No snazzy title needed....

And here I am, back again.....fighting a nasty sinus headache while attempting to finish up umpteen projects before the end of this week.....joy, fun!

So anyways.....a hectic week as usual.....tball/baseball practice on Monday and Wednesday nights. Karl took Matthew to the last Kindergarten night at the school on Monday where they had a campsite set up for their 'camp out'.....I sent Karl with a camera and didn't get much (he has been lectured thoroughly on taking better pictures next time!)....but I got enough pictures for this at least:

that's using a new template pack of Sya's, called 'Movie-spiration', and Haynay's kit, 'Kamping Rocks'....the adorable little girl next to him is Samantha......who is NOT HIS GIRLFRIEND!!! they are just ALWAYS together....too cute. You even SAY the word "girlfriend" around him, he goes ballistic. too too funny. I think they make a very cute little couple though.....

Tuesday was the cub scout information meeting at the school....and guess who's volunteered to be the leader? Den daddy Karl! :D He'd already talked to some parents the night before at the campout, so with his "self-promoting", we've got about 7 or 8 little boys ready to sign up for tiger cubs! For a school the size of ours, that's HUGE! :D

Wednesday was a very LONG practice.....2 hours out at the ball fields.....between the water fountain at the diamond where Alaina's practice was....and the dust at the diamond where Matthew's practice was.....Zach was QUITE the mess by the time we got home! :D

Wednesday also was the day we dropped off Karl for his trip out to LA......so Thursday and Friday I did the single-mom thing....which wasn't much fun I might add! :D

Friday night we went and picked Daddy up from the airport and then Saturday we left for Fairfield for the weekend to visit my parents. we had a good visit with them.....I got to chow down on my favorite local favorite cuisine (namely Dimaggio's pizza). We went to the cemetaries and put flowers on the graves of my grandparents, which we always do on Memorial Day weekend. Karl and I took Matthew to see the new Terminator movie (I wasn't impressed....other than featuring Christian Bale, I could've slept through it...total GUY MOVIE!), and then we went and rented a movie for us all to watch later last night. so that was the weekend basically. We left Fairfield to come home around lunchtime today and here we sit....doing laundry, catching up on the season finales we missed last week......etc. etc. etc.

so anyhoo......I'll post the layouts I managed to get done. I've been trying to put together this scrapbook for Matthew's teacher, Mrs. Siemer. It's become a real pain in the rear. I should've just gotten a scrapbook and put the layouts in the pages like normal....but NOOOOOO, i wanted it to be like a "book", so I got one of those chipboard albums and glued the pages on, covered it all in that mod podge stuff to seal the pictures......then sanded the edges.....and like i said....PAIN IN THE REAR PROJECT!!! and i'm only half done because I'm waiting on el-slowpoke company to ship my layouts I ordered...they're still not here and I'm REALLY running out of time since the last day of school is this Thursday! :D

Here's last week's blessing that I never posted......I really don't like this layout at all...so I'm going to end up changing it before I actually print it, but for now, here it is:

That happens sometimes.....i'll do a layout and just not like it. so there's an example.....i think it's the kit....i just don't like it. hopefully i can fix it soon, 'cuz it's really bugging me! :P And I'm too lazy to retype the journaling and I didn't save the .psd version to copy/paste it....so if you can't read it, oh well.....it just basically says that I've always loved to travel and am glad I get to go places now and take the kids with me......the pictures are of the kids and the wings they got from the gate agent at the airport. :D

Next up, Sya's new kit is a collab with Britt-ish Designs....called Sisters 4 Life....it's kinda sorority-themed, but totally GIRLY, so I just had to scrap this picture of Alaina and her cousin, Becca...they're both divas-in-training.....serious drama queens, these two!!

My entry for this week's disboard challenge.......I guess this is kind of an inside joke, so perhaps nobody else will see the humor in this except me......but when you go to Disney World, they have these official Photopass Photographers all over the place that will take your pictures, etc........so there are some photography buffs out there that have made it a point to try and get a picture of THEM instead. :D so that's what I did on this last trip....I asked 2 different photographers if I could take their picture, and they both agreed, but since the challenge only let me scrap an 'odd number' of pictures, the version I submitted for the challenge only has one of the pictures I scrapped here:

I still think it's funny. :D taking pictures of the photographers......hehehehehehehehe!

