Can it be true?

My youngest, shall we say "baby" will be 10 years old in just 16 days!?! She is planning a sleepover party with a few friends to celebrate. I was given approval to make the invites and me only instructions were to use bright colored paper....she liked what I came up with when she saw them after school today!

I've been taged!

I've been tagged by Jayme and I now have to list 7 random facts about myself...


Here's how it works:

1. Link to the person that tagged you and leave a comment on their blog, so that their readers can visit yours.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share 7 Random facts about yourself on your blog.
4. Tag 7 random people at the bottom of your post, linking to their blog. Let each person know by leaving a comment on their blog.


Ok, well here are 7 completely useless facts about me:

1. As of May'08, I graduated 15 yrs ago!
2. Both my daughter and my social security number have doubles in the last 4 digits?
3. Pedicures are my guilty pleasure
4. I haven't went scuba diving in 5 years
5. I've never been to the ocean
6. My weenie dog Sassy is my 4th child!
7. I buy rubber stamps, but don't use them near enough


Stacey, Susan, Tonya, Nicole, Jayne, Summer, Stacey

Hard to believe...

ONLY 2 more days and it will be April!!! Wasn't it just Christmas? This year is just flying by! I mention the approaching end of the month as I am running out of time to get all my Feeling Scrappy layouts done. I finished one more today for the What's the Word layout(BEST). I've been procrastinating on this one....but had alot of fun doing it and my hubby audibly said "AWWWW" when he looked at it!

{ Only 3 more days }

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That's right ....3 days to complete the fun challenges are Feeling Scrappy. I got 2 more done today...my Card Sketch and Kitchen Keepsakes (drink theme) for my album of us. Hope you enjoy them!

{ Distraction }

Right now I'm just looking for some fun distractions to keep my mind off the daily grind with teens! Neither of these are "over the top" but 2 more pages for Ivy-Brooke's album none-the-less.

This first layout one is her first year to attend overnight summer camp, she was 6. One picture was take when we dropped her off, the other was taken when we picked her up!

The second layout is Ivy's first day back to school in second grade. She was in a multiage program - so she had the same teacher for a second year, but there would be new 1st grades coming into the class and she would be the "older" 2nd grader to show them how it was done. the background is a light pink, but hard to capture in the photo.

I love surprises!

I just acquired this variety last June and I usually don't get flowers the first year but she surprised me this morning to be blooming in her full glory!

{ the spotlight is on me }

I finally completed another challenge from Feeling Scrappy. I've gotten side tracked recently with the kids on spring break and my new camera. This challenge is for the "Book of Me" and this month the challenge was to create a page with your personal Bucket List. There are still 6 days for you all to join in and complete the challenge too!

My list is as follows:

1. swim in the ocean

2. visit the Sequoia Forest

3. travel to a 3rd world country

4. see a consentration camp first hand

5. ride in a hot air balloon

6. travel somewhere on an amtrak train

7. scuba dive the great barrier reef

8. pay 100% of all of my kids way through college

9. live a mile from my closest neighbor

10. own a pig

Learning is a daily process

I've been working this week more on my photography editing skill. A couple weeks ago my hubby and I spent a day at the park. He was a good sport and let me take lots of pictures that day. He is not big on having hit picture taken but he know I'm perfecting my skills still and I always need models! These are my favorites from that day.

Rare Event

Our second iris variety to bloom this season was Navajo Jewel.

I have had this iris for 3 years and this it's first year to bloom for me.

{ Spring has Sprung }

My FIRST iris of the season bloomed for me today! Oddly enough it was my favorite one, Rush Hour - appropriately named evidential, since it rushed to bloom this year. Typically I don't have my first bloom this early. Most of my iris have already put up stalks and are already loaded with buds. Mother Nature has been good to me this year...I can tell I'm in for a good season of blooms! I love iris - and - I am quickly running out of room to add new varieties each year. After the bloom season of 07 I added new beds on the west side of my home - and the plants there are very LARGE and happy so far! Chris mentioned yesterday, we may add more beds on that side (yeah) I'm always up for adding new beds...pretty soon, the entire yard will be one big bed!

