Goodies For Easter Given and Received

I hope that all of you had a wonderful Easter.  My family and I had a very good one.  I am feeling a bit warned out from my vacation last week to SD and to Disneyland for two days.  My feet were aching!  I guess it did not help that I stayed up on Saturday and Sunday until 3am making the Easter treats that I posted in my last post.  Yes, my co-workers got their treats a day after Easter.  I ended up making 32 of the flowers with the lollipop in the center.  Here is a picture of some of them that my hubby put together into a little wreath.

Besides the other items that I previously posted I wrapped two gifts for 2 friends at work in the shape of a big candy.  I think they turned our pretty cute so I decided to take a picture of them.

Along with making goodies for family and friends I was fortunate enough to receive some cards and special treats for Easter too.

Thanks for stopping by today to see what I have to share.

Today is a Special Day to Me

I praise God for raising Jesus from the dead so that we can have renewed faith, hope, and happiness. I hope and pray that all of you will also be able to one day experience this like my family and I have. Because this is such a special day my family and I have surprised family and friends with some goodies to celebrate and to express our appreciation to God for what He has done for us.  Some people received chocolate crosses with a special meassage. 

Others received bags of goodies with their favorite goodies in them.  I made each one a special tag.

Some people received flowers that I made.  The center of each one is a lollipop.

Last but not least some people received a bag of jelly beans with a topper that I decorated. 

Big hugs and lots of love are being sent your way hoping that you will have a "Happy Easter."  Thanks for stopping by today.  I am glad that I was finally able to share some crafy items with you.  If you have some time, please leave me a brief comment to let me know that you stopped by.  Thanks!  :)

Dinner With Friends

This evening we had dinner with our friend Gail from San Francisco and her friend Mary from Morro Bay. We met them at our favorite Hawaiian restaurant- Back Home to Lahaina.

While we were waiting for our food to be served our kids spoke with Gail's hubby on the phone just to say "hello." They were asking Gail about him so we all thought it would be fun to surprise him and call him.

Here is the ono food that we ordered.













The kids had a sundae for dessert. Benson's meal came with a haulpia cheese cake, but we took it "to go" since we were so full from our meals. We all had a wonderful time together enjoying the yummy food, the beautiful murals of Maui,



and listening to the live Hawaiian band and watching the hula dancer.



Before leaving I gave Gail (and her family) and Mary each an "Easter" RAK and Gail gave a bag full of goodies to my family and I. 

A Mini Vacation in San Diego

Sorry I've been MIA for a bit. My family and I took a mini 3 day vacation in beautiful San Diego. We got back late Tuesday night.  We all had a very fun and relaxing time.  Here are the highlights of our trip.  Beware... this is a long post so you may want to get a snack and some thing to drink before you start reading.  :) The highlight of our first day of shopping at the outlets and purchasing a fun purse and a few other items for myself and my kids.  We also had a blast taking at visiting a Birch Aquarium

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and taking a stroll at the beach.

The view on the patio of the aquarium was beautiful.  It overlooked the beach.

We ended our first day by eating some yummy seafood.

Before going to our hotel we took a walk on the wharf and went shopping at one of my favorite stores- Crazy Shirt. On our second day we spent the entire day at Legoland.  We have been there many time, what they built with legos never ceases to amaze us.  They have certain buildings in cities such as SF, NY, Vegas, and LA made out of legos along with different famous people such as Elvis and Yoda.  This time around the there were new figures from "Star Wars" built out of legos.

We were lucky to get to see them since they will only be around for a limited amount of time.  We ended our day with eating Japanese food for dinner.

On our final day of our time in SD we went visited the Flower Fields in Carlsbad.  We have visited the fields many times, but we are always impressed by the beauty of the flowers.  I took group pictures of the flowers and took individual ones of each color of the roses along with different flowers that I thought were unique.

 My favorite one of course are the pinkish purple roses.

They even had flowers organized to form an American flag.  Isn't this just too cool?

My kids especially enjoyed playing in Santa's garden and going through the floral maze.  Half way home we stopped at Mrs. Knott's Kitchen for dinner.  Of course my hubby and I enjoyed their famous fried chicken diner which includes 4 pieces of chicken, soup, salad, steamed cabbage and ham, mashed potato, and dessert.

My son ordered a kid's version of ours and my son of course order mac and cheese.  It was the perfect meal to end our mini vacation.  On Wed. and Thurs. we went to Disneyland using our annual passes and spent 12 magical hours there.  We went for that many hours two days in a row because our passes expired today.  Thanks for sticking around to read the enrtire post.  Be sure to come back next week to see what crafty items I have to share. 

Orders and Goodies From My Annual Stamp Party

A little more than a month ago I had my annual Stampin Up stamp party. I had the orders sent to my friend, (the demonstrator that did my party) house.  Here are the two big boxes that arrived.

Here's a peak of all the fun stamps, accessories, papers, etc. that my friends ordered.

