I just wanted to come and say hello. I have been really busy working on my new planner and it has been a lot of fun. I can't believe how much I love writing in this planner and it really is shocking to me because I thought that I would really not like it as much. But I really do love it. I haven't even thought about the ARC system at all. My son however is loving the planner.

And I haven't done any scrapbooking lately but I have been using many scrapbooking items on my planner. I have been stamping and creating all over the place. I absolutely love the fact that I have been using my stash on something that I want to use it on. And that is perfectly ok with me.

I wanted to share a couple of the pages that I recently completed. I really like having something to write in that is so fun.

On another note...we just celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary. I have to honestly say that I love my hubby so much. And it has been an interesting 14 years and I can't wait to see what we will share in the next years to come. I look forward to every thing that we will do and share together. Mostly because he will be by my side, that's what really makes it worth it.

And here is a photo of us then...

 

 

And a photo of us now...

 

Smiles, Tracy

Random things...

Just stopping by to check in. I think that right now I'm all over the place on what I like to do so there has been very little scrapbooking. And the scrapbooking that I have done I can't upload it because my laptop to a crash. And it is literally in pieces. It took a lot for me not to break down and cry about it. Mostly because when it fell off my bed, it had my memory card in it and it also was damaged. So I am adjusting to being a 2 computer, no laptop home. And honestly that means that I actually am on the computer a lot less, first because the computers are in the office and although I'm in the office a lot, I'm usually sitting at my desk and not at the computer desk because hubby or one of the boys are usually on the computer. Besides all that I just mentioned doesn't even compare to the issue that the photos that I take now will not actually be able to be edited because my laptop had Adobe PS on it and although I have the key code, I can't add it to either of our main computers because I had already added it to 2 other computers.



So this adjustment is going to be hard for awhile. Well at least until around Christmas when I'll most like be able to get another laptop maybe? But I have also started to focus on other things besides scrapbooking. Like make-up and fingernails. I have had long nails for years but cut them off always when have a newborn or a toddler around. But since the youngest are girls, I have to comb their hair and longer nails can lead to an accidental scratch while braiding hair. So I have kept them short for the last two years. And I have decided that I can grow them back out. But also that I want to do nail art too. So for the 4th of July I painted my nails red, white and blue.
My nails aren't long but here is a photo of one of left hand that I painted for the holiday. The more I look at them now, it actually reminds me of Wonder woman instead of the 4th of July.

And my nails are actually longer than they were on the photo now.

I have also been more into hair and trying to finds the right balance of product for the girls so that they can wear their hair down. LeiLani (my oldest of the girls) has been asking about her hair being down and how much she wishes that she could wear it like mine. But we have 2 different hair types and really her hair is a lot thicker than mine and it seems to look dryer no matter what I do to it. But I am determined to find the perfect product for her. Cause the whole point to having hair that is natural and beautiful honestly is to be able to wear it down.

Here is a picture of her wearing it down for the 4th of July.  She wouldn't smile so that the oldest could take her photo.

And here is a photo of my baby (who isn't really a baby) wearing her hair down as well.

The other thing that is the issue for me is that their hair seems to be white for a long time. And I still haven't figure out how exactly to be able to eliminate that. Especially since I am looking for a year round hair product for them. It was so much easier to do their hair in MN because the water wasn't so salty and their hair never seemed as dry it is now in the desert. But this has been an ongoing learning process and I'm hoping that sooner than later the perfect product for each of them will come along.

Well I'm excited and sad at the same time because our summer break is coming to a close almost faster than it began. In fact the kids have less than 2 weeks left of the break and I am starting think about how much I will miss them while they are at school. Well until next time. Smiles, Tracy

Christmas recap...

Well I haven't been posting on the blog in awhile and there is much to report and share. I am honestly jam packing alot of projects and things into my weekend before the start of the 2013 first because I would really love to get some crafty things done and start off the new year with a somewhat smaller to be done list, and secondly I have a job that starts in 3 days.  And honestly I am so excited and can't really focus so crafting really does help me to get it together.

Well the first thing to share is that I changed the wall mantel before Christmas and here is a photo of that. I love the new style.

And then there is the Christmas ornaments that the I had to do over for the girls. Their baby ones where destroyed by them last year or maybe it was the year before? I honestly am not sure at all. But I have redone those. I just realized that I honestly forgot to take a photo of daughter #1's ornament. But here is what I created

Everything was made using old stash. I honestly haven't purchased anything new or scrapbook related since June or July of this year and that was a few things for projects for my job and then some things to help son#2 get a project completed for school. So nothing else at this time, but I am sure that that will change real soon.

