Christmas cards

Here are the two cards I made up for family and friends this year. I always think I am going to make each person a different card, but in the end I usually make a bunch of the same thing. It's just easier that way ! I found the pattern to the santa one in an old Card Creation magazine and thought he would make a cute card. The outside says Ho Ho Ho and on the inside I stamped Merry Christmas. Abby even helped me with some them! The Christmas tree is from the AWDML blog tutorial. I really like how it turned out and made a few of them to be sent out. They are a little more time consuming but worth it I think.

Dec. Dailies?

No, definitely December weekly's for me! Okay...let's see what all has gone on since last week. The boys had their Christmas concert on Tuesday. Well, I guess I should say Matthew had his concert on Tuesday. For the first time in 3 years their concert was on the same night and lo and behold Shane started not feeling good on Monday. I knew if I sent him to school I would probably be going and picking him up early, so he stayed home, which meant he got to watch the concert instead of being in it. I don't think it bothered him a bit! The concert was really good this year. They hardly ever sing traditional Christmas songs -and I wish they would - but the songs they did sing were really nice. I tried to get a picture of Shane and Matthew in front of the Christmas tree and these were the best I could get. Shane was not in a picture taking mood and Matthew kept trying not to blink which made him have crazy big eyes. Maybe we'll try the picture thing again before the big day.

This is the weekend that Abby doen't get to come home. She has a final in her political science class tomorrow afternoon. At least she is done with the semester on Wednesday. She told me tonight that finals hadn't been nearly as stressful as she thought they would be. That's a good thing! She always worries and stresses so much more than is needed! It will be so nice to have her home with us for a few weeks!

AWDML - On the 11th day of Christmas....

Todays tutorial over at AWDML was how to make paper bows. These are so quick and easy and fun to make! You could make up a bunch of these - not only for Christmas but for birthdays or any other occasion and have them ready to be added to your packages.

Here's a link to their site. Go on over and check out the great sales they have going on!http://memorylane.typepad.com/design_team_blog/

Origami Tree - AWDML 12 Days of Christmas - Day 6

The 12 days of Christmas is going on right now over at http://memorylane.typepad.com/design_team_blog/. The design team posts a tutorial each of the 12 days for you to try. Today's tutorial was how to make an origami tree. I knew the minute I saw it that I had to try it. It was really easy, (once I got the hang of it!) and I really like the way it turned out. I plan on making several of these to send out for Christmas!

Making cookies

I just love the holidays! It makes me - and the kids - really want to get in and bake. Scott had seen a recipe in the newspaper for chocolate sugar cookies that he thought sounded good, so Saturday afternoon we decided to make them and try them out. Matthew and Abby were ready and willing to help. We were all so eager to see what they were going to taste like. Well it's just a good thing that we tried these out before we took them someplace for the first time. I don't know if we did something wrong or what, but these cookies weren't that good! Matthew said the dough didn't even taste that good!! And everybody knows - if the dough doesn't taste good, the cookie doesn't taste good! Shane wasn't too sure about them either. We caught him licking a cookie and even taking a little bite off of one and then put them back on the plate. Yikes! I don't know if we'll try these cookies out again or not.

December dailies

So, I have challenged myself. I have heard of something scrapbookers do and have decided to tweak it to suit me! Here's what they do - they make a layout for every single day in December. Now being the slow scrapper I am, I knew that wasn't going to happen, so I thought I would at least try to post my happenings on my blog and maybe one day be able to make the layouts. Well, I also know that posting every day is not going to happen for me (seeing as how it's the 2nd of Dec. already!) so I am going to try to post at least weekly and if I get more than that done, then it's just bonus! At least it should be fun to go back and see what's gone on this month. Here goes...

Today is Wednesday, the 2nd of Dec. The weather decided to turn good and wintery today. The temperature started falling and even though they took snow flurries out of the forecast it decided snow anyway. It just snowed for a couple of hours and didn't stick to the ground at all, but it was still fun to see it snow for the first time this season. The boys were so excited and Shane started singing Frosty and Getting Ready For Christmas and kept asking, "Do you like the snow?" He loves to watch it fall! With the boys Christmas concert at school next week, I am slowly starting to get in the holiday spirit. It even got me in the mood for more snow... did I just say that?!

