Blog challenge # 11

Suzanne's challenge for this week is to:

Surprise! Write about a time you were surprised and why you do or don’t like surprises.

This last Christmas I got huge surprise. I had just gotten up about 6:45, had my coffee and was just sitting down to my computer when I saw some headlights going really slow. I thought to myself, oh the neighbors must be having some early company. Then I saw another set of headlights and I yelled to Phil, "get up, the kids are here."

My plans for the day were to wrap Christmas presents and make pies. I hate not having my kids there for Christmas, it just doesn't seem the same. I figured by wrapping presents it would at least feel a little more like Christmas.

So Phil and I are trying like crazy to get all the presents moved into our bedroom, we succeeded but no time for getting myself prettied up.

There was a knock at the door and when I opened it, I hear "Merry Christmas" by 4 of the most adorable little faces. As the door opened further, here were my 2 kids with their spouses and all of my 4 grandkids, as well as my mother. Soon to follow was my ex-mother-in-law and ex-sister-in-law. I am sure the look on my face was priceless and was captured on video (thanks Jon)

In order to get presents wrapped, Todd, Phil and I were in the bedroom wrapping as fast as we could and Zach was cutting tags with my sizzix so we could label them, not one gift got messed up (maybe I should hurry more often). It had to be one of the worst wrapping jobs in the world but no one cared.

Ally came up to me and said, "grandma your hair is kind of wild this morning." It still makes me chuckle to hear her say that.

I love surprises and I have to say, I wasn't expecting this one and I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas. The whole family together.

YITL-Garden

I choose this picture from the Butchart Gardens in British Columbia. We toured this while on our trip to Settle for my niece's wedding 4 years ago. It was the most beautiful garden I have ever seen.

My Style

What is my style, whatever my mood is at that time period. I don't follow the pack, I do what I like. My kids will tell you that I am not afraid of color and I will use it in any room at any time. I like things bright and cheery, white is just too boring for me. If I lived in a house all by myself and didn't have to worry about any males, it would be all victorian. I love the flowers, ruffles, and design that goes along with victorian. I am having one room in the house victorian and Phil says he will stay out of it.

I am not afraid to experiment, if I don't like it, I just paint over it. It's just the cost of a little paint and effort to try something new and different, you might just like it.

The same holds true with my scrapping, I tend not follow what every one else does. I can see layouts in my head and even though they don't always come out the way I see them, I still try. I have trouble following sketches because my mind doesn't think like that. I do what I like what and what seems to fit Colleen best. I don't ask that you like it but just to know how much I enjoy creating what I do.

Buddies

Josh and Tyler. This layout was done on a layout tag for Scrap Dango Monday night. Aren't they little cuties.

Blog Challenge #10

We are suppose to write about and/or show a picture of our junk drawer. I have to say probably the first time in over 35 years I don't have a junk drawer. Since moving we haven't had time to establish a junk drawer yet and if I can help it, there won't be one. Everything will have a place and be put in that place.

White challenge

A challenge on Scrap Dango today was to do a layout using all white. At first I thought, no way but once I got started, the layout just came all together and I love it.

Escape-YITL 9

My escape would be back to the most beautiful island of Aruba