But here is the supplies. I just wanted to say that there are some that I honestly don't remember who made them so I have just put a ?? for that information.
Clear acylic sheet (??) I believe it may be Creative Impressions?
Diecuts- MFT snowflake (cut using Quickutz metal adhesive sheets/paper), Quickutz label die
Embellishments- Metal glitter brad, Happy Holidays metal label are both Making Memories old products, Glitter Christmas vine-Micheal's, Twine and ribbons??
Patterned Patters:??
White Acyrlic paint- Anita's


 I have decided that I am honestly going to try to take more pictures no matter what in 2013 and since the app that I had for blogger hasn't worked since the first time that I used it, I have got to find another way to blog and post things on here. I am working on it though. I think it will be much easier to post and blog since I will be away from the house and kids. And although I am not scrapbooking all that much I am still 100% invested in some sort of crafty thing. Most of them lately have been decorating but still busy using the supplies that I have and love.

Oh and of course I have to add another picture of the cuties in my life from Christmas morning...

My oldest said for me to say that he didn't get all the gifts that were in front of  him. LOL I didn't realize it until now but the "community" gifts (which are the gifts that we buy for all the kids to play with because no one specifically asked for it, but we thought it would be nice to get) are in front of him and his gifts. But I hope that eveyone had and is still having a safe, and fun holiday season. Smiles, Tracy

Getting closer to the finish line...or so I hope

Hello bloggers. I am so excited to say that I have completed a huge task. It actually wasn't a huge task but it really did feel like one.

This is what my ribbon looked like on Monday and some of Tuesday..

and this is what my ribbon looks like this morning...

Isn't it just the most beautiful thing!OK maybe its not but I am so excited because there was ribbon all over the great room for a day and a half. And the girls were playing for the last two days with empty spools. But it feels so good to have that mess up and the organized ribbon stash really moves me.

I am so mad at myself for not doing that with all my ribbons before. I got rid of about 150 rolls of American Crafts ribbons before my move last year because I couldn't bring them with me. Sad, if they were only rolled onto the cards like all the rest of my ribbon, I would have had them in my box. And they would be here right now getting put away.

So the lesson in all of this is I can never replace all those AC ribbons so I need to get over it and also not matter the brand, unwrap and add them to my stash. Forget the packaging and labels...they take up too much space.

Well the room isn't done, not even close but here are some pictures of what it actually looks like right now. It isn't perfect (or clean) but it is getting closer to the finish line. And all the stuff on my "table" is what I need storage for. Along with a few more boxes of books that I haven't even made it into the house yet.

I also found some cute little nightstands this weekend which were for the kids rooms.

Here is the boy#2's nightstand...I would do a full view of his room but there are pictures of family and friends in there so I will not do that. I did paint it black. And now he needs a small desk and bookshelf... And I got his table for $3.75.

And here is the girls' nightstand it is so perfect for their room. And of course there is much more that I need to do in their room like paint the walls, a color that we all can live with. LOL and a nice dresser with 8 drawers instead of the chest of drawers that they have. And a nice little bench that they can sit on under their window. But doesn't that lamp shade just scream at you for some kind of flowers and ribbon decorations...it did to me too that will be next. I got their table for $3.oo.

Sorry about the blurred pictures but I took them on my phone, and I don't have a clue how to make phone pics look better. Maybe I will take a better picture of everything once their rooms are done too? I hope to remember that...

Quick update

How many posts have I started and not finished this last month...lets just say its at least 10. I think that I am going to go through my posts and delete those but every time I start reading them I think that they are perfect for record keeping. So they still are sitting in my post box and not published.

On to other topics...today marks the beginning of the 7 day count down to the day that we actually close on the house. And I am so excited. And I bet you all think that I am packed and ready to move...and you'd be absolutely wrong. LOL. I haven't packed really anything up. Honestly besides my mini stockpile of items that I have gotten for our family since April, I haven't packed too much of anything. Well in my defense I have packed all the extra glass dishes today.

I also spray painted some lamps that I plan on using in our bedroom. I love the paint color that I got although I think that it was too expensive.

