How'd it go? I NAILED it!

It has been one week since I have bitten my fingernails. They're lovely :o)

Report by Zina....

The nine year old has a report due! Her class is studying missions in school, so we typed up her report together, and I wanted to save it because it's soooo cute. I got tears in my eyes as she was reading her report back to me, I hope you enjoy this tiny piece of history in my life! LOL. When she is older, I will let her read this and I think she will get a kick out of it....enjoy !!

Mission San Miguel
by_____________

Mission San Miguel was founded in 1797 by Father Fermin Francisco de LaSuen. It was called

Vahca by the natives. In English it is called "The Wells." The first church was built in 1797. It

was lost in a fire in 1806. It took ten years to re-build again. In 1821 it was finally re-built.

There was around a thousand Indians. By 1834 there were only 30 Indians. In 1846 it turned

into a hotel, saloon, and like a store just not like today's Wal-Mart.

The Missions were given back to the church in 1859. I thought that it was for the Indians. And

a priest moved in 1878. In 2003 which was seven years ago there was an earthquake, so now

there is a crack from the roof to the floor.

In 2008, October the 2nd, it was opened with a cemetary. Clearly it was today a church, a place

where people can become a priest and a cemetary.

It was named after an Angel. I thought if I made San Miguel, I could find out why it has it's

name today. It is cool being named after an Angel, Saint Michael, just like my grandpa on my

mom's side and my grandpa on my dad's side.

The End

Two Things...errr...Three Things Sunday!

Below is my weekly edition of "Two Things" where I post two things around my house that I love. First off, I love thrifting...I love vintage stores, thrift stores, yards sales, etc. I have a lot of cute decor (and clothes!) that I have found hunting around shops and front yards of complete strangers, and would LOVE to share them with all of you!!
Some of the blogs I adore and check out everyday (oh, like 50 of them!) have started this "Two Things" and I would LOVE to see this trend take off! I like looking at other crafts, clothes, baking, hair styles and more that people show off, but come on! Let's see what you adore that is in your home!

I have this lovely teapot from my darling niece. She gave it to me last summer, it was from her neighbor, I believe, and thought of me as I love teapots. I only have a select few, but they are all gorgeous and will end up in this blog eventually :o) This is a good-sized teapot, it stands total about 8-9" and is heavy ceremic. I remember when my neice saw it displayed in my kitchen, she got such a cute little kick out of it, so that was special, too. I have it on top of some cupboards in the kitchen with all my "vintage" kitchenware.

Here are some Irish foods I got online from this company in Ireland. The name escapes me now, as I haven't ordered from them in YEARS. One thing that I love (among millions others) about Ireland? They have a chocolate brand called "Kimberleys" (ummm...how perfect and a sign from God is that?!) that make little treats that are very similar to the US version of moon pies (again, banana moon pies are one of the favorite treats). So these Irish foods are a small symbols of where my heart really is, but that is years of therapy and another blog in and of itself...they make for a cute display, no?

I decided to add one more item to my Two Things as it is, right now, my favorite thing in the evenings. My fiance goes off for military duty, sometimes out of the country, most recently out of state. That gorgeous man of mine purchased this webcam for the house computer, so now we can chat online and see each other. If I'm not mistaken, although he's been gone a little over a week, I've still been able to see him everyday. God bless modern technology!

Hope you all enjoyed this post, what's in YOUR house?

Scrapbook page - Snow Day

Here is another page I completed today. For this snow trip we took with the girls, I chose plain white paper (major faux pas in the scrapbooking world?) to keep it nice and simple. Again, a fan of the construction paper, I used pink and blue pieces as backgrounds. I found the snowflake stickers at walmart for a dollar, and used some lettering I found. I used a picture I love of me and Chris (it's also currently hanging in the living room in a frame) as the main focus. The smaller photos to the left are of family, then with me and the girls. This was a super fun memory, I think I will do another page, one with actual "action" (such as Chris and the girls falling down) photos.

Scrapbook page - Military

Good evening, all!
I did a military page for Chris, I posted this before without the pictures added. I found the adorable jacket at walmart, as well as the stickers below. I used a cloudy-blue page to go with my red white and blue theme. I used plain red construction paper to be a backdrop of the main picture of my fiance - isn't he so handsome! - and red backdrops to the stickers. This page actually isn't quite complete as I want to add one more picture to the right of the bottom photo. But I just had to show off my handsome guy :o)

Easter 2010

This is my Easter page...it was fun to do, I liked being able to add such bright, fun colors to the page.

I had a half sheet of this super cute polka-dotted paper that I knew I had to use for this page. I don't think you can tell from the picture, but my main sheet of paper has very tiny, light pastel colored polka dots as well. I used the polka dot sheet to be a backdrop of my journaling.

