Resolutions

I am not big on New Year's resolutions, but I have decided to make one this year. In the interest of training myself to take better photos, I have decided to do a 365 day project. I am going to take at least one photo every day this year. Should be interesting, and I am going to try to update this blog more often.

I am heading to bed, and I will probably be tucked in before midnight. I am bummed right now because I finished Breaking Dawn this afternoon (the last book in the Twilight series), so now I just feel kinda empty and wishing that this series hadn't kinda ruined me on all other books. I guess that isn't exactly true, I am sure I will find another good book eventually.

Another Layout

This is also for Robert's new work calendar.

Snow Day!!!

New Layout

New CTMH Evensong papers. Making a calendar for Robert to use at work.

First Day of First Grade

Imagine LO pg. 73

Love the papers on this one, it has like all of my favorite colors.

County Fair

Cherish LO pg.34

Used satin ribbons for the orange and green border.

Halloween Gingerbread house

Imagine LO pg. 116

I got nothin' for this one. I do have the Cricut Stamped cart which has a really good font for creepy stuff that might fit well for a title. I still don't know what to call this though.

Mavericks game

Imagine LO pg. 52

I have a patch from the game that is going to fit in the red blank spot on the left hand page, and was thinking about journaling on the long baseball paper on the right hand page, either printing directly on the paper or on a transparency. This is probably my least favorite page, although I do really like how the stitching came out so it kinda looks like a baseball.

Firestation Tour

Imagine LO pg. 24

I thought about maybe using the firetruck "Red" from my new Cars Cricut cart and maybe cut a fireman from the PDDU cart. I might have to use some hidden journaling if I want to fit all that in.

Slip and Slide

Cherish LO pg. 84


I thought about using liquid glass on my title and maybe some embellishments, since it is a "water" page.

Scrapbookers...I need some help.

I am going to post a series of photos of some recent scrabook pages. I have everything very lightly adhered to the page with removable adhesive, so I can still change things. I am pretty happy with the layouts so far (they are all from CTMH Cherish or Imagine), but I need help with titles and especially embellishments. I always get stuck when it is time for embellishments. I also took the time to blur the faces of any other children in the photos before I posted them to my blog (they aren't blurred on the actual page). Please let me know if you have any ideas I can try for these pages.

Pink Tinkerbell

Elizabeth leaving for school on Halloween. She got to be in the Halloween parade with her class. Having the blonde hair just changes her whole look.

Optimus Prime

Dizzy Gillespie

Our New Family Member

We haven't actually settled on a name for her yet, Princess Sprinkles is one of the top-runners. I know that the water bottle doesn't add much to the composition of the photograph, but I thought it might help for others to judge the scale. She is pretty tiny, only about 10 weeks old, but she is adjusting well to her new home. She is very tolerant of the kids and she pretty much ignores the dog. Hagrid isn't quite sure what to make of her yet, I think he mostly just wants to play with her, he licks her and sniffs her. We are just trying to make sure he doesn't get too excited and smush her accidentally.

Pool Photo

One of the last trips to the pool for this year probably. I think the pool might stay open this winter because it is supposedly heated by solar panels now. But I think the weather will more than likely keep us away. Mostly because I don't want anything to do with the pool in the winter.

My little Chefs

Gotta love the $1 section at Target. I found these and just couldn't resist. Don't they make cute Chefs?

Now Liam wants to help me make dinner every night.

learning new things in Photoshop

It's a Deer...no, it's a Kangaroo

We went to check out the new Sportsman's Werehouse in Victorville (kind of a Bass Pro Shop kind of place, I guess). In front of the store they have these statues of an elk, and stag. Liam saw them as we drove up and I asked him if he knew what they were, and he said, "yeah"! I said, "what are they"? He says, "it is a Kangaroo"!

So, obviously my son has never been to Australia... he has seen a few deer however when we were back east at my Mom's house. I guess he was too young to remember.

