Thursday, October 21, 2010

October 20 and 21

Day 20.

I fully intended on scrapping and blogging but I didn't do either because we had some errands to run after I got home from work and then on the way home we decided to go and visit with Brian's parents for the evening.  We don't see them as much as we used to because of Brian being at the gym so much.  He has taken a little break from the gym so we are taking advantage of the extra time.  Brian's Mom decided after they ate dinner to take us to Diary Queen.  (we had already eaten dinner)  We drove to DQ and got our ice cream treats and then we went back to their house and stayed for a little while longer.  We ended up coming home around 9:00 p.m.  It was nice to have some quality time with his parents.

Day 21.

So tonight I am going to the State Fair with my sister to see the Blake Shelton concert.  He is one of my favorite country singers right now.  His personality on the interviews he does seems so layed back and he is funny.  He also very easy on the eyes too!  I will post pictures tomorrow of our little adventure.

Here's a picture of Blake Shelton (from the internet) just in case you don't know what he looks like.


Tuesday, October 19, 2010

October 19

Day 19.

I scheduled Gunther's surgery today.  He will be going under the knife in a couple weeks.  It will be nice to finally get this problem of his under control.  The only bad part is that I have to have him to the vet's office by 7:30 a.m.  That is going to be one early day for me!

I thought I'd share a picture today, this is what happens when I try to fold laundry at my house, the Chihuahua's think it's a bed to sleep in.


Tito is the brown dog looking at the camera and Peanut is the black dog facing away from the camera.  They are also known as my little prince and my little princess.  Have a good night ladies!

Monday, October 18, 2010

October 18

Day 18.

Nothing real exciting going on in my world today.  Just more catch up with house work I didn't get to on Saturday.
I noticed some you like to read, do any of you have an e-reader?  I think I want to get one and I am going to ask for one for my birthday.  I am still on the fence as to which one I want, it's between the Kindle and the Nook.  They both are very similar it is just a matter of deciding at this point which one I like better.  Trust me I will never give up on paper books entirely for a couple of silly reasons.  One, there are a couple of series that I will always want to keep in paper (the hard cover) and two, I like the smell of books.  Brian says I am weird for liking the smell of a new book.  Having said that, if you have one what's your opinion and if you don't have one, check the links out if you want and let me know your opinions.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

October 16 and 17

Saturday, Day 16.

Karen - Hudson got the DJ Lance costume. He loved it so much he wanted to carry the bag out of the store. It was cute.

I started  my day pretty early, I woke up with Brian at 4:30 a.m. to get his lunch ready because he had to work and to make sure Gunther got his first feeding really early in the morning and to have his first insulin injection, yes I said insulin, I have a dog that is diabetic.  I did this because I would have to leave the house around 11:30 a.m. to take our little Gunther to a specialist in Mesa for a salvatory gland issue that he has been dealing with for a while.  I feel so sorry for him not only does he have to deal with diabetes but a very swollen gland on the side of his face.  

I don't know the roads in the east valley very well at all so I was a little apprehensive to drive to all this way from west valley.  Thank God for GPS! I am so gald that we invested in a Garmin.  Finding the vet's office was very easy.  Normally I am always running late but I actually got there early.  I didn't think I would be there very long but my 1:00 p.m. appointment turned into an all afternoon appointment.  Gunther and I saw the doctor and he wanted to do an ultra sound of the gland and have the surgeon take a look at the ultra sound and then for me to have a consultation with the surgeon about our options to treat Gunther.  They said that they could do it that day but I would need to come back around 3:30 p.m.  I wasn't about to drive home to have to turn around and come back.  So I decided to stay on that side of town and see if I could find a Barnes and Noble or some place where I hang out until I had to go back to see the surgeon.  I was lucky and found a Bookman's to go look around in.  I have never been to one before so it was a treat.  It was nice because they had a cafe in there and I found some old Scrapbook Etc. magazines and read those for a while.  You can only look at books and magazines for so long before your eyes get a little crossed eyed.  So I drove back to the vet's office.  I got there and told the girl at the reception desk that I knew I was really early but I didn't have anywhere else to go.  It was a long day being there and waiting.  Finally I got my consult with the surgeon (which was after 3:30 p.m.) because they were running late.  It was as expected, he needs surgery to remove the gland.  I will have to arrange to take a day off work so he can have his surgery. I have to say Gunther was a trooper, he did real good with all the poking and prodding they did.