But I am sitting here thinking how do you pack 20 packs of papertowels. I know that you will all be like why does she have 20 packs of papertowels...well if you don't know we have 4 children (5 all together) that live with us and they use a ton of papertowels. And since I got a bunch of them from Staples for 1.99 how could I not stock up on them? I mean I only got 20 for the price that I would have gotten 1 pack from Sam's Club. And honestly it is awesome to have something that we use so often for so little.

But I promised myself that I wouldn't start talking about stockpiles and couponing that much on my blog but honestly how could I not when there are so many awesome deals out there. I don't plan on stockpiling tons of things but when you can get All for 1.99 a bottle after coupons why wouldn't I got 10 bottles. And there are other things that we have gotten for cheap or free that we need but I am hoping to master the skill of getting cheap/free pull ups next.

So because I can't just type on this post without adding a photo here is what I got for free last week from Staples using their $3 coupon deal. We actually got much more than what I have pictured but those items were for the kids own personal stashes of school supplies and arts and crafts items.

Just wanted to stop in and share one of my design team submissions for this months challenge on scrapourstash.com. I forgot to upload this one also so I wanted to quickly come and show you all what I made for my Grandma Jessie.

Most people who have been followers know that my Grandma raised me and she often is the only Grandparent that my kiddos have contact with consistently. She calls them, sings to them on the phone, reads/tells stories to them both fairy tales and bible stories. She is often on the phone with them for hours at a time and since we moved to AZ which on the other side of the world from her (which she reminds me often) we try to send her special surprises.

So this Valentines day instead of a card and some candy, we all decided to write her a letter, and for those who couldn't write letters, we recorded what they had to say on cassette tape. The girls loved just being able to talk into the machine and hearing their voices. I decided to do a cassette tape because Grandma doesn't have a DVD player that plays recorded DVDs but I knew that she has a cassette recorder because she listens to sermons from church when she is unable to attend.

So here is just some of the care package that we made. The mini album has a coin envelope that I cut with my cricut using MTC in the size that is a little larger than a normal coin envelope but it fits perfectly into the book which fits inside of the mailbox.Each envelope has a photo of the kids and on the back, their current favorites. Grandma often asks me about what they like right now so that she can grab them stickers or talk to them about it so this was nice to include so that she could have a permanent place for that information.

So here is the actual gift

I had other photos but just realized that I don't have any way to upload them because they are on our old computer. We just got a new computer and put the other old one in storage with everything else that we recently packed for our move.

Family update...Nya is out of the hospital and back home. She is doing somewhat better, she still isn't eating but at least she able to drink and keep something down. Please call if you have any questions but I think Vele put this on facebook yesterday. I am not 100% sure cause I am now starting to have symptoms too.

Happy Valentine's Day

Hello everyone and happy Valentine's day. Today I have only a few things to share, mostly because I have bitten off much more than I can chew but darn it I am going to try! LaTrele and I finished is Valentine's cards this past weekend. He loved how they turned out. Here is a little peek of those...

I so wanted to do much more like make a little card, but we have never been in a class of 27 students and so this is something that I had to think about when deciding to do his cards this year.

The girls and I are going to be making heart shaped sugar cookies that we are going to decorate with white buttercream icing and red and pink sprinkles. LeiLani has been talking about all during bedtime stories. I couldn't believe how much she had planned out for us...lol lol 4yr olds are really cute when they are excited! I am only sharing that photo today because I have gotta make 3 gift bags and 4 Valentines day cards for the kids from me. Hubby is going to be getting the kids cards too, we usually do these cards seperately because we both like to tell them why we love them. I hope everyone has a love filled Valentines day...I sure plan to!

Hello everyone! I know that I didn't post my usual posts this last week but that mostly was because I was sick. I don't know why but we all got really sick these couple of days and have been battling sore throats and coughs. But being sick didn't stop us from having a truly amazing holiday. Everyone has been so happy playing with their new toys. And honestly I am proud of us because we didn't break the bank to get everyone what they wanted. And this year I was surprised with an amazing gift....I am now the owner of a Cricut Expression.

I had no idea that he was going to get one for me and even though at first I only wanted a QK/Life Crafter Silhoutte, I am now glad to have the Expression. I have been up for hours on the computer (on and off cause I still have to take care of the little ones) getting free fonts to add to the many that I already have, looking at other programs to add to the expression. I want more than ever to have it connected to a nice new computer (hint hint Vele, my birthday is in a few weeks...lol) but I am not a cartridges kinda girl.

