blizzard of 2009

we are finally shoveled out and recovering from the blizzard of 2009. long island totals came in at 26.3" of snow. ava spent most of saturday waiting for the storm and asking me when is it coming? as soon as the flurries started she wanted to go outside and to quote charlie brown "make sugar" she tried her best to catch those flakes.

as the day went on it kept on snowing...and snowing...and snowing. this is the view from our backdoor at 8:00 at night.

and here is what we woke up to 12 hours later.

from the time ava opened her eyes on sunday morning, all we heard was "come and see the snow" and "when can we go outside and make snow angels?" georgia was not vey happy with with the height of the snow, though i did make her a little path.

finally after lunchtime, we put the boots, gloves and layers of clothes on and ava and i braved the 29 degrees and 2 feet of snow. shovel and broom in hand we headed out to start the clean up with strict instructions not to make snow angels until just before we were ready to come in from the snow. the grandma in me didn't want her outside for too long after she was totally covered in snow. of course she had to make the biggest snowball she could lift and at least she remembered to tell georgia to watch out before she threw it.

look grandma...the snow is this big....



and yes we did get to make snow angels. out of all the photos we took and all the fun we had this is my favorite moment... the sunshine in the day...



it's these moments that make us realize just how lucky we are. it's so important to take a moment in our busy lives to enjoy the simple joys.

thank you

it's been a little over a week since the loss of my beloved bear and i wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for their thoughts, prayers and support. the love from family and friends means a lot to me.

thank you

photo shoot

Finally got the pictures from my brother-in-law of our holiday photo shoot. I'm so glad that he took them last weekend, since the Vet will be coming to my house tomorrow to put Bear to sleep. It's been a very emotional last few months, but I know that he can't get better and I have to be a good dog mommy and not let him loose his dignity. He needs me to help him in and out of the house and at 120 pounds that not easy for either one of use. In my heart I know that now is the right time to do this.

I had the talk with Ava, my almost 5 yo grand-daughter this morning, so that she will be as prepared as she can be. She is a true scrapbooker's grand-daughter. She told me that "we have lots of photos to make a memory book out of just like Piglet has in the Winnie the Pooh movie. We can always look at the book just lke we do for the photos of your mom grandma." Out of the mouths of babes.

So before I get to teary eyed I want to share these photos with you.

Me and my Best Man, Bear and Georgia too.

diana, bear and georgia

december daily

wow...I can't believe how far behind I am in posting on my blog! so let's just start from today and get caught up.

november just flew by. the thanksgiving holiday was nice. we all spent the morning watching the parade, waiting for santa to come at the end of the parade. ava wrote out both her list and santana's list for santa.

the house hunting and selling has been pretty stressful, but I'm hoping things will work out soon.

bear is not doing very well, but he still gives the best hugs. i fear he will not be here to celabrate christmas with us this year.

georgia hasn't stopped trying to play with him though. she will miss him as much as will.

i started a december daily journal to document our christmas this year. i will be taking a photo everyday up unitl christmas to preserve our holiday traditions and memories. i think it might be a great treasure for ava and santana to have later on in life. i finished putting the christmas lights up so i thought that should be my photo for december 1.

thank you for visiting and my your day be blessed with laughter and love.

this week

has been busy and hectic. we are still house hunting and our house is on the market. i've learned that both of these can be very stressful.

meanwhile santana is finding new ways to get into trouble.



but his big smile makes up for it.



ava has been teaching him how to use the computer and as long as the backyardigans are on it, he is happy!


bear is still not feeling his best, but he hasn't let it stand in the way of the love he gives to me everyday. he's not too sure about all of the strangers that i've been letting in to look at our house, but he's been as polite as possible, always watching.


i can't believe that halloween is just a few days away! time just flies by!

pumpkin picking

columbus day was cloudy and cold but it didn't stop ava, santana and i from taking a trip to the brightwaters farm for some pumpkins.


ava tried to carry as many pumkins as she could.


santana wasn't sure if he liked the pumpkin farm or the pumpkins for that matter.


of course the playground is always fun.



nothing beats a wagon filled with pumpkins!



this year we made sure to save time for the hayride. santana wasn't too sure about it, but ava loved it!


now getting the pumpkins and two tired kids to the car was another thing. luckily grandma had a big helper...ava pulled the wagon with our pumpkins in it and i carried one tired little boy.

hectic few weeks

i can't believe that it's been almost a month since i updated my blog. the summer came to a quick end and brought us into a very hectic september.

santana loved spending labor day at the spray park.


ava took a break from the spray park to enjoy the sand.


we decided to look for a house and of course we found one right away that we loved. after about two weeks and frequent viewings of the house we decided to make an offer. unfortunately, someone made a higher offer than we could afford, so we are back to house hunting. i decided that after a few weekends of appointments and open houses, house hunting is not as fun as it looks on HGTV.

bear has been having a tough time these last few months. his arthritis has been getting worse and now to make things even harder for him he apparently hurt his front wrist. he is now sporting a new look in the hopes of healing his leg.

at 115 pounds it is a bit hard for his mom to bring him outside. hopefully the bandage as well as the new medication he is on will heal his leg. he is getting older and we are greatful for the little time he probably still has with us. it's important to us that he isn't in pain and that he has quality of life.