Matthew told me today that his plastic/recycled robot was in the top 5 for a chance to win a Radio Shack gc or a Wal- Mart gc. He didn't wind up winning a gift card, but I thought top 5 was pretty darn cool. Especially since he had been sick and missed most of the time they had to work on it - he had to do his in one class period. He also told me that it was going to be on display for their fine arts show next week. I can't wait to get a picture of him with his bot! (I've got the perfect paper for it!)

Gotta go for now. I have Christmas cards to make for a card swap. I thought they needed to be mailed out by the 5th, turns out they were supposed to be mailed yesterday. Oops! Will work on them tonight and hopefully remember to take pictures before I mail them out!

Secret Santa goodies

I joined in on the secret santa fun over at MSW this year. I really like the way they do it. You go to A Walk Down Memory Lane's website and make a wishlist. Then whoever has your name shops from your list - so you know you're gonna love what you get - and then the store sends it out so you don't know who your secret santa is until the day of the reveal. My secret santa was so good to me, getting me almost everything that was on my list. I got some great Bella Blvd. papers and stickers that I can't wait to use for a layout about our camping trip this summer and I also got some Scenic Route papers before they are gone for good! I can't wait to get in and work with them. I'll be sure to post when I get anything done.

Okay - not sure why this posted 2 of the same picture - and not knowing much about blogging I guess it will have to stay here!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I cannot believe that today is Thanksgiving. Before you know it it will be Christmas and then the start of another new year. This year since Mom has not been feeling well, all of us girls and Aunt Kay got together and made dinner for Mom and Dad. It is always such a blessing when we all get together and just enjoy each others company. This year we have so much to be thankful for, Scott is back to work after being laid off for the last 9 months. Shane is doing well in school thanks to an aide who is truly heaven sent. Mom is slowly starting to feel better after spending more than a week in the hospital with diverticulitis. Abby is over half way through her first semester of college and doing great. Matthew is turning into a fine young man. It is so fun to see his sense of humor and his personality more and more. I get to work with 2 of my sisters a few days a week. I am so thankful to have such a wonderful family.

Notecard holder and notecards

I saw a tutorial over at A Walk Down Memory Lane's design team blog that I just had to try. It was a tutorial on how to make this cute little notecard holder and notecards. I wanted to do something that I could give to Abby and I had the perfect paper for it in my stash. So I started last night at about 10 and had it completely done by 11. It was really easy and fun to do. I have a lot of ideas for more of these to make and can't wait to get started. I may play around with the size and try to make it a little bit bigger. This set of cards is 3.75 by 3.50. I want to try one that is a little bigger. Will post it when I get it done.

Ah - the fun you can have...

with a 75 cent moustache! Saturday afternoon while Matthew was at his friends birthday party we decided to go to town and grab a bite to eat. Shane wanted to "gather round the good stuff" so we headed to Pizza Hut. It had been forever since we had actually gone in and ate at the restaurant, and we had a lot of time to kill, so we ate in. When we got ready to go we seen they had moustaches in one of the quarter machines. I talked Abby into getting one with the condition that I got to take pictures of her and the boys when they tried it on. We got such a kick out of the way everybody looked with them on. Shane, I think kind of liked it after he got used to it and it fit Matthew's mouth perfectly. I guess we know now what the boys will look like if they decide to have a moustache in a few years!! Good times. Good times.

Here's a turkey card for turkey day!

The holidays are fast approaching! I cannot believe that next Thursday is Thanksgiving! Time is going so fast. Gail over at HSS posted a paper piecing challenge a couple of weeks ago and this is what I came up with. Once I got the turkey made I couldn't decide if I wanted to make him into a card or use him on a layout. I finally decided he was so easy to make I could always make another one for a layout.

