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!

15 years already??

So I’m slacking a little with the blogging…that’s definitely nothing new!! But at least I’m only running a couple DAYS late this time vs. a week or two late like has happened in the past! :D

We started off last week with a day off for the kids (and Karl), flu shots for the kids, and then a Brownie meeting on Monday….then a soccer game on Tuesday for Matthew, but I was a bad mommy and we skipped it because it was raining and about 40 degrees outside. I didn’t want to sit outside in that when we were all JUST getting over being sick. So that was the judgement call I made. And I don’t regret it!

The rest of the week was mostly just dealing with homework crisises, fighting amongst siblings, karl had his classes……yada yada yada….another week in Herman-ville.

Friday was the school Halloween carnival, so after work, Karl and I went to Target and got the kids their costumes. I have a huge amount of respect and admiration for these moms that go all out and make their kids’ costumes every year…….i’m not one of them. :D I know I’d spend HOURS making it and spend way more than the $20 they charge at Target/Walmart…..so I just bought the costume and was done with it! Maybe next year I’ll be more inspired. Or not. Halloween isn’t exactly my favorite holiday…..I’m trying to get more excited about it though…..so we ended up with one Purple/glittery witch, a Storm Trooper, and a little Spiderman….who refuses to wear his mask. :D

So anyways…the kids LOVED their costumes and had them on and were ready to go to the carnival well before it was time to leave! We ate dinner there at the school (since this was all one giant fundraiser……..why not give them money for dinner too, right?) and then the kids spent the next hour and a half running around with their friends, coming to us when they ran out of tickets…..and then running around some more. They had a blast! I did the cake walk and the ring toss and didn’t win a cake but won a bottle of cherry coke…woohoo! Didn’t win any of the baskets they raffled either….so oh well……

Saturday, we were up early and to the soccer fields for Alaina’s team pictures. In the FREEZING COLD. Poor girls! They were all so frozen. When we were taking the group picture, I told them to “say popsicle!”……and everybody laughed….because they WERE popsicles out there in shorts! Then we had her game……we sat bundled up in blankets and drank hot chocolate to try and keep warm….…then a break for an hour….then Matthew’s game……more freezing under the blankets..…then we stopped for lunch and headed to Fairfield for the evening.

For my 15-year class reunion. Wow. I’m really THAT OLD? Yes, apparently I am! :D It was actually really fun to see everybody again! I’d seen a few people here and there around town when I’d visit my parents…..but most of them I hadn’t seen since the last reunion 5 years ago. So it was neat to catch up with people….find out what they did after college, etc……where they’re working, how many kids they have etc, etc, etc. It was a good time!

Then Sunday, we got up early, went out to breakfast with my parents….and then headed back home. We were supposed to go to Matthew’s soccer team end-of-season party, but we never could find the place. VERY aggravating! So we gave up and went home! Cleaned the kitchen, did dishes, started laundry…..all those fun weekend chores that have to be done whether you go out of town or not!

Yesterday was dentist appts. For myself, Alaina, and Zach. No cavities for any of us to report, yay! And in another “that-makes-me-feel-old” moment, the dentist said that probably next year she’d be ready for braces. ALREADY? Jeez……so we basically spent our entire evening there that night……

Tonight was Matthew’s last soccer game….technically a makeup game from the one Saturday the fields were too wet to play on…..so his season is officially over. Alaina still has 2 more games left and then she’ll be done too. And since this family can’t sit still……they both start swimming lessons on Saturday mornings now! Alaina actually scored a goal in her game! I'm SO PROUD of her.......and wouldn't ya know it.....I wasn't there to see it! Both of their games were at the exact same time, on opposite ends of the park...so I watched the first half of Alaina's game, and the 2nd half of Matthew's.....so I missed the big goal. DARNIT. I am SO BUMMED about that....you know how I love my pictures....not having pictures of that is tearing me apart. :(

So that basically catches you up on us!

And now for the few pages I’ve scrapped lately……not much really! I did this page to make sure the lovely story of my ride in the ambulance was documented properly!! I used Haynay’s ‘Just the Right Medicine’ kit and her ‘chip off the old block’ alpha:


Matthew's t-ball team's pizza party they had a couple weeks ago....


And a few weeks ago at work they landed an Apache in front of our building....took me forever to get ahold of the actual pictures from that day (cameras aren't allowed on company property...you literally have to have a permit to take pictures)


And the last one.....this is one of my personal faves at the moment…sometimes I’ll scrap something and think, ‘that looks pretty darned cool’……and this was one of them……me and Alaina on Space Mountain at Disney. The template is from Sya’s new “Fair and Square” template pack…



So now it's off to bed for the kids....and hopefully catching up on some TiVo'd shows for me.......until later......

Catchup Time again!

Gosh! Things just tend to get away from me, and lo and behold, it's been 2 weeks since I posted anything on here...YIKES!

Oh where to start? :D Last weekend, I took Friday off from work and left Thursday afternoon to drive up to Schaumburg to meet up with my SIL Nicole and hang out with her family (the female part anyways) for their "women only weekend" over in northern Indiana. It was an....interesting weekend to say the least!

