GDS Challenge

Well, I am going to go out on a limb here and say this. Praying I am not jinxing it. I decided to compete in the Go Digital Scrapbooking Supreme Team challenge these last 4 weeks. I have done this several other times but never made it past the 3rd round. This time I made it to the finals. I submitted my final layout last night and we find out who will be the lucky 12 on the team for the next 4 months tomorrow night. I pray I did not just jinx my chances.

There are some extremely talented gals in this contest. I can say for sure who a few of the people are going to be. We are down to 28 people and they pick 12. Even if I don't make it I at least made it to the final round this time. So I am happy. And we had some great kits to play with along the way. Here is my submission for the first week:

Credits: Kit by Tricia Curtis called Sew Chic, font is Cursif and Nueva Std

I did it!

I am so freaking excited I can hardly stand it. I just finished our 2008 book! Yes, I know, I am a year behind but I finished it. Well, almost. I still have to go back and proof each page but it is all there. Yippee! I am so very excited. Now I have to get started on 2009...maybe I can actually have that finished before 2011. Ha!

I am feeling a lot better but still don't have much of a voice. Yuck. Very hard when you have two little three year olds running around. I'll survive. But man I wish this would just go away for good. Vertigo is really not fun AT ALL! But at least I have something for the nausea so that hasn't been nearly as bad this time around.

Still so much I need to update here but am tired and heading to bed soon. I was just so excited I had to share it with someone!

Scrappy days

Well, I decided one of the ways to make me scrap more is to join in on a contest or two. Always guaranteed to get me scrapping again. I loved the kit for this weeks round and the only thing I would change about this one is the lettering for the title. I still don't have everything loaded on to the new computer so my font choices were limited and I wasn't able to use an alphabet from another kit. But this turned out cute in my opinion so I was happy. Cameron was thrilled to get this little orange car finally! You can check out my layout if you want over here for my entry.

Credits: Kit was A New Day by Christy Skaggs

Fonts: Impact, Times New Yorker, and VT Portable Remington

Fun kit to work with and I can see me using this a lot for pictures from this summer. Has some fun colors and of course Cameron's favorite orange in it. That is actually harder to find than one might think. But it was the perfect match for his new favorite shirt. :)

Progress...

Slowly making progress on their 2008 book. Was hoping to be further along by now but I'll take what I can get at the moment. Napping woes are still in our lives and so I have no free time several days of the week now. Sigh. And one of my children (who will remain nameless other than saying his name starts with a C) is one grouchy child who is VERY demanding when he doesn't nap. So nothing is getting done around my house these days. I should be used to this but just not. Ugh!

Oh, I forgot, today I hear Cameron saying he needs help, he is stuck. I run upstairs and into their room (remind you both are supposed to be sleeping) and Noah is totally undressed except for his socks and Cameron has his shirt that he can't get off and is stuck with it on his head (he can't unbutton the button so it got stuck but he had socks and all off). Oh lovely. And I was praying last weeks episode was just an isolated incident. Sigh. Oh well, the adventures in motherhood!

Chugga, chugga choo-choo!

Here is March! Woo-hoo! Just chugging along. So nice to feel like I am getting things done again with the scrapping.

Rambling once again...

Two more pages I managed to get done last week. Oh the joy of scrapping again! It has also been a lot of fun to go back and read my journals from the last year. Working on getting 2008 all finished up within the next month and hopefully get a head start on 2009! My goal is to keep up with each month or two as they go by. Oh what a lovely thing that would be to do. Loving these templates by Katie Pertiet. They make short work of this to say the least!

So I found out yesterday that my test results came back positive for rheumatoid antibodies. It explains a lot but it kind of has me a little anxious about what lies ahead. I knew I was in a lot of pain this last year especially, but didn't think it was anything like this. Just praying for some answers to so many questions I have at the moment.

Can you believe it?

Look what I finished up tonight...


And can I just say Margaret was so right on the learning the new computer! I didn't think it would be that much different but Vista is a whole new animal for me. It took me 30 minutes just to find where they hide the fonts folder. Ha! Guess I know what I will be doing the rest of the week when I have a few minutes here and there. But I do have to say how fast this thing is compared to my laptop. OH.MY.GOSH! I love, love, love it. The only down side I can find at the moment is there is no wireless card in the thing so no internet. Hmm...have to fix that at some point but for now I will enjoy my digi scrapping with no distractions. Maybe no internet is a good thing...

