I ate Baby Octopus tonight!

I have to share, we went out to eat tonight and took the boys to Lins. It is a Chinese buffet place, Jon and I have eaten there before, but this was the first time for the boys. This type of place is perfect for our youngest, Mr Aaron has a hard time sitting still for very long!


At Lins they have this Baby Octopus dish and I had commented that if they weren't served with Jalopenas I would probably try one. Low and behold hubby comes back with one on his plate. I honestly think he did not expect me to eat it! Well I did and it was pretty chewy and really had no taste, the only fuss was both boys making yucky faces and being totally grossed out because Mom had eaten an octopus!

,

My Hubby

Continuing on introducing my family, tonight's post is about my Hubby. The love of my life, this man has been my rock. Who would of thought that 11 years ago the words "Can you make me Smile" would lead me to find the man of my dreams!

Jon was born September 16th 1971 in Silver City, New Mexico. He is the youngest of 5 siblings and grew up in New Mexico until he moved to Alaska at 17. Jon graduated High School in Alaska and lived in Eagle River, till he joined the USAF in 1993. Joining the Air Force as an Information Management Specialist, Jon served for 6 and 1/2 years and was stationed across Europe and the US. In 1998 while I was in Ohio as a Nanny, Jon was stationed in Germany, and thanks to the internet we became email buddies. 3 months later Jon was stationed back to the US, thanks to a mistake with his orders, and he suggested that we meet. What a blind date that was! And without sounding sappy, it was love at first sight.

After retiring from the Air Force in 1999, Jon moved to England, and we married in 2000. We returned to the US in 2002 and moved to Jon's home state of New Mexico.

Jon is a wonderful husband, and is an amazing father. He is the calming wave in our family, my sturdy rock. Once you get to know my hubby, the man has a wicked sense of humor that will leave you crying with laughter.

There isn't a day that doesn't go by that the man has me in stitches, but on the flip side the man is a computer genius. Which is why if you saw our closest you would understand the array of computer parts that inhabit the shelves! and why we have more computers than we do TV's in our house. But I wouldn't have it any other way, and I am so glad that 11 years ago I replied to "Can you make me smile" because I have been smiling ever since!

All about me!

So I figured seeing as I was doing really well at keeping up with my blog (yeah I know the year is still young!) I would take a step back so to speak and introduce not only myself but my family.

Today’s entry is all about me!

I am 34 years young (well try to be) and was born just across the River Mersey in Birkenhead, England on November 3^rd 1974. I come from a family of cops and I have a younger brother and during the 70’s the Liverpool area was not exactly the best area to raise a family, so when I was 2 my Mom and Dad moved us all down to the southern part of England. To a village in the heart of the New Forest called Lyndhurst. I spent 19 years there before leaving home for the big wide world.

I have been a Chef, a Nanny, a Hotel Manager, and a Coffee Shop Manager, but now I am very lucky to be doing a job I truly love. Yes people being a Stay at Home Mom is a job! My day is filled with Blues Clues, ABC’s, puzzles and playdoh! I am a Mom to 2 boys, aged 8 and 3 and wife to a wonderful man, who is not just my husband but my best friend. I watch far too much TV (thank goodness for DVR’s) I love to read James Patterson Novels, and I love chick flicks and musicals. My hobbies include crafting and tracing my family history.

I have a very dry, sarcastic sense of humor, and I need a good cry once in awhile, I am not a girly girl, and I am finally realizing that I have mild OCD…………………and folks that is pretty much me!

I made 150 of these!

This Saturday is the annual Blue and Gold Banquet for Cub Scouts. For those that read this that haven't a clue what I am talking about, every year in Feb the Cub Scouts have an awards banquet were the boys get there rank badge that they have been working towards and the older boys cross over into Boy Scouts. The theme every year is different and it is a great couple of hours of fun and friendship. This year the theme is American ABC's, and the pack we are with now sends out invitations for the event. So the crafty chick that I am came up with the above invitations. It was one of those deals were I went yeah I will do the invitations, sure 150 no problem! When I came up with the shaped idea, the fact that I would have to cut out 150 really didn't cross my mind, until I started, by about the 50th one I was thinking why did I come up with this idea! But I got all 150 done and they were greatly received.
I did all the graphics on my computer and I was able to get 2 to one piece of card, the only hard think was the cutting out!

