marie, toulouse, and berliose

these are pics of the babies at three weeks old! look at the blue-eyed ones!

lo siento

sorry all! it's been a crazy week(i know, and it's barely half over!). i did manage to post on my fairy stampin' mother blog for the blog candy contest but i didn't get to get it all decorated, so i don't have pics of the prize yet~so tune in over there for a pic of that on friday.
tomorrow is my colonoscopy, so today has been a very hard day with preparing for that.
i did manage to get pics of the little ones. so look to the post above this one.
i'll be back on friday once i sleep off the anesthesia. have a great thursday!
abrazos,
bella

mi flora es

I am a Snapdragon What Flower Are You?

coming soon...

to a fairy stampin' mother blog near you~ blog candy! tune in monday for more information on that blog candy contest on my fairy stampin' mother blog.

also, i won't be posting over the weekend. i'll just be visiting su! and ctmh sister blogs~i've gotten behind on that and i want to check up on all of them! whatever i make over the weekend, i'll post on monday!
feliz fin de semana

abrazos,
bella

102 minutes that changed america

yes, i was up late again last night! i couldn't sleep because too many awesome things were on t.v. i totally had to watch them because i missed them earlier in the day.
well, before i drifted off to sleep(after watching the replay of oprah) i watched a documentary on the history channel called "102 minutes that changed america". it was really deep and heartbreaking. it's like you can't help but cry as you watch your brothers and sisters deeply engulfed in a major tragedy and you can't turn away from watching everything unfold though you're helpless to help. it's like watching "the titanic", though you know the outcome, you totally keep hoping and praying everyone will be saved.
one thing that was remarkable in my mind as i watched the firefighters preparing to go into the second tower after the first one had fallen(my eyes couldn't help welling up with tears as i looked at their beautiful velvety black uniforms with the yellow striping and neon yellow reflector stripe patches) i thought they just looked like superheroes in black uniforms marching off to save the day~no one could have expected they'd be going in too late and the next tower would be collapsing within minutes/seconds. then as i watched the firefighters that were able to make it out after that tower fell,(huffing for air and needing water because of the gray billowing smoke~and still their then gray ashen uniforms were still beautiful to me), i cried so hard as they were just in shock knowing they just came out without some of their brothers. i don't think one ever wants to witness a person "go crazy" right before their eyes and i saw some "civilians" do just that as others were running away from the huge cloud of gray smoke, glass, and other debris. i hope we won't ever experience anything like that ever again.
sometimes i've pondered why certain stations air documentaries on the tragedy year after year since it occurred and last night it hit me that it's because we need to be mindful of it~every year so that we can stay awake and do our best to prevent that from happening to us ever again. i've heard it said that 'if you don't remember your history you leave yourself open to make the same horrible mistakes over and over again'. we should never be so vulnerable and caught off guard again.
i have a very multi-cultured family so i have christian, jewish, muslim, agnostic, buddhist and maybe even atheist relatives/friends~but the one thing we all live in is tolerance of our differences. it saddened me that so many people attacked people of the muslim faith after 9/11 because what type of mentality does that breed? we should know that not everyone that has that faith believes in the jihad in such an extreme way. i do not believe it helps to fight hate with more hate. so, i hope as we're cautious in our neighborhoods, cities, states and in this country we will not breed more hate and lose the ability to be tolerant because i was always taught that's what this country was initially built on~tolerance, freedom from monarchy, equality, and safety from persecutions of one's beliefs.
i hope you all will have a lovely weekend and remember our troops in your prayers/thoughts/meditations. no matter how you feel about the war, they still need us to be pulling for their safe return home!
thanks for reading!
abrazos,
bella

i'm a little bit country/i'm a little bit rock 'n' roll(with stamps!)

guess what! stampin' up! has teamed up with country living magazine to offer customers a fabulous deal! you can get a great subscription to country living magazine and also purchase a fabulous stamp set from stampin' up! exclusive to country living magazine readers/subscribers! take a look at the offer for country living magazine ! it's guaranteed to please!
abrazos,
bella

buenas noches

ok, i don't think i told you all that i'm taking a free spanish course online. yes, that's what i said ~free! it is so awesome, too! i'm learning soooo much! it's fabulous! my family will have to get off of my case about my spanglish because i'll be closer to fluency with my spanish.
hmmm...maybe i should've taken spanish along with my french in high school but i mean come on, when you live/grow up right by mexico(san diego) that's not where you desire to visit~i wanted to go to paris(i did and i loved it)! so i had no desire, at that time, to learn spanish. i know tsk, tsk! well, i'm making up for it now, i'm learning proper spanish very well! ok, so you have to visit the site, spanish dict. and sign up~even if you're a fluent spanish speaker because it totally rocks~like the entire community and the resources! if you check it out, let me know what you think!
gracias amigo/as!
abrazos,
bella

do you remember? where were you? what were you doing?