ava started dancing school and she loves it, though she is not a fan of the tights. as i sat a june clair school of dance, watching ava, i felt like i never left there. twentyfive years ago i was sitting there with missy at the same age that ava is now. some of the faces have changed and some are the same, but the best one is ava's smiling face looking back at me in her little ballet slippers., though for some reason i couldn't get her to smile for this photo.

book of me

i am working on a "book of me" challenge over on the ckmb. i had so much fun completing the first layout of the challenge. the subject was 10 things that make you happy. it was harder than i thought it would be to narrow the list down to only ten. i used pattern paper from a K & Co scrappad to go, k & Co chipboard sticker butterfly and flower, jenni bowlin bingo card, and american crafts rub-ons. i added some bling to the bingo card and i made the die cut shape behind the photo.

hot, humid summer days

i can't believe that august is almost over. where did the summer go? the past week has been hot and humid here on long island. santana, rene and i spent some time at the track watching the sayville fire dept. racing team. santana had lots of fun! this is my favorite photo of the week. you can see how much fun santana was having.

some days have been lazy and santana took advantage of that! ava spent some time harvesting her tomatoes.

A bike ride on a hot summer night is always fun and everyone knows to you have to wear a helmet!

ava was very excited to go on a school bus for her first class trip to the zoo. we celebrated with girls night at friendlys. ice cream for all!

bear seems to be doing a little better, so he got to enjoy sometime in the yard with us!

thanks for visiting!

blog hop update

thank you everyone for visiting my blog during the cards for heroes mini blog hop! http://cardsforheroes.org/about/ so many talent crafters participated! it was so inspiring to see everyone’s designs. if you didn’t take out blog hop you still can by following this link.

http://letsgetcrafting.blogspot.com/2009/08/happy-holidays-for-our-heroes-mini-blog.html

many of you inquired as to how I made my card. I would love to be able to tell you what papers I used, but I can only guess. I am using my holiday scraps from my 2008 december daily and when I went back to look at them, none of them had the names on them, though I think they my be figgy pudding, BG or MME. the star was cut with my slice and the word joy is done in thickers.

thanks again for visiting!
diana

cards for heros mini blog hop

not too long ago, i became aware of a website called cards for heros. its’ mission is to support our armed forces by providing blank greeting cards to write home on as well as cards thanking them for all they do for us. thousands of cardmakers and scrapbookers across America are joining forces to share their gifts and talents to bless those deployed far from home, and in return are bringing smiles to families and friends across the country! our troops overseas do not have the luxury of running to the nearest target to purchase cards. to date more than 172,000 handmade cards have been made and donated to our troops. you can learn more about this organization by going to: http://cardsforheroes.org/about/.

on august 15, 2009 cards for heros will be doing a mini blog hop. I am so excited to participate in my first blog hop. take a few minutes and follow the link at the bottom of this post to the next blog in our blog hop. hopefully the talents of these cardmakers and scrapbookers will inspire you to make some cards for our heros! please join in the fun and support our troops!
here is my holiday card for the cards for heros mini blog hop. i know that there is not alot i can do for the men and women in the armed forces, but i hope the few cards that i can contribute will bring some joy to them, than i will feel like i reached out and touched them.

the deadline for making holiday cards for our heros is november 1, 2009. if you would like to participate, you can do so by going to: http://cardsforheroes.org/bloghop.

please let me know you stopped by, by leaving me a comment.

the next stop on the blog hop is Christina's blog at http://letsgetcrafting.blogspot.com/2009/08/happy-holidays-for-our-heroes-mini-blog.html

you can find more holiday cards for heros at
http://stampingupastorm.blogspot.com/2009/08/christmas-mini-blog-hop.html

thanks for visiting.
diana

sisters weekend and more

it's been a busy two weeks. i can't believe that it is august already! it seems like summer just got here. last weekend ursula and i went to valley forge PA for CKC and we had an amazing time. two full days of creativity, inspiration and yes shopping! we took five scrapbooking classes while we were there. we learned some new techniques, got plenty of new supplies ( which i promise to photograph to share with all my scrapping friends) and just had a lot of fun. on saturday night we made time to finish some of our class projects so now all we have to do is put the photos in them .

here i am at the button farm class. angela from the button farm gives an amazing class. we made a beautiful mini album, and right after class, we just had to do some shopping at the vendor faire!

i love this road sign that was just a short distance from our hotel. who wouldn't want to live on mall blvd?

this is a great photo of three friends; joann, karen and myself. we have been friends going back as far as elementary school and jr. high school. karen is in from indiana so we had lots of catching up to do.
bear is doing better since his visit to the vet. now he can get around a bit better, so hopefully we can have some more time together.


ava is so excited to finally get some tomatoes from her tomatoes plants, few as they may be.

santana is learning to love books.

and this is one of my favorite photos of the week.

have a great week everyone and thank you for visiting!

jump right in...

Happy Monday everyone! The weekend seems to fly by so fast. This one proved to be hot and humid, a good one for water fun and outdoor activities.

Ava convinced me that we don't need a built in pool to have fun! She can spend hours doing this. Where do they get their energy from?




Sanatana wants to know if this is a pool or is it a water fountain! He decided it's more fun to drink the water than to play in it!


The spray park and the beach are family favorites. Santana loved looking out at the boats in the water. How cute is he in his fancy swim trunks! I think this is one of my favorite summer photos so far.

Ava loves using her artisit skills with a bit of sidewalk chalk, a nice quiet activity when the day is winding done.

These are the moments we treasure...the little things that really matter.