Sweet Slumber

Well, Noah finally gave up the ghost. Over an hour after I put them down for their nap he finally fell asleep. With much protesting I might add today. I guess the last time I went in there he took me seriously when I ignored his efforts to get me to pick him up with his sleepy head self. He is so tired and yet wants so much to stay awake. Silly boy.

This is another layout I did the other day at the crop. It was nice to finally get some pages done as it seems to have been ages since I had. I used Colie's new kit, Sweet Slumber, and have fallen in love with it! Now I just have two more pages to finish up I had started that day and I will have finished six pages total in the last week. Woo-hoo!

I love this picture of the boys. When they were around three or four months old I would put them to bed each night and in the morning I would wake to find them with their little heads together. They did this for about a month until we actually had to put them each in their own cribs. They were getting too big and were moving around too much and beginning to disturb each other. Man, it always melted my heart to wake to this site. They are just so precious and this is one of those photos that brings that flood of memories back of these special moments in time.

Happy meals

Holy schnikies Batman, it's supposed to be up to 80 degrees in a few days! Woo-hoo! I can't wait. It has been raining the last few days and hovering in the 40s and 50s. So very ready for Spring!

We stayed well for nearly 2 weeks and then Saturday and Sunday Cameron ran a fever. Poor guy. I just want to make him feel better and stay that way. He seems okay today so hoping it was a short bug and all is well again.

Been super busy, more so than usual. Was able to scrap some pages. Here is one of my favorites I did Saturday.



I had different things I wanted to say for each child so did a page for each of their books. And speaking of books. I am just having such a hard time actually doing the pages for their baby books. I can't begin to tell you how many times I have sat down to scrap those pages and can just never come up with something I like. Ugh. Will get this done this year if it kills me!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just popping in for a quick post. Will get a better update some time later this week. Plus need to add all my pictures for the 365 blog. So far behind these days!

Snippits

Wow...the days are back to running together. I went and scrapped last night and got a page finished. One page...it was worth it though. I did get some files organized (that tends to take my first hour I am scrapping). I, like always, have too much stuff.

Kit is Changing Wind and template is Blog Template 1 by Colie's Corner
Fonts are Yorktown and Will & Grace

I am really into the typography thing and would love to spend time over the next year learning more about it. But then again I guess that will just have to go on the list...along with the 50 other things I would like to learn this year. Ya think it will happen?

We ventured to a pre-school fair today. The fair was nice, the boys seemed okay with it all. It was mostly just booths of people with info but they were taken with the noise and hustle and bustle. They even got a tooth brush that lights up...they will enjoy that I am sure since they love to bring their toothbrush to bed with them!

Learned a very cool trick for those of you who love salt scrubs. Get some sea salt and mix it with olive oil and vanilla and make your own! You can mix it with any kind of fragrance oils but vanilla is something I typically have on hand at all times. :) Put it in an airtight jar and voila...you have your very own salt scrub that will make your hands, elbows, whatever feel soft and smooth. Let me know how you like it if you end up trying it.

It's a strange kind of Monday...

Didn't really feel like Monday to me. I am fighting off a cold and I think M is finally over his. Praying the boys don't get sick too. When will it all go away and leave us finally? I did take airborne several times today and drank a few cups of hot tea with honey and lemon (and one even with some whiskey). The boys go to the doctor tomorrow for shots so that will make for an interesting day I am sure.

I am on another roll here! I did this page the other night in my crafty state of mind. It was nice to do some digital scrapping, it had been a while. I had loved these pictures we took a few weeks ago and knew I wanted to scrap them.

Kit is Shy Guy by Colie's Corner
Fonts are VTKS No Name and VT Portable Remington

I am thinking I may change the pictures at the top to be all of each one of them so they have their own pages. I have been toying with the idea of doing each of them a book instead of combining them and just having it printed twice like I did with the one for their first year. I hardly ever get pictures of them together any longer and I am finding myself doing a page with only one of them in it most of them time these days (or at least when I do finally scrap). Hmm...will have to ponder this a little longer I think. Still haven't even really started their book for their second year so have some time.

