Memories of Mom and How I Want My Kids to See Me

It has been 16 years today since Mom passed. But I'm not that sad, I choose to remember the fun and wonderful times and not focus on the sadness of this day. It was only one terrible, horrible day compared to a lifetime of wonderful, happy memories.
Cruising the photo albums today and what did I find? This gem. My mother in all her wacky glory...who gets this excited about sticking their head through a toilet seat I ask you? It's gotta be one special woman, right? LOL

Carly and I spent some time today watching old home videos of my Mom (who of course passed away long before little Carly was born) and laughing our butts off.
Was my mother perfect? Of course not, but she was close enough for me. I hope and pray that someday my kids will look back and feel about me the way that I feel about her.
I leave you today with the request that you take a few moments to think of your Mom, or a mother figure in your life, take joy in their presence in your life whether they are still with you or not.
Here is a layout I did a long time ago about my Mom, I might have shared it here before, I can't remember.

I also leave one that I completed yesterday (my apologies for the crappy photo of it, it's the best I could get for now) that talks about just how I want my kids to think of me.
As always, just click on the photo to make it bigger if you care to read the journalling
Have a wonderful day everyone!

It Ain't Right, G'Day Mate, and Silly String

I have to say it just ain't right that my children are so photogenic and every picture of me is horrific. Check it out, 3 kids with gorgeous blue eyes and angelic looks...check it out a mom with atleast 3 chins and a spare tire around her belly, and no that is not where my boobs normally are...it was the weekend, a girl shouldn't have to wear one of those things on the weekend..



We'll blame it on the fact that I was wearing my old sweats, and old sweatshirt and my niece's jacket. We'll also blame it on the way I am slouched so totally unladylike in that chair.
In reality,I am a very svelte lady, just so you know....... (I also have some prime real estate in the Brooklyn Bridge area if you are interested...)



Anyhooooooooo, This photo is of my niece Megan, nephew Tim, and of course my rugrats, Evan,Carly and Logan. Point of interest...Megan is heading to Australia in days. She is going as a volunteer and will be working at the Wildlife Walkabout Park just outside of Sydney for 2 weeks, and then spending 2 weeks doing those death-defying activities like white water rafting, rock climbing etc that I am way too much of a fraidy kat to do LOL Gonna miss her tons g'day mate!

And look what Megan did on Saturday night to her parents' nice clean house...she attacked...completely unprovoked...with silly string, see how she almost got it all over her brother Tim's plate and his friend Stephanie's plate? How rude LOL. It wasn't me...honest it wasn't... okay so it was my idea, but she didn't argue when I told her to grab the other can and help me LOL

Evan says

"You are the worst mom ever, and you have ruined my whole life"...sigh....another morning in the Waller household.
What prompted this statement? Well, apparently today is "Twin Day" at school...I know it's a ridiculous idea but the teacher in charge of "spirit days" is a coconut head to say the least..anyway, I digress.
Apparently Evan made arrangements with his buddy Bailey to wear the pants they both have (which ones? how the h*ll should I know???) and didn't tell me. So after a week of reminding him to get his dirty clothes picked up off his floor and put in the hamper to be washed, he finally did it last night. Now it would appear that the aforementioned pants were not washed...thus I am horrible. Oh well, crap happens...that should be his biggest problem today, right?
But...alas...my Evan is always the first(and usually the ONLY) of the kids (or husbands) in this house to admit he is wrong. He walked about 200 feet towards the bus this morning, came running back in the house, gave me a big hug and said "you know I didn't mean it Mom, you're the best....can you rent Zelda for Wii today?")...sighhhhhhhhhhhh Now I could of course think he was only sucking up, but today I am feeding on delusions and have chosen to believe that the whole Zelda thing was just a coincidence...
Well gotta run and put on my rose-colored glasses and head to the video store...Zelda, here I come!

I'll admit it..right here...I'm not afraid to say it...

I am not perfect, I am not a super mom, but I'm a damned good mom.
I read a lot of blogs and sometimes it just annoys me. Why can't people
admit they aren't perfect? Why do they always paint these rosy pictures
that their lives and families are absolutely ideal? Let's get real folks, everyone has a bad day, everyone has something that isn't going exactly right, don't they?
I'm not a Dr Phil fan, I find him to be condescending and just plain annoying, but I caught a bit of his show late last night on the dish and wanted to reach out and smack both him and his wife. I've always admired his wife, she seems so together and real (isn't that his catch phrase "get real"), well maybe they should
Phil's wife Robin said that never once in the entire lives of their children did she ever raise her voice to them, NOT EVER!!!!!!!!!! Anyone buying that? I sure as heck am not. There is no way in heck they raised 2 boys to adulthood without at least once in their lives yelling...bah humbug......

Boy, I am really on a tangent today, huh?
Moving on, be back later with something more interesting and relevant to say...just needed to get that off my chest....now I think I'll go yell at my children LOL (just kidding, even me with all my faults don't yell at the kids when they don't deserve it **wink**)

Oh and to prove that my kids love me with all my faults, here's a few pages of the "My Mother" book my 6 year old son Evan made for me. Also in the bottom photo is a gorgeous wooden tulip that my 5 year old daughter Carly made for me. SO THERE DR PHIL AND ROBIN

13 years on the 13th

Today, the 13th of May is my 13th wedding anniversary, do you think that's bad luck? LOL
I think Paul should give me 13 presents just to offset it, don't you agree?
Not much to say today, but I'll share a crappy scan of one of my wedding photos and a few layouts I did awhile ago that seems fitting today somehow.
Have a great day everyone!
There's another layout I wanted to share but can't find it on my computer right now, I'll have to go searching.
Again, to see the pics bigger, you can just click on them

Mother's Day...Gotta Love it

Well that is 2 hours of my life I will never get back LOL

Trying to upload the video of Carly's concert with no luck, I think it might have worked on you tube, but who the heck knows.

Anyway, hopefully you can see this, she is just too darned adorable in her High School Musical T-shirt, isn't she?

CRAZY busy....

Starting to figure out the winners of our Lovebug online crop for NSBD, so too busy to type today.

How about some eye candy? Here are the 4 layouts that I completed out of the 26....not such a hot average, is it? LOL but in my defense, I was a tad busy making sure everyone else got lots done

You can click on the image to enlarge them and hopefully make out the journalling if you are so inclined

Have a great day everyone!

Shout Out to my girl Kirsten!!!!! And Happy NSBD!!!

The internet is an amazing thing!
Through an online scrapping community I met a girl, and this girl is a sister that God forgot to give me(of course not to lessen my love for my real sister...see how I save myself there? *wink*).
She is my soul sister, so much like me it is almost frightening...or atleast it would be if it wasn't so darned awesome
Kirsten, my dear, sweet friend. I miss you to death and can't wait until we find time to get together again. Know that I think of you all the time and you are the BEST baby!!!!!! I was so happy to get your email today, gave me the biggest smile I have had for a long time.

Oh and a reminder tomorrow is National Scrapbooking Day. Come and celebrate with me and the rest of the Lovebugs. Our online crop starts tonight at 7 pm CST and will run until midnight with new challenges each hour. Challenge posting will begin again Saturday morning at 9 am CST and run until midnight again. We've got lots of challenges, make and takes, games, surprises, prizes and fun going on. On and an amazing sale in the STORE too! (Did I mention that with the sale you can earn goodie bags AND get guilt-free shopping in June?)**And if this is your first time shopping at Lovebug, be sure to tell Denise in the comments section of your order that I sent you. Nice to let the boss know you are doing a good job, kwim?