Happy Friday everyone!

first up...the winner of the RAK. for the life of me i can't figure out how to do a screen shot of who random.org chose as the winner, so please trust me when i tell you it was #42.

Lisa T. Howard said...how lucky I would be to be the recipient of your leftovers!!! The sneak peeks have me so excited about seeing the full projects...can't wait! 3:54PM

so congrats Lisa!!! please shoot me an email at brains32192@aol.com with your address so i can get your goodies out to you this weekend!!

second up...tonight is Reveal Night at Studio Calico!! look at all of the loveliness that awaits you in the Garment District... not too shabby, eh?!

we'll be there as always, chatting the evening away until midnight EST when everything is available for purchase...including some of those great new Fiskars border punches AND an oval punch or two that many have claimed are hard to find! (i love mine...bought it on a whim on a trip to Michigan and have been having fun with it.) come join us in welcoming Maggie and Tina to our team...and i can't WAIT to see what Keisha has come up with as our Guest for the month!

did i forget to mention that there will be a few giveaways as well??

hope to see you there...it's sure to be a blast!

giveaway + last sneaks.

so as i was putting away the remains of my March SC kit, i realized i have tons of tidbits that i should share witih someone. like this... and this...

so i'm offering a RAK...just post a comment anytime between now and this Friday morning, 9 am EST...and i'll send a box of goodness your way! (note: please U.S. addresses only...this box is kind of hefty, and i'll be shipping with a Priority Mail box.) many of the embellies are unopened/untouched...as are some of the papers. i have thrown in some papers that may have been cut to 8.5x11, or 6x12...just because i can't bear to throw them away and they are still awesome, but i just don't have the room, lol.

so i'll leave it at that...with my last 2 sneaks to keep you thinking about 'Garment District' and all it has to offer, lol.

have a great week!!

Garment District sneaks...*sigh*

as mentioned before, this kit has replaced 'Times Square' as my all-time fave thus far. it was a tight squeeze, but it has officially edged out the competition, lol. here are a few sneaks to get you all in a tither, because i don't want to be the only one spazzing out about the fabulousness of this one. wait...are those...?? YES...they are!!

i have mad love for this kit.

and i'm not finished.

gotta go...my desk is calling me back.

love.

so in the spirit of the day...Happy Valentine's Day if you happen to be reading this!

i thought i'd just make a quick list of a few things i love.

first off, the March kit for Studio Calico... this is just a sneaky peek of the main kit, but i have to profess my love for the whole dang thing. really...this kit grabbed me as soon as i pulled it out of the box and instantly made me want to sit down and make something fun. and i am ready to confess that it has replaced Times Square (Jan. 2008) as my all-time fave SC kit. which is a big deal, because that one had held onto the title for 14 months...so you know i'm serious about this one.

now even though we (mike & i) don't really exchange gifts today, we still like to get something fun for Allie. this pic shows what Grandma showed up with earlier today...

Emily (her American Girl doll) got a new Valentine's dress with shoes and necklace, and Allie loves her gift cards, so Grandma scored a home run with this one, lol. add the fur-trimmed bag to the mix and she was gushing for 20 minutes, lol.

we have reached the age when she has started to ask for certain types of clothes. and while she still is content with just about whatever i buy, she has been wanting a hoodie from Aeropostale since Christmas. so i went to the mall to scope things out and found the lovely pink number below for only $14.99...when i say the girl wigged out, i mean she WIGGED OUT. the necklace was a whopping $1.99 from there as well, and i'm thinking we'll be seeing lots of that in the months to come, lol. did i mention how she braided her wet hair into 12 different braids last night and then slept with them in so she could have, and i quote, 'beautiful wavy hair'?? i remember doing the exact same thing...it's funny how little details like that provide me with undeniable proof that she belongs to me, lol.

Mom is staying with Allie this evening while Mike & i go to a fund raiser at Jenn's boys' school. it's always in february, and this year it just happened to fall on V-Day. if you've never been to 'A Night at the Races' kinda deal, it really is a blast...taped horse races that you 'bet' on and yummy food all night long. as soon as each race starts the place goes nuts and you'd think we were at Belmont cheering our pony on to win the Trifecta, lol.

i love spring clothing. went shopping yesterday with mom and i have to say that it is fun again to shop for clothes, lol. now if only the weather would thaw out so i could whip out those capris...

i love the color green. any shade really, but chartreuse is my fave.

i love my friends both near and far. and i love that through the wonder of technology i can talk with them every single day even though they are spread out all over the globe.

i love my job. how many people can say this?

i love the memories i have of our family while i was a wee one.

i love Mexican food. enough said.

i love to make people laugh. if we're together and i get a chuckle out of you, then i've succeeded in my mission, lol.

but most of all, i love these two...

they are my world.

they are my light on a bad day.

they are my reason for everything i do.

they make it all worthwhile.

love you both.

grace under pressure.

