Another Year Goes By!

Hello everyone & Happy May 3rd to you all!  Yep today is my birthday---another year older I am, sigh!  As I hover closer to 40 I don't know that my birthday appeals to me as much anymore, LOL.  I really have liked my 30's and don't want to move into the next decade---so I've decided that THIS year I will REMAIN 37, hee hee.  Yep I will be 37 for at least 8 more years just like Zsa Zsa Gabor :) ('cept I'm not having any more kids, lol)  Birthdays never really bothered me much before---my 30th I spent in the hospital recovering my surgery and 21 was a happy year of course but they always come & go and I'm fine with it.  But when I turn 40 in 3 years---I will be on a remote island and I will NOT acknowledge my birthday in any way.  Yes I know 40 is the new 30 and all that crap that people say but I'm still not digging it and yes Jennifer Aniston & Courtney Cox look fabby but I also don't have personal trainers and plastic surgeons at my disposal.  Just prayer, a good face cream and crossed fingers in my arsenal, LOL!  And I was reading about using cow pee or some kind of urine in face creams the other day in a magazine so I guess I might slather some of that on me too if it works, LMBO!  So we'll see!  As for celebrations---nah, I'm good--Maui was present enough for me.  A dream come true it was so anything else it just icing on the cake so to speak.  I just want a sunny day, quiet day and then hubby is bringing me a dozen MD blue crabs to eat on the patio--YUM! My favorite food in the whole world dipped in vinegar/Old Bay and topped off with a cold Cherry Coke.  NO cake for me--I hate cake (gasp) LOL.  I like pie though and Lemon Meringue or Key Lime are my faves :)

 This was my present from hubby--a white gold & diamond plumeria necklace (love it) so simple and pretty!  Thanks hubby ;)
AND my fave author Karen White released her new book "The Beach Trees" today! Yep it's on my Ipad already, LOL!

A shout out to a few of my birthday twins today as well---both my DT sistah's Candy and Mindy Baxter are celebrating so if you stop by their blogs give them a birthday message too :)  And my good pal Marti Will's birthday is tomorrow too---lots of us Taureans rocking the May birthdays this week! (know what they say about us Taureans, hee hee)!

**And to celebrate the RIGHT way I'm giving away some 

Celebratory--no calorie-BLOG CANDY 

today so read to the end of this post on the yummy details! **

Ok--here is another slideshow of Maui pics for ya today!  This one shows our hike we did off of the Hana Highway with "Hike Maui" (who I highly recommend, the guide was great).  We hiked on a beautiful day and saw 5 waterfalls.  You could jump off the tops (which the kids & James did many times) of the waterfalls but the water was CHILLY!  And if you know Riley for him to jump off that high up was HUGE (he's very cautious and hates heights so I was proud)!  So beautiful to see and our guide fed us fresh pineapple and bananas right off the trees and a gourmet packed lunch.  It was a great time and it was always a dream of mine to see these waterfalls--worth every second!  Then we celebrated Alexa's 15th birthday by going on a Snorkeling Cruise to Molokini with Trilogy (another group I recommend highly).  Not only did we see schools of spinner dolphins but a HUGE sea turtle popped up in front of me & Alexa and scared the PEE out of me---it was bigger than me.  I hope my water camera got some good pics of it--it's head was huge and it looked at me like "Hey lady, what the heck are you doing here?" LOL.  Trilogy provides an awesome breakfast (fresh fruit and homemade, yummy cinnamon buns) and homemade lunch but Capt. Chris' salsa with pineapple was WOW!  Then on the way back they opened the sails on the catamaran and fed us ice cream.  Off in the distance I thought I saw something but kept watching and sure enough it was a WHALE--so Alexa screamed and everyone came running, LOL.  It was FANTASTIC--we saw a baby humpback, its mom and male escort.  The baby was learning to swim so it was flipping and flopping all over.  The cooleset thing I saw in my whole LIFE--a moment to remember for sure.  I have some pics below and a video when I figure out how to post it (I also have it up on my Facebook).  If you missed the other slideshows just page down to see those and I'll have 1 more this week (told you I took LOTS of pics, hee hee)


Maui Slideshow #4

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Sunny Days Are Here Again!!

Today I'm sharing a card with you that I made for this month's Magnolia-licious DT Challenge.  I am the lucky hostess this month so I've created a sketch for everyone to try out.  I love, love sketches--they usually pull me out of mojo-block and get me on the right path (although sometimes when I'm finished they don't look at all like the sketch, lol).  You can find the sketch and how to play along with us at the Magnolia-licious Highlites Blog!

I broke out a pack of awesome new papers by Fancy Pants called " "--I loved the pops of black in all the patterns.  Black is one of my fave colors and I always think it gives colors and projects such a great POP of definition.  I used two NEW Magnolia images from the Butterfly Dreams Collection from Magnolia-licious called "Tilda Holding Daffodil" and "Tulip Walkway".  Tulips are my fave flower and hubby brought me a nice bouquet of them yesterday--but I have to put them way up high as my one cat (arghhh) likes to eat fresh flowers, LOL.  The flowers are a mix of Primas and the corner brackets were made with my border punch and then just cut into a 90 degree angle and accented with pearls.  The scrolly leaves are by my fave Marianne Designs and then I coated them with stickles.  Butterfly is a punch from MS and I just punched one out of black cs and then punched small holes in it and backed it with another butterfly punched in the yellow cs (the middle is a small pc of the pattern paper).

And yes she's colored with Copics of course to match the papers--- C9,C5,C3,C1/G12,G000/E49,E47,E31,E50/E11,E00,R20/YG67,YG03,G20,YG63/Y18,Y11,Y000.  I cut lil' Tilda out and popped her up on dimensionals on top of the field of tulips.  Each tulip and her white shirt and shoes got a coat of Stickles for more sparkle.  The cloudy sky was done with a sponge dauber and ink and a handcut cloud template :)

So now you need to hop over to the Magnolia-licious Highlites Blog to see the DT's fabulous projects using this sketch and details on how to join in.

And I couldn't celebrate my birthday without having a yummy celebration candy right?  So just leave a comment today (no questions this time, I'm giving you the day off, hee hee) on this post only I will give 3 WINNERS one of these prizes:  a $25 Gift Certificate to Magnolia-licious, a $25 Gift Certificate to SCACD or a $25 Gift Certificate to 7 Kids College Fund!  So leave a comment by Saturday (May 7th)!!