today is september 11th. i've been watching documentaries on the tragedy this morning and i've been reflecting on how it personally touched my family. my uncle harry's ex-wife(though they were still married at the time and she was still my "aunt" back then) lost her brother on the united flight from boston. i won't go into everything. i just wanted to take a moment of silence to pray/meditate/think about what happened to so many of our brothers and sisters 7 years ago. i mean in the grand scheme of things we are all related in this vast human family, worldwide! thank you for your participation in this moment with me.
have a lovely afternoon!
see you this evening, hopefully!
abrazos,
bella

now i'm a bag lady

if you thought my boxing was a phase~now i'm into bags! this is a pic of the little bag i made last night. i was googling handmade bags and i found this bag on lisa somerville's awesome little blog. you should take a look, she's very artistic!
so this is my tiny rendition of hers. i didn't use a box inside mine. i was stubborn and tried to create my own template because i want to recreate them w/o using a box.
ahh...takes me back to my days of collecting designer bags every time we went shopping in beverly hills when i was younger. now i'm making my own designer (series paper) bags!
ok, as usual let me know what you think!
hasta luego
abrazos,
bella

yea! woo hoo! sharing what i love 24/7 now!

my online ordering function is active on my website now! i'm so stoked! i was sad when we found out we'd have to wait until further kinks were worked out with it and only the catalog in pdf would be available on our websites but now i'm ecstatic! if you take a look at my website fairy stampin' mother please let me know if there's anything i need to do to improve it! grazie mille amigo/as! abrazos, bella

eyes wide shut!

darnit! wouldn't you know i try to get a good shot of "duchess and the kittens" with their eyes open and the flash totally robs me of that?! well, i did manage to get one pic of toulouse with his eyes open(marie opened hers first then he did~they were a pretty close tie. berliose is still trying to get his all the way open)! they're getting so big! it's so nice to see their little eyes open too~i think marie's may be blue! i love the pic of the wcwf where toulouse is wrestling berliose! toulouse is so freakin' bossy!
and guess who's been playing baby-tender?! bizhan! yes, i caught "chewy" down there babysitting while memphis was upstairs going to the ladies room and grabbing a bite to eat. he has been watching them for her when she wants a break. it's so cute because he preens them and keeps them in their little rubbermaid nursery bin. i think he thinks he may be their papa but i'm pretty sure, though not to judge books by their covers, maury would say "bizhan!...you are not the father!" rofl!
ahh, i'm so happy...my little pride is getting along well.
miabella still doesn't quite know what to think seeing the kittens nursing on memphis. i think she was wondering where memphis was, for the longest time, and then when she finally found her and the kittens it freaked her out! lol!
well, here are the the shots of the triplets at two weeks old(today!) thanks for looking!
abrazos,
bella

para mi hermanita

ciao all! good morning/buenos dias! i was down in my patisserie last night! this is a little cupcake of a card that i created for my sister~i feel it's more of an "i'm here for you" card more so than a "sympathy" card. i had bunny mail it for me this morning. i hope she likes it. i'm hoping she will get a smile from it and not laugh hysterically at my attempt escribir en espanol solomente.
please let me know what you think, as well.
here's the recipe:
paper: cs~pink pirouette(new in color), very vanilla, basic gray
inks: pretty in pink, regal rose
stamps: tender toile, serena primavera
accessories: styled silver hodgepodge hardware ribbon slide, pink piroutte striped grosgrain ribbon, pretty in pink stampin' pastels
tools: scallop border punch, snail, glue dots
technique: paper tearing/folding, chalk distressing, rock 'n' roll inking

thanks for looking!
abrazos,
bella

rrrippp!

well, not exactly, but this is my first attempt at the faux tearing technique.
here's the recipe:
stamps: serenity, upsy daisy(sentiment)
paper: cs~ barely banana, very vanilla
inks: so saffron, versamarker
accessories: very vanilla 5/8 grosgrain
tools: scallop border punch, stampin' pastels(so saffron)
technique: faux tearing, chalk distressing

let me know what you think! thanks for looking!
abrazos,
bella

my first card front swap!