all of a sudden, this girl has it.

we have all had an incident where we felt like we did the most embarassing thing EVER...and just couldn't recoup, right?

she had one this morning when i dropped her off at school.

we drop her off on a side street that has a nice paved pathway to the 4th grade doors...and even though we've had some warmer weather here the last few days to melt away most of the snow we had, the part at the curb where everyone steps out of their cars has been packed into a nice ice chunk.

you can imagine what happened next, right?

she stepped out of the car, planted her foot on that ice chunk and slid right down onto her right side.

on the ground.

the wet, wet ground.

she popped right up, and looked at me with tears welling in her eyes...like she was trying to hold it in. so i pulled into the driveway next to the path and opened the door. she climbed in and took one look at me and started to cry.

which made me want to cry, because i don't let anyone cry alone.

(really, i don't...ask anyone)

but i held it in, and brushed the dirt off of her pants, handed her a tissue for her hand that got scraped up and told her she was fine.

and she looked at me...horrified. like i was completely clueless.

'but Mom, EVERYONE saw me...i'm so embarassed. i can't go in there now!'

and i told her to pull herself together, brush it off and march in there like nothing had happened.

and she looked at me like i was nuts, lol.

but she took a deep breath, squeezed the water out of her pant leg from the puddle she fell into and did just that.

and i sat there for a second, in case she turned around for a bit of reassurance.

but it wasn't necessary...she took off and never looked back.

and then i cried a bit, lol.

because i realized that she is starting to remember those words of wisdom that we share with her randomly. i have had this conversation with my friend Steph a few times recently...we're both a bit versed in the clutzy arena, and her motto is to 'pick yourself up, do your pageant wave and laugh at yourself.' great advice...a year or two ago, Allie would have completely melted down. but now she is beginning to see that stuff like this is bound to happen, so you may as well just pick up and move on.

that is, until she becomes a teenager and we start all of this over again, lol.

me & my girl.

it's just one of those days i suppose.

the kind where i can't get her off my mind.

which is totally fine, but it makes me wish she was home today.

(which she should be, but the Elyria City School system decided to be heroes and keep school open today despite the 10 inches of snow that were dumped on us overnight. i feel sorry for those poor kids who have to walk to school...not everyone was crazy like us and got up early to plow out the driveway and sidewalk.)

i know i've said it before...she & i have our ups and downs. like any mom/daughter duo, right? and i know it's because we're so alike that it's frightening. (poor Mike...i'm telling ya, he is a saint.) but yesterday i kept her home from school because she was sick.

AGAIN.

pretty much a continuation of the crud she had in December and January...with just a few good days thrown in to trick us into thinking she was getting better. so we went to see her doctor yesterday, and honestly she looked terrible. watery eyes, red cheeks, and that pathetic look on her face.

it was one of those times when your heart absolutely aches for your baby...even though she's almost 10.

so after listening to her lungs for quite some time, and hearing her cough incessantly while examining her, she diagnosed her with just another cold.

ay yi yi.

prescribed her some Nasonex nasal spray and we were off to the pharmacy. had to make one more pit stop and she looked at me in the car and said 'mama, can we please go home now?'

and it clicked.

i'm not sure if it was the way she said it, or the look in her eyes...but i couldn't get home fast enough.

so we got home and laid in bed together...we each had a book and i just kept on petting her hair and rubbing her back until she fell asleep for a bit. it wasn't for very long, but she needed to just rest.

she was perkier after that...and went back to school today with hardly any cough. that miracle nose spray must have opened her up enough to let all of that yucky stuff drain out, so no more throat irritation = no more cough.

either that, or she was totally faking it because she was way stressed about missing the book fair today.

(she is SO my child, lol.)

but anyway, i've just got Allie on the brain today. check out what was waiting on my desk for me when i got home from CHA last week at midnight...

i should explain that while i was away, she was kind of hysterical on the phone because 'somehow some red paint got on my new white hoodie Mom...what am i gonna do???'...and i questioned her about it, but told her to chill, because we could fix it, no big deal. i did however press her on how the paint 'magically' jumped onto the hoodie, but she was pretty evasive...now i know why. she was in the midst of this Welcome Home masterpiece ensemble...and didn't want to ruin the surprise. did i ask why she painted an empty toilet paper roll for me?? nope. but it's sitting on the shelf right above my desk as a reminder that she was thinking of me while i was gone.

then there was this one i found over the weekend. she's sneaky like that...she'll hide something she's made somewhere where i won't find it right away, and she even manages to keep it a secret. this may be my fave Allie Original ever. i mean come on...she experimented with markers and figured out that if you shake them up and down really fast over paper, they splatter like this. THEN, she let them air bomb from a few inches above the paper to add another element.

my favorite part though is most definitely the 'you rock' note at the top.

thanks Al...i think you're pretty awesome too.

xoxo

hello 36.

only thing missing today was the party hat, lol.
:)