Tutus...I LOVE THEM

I have posted before about my passion for tutus but it continues to grow so I continue to write about it. My mom is here for a visit, so that is one of the reasons I have not written or posted much in the last week or so (she thinks I waste too much time on the computer...she may just be right). She is out at the store right now so I feel like a little kid sneaking in some computer time while my mommy is gone. Anyways...back to my love for tutus. My mom has caught onto my passion and she has started making tutus. She could not fit them into her suit case so she shipped them out here. They just got here and we played with them today. I was so excited. We got Delana and her friend all dressed up and set up in the backyard then my camera stopped working....my baby is broken, well just my favorite and ONLY lens is broken so basically my camera is broken. I used my moms camera for these and they turned out pretty cute. It was hard having to wait between shots for the camera to warm back up though. I am so used to taking 100 shots back to back. You have to have a fast camera with two year olds. But we got the job done and I love these pics. We are going to take the tutus down to a vendor booth I am setting up this weekend for Heritage Makers at a fall festival. We are going to set up a photo booth and invite little girls to get their pics taken with these tutus. We got some cute photo props for it. I can't wait.

Visit My Website...Free Give Away!!!!

Any followers of my blog know by now that I am crazy about Heritage Makers!!! I am so happy today because we have a new updates website. Click here www.storybookingbyyou.com

visit my website and check it out. We have new tutorials, new projects and even our brand new template gallery full of 300 free templates. And we have our cornerstone books.....these are my favorite templates about grandparents and family books. These are the cornerstone to our business of preserving memories and defining our heritage.

So here we go...free give away! Go to my website. Check it out! Report back to my blog and leave a comment here and tell me what you liked or what you learned. Even check out the template gallery and tell me what template is your favorite if you were to make a project. I will do a drawing at the end of the week (Friday night)for a free 8x8 book credit ($50 value). So go check out the site, comment here and wait to see if you win the gift of Heritage.

Heritage Makers Reunion

I am a little sad this weekend.....I was supposed to have been attending our Heritage Makers annual family and business reunion in Anaheim, Ca this weekend. Due to some unfortunate turn of events this year I am not there but I did find this wonderful site to keep us all posted on all of the wonderful events that have been going on. I will never miss one of these reunions ever again!!!

Check out this blog:
http://hmreunionnews.blogspot.com/

These Cards Go Along With The Bingo Game Below. I Can't Wait To Give This To The Girls

I spoke too soon

So yesterday I was bragging about how wonderful Delana is.....she is still wonderful, but this is what she did during her afternoon nap yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon Scott called me upstairs and to bring my camera into Delana's room. I told him no because I know what she does during naptime. I yelled back to him, "no way, I don't take pictures of that mess. Just get her out and clean her up."And he said, "oh no, this is not the standard naptime mess. This is something else. Bring the camera." So I went up and this is what I found: She had gotten into a tub of cocoa butter that had been sitting on her dresser next to her crib for probably the last year, in the same spot. The spot seemed unreachable. I kept wondering how she got to it, I figured out that she had climbed up the side of the dresser from the crib and reached for it and got it. She was covered in it. She atleast shared with her babies. The cocoa butter is still in her hair, even after shampooing with everything from dishsoap and three different brands of shampoo. I think maybe by next week it will be out. I have not even tried cleaning the babies up yet. The funniest thing was me trying to get her out of the crib. She was so slippery. I couldn't stop laughing. She almost slipped right out of my hands. (The naked pic is to prove that she loves to sleep in the nude. She was fully clothed when I put her in her crib)

I love Delana

I know my usual posts about Delana are all complaints about the messes she makes. But I just want to let everyone know what a sweet girl she is. I don't have a picture of what just took place, but this is what she just did. She has two favorite baby dolls. She propped them up and took out a book and opened the book to read to them. She kept having to pat them and thell them "shhh." I guess they were talking during her reading. I wonder who else does that? I love her. She is so sweet!

Delana stays in just her diaper, no clothes, between the time of when she gets up from her nap until we have to go get Maelee from the bus stop. Why? I get her dressed in the morning but without fail, by the end of naptime she is bare naked. She likes to sleep in the nude. Yes, I clean a lot of sheets, and yes she takes a lot of baths this way. I just don't know how to get her to keep her clothes on. I keep thinking Duct tape aound her diaper so she will atleast leave that on, but I keep forgetting to pull it out.

Scott loves to read to the girls. He is such a good daddy. He is not home a lot of evenings to do the bed time story, so when he is, he jumps at the chance.

A Picture That has Me Laughing For The Past Two Days...I Had To Share It

Take a look at this picture:

Then take a look at this picture. Can you believe that the person on the right above is the same person as the picture below. This is my niece Tiffany. She was goofing around with friends. She is so funny. I think I looked at the picture on her facebook account a few times before I ever realized that boy was her. My first thought was "what kind of friends is she making at high school? I hope that isn't a boyfriend or something of hers."

Yay For Me!!!!!!