Quite a Day

I got so much done yesterday while doing a virtual crop with my friends at Feeling Scrappy! I completed 4 layouts start to finish...in just a few hours. I think I spent more time online visiting than scraping-lol. My girls are home on spring break and they loved hanging out watching me work and seeing the completed pages. They are a bit stir crazy and campaigning to "go somewhere" today...we'll see! Here are the other 3 pages from yesterday.

Scrap with us!

Today at Feeling Scrappy we are all scrapping together! There are lots of challenges just for today and you have until midnight to post them! It's been tons of fun so far this morning - at least take the time to hop over and check out what we are working on! This layout is my take on the sketch challenge for today.

no Luck from St. Patty's Day

Well, it started out to be a good day....I took the girls to a park and got some fun pictures in their St. Patrick's Day props. They had a good time and the weather was so nice. Our day took a crummy turn when Chris called after leaving for work and told us he'd been in a wreck. A teenager ran a red light and hit him on the passenger side on his BRAND NEW TRUCK! He is just sick over this whole situation and we haven't even made our fist payment on this truck yet!

Madame Butterfly

When Ivy-Brooke was a little girl and in dance classes, we always called her Madame Butterfly. I felt it was only appropriate to use butterflies on a layout for her. These pictures were taken in Whitney in April 2005, during the peak of the iris blooming season. We have some dear sweet family/friends who live there and I share the love of growing iris! It was a great day and Ivy loved riding her bike all around the farm that day!

Nature Girl

Just a quick line to show off my Nature Girl layout. Made this yesterday while scrapping with Tonya! I've always love this photo of Ivy from behind in the wagon. Enjoy!

OnE mOrE dAy

Tomorrow is the kids last day of school before spring break...they won't resume classes until after Easter - so I spent today making my Easter teacher gifts while scrapping with my wonderful new friend Tonya. I got the idea for the Peek-a-Boo cards from my weekly newsletter from Splitcoast Stampers. Step by step directions can be found here. They turned out really cute and my girls can't wait to take them to their teacher tomorrow!

I won a contest!

Over at Blue Lily Photography, she was holding a contest to write a caption that suites the photo above... well, you all know how fuuny I am (LOL) So I submitted one and I just got an email informaing me I WON!!!
What was my winning caption you ask?????????


Damm Paparazzi!

I won a free session with Blue Lily Photography with a whole CD of the photos taken at the session! Too bad their in California

Another Day, Another Challenge

Today I completed the Page Sketch Challenge over at Feeling Scrappy! This months sketch is VERY cute and I couldn't wait to find just the right photos to give it a try. BE SURE to hop over there and give one of their challenges a try! If you don't like following sketches -there are many more challenges to try!
I decided on pictures from Christmas 2005, of the girls opening their annual "new PJ's" on Christmas Eve. Little did we know at the time, we would be awoken a few hours later by Ivy in a full on allergic reaction to the chemicals used on the PJ's to make them flame retardant! I cans till vividly remember, that was a LONG night! We soaked her in an oatmeal bath and gave her some Benedryll and he symptoms started to lessen. As a preventative measure, we had to wake Katie up and make her take her PJ's off too - just in case!

My second page was merely getting one more completed page in Ivy-Brooke's scrapbook! This is from March 2005 when we took the kids camping over Spring Break!

In Memory Of...

When My grandmother passed in December, my mom wanted to create and album with all the photos she had from over the course of her lifetime. The amount of photos was simply amazing! My grandmother, being from an average income family and living through the depression era had a TON of photos from her childhood. You would not expect someone who had at one time lived in an empty box car to of had the luxury of having childhood pictures. The fact that these were preserved over the years through travels, moves and hardships, to me shows these bits of history were as important to her and her family - as they are to my family now.

These are just the last 2 pages of the album, documenting her passing and funeral.

