My Good Friend and SS

One of GF Gail was my secret sister this month. I can't believe she is so good at keeping a secret. Our famiies met for dinner a few weeks ago and she did not give out a single hint that is my SS. In the note that she included with my package she told me that she was very nervous about leaking it out when we saw each other. Check out all the awesome and creative items that Gail sent my way. She also included some items for my family. Thanks again GF for all your creative and delicious creations.

This is what I sent to my SS sister. I hope that she received my package by now. If she has not, hopefully she does not see this post before she does. :)

A Disney and Peanuts Christmas

The day before Thanksgiving my family and I went to Disneyland. When we went on Veteran's Day it was already decorated with Christmas decorations, but when we went this time there we even more decorations.



We were all very amazed by the awesome decorations espeically at night. We also got to watch the Christmas parade twice. We loved it!


Before we left to the amusement park to go to the hotel we took pictures with some of the characters. They looked super festive in their outfits.


The next day we were going to spend part of the day at Disneyland, but the kids were too tired to go again. Instead we went Mrs. Knott's Chicken Restaurant at Knott's Berry Farm. We always love their fried chicken. We also tried their prime rib which was excellent too.


The kids loved the soup the best and I think for me it was a toss up between the prime rib and the parfait.

We enjoyed it so much that we are thinking about going there as an annual tradition for brunch. :) We did not go into the amusement park, but we did go shopping afterwards. The stores looked awesome all the Christmas decorations and fun items.



Before leaving I just had to take a picture with some of my favorte Peanuts characters.

Next to Hello Kitty they are my favorites. (Yes, they had some Hello Kitty Christmas items at one of the stores too.)

Being at Disneyland and at Knott's really got us into the groove of the Christmas season. Are you in the spirit of the season yet? Thanks for your patience in looking at and reading such a long post. I got a little carried away... it was too hard to pick and choose what to post since everything we did at Disneyland and Knott's were so much fun.

Happy Thankgiving!

My family and I have lots to be thankful for and we thank the Lord for this holiday not only to eat yummy food but to be able to help us focus more on His goodness and faithfulness in our lives. We have much to be thankful for each day, but during Thanksgiving we are a doubly thankful. I hope and pray that all of you will have a wonderful Thanksgiving today with your family and friends. God bless!

Treats for Thanksgiving

It's been a bit hectic working on Thanksgiving treats for family and friends. I have stayed up for the past 3 nights until 2am making things. I am thankful for my hubby for staying up with me to work on them. If he didn't I may have stayed up even later. LOL! :) I made double pocket cards for some good friends and filled them with tea, apple cider, and a few other fun items.

This is what I gave to some of my co-workers. I was originally going to make a 3D pumpkin for each of them, but thought that wouldn't be wise due to my limited amount of time. I'll save the pumpkin idea for next year. :)


I made this using the Bigz Two Tags die from Stampin Up and put a tea bag inside. The stamp that I used is also from SU. I received this brillant idea from my friend Gail. Thanks Gail! :) A few other co-workers received these items along with a wreath tag.

For my family I gave them each a set of Fall towels, put it in a gift bag, and attached the same wreath tag as the one above. I printed out a picture of my kids and put it in the center of the wreath. Thanks for stopping by to see what I have to share. I hope that everyone will have a wonderful and Thanksgiving. Be sure to not eat too much ono food. :)

My Son's Party at Chucke Cheese

We had a great time celebrating my son's b-day party at Chucke Cheese yesterday. (He had so much celebrating there last year that he wanted it again there this year.)
13+ guests attended his party. 13 of them were his friends and the rest were the parents of his friends. He had a Batman themed party so we purchased decorations with that theme. I usually made the decorations when the parties were at our house, but for the past two years I didn't since they were at Chucke Cheese.

I put little captions in the cups. One of them said "Have a dynamic party with Zach" and the other one said "You are good citizen for coming to Zach's party."
The captions are basically sayings that we think Batman would be found saying. We all had a wonderful time together eating pizza,

taking a picture with Chucke Cheese, and playing games. Before the kids played games we sang "happy birthday"

to my son and he got to go into a ticket blaster. He loved it!

Even the adults fun together. :)

Before the guests went home each of them got a bag with some goodies inside.

