Here is Loralei wearing the retro t-shirt I got her to honor her mom’s love of Fraggle Rock!

I have been making my own cards for a while now… it saves money, allows me to be creative and adds a personal touch. I used to use only my scrapbooking materials to create cards, but last year I was invited to a Stampin Up party. I’ve been stamping ever since! I stamped my Christmas wrapping paper and gift tags this year. I continue to stamp all the birthday cards and thank you notes that I write. Here are some of my recent creations:

I’ve been pretty regular (read obsessive) in keeping up with my new MySpace account. I’ve been back and forth on the phone with my sister looking up as many people from the past as we can think of. We’ve now successfully located Shawn, Petey, James and Lee from Baraka. They are all doing well and seemed to be excited to hear from us. You should have heard our squeals of delight as we found each one of them. We were like pigs in mud. I am now trying to figure out a way for Ellen and I to take a roadtrip to Baltimore to see them. It’s a really long drive, but I’d do it even to spend a single Saturday with those boys. It’s so funny that our year in Kenya with them was wraught with difficulty yet ended up forging such strong bonds of love and relationship.

Tonight my friend Sara is coming to see the house and have dinner with me. Tomorrow night our friends Emil and Meghan are coming over to do the same. This was the motivation I needed to push forward in the settling in process. I finished painting the dining room table and chairs. They turned out great! I can see the imperfections, but hopefully no one else will notice them! I also wanted to get the basement full of boxes sorted out and organized. Last night I was up late, but I accomplished my goal. Nearly every box has been sorted and tucked away. It’s so nice to walk downstairs and not be met with boxes everywhere! I’m looking forward to getting our new couch so that we can move our current one into the basement. The den area is pretty weak without it.

I’ll try to post some pictures of this progress soon!