Black Friday Scrap-madness! :P

All 3 designers I CT for have cool new releases coming out today:

Sya's Blueprints is releasing a Grab Bag of 3 template packs:


And here's 2 layouts I scrapped with it:

the first one is of Matthew's cub scout troop visiting with one of the police officers in Grafton....she put Matthew in cuffs and the boys thought that was the funniest thing ever:


The 2nd layout is of the cub scout visit to the old Hamilton schoolhouse near here....apparently it was the first integrated school in the country....interesting! I like old stuff like that....not sure the boys were as enthused with all the history as the parents were, but whatever!:



Haynay Designs is also releasing a Grab Bag, which has a TON of stuff in it...a full kit, alpha, photo border templates, some date flair, and a bunch of hybrid stuff too!


And here's what I scrapped with that......a day in my life (this was actually kind of fun to document!):

(oh, and if you like my cluster on that LO, you might want to check back in a few days, *wink* *wink*)

Last, but certainly not least, Stolen Moments is releasing a Christmas kit, called "One more sleep"


and with that, I created our Christmas card....so for those of my 'real-life' friends...here's a preview of what will be arriving in your mailboxes! I had a blast making this card....I thought it was hilarious!



Enjoy your Black Friday shopping everybody!!!! :D

While the designer's away.....

The Hunnies will play! :P

Just a quickie post to announce that while Heather (Haynay) is off to Disneyworld on vacation (WHY does it seem like everybody I know is going to Disney right now?), her CT (myself included) will be keeping her blog up to date with challenges, prizes, and whatever other fun stuff we feel like doing:



My freebie (my first ever freebie, how exciting!) will be given out on Dec. 2nd. So at least go grab that! I'm not even sure if I'll be giving it away there or here....but either way, you'll get it for NADA....'cuz us Hunnies are nice like that!

So keep tabs on Haynay's blog and get ready to scrap!

I'm always playing catch-up!!

It sure seems that way lately!!

First up......Amber's CT is hosting a template challenge over on the blog.....so if you're interested in downloading a template and playing with it..... check it out


In other news.....what have we been up to lately? Nothing super-exciting....scouts for the kids....swimming lessons on Saturdays....that's about it! I'm very much looking forward to Thanksgiving. We're hosting the whole Caudle family, so my turkey's already thawing in the fridge and I"m planning out the meal for us all.....and then looking forward to Black Friday do-or-die shopping! :D

The kids will also be having a Thanksgiving program at school, so I'll be sneaking out of work to go see that.....it's always so cute! Then the parentals will show up shortly afterwards and the holiday festivities will begin!

Soooooo.......see my ticker? I'm TOTALLY ready for that Disney trip after Christmas! Karl's brother and his family are at WDW right now, and hearing about their trip is going to make me totally anxious to get down there for a little Disney magic.....(oh yeah, and 80+ degree days in December is fine by me too!)

Catching up on scrapping.......i have these in my 'to post' folder, so i'm assuming i've never posted them....so here they are (no plugs, just pages here!)

carving our halloween pumpkin (gosh, i'm behind!):


the kids' class parties for halloween at school:




Trick or Treating:


And I've finished a few pages already from mine/karl's trip to DC a couple weekends ago (we had the BEST time.....we'll have to get back there soon with the kids!):


this one uses the 'Just call me Y' template pack by Stolen Moments:


Coolest story about our White house tour.....we get to the white house at 7:30 and there's already a line around the block, and we kinda freak out......I went up to the park ranger and ask if that's the line for the 8AM tour and he says 'no, you're on a congressional tour, you go over there'....and points to a group of 4 other people...yay! Then Karl's phone rings....we're assuming it's our congressman's staffie that'd been talking to us during the week to arrange the tour.....the ID said "withheld", and as Karl's answering the phone, we saw our congressman get out of a big black SUV and put a phone to his ear......"Is this Karl Herman?"......"Is this congressman Shimkus?" :D so Congressman Shimkus escorted us through security....past that long line of other people (hahahahahahaha!) and into the White house for our tour....he showed us where he "got wupped" playing President Obama in basketball.....he was a really nice, down-to-earth guy. We were so shocked he showed up HIMSELF to do that.....i'd never have expected that in a million years. And that thing that really stinks is that I didn't have my camera with me to take a picture of us and him (cameras weren't allowed on the tour), so no pictures of that way-cool moment.....oh well!