Silly photo challenge

Kathi over at HSS posted a challenge to use your silly photos on a layout. I searched and searched and finally decided on these pictures of Matthew. He got these silly glasses when he went to the dentist as a prize for being so good. He had so much fun showing everyone what he looked like and posing for some pictures. That was over a year ago and we still have the glasses and the nose - just the moustache is missing. Shane even was seen wearing them around the house a couple of weeks ago. I guess I should have taken a picture of him and added it to the layout!

Fall almost feels like winter!

Here is a picture of the kids in front of our maple tree in the front yard. We took the picture a week ago Sunday and I'm glad we did because this week the leaves are all gone. The weather has been so so cold. The normal highs are supposed to be around 70 and all last week the highs were in the 40's with rain. Just plain miserable. I'm ready for the average temp. to return. Makes me wonder what kind of a winter we are going to have. Everybody tells me that the Farmers Almanac says it's going to be colder and wetter than normal. Nobody seems to know if the "wet" means rain or snow. So long as it's not ice - I'll be okay! And then there's the wooly worm forecast. If you go by it, winter is supposed to have a cold start, a mild middle, and a cold end. (That's when the wooly worm is black on both ends and brown in the middle. Jenny says they have seen a lot of white wooly worms...don't even want to guess as to what that means!!) I guess we'll have to see whose right!

What is wrong with me?!

I just can't seem to find the time to get on here! Well, that and lovely dial up internet service makes it take so long to upload a picture. (Insert mad face here!!) Not much has been going on so I don't have a lot to catch up on. Abby's taken almost all of her mid term exams for this first semester. Of course she stressed and worried, but she did fine. She was really worried about her Bio exam and found out she made 104% on it. She didn't even know there was extra credit on it! She worries so much but that is why she is such a good student.

MSW 1 hour sketch challenge

I thought I would share the layout I did for the 1 hour sketch challenge over at My sketch world last Saturday night. I got the layout done in the hour, but since we have wonderful dial up it took me longer to get it uploaded than it took me to make it! And for that reason I have decided to go back to one blog until we are blessed with high speed internet. I have enough trouble keeping up with one blog - and since it seems I never have time to scrapbook or when I do I'm trying to finish up Marilyn's album - I figured I would just post them on here again. Anyway... I just love how this layout turned out. I knew I wanted to use this picture of Shane that I took one evening after he had finished "watering the flowers". I just loved this picture of him and decided to look through my older paper to see if I could see something that matched it. When I found this old Sweetwater paper I knew it would be perfect for this picture. The green paper just says it all - "I am beautiful just the way I am...I am valuable to this world...I am happy in this world..." you get the picture. So I must say that I am so glad that I participated in this challenge, I got to scrap a picture that I love and use up some of my old stash! This weekend they are having a scrap pink crop and going to have challenges, and such. I think I may have to pop in now and then to see what I can get done!

The hot dog dance!

So, we've got a new morning ritual... we have to do the hot dog dance with Mickey and the gang on Mickey's Clubhouse. Shane channel surfs until 5 minutes before Mickey goes off and then he starts saying, "Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog!" We all stop what we're doing (except Matthew - he's too cool to do the dance!) to go do the hot dog dance. Shane does his best to imitate Goofy's dance ( it's the funniest thing I have ever seen! The pictures just do not show how he gets into it!) Scott imitates Mickey and mine is a cross of Daisy and Minnie. I must say it's a good way to start the day and get the blood to pumpin'. Scott and I are usually worn out before the song is over!! We love to do the hot dog dance!

Abby's birthday

Okay, can somebody tell me where the time went?! It just seems like yesterday that it was labor day weekend and we were celebrating Abby's birthday and now the month is almost gone! This was the first year that she wasn't at home on the day of her birthday, so we celebrated the weekend before. She (of course) knew what she was getting for the most part, but I was able to surprise her with the True Blood shirt she wanted! We had cake and ice cream for the family and just plain enjoyed getting together. It seems like we don't get to do that much anymore. Any way, Happy Birthday, Abby, and I hope your year is filled with lots of great things!

0 cavities for the Shanester!!