Here's my layout with Vicki's new kit, called "Colour Me Happy" (I had a hard time typing that english-version of COLOR!):


I really didn't scrap much this week......thanks to being a single mom, being at the ball field, and being occupied with the pain in the rear project most nights this week!

but i DID manage to get my blessing done for this week......I like how this one turned out, so no re-scrapping will be involved most likely....look at those lashes on that sweet little boy!! (not that I'm biased or anything!):


journaling: I don't know why, but I never sang the "traditional" lullabies to my kids when they were babies. My favorite usually was 'You are my Sunshine', so that's what I sang to them the most. With Zach being my last baby, I really cherish each lullaby I sing now, because I know that sooner than I want it to happen, he'll quit asking for "more sunshine" so I'll sing it again. My babies have grown up fast, but I'll always have those special moments when it was just the two of us and I sang 'more sunshine' for them. It's a special memory for me that I'll always remember.

That's using a kit called 'Angel Baby Boy' from Haynay Designs and 'Dynamic Duo2' template from Sya's Blueprints. There, I think I got all the plugs in for this post! :D

So that's it for now.....back to the spring cleaning!! Got a Star Wars birthday party on Saturday we need to prepare for!!! So until next weekend, later!!

A whirlwind week!!

And here I am, blogging yet again! :D Seems like it was just a week ago I was sitting here typing....oh wait, it WAS just a week ago! :P uhm, yeah, I had a glass of wine at dinner, so anything is funny to me right now......now if I drink that 2nd glass that hubby poured for me....everything will be REALLY hilarious then! :D

So anyways....our week. crazy hectic as always! I don't even remember why, but we skipped tumbling again this week.....I think it was because there were nasty storms going on and the thought of being in what's nothing more than a pole-barn structure......wasn't too appealing to me! :P Wednesday the kids were supposed to have ball practice, but it was too muddy for that, so as far as all of our activities are concerned...it was a pretty slow week for us....WIERD!

So what DID i do all week? well, there's that whole 'day-job-thing' I've got going on with those little helicopter doo-dads....and Karl's winding down the year at school. Last week was finals for the college classes he was teaching, so he's been busy getting finals graded and final grades posted. Ya know, I NEVER had a professor in college grade finals as fast as he does...I hope those students and Lewis and Clark CC and SIU-E appreciate that! Now he's just got to finish up the year at the day job (and he'll be gone most of this week, I'll explain in a sec), so he's got the whole spring-fever thing going BIG TIME! Sometimes i wish I had the summer off too...and then I remember how much teachers get paid! :P

Oh, there was a nice funny moment that happened this week.....funny because it wasn't ME that did it....had it BEEN me.....I'd still be hearing about it, kwim? Karl decided to install a window AC in our room....so he was attempting to take the screen out of our bedroom window, and just as I figured, he lost his grip on it, and half the window fell 2 stories to the concrete patio below. I'm still laughing! Oops! Again......glad it wasn't ME that did that. It got pretty bent out of shape...so we'll be getting a new window for our bedroom sometime before snow flies.......hahahahahaha! MEN! :D

The kids are enjoying all kinds of end-of-school things......this week Matthew's Kindergarten class had a "Teddy Bear Picnic"....they all brought in their favorite teddy bears and they had a picnic at the school...having peanut butter and honey (since bears like honey, DUH!) sandwiches. I sent a camera with a note to the teacher to please take picturs of Matthew, and she did....so I've already got that scrapped....

I think Alaina's counting the HOURS left of school...not just the days! She's TOTALLY ready for summer. And Zach's time with his current babysitter, Miss Cindy, is coming to a close as well.....since this fall he'll be going to the same sitter as the older kids....I know he's going to miss her, but it'll be a lot easier for us only making 1 stop in the mornings for dropoff vs. 2! So lots of changes are coming our way!!