I CASED Batman that my good friend Fran made for Zach and put a message on it. I basically made a bigger version of what she made and changed the nose. Thanks Fran for such an awesome idea. Now that the tags are done for my son's party, it's time to finish up Thanksgiving goodies for family and friends. :)

Tea Swap for This Month

I'm getting a little behind prepping for my son's b-day party tomorrow. I am so thankful that it is at Chucke Cheese and not at our house. This way I only need to prep party favors, a decoration or two, and pick up the cake. I was all set to work on finishing everything up last night, but after we went out to dinner to celebrate his belated b-day I fell asleep. I was supposed to wake up at 9pm to work, but it did not happen. I did wake up at 2am, but decided to go back to bed. This means no crafting for any swaps today since I will be preppring for his party. Before heading off to prep for the party, I would like to share with you what I made for my tea swap this month. I made a pocket card and put the tea bags in the pocket.

It was super fun making this card along with coloring the Thanksgiving stamped image from Created In Me with my Copics. This is what Merle, the person I was paired up with made for me.

I love the dry embossing templete that she used and the technique she used to sand it. Thanks again Merle for such a fun card and for the tea.

Happy Birthday To A Special Little Man

Seven years ago today at 8:20 am our world was blest with a special little guy. You guessed it... God blest us with our son.

This is how he has matured over the years.




Here is our Little Man now. :)

My family and I feel so blest to have our son in our lives and are so proud of the young man that he has become. He is such a bright, sensitive, funny, creative, and cute young man with so much potential. Thank you Little Man so much for being such a wonderful son to us and a great big brother to your sister. We love you very much and hope that you will have the best and most memorable time celebrating your birthday. We pray that God will continue to shower His blessings upon you and help you to learn more about Him as you live another year for Him. We are postponing the celebrating until tomorrow evening since he has a math test tomorrow. This is what we surprised him with this evening after he finished his homework and with studying for his test- a cake

and a present.

We will be taking him out for his b-day dinner tomorrow and he will be celebrating with his friends at Chucke Cheese on Satuday.

Christmas ATCs

I signed up for Pineapple Cove's ATC swap this month. Despite it being an extra busy month I had to fit in some time to make ATC's for the swap. I just could not resist when I saw what the theme is- A White Christmas With an Asian Flair. (I had to sign up for the swap since Christmas is my favorite holiday and I love anything that has an Asian theme.) This is what I came up with.

The Christmas tree and the misubis are from "Created In Me." The Asian girl comes with the tree. I made the Asian boy by cutting over the pigtails. To make it a white Christmas I added white flocking to the tree and to the ground to make it look like it's snowing. I was very pleased with how my ATC's turned out. I can't wait to see what all the other ladies that signed up for the swap created. I get to receive 3 in the mail too which I am very excited about too.

Attending Another Party For Hello Kitty

Last Sunday after church my family and I attended another birthday party that Hello Kitty was having at a Sanrio store in Monterey Park. (Two weeks ago when I went to this store I saw a picture of Hello Kitty at the register with one of the customers. Hello Kitty was wearing a different outfit from the one that we've seen her wearing when we've met her. I asked the lady at the register and she told me that Hello Kitty usually wears that outfit when she shows up at this store. She told me that the next time she will be showing up is next week which meant Sunday.) When we arrived at the store Hello Kitty was already out greeting her guests. Thankfully it was not too crowded. We decided to take pictures with her first before it got croweded.

Then we had some fun playing games. My kids and I had lots of fun playing the games and winning prizes. (I was good and only played one of the games. :)) They had fun going fishing,

penning the bow on Hello Kitty,

and picking a number out of a containter to win a prize.

Here is the prize I won!

These are the prizes that our kids won.

My son was nice enough to win the prizes for me since he does not like Sanrio items. After getting our prizes we went shopping in the store. Since we receive 30% off everything in the store we purchases a bit more than we usually do. Here is one of the items that I purchased- one of the newest versions of the Hello Kitty Tokidoki purse.

We did receive a discount for the purse, but unfortunately not a 30% discount. Surprisingly when we were leaving there were still not too many guests outside with HK or playing the games. So before we left we took a family picture with her. :)

Happy Veteran's Day

Much gratitude and lots of love are being sent out from my family and my heart to all the veterans of the present and the past. May God bless them and their families in a special way.

My family and I celebrated "Veteran's Day" at Disneyland. There was a special ceremony for the veterans. It was awesome and very touching to see different nationalities unite as one to honor them.

It was not only magical to celebrate "Veteran's Day" there but the magic of the amusement park definitely made everyone even more in the mood for Christmas. The amusement park was decorated for the holidays already and Christmas music was playing throughout the park.


There were huge, gorgeous wreaths all around the park that represent different nationalities. This is one of my favorites.

Before I left the amusement park I decided to pitch in and help decorate by moving some heavy ornaments. :)