Shane had his first dentist appointment in almost 2 years yesterday. We took him to a new dentist and finally found out what was going on with his teeth. (His last dentist never actually talked to us about his teeth - if anything had to be said it went through one of his assistants so we never knew if his teeth were in good shape, coming in right, etc.) His new dentist and her assistants are so nice and they did everything possible to make it a good experience for Shane. Come to find out Shane did not have a single cavity and they said his teeth look really good and he has plenty of room in the back for his permanent teeth to come in. They said the only thing they saw that was of any concern was some wear on some of his teeth from him grinding them when he sleeps. But that was mostly on his baby teeth and we haven't really noticed him grinding his teeth as much lately. We were so happy that he did so well and that he didn't have a single cavity!! Woohoo!

We survived!

Well, we survived the first full week of school. It all didn't go by without a hitch though. On Saturday night Abby texted to say that her phone charger had quit working and her phone was about dead so she wouldn't get to talk to us until she got a new charger. So Monday evening we ran to Springfield to take her a new charger and see how her first day went. She seems to like college life and the freedom it is bringing with it. She did want to come home over the weekend so we went and got her Friday night and took her back this afternoon. I know she will come home next weekend with it being the holiday weekend and the weekend before her birthday, but after that I'm not sure if she'll want to come home as much.

Matthew had a very good start to the year. He seems to really like all his teachers and thinks he is really going to like science this year. He likes the idea of it being hands on experiments along with the book work. This year they have to decide if they are going to play a band instrument or do math practices. Well he's not real happy about either choice, but has decided to do math practices.

Shane had a good start to the week before everything started going downhill rapidly. He really seemed to like his new aide this year and things were going so well when for some reason they decided to move her to the library and get him a new aide. Oh yeah, that's going to work well for a kid with autism who needs routine. Just when he was getting used to aide #1 they go and change things to aide #2 who was definitely not going to work out. I seen that coming when I heard of who it was. I knew they weren't going to "click". She lasted all of one day before going in and quitting. Then Shane was sick and throwing up Wed. night. I'm still not sure if it was just a bug or if things had upset him so much that it got to that point - if you know what I mean. He missed school Thursday and Friday - so tomorrow we will find out who his new aide is and how they are going to mesh. Hopefully things will work out soon. I don't want this to be a wasted year. He also his a dentist appt. tomorrow afternoon. I'm not sure how that's going to go. Maybe he will surprise us once again!

Gotta go! Big Brother is about to come on and I can't miss that!

Abby's new digs

Okay. Friday was a hard day. We had to move our baby girl into her dorm room at college. College. That doesn't seem right. She has grown up so quickly! We left right after we dropped the boys off at school - stopped by Marshfield to get some breakfast - and made it to Springfield by a little after 9. It wasn't too busy when we first got there, but as the morning went by it got really busy. Abby's room is on the 8th floor of Hutchen's Hall. She's got a pretty nice view from her window. She has a suite style room which is 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen area. She has 3 other roommates. We got to meet Katie and Kelsey, but the girl who will be sharing a bedroom with Abby wasn't going to move in until Saturday. We know that she is from Kansas City, she is a sophmore and her name is Breonna. Can't wait to talk to Abby and see what she's like.

After we got her stuff up to her room we went to get her books and to walk around the campus and find which buildings her classes were in. It was an absolutely beautiful day. Really pretty cool for August. It made walking the campus very enjoyable. After that we took Abby out to eat and to Target to get a few things we had forgotten. By the time we made it back to her room, we didn't have much time before we had to go get the boys at school. The look on Scott's face in this picture pretty well sums up how we both felt - it was very hard leaving our baby girl at college. This will be the first time she will be away from home for such a long time. At least we are close enough to go visit or to go get her and bring her home for the weekend!

It's going to seem like forever until next Friday when she has the chance to come home!!

School has started!

I can't believe that school has started again. It seems like the boys just got out of school and here we are making the daily trip to Conway again. Matthew is in the 6th grade - that doesn't seem possible - and Shane is in 3rd grade. He is now on the "upper" hall. I think it's official, I don't have babies anymore! Matthew's teacher is Ms. Johnson. He actually had her last year as his science teacher. He really seems to like her and his classmates. Shane has Mrs. Agee and so far things have gone great for him. He seems to be happy to get back into the school routine. He has a new aide this year and he has really taken to her. She said he even told her "I love you" Friday during story time! That means Shane must really like her! I just hope it keeps going so smoothly!