I did not use a ton of embellishments on the album - rather little treasures we found in my grandmothers possessions. She would often take notes, write bits of information down and was notorious for cutting out article from the paper. I used these little bits and pieces as little windows into her mind and soul. Among the things she has was an article on how to cut a pineapple, how to make cook-less applesauce and a clipping title "Candy is a sweet Treat".

She was a wonderful, one of a kind lady, whom we will always treasure in our hearts and minds.

Challenges R Fun

Today I completed 2 challenges from a GREAT website, Feeling Scrappy!
The first page I completed was the Ad Challenge this month, using a page from a magazine as your inspiration, create a page. Below are photos of my inspiration and my interpretation of that in a layout.

My second completed layout was another Feeling Scrappy Challenge called Anything Goes. You are allowed to pick materials from 3 lists...list one you pick 3 items (mine were patterned paper only, chipboard, ribbon) list two you pick 2 items (mine were paint, crumpling paper) and the section you select one item from was to use a page sketch. My sketch was from my favorite sketch site Page Maps (March 08)

Be sure to go checkout the website and see others members completed pages.

The challenges are open until the end of the month! Try something new

Birthday Can

Tonight Ivy went to a friends birthday sleepover. We bought her a gift card, but I didn't want to do just a card. So I used a pop-top can (Lrg. Soup Can) and decorated it and put the gift card inside with tissue paper, a small toy and some gum. It turned out pretty cute.

{ Texas Snow Day }

As many of you know, it began snowing like crazy today around 11:30. by 12:30 there was more than an inch of snow accumulation and I began making the journey to pickup the girls early and avoid the mass morons in the school parking lots! Ivy-Brooke was very excite to come home, while Katie complained constantly! They had no complaints to posing for a few pictures before freezing the hineys off playing in the snow. I think they lasted 30minutes this year - and that may be a record!

Ivy's first solo made snowman. She was very proud of her creation!

Nothing Special

Just a couple pages I've worked on this morning

...not every page is fluff in my albums.

{ TMI }

This weekend on our family hike at the FTW wildlife refuge...we passed a sign posted by the water. My kids and husband read the sign, I didn't give it much thought. A few minutes passed and Ivy asked me what the word "molest" meant...trying to make my answer clear, but not lead to a huge conversation I told her "when someone touches you on your private parts"
She immediately responded with "OOOHHH! Why would anyone do that to an alligator" - LOL!

I was then informed what that sign I breezed past had in fact said!

What's on your top ten list?

I am accepting the challenge of listing my top ten list as mentioned by fellow Feeling Scrappy scrapbooker Starhitched Stacey. These are my top ten moments in my daily routing.

My top 10 today:

1) Coffee in the morning before the kids wake-up
2) Reading my daily Blog Roll List and local newspapers online
3) Time alone to scrapbook during the day
4) A wonderful husband who goes to work everyday
5) Ivy-Brooke telling me about her day in the car on the way home
6) Packing Chris' dinner/lunch before he goes to work each night
7) Talking to the girls about what we're going to pack for the next day for lunch
8) Getting phone calls just to say "hello" from my mom or dad
9) Laying in bed with Kate, visiting in the dark, before we go to sleep at night
10) The comfort of knowing Chris is home safe from another nights work, when he crawls in bed and touches his feet to mine Ywhile I sleep.

Jayne is playing too....check out her top ten here!

Great Resource

I came across a cool magazine while at Joann's yesterday. It is published by creating keepsakes, a special edition, dedicated to digital editing. Since I'm still learning my new camera and the various aspects of Photoshop software. The magazine had alot of information, condensed down to understandable segments for those still learning. The mag was $14.99 - but with the Joann's coupon for 40% it was a bargain at $8.99!

{FREE Rubber Stamp}

Today inside my magical mailbox was my new, FREE rubberstamp! I'm happy to pass along this great bargin that I found out about thanks to Cindy Keery (checkout her blog). I got this wonderful FREE stamp from Vista Print....all I paid was $6 S/H! It's the perfect thing to stamp all the backs of my greeting cards with. Sounds too good to be true huh?!?!