I got home around 6:00 p.m.  Then I got a call from one of the cutest little boys I know.  Johnathan says to me "Nina how's Gunther and when are you coming over so we can go we can go get my Halloween costume?"  I told him that I needed to eat dinner and I would be over there.  He tells me to hurry up.  It made me laugh.  Well I ate my dinner and then went over to my parents house so I could go with my sister and Johnathan so he could get his Halloween costume.  For a while he kept saying he wanted to be Venom.  Then he saw the Ironman costume in an advertisement and decided that it what he wanted to be.  So we went to the Halloween store and he got his costume.  He was really excited to get it.  He kept asking if he could wear it and of course my sister had to tell he had to wait until Halloween.  We got him interested in a movie and put away the costume.

It was a long day but it had a nice ending, being with family.

Sunday, Day 17.

It was another early day for me, I woke up really early so I could clean the house.  Thankfully Brian mopped the floors for me so I didn't have to do that.  Then the boys did their usual Sunday by watching the Bears game and whatever other football games they wanted.  After the Bears game Brian and Heath played video games for while.  Me, I was upstairs watching TV for a while and before I knew it I was asleep on the couch.  I had a good nap.

We ended our day by eating dinner with Brian's parents.  We used to eat dinner at their house every Sunday and we haven't done it quite while.  It was really nice spending time with them.

I am going to make myself some scrappy goals this week because I haven't done it in while.  Here's my goal for the week: I want to get at two layouts of Hudson done and two layouts of Johnathan done.  This should not be too hard, I figure that I can get them done on the nights that Brian will be at the gym working out.

Friday, October 15, 2010

October 13, 14 and 15

Day 13, 14 and 15.

Wednesday.

I fully intended on blogging Wednesday when I got home from work but when I was leaving work I went to start my car and just heard a clicking sound!  Dead battery.  I called Brian and told him my car wouldn't start so he came to my work to give my car a jump and then he followed me to the gas station.  Of course I would need gas.  Thank goodness he was there because when I was done getting the gas, I tried to start my car it wouldn't turn over.  He had to give me another jump.  Then we went home and he had called his old work to tell them about this, because we bought the battery there last year, it was still under warranty so they pulled a new battery for us and he went to go get it and take in my bad battery.

I already had a headache because of my allergies and all of this just made it worse and I still had to cook dinner and feed the dogs.  By the time all that was finished all I wanted to do was to go to bed.  So that is what I did, I went to bed.

Thursday.

Not a whole to share about Thursday except that I was glad when I got to go home for the day.  It was just one of those days.  I was happy to be home with Brian.

I went to my parents house to visit and Johnathan was so excited about his new haircut.  The lady that cut his hair styled it.  It looked like a faux hawk.  She had it all coming forward in the front he looked very cute.  I wish I had a picture of him to share with you.

Friday.

Tonight we went with our nephew Hudson to shop for his Halloween costume.  He said he wants to be Mickey Mouse, but the Halloween store we went to didn't have Mickey Mouse costumes.  So he tried on these two costumes.



He was just so excited when he had on the DJ Lance costume it was really cute.  He didn't want to put the bag that the costume was in down.  It was very cute. 

Just because it's cute, here is a picture of Brian and Hudson that I took while we were at the Halloween store.


Every time Hudson sees his Uncle Brian he says Uncle Brian and gives him a big smile. It's very endearing to see the bond that is developing between those two.




Tuesday, October 12, 2010

October 12th

Day 12.

Karen asked how I made my fried potato's.  I actually bake them first (in the microwave).  Then I let them sit until they are cool enough that I can slice them.  Then I heat up a skillet and coat it with the spray oil (like Pam) and I salt and pepper my potato's and just make them a little brown.  They are very tasty this way. 

I thought I would give you some more facts about me.

1.  I am an Arizona native and have lived here my entire life.
2.  When I was about 13 my Dad told me to help him, my Mom and Brother with the yard work and I told him this (these were my exact words), "Yard work isn't in my contract" (of course add in the normal teenager attitude).  Usually talking like that to either of my parents would have gotten me grounded but that day all my Dad could do was laugh at me and told me ok.
3.  I didn't like cooking when I first got married and Brian did it all for the first few years.  I have slowly come around and now I do most of the cooking.
4.  I was 14 the first time I went to Disney Land.
5.  I was in Girl Scouts from 2nd grade to 5th grade.


Monday, October 11, 2010

October 10 & 11

Day 10 and 11.