I ready to go to the big slide!

We hear this phrase at least a hundred times a day. I am not even kidding. I'm not really sure how Shane came about even knowing about it. The big slide - we found out - is the play area at Burger King. We found this out after driving around town one afternoon trying to figure out what big slide he was talking about. We thought it was the park. We stopped at the park, let him play on the slide and in the fountain only to get back in the car and hear "I ready to go to the big slide". So off we went down restaurant row, (Yes - all the restaurants in Lebanon are on the same street!) driving very slowly until the smile appeared and the finger started pointing. Holy smokes the big slide is at BK - not our favorite place to eat - but we pulled in and decided to give 'em a try again. After 2 weeks of eating at BK we got wise and would go elsewhere to eat and go to BK for the slide - and maybe a milkshake... we felt too guilty just going in to use their playplace! Now every day, every few minutes we hear I ready to go to the big slide - we respond with Friday - Friday we go to the big slide. Over and over and over. And so today we treated Shane to time at the big slide since it's the last day of summer vacation. He's always so good to go right in and play and when we tell him it's time to go, whether it's been 5 minutes of 30 minutes, he is ready to go with no fuss or fight. So, our little guy will get to go to the big slide every week for as long as he likes until the next obsession hits. (Let's hope it's not something at Hardees!) Yeah - he rules us!

Silver Dollar City

This time last week we were spending the day at Silver Dollar City with Scott's Mom and Dad. We went last year for the first time in ages and the kids really loved it. It was no different this year. We had a beautiful sunny day, but it never seemed to get unbearably hot. Shane loved riding The Great American Plunge - he's been all about the boat and splashy water since the log ride at the fair this year. He also rode The Lost River and the flooded mine. It was really crowded down there this year and the average wait time to ride one ride was between 30 minutes and an hour - so the kids probably didn't get to ride all the rides they wanted! Matthew decided he wanted to ride a roller coaster. He decided to go on Powder Keg since we all told him there was nothing to it. It just goes from 0 to 60 in like 3 seconds. We all got so cracked up at the look on his face at the picture booth - I mean his mouth was wide open like he was screaming in terror but Abby said he wasn't even making a sound. I had to buy the picture when I seen it and will try to get it scanned and posted asap. It is just too funny! Poor kid is never going to listen to us again! Not only was it a scary ride for him, but at the beginning of the ride Abby put her hands in the air and knocked his glasses off his face! Luckily they fell in his lap and she grabbed them and held onto them until the ride was over. After he got off the ride he said his back kind of hurt - then a little later he said, "My back doesn't hurt anymore, but my spirit is broken." He is such a funny little guy. Later that night he said if they played music on the rides the song for the Powder Keg should be "It's the end of the world as we know it". He can laugh about it now, but he says next time the only rides he is going to ride are, The Great American Plunge, The Lost River and The Waterboggen.

Now Abby on the other hand... this girl loves to ride the rides. She and her dad rode Wild Fire, Powder Keg, The Great American Plunge, the Waterboggen, and the barn swing. She would have ridden every ride there if the lines weren't so long. She had a smile on her face the whole time and laughed and giggled while everyone around her was screaming their heads off - Dad included!! She makes the most of her time when she gets to go to amusement parks. It was so much fun! After Silver Dollar City we went to Pizza World - Reilly is the manager - and had some really good pizza! If you are ever in Branson you should try it out. It is really good pizza! Shane and Matthew ate and ate and ate. I guess all those rides worked up an appetite.

It was a really fun day and I can't wait to go back again!

