Tuesday, February 28, 2006


Hannah's first day of nursery! My baby is growing up!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006


Hannah eating a piece of Shelby's birthday cake!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006


Shelby's 11th Birthday Party!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006


Hannah and Aunt Leslie
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006


Hannah & Uncle Greg
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006


Shelby, Thomas, Hannah & I at Disney World! Photo taken by Uncle Greg! Thanks, Greg!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006


Shelby blowing out the candles. . .
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

The "Vacation" is Over!

My parents and granny are home from Wales. The party is over! Now it is back to real everyday life. Back to keeping Hannah confined to our room. Back to keeping her quiet at night. Back to not letting her cry, EVER! Back to not letting her run and play and be loud in the house, EVER! Oh! We need our own house! Soon. . .

Wednesday, February 22, 2006


Oh my goodness! I love this photo!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006


oh really really sad!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006


hannah making a sad face!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006


Hannah sitting on the potty
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

I hate insurance companies!

United Healthcare stinks! All the way around, it is a crappy insurance company, with crappy coverage and even worse customer service! We have had this insurance since January of 2005. Yet we are not listed on their vision insurance plan. I've been paying for it for a year. Oh! We found you, you just aren't linked to your employer. It's going to be another 48 hours until we can process your request or you can pay out of pocket and we'll reimburse you within 6-8 weeks!!!!! I HATE THEM!!!!! We pay over $500 per month for health, dental & vision insurance. You'd think we'd get some customer service. Okay, I feel better now. I'll schedule the appointments for next week.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Disney World

I never thought I could be excited about going to DisneyWorld. I hate that place! Everything I detest in the world is within those 4 gates! We are taking Hannah & Shelby to Disney on Friday and they are excited, so now I am getting excited! Hannah LOVES Mickey Mouse! She carries around a Mickey Mouse straw and laughs at it! We are meeting Thomas's brother and sister-in-law there. We have been teaching Hannah to say Greg & Leslie. She says "Gog & Yesyie". We're working on it!

Monday, February 20, 2006

I am the Digi Pick of the Day!!!!!!!

One of my layouts was chosen to be the Digi Pick of the Day today (2/20)!!! I never win anything and my layouts are nothing out of the ordinary, so this is a great honor! Thank you, Melissa! You made my day! :)

"Tweeny" Boppers and their pre-teen hormones!

Yikes! I have never been so grateful for the Terrible Almost-Two's as I am today! My parents have been gone for about a week and we are watching my little sister. She is a great kid and she never causes any problems, but WOW! The last couple of days have been mood swing central at the Porter house. She misses Mom & Dad and she is bored out of her mind. She is older than the next door neighbor kids but they usually play well together. She really likes to "mother" them. Well, the neighbor kids have cousins (?) in town this week who are their same ages. So, they aren't so sweet to my overly-sensitive sister. They aren't mean to her, but they are just being just typical competitive kids. You know the whole "I can only have one best friend at a time" syndrome. Hannah is going through a pretty nasty phase right now where she likes to hit. Shelby doesn't really want to sit around and get hit all day, so she doesn't spend much time with Hannah. Shelby wants my undivided attention all the time, and gets mad when I don't pay enough attention to her. I feel really bad, but there are just a lot of demands on me right now. I am responsible for a lot of people right now. But Shelby makes Hannah look like a piece of cake! I will be much more appreciative of the terrible two's now!

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Message to Ashley

Hey Ash! Allie called and wants you to call her while you are in Utah. You could call us, you know! I'll try to call you at Jan's house sometime tomorrow! Love you!

Thank You Mary!

My best friend from college called me on Saturday night and we talked for FOUR hours. Okay, okay, I vented for FOUR hours! I swear she must have been inspired! I needed someone to talk to so bad and I just didn't have the energy to even reach out to anyone else. I feel soooooooooooo much better about everything! I guess everyone just needs to vent sometimes. So I didn't make it to the chat, but it was okay because I was doing something better!
I made an apple crisp this afternoon. I have had three bowls of it and it is excellent!!! But I really need to hide it so that I don't eat anymore! I think I have gained 5 pounds since my parents left. That's what happens when I cook everyday and dinner is something I'm not allergic to! :)
blah blah blah blah blah blah! that is about all I can get out of my brain right now. i am going to go to sleep now and dream about next week's Grey's Anatomy. I can't wait to see what happens. I love that they are showing it on Thursday's now sometimes because it makes the week goes by faster! how pathetic! :)

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Ugh!