I have to start off by saying I have been a slacker this weekend with my blogging. That is why I am combining yesterday and today. 

I have been trying to think of a recipe to share and the only thing I can really think of is a dish I made up on the fly one night a few months ago for dinner. I needed something sort of quick because Brian had to go to the gym and it couldn't be a heavy dinner so here is what I came up with.

Ingredients:

3 chicken breasts (I prefer boneless and skinless)
1 can of green enchilada sauce (the larger can)
Salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and paprika
1/2 cup graded cheese
Olive oil
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Get a skillet hot and add some olive oil to the skillet (or whatever kind of oil you use for cooking)
Season the chicken breasts with the seasonings listed above.
Then you are going to brown the chicken breasts on both sides don't cook completely through
Once browned pour the can of green enchilada sauce over the chicken and put cheese on top of your chicken breasts
Bake in the oven for 20 minutes (if your skillet is oven safe) If not you will need to put the chicken in a baking dish.

Presto the dish is finished. When you serve it make sure to put some of the sauce over the chicken. 
Trust me ladies this is a fabulous and easy dinner
You can make rice, beans or maybe fried potato's go with this for side dishes.  I really like the fried potato's because you can put the sauce over the potato's too.

I hope you try it sometime because you won't be disappointed.  I am sure most of you will need more chicken than I use because you have kids, but I am cooking for two and the larger can of enchilada sauce will be plenty for larger families.

This is late today because Brian and I spent the day with our nephew/godson Johnathan.  We took him the the park to feed the ducks and to play at the playground.  After that we came home and played Wii and watched Handy Manny.  Of course one of his favorite things to do is to play pretend so we were pretending to be robots.  He is a riot and I absolutely love spending time with him.  We wouldn't be good Godparents if we didn't give him a bunch of candy and soda! 

Let me tell you I am freakin exhausted! Between the sun and all the running around I did in our house.  I guess this is good training for us when we are finally blessed with a child.

Here's a picture a of me and Johnathan when we went to California.  Just thought I'd share so you can see what a cutie he is.


Saturday, October 9, 2010

October 9th

Day 9.

Saturday's for me are filled with cleaning.  Even though Brian thinks I sit around and watch TV most the day that isn't true.  I will admit that I don't start cleaning right when I wake up, I am just not wired that way.  I need time to "wake up".  I do get around to my cleaning but it is usually in the afternoon when I do it.  I not really a morning person and I get my steam going in the afternoon.

I am so excited for Brian, Friday was his last day at his job and on Tuesday he starts his new job.  He is very excited to be going into a different field.  The most important thing about the new job is the hours and he will have weekends off again.  (He would only get every other Saturday.)  It warms my heart when he is happy about something and I just know that this was a good move for him.
 
Right now we are watching the ASU game and they are doing great!  I have cheer for the Sun Devils because my Dad went to ASU and so did Brian. 
 
Have a good night ladies!

Friday, October 8, 2010

October 8th

Day 8.

I was late with yesterday's post because I was at my parent's house after Brian and I ate dinner to visit with my parents, sister and Johnathan.  I had to play Wii with Johnathan because he got a new game.  It is a racing game with the Cars characters.  There are other games in it too like tractor tipping.  Which by the was very hard. 

I am looking forward to this weekend not because we have anything special planned, it's a long weekend so I have Monday off.  I love the extra day off.  Maybe if Brian doesn't have anything else planned I can do some scrapping.  I know most or all of you have kids so your days off probably aren't very low key with kids activities and such, but what is one of your favorite things to do on an extra day off?  For me I love to read, scrapbook or maybe even go visit family. 



October 7th

Day 7.

Last night I thought my head was going to explode because of the sinus pressure! Today it's feeling a little better but I am going to get allergy medicine after work today to end the torture. LOL Enough about that. 

Since this challenge was given to us at our favorite scrappy home Scrapbook Doodle, I thought a little scrappy challenge would be nice for us to do.  It's a sketch from Page Maps and you can either do a layout or a card whatever you prefer. 


Once you finish put a comment back here that you have done it and post a picture of it to the Blogging thread at Scrapbook Doodle.  For those of you that decide to do the challenge, I will put your names in hat and drawer a winner and you will receive a RAK from me!  I hope you all get scrappy!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

October 6th

Day 6.

Thanks for all the comments on my post last night.  I am going to answer the few questions you ladies asked in the comments.