whew! was i stressed trying to get these done and mailed by saturday afternoon before the post office closed!
well, first off, "my boyfriend's brown truck" didn't arrive until late thursday afternoon(maybe that's why he delivered my backordered stamp set early the next morning :0)
and then i just couldn't find a time, with training abbey and supervising the cats and millE's virtual school, to get down to my patisserie and get them all done on thursday evening.
so friday i started them and finished bustin' them out on saturday morning. i had a bit of a creative block for a moment then i remembered it just had to be simple and easy to demonstrate and use the "say it with scallops" set and in colors. so i think i did a pretty good job. i also made them in black, but i didn't get a pic before rushing to the post office. let me know what you think!
here's the recipe:
paper: cs~baja breeze, very vanilla, and whisper white
ribbon: baja breeze double-stitched grosgrain
inks: baja breeze
technique: paper tearing/folding
stamps: say it with scallops, upsy daisy(sentiment)
tools: scallop border punch, scallop square punch, stampin' dimensionals
grazie mille!
abrazos,
bella

last two cropping chicks-ut swaps

ciao all! sorry it has been a while! i wasn't able to get on and post like i wanted to last week. i'm finally able to post for you the last set of swaps that i received in the cropping chicks-ut card swap i hosted last month. i'm glad that's over! whew! how exhausting! it can be stressful hosting swaps when ladies don't come through when they're supposed to.
i'll tell you it was really heartbreaking to me to find out that when i did the ctmh atc swap, last month, that the hostess (tiffany) had to fill like four spots! i think that's totally ridiculous! true, "life happens" to a person, but when you procrastinate that's when you leave yourself open for murphy's law! it's great when you can find an angel to fill the spot(s) you're missing! it's just not fair, in my book, to the hostess when you can't~but what do i know? i've only been a hostess once! lol! well, let me get off of that soap box! lol!
thanks for taking a look!
abrazos,
bella

oh my heck! i just realized the top card is a flower~i have it standing the wrong way! aye aye aye! my blond roots! lol! i'm sure carlos mencia is somewhere going "ddd bella!"

lovely day

ahh...what a refreshing day. i spent the morning and afternoon with my sweet niece skyy. she's so beautiful and lovely. it was fun to spend time with her, meet her chinchillas(oh my heck, they're so stinkin' cute!), see her darling home, and look at her awesome scrap area! you have got to see her bad arse cd sleeves! she even has a tutorial posted on her darling blog!

"my boyfriend" pulled up in his big brown truck today! so i have lots of stampin'up! goodies to open, open, open! woo hoo!

tonight, i've got to bust out six swaps tonight so i can get them mailed out tomorrow so they'll be to our fine hostess' home by tuesday. i'm excited to join our unit swap this month. even more so now that i have new su! products and not just my retired stuff i acquired when i joined at the end of may lol!
so, i will post a pic of those and the rest of the cards from my cropping chicks-ut card swap.

hasta manana(i'm such a bad influence with my spanglish that millE says "hoss tuh muh nay nay" i'm like "no honey it's, ahstuh man yawna"rofl!)!
ok, buenos noches amigas y hermanas!

abrazos,
bella

abbey's first...

shots! she got them today! bunny said she did well. i didn't go in, i didn't want to see her cry if she was going to. lol! she's been very whiny the past couple of days, so i don't know what that's about. i hope it wasn't the worms. i noticed some in her fecal matter as i was cleaning it up the night before last. thank goodness she got de-wormed today! she is doing well though after the shots! she took a loooong nap when we got home from the vet's! lol! just like a human baby after shots~hee hee! you all remember those days! they don't have puppy tylenol though, lol!
ok, i have to get to bed. hasta manana!
abrazos,
bella

manny, moe, and jack~at one week

oh my goodness, i cannot believe how big they're getting! they nurse a lot so i'm sure that has a lot to do with it! lol! here are the pics of memphis and her darling little kittens on their one week old birthday! maybe i should call her duchess and the kittens marie, toulouse, and berliose lol!
i love that movie~the aristocats! ah that's the best! "everybody! everybody!everybody wants to be a cat. 'cause a cat's the only cat who knows where it's at!" ok, i'll be back tomorrow!
buenos noches!
abrazos,
bella
p.s. yes, i know, i took a lottt of pictures(that's not even all of them!). i'm a proud abuelita! what can i say?
:0)