Everything was hunky dory until late Thursday night....I spent most of the night up sick....I assumed from a bad reaction to my dinner that night (stupid pizza!). I assumed I'd be fine in the morning. And I DID feel better....until we stopped for lunch at a Wendy's in some town (or exit) called Chesterton, IN. The INSTANT I walked in that restaurant, it was all downhill from there....I got SO nauseous, dizzy, and just plain sick that I ended up blacking out. My poor SIL, her mom, and her mom's cousin didn't know what to do (understandably), so they asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital, and me not really understanding what was going on other than the fact that I knew my eyes were open but I couldn't SEE anything (can't be good, right?) and I felt like I'd been hit by a bus.....I agreed, so they called 911 and a nice little ambulance showed up and the EMTs took me away.

When the EMTs got to me, my blood pressure was 76/32.....not so good....which explains the blacking out at least. they loaded me up in the ambulance, started an IV, and I really don't remember much else that they did. I just remember that ride taking FOREVER....apparently it was 12 miles....sure felt like longer! My SIL was kind enough to take these for me (i thought she was kidding when she told me she'd done this...until i saw the pics on my camera later!):



(and no, I have NOT scrapped this yet....though I've been informed that I HAVE to!)

So anyhoo.....I got to the ER, they gave me LOTS of fluids and some anti-nausea meds, and after talking to the doc, I guess the diagnosis was just dehydration.....after I think 3 hours or so I was sent on my way with some prescriptions to fill at the local walgreens (hooray for the Garmin in finding it), and then we were back on the road (me NOT driving now) to the B&B in Shipshewana, IN. Of course, I made a lovely, grand entrance, thanks to Nicole's entire family knowing what was going on......but it was nice everybody was concerned about me. I honestly don't have much recolection of that night.....I think I basically crashed right after we got there.

The rest of the weekend was much less 'eventful' I think. I scrapped most of the day on Saturday (that was the point for me)....we took a lunch break and did some shopping....I was forced by all the "moms" in the family to eat something, so i ate some solid food to get them off my case (i was feeling MUCH better by this point...just NOT hungry).....did some more scrapping, then we all went out to dinner as a big group at a yummy restaurant.......then the next day, Sunday, we said our goodbyes and headed for home......that was a LONG day for me.....2 1/2 hours back to Schaumburg.....then another 5 back home....BAH! I was thoroughly sick of the car by the time I got home. Usually, I don't do the driving.....when we drive to Florida all the time.....Karl does all the driving....and now I give him some much deserved credit for that! :P

So, now that I'm recovered from the sickies.......the kids are slowly getting over it too....Alaina missed the next day of school after puking on every possible surface of her bed/room......I wasn't quite well enough to deal with it yet, so again, Karl got that fun job. He's such a trooper....I really owe him for that one! And aside from Karl coming home early from work one day feeling lousy, I THINK we're through this round of sickies. Gosh I hope! The kids are getting flu shots tomorrow....maybe that'll help!

The rest of the week.....soccer game for matthew on Tuesday, which he won, yay! Their games/practices for this weekend were rained out, so we've spent this weekend just kind of resting and recouperating from us all being sicky. I think we needed a low-key kind of weekend like this has been.

So that leaves my scrapping to post.......stuff I did last weekend. Oh, and please note the legalese disclaimer I've added under my CT blinkies. Apparently for those of us that scrap for designers and get their stuff for free, we're now required to disclose the freebies.....so whatever......consider it disclosed! :P

Sya has a new template pack called 'Just a lil' punchy'...there's a version with mostly squares, and a version with mostly circles.....so these layouts used those templates:

And the kit is a new release from Haynay, called 'Rough and Tough'...very boy-ish and grungy...which fits my boys perfectly!

And Oh.....totally forgot....Matthew lost his first tooth this week! What is kind of funny about this is that Alaina lost a molar the night before....the tooth fairy was out of cash except for $20 bills, so that's what she got. *sigh*....inflation! So the next day Matthew came home with his tooth in a little baggie....one of the teachers had pulled it out at school! So, since Alaina had scored $20, he had his hopes set pretty high for his first visit from the tooth fairy *sigh*......and in the end, he got a $10 bill......we told him that since Alaina had lost a molar, it was worth more. uhm...yeah.

so anyways...with sya's 'just a lil' punchy' template:



I kinda messed around with this template...(also 'just a lil' punchy), of matthew's soccer pictures:


I did this 2-pager with a kit of Haynay's called 'Thoroughly Amused'....of our day at the Fall Fun Fest in Fairfield:



And this layout is using another of Haynay's kits, called 'School's out for Summer'....I also used the PreK addon that she made for it...since Zach's in preK now! These are the pictures I took at school before we left on our apple orchard field trip.....I thought they were all so cute eating their lunch in the cafeteria like big kids!!!


And here's the actual orchard field trip....we had a lot of fun, but poor Zach got stung by a bee! He didn't have much fun after that (and you can kind of see how he was less than cooperative for the group picture!).....but before that happened, we were having a great time! :D


and the last two layouts are from our Disney trip back in March....one's a re-do of a layout i'd done and didn't like at all.....I like it BETTER now, but I'm still not sure I LOVE it:


And the kids outside of the Contemporary Resort before our dinner there at Chef Mickey's......


So that catches ya up with the scrappin' and our lives for now....everybody else is laying down for a nice Sunday afternoon nap....and I'm thinking that sounds like a good idea......so I'll catch ya later!