Today in Pictures

Two years ago John and I were just a few short weeks from losing our DINK status. (Dual Income No Kids). Now, only 24 months later we are blessed with two beautiful little girls. And we love them more than life itself. Even when they smear peas in their hair.....





They make us laugh. They make us cry. They make us love each other even more.

I finally got a remote for my camera, so I played with it a little this afternoon. I was having a little bit of trouble at first and couldn't get it to take the picture. This last pic is a result of me trying to figure out what the deal was and point the sensor in the right place.

Classic Shot.

Latest Pages

Just a run down of this past week's scrappiness.

First off, let me share some good scrappy news. If you know me in real life, chances are you already know this but I haven't said anything about it yet here on the blog. But, my first publication is in this month's issue (Sept 08) of Scrapbook Trends! I was holding out until I actually saw it in there..which btw, I still haven't seen the issue yet.. but it's kind of a prelude to this first layout I have posted. I've gone WAY OUT on a limb here and submitted this layout for the Scrapbook Trends cover contest that's going on over at 2peas. If by some miracle I place in this contest (they are doing 1 winner with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th runner ups) I'll have to remove it from the blog. So if it disappears, that's good news! :)
Right now Scrapbook Trends is the only mag I'm actively submitting to. Hopefully the one page I had picked up wasn't just a fluke and I'll manage to get some other pages picked up for pub. I can not tell you how excited I was when I got the email back in April that they had chosen one of my pages. So, if you have a goal of getting published, don't be afraid to send those pages in!!

This past week Creative Scrappers hosted a 1 hour sketch contest. The sketch was posted and you had one hour to complete a layout and 15 minutes to get it uploaded to the gallery. It was a lot of fun. I think we had close to 3o participants. Here's the layout I did for that.



A couple more I got done while scrapping with Telah....


And speaking of Telah, she just recently made the Design Team for a sketch site on MySpace called Scrapbook Challenges. Her first sketch and a challenge go up tomorrow, so be sure to check out her scrap blog. This page is using this past week's sketch @ Scrapbook Challenges.

And then one other sketch site that I've come across is a new one called Pink Sketches. This layout is using sketch #2.

That's all for now.. oh and ROLL TIDE ROLL!

Wordless Wednesday

Busy, Busy Weekend

We had a fun filled weekend, so here's some quick pictures and a recap.

Friday we went out to D and T's to spend the night. These kind of sleep overs are always WoW marathons for the guys and scrapping marathons for the girls. We stay up all hours of the night enjoying each other's company.

Here's a couple pages I got done.

• I also got my first page for Creative Scrappers done, but can't share that one until the reveal on Sept.7th. So stay tuned.

On Saturday we headed to my nephew's birthday party. He had a pool party, and it was kinda cool outside but the kids didn't care!

After the party we hung out at my bro and sis in laws until time to go eat with all the family that evening. John's younger brother is moving to CA and he wanted one last meal at our favorite Bar b que restaurant since it will be who knows when before he can eat there again. It was good to spend some time with him and we'll miss him!

While we were hanging out at the bro-in-laws I took some pics of Abigail. I think these are my faves of her that I've taken so far.


My precious girl is growing, growing, growing!

Just Another Scrap Post

So I updated my profile and added a new link a few days ago, but I'm honored to announce that I will be joining the Design Team over at Creative Scrappers. My term starts September 1st, but I still want to try to participate with the sketches during these last few weeks of August. The current sketch is one by Becky Fleck:
And here is what I did with it.
Telah and I got together yesterday and did some scrapping. So along with the layout above I also got these done. Well actually this first one I did a couple nights ago, but I liked it so much I used the same design for "G-Pa and Me".


Since I begin scrapping for both Scrapbook Sussies and Creative Scrappers next month, I've got a question for you all. I have been giving some thought to starting a separate blog for all my scrappy stuff. Now that those kind of posts are going to increase I'm wondering just how much my non scrappy readers want to see that. I know I have a fair amount of family and other friends that don't scrapbook that read my blog, so do you like seeing those posts or would you just prefer the family pics and other stuff? Of course when I think about it, probably more than half of my post are scrapbook related anyway, so it may be a moot point.

More Video

Yeah, I can tell I'm really gonna like having this little video device. To capture things like this. And let me just preface this by saying I should of had a clue when she came through the living room singing, "swimmin, swimmin, go swimmin".

Testing 123

PaPa and MeMe got me a Flip as a thank you for taking their wedding pics! How awesome is that?? So here's my first video post of Abigail just moments ago before bedtime.

He Did It!

He went 8 for 8! If you don't know what I'm talking about then where in the world have you been? ;)

Actually this post has nothing to do with the Olympics, but I just finished watching the USA swim team accept their Gold medal. And now I'm watching the LIVE interview with Phelps. He can't stop smiling. Who can blame him? :)

Anyway I did finish up those 2 layouts I've had on my desk for a few weeks and wanted to get them posted. The "you rock" one looks a little crooked but it's the way I took the picture of the layout. It's straight in real life. haha.



Along with finishing up those two, I did this one yesterday afternoon. Used a big bow for the challenge over at Method Playground. And used the word "forever" in my title for the challenge over at scrapping the music. I always seem to like the most recent layouts I do, but I'm really in love with this one. Maybe just because both my girls look so beautiful!

Ok.. I'm off to bed. Have a good rest of the weekend!

TGIF

Just a quick post to share my latest page. I also have 2 layouts on my desk that need finishing up. Hopefully will get those done tonight.