it's a girl~her name is abigail/abbey

i know you're asking "who's abigail/abbey?! was bella pregnant and i didn't know it?"
uh, no! i haven't been pregnant in like 13/14 years lol!
abigail/abbey is our new puppy! bunny got her for me so we can train her to be a service dog. i've been having more trouble with my dystonia so i told bunny i wanted to have a service dog that we trained so it would be able to help me when i'm having an attack if no one else was home. so we went onto ksl and found her.
she is so stinkin' cute! i love her to pieces! ok, so what kind of puppy is she? she's blue heeler and australian shepherd. i think she's also border collie. you cannot look at her face and not smile, she is just so sweet! i've been working with her on basic obedience so we can train her to help me after that. she's good with "sit" in english and spanish, "come/ven conmigo" and "wait/espera" we're working on name recognition(yes, i know, kind of out of order with her knowing sit before her own name lol!). we've been trying to train her to use the litter box(the doggy kind) but she's not big on going in the house she goes to the back door and whines to go outside. we were like in awe when she started whining to go out and we hadn't even taught her that!
she's a good girl. i've been going out for walks with her (with the exception of this morning, i was just too worn out) around 5/6. it has been so fun and she does better off of the lead than on but she's getting better with that. i'd been teaching her without a lead but bunny got all "no buddha, we need to get a leash..."on me so i've been working with her on a lead. she's so stinkin' smart! yesterday we went out to petsmart and picked up the doggy litter box, litter and a cute little backpack(so she can carry her own doggy bags~if that happens but she doesn't even think of trying to void herself outside of our yard). bunny also bought her that little pink t-shirt(it says "it's a girl") because her collar and lead are blue and he didn't want people to think she was a boy. lol!
it's nice to have another little one in the house! i know you're thinking it's like a zoo over here! lol! but it helps with my anxiety and depression to have my little pride and new pack~so todo esta bien!
well, that's about it for now. i'll be back tomorrow when millE is done with online school stuff! ciao for now!
abrazos,
bella

manny, moe and jack

nope, not the pep boys~memphis' kittens!
yep, she finally had them! it was around 1717 when she had the first one on wednesday, 27 august! bless the lord it wasn't on my scrapbooking papers or the table! lol! she had the first one in the linen closet on the floor. it's so funny because before she climbed under the laundry basket in there i joked with her and said "oh memphis, are you going to have your babies in there?" and she looked at me and purred and meowed and hopped on top of the laundry basket and climbed under it. not even two hours later she was in labor! it was an awesome sight to behold!
ok, so she started to make that distinctive cry they said she'd make when i googled "pregnant cat info" and i ran and sure enough she was purring and i heard a little meow coming from under her. well i scooped her and the baby up and put them in a huge rubbermaid bin and ran them downstairs to the place i'd created for her to have them in the first place. i helped her get out the placenta for that one and sure enough about 20/30 minutes later she was pushing out number two! it was an honor to be her doula/nurse midwife she was so good in letting me help her get them out. she's such a lovely mum and her kittens are soooo sweet! the pics above are from their birthday. i'll take pics and post them of their 1 week birthday tomorrow! it looks like it's two boys and a girl. they're so stinkin' cute!
whew! am i glad that's over! it was a lot easier than i imagined it'd be and it was a great experience for millE in learning about birth. she was just in awe~ like a tourist taking video and pics of every single thing just about! lol! when i uploaded the pics from the sd card today, there were like six or seven videos of memphis birthing her babies or nursing them or just lying down with them and purring.
what a great experience for us. bunny barely got home just after the last one was born. i'd been talking to him when i heard memphis cry out and i like practically hung the phone up in his face i was so excited trying to run to her! lol! so, that's the story of memphis, manny, moe, and jack! hee! hee!
thanks for reading!
abrazos,
bella