I need to be able to do much more than what's in a little box and I can't even imagine the cost of each diecut set, most of those are more than QK fonts that I have purchased in the past. But anyways I had been reading about Make the cut and Sure Cuts A lot programs for awhile and since I am now an owner of the expression I thought I better download a free trial and test it out. And first off can I say I was going to download the free trials of both programs and then test each out. But I am not now. I have the program that I am going to get in a little bit. Make the cut is amazing. It is so easy to use! And I have been doing all kinds of things all day on and off welding words, making journaling boxes and not to mention the tons of you tube videos about the expression and MTC.

So before I go on and on about that I just want to say I am very impressed with the Cricut machine and now I can see now why there is such a huge loyal following of Cricuts. I just am really glad to be one of the few that has been won over! So hopefully sooner than latter I will get a chance to sit down and really work on some pages and cards. I can't wait to share those!

I am excited to share photos of my now 14yr old son! I can't believe that he is actually 14 now. I really do love that he is getting older and somewhat more independent. His birthday was last week and I thought about uploading the photos all weekend but never really had the time to do it. But here is one of my favorites of him. I hate that is seems kinda blurry but it is an amazing photo of him still...

I swear that he is getting more and more handsome by the day. And yes if you can make it out...he has a mustache! Scary! At 13!!!! I joke that he will have a beard before high school. He thinks that would be awesome but I so hope not!

But besides that I have also completed my journal pages photos for several pages and I took photos of those also this last week. I am actually completely caught up on photos, it's just having the time to add them to the pages. Between the journaling and everyday life I need to add a few more hours to the clock so that I can get some other things done.

These are the few pages that I actually photographed to add to the blog before I forgot to get them done.

This first page is for November 26th. This was another day of Christmas shopping and also I created our labels for our presents. I have done this for years, but I journaled a little about how the labels have changed over the years and how now I have two little ones to keep my company while making them this year. And here is a close up of the label example that I made for the page accent. I kept these pages simple but added alot of my own handwritting.

This is November 27th's page.

The actual page is a transparency that was sold as a set on QVC yearrrsss ago! I mean a really long long time ago. I have all of them actually still and decided that I might as well get them out and use the if I could throughout this book.

A couple days later than planned

Is exactly the way things goes sometimes. I had planned to upload pictures of my completed pages for Thanksgiving and I had so many other photos that I wanted to share as well but what I learned is that Tracy without a broken foot can do so much more in a days time than Tracy with one. And so that means some things that I had planned on doing get pushed forward to the next day's to-do list. I was thinking today that this is just the wrong time of the year to have a broken anything. I mean I have my son's birthday, then the holidays and then my birthday the first part of January and then Ani's birthday shortly after that. This is just the wrong time, but sometimes you just have to do what you can when you can.

But I can say that although I still haven't printed the photos for the album that I have edited most of the ones that I want to use. And that I have really gotta keep my camera battery charged. That sometimes is the hardest thing to remember to do. Because unlike my old Sony cybershot (DSC??) this cybershot (DSC-H55) it doesn't take good pictures when the battery is low. And so I am seeing a lot of blurry looking pictures for Thanksgiving and our shopping adventure that Vele and I went on.

I am excited to share the Thanksgiving page which the journaling and the what you are thankful cards are completed. I think I will be taking photos of everyone solo again so that I can get some great photos.

so here is the layout....

and here is page one closer. I really can say that the flowers were not my original idea but I can't find my pumpkin Quickutz die. I love that die and have no idea where it is, I plan on unpacking my XXXL navigator bag, but I can't do that just yet since I need some more storage options for the stuff in there and it is possible that it is in there. And so that is why there are flowers there instead of a pumpkin. Page two is actually a 8.5x11inch baseball card sleeve sheet protector that I cut the first row of sleeves off so that it could fit into my book. On my previous posts you can see that there are a couple of these sheets throughout the book. I and I plan to use this one to put the 2.3x3inch photos of the family in there to match the card on the backside that tells what they stated that they were thankful for on Thanksgiving day.

Today was a really cold day and it was a perfect day to actually hand out cupcakes to the neighbors. So the girls and I made cupcakes (I made them, and they ate the M&Ms that were on top) and when both boys got home we knocked on several neighbors doors to hand out cupcakes. They were all surprised and there weren't many that we actually got to give out but the kids are happy cause that meant that they had extras. They want to do the same thing again but with my sugar cookies or chocolate chip cookies. I think that I can try to make some in a couple of weeks or so and do that again with them.