I just got this email from Heritage Makers:

Dear Channon Zabel,
Congratulations! We really enjoyed your projects and we’d like to add the following to our Template Gallery. (See below.) As you know, Heritage Makers will be debuting its new Template Gallery at our national Reunion Event Sept. 25-27 in Anaheim, CA. The new Template Gallery portion of our website will contain hundreds of templates, created and contributed by HM users like you, that will be available to Heritage Makers’ clients, for free! Clients with a Premier account will be able to access templates in the gallery that have been created with Premier art. There will also be some Basic templates available to customers with a Basic membership. In return for these initial contributions to the Template Gallery, Heritage Makers is offering a one time cash/credit prize for each template. We would like to offer you the following cash or credit prize for the exclusive use of the following template(s).

Template Name
12x12 family album
Christmas card 7x5
“Once a Marine…”8x8 book
8x8 family album
football 8x8 book
elementary student 8x8 book

I am so honored. Heritage Makers is getting ready to launch their Template Gallery for customers to go into and transfer free templates to their accounts. I am being paid for these templates and this is such a blessing to our family. Sometimes I doubt my design abilities so it feels so good to recognized in a leaque of some really great designers in Heritage Makers. I am so happy right now and I just wanted to share my news. You can click on any link above to view a window of these templates. Soon they can be yours just by the click of a button. FREE!!!

Wordle...The coolest thing I just discovered! Type in random words and make a word art. This is Delana!!!

B I N G O....an early Christmas gift for the two girls I have babysat for 4 years, no longer at my home and I want to make sure they remember us.

Today It Was The Toothpaste

Hurry up grandma and come save me. My mom will be arriving on the 2oth of this month and she will be here for three weeks. I can't wait to have a second pair of eyes and hands to help me with this Delana one. I have had a house full of people today because of Primary Pres meetings and visiting teachers. And Scott was home all morning from work...he spent most of the day sleeping (he needed it very much! he has not had time to rest in a long time. he works 7 days a week). But it was soooo nice to have a busy house of people today and have extra hands and eyes to help with Delana. Scott walked out the door at 4pm to go into work and by 4:15 this is what Delana looked like. I was just thinking how nice it was to finally have things quiet and relax for a second and then there she is. She is so crazy!!! In fact during my Primary Pres meeting I brought her up jokingly as a topic "So what are we going to do about that Delana Zabel in nursery?" I was thinking today that an extra nursery worker should be called just to keep an eye on Delana in nursery. Making messes in nursery is not her problem....it is the bullying. The primary pres made a comment on Sunday in nursery that we should start calling Delana the terminator. and a father of a child in nursery commented that he has already started calling her the "claw." Many a kids have left nursery on Sunday with a claw mark down their cheek from Delana. She is soooo naughty! Thank goodness she is so cute at the same time. Bless all those that have to care for her!

September Sales and Specials

There are so many sales and specials going on this month with Heritage Makers that I wanted to create a place to make it easy for everyone to view them. All of these sales end by the end of September so take advantage of them now. Click on the links below to view the fliers and sales. If you have questions I am available to answer them.

This card sales ends September 24th.

Want a Variety of Book Sizes...click here for a variety package

Do you need 5 of one size? Buy 5 and save BIG!!!!!!

Need Templates? Purchase one product and get up to 20 templates for FREE!!!

You can purchase your credits now and you have up to a 13 months to publish. Buy now and save!!!! These sales are all ending in September.

See How Easy It Is To Document Your Family's Heritage

Do you want to know how easy it is to upload your photos to http://www.storybookingbyyou.com/ and publish your very own Heritage Story? Watch this short online tutorial to find out how.

She's did it again....but even "BUTTER" this time

Usually Delana is still asleep while I am busy getting Maelee ready in the morning for school. This morning Delana decided to wake up early and trying to get Maelee ready was sooooo hard with Delana awake. I came out from the bathroom from brushing Maelee's hair and teeth and this is what happens when you turn your back on Delana for a second......

While cleaning up the mess a few stories came to mind. First story that came to mind while I was giving Delana a bath and trying to get the butter out of her hair was a story about my nieces Kyla and Chelsie. My niece Chelsie used to use a product on her hair that was just basically a thick wax. My niece Kyla had very very fine straight blonde hair that did not need any product but she decided at age four or sometime around there that she wanted to be like Chelsie and use her hair product. So she must have put an entire container of wax in her hair. I remember my brother bringing Kyla over to my mom's house for help. Trying to get the wax out seemed like an impossible task. I don't have a picture of this event. I doubt anyone does. The girls were probably around the ages of four and seven at the time. They are now ages 20 and 23. Where does the time go?

This is Chelsie and Kyla at about ages 14 and 11 (not sure?)

This is Chelsie and her boyfriend at her UofA college graduation this spring

This is Kyla and her dad (my brother Chuk) at our family reunion this summer.