This was a page I actually finished Friday night at the crop. I LOVE the sayings that Ana Aspens has created and want to use every single one of them at some point on layouts for the boys. I remember this day like it was just yesterday. The boys were just over 2 months old and this was our first little "photo shoot" mommy was doing. Noah couldn't even stay awake! It was funny and a special day to me. And of course you gotta love little boys in overalls. :)

For February, I challenged myself to take more pictures of other things. Not just of the boys. I want to learn as much as I can about composition and lighting over the next year. The more active the boys become the more I think I will want to have this knowledge. It's amazing what kind of shots you can capture with just that little bit of extra knowledge. So now I am on the hunt for good books and web sites to find useful information.

Poor Cameron last night woke up around 12:30 am. He was just crying and crying. I think I finally figured out after an hour of off and on crying that he has a 2-year molar coming in. This will be our first for either one of them. Hmm...could be part of the crankiness we have been experiencing this last week. Oh...if they could only come with manuals. The good thing is he can now tell us where it hurts so after a while last night we finally got him to tell us his mouth was hurting. And here I was thinking of giving up the binkofier. Uh...not until these molars come in for sure now! He was gnawing on that thing like there was no tomorrow. For a while there he looked like a dog you had just given a big old juicy bone to. Poor little guy, hope this one comes in quickly and the other 3 are not far behind. Just knock it all out in one shot!

Naps, bread and fun stuff

And so it begins...the process of dropping the nap. I believe my little ones are starting the process of dropping their nap. The last few weeks they have went from a 2-3 hour nap a day to 1.5-2 hours...if I am lucky. I am praying it is just winter and we are not as active as usual but I have a feeling it is the beginning of the dreaded dropping of the nap. As with everything when it comes to kiddos, this will more than likely take several months to happen...which I am thankful for. We are just back to the "you never know how long they will nap" stage. But that's okay, keeps me on my toes and it was time for a new schedule anyway. :)

I made bread today. Whole wheat bread even. My in-laws gave us their bread machine they no longer use (thank you!) and I have just not taken the time (until today) to figure out how to use it. I had bought everything a few weeks ago and was ready to go. Just wasn't sure how long I needed to throw everything in, etc and kept putting it off. We were almost out of bread today so I thought what the heck, I have everything, let's give it a go. It was a huge hit! Noah ate about a slice and a half and they are big slices.

He liked it so much he wiped it all over his face. I guess since it was so soft and fluffy he thought it felt funny on his face. Cameron didn't care for the crust so he ate the inside and left the crust.

Cameron decided he wanted to eat ketchup for dinner. So funny how much that kid loves ketchup...and we don't even have it all that often!

I signed up for a class at Big Picture Scrapbooking this month and am so happy I did. So far I am really enjoying it. It's called A Life Well Crafted. I have been so happy with the other classes (some of them free even!) I have taken there so have signed up for the month by month version of this one. I just did January to "test it out" but I think I will do the entire year after what I have experienced so far. Very happy with the content and the projects. Always a good thing! I guess after having kids and spending 8 months moving I needed to do something to find myself again. Hopefully this is a step in that direction.

Funny for today...

I thought this was pretty funny when I read it today. :)

If you love something set it free. If it comes back it will be yours. If it doesn't come back, it was never yours to begin with.
BUT:
If it sits in your lounge room, messes up your stuff, eats your food, uses your telephone and internet, takes your money and doesn't realize you set it free... You either married it or gave birth to it!
- Anon.

We went to church this morning, which was nice. We haven't gone in a while because Noah just wasn't adjusting well to being left in the nursery. After such a positive experience the last 2 times he went to PDO I thought we would give it another shot. Ya know what???? Neither of them wanted to leave! It was such a good feeling knowing they were having such a good time and happy there that they wanted to stay and play. Big sigh of relief finally!