It was fun to see the guesses on the post below. Abigail is the top picture. Natalie is the bottom.

So are you watching the Olympics? How about Mr. Phelps? Amazing stuff! I really wanted to watch the women's gymnastics all around last night but just couldn't keep my eyes open. I wish they'd replay the middle of the night stuff during the day!

Attack of the Big Ole Geese

This morning Abigail had her 2 month check up. Everything's looking good and she weighed in at 10lbs 8oz and 24" long. Once we got finished at the dr's office I thought I'd take Natalie over to feed the ducks at our downtown park. My dad works just right across the street from the park, so G-pa came down from his office to feed the ducks with us. As soon as you break out the bread, this is what you see. The lens I was using has no zoom, so yeah, they were right up in our face.


We were having to "shoo" them away they were getting so close. Natalie even got her finger bitten before she could throw them the bread. That didn't seem to phase her. However when one of them spread and flapped their wings right up in her face, that was the end of the duck feeding. She flipped out crying and then held onto me for dear life.

I had a nail in my tire so we dropped my car off to be fixed and then went to hang out with PaPa for a few hours. Once I got home I snapped a picture of Abigail asleep in her car seat. Now I haven't ever really thought that Natalie and Abigail looked much alike. Until I went back and pulled up a pic of Natalie that I snapped of her in the car seat just after her two month check up. So one of these pics is Natalie and the other is Abigail. Any guesses as to which is which?



Happy Wednesday!

My Girls

So Natalie didn't quite have the whole "hold your sister up" downpat, but they sure are cute if I do say so myself.





Notice anything odd in that last picture? I just noticed you can still see my toe...:)

Blast from the Past

About a week ago, T and I went and had lunch with an old childhood friend of ours. After thinking about it we realized that we probably hadn't seen each other in about 16 years. Seriously? Where does the time go? I have also been going through some old pictures here recently, so that makes for a good "then and now" comparison.

Some of my most favorite memories as a child, teen, and even an adult are those of a summer camp I've attended since about 5th grade. This pic is from 1992; C and I on skit night. Get a load of my hair. Those were the days of "wings" where you'd take a blow dryer and blow the sides of your hair while spraying enough hair spray to totally destroy the ozone layer.
Now, 16 years later, between the 3 of us we have 8 kids. And this is what it looks like to be all grown up. She fixed us a delicious lunch and it was really great to catch up with her and spend some time with her and her boys. Hopefully we won't let another 16 years go by before we do it again!

Weekend Layouts Part 2

Not much going on this week so far. Just spending time at home.

So here are the rest of my layouts from the weekend.

These first two are lifts of other layouts. The concept was to post in the challenge thread and whoever posted right above you was the person you were to lift. I lifted albeca3 and yayaprincess. Those are their screen names as I don't know their first names off the top of my head.



And this one is my favorite from the crop. We had limited letters for our title and "W'SUP" is what I came up with. The journaling talks about Natalie's love of Sonic Ice.
I also started a mini-album that I hope to finish soon. It's theme is the 10 most influential people in my life. I need to get a few more pics of those people so I can complete it. I now have 4 mini-albums in progress. I'm so bad to start those and never finish them.

Happy Wednesday!

Layout Overload

I was going to post all the pages I did; but I just changed my mind. I'm gonna try to post every day this week, so I'm splitting this into two parts.

All of these were for the crop over at Dixie Pieces. I used the Girly, Girl kit from ScrapinStyle and I also used sketches from CreativeScrapper.blogspot.com

So here's how I came up with the pages:

Challenge-Use the word "Summer" in your Title. (Creative Scrapper sketch #9)

This one was a sketch provided in the challenge and this was my take.

Challenge: Follow A Recipe for SPLASH. Each letter of the word stood for a criteria for the Layout. (Creative Scrapper sketch #7)
Challenge: Use the following letters only, for the title. mmeedns and 2. I flipped the n and used see u 2. (Creative Scrappers sketch #10)

That's it for tonight. I'll share the rest tomorrow.

Who Says Kids Don't Pay Attention?

Yesterday while I was getting ready, I was in the bathroom and Natalie was right outside the door in my room. It got really quiet which can be a bad sign. :) I came out to check on her and she was sitting at my vanity.


How you like that eyeliner job? The eye on the left seems to have gotten it the most, but she has it underneath the eye on the right too, it's just not showing up well. So amazing to me that she knew exactly what to do with the eyeliner pencil...

I've been participating in the online crop over at Dixie Pieces this weekend, so lots of pages to share either tonight or tomorrow.
Hope you're having a good weekend!

All Things Scrappy

I do have some pictures to share, but right now I'm too lazy to download them to the computer.

So... I have some exciting scrappy news! I made the Design Team over at Scrapbook Sussies!


Head on over and take a look at the kits! Lots of fun stuff. I'm very excited to be a part of the team. (Thanks Lara for giving me this opportunity!) I start with the October kit, so I'll be patiently waiting to get that first box of goodies!

Also, this weekend is the online crop at Dixie Pieces. If you scrapbook, come on over and join us. It's a very fun and friendly site and there are lots of great prizes for the weekend. This will be my second crop that I've participated in with them. At the last one I won a year subscription to Scrapbooks Etc. in a random drawing, and a bunch of Making Memories goodies for one of the challenges. So head on over!

Tonight is craft night with the girls, so I'll be recruiting you all that will be there to do the Dixie Pieces challenges with me!

Have a great weekend!