I am really tired and really cranky right now. Hannah has been screaming all day. She won't let anyone else even near her! Thomas just got home from work a few minutes ago (2 hours late!) and Hannah screamed when he took her. She is okay right now, but she'll soon realize that I am not with her. We have a chat at RAKScraps tonight that I really want to go to, but my husband (wonderful kind man that he is) says that he gets to be on the computer tonight. um, why does he get to dictate that? we really need two computers. i can't chat on my parents' computer because they don't have the right software installed and my dad doesn't want us to install anything on his computer.
I really wish that I had a group of girlfriends to go out with. I seriously need some time off. I was supposed to go to a bridal shower last night, but I had to take Shelby to her school's sock hop and they had to be accompanied by an adult, they couldn't just be dropped off. so, i took hannah and shelby to the sock hop. it was so much fun chasing hannah around at the dance with all of the running screaming kids. we only stayed a little over an hour. hannah loved the dancing part! she was seriously dancing. i wish i had my camera with me. she is so cute!

Saturday ChitChat!

I need a vacation! I always wondered why my mom always said that when we were growing up. Now I know! I wish I could just fly away for a couple of days and scrapbook. The only problem is that I don't have a laptop and I would have a really hard time hauling my desktop around with me. The other problem is that I would have a really hard time leaving Thomas and Hannah. I'd miss the little punks!
There isn't much going on right now. I am trying to organize my scrapbooking stuff because I only have about 500 mb of storage left on my hardrive. And the darn DVD burner still isn't working. We are going to have to get one of those really soon! And maybe an external hardrive, too. Whaddya think, Tommy? Hannah isn't really cooperating right now, either. Her 4 eye-teeth are being really stubborn and won't come through and then one of her 2 year molars is beginning to make its way to the surface. She has had a low-grade fever the last 3 days now.
Did I mention that I got in a wreck on Wednesday? I was trying to back out of the parking space at the grocery store. The parking spaces are the angled kind. I was driving my dad's big black truck. I looked out the mirror and no one was coming, so I started going. Then this olllld lady in a big white Buick starts backing out. So I stopped. She looked over at me and kept backing up! Heeeeelllllooooo?!!! So she hit us. I am making it sound like it took a while to happen but the whole thing took about 5 seconds. I didn't have time to pull back in the spot before she hit us. Hannah and I are fine. We didn't even feel the truck move. i just heard the crunching and that is how I knew we were hit. I just got the sickest feeling in my stomach! As soon as I got out, I called the police and they sent an officer over. He said that because there were no independent witnesses and the old lady couldn't remember what happened (that's convenient!) that we were both at fault. He said that he would write the report so that it said that the evidence looked like the old lady was more at fault, but that we could have both been moving when the accident happened. If I was moving, too, then how did her taillight end up on top of my bumper! I was in a freaking HUGE truck! There is a small scratch on the truck bumper and the plastic over the bumper is scratched up from the trim around Crazy Old Lady's tail light. So that ought to fit right in our budget right now! Let's add getting the truck fixed to our list of "to-pay-for" items! Oh well! Life happens!


I got out of the bathtub the other night and came into our room and found Hannah asleep like this. I asked Thomas why he let her fall asleep. He said, "I didn't even know she was in here with me. I thought she was with you." Hmmmm. . . a little too into his game? She is so loud all the time I don't know how anyone could not know she was in the room!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006


Hannah & Daddy playing beautiful music together! Hannah loves to play music already! We can't wait to sign her up for piano lessons!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006


Hannah is eating a powdered donut and loving every second of it! She is so funny!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

Friday, February 17, 2006


Hannah & Shelby at the park, on the tall slide! My baby is growing up! She went down the slide all by herself!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006


Hannah with her first Barbie doll. She loves it! She is kissing it in this photo!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006


Hannah's last bottle! I took her off the bottle Monday night while my parents and granny are in wales. she is actually doing pretty well!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

What do I do at RAKScraps?

I have had several people ask me lately exactly what I do at RAKScraps. I am a member of the RAKScraps Creative Team, specifically the events team and the sponsor team. Basically, that means that each month I host at least 2 events at RAKScraps like a chat, a crop, a challenge, etc. I am the host for the Ad/ Layout Inspiration Challenge, I host the Scrapbooking Resolutions challenge, and I host a monthly chat on the 3rd Wednesday of the month at noon est. I also hlep out with any other activities or events that need covered. Also, each month, I get kits from our site sponsors and get to do at least 2 layouts per sponsor. One layout goes into the RAKScraps newsletter and the other gets posted in the RAKScraps Gallery. I love the events part of the team, but the sponsor part is my favorite. I LOVE to work with different designers. I am also currently hosting the RAKWeek postcard challenge and the Altered Altoid Tin Project. For the challenges and crops and chats that I host, I get to make the prize kit that gets handed out to participants and for chats, I hand out a freebie to everyone who attends. Freebies are usually mini-kits or paper-packs and prize packs are usually normal size kits with 5-10 papers and 3 different kinds of elements. Designing kits isn't my strong point, but I really enjoy it and I am working hard on it. I LOVE RAKScraps! It is a great community that is all about sharing and helping each other. I highly recommend taking a look at it if you are interested in digital scrapbooking! I am noticing that more and more of the scrapbooking magazines are including digital layouts. It is really becoming much more popular! I'll never go back to paper!