We got to meet a couple of the neighbors that we seem to always not see. But that was much fun and it surely will be the topic of my journal page for December 30th. Well I think I better head off to bed because it is like 2:30am here...

I have been thinking for awhile that I want to do several things with the girls' room but I couldn't narrow down the ton of things that were in my mind. So I have been collecting a list of things for I am going to think about more.

But I know that I am going to make them some canvas wall hanging or frames. This is something that I have planned for a while but never could find the time to do it. But it has be done because we have moved and they don't have anything for their walls. So I am going to do some creating and see what I can come up with.

Plus I have been looking around for old dressers and night stand/small side table. I need something old (and wood) that I can strip and paint the colors that works with their material.

So this last weekend I found a nice old dresser at a garage sale. They were asking $10 but we got it for $5. It has some really weird looking bar pull thing but I have sanded it, removed the bar pull, primed and painted it. I am just now trying to make the final decision on what I am going to do to it at this point. LeiLani wants butterflies and a flowers for her room. So I am thinking of painting on the front of it. But I am not sure what exactly yet.

My first thought was flowers just the buds (no stems), maybe daisies and the centers could be the new knobs that I paint white but I don't know. But I just don't know. I am thinking of sitting and doodling and seeing where that goes. Well I did it backwards when it comes to decorating this time. I didn't have a clue what colors I was going to use but I knew that they were going to be colorful. And so I don't have anything but one piece of material which I plan on getting a whole lot of different ones because I want to add them to the wall canvas, name frames (frames with material block backgrounds with each letter of their name in a solid color), and their lamp shade. So I need lots of different ones plus some for the quilt that I am going to start making next month at a local scrapbooking store.

But back to the dresser for a second. I painted it light pink (on the outside) and the drawers are a nice yellow. Both colors look great together. And since I am going to be drawing on something I bought turquoise, teal, lime &leaf green, 2yellows, 2 pinks, 2 purples, white, black and brown acrylic paints. I hated getting them because I had a huge selection in MN and that was also in that box that was accidently given away to charity. But I need them for this project. And the many others that I have got to get started. Which includes changing the birdhouses that I had for her too. I love redecorating. I am not planning on doing temporary decorating in the kids rooms but instead getting all the stuff that they will need or have in their rooms in the house.

And since I can't post anymore without a picture...here is one of us at the fair two weekends ago. I forgot to get a photo of the dresser so that I could do a before and after but oh well I will remember that for my desk when I start working on that.

I just had to come and upload some photos from my littlest one 1st birthday. I just realized (while editing the photos to print to make her scrapbook pages) that I never edited the photos and I also never shared them online.

Her birthday week was super busy for us all because Vele was off at training for the week before and was scheduled to come back home the day before my youngest son's birthday which was 3 days before the baby. And then add the fact that I still had to prepare for his birthday and I didn't want to make "big" day for him but it turned out that way anyway. We all headed off to Como Zoo and park and sent the entire day there! It was awesome. It was peaceful for me because we decided to make it a family day and we got to stay as long as we could and just enjoy the day.

But back to Nya, it is our family tradition to actually make the 1st cake and decorate it and have it so that the little one can make a mess. Well since we had a cake still from LaTrele's party we decided to do a small cake and cupcakes and we picked it up from Sams. I hadn't bought a store bought cake in years but it was so cute that I had to get it...but here are some photos from her day.

Well I guess blogger is preparing for a maintenance update and for some reason I am not able to upload some of the photos. So I am going to just upload this one until I can get the page done and the rest will be on there.

Also we went to the fair this last weekend. It was nothing like MN's state fair. It was actually a little more expensive and Vele was so disappointed because he wasn't able to get his bucket of cookies. But I plan on making chocolate chip cookies today so that he can get over that craving because he keeps hinting that he wants some but I just haven't gotten around to making them. Plus we just finally finished off the chocolate chip brownies a couple of days ago. And they were so good. How come no one told me it was so easy to make brownies from scratch. I will never buy another box brownie mix again. Sorry Betty Crocker!

But I wanted to share a recipe that I just got a few months ago. And it is awesome! It's called chicken waldorf salad. It is soooo good. We had ours with fried fish instead of the chips. I have been trying to come up with a collection of salads since it's always so warm all year round. But here is a photo of the salad (if it uploads?)