The big 'excitement' of the work week was probably getting "that call" from the school on Tuesday around lunchtime to come pick up Matthew, as he'd been puking. yay fun! but shockingly enough (insert sarcastic eye roll here!) he was PERFECTLY FINE once we got home from school....STINKER! He's learned that's an instant get-out-of-school-free card, and he has no problems playing it!!! UGH!

And in other fun news......I've worked my way up to running (more like jogging VERY SLOWLY!) a mile. yay me! I know that's not very impressive, but considering I've never run/jogged a mile in MY ENTIRE LIFE (I walked it in high school even!) this is HUGE for me! So I'm darned proud of myself.......my goal is to be able to run at least half of that 13.1 mile half-marathon in March of '10.......I know there's no way I can run the whole thing....but I'd be content with being able to run HALF of it....so that's my goal....and I'm slowly working up to it....starting with this first mile! It's all downhill from here, right? probably not, but I'd like to remain blissfully unware for as long as possible!!! :D

Friday night, we left as soon as the kids got out of school (I ducked out of work early...SHHHHHH!) and headed north to Chicago. Karl was "sick" (I put that in quotes, because we all know there's SICK...and then there's "man-sick".....he was man-sick!) so I ended up driving most of the way to Chicagoland...and I wasn't too happy about that since I'm VERY night-blind and therefore not too comfy driving around in unknown territories in the dark. Plus, we drove through all kinds of nasty storms on the way...never saw any funnel clouds, but I had the camera ready in case we did! :D

We got up to Schaumburg around 9 and crashed......early Saturday, (and the reason we were in town) was Becca's birthday party downtown at the American Girl Place store.....

So Saturday, Alaina and I were up and dressed, and out the door around 9....and even though that seems ungodly late giving our usual rising schedule of 5AM.....i like sleeping in on the weekends, so that WAS early for me! :D

Becca invited 4 of her best friends to the lunch, plus her little sister Sarah and Alaina made a party of 6 little girls. And there was her mom, nicole ("auntie cole" to my kids) and one of her friends' mom teresa plus myself to be the 3 chaperones for the day..........so off we went to the train station to take the train into the city. The girls loved the train ride in, but I think they got tired of it after awhile (it took about an hour to get downtown). Once we were at Union Station, we walked a little ways down the street to get a couple cabs, and then we headed to American Girl Place.

OMG....the cuteness of this place is just UNREAL. if you don't like pink, you are SOOOO out of luck in this place! :D It was so adorable....all the displays of the different dolls (everything for sale of course!), clothes, etc, etc, etc.........we could've spent the day there and still not seen it all, it was that huge!

After a quick trip to to the potty (with 6 girls, of course that's a given!) we shopped for awhile....I told Alaina she could have ONE outfit for her doll, so she'd better look around and be careful what she picked......my wallet couldn't handle much more than that. I can get MYSELF an outfit for what these things cost, kwim?? :D so I think she had it narrowed down to a couple different outfits by the time it was our turn for lunch.

OMG, cuteness overload again with the American Girl Cafe!! What a perfect little place for a girl's birthday party, seriously! All the girls' dolls had their own chairs to sit in plus their own cup and plate (for their IMAGINARY food....not the REAL food MY daughter put on there!) and us bigger people had all kinds of goodies....sweet breads, cheese,and fruit appetizers...and then we all ordered our lunch.....i ordered what probably ended up being a reall UN-healthy salad...but it still eased my conscience enough for cake and ice cream later! :D most of the girls had the American Girl Picnic lunch...which was a mini-hamburger, a mini hotdog and a little side of mac and cheese. too cute! and then they brought out a cake and we sang happy birthday to Becca....then we had cake and some peppermint ice cream (served in a teapot with a flower in it.....I told ya: cuteness overload!). then it was time to leave lunch adn head back out to the store........to spend oodles of money on more cuteness!