I got him to pose with his new friend Mr. Kangaroo, he wanted to ride it, but I told him we weren't allowed.

Portraits

Well we finally managed to get all the cousins together for a studio photograph session for the first time since Liam was a couple of months old. Bryce, Jace, Shelby, Owen, Elizabeth, and Liam all wore white tee-shirts and jeans and we got some really great shots of them together. The photographer also took photos of each pair of siblings. These are the ones we got of my two kids.

Fun Photo

This photo was taken after Fourth of July (well, technically the fifth of July) Fireworks show. Liam and Elizabeth both had over a dozen glow bracelets that they were playing with down by the lake while we were waiting for the fireworks show to start. Elizabeth fell asleep wearing her bracelets and I snapped a couple photos.

Junior University

Elizabeth and I went to see a Junior University production of Jungle Book with Bryce and Grandma Bonnie on July 19th. Elizabeth did great during the show, she really liked all the costumes. She was super-excited to get autographs from the cast after the show. I had made her an autograph book with jungle book graphics and she had a great time getting autographs and having her picture taken with her favorite castmembers.

First Day of School

First Grade!

I can't believe my baby is old enough to be in first grade. She was just so excited to go back to school. She wanted to take the bus to school, but she wanted me to follow the bus to school also. I have to say, it was much easier for me this year. I put her on the bus and then headed straight for the school. Liam and I had to park way down the street, because apparently I wasn't the only parent who wanted to be there for the first day. I waited out in the playground area with some other parents, and I didn't see Elizabeth for about 15 minutes until she ran up and hugged me. I didn't feel that panicked feeling as last year, I know she knows the routine now. She goes to school from 8:30am to 4:30pm now, and doesn't get off the bus until almost 5pm everyday. So, now at the end of the first week we are still adjusting to the new schedule. She has been very tired and crabby this whole week.

Last Day of July

I can't believe July is over already. Elizabeth starts school again on Monday, my 12th wedding anniversary is this Sunday and I will be 33 next month. Time flies right?

I told a couple people that I would post some of the other photos I took with my underwater camera. I haven't scrapped them yet, but I will throw them up anyway.









I think I might get these blown up and hang them on the wall.

Some photos from this past weekend

I took some photos with an underwater camera in my Dad's pool last weekend. I had them developed today and had to throw together a layout with some of the cuter shots.

Happy 4th of July

Background for my computer

I have been really into this digital scrapbooking stuff lately. I made a collage for my computer's background.

Lego Beaver

This post is dedicated to my sister Sherri, who collects beavers. A picture of the kids next to a LegoLand beaver.

The Beach

I am playing around with my digital scrapbook skills a little bit. These are photos from last Monday, June 23. We were down in San Diego staying with my sister and we took the kids to the beach. For my kids it was the first time seeing the ocean. Although, having been on the shores of Lake Erie I don't think the ocean looked much different to them. I think it is hard to grasp the hugeness of the ocean when you are 3 or 5 years old. They had a great time playing in the sand and digging for sand crabs. It was perfect weather for the beach, and we only had a couple of minor spots get minor sunburns. Liam loved the ocean, and had a great time walking in the waves with his aunt Jennifer. Elizabeth was not quite so thrilled, and it took quite a bit of coaxing from her cousin Shelby before she would even go in past her knees. We ate sandwiches and had snacks, and then headed home in the late afternoon. What a great day.

swim lessons

Today was the beginning of a whole month of swim lessons. The kids really enjoyed it and I already remember the hassle of getting everybody ready just to take them to the pool everyday for 25 minutes. I am just hoping that this year they will really get something out of it and maybe have some swimming skills.

Action Shots

This was our first trip to the bowling alley. And of course, I forget to bring my real camera. These are taken with my camera phone.

Our Little Rocker

Yes, she is wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt. She is her Daddy's Little Girl.

It is practically a swamp in here

So we finally got our swamp cooler (or evaporative cooler, if you want to be fancy) up and running today. Got a handyman to come out and check it and fix a couple of things now it is swampy and cool in the house, just the way I like it!