another one with the "just call me Y" templates......this was a HUGE moment in our house....alaina's very first perfect test score. School is NOT easy for Alaina....she has to study really hard to even pass some subjects.....the week she was out sick with the flu, she missed a social studies test.....so she ended up getting a few extra days to study for it...and i'm sure that helped tremendously....but still....we were VERY proud of this A+ from our little girl:


i JUST finished this one....it's with this cute little kit of Amber's (Stolen Moments) called "A little spacey"......of the kids (and Karl) on the space ranger spin ride at Disney World:


These next two layouts are with Sya's new template pack, 'Completely Clustered 2':

I took all these pictures of Zach during Alaina's soccer game the other day....he said he was making a "cross face":


and this is from our Disney trip in March (which i'm SO not going to finish scrapping before our next trip!)


Here's the layout of my dad's new and improved rocking horse (i posted about that earlier)..........the kit is 'Once upon a shabby Christmas' by Haynay Designs, and the template's from 'one for the money v2' also by Haynay:


so that finally catches me up with the scrap-postings (I hope!)...Karl and I went on a double-date last night with some friends....dinner and New Moon....it was so fun to pretend we were 16 and squeal over the cute guys in the movie (and we were NOT the only non-teenagers drooling either, i might add!)....so a nice night out for us last night...and now i'm off to catch up on some TV!! Have a great week everybody and a very happy thanksgiving! I hope you all feel as blessed as I know I am!

Catchin' up!!

just a quick post to catch up on the scrappin' i've gotten done.....

My guest spot for Stolen Moments has begun and I'm (of course) having a blast with it!

Here's what I've created with some of her stuff:

with the 'Just call me "Y"' template pack, 'date go round', and 'into the night' kit, I made this of our visit last weekend to DC:


with 'Sweater Weather' and Sya's template pack 'around the corner'


And this one (SO sorry I"m so late posting this!) was made with the contents of her DSD grab bag (which you can't get as a grab bag anymore, but the kit, "tenderly", the templates, "scrap it solo vol1" and the word strips, "clips and bits: everyday" are in her store separately!)


Another one with Sya's 'around the corner' template.....of when DH's brother came to visit with his sons.....


And this one is with a new kit of Haynays, 'Down on the Farm'


so that catches you up with the CT plugs for now.....I'll hopefully get back to regularly scheduled blogging in just a moment.... :D

Swine Flu, Swine Flu, GO AWAY!!!!

ah.....it was probably inevitable......but the swine flu has struck the house of Herman. Oh yay! But at least up until that point we'd have a fairly enjoyable week and weekend!

Thanks to the miserable rainy weather all week long, Alaina's soccer game was cancelled on Monday night....and Saturday morning! So that greatly diminished our obligations this week!

Thursday was Zach's Halloween party for his PreK class (they don't have class on Fridays, so their party was a day earlier than everybody else's!).....He still refused to wear the spiderman costume we bought him, wanting to be Nemo instead....so whatever (pick your battles, right?)......he had a GREAT time, and whoever was in charge of that party really outdid themselves with the goodies.....I think he ended up with 3 goody bags plus candy from a pinata! goodness! He's still running around on a sugar high!

Since there was a mouscrappers.com challenge relating to Disney-themed Halloween costumes, I went ahead and scrapped his party since he was Nemo:



Then Friday was Alaina and Matthew's class parties at school. I was the room mother for Alaina's party, and I thought the party turned out really well. I decided to go much simpler on the sugar consumption at the 3rd grade party....knowing that trick or treating was that very night.....the other moms and I decided the kids would be getting PLENTY of candy! So their party was light on candy, but loaded with fun! I had one of the moms do a game where they felt in a bag of dead body parts and had to try and guess what they really were....they were so grossed out, it was great!

one of her friends was also a purple witch, so Alaina thought that was awesome:


And since Matthew's party was going on at the same time, I took a break from Alaina's and ran downstairs (them being on different levels at the school now gives moms like me an unexpected workout during parties!).....Matthew was nearly sick from eating all the junk he got at his party!! But he was loving it....one of his friends had the same costume on as him.....too funny!


