Ohhhh no, SNOW!

Yes, it has snowed here. Tuesday was the first sight of any, but now this morning it had laid enough to have to shovle it. Not my favorite thing to do, but I went out and did it. I think today I kind of was eager to do it since it's our first snow fall here at our new house and I got to shovle "our" driveway for the first time... but I know the second, third, fourth X's etc... will not but such a welcome chore! Anyway, I shoveled about 3 hours ago and we only had about 3-4 inches, but now as I'm typing and looking out the window, I see the snow is falling again. It is always so breathtaking to see the first snow of the season sticking to the trees and brightening everything around, but I'm the kind who is satisfied with that first snow fall only. If it were up to me, I'd have no more of it until Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and after that... good-bye snow... farewell!

Yesterday I went along with my mom to her doctor's appointment and we also had lunch and did a bit of shopping. We went to Cracker Barrel and I had my favorite chicken and dumplins. They are sooo yummy there! And of course I love their gift shoppe, esp. around the Fall and Christmas seasons. Every year I always look for new ornaments to add to our family collection, and Cracker Barrel usually have a ton of sweet ornaments there, so I spent some time admiring their decorated trees to see what I liked. I ended up buying 2 of these sweet angel ornaments, one for Ava and one for Amelia...

For the past 2 Christmas's we've been collecting various ornaments in remembrance of Ava, and the day after Christmas last year, I bought a white christmas tree to use from here on out to display all of her special ornaments. Now we'll be hanging our dear Amelia's decorations on that tree too. I am going to get a fine tip gold paint pen to write the girl's names on each, but I'm quite happy with my first ornament purchases of the year! I'll be looking for more :)

Thought I'd also share 2 other cute items I picked up yesterday. Our new bedroom comforter set is browns and aqua-blues and I found this rockin' brown damask throw pillow that match in with the set really well... ya know, stripes for the guy, and a little damask for the girl!!

I have really been loving the damask pattern designs lately for both decorating and scrapbooking... just as much as paisley I think! So I thought it was really cool that I found a fab looking flocked damask candle holder too that matched my pillow...

On another happy note, we finally have our mattress and boxsprings ordered for our new bed! We've been sleeping in our guest-bedroom for the past 3 months and felt it was about time that we be able to enjoy our own "new" bedroom and bedroom furniture. I can not wait to get this mattress because it will be like sleeping on a cloud... it's that cozy and plush! It will be delivered on Tuesday, so after I get the bed all put together I'll snap some photos to post.

I also thought that I'd post my first pieces of work that I completed last month for the CX DT! These all used the BasicGrey Eva collection of papers and the Cuttlebug and Cricut Expressions machine. The tutorials and supplies for all my projects and others from the Design Team can be viewed over at the CreativeXpress.com forums CX Academy under the CX DT Projects...

There really are some wonderful and unique ideas over there for scrapping, and we've really been concentrating lately in getting the most and best use out of fun tools such as the Cricut (regular machine, Expressions and Design Studio) and the Provo Cuttlebug machines. So if you are in need of some new ideas or just would like to be inspired with something creative you can always head on over to CX! I'm always amazed by things I find there on a daily basis. :)