My mom reminded me today that I haven't posted in awhile. So, I am going to work on getting back in the habit. I have been working on the computer so much lately for some of the projects I have been finishing up, not to mention homework, that the "free time" on the computer for stuff like blogging has been falling by the wayside. It is past 11:30 right now, and I am surprised I am making any sense, I have been up past 1:00am for the last two nights in a row and I still have to get up at 6:15am to get Elizabeth ready for the bus. Thankfully, I have finished up the Girl Scout end-of-the-year slideshow I was working on as well as the end-of-year gift for Elizabeth's teacher that took much longer than I had anticipated. And, this is Elizabeth's last week of school - Kindergarten done already! It is hard to believe, she has two days left and then she will be a first grader! YIKES! We are planning a trip to San Diego next week for a couple of days to stay with my sister and we are taking the kids to the beach for the first time. I just hope I don't forget my camera like I did when we took them bowling for the first time this last weekend. I do have a couple of photos from my phone that I will try to load up soon.

Got to get to bed now.

First Ballgame

I had forgotten to post a couple of photos from my phone. This one is of the kids first trip to a real ballpark. It is our local minor league team, the Mavericks. They did have a good time (contrary to how it looks in the photo), once Liam got over the fact that he would only be watching the game and not playing on the field with "his team".

County Fair

So, I finally edited some of the photos I took this month. It might take me a couple of days to post them though, I am pretty worn out right now and I am probably going to turn in soon.

Our first big adventure this month, besides a friend's son's birthday party where I forgot to take any photos, was the County Fair. Robert was in Colorado, and I was trying to do stuff with the kids so we could keep all of our minds off the fact that Daddy was away.

Liam was just a couple inches too short to ride some of the kiddie rides, I am sure by next year he will be able to ride them all. This was his first trip to the fair, so he still got a big kick out of it. Here is a photo of his very first ride.

Elizabeth's favorite ride was the canoe ride. She loved sticking her hands in the freezing cold water. It was so windy and cold that day, and the kids were not dressed for the weather, by the time the shadows started creeping in for the day I was ready to go home.

Of course before we went home, we had to get a funnel cake and cotton candy. The ultimate in fair food. Liam fell asleep on the way home, with cotton candy sticky hands and face. What a fun day, the only thing missing was Daddy.

This month is flying by...

I can't believe I haven't posted for almost 2 weeks. I have taken quite a few pictures, so the process of going thought them and editing the best ones to fit on the blog is rather daunting. But, that is just an excuse - I have a bunch of other one's too, like it is raging hot here and we are trying our darnedest not to use the AC. The computer room is the hottest room in the house owing to the fact that it is not a real room, it is some sort of narrow space with a door on it and we have never quite figured out what it is supposed to be. Another excuse would be that Robert was out of town last week for work (he had to go to Boulder for some classes) and I had to keep the kids running all around so that none of us would have such a hard time dealing with Daddy not being home.

Oh, and let me tell you about this Sunday, when Robert and I decided that installing some screen doors on our house would be a good idea. First, I told Robert that I had no problem driving down to the home improvement warehouse to pick up a 4 X 6.5 sliding screen door and a 50lb. security screen door with all the various other items one would use for this type of installation. I was thinking that an hour or two on my own away from the kids that I had been with 24/7 for the last 6 and a half days would be a welcome change. That was until I was in the sweltering hot parking lot in front of said home improvement warehouse for almost an hour trying to get all the blasted items to fit either in or on top of my tiny little munchkin sized economy SUV. The screen door on top of the car would act like an enormous deranged kite if I went over 25 miles per hour. My quick jaunt to the store ended up taking me an exhausting 4.5 hours. And, by the time I got home the screen door was warped and the support crosspieces were broken. I was literally crying on the way home at the futility of the whole trip.