And the recipe
ingredients (I double to make enough for my family but the recipe if for 4 people)
2 cups of cubed deli rotisserie chicken (I just use chicken breast that I saute)
2 medium unpeeled apples cubed
2 stalks of celery sliced thinly
1 cup red seedless grapes cut in half (I use black and cut at an angle)
1 tablespoon thinly sliced chives
1/3 cup almonds (since we have an tree nut allergy, I use sunflower seeds)
1/4 cup refrigerated coleslaw dressing (I use Litehouse)
4 leaves of lettuce

directions
In a large bowl mix all ingredients except lettuce and chives.
On each of 4 serving plates, place 1 lettuce leaf and spoon salad onto the lettuce, sprinkle with chives.

The kidos love it! And always ask for seconds. But also while I am able to get some of the other photos uploaded that I wanted...I will show some of the recent decorations that I had bought for the apartment. It feels so weird saying apartment, but I am looking for pieces that I might want to bring to the house and so I haven't rushed out and bought anything new. But I have been a thrifty shopper...oh I did splurge and spent a whole $10 on this rooster to add to my collection since my collection no longer exists lol. He is so purrrty!

Another page to share

After completing the two page layout this weekend, I decided that I needed to get caught up on my scrapbooks. Not that I am really worried about getting caught up but I just really wanted to get the kids' birthdays and Christmas pages done. Although I had all the details of most of the picture written down, I just really wanted to get the pages done.

So I began working on birthday pages. So here is the first of several that I want to get done this week.

Supply list (as I can remember)

Cosmo Cricket & Little Yellow Bicycle papers

American Crafts & Doodle Bug- stickers and rub-ons

Spellbinder- pinking circle and star

Quickutz- label, balloon, #8, embossing stars folder

Fiskars- border & triangle punch

Pinking scissors

Misc-Happy Birthday rub-on greeting

So I am really hoping to be able to get more pages done. The only problem is that everytime the family needs the table to eat, I have to load up everything and put it away. That truly is a reason that I had my own space in MN. But this is a temporary location so I gotta try to deal with it. It is so hard, because I have been to a couple of local scrapbooking stores and thought I really gotta make some items and bring them in to show. Maybe then I could teach some classes here, but I also found another store (just driving around) that I am totally in love with.

In MN we had several Archivers stores and then a few local stores that sold items. I never really had a hard time getting items but none of the places that I could go had fabrics that I just loved. Well this store has tons of fabrics! I mean tons and they are absolutely amazing. The store is so my style too. I was in there and just stood there looking at all the bright and cheery colors.

If you don't know from most of my work, I am a bright colors kinda girl. I love them. And so I use them alot of my pages and cards. And not so much for classes that I teach but I do use them.

But onto another topic. I while at the local thrift store I found some items that seem like they would be awesome to use to hold my stamp pads. It spins too which is also amazing. I just have to figure out how to alter it so that it fits my needs better. And I also noticed while looking through my stash, I gave up and tossed some of the best items in my stash. I don't know how but somehow during the moving process I left all my chipboard behind, and also all my coordinations whitewash cardstock and all my white chipboard.

I think that somehow during the move one of the boxes that I was loading with the family to take to Savers someone grabbed one of the boxes of the items that I wanted to take along. And I knew that my favorite cutting mat was gone but now I am working with my Fiskars one and since my WRMK one has gouges I don't have a cutting mat. And that is truly another thing that slow down my crafting. Cause I use a paper trimmer but nothing does the job like the good old craft knife and a cutting mat.

But I am still able to craft and get pages done so I gotta just find the time to get to work.

Hello everyone! I have tons of stuff to share but not enough time today to upload photos or edit them. I am hoping that once our desk is assembled and our computer is sitting on it, I will be able to get photos that I have taken this last two months on here and also maybe even get some scrapbooking done. I can't believe that I haven't done anything scrappy...well that if you don't count the picture that I printed and hung in the kids bathroom and the bathroom stool for the girls' bathroom. But then again that was a little more on the crafty side than on the scrapbooking side.

But since we are online again (that was really hard!!) I can now get back to work (maybe) and get crafting again. I'll be back in a few.....

Wow! It's been awhile! My poor blog has been neglected because I haven't been able to get on the internet at all. Well for those of you who are wondering, the family has relocated to the Sun City. And we are settling into our new townhouse. And I am sure just as soon as we get settled into it we will be relocating again to our new home.