1. I live in Surprise.
2. I went to Ira Murphy. 

Last night we stopped by my brother-in-law's house to see our nephew Hudson.  He is 1 1/2 years and he is a hoot.  He showed us just about every toy in his room.  We played with his Hot Wheels and the Hot Wheels track that Brian bought him.  He would say Aunt Risha watch this... and then press the button to make the little car launch down the track.  He thought is was so funny every time he did it.  It was so much fun.  Brian and Heath are two the biggest Chicago Bears fans I have ever met.  Of course they are teaching Hudson to love the Bears as much as they do.  He kept telling us "Go go Bears...Urlacher!"  It is so stinkin cute.  I will try and record it so I can it with you all sometime.

I think we should do that more often because even though they live two streets away from us we hardly ever see our little nephew mostly because we are all just so busy.  Here's a picture I took of him a while back while he was at our house.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

October 5th

Day 5.


Another rainy day here in AZ and I am loving it!  My side of town didn't get any hail or the winds like some the valley did but it has been so cool in the evenings.

Since I am doing this little challenge with a lot of new friends over at Scrapbook Doodle I thought I would tell you 10 random things about me in no particular order.

1.   I love watching old movies.
2.  My favorite color is blue at the moment.  It changes a lot but blue makes me happy.
3.  I played the clarinet from 4th grade until 8th grade.
4.  I have 4 nephews who I absolutely adore with all my heart.
5.  My dream car is a Trans Am lexactly like the one in the movie Smokey and the Bandit, it has been since I was very young, like 3 or 4.
6.  I hope and pray everyday that someday I will be a parent.
7.  I have 1 brother and 1 sister
8.  I was born on Thanksgiving day
9.  My dream vacation would be going to France.
10.  I got to meet Judd Nelson at a local bar.  It was awesome to see someone that I have watched a millon times in those classic 80's movies like St. Elmo's Fire and Breakfast Club etc.

That's it from me for today!

Monday, October 4, 2010

October 4th

Day Four.

It was a really nice afternoon, we had clouds, thunder, lighting and rain.  It has been a while since it rained here in the valley.  I love it because the air feels so cool, a sure sign that fall/winter is heading our way.  It was was fast moving storm but it was still nice.  I got a a picture at the end of the storm and a little rainbow is in the shot in between the neighbors trees, hopefully you can see it.


Don't forget ladies, there was a nice challenge issued to do a layout so go here to see what the challenge is and participate.  I know I am surely going to because I need to get in gear so my sister's book is finished by Christmas.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

October 3rd

So day three of the challenge and I'm a litle late getting my post up but today was Brian's day off and we did some chores around the house and then we watched a little football.  We also took a nap today too. I love a lazy Sunday.  I also did some reading today. I have started reading the Sue Grafton novels.  I finished A is for Alibi.  I really liked, it was a fast read. I started on the next book in the series, B is for Burglar.  So far so good, I am only on chapter 3.  According to Brian all I read is vampire books but that is not true, I love a good mystery novel as well as some horror books too but only when I am in the mood for a scare.

Now a question for all you ladies doing our little challenge.  Brian and I were discussing house chores today, usually I wait until the weekend to do all my house work how do you handle all your chores? Do you do something everyday so that your weekend is not filled with so much cleaning or are you like me do you do it all on the weekend?  Every week I keep saying I am going to do a little bit each day so that I can have more free time during the weekend but I just end up doing it like I always do. 

I will leave you with a few pictures that I took in May. Brian and I took a spur of the moment trip to the Lake Pleasant and had a picnic.  We took our chocolate Lab Cletus with us. It was such a fun afternoon.




 

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Day 2

So it is day two of our 31 days of blogging.  I am proud of myself for starting off on a good note by blogging on day 1 and 2! 

My Mom's birthday was on 9/27 and a while back she said that she wanted to frame some of the finger paintings that Johnathan did.  So I framed one for her and gave it to her for her birthday.  I think it turned out cute.  Tell me what you think.


That's it for today! I will be blogging tomorrow!!

Friday, October 1, 2010

31 days of October Blog Challenge

Over at one of my favorite scrappy homes Scrapbook Doodle we were issued a personal challenge by Karen to see if we could blog each day of the month of October.  For Karen it is to celebrate a special month leading up a favorite holiday of hers and her family, yup you guessed it Halloween. 