And this is one of the projects I am going to try and finish up this week. I am terrible at sending birthday cards and such to people. I used to be good at it at one point in my life but not any longer. So I am making these little perpetual type calendars that I am going to keep as birthday calendars in my craft area. Hopefully that will help me remember important dates (did I mention both my husband and I forgot our own anniversary this year?). ;) I made the template and will more than likely give it away here on the good old blog soon. Just have to put some finishing touches and find a font I want to use that is okay to give away. Feels good to be creating again!

My little guys got their haircut today. I think it is time for regular haircuts. Sigh. They are getting so big!

Noah acted like a frog tonight. They can tell you what all the animals say but tonight for the first time he hopped around like a frog saying "ribbit." Very cute and Cameron half heatedly did it too. He just wasn't as into the frogs as Noah was. :)

Michelle made a comment about how do I organize all my photos (yes, I literally take hundreds every week usually). I love ACDSee. I can't say enough good things about this program. Before I had tried to use my Photoshop Organizer and my computer was getting so bogged down. Not to mention how long that thing took to load. I was frustrated and getting disheartened. I had read a lot about others using ACDSee and decided to try it out for myself. I am SO very thankful I did. Not only do I use it for all my photos but I use it for my digital scrapping things as well. You can tag items multiple ways and at the click of a button have everything in a particular category at your fingertips within seconds. And the thing I love the very most about it is this program runs on top of your file system instead of actually recreating the files in the program. In other words this takes up less space on my computer and doesn't bog the thing down! Always a good thing in my book!!!!!

I got one of the stability balls last night. I have no idea where my old one has gone to and haven't seen it in years to be honest. I had deflated it and more than likely got rid of it at some point. So after Cameron was sitting on the beach ball the other day I thought how I should get one of these to sit at my desk instead of my chair. My chair makes my back hurt anyway, at least this way I can start strengthening my back instead. Woo-hoo...been sitting on it today and really like it. I even did a short workout on it too! So maybe this was a better purchase than I thought. I have always liked working out with the stability ball.

Just rambling...

I can't believe the first week of January is behind us already. It just was gone and I can hardly even remember it happening. Can you make it slow down just a little, okay?

We had class this morning and did nothing real special the rest of the day. I worked on printing out things for 3 different projects I am wanting to make. Kind of excited to be working in the hybrid world (digital and paper scrapping together in the same project). I am loving pulling out all my old things and even going to the scrapbook store again. I went this past weekend and picked up a "naked" album. They are actually very cool and I wish they had come out with these a long time ago. It is basically chipboard that you can decorate yourself with paper or whatever may strike you at the time. So much easier than trying to recover one or add to one that is already decorated in my opinion. I have already made one. I need to post pictures, now don't I? I was going to give them as Christmas gifts but just never got the chance to finish them all. So maybe I will get around to posting some pictures soon. It was a pretty cool project.
I only took like five pictures today. Sad. I always take a ton of pictures but today just had my mind on other things I guess. But I did take this one of Noah I thought was cute. They love to play with those inflatable beach balls. Cameron has taken to sitting on it and balancing. He used to do that on his stomach but now he actually sits on it at his little table. Oh child, keep it up...do that the rest of your life and you will stay healthy and strong!

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone out there a Happy New Year!

I did it. I am taking the plunge and doing the picture a day for 2009. I decided to start a new blog for it since I discovered an awesome place I can download the whole blog to and print it out. How fun! So it will basically be a picture each day and a brief description. Figured that would be best so I am not rambling on like I do here. :) So if you want to start checking it out in a few days, you can here. Just trying to get it up and running at the moment. I need to get my sidebar updated on this blog and then I imagine on the 2nd I will start posting over there. I am so excited!

Won't have time tonight to get photos downloaded and pick on, post, etc so will do tomorrow. But we had a fun evening with neighbors and it was worth not downloading photos. :) Hope you all had a fabulous New Year's Day!

Christmas fun...

I actually scrapped a page! It's been ages since I scrapped and it felt so good to work on this the last few days. And it is even from Christmas so that is an even bigger accomplishment for me. :)


Cameron is so adorable these days. Whenever I give him something he says "thank you Mommy." Melts a mommie's heart. :) Now if I could get him to stop the biting and scratching he has started lately all would be well again. He gets so excited and just goes wild. We have been through this once before so hoping this time is short lived now that he understands better. And at least when he does do something he isn't supposed to you can tell him to say "sorry" and he will go and tell whoever it is he did it to (usually myself or Daddy) that he is sorry. They are growing up WAY too fast.