Arizona is so beautiful! I love everything about it and that includes the heat too! I am so excited because we have been blessed this whole time with relocating and the house in MN and being able to do so many more things than we had planned for. And there have been bumps in the process but things are getting so much better.

I don't have any complaints but I do have some advice for those traveling through the Rocky Mountains...Drive in 3rd gear and make sure you have new brakes put on you car. OMG! I was so terrified who knew that a 7degree incline could be so scary to drive. But it doesn't help that the incline is also around curves and blind turns. It was scarrrryyyy!

But that's all the advice and such that I have to share. I am at a public library right now and since we can't get our DSL services here through Netzero, I am not sure which internet provider we will get but I do hope that it will be soon.

I've been super busy packing! And I am so glad to be able to move forward on this now. I have lots of ideas for our new house (both the rental and the house we are buying) and I can't wait to leave. I just have to give you all a little update. Our house is sold and we are moving. Those two things are happening no questions asked. And so I will not be updating as often as I should for the next month because I am packing, moving and getting settled.

On Sunday we had a yard sale and it was amazing really amazing! I couldn't believe that we made as much as we did when only put the signs up the night before and then set up the next morning. But we are going to have another sale this coming week (starting tommorrow) and run through Sunday.

I am selling everything. Whatever we can fit into our second van is what is going with us. And that's it. It's so weird because whenever we have moved in the past, I held onto everything. And now not keeping most of the items and selling everything seems so different to me.

But enough about that, I have some crafty stuff to share...I had been wanting to paint my ATG forever and never had the time to do it because I knew that I wanted to make it a little more detailed other than just spray painting it. But what I realized is that if I didn't just do something that it would be forever before I did anything. So I bought some spray paint and did what I could to make it look more like what I wanted. I never showed the finished ATG so I am going to show it today. I have no idea what design I was going for but I really like it. I didn't put the top coat (clear matte finish) over the bling because I had heard that it causes the jewels to yellow or something, and I did put the jewels on with glossy accents because I want to change them to another color whenever I can find them. But here is my ATG...she is so prr-uuu-ty

Catching up on some photo uploads

I wanted to share these items with you all for the last couple of days but just never got around to resizing and uploading until this morning. But first I have to say this. I don't like this Japanese art paper. It is nothing wrong with it other than it so isn't my taste but I was asked to make a display and so that is what I did. And honestly I like how it turned out although I was really worried about the end result. I am a simple scrapbooker (most of the time...lol) but I used tons of products all from the same line and a lot of the embellishments from that line as well. Which seemed too much while I was creating it but in the end seemed to balance it out. It doesn't make sense I know but it did somehow work.

So here is the wall display, I did change one thing after this picture instead of the ribbon used to hang the chipboard display, I changed it out for some 16 gauge wire. Which looked much better and then I tied the burgundy/red toole around the top left corner of the wire.

Oh the flower actually has the organza sack material that the ribbon came in behind it. It was the best way for me to really make the product work and a think a creative way to use the sack although I didn't have to. But it was truly the only embellishment that really matched the papers. The lettering is American Crafts thickers, the gold mesh is Magic Mesh and I used my Big Shot to cut the swirls and the nesting label Quickutz dies and the ruffle along the bottom of the frame is actually 3 of the bag tops cut off. And the frame itself is actually a Teresa Collins chipboard album cover and I used my Bigbite to cut the holes for the wire.

Now onto some family pictures...I love these pictures that I recently took of the girls playing together in the front yard.

Well this is the one that I am going to share and the others I plan on scrapbooking. I have learnt that since I have been truly blogging more that I tend to think that I have scrapbooked pages of events sometimes when I use certain pictures on my blog so the ones that I want to scrapbook you will see those when I actually upload the pictures of the pages. I used to have a better system of writing things down on lists, but that changed with bedrest last year. Somehow I lost the previous list and now I don't want to make a new one because that would mean that I need to do some serious looking through albums and pics from last year and that whole process takes a long time. Time that I could be using scrapbooking. Well I had two other photos to add but for some reason blogger won't let me upload those two?