I slightly underestimated my daughter here.......I gave her the stipulation of a "one outfit" rule.....so she picked out the outfit she wanted her doll to have.....and then she shows up with this pet carrier-bag thing for her doll's dog. since it was NOT an "outfit".....she could still have it, right? UHM......DRAT! Must remember to be WAY MORE SPECIFIC next time I set ground rules for shopping! So she, of course (because I'll admit I'm a total sucker for this American Girl cuteness!) ended up with the outfit for her doll....AND the pet carrier for the doll's dog. Us grown-ups handed over our wallets to the cashiers and we headed back to Union Station for the afternoon train back to Schaumburg.

The train ride back was a little more fun, as the girls had all their new purchases to admire. Once we got back to Becca's house, the other girls' moms came to pick them up....Becca opened their gifts, and that was the end of the excitement of the day. Once all the guests had gone and since Karl's brothers Keith and Ken were there (along with Ken's son Jacob), we ordered some pizza for dinner and just hung out for awhile. Once Ken/Keith left, Karl decided to take the boys back for bedtime, which left me and Alaina to hang out. Nicole and I did some digiscrapping while the girls played with their American Girl dolls, and littlest pet shops, and etc, etc, etc......I think I finally left with Alaina around 10. Then we crashed after our long party-filled-fun day!

Today, we got up early AGAIN (BAH on this not-sleeping-in-on-the-weekend-thing....BAH!) to get the van packed up for the trip home. Met up with Karl's brother Keith at an IHOP for breakfast.....and we were on the road heading south around 9...which is ridiculously early for us! So we got back to our house around 2....with a couple potty breaks and a quick McNugget lunch along the way. And that's basically been our weekend......since we got home, we've been trying to tidy up the house a little bit (laundry/dishes/blah/blah/blah). The kids are now all bathed....dinner's done....and I'm in my usual spot on the couch waiting to start a movie once Karl's ready.

So.......I'll post the layouts I managed to get done this week......I've passed the 20 layout mark for that Queen of Scrap contest, so I'm happy with myself....I should be getting a free kit soon, so yay me! I feel a sense of accomplishment about that! :D

First up, yesterday at American Girl Place.....lots of pink and flowers in this layout....OBVIOUSLY! :D but I love how it turned out.....it oozes cuteness, just like the store itself:



Here was my entry to last week's disboard challenge.....

And my entry for this week's challenge....which I'm hosting. Everybody keeps giving me grief (yes, Nicole, I'm talking about you!) about having so many rules in my challenges....well, if there weren't any RULES, where would the challenge be, hmmmm??? :D

Matthew's Teddy Bear Picnic at school:

A layout from the cruise of the kids dancing with the bears they made at Camp Carnival:

The Dance Party with Funship Freddy on our cruise:

Matthew and his reindeer ears he made in his class at Camp Carnival...he did NOT want his picture taken with the ears and red nose.....so Karl had to hold him still for me:

Pictures of Miami as we were sailing away on our cruise....*sigh*

And as we were driving home from our cruise, we stopped in Savannah, Georgia and had dinner at Spanky's........they have the BEST chicken fingers....YUM YUM indeed!!

And for my CT plugs....Vicki's got a new kit in her store today called 'Over the Moon', and this is what I scrapped with it....


So this coming week.....Karl's leaving on Wednesday for LA....yeah, I know....bummer for him! It's a teacher's conference, and he hasn't been to one in YEARS, so he kinda had to go. I wish I could go too...that'd be pretty fun. But for Wednesday/Thursday and most of Friday, I'll be on my own with the kiddies. He'll be back late Friday night......and Saturday morning we're heading to Fairfield to visit the parentals for the holiday weekend.....we'll be cleaning up the store and hopefully selling off some stuff as they close down their business. Sad that we're closing our business.....but that's the reality of the current economy. My mom is now unemployed...and Karl and I are officially "failed-business" owners....woohoo!!! *sigh*.....oh well...it is what it is....and it's over. We tried!!

And lastly, my blessing for the week....isn't done yet! :D Gimme a break, I was busy! :P Tomorrow's the last Kindergarten night for Matthew.....and Alaina's got ball practice.....but maybe I can get it done and posted for tomorrow.....I've got an idea....I just spent way too much time on that American Girl layout-of-cuteness (I'm quite proud of that one!).