Fortunately Robert was able to reshape the screen door and make it usable. Then we proceeded to spend the next 4 hours hating each other while we tried to install the doors. I thought I was going to have to kill him! Have you ever seen the Money Pit? It was like that, only we were just installing a screen door. If I had to remodel the house with him, we would probably be heading for divorce in about three days. Or you would just have to come looking for pieces of one of us buried out in the desert, because one of us would have snapped. If we do actually ever do any remodeling on this house it had better be because we won the lottery and we can pay someone to do it for us while we are on vacation in Ireland. That is the only scenario I see working out.

Now I guess I am going to try and go to sleep in the miserable heat of my bedroom.

My Cuties

enough said.

P.S. I Love You

Well, I just cried my way through this movie. I would give it two thumbs up if you are in the mood for a really sappy, feel-good chick flick. I wouldn't recommend making your husband sit through it, but I enjoyed watching it all by myself so nobody could make fun of the tears streaming down my face through three-quarters of the movie.

Also, I am impressed by Gerard Butler, look him up here. It is hard to believe he is the same guy that played King Leonidas in The 300.

Teach a kid to fish....

I have been thinking lately that the kids are getting old enough to go fishing. To be fair, they both had an opportunity to fish in the pond behind my Mom's house when we were living with her a couple of years ago. However, Liam was so little, it really didn't hold his attention and Elizabeth was far more interested in squeezing the little bait minnows in her hands until they were quite pulpy (can anyone say Lenny?).

So, today at Target, I bought the kids their own cheapo fishing poles thinking maybe we would go down to one of our little lakes sometime and throw in a line, or that having the poles might give the kids something to do if we were out camping.

The kids had a different idea... the brand new fishing poles were all they could talk about, and I knew I was not going to hear the end of it if we didn't at least go try them out today. I was able to talk a reluctant, hard-working husband into a little early evening trip to the "fishing hole". So, I packed us a lite dinner and we stopped at the market for some bait (night crawlers - yuk! and some fluorescent glittering marshmallows that are apparently supposed to taste like shrimp, okay - as long as they don't end up in MY hot chocolate).

We set up at one of the little lake "fingers" where they have installed little shelters with picnic tables, actually a very nice set up. Robert managed to get the worm on Elizabeth's hook along with a bobber and some weights. He cast it in for her and gave her instructions to sit and watch the bobber. I was still setting up the chairs and getting drinks so I didn't take any photos, and I didn't have anything but my camera phone with me anyway because of course I forgot the regular camera at home.

Robert hadn't even had time to pick up Liam's pole to start setting it up for him, when Elizabeth yells out. We look over and her bobber is going crazy. Robert tells her to yank on it and start pulling it in. Can you believe what my 5 year old daughter pulls out of the lake after 3 minutes...

It had to be about 5 pounds of beautiful rainbow trout. The line was cutting into my fingers as I was trying to get her to hold it up so I could take a picture. Of course, she got all girly and scared on me and wouldn't get near it.

We had every intention of playing catch and release, after all I do not eat fish, and I would rather not cook it either. But the poor girl had swallowed the hook good and was losing eggs all over the place. Robert said we had to take it, because it wasn't going to live if we put it back in the water.

So, I had to take all of our dinner stuff out of the cooler so we could put this fish in it. Blech! And wouldn't you know it, we didn't reel in another fish for the rest of the hour we spent there.

The kids had a great time though, they both cried when we had to leave, and as they were getting in bed tonight they kept asking when we get to go fishing again. Robert even admitted that he had fun, even though it was more work then he bargained for, especially after he had to come home and gut the fish so he could freeze it and take it to work tomorrow to give it to someone who will eat it.

Silly Boy

I don't even remember why he was crying. I was trying to get him to cheer up by taking his picture. He is usually such a ham, that just seeing the camera (or the camera phone, in this case) will make him smile. I told him to smile, and he looked at me and then did this. I took the picture anyway because his overreaction just made me crack up.

How about a kiss?

Too Funny! This is a lollipop, he has the sucker part in his mouth.