Camping at Pomme de Terre Lake

So, we went camping a month ago and I'm just now getting around to blogging about it! Not because I haven't wanted to, but I just haven't had the time to sit down and do it! Any way we went camping on July 8 and 9. We decided to stay only one night because we weren't sure how Shane was going to do in the great outdoors. Turns out he loves it! We got down to Pomme de Terre around 2:30 and decided to swim. Scott went ahead and found our campsite and got everything set up. We decided it was time to eat, so we had hot dogs over the campfire. Scott had to take Shane swimming again and Abby, Shawn, and Matthew played board games. When Scott and Shane got back we watched a scary movie on the dvd player. Abby even screamed out once during the movie, but it didn't seem to bother anyone. It took Shane a bit to go to sleep, but once he did he slept sound. The next morning we were all up by 6. Scott made us sausage and eggs over the camp fire. They tasted even better in the great outdoors! We were back down to the beach by 8 o'clock. We had it pretty much to ourselves - us and 3 other kids had the whole lake to ourselves. We swam until we got hungry, then went back to the campsite to eat and pack up and go home. We learned that Shane can swim and that he can float like a cork. Matthew loved to run into the water like a hottie from Baywatch, and Abby was just delighted to have Shawn along on the trip. It was so beautiful and quiet at the lake. It was so great to just get away for a while. I am sure that we will try to do more camping next summer - it was just too much fun!

Card for MSW challenge

So, My Sketch World has a really fun ABC's of summer crop going on the whole month of August. The challenges posted so far look like they are going to be a lot of fun. Now if I can just make the time to work on them. I'm hoping this weekend I can sit down and get a lot done. Today I made time to do the challenge for the letter d, which was to make a card and use 2 distressing techniques on it. My techniques were crumpling the paper and distressing the edges. I really like the way it turned out. I haven't used crumpled paper on anything before and it was a lot of fun to do.

Hopefully I will have more things to post this weekend.

Busy, busy, busy!

I am such a bad blogger! I can't believe the whole month of July got away from me. This summer is just flying by! The kids will be going back to school in 2 weeks. I feel like I haven't even had a summer. So much has happened in the last month that I need to catch up on... 4th of July, camping trip to Pomme de Terre lake, our day at the fair, Scott's birthday.... I could go on and on! More details on all of those happening a little later - hopefully no later than this weekend!

My first circle layout

Okay, so I always do your normal 12x12 square layout and I've been wanting to try a circle layout and found this paper that I thought would be perfect for one of Abby's graduation pictures. It was a lot of fun to play with and I'm fairly pleased with the way it turned out. I'm not too sure about the title down the side ( since Scott said - let's hope they don't read it from the bottom up!) but I think I'll leave it the way it is. I haven't decided if I'm going to journal on this one or save it for another layout. I have lots of room in the red area if I decide to. Now, I've conquered a circle layout... maybe I'll try a 6x12 or some other shape or size!!

Here's my prize

I went to The Skrappin Barn and picked up my prize today. I think it is a pretty awesome prize! It is a printer/scanner/copier all in one. A pretty good thing to have when you are a scrapper and you take lots of pictures! I can't wait to get it out and see how my pictures look printed out with it.

I won, I won!!!

I got a phone call today from The Skrappin' Barn, and I was the winner of the printer!!! They had their grand opening this weekend and while I was there Friday I bought some raffle tickets and told Abby maybe I would win me something for my birthday! I am so excited and looking forward to picking it up this week!

Something scrappy to share

I finally got a scrapbook page done! It seems like I hardly have time anymore to actually get a page made! But, I had taken these pictures of Shane in the pool and wanted to show just how much he loves to swim. The minute he sees the pool up he has to be in the water. It doesn't matter to him that the water is freezing or that the outside temperature hasn't yet made it into the 80's, he has to be in that pool. Everyone, including me, is always so envious of his tan. It seems like he tans the minute the sun hits his skin!

Baseball season is in full swing!

Last night was the first chance I had gotten of taking some pictures of Matt playing ball. It was the only double header of the season for our team. Matt did a great job (as usual!) in the field and with the bat. He is doing a great job at hitting this year. Some of the pitchers can throw really hard and fast. He may have even scored every time he was on base last night. We wound up winning both games and the last game we shut the other team out. Kenny was doing a fantastic job pitching and I think Scott said he only allowed two hits. Pretty good stuff! Baseball season is so much fun!