So perhaps I'll be back tomorrow with a blessing....or I'll post 2 next week....who knows! But that's it for me for now....I'm off to vacuum and then hopefully watch a movie. Have a great week everybody!!

Happe Muther's Dae!!!

I hope everyone is having a "Happe Muther's Dae" as well. I don't quite understand where the lack of spelling skills come from in my children, as I was always an excellent speller, but I gotta admit, it's quite entertaining sometimes deciphering what they write! :D

So anyways, I've had a pretty good day so far. I got some homemade cards and a little poem, lots of hugs and kisses, and a corsage to wear to church! I don't ask for much more than that, so I'm happy!!!

And in honor of the day, here's my blessing.....SHOCKER......it's MOM:



journaling: Now that I’m a mom myself, I’ve come to understand my own mother a little better. I know she did the best she could as a Mom, and for that I’m grateful. She was always there for me when I needed her, and still is. My mom will always be one of the most important people in my life. She may drive me crazy sometimes, but she’s my mom, and I’m blessed to have her in my life.

So, back to our week.....Tuesday was Matthew's class field trip to the Zoo, so Daddy went with him and they had a BLAST! His class wore the t-shirts that they tie-dyed on their last field trip to the High School......Karl was "not comfortable" taking my SLR for pictures, so he got sent the little point-and-shoot instead........and here's what he came back with......whereas I would've taken 100 pictures.....he took 30. Either that's a gender difference or I just take WAAAAAY too many pictures everywhere I go! horrible thing, isn't it?? :D......this is with one of Haynay's kits, called "Jungle out there".....cute!





Tuesday, we skipped the usual tumbling lessons to go sign Matthew up for Cub Scouts for next year......we waited....and waited....and WAITED.....and the guy from the council never showed up! While we were waiting though, we got a tour of the local fire station, and the boys all got to play on the trucks and hold the firehose....so it wasn't a TOTAL loss:


That layout is using one of Sya's templates, called 'Long n Skinny', and a new alpha from Haynay called 'Chip off the old block'......so at least I got a layout out of the evening! :D

Wednesday was our first T-ball practice of the season. Oh joy! Thankfully, Matthew was really into it.....no waterworks or fits or anything this time, which was NICE! I was thrilled. He did really well, so yay Matthew! (and amazingly enough, I didn't have my camera with me....I KNOW, I can't believe it either!). Alaina's first practice is tomorrow. She's never played ball, so that will be uhm......INTERESTING I'm thinking!! :D She's more concerned with what color their shirts will be than anything else....because THAT is what's important!

Thursday was church study group, and since it takes us a few days to get the house 'presentable' (notice I say PRESENTABLE vs. CLEAN....because our house NEVER really gets to a point that it could be called CLEAN)......I didn't scrap as much this week as I normally would have. *sigh*.....it was a sacrifice indeed! :D But we had a good time at study group as we always do......

Friday, we had a "sorta date" night......I say "sorta"....because we had 1 kid with us! :D We had some friends watch Zach for us, and when Alaina heard that Zach was going to be at her friend Elsie's house....she decided she'd rather play over there than go to the movies with us! So me, Karl and Matthew went out to dinner in Grafton and then over across the river to go see the new Star Trek movie. GREAT movie btw....I really enjoyed it.....especially the guy playing Kirk....*sigh*...... And i am NOT a trekkie, so take that as proof that you don't have to know the startdate of every episode to enjoy the movie.....it was really good. And Matthew had so much fun.....he had the people around us laughing out loud because well....he's 5....and 5-year-olds say exactly what they're thinking.....so when Capt. Kirk kissed a woman, everybody heard a (very loud I might add) "EWWW! GROSS! HE KISSED A GIRL!!!"....from Matthew. It was hilarious. :D And then when Spock held up his hand for that famous 'live long and prosper' greeting........I heard a "HEY! WHAT'S WRONG WITH HIS FINGERS?"........priceless!! So we had a great time at the movies Friday night!