first things first

ok, so i know i said i'd be back over the weekend when i posted on friday 22 august. well... saturday my computer started acting very sickly. it was clicking/coughing and turning blue in the face(well, going to the blue screen) every time it had to be restarted or turned on and it wasn't loading pdf's and things. well, i nearly had a nervous breakdown freaking out(crying and boo-hooing creating a terribly snotty tear-stained face with puffy eyes~what a sight to see) over losing my computer~so many thoughts running through my head-'oh my g*d ~my blogs, millE's school, my pictures and music files, all of my scrapbooking pdf's...!'~agh!! so i calmed down for a moment and had the idea to call my lovely bil pop into my head(because he is the computer wizard/expert/sage/etc.etc.etc.) well, actaully, i made bunny speak to him first. i wanted bunny's blond roots to show before mine when speaking to him(lol!) then bunny handed the phone over to me and ok, so in speaking with him my inherently blond roots started to show anyway! i learned, through troubleshooting with him, that i have 52.2 gb's and i only had 1.97 gb's left!!!! agh! no wonder i had been getting the "your virtual memory is low" messages so often and my comp. had been running slower. ok, so i figured all that out by sunday with my computer and saving files and such and bunny said he'd either buy me a new computer or get me a very large external hard drive so i won't lose all of my stuff if the computer goes out. my bil also gave me a tutorial on how to save my files to a cd so i'm feeling a little better about it. i just have to get 'er done! lol! whew! glad i made it through that weekend!
fast forward through the week and lo and behold... memphis had her kittens on wednesday(yes, a week ago tomorrow~ see the next post for more details on that)!
i had my egd on thursday. the most i know is i have erosive gastropathy and esophagitis which i guess is pretty much gerd or something. i suppose that's why i wake up with pools of acid in my throat and ready to hurl my guts up every morning! so even still today i'm trying to get from under the anesthesia. i'm still really worn out from that. my lip is still fat from the bite block pinching it~i haven't needed to wear plumping lip gloss this week~lol! also, that same day we went over to "steve and barry's" and bunny bought me some cute clothes(he says that makes him my "suga' daddy" rofl! i joked with him and said at best he's my "splenda daddy"! rofl!). though i was still a bit groggy, it was fun. plus we were killing time until we drove out to herriman because we have a new family member~ her name is "abigail". i say it like "abb-ee-guy-eel" like the spanish pronunciation but we all just really call her abbey for short(see the post after the next post for more info on that).
oh my gosh and friday mi hermanita,jessi, de costa rica lost her sister(very tragic murder/suicide. i don't understand why the men get so crazed and selfish and murder the wife then commit suicide). when she finally spoke to me~oh my gosh, i've never heard my sister so sad in my life! after my sister gianinni called me to tell me what happened, i called her to make sure she was doing ok but she couldn't even talk on the phone. she took it so hard she just collapsed my bil said. she couldn't talk to me until saturday. thank goodness gianinni was able to drive down to san diego to be with her. it hurt so bad not to be able to fly over there for her. mi corazon is just broken! sunday, she and my bil flew back to costa rica to take care of things. so that made my weekend very somber. i hate to see the people i love suffer so much. i cried a lot last night just before falling asleep. you know when it's just a lot of things you just have to release so you just let it go and the tears are like streams after the snow melts off?! yeah, it was like that kind of cry. but i'm ok today.
let's see, what else? millE worked on school stuff sunday and yesterday because she took saturday as her holiday instead of yesterday.
then!!!~last night when i knew i'd have time to write on my blogs before i went to bed i had to go and slice my finger while making dinner! but i did try to write you all but i couldn't type very well with the bandage(well it was more like a huge wad of bloody gauze) on my finger. when it happened, it was like a volcano of red lava erupting! blood got everywhere in the kitchen but bunny wrapped it in gauze after i rinsed it under cold water and poured peroxide on it for a spell. it turned really purple for a minute because i had the gauze a little tight so i had to loosen it up a bit. it finally stopped bleeding after midnight so i was able to get comfortable and relax and try to go to bed. it made my left arm hurt intensely but i managed to fall asleep after 1 or 2. then abbey decided to get up at 0537 so i had to be up with her. another reason i'm so tired. lol!
anyway, virtual school is going well for millE. i know you're asking "why virtual school?" well, she begged us to let her try this because she'd been bullied at school. so, it's going well~ though we're still working the kinks out with our relationship since virtual school started. i had to tell her not to call me mom, "i'm your teacher's assistant so you need to respect me that way". so then she said she'd call me "mrs. mom, then" lol!
so you can see, when i said i had a lot to tell you since that last post, this is what i meant! but you know how i feel about things~todo esta bien! everything is going to be good.
ok, check out the next posts!
abrazos,
bella

i have a lot to share

i have so much to share since my last post. stay tuned 'til tomorrow!
abrazos, bella