Been thinking of goals for 2009. I guess I have some of the usual, lose weight or eat more healthy is more what I want. I have a terrible sweet tooth and must get that under control. But trying to figure out what it is I want to accomplish in 2009. I have decided to start working on a preschool kind of thing with the boys. They are such little sponges and I know now is the time to start. They love to read and so this would be a good extension. I found a decent curriculum and have started working on putting the first few weeks things together. It's been kind of fun. Trying to figure out a way to make a board that I can just interchange things each week for the lessons. May have to head over to the teachers store and see what kind of things they have. Thought of doing a posterboard each week but that just seems like such a waste of paper to me. So I need to find a chalk board that is also magnetic...may end up making something instead. Hubby came up with the idea of just painting our basement walls in chalkboard paint. Don't think I want chalkboard green walls through the entire thing. :) I am sure we will come up with something. Lots of little projects for this year already in my head and on my "list" to do.

Oh! I actually started putting together a binder with all my home information. Lists of telephone numbers, budget, weekly menus, project ideas/lists, etc. It is coming together nicely. I think this will be a HUGE help for me as I am such a list kind of person. I also have a goal this year of getting the house all organzied and together. We have spent so much time moving and stuff that I have just given myself this next year to go room by room and clean out (which some rooms don't need much at all) and decorate. Should be fun and I am looking forward to it. I just need to remember to take before and after photos!

Funny scrapper...

So I am one of those scrappers who pretty much has to finish the page pretty much while I am sitting there the first time. I have never gotten that about myself. I was just looking back over the unfinished pages in my files and can't believe how many I started and have not finished. It's like I am just stuck somewhere when it comes to them. There is one I had to finish. I LOVE the picture of M and the boys and I have never printed it out. Really must do something about that soon. This was actually taken almost a year ago. Can't believe how much the boys have grown since then. Sigh...goes by way too fast! I kept the layout pretty simple, used Colie's Corner Pumpkin Spice kit and the font is Euphorigenic.


I was so tired that after the boys went to sleep tonight I fell asleep. Now I am wide eyed and bushy tailed. Uh-oh. I had so much going around in my head when I woke a little after 10:30 I couldn't fall back to sleep. But hey, I am clear headed and getting some stuff done so not complaining.

I hung some pictures today in the house! We now have 2 rooms with pictures in them. Woo-hoo progress! I also picked up a new comforter for our bedroom this past weekend. It is finally starting to feel like a home again instead of somewhere we just moved into. So this weekend I am going to finish up some more decorating and then get ready for Thanksgiving. M's family is coming in so we are going to have a great time. The boys LOVE having their grandparents here and they are going to have their aunt and uncle too so this will be even more fun for them. We have been trying to get them to say either aunt and uncle or their names but so far nothing is very recognizable. Hopefully by next week though.

My little devils

So the boys discovered they like Halloween last night. I didn't really get any good photos of them but these were the better ones I was able to get. They don't like the camera any longer so pictures are tough these days. They just turn the other way now. But they did have fun going to a few neighbor's houses for Trick or Treat. And it was very cute to hear them say it and then say "Thank you" after they got the goodies. Makes a mommy proud!

And speaking of talking. Cameron said "I love you" for the first time this week. He was jabbering away one day right before his nap and among all the jabber he said it. At first I thought I was just hearing it because I wanted to. Then when I laid him down for his nap and said I love you to him he said "love you" back to me. I was the happy mommy at that point. And of course still didn't believe my ears so I said it a few more times and he said "I love you" or "love you" back each time. Aww...makes a mommies heart melt.

Been a busy week. Only got one layout scrapped. Had a tooth break last weekend so got that fixed this week and Halloween cookies took up all my time. I guess that is how it goes during the holiday times. Going to be busy from here until the end of the year.

Credits: Pumpkin Spice by Colie's Corner, Template is from the My Scrap Shop Template Challenge