Saturday we skipped swimming lessons because we were going to be on the go so much.....we got up and got stuff packed for the afternoon/evening. We left here a little after noon to have a Mother's Day lunch at my brother Dean's house with my parents and some of Dean's inlaws. Then we hung out after lunch for awhile just talking........and then we headed on out to Fairfield to spend the night and go to church with mom for Mother's Day. We watched the Cardinals lose and just sat up talking (me scrapping!) with the family 'till bedtime.

Then today was Mother's Day!!! We had a nice service at the congregation in Fairfield....Alaina sang a solo (the same song she sang at her baptism), and they had lots of nice readings/poems/songs about mothers......it took 3 different tries to get my corsage to stay on though....I think next year I'm going to ask for a wrist one! :D But it was a nice day.....I love being a mom and all those hugs and kisses are what make it so rewarding!!

Only one more layout to share........Vicki's new kit is called "toybox"....and I didn't really have any pictures to use for the 'toy' elements of it.....but I did scrap this with it:

This is of the kids and their Character Plus awards they won. Each month they learn about a different character trait....last month was Politeness, and Matthew won the award for that (each class has 2 winners). Alaina won a few months ago for Reliability...and I just never took her picture for it....so here they are with their Character Plus awards!

So that's it for me for now.......tomorrow we've got more ball practice (2 nights/week....blah!) and I'm sure the rest of the week will fly by as it usually does when we're really busy!!! And I think my ticker up on top of the blog is off.......because our countdown to Disney should be at like 3 weeks or so......it's getting close. The family road trip to California will be here soon!! woohooo!!

Take care, have a great week, and Happy Mother's Day to all!!

Better late than never! :D

Yeah, yeah yeah....so I never got around to posting on Sunday night.....or last night....whatever! :D

this last week was typical i guess....tuesday was Alaina's class field trip to the Arch, so I went along as a chaperone.....



They had a great time....we watched this really good (i was very impressed anyways) movie about Lewis and Clark's expedition......walked around the museum there on the Arch grounds, then got into our little pods for the ride to the top....yay fun! That was probably the highlight of the week.

Friday night, all the boys got haircuts and we brought a pizza home...that's about as exciting as our Friday nights get around here! :D I bought a bunch of new scrappin' kits, so I had fun getting those unzipped and organized.....and obviously I scrapped too, duh!

Saturday the kids had swimming lessons....Zach's getting SLIGHTLY better about it.....at least he doesn't spend the entire time screaming in my ear and crying.....so I'll consider that progress! I bribe him with "chippies"......if he's good and "kicks" he gets a bag of doritos out of the vending machine after class. WELL worth 75 cents to not have him scream in my ear, kwim?

after swimming lessons, I did a speed scrap and did this LO:


I don't remember doing anything else Saturday night, so it was probably just catching up on Tivo'd stuff on TV.......that's usually what we do on the weekends!

Sunday, after church, we met up with one of Karl's students and her mom to take the kids riding on their horse.......Alaina LOVED it, as I knew she would.......Matthew HATED it, which surprised me.....and I assumed Zach would freak out, but he thought it was hilarious and giggled the entire time we were on the horse........so 2 for 3 on the horse! :D And I already scrapped it, 'cuz I"m trying my darndest to stay caught up on stuff.....

Sunday night we went over to the Loftus' house for dinner and some wine....and I drank way too much and that's why there was no blog update Sunday night! :P but it was so fun hanging out with them, it was worth the headache the next morning (i think). So that basically catches you up on us......

I entered this "Queen of Scrap" contest at Scrap Matters....and for the first couple days, I was totally gung-ho, wanting to get the most layouts done so I'd win the contest.......and now I've decided that there must be gals out there that just do absolutely NOTHING but scrap.......or they're just amazingly fast......how else can they have 15 layouts submitted in 2 days? I had 6 done and thought I was smokin'! :D shows what I know! So obviously, I'm NOT going to with that contest......but that's okay.....I'll keep working as I can to get the participation prizes, and all is good!


So.....here's what I've scrapped lately that I haven't already posted (or at least I don't think I have......it's getting hard to keep track!)