Another story that came to mind as I was scrubbing my carpet. (I only took pics of her. You should see my carpet. I want to cry) As I was cleaning the carpet I thought of my nephew Craig. My parents still call him Log Cabin Craigy. My parents had just put in new carpet when Craig was around the age of 18 months or two years old....same terrible age as Delana. Craig took a bottle of Log Cabin syrup from the kitchen all the way into my parents bedrooom and left a trail as he went. I don't think my parents were ever fully able to get the thick syrup out of the carpet. We all still love Craigy. Who could stay mad at a cute kid like him? He used to have the cutest little curls. I think this pic below my sister had them in cute little pigtails (my sister was so desperate for a little girl. Craig is the third of five boys for my sister Charlie. She said she is glad she has all boys when she hears some of the stories I tell her about my girls)

This is Craig this last March when we visited for Spring Break

Calendars

If you like the calendar below, Buy now and save. These calendars make GREAT Christmas presents. They will become your favorite gift to give. This template below will make it even easier to create. If you want something else you can always create something more personal and to your taste.

View Calendar Prices Here....Buy Five Calendar Credits and SAVE big before September 24th.
Sale....Regular $39.99 Now only $29.95 when you purchase 5.

Mark Your Calendars

Christmas Cards

Merry Christmas friends and families. Christmas is coming early this year. Heritage Makers is having a special on their Christmas Cards this year. Here it is. Check it out.

How to get your Christmas Cards this year:
1. Check out the sales and decide what style of card you would like

2. Go to this link to check out our different Christmas collections of artwork. Chose a collection that suits your family style

3. Send me via email a photo or photos you would like on your card. I fit 10 photos on my 4x6 folded card last year.

4. Send me a family message. I still fit a very informative message about our family last year on my card. Plenty of room for all of those great stories that made this year.

5. If you live in the area and you do not have a family picture for your card I will come out to your home and take some family photos for free to fill up your wonderful cards.

Contact me and place your order. You don't have to have the pictures right now to take advantage of this wonderful sale...... Just pick your style now , get those pics to me when you can and we will be sure to have your cards ready to get out by the Holiday Season.

Here is my Card and some other I made last year.

Zabel Family Christmas Card 2007

Template Available For Use

Brazil Family Card 2007

Christmas Postcard (new this year...you can now print on front and back. Put your pics on one side and letter on the other)

3 Panel Family Foldout Card

Play around with all of these cards by moving the mouse over the card and the card will start rotating and opening. And also use the Zoom in feature.

Scott Meets The President

My husband, Scott (Staff Sergeant Zabel), works for the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Conway. He does the cooking and cleaning on a team of four personal aides. He has been in this field (Enlisted Aides to The Generals) for almost five years. This is the third General he has worked for. First General Hagee and then General Peter Pace, and now General Conway. While working in this field he has met some important people. Friday he met The President of The United States, President Bush. The president attend the parade at 8th and I in Washington DC. Scott works at this parades every Friday during the summer. Friday was the final parade of the season. The President came out for the event. For the past 6 days Scott will just blurt out of nowhere, "I met the president." We will be just eating dinner and it will come out of his mouth. Or we will be sitting around and he will say it. It is funny.

Featured Pages

I have two pages that are being featured on Digital scrapbooking 101 . There are four pages being featured today and two of them are mine. I feel so honored! Here are the two they picked. Go to digital scrapbooking 101 and check this wonderful site out. There are wonderful claasses and tutorials if you ever wanted to learn more about digital scrapbooking or adobe photo shop. go check it out!!!



My featured pages:

Have You Ever Been To Hawaii? Another Exclusive Template Made Available Only at www.storybookingbyyou.com Click Here to See Entire Template

Back To School

Maelee left for first grade today. She was very anxious and prepared. For some reason I have this uneasy feeling like I did not send her prepared. But she does have her lunch and I guess as long as she has lunch she is prepared. She was ready to go and would not let me walk her to the bus. I just walked to one corner and watched her run off. She thinks she is so old. She is really excited because she is in first grade and first graders don't have to have an adult at the corner to pick them up from the bus stop. But she is going to be sad when she sees me at the corner after school because Tuesdays and Wednesdays I am picking up our neighbor at the bus who is a kindergartner....I forgot to warn her. I can hear her disappointment already. She will have the other three days of the week to be a big girl and get off the bus and walk home with her friends.

So it is just Delana and me. I miss Maelee already because she is my little helper with Delana and is very good at entertaining Delana and Delana is one of those children that needs a lot of entertaining.

Maelee's friend Kaya walked with her to school. Maelee had that same skirt on as Kaya up until the last minute and changed her mind. She was glad she changed her mind when she saw Kaya. And I know the first thing Maelee did when she got on the bus was untuck her shirt. She let me tuck it in just for the picture.

This is Lauren. She is going to kindergarten. I watched her during the day for the past three years. I can't believe how fast time grows. Her mom starting asking me to watch her when she was one. I told her mom that I had my hands full at the time and could start watching her when she was two. So she started coming to my house the week she turned two. Now here she is three years later on her way to kindergarten.

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