Below is a close up of the smaller photos that I printed that I decided to turn into a collage to make use of what I have! I love how the easter eggs the girls colored really pops on the page. I made the family photo the largest of the group with some random Easter stickers scattered about.

My mom gave me a small bag full of little foam flowers that I love, so I mixed and matched them to layer and color-contrast each other. I also had little tiny "bedazzles" that my mom gave me, so I decided to center those in the flowers. The page had a weird gap at the top between my journaling and the flowers, so I decided to add some pink, sheer ribbon I had from a previous craft project. I centered a little green flower and a bedazzle onto that.

What do you think? I'm happy with it! I hope you get some good ideas from this page, and make it your own!

xoxo

Miss Irish

Scrapbook Page - Valentine's Day

Now that I moved my craft table into my bedroom, I decided to do a little scrap booking!
I printed out some pictures on my fiance's printer, but although the photo paper is 4x6, the pictures printed out as 2x3...not sure how to change that setting, so I decided to keep printing some pictures as I knew I could do something creative with them.
I decided to print my Valentine pictures. I wanted to make the one of myself and my fiance the main focus, so I printed this on plain copy paper...but it still turned out superb!
I used some cute pink and red striped paper I have on hand, and some pretty pink construction paper as the photo's backdrop. Fits nicely with the color scheme of Valentine's day, as well as my scarf!

I am learning journaling - which is actually much harder for me than one would think, but that is an issue I can get into later...lol. For my journaling backdrop, I just used a piece of red construction paper, again, to keep with the Valentine color scheme.

This is the close-up of the photo of myself and my fiance. This was taken in San Francisco, in an Irish pub near the pier. The fireplace was GORGEOUS and some very kind and very hilarious Irish bar back offered to take our picture...he also loudly proclaimed that I am so "white" that I look like the "Virgin Mary." Us Irish sure have a way with words don't we? I decided to add two cute little foam hearts on the construction sheet. My mom gave me a little bag full of them, so you may be seeing more random hearts popping up on various pages! :o)

With the small photos, I decided to do a sort of collage at the bottom of the page: pictures of my gifts from the kids, the infamous picnic basket, etc. I also added ribbon - I love ribbon - that Chris had in my picnic basket, and a beautiful LOVE sticker, just to bring it all together.

I hope you enjoy this page, I'm very happy with it, and get some good ideas from it!

xoxo

Miss Irish

Easter

I know it's belated, but Happy Easter from our family to yours! Side note, I love the gorgeously colored Easter Eggs!

Two Things Sunday

Due to the fact that I am lying in bed with pneumonia, this will only be a One thing Sunday...but the picture does have two of my favorite things! Is that cheating?
Anyway, pictured is my sweet puppy, Missy, laying as she usually is on a pillow. So cute. Next to her is a bear Chris got me from the Air Force Base PX back in February. It's just really cute and I love it...

Book Review

I just finished reading The Shack, an amazing book, and have decided to read it again. It is a gorgeous book about a man who is broken and hurting who encounters God (in the form of a big, black woman who informs him too many greens will give him the trots) in the very shack where his young daughter's life was taken by a serial killer.
I can barely begin to describe how wonderful this book is and how it has effected me. It was given to me at exactly the perfect time in my life, where I really needed the love of God to seep into me to be given to those around me. My heart and my life felt very full while reading the book, which is why I have started it again. I lost count how many times my eyes filled with tears while reading passages of the book. I've never really been able, try as hard as I might, put Jesus in the role of being "human." And it's beautiful. I encourage you to read this book, you will want to read it over and over again, I guarantee it! And I can promise that you will be blessed by this book.

Take a Bite of this Apple...

I've never really paid much attention to this before, but why o why do the evil women in cartoons have to be step-mothers?! I mean, really! You're not helping me out much, Mr. Disney.

Saturday Night...

Hey all, it's pretty late (ten minutes to nine - late for me!) but Chris and the kids are rocking out downstairs on Rockband and their off-tune voices are keeping me up.
Hope you all have a BEYOND happy Easter! Remember what it's about...Will post some pics of the kids tomorrow - we are taking them out of town to grandma's for an Easter egg hunt and lunch.
Got dragged to prompt care today to have my very swollen, very sore infected finger looked at. Turns out I've got cellulitis (open wound that gets bacteria or staph inside of it and infects the skin and tissue). Got some epsom salt to do about 4-5 times a day of soaking and a very strong antibiotic I'm not entirely thrilled about. Last time I took this particular antibiotic, it made me throw up everyday. I know, I know I'm sorry I'm so gross.
I'm willing to suffer through and take the medicine, though, so I feel better!
So...go to youtube.com. Type in "newfamilygal" just like that - minus the parenthesis, of course. There are the videos I posted, my Outfit of the Day for curvy girls. Enjoy!
xoxo
Miss Irish

Breakfast

Yummy! Thanks baby!