Balloons!

This weekend was the Friends & Lovers Balloon Rally here in Rio Rancho, and my son's Cub Scout Pack where fundraising for their Scout Accounts selling coffee, hot chocolate and donuts to the Balloon teams, and anyone else who was brave enough to get up at the crack of dawn! At 4:30am when the alarm went off this morning to be honest my first instinct was to switch it off and go back to sleep. But we had signed up to help and trying not to wake everyone else, Brendan and I headed out. I had been to the area the day before, but it was sure different first thing in the morning when it was still dark. It was very cold this morning, but the parents, leaders and scouts that where there soon got to setting up waiting for the crowds wanting there hot cup of coffee, or hot chocolate. Oh and there was plenty of people, the marquee was packed!

The Weather report was issued just before 8am and within a minute the marquee emptied and Brendan and I ventured outside to watch as the Balloon Teams set too inflating and heading off in the sky's above.

For Brendan and I it was the first time we had ever been this close to see them actually inflate the hot air balloons and watch them take off. It was really exciting, plus Brendan got to go around to the different teams and collect the Balloon trading cards. Despite the cold, and the sand, after watching the sky fill with all the different balloons, I am glad I got up this morning!

My First ETSY sale

In amongst all the craziness of last week, I had a pleasant surprise in my inbox. An email notifying me of my first Etsy sale! I was very excited, because I sold one of my recipe books (my new craft) The customer in Georgia LOVED it and has contacted me about making some more for her, which I am so excited about. I opened up my Etsy store last August, but wasn't really 100% in do doing it, but after the craft fairs I decided to try this year and give it a go.
Here are pictures of the one I sold:

What a week!

WOW what a week I have had. Monday night hubby spent 11 hours at the ER at the Veterans Hospital! and I thought the NHS was bad. Tuesday morning he had appointments with Orthopedics, and he calls me from work on Wednesday to say that he was having surgery on Thursday. Hubby had torn the meniscus in his knee, this stems from an old injury from when he was in the Air Force, and last Friday his knee locked and he couldn't bend his knee. So after getting a rather fancy knee brace and consults he was rushed in for knee surgery first thing on Thursday. It has been a whirlwind week, tiring and exhausting, but I am glad the surgery went well and that hubby got to come home the same day. So I am now adding nurse to my list of duties :0)

England got Snow!!!! OMG

Today is my Mom's birthday, so the boys and I rang her at work this morning before my eldest headed off for the bus stop. During the conversation the words "we got snow" were uttered and I did a double take, did my Mom just say she got snow!
Growing up across the pond, I only vividly remember one winter of snow, I think I was about 6 and we were at Granny's house in Kent. So after talking to my Mom this morning I checked out some of the news sites I read from back home, and it seemed that my poor old home country had a national snow day! I wanted to share some of the pics I found, I love the snow and bearing in mind living in the middle of the desert, we don't get a lot, but when we do I am the first to go out and play in it!

This poor PC is going to need a cup of tea!





Only in England do you build a Dalek instead of a snowman!

From all accounts they are suppose to get more snow, brings back memories of the snow we had here in New Mexico back in 2006. Now bearing in mind the folks back home are not really use to this much snow, unless you live in Scotland, parts of Kent and in Yorkshire. Most of these pictures I have shared with you are from the London area and I can only imagine the havoc that the white stuff caused!

My new craft!

On my travels on the Craft Fair scene this past Holiday season I found these hand made recipes books. Being the crafter I am the words"oh I can do that" popped into my head and I set about making some. With my own spin on them and coming up with different recipe sets I decided that all of the family would get one for Christmas. So the British side of the family all got All American Recipe books and the American side of the family got Great British Recipes! They were greatly received and I had so much fun making them. My final craft fair last year I made a few to sell and they did really well. Some of the sets that I came up with were Coffee Lovers Recipes, King of the BBQ Recipes, Christmas Recipes and Luck of the Irish recipe books.

When I first started making these I had most of the supplies already in the house the only thing I had to buy was a Glue Runner, which is a FAB tool! Each of the books holds 12 recipe cards. I just recently stocked my etsy store with some of these. One of the best things I like about making these is they are fairly easy and straight forward to make, but unique.