Here's are the fun items unpacked.  What a fun mess!  :)

I earned lots of freebies and items for 50% off thanks to the orders that my friend's placed.

When my friend that demoed for my party dropped the orders off that she so graciously helped me sort, she gave me a SU bag that she got at the convention

as well as a cute purse that is made using a die that will be available to purchase from SU next month.

Inside the purse was a super cute purse hook.

My friend gave each person a handmade and written card that she included with each order.

As a "thank you" gift, I purchased trident gum and decorated the shell of the case to include with each order.

I received my new goodies for about 3 weeks now, but have not had a chance to play with any of them yet.  I have only taken little peaks at them.  I hope to have a chance to play with them this weekend.  Have a  weekend everyone!

What An Honor

I think my MOJO has gone on vacation.  I am not sure where it went though.  If you happen to see "it" please let me know.  Well, my good friend Karen told me that she awarded me with another blog award. What perfect timing to encourage my MOJO to come home.  I hope that the award does the trick.  :)  Here the award that Karen gave to me.

Thank you from the bottom of my Karen for thinking of me and for awarding me with another one.  You are making my "head" too big with all these awards.  It means so much to me to receive this award from you.  Thanks for continuing to be such a blessing and an inspiration to me.  When you have a chance please be sure to check out Karen's blog at  http://haveascraphappyday.blogspot.com.  Her talent in paper crafting never ceases to amaze me.  I am sure that will be amazed  too.

Along with posting that I received this award, and thanking the person that gave it to me, I am supposed to share 10 random facts about myself.  Let see... what did I share with you previously when I was asked to share some facts about myself?  
1) I thank the Lord each day for giving me the strength and energy to live each day to the best of my abilities and for helping me be where I am today in my life.   
2) I like and purchase stamps, paper, and accessories from many companies, but my very favorite company is Stampin Up.  Demonstrators and friends tell me that I should be a demo for the company, but at this time in my life I don't think it would be wise.  Hopefully when I retire I will have the opportunity to sign up.
3) My favorite color is purple- all shades of it.
4) I love eating Hawaiian food.  My favorites include haupia, hamburger steak, lomi lomi, loco moco, malasadas, and chili rice.
5) When I was two years old there was a tiny hole in my grandparents couch.  I of course poked at it so the whole was bigger.  I not only made the whole bigger, but started eating the cotton thinking that it was cotton candy.
6) When I was little I liked to cut the hair of my Barbie dolls.  I was sad to find ou that their hair does not grow back. 
7) My source of liquid is generally water.  (I do drink ice coffee or coffee once a week and drink tea some times.)  This has been going on for about 7 1/2 years.  About a year and a half ago I started drinking club soda and a year ago flavored water.  I took a sip of soda awhile ago at a wedding and it's just too sweet for me. I am not sure how I drank at least one soda a day.
8) I love punch art.  I have a collection of them in a book and in a folder on my hard drive.  Hopefully one day I will be able to incorporate them into my cards.  
9) People often ask me how I have time to craft when I work, have two kids, have chores and paper work to work on at home.  My favorite time to craft is between 10 pm and 2:30 am.  My MOJO seems to be run stronger at those hours. 
10.) I have a huge collection of Copic markers.  I don't color with them much at home.  I have used them the most when I attend my monthly Copic classes.  My friends and I always tease each other about paying to go to class each month so we can practice coloring. 
                         
The last task to do for winning the award to recognize 7 bloggers to receive this award.  I'd like to recognize the following awesome bloggers (in no particular order) with the Kreativ Blogger Award because all of you  inspire me with your gift of paper crafting.   Please hop onto their blogs and see how talented and creative they are.
1)  http://haveascraphappyday.blogspot.com (Karen, I nominated you again.  You deserve it!)
2)  http://creationbyshirl.blogspot.com
3)  http://strwberizncream-cyndi.blogspot.com
4)  http://lifeofagirliegirl.blogspot.com
5)  http://ekboutique.blogspot.com
6)  http://miyukibeautifulsnow.blogspot.com
7)  http://stampsandscrapbooks.typepad.com/


Now that you have received this award, you can participate by doing the following:

1) Link back to the person who gave it to you.

2)  Share 10 random facts about yourself.
3)  Pass on the award onto 7 other people.
4)  Follow the person that gave you this award.


I hope that all of you will have an extra crafty day!  Big hugs!

Secret Sister Swap for this Month

Surprisingly I felt okay this morning even though I had such a busy weekend.  I did feel pretty tired when I got home from work.  After dinner I took a little snooze.  Now I feel much better and is ready to do some crafting.  Before I do that, I would to share with you what I sent to my for my secret sister this month.  I had lots of fun making  Theresa a card with a St. Patrick's Day theme and sending her a RAK with the same theme.

This is what my secret sister Linda sent to me.

Thanks again  Linda for such a super cute card with so much detail and for the cute stickers.  I hope that you enjoyed what I had to share today.  Happy crafting!