clean and help it heal. It involved first taking the big blister off and then keeping it clean, using silvadene cream and scrubbing, scrubbing it each day to keep it from scaring, or getting infected. It has been gruling and I am ready for it to be done healing, but alas, it is a slow process. It is getting better, I am thinking about 3 more weeks and it will be completely closed. I kind of think it looks like the pictures of the inside of a cell structure we used to look at in science class. there are little red bumps in the open area. This tests my anatomy memory, but I think they are call fibroblast and they are necessary for skin regrowth. This is a good site believe it or not! Maybe I'll post the final healing process in 2-3 weeks.

Fall is in the air!

I worked the last long weekend of the summer and I am sitting here this morning finishing my fist cup of coffee. In honor of the crisp fall air I added some cinnamon, allspice and pumpkin pie spice to my brew and savored the unofficial entry' into the fall. I have apples to pick from my tree out back and we have been enjoying the plums my neighbor brought us last week. I would have to say that fall is my favorite season. I love the weather, the fresh fruits and vegetables and the colors. It is one of the seasons in Colorado that can be long and slow, or can be abruptly interrupted by an early snow. I am always ready to see the seasons change, but I am hoping for a long slow crisp fall with more days filled with fresh coffee with my own fall mixture of spices added in, MMMMMM. In honor of my love of coffee I also ordered some really cute stamp sets from Verve stamps. I have been following the Mojo Monday posts and every time I saw the posts with the little tea pots and coffee cups I wanted them so I finally ordered them last night. In this world of instant gratification I am sitting here already wishing they were here NOW. I am sure as soon as they arrive I will bust out some new cards. I will be sure to post them to show my new treasures. Now that I have finished that first cup, caught up with the daily news and had my toast and peanut butter I am off to walk the dog. Thats her at the top of my post. She was staring at me as I was blogging looking at me like "come on it's time to go for our walk" So I grabbed my camera and snapped a picture to show you what my exercise coach looks like! Her name is Hershey and she keeps me honest and on track with my walking regimine. Off we go.

Thank you cards for my sister Shelly

My sister, Shelly has Ovarian Cancer. She has had her staging surgery and is about to begin her course of chemotherapy. Her cancer is a stage 1 which is the best possible news you could get with cancer, but since it is ovarian cancer, one of the most agressive cancers she will still need to have 3-4 rounds of chemo and it has been a very difficult and exhausting time waiting for the news, knowing what to do next when she was given options etc. Shelly is very fortunate to have many good friends and family who have been there for her and have helped her in many different ways. I am 100's of miles away and sometimes feel I am not able to do anything. When I spoke to her last week she told me she could use some thank-you's to send to all the people who have helped her out. I went right to work and here are a few I came up with. I am also going to make some less complex, flat thank-you's that can be easily mailed, but because of all the wonderful things her friends have done I wanted her to have some that were more of a gift, than just a simmple card. I made two of each of these and I also made two more of the three window cards I posted earlier to send to her. Please join me in keeping Shelly in your prayers for comfort, hope and healing as she moves forward with her treatment.

 
Here is a card with twitterpatted paper and the new stamp set that comes with the Stamping month card kit. Just to show some of the versatility of the stamp set with another paperpack.

Twitterpatted/ many thanks

Here is a 3 window card with the new twitterpatted paper that will be available Sept first. I love this new stamp set that matches the paper too. This stamp set is called "Many thanks"

Creative Basics papers

I have been stuck on the Emporium paper pack for my last few cards so I pulled out some of my other papers and came up with this thank you card with papers from the Creative Basics pack from the Spring/Summer catalog. The colors are Garden green, Olive, Buttercup and Hollyhock. The T is from Rustic Alpha and the other thanks are from the Solo t set. the little tag is felt from the Hearttfelt set, love it all! The card layout is from the new "Wishes" book on page 14, called Sundial.

Mojo Monday sketch #98

Here is my version of this weeks Mojo monday sketch. All products are CTMH except the ribbon. It is a little hard to tell, but I used Liquid glass on the cupcake swirls and on the bubbles along the side. The side bar is done with an EK Success punch, which is one of my new favorites, in case you couldn't tell from my previous cards I posted.

Two weeks to Moving day

This is my daughter Kelli and Son-in-law Andy. I love spending time with both of them Andy has a keen, sharp sense of humor and the more I try to keep the straight face when he is chiding Kelli, the more I can't help but laugh. I always look forward with great anticipation when I spend time with them. Kelli is not only my daughter, she is my scrapbook buddy and one of my best friends. She is honest and sweet to me and helps keep me from being a "dork". These two are headed to a new adventure in August. They are moving to St. Paul MN so Kelli can start Law school. I am soo excited for them and comforted to know they will be near family, as Andy's dad and extended family are all in the St. Paul area. His family is very excited about having them closer to them. I will miss them immensely and I am already planning my first trip to see them when Kelli has her first school break in October.
These are the times that parents look forward to with great anticipation and trepidation with this exciting and uncertain future for their babies ( any parent knows that no matter how old they get they are always your babies) Good luck Kelli and Andy and I will be planning my vacations with more anticipation now!

Just another manic Monday. I didn't have to work today, but the day was still very full. I cleaned house and was looking forward to trying out the Mojo Monday sketch when I got a call from my son Kraig and went to see Public Enemy with him. I really enjoyed spending some time with him. Now that my kids are grown I have to take those opportunities when they present themselves. I also got to spend time will Kelli and Kraig this weekend when we attended the Eagle Scout ceremony of a friend of ours. My husband and my son are both Eagle Scouts and it always makes me so proud when we are able to attend a ceremony and I am reminded of what an accomplishment it is. Did you know that only 3 in 100 scouts makes it to Eagle status? It takes real committment and dedication. Here are a couple week end photos. On the top, in order are my son Kraig, Brent Dorschner, and Steve my husband. On the bottom is Shirley, Brent's mom and she is flanked by me and my daughter Kelli. It was s great ceremony and great July picnic weather. I love these days of spending time with family and friends.

A few recent cards

Here are a copule of recent cards I made just for fun. I love my new CTMH stamps and their paper colors are always just what I'm looking for. It makes it so fun to do cards.

After I made these I found out my sister had just been diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer. Very scary for all of us. She just had her staging surgery and we are now awaiting the results, excrutiating for Shelly and hard for the rest of us to know what to do to ease her stress. I did one of the things that I think I do best and that is to make some cards to express my support and send them her way each week. Here are the first two I made for her.

HTML Codes

HTML Codes

More wedding fun

My sister's wedding

This is my sister, Shelly and her husband Jack. We attended their wedding in May and what a great time for our whole family