I attempted to orchestrate a group picture, but his class is so huge (27 kids), that there wasn't anywhere for them to really GO to get a decent picture.....so eh, we tried! but he seemed to have a great time at his party!


I had better luck with a group shot of the (much smaller) 3rd grade class:


and No, I haven't scrapped THEIR parties yet.....kinda swamped at the moment.....because....

This month, starting today I guess...I'm a guest Creative Team member for Stolen Moments Designs and Amber is letting me scrap with her gorgeous kits this month. I'm enjoying myself already! She's releasing a grab bag for DigiScrapDay next weekend and I already got my layout done (since I'll be out of town next weekend....note the ticker above!). And I did another layout with a different kit of hers, but I can't post it yet either......so next weekend I'll post those, promise!

But check out the DSD festivities this coming weekend...everybody's going to be having a sale....should be a perfect time to stock up on stuff! yay fun!

So, the stuff I actually HAVE scrapped.....and can post!

This is of alaina's soccer portraits.... I used Haynay's Pop Dot Alpha....it's so fun! I also used Fair and Square by Sya for the template


no plugs for these two.....the first one's from the kids' school Halloween carnival a couple weeks ago:


and this one is from my 15-year class reunion...


And this one is all with Haynay's stuff.....the template....the kit's called Falling for Pumpkins....and then there's the Falling for Pumpkins Flair too:



After school on Friday, we finally got around to carving our pumpkins....better late than never!! We let matthew/alaina draw the faces, which ended up being kinda interesting....




We went trick or treating Friday night in Grafton....thankfully it didn't rain on us!


Then Alaina had a friend, Isabella, spend the night, so I was up late listening to them giggling.....oh the memories! I swear I heard my mother's voice saying, "SHHHH GIRLS!"....then realized it was ME! OMG! :D Here they are after getting themselves "glamorous"


Saturday was our first day of swimming lessons...and since her game was cancelled, Alaina went to her class too. Zach did NOT enjoy his.....last time he was in the waterbabies class and I was in the pool with him and he would basically spend the entire time screaming in my ear....I was hoping that maybe he'd do better away from Momma.....but not so much! :D This picture kinda says it all...


Alaina and Matthew both did awesome in their classes....they were worn OUT by the time it was done, especially Alaina. She's in the older class, so she swam the length of the pool at least 6 times during her class......yay exercise! :D



Once swimming lessons were done, we headed to Fairfield for the evening....we spent the afternoon blowing insulation into the attic of my parents' house. Oh is that fun. not. :P but it's done and hopefully that'll help keep them nice and warm this winter!

Then we did trick or treating again in Fairfield....so our kids have PLENTY of candy, just as I predicted!

Also, we surprised my dad with an early Christmas present.....as long as I can remember, this old rocking horse of my dad's had been in their garage....broken and useless. I knew it obviously meant something special to my dad since he kept it all these years. His father had made it for him and since his dad died when he was so young (age 7), he doesn't have many memories or many sentimental things left of him....except this rocking horse.

So Karl took it upon himself to restore it.....so we had mom secretly give it to us and we brought it home the last time we were in Fairfield...

karl inspected the condition of it and decided it needed a few new pieces of wood and a LOT of TLC!

So it went from this:


To this:

With some help from a much steadier hand with a paintbrush than either of us....so thanks to our friend Melissa for doing the detail painting for us! :D

I think dad was surprised and pleased......sentimental gifts are the best...I'm so glad Karl was able to do that for him.

So anyways....after we did trick or treating in Fairfield....Alaina says she's not feeling good.....and her temp is 102.8....so she gets sent to bed for the rest of the night....and we left for home early this morning and she's pretty much been in bed all day. I'm assuming it's the swine flu, as everybody I've talked to says it's basically a high fever with a NASTY cough...and that's exactly what she has....poor thing just feels awful! I feel so bad for her! So we've now got a case of the swine flu in the house.....we'll see how the week goes....since, as you can see....we've kinda got plans for this weekend that do NOT include being sick, darnit!

So that's it for me....hope everybody had a great Halloween and has a great first week of November.... later!