My DigiKit WishList

Oh!!!! You RAKScrappers are going to get me in trouble! There are so many kits that I want!
Shabby Princess "Flea Market Chic Coordinated Kit"
Shabby Princess "Blue Bell Road"
Shabby Princess "Girly Girl Shabby Kit" by Taran Conyers
Jen Reed's "Blossom Kit" at Scrapdish
Tania Cordova's "Posh Tot" kit @ Scrapdish
Amy Knepper's "Shabby Geek" kit @ Scrapdish
Robin Cabana's "Warm Day" kit @ Scrapdish
Kim Crothers "Silly Flower" kit @ Creative Snaps
Kim Crothers "FaLaLa" kit @ Creative Snaps
Beth's "Crazy Colorful" kit @ Digiscrappin.biz
Beth's "Old Toybox" kit @ Digiscrappin.biz
Merkeley's "Aqua Sunshine" kit @ Digiscrappin.biz
Beth's "Sunny" Paper Pack @ Digiscrappin.biz

RAKScraps Blogging Challenge

Write a post on your blog (or make a layout) answering the following questions:

1. What colors do you use the most when you scrap?
pink, pink, PINK! I love pinks and white and black!

2. What is your favorite kit theme?
I love floral themed kits. I love polka dots. I love girly kits!

3. What are your favorite elements to use when you scrap?
paper!!! I love ribbon and I am kinda getting into charms!

4. Describe your style
I like to think that I have a very eclectic scrapping style. I love magazine style layouts. The clean lines are very appealing to me! I LOVE shabby scrapping kits! But since I scrap 8.5x11 I have a hard time changing the size of the papers to fit my layout without distorting the design. I love fun florals and polka dots. I let the theme and feeling of the photo dictate the style of the layout.

5. If you could have one kit made especially for you, what would it be for? (one lucky blogger might see this wish granted )
Ohhhh! I would love a fun girly kit with bright colors and tons of flower and charms with clean papers (not shabby) and a shabby overlay in an 8.5x11 size and a 12x12 size. Then I can choose whether I want the papers shabby or not depending on the photo!

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Good times, noodle salad

I love that movie "As Good as it Gets" and that is a line from that movie that I use all the time. That is exactly how I feel today. Nothing special going on, but I just am happy to be alive! I have a great life, a spectacular husband, a beautiful daughter & a wonderfully fulfilling hobby. Yes, I have stresses. Who doesn't? Hannah & Shelby & I just went outside (it's cold today!) and played for about 20 minutes. Shelby was chasing Hannah with a huge rubber ball and knocking her down with it. Hannah was laughing so hard that she kept choking! I took a TON of photos, and eventually I hope to get them all scrapbooked! Speaking of Scrapbooking, I just got two beautiful new kits from one of RAKScraps March sponsors. I can't divulge any names, but I'll put up some layouts with them in a few weeks! I love being on the RAKScraps Creative Team because I get to try new designers and play with their kits! So much fun!


This is Hannah after eating a large piece of Granny's birthday cake! What a mess!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006


Uh Oh! Hannah fell down!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006


My granny's 73rd birthday was yesterday. We had a surprise party for her on Monday night.
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006


This is earlier this afternoon. Hannah & Grandma & Mommy were out running errands and stopped to get french fries at Steak 'n' Shake! Hannah was excited!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

Monday, February 06, 2006


I used Christine Smith's "Country Kitchen" freebie from RAKScraps. The fonts are Hans Hand & First-Grader. The quote is from Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Swing" from "A Child's Garden of Verses"
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

Grey's Anatomy 2/5

Oh my goodness! I can't believe that ABC just left me hanging last night! You can't just leave Meredith with her hand inside a body cavity touching live ammunition! My thoughts are that she can't possibly die because the show is named after her and it is way too good of a show to be cut. And poor Dr. Bailey. . . I love her! I never would have thought it, but Addison Shepherd is growing on me! It could just be because I love the name Addison. I wanted to name Hannah "Addison". I told Thomas that if we have another daughter her name will be Addison. Anyway, I LOVE Grey's Anatomy and I can't wait until next week!

Wednesday, February 01, 2006


Hannah has one of my orange mixing bowls that she loves to play with. It usually holds an array of plastic foods, but more recently it can be found on Hannah's head! Kids are so easily entertained!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006


Oops! The bowl slipped down over Hannah's eyes!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006


I love playing with my new "hat"!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006