From the Science Center last weekend.....using one of Sya's new template packs (Stacked n layered strips):



Another one from the Science Center....using the project 365 template pack and the 'that's the ticket' date stamp from Haynay Designs:



Here's another one from our Christmas cruise:


Another cruise one......mustering!


My Dad and Zach watching the farmers plant the field across the street:


from our hotel night in Miami, using a kit of Haynay's called 'Summer in the Hamptons'....


This is my dis-board entry for this week.......


Riding the horse on Sunday:



And my blessing for this week.....

journaling: When I was young, I didn’t have much of a relationship with any of my grandparents. Most of them had already passed,and the ones that were still living weren’t in good health. I’m so glad that my children are able to have a meaningful relationship with their grandparents. It’s something I never had and it means the world to me that my children know and love their grandparents so much. That loveis a real blessingto me.

So now I think I'm all caught up.....and now we're off to town......later! :D

Happy National Scrapbook Day!!! :D

Well....here I am, posting on a Friday after all, who'd have thunk that? :D

Today's (inter)National Scrapbook Day, and in honor of that, I get to post all the layouts that I couldn't post before, woohoo!!

So, first up.......Grab bags! :D Grab bags are cool......ya just never know what you're gonna get, but both Haynay and Sya put together some really AWESOME bags that are worth WAY more than the little price tags. You MUST go get them, 'nuff said!

So here's something I scrapped with a template pack out of Sya's grab bag.....the template's called 'Stacked n Layered Strips', and I decided to scrap the Alaina's spring school pictures with it (btw, spring pictures are just a total money-making concept......'cuz they know parents like myself will cave and buy the pictures because our kids are just too cute! well, MINE are anyways!) anyhoo...... here it is:



And for Matthew's, I used a different template set, called 'Gimme Some Space 3'......white space really bugs me on a layout....I just feel this utter compulsion to fill it with SOMETHING....so if you go and look at the actual template....you see it has WAY MORE white space in it than my resulting layout does.....but that's the beauty of templates....you don't have to use them EXACTLY as they are! :D


And for the 3rd template set in Sya's grab bag (there's 4 sets of templates, but I haven't gotten around to using the 4th set yet.....I tried, it just didn't happen in time for today.....darned WORK really gets in the way of my scrapping time, drat!). This set is called 'Coined'.....and I think you can guess why:



And now, for my new CT, Haynay's Hunnies.......(I'm so proud to be a Hunny, btw, it just sounds cool!)........in addition to the Grab Bag she made, she also released a new kit today, called "Just the Right Medicine".......... and I've done 2 layouts with it:

This one I did first, since I didn't have any kind of 'booboo/injury' pics to scrap, I had to improvise.....this is also using one of Haynay's templates, called '3s Company':

I know every parent feels my pain (and laughed along with me), looking at those pics....right? I'm so mean, laughing at my kids like that. :D

And the other layout I did with that new kit was my blessing for this past Sunday......in honor of my gallbladder surgery last week (of which i'm pretty much recovered....just lacking energy.....hopefully that's just me recovering from surgery vs. some pig-germed infestation of some sort, kwim? LOL!)....my blessing was Modern Medicine:

journaling: After having 3 c-sections, a lap-band, and just today, my gallbladder removed, I have the utmost respect for modern medicine and the role that it plays in my life and the lives of my loved ones. The doctors and nurses I've encountered have been knowledgeable and very caring toward me and my family, and I'm very grateful for their dedication to their jobs. Without the benefits of modern medicine, I know that the quality of life that I and others enjoy would be greatly diminished. I'm so thankful and blessed to have access to the medical care I need, for it is truly an invaluable blessing.

And for Haynay's grab bag........this is just AWESOME!!! sometimes in a grab bag you just get 'bits and pieces'......but Haynay's grab bag is a FULL KIT.......and it's HUGE!! plus other goodies too.......yay! :D

This is Matthew's field trip to the high school last week....mom went with him and took all the pictures.......they had so much fun! :D



I've got other layouts to post, but since I want to have stuff to post on Sunday, I'l l post them then! :D

So go......celebrate interNational Scrapbooking Day.......enjoy! :D