I thought since I am trying to blog on a more consistent basis this is the PERFECT challenge for me.  It has turned out that several of the Doodle girls are also participating this month.  I am going to share the list so you can enjoy the ramblings of all of us ladies for this entire month. 


To make it easy I am going make a special place on my blog to all of their blogs so you can zip on over to each one whenever you feel like to see what they are up to this month.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Remembering...

The 2nd of September is my Tata's (grandfather's) birthday.  He would have been 101 years old.  Our Lord gave him 100 years on this Earth and he left us in March of this year. 

He he married my Nana (grandmother)when I was about 7 or 8 years old and made her so happy.  They had many adventures together and we got hear all about them when they came home from one of their many trips.

It's amazing to me that she found her soul mate later in life, it goes to show that every person has the one person that they were meant to be with.  I am so grateful that she found him and that they had many years of happiness together.  We were blessed to have him in our family and in our lives and even more blessed that he loved us like we were his grandchildren.  For this reason and because of the happiness he gave to my Nana I just wanted to say happy birthday to you Tata and that we think of you often.


This is a Lay out I did quite a while ago (the design isn't mine it came from a sketch and I don't remember the website to give credit) but I thought a picture would be appropriate to share with people of the my Tata.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Lucky Me...

One of my favorite scrappy hang outs Simply Obsessed had a birthday blog hop and I followed the hop and let me say there is so much talent over there! I got lots of awesome inspiration.  The best part of just hopping from blog to blog looking at a bunch of great projects was that I won a prize for doing it! It was a happy surprise for me to this prize.  Here's what I won, the July kit:


I just started working with the kit and let me tell you the picture does not do the papers justice.  It was so fun doing my first LO with this kit and to the design for the LO is not my own I got it from the August Sketch challenge over at Simply Obsessed blog.  Here's my first LO with kit and I will share more once I finish them.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Thoughts 2 Paper Sketch Challenge

There is an easy way to win one the new pink ATG gun's! If you love sketches then this is the perfect challenge for you.  Go here to see the challenge at the Thougths 2 Paper blog.  Here's my my take on this challenge.  Thank you to Del for the great sketch.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Tough Decision

Last week was such a stressful time for Brian and I.  One of our dogs was really sick so we took him to the vet and found out that he has a heart murmur.  To top it off they found a foreign object in his belly.  His situation was so severe that the vet wanted us to take Moose to a cardiologist the next day.  Of course we had no choice, he was just so sick and he looked unhappy (for a lack of a better word). 

The cardiologist told us that he was surprised that the murmur hadn't been detected before because it has probably been there since birth.  Not only does he have the heart defect but the doctor also saw a mass on his liver.  He was just surprised to see so much going on such a young dog.  He gave us such a dim future for our little friend.  He has at the most 2 years with a few medications that he will be on for the rest of his short life.  We could do a surgery to try and repair the holes in his heart but there is no guarantee that he will have any longer of a life span or if he will even survive the surgery.  This was a pretty tough decision for us but we decided that we will just keep him on the meds and love him and make sure he has the best life for as long as God lets us keep him on this Earth.

Some would think why care so much about an animal, well the truth of the matter is that we love our dogs like children.  They all hold a special place in our hearts and we would do just about anything for our dogs.

Besides could you resist a face like this?


He is a special boy and we love and adore our little Moose and he will be the most spoiled French Bulldog ever!  We will be positive about the situation and hope that God gives more time than the doctor gave him.

On a lighter note, I promised in my last post to show a few of the Lay Out's I have been doing since I starting blogging again.  Here we go, this is what I have done recently. 









On that note... until I share again, thanks for stopping by.

Friday, August 20, 2010

I am back!

It has been quite some time since I posted anything on my blog and as you can see it is a work in progress right so bear with me as I make my changes over the next few weeks.


A brief update on what's been going on in my little world...


I took some time off from anything scrap related. Then a couple of my friends got interested in it and that got me started again. I have been enjoying creating cards and LO's with my girlfriends. It made me remember why I started this wonderful hobby in the first place. I will share a few of my most recent creations shortly.


During my blogging/scrapping break we have had two weddings and a new addition to our family. I have a new brother-in-law, sister-in-law and a nephew. He is just a little crack up. I am still trying to teach him how to say my name, that's a work in progress.

My sister and her little boy are here in our lovely state for an extended stay while her better half is renovating their new home. It has been really nice having her so close again.

In a nutshell that is what has been going on, so stay tuned for a post with my recent creations!