This morning it is raining which is ok because it is supposed to rain and then pass on. I think that is what I heard on the news last night? But that matters because I have gotta spray paint my ATG. In case you don't know what that it is; it's an Adhesive Transfer Gun. Or that is what they called it when I bought it. It's not a hot glue gun (for the family that doesn't scrapbook) it is a glue tape gun that is used in picture framing mostly but it is an awesome product for scrapbookers because it is affordable and it works so great. I loved my Kokuyo products and mentioned them all the time but now that I can't get anything wholesale anymore, I had to go with something that was affordable, and also something that I could easily get online or IRL. And Anchor Paper Express sells the refills for it for like $2.76. It is great to be able to pick up what I need (acid free and regular) when I need some right away. But the dispenser is a really ugly red color. And so I want it to be purple. I know it seems like something silly, but when you use glue for every project it's nice to have what you want. And I want a purple dispenser. And since it is refillable I will have it forever (or until they discontinue the product!!!)

I will stop for now because my post is really long. And although I have a page to share, I will just add it to the flickr photo stream and my two peas gallery. So check those out if you wanna see my picnic for 6 layout. Have an awesome day!

Well if you have been wondering about me, I have been really busy. I am so excited about my new position and have so many ideas of what I want to share. I just haven't edited the pictures and uploaded them. So as soon as I get a chance I will be doing that. And hopefully it will be this weekend or maybe early next week.

Today was such an amazing day. The weather was nice and so we packed a nice dinner and headed to this water park that Vele wanted us to go to for awhile. And it was so nice! I didn't pull out the camera once so I didn't get one picture of the day (I am sure that there will be many more to come since the kids love this park!!)

But I hope that everyone has an amazing weekend and even better Father's day! We have so great plans for Vele this Sunday, but I can't share them here because it actually does read my blog (on his blackberry) every once and awhile and I can't risk spoiling the surprise.

Oh I had to add that DD#1 and I made some really cute girlie jewelry for her. It wasn't Making Memories vintage or anything but it was really cute. So my latest decision is to pick up beads and necklaces from the thrift store and discount stores that we can get really cheap and take them apart and make the new ones. Of course hers will be something that a three year old loves and mine will be something that I can actually wear outside our house lol.

Today is a beautiful day...

Finally after several days of rain. The sun is shinning! I am so excited to share some amazing news! First I will start by saying that a negative person attempted to destroy my joy yesterday so today I just have to take a moment to brag about my son.

Yesterday we had to take him to the campus to get his placement testing done, this is something that needs to be done every year that he attends this online school because they need to see where he is and what he has learned. Well we sent him to this school because he wasn't able to have several 8th grade classes in the 7th grade at other public schools and he was testing way higher than IB classes for middle school. So the only choice was to pull him from public schools all together and homeschool him. But then the MPS Home schooling program sent papers about this new online schooling option allowing middle school students to take the grade level of work that they test at verses what grade they are currently in. So we ended up at the online school.

He loves it. And it has been challenging but one thing this did was get us (his parents) even more involved in his education. And so what we did is start to look into more information about stress and testing and ways to help our child not be so stressed when it came to taking tests. Well we noticed immediately that the methods that we selected worked very well for him. And we kept working with him so that he could learn those methods (that fit him) so that he wouldn't be so nervous or stressed. All this information was found on the internet and through self help books that I read with him during the school year!


We have seen 110% increase in his testing since then. Last year we knew that he should have tested much higher than 8th grade levels but at the same time we didn't judge or belittle that accomplishment. We just wanted to make sure that we found something for him to handle the anxiety he feels when he takes tests. And of course without medication, but just a way for him to calm himself.

Ok I'm getting to the details I promise... yesterday after testing almost for 3 hrs (with some breaks in between) we received the scores. But what was so amazing was that he came out of the testing extremely happy (without the scores) and that is an immediate change that we noticed before too. He wasn't worried about what scores he got, or how he might have gotten questions 1 or 15 wrong or anything. He was happy. He said he did his best job and that he was glad that we had found a way to make taking tests easier. We told him that we were proud of him no matter what test scores that he got.


So the scores...my 7th grade son tested at a 10th grade reading level and an 11.9th grade math level! Let's just say we were amazed! Completely amazing! So now the issue is what grade will he actual be in next year? He had a goal, he wanted to graduate highschool at 15. I didn't discourage his plans at all, but now I see that this might actually be something that he does.

So today there will be some conference calls and some planning being done per the school with us. I mean what can they do? He tests extremely high on the state tests, he gets extremely good grades, and now he is testing well beyond the grade level that he is in.

So I had to take a moment to share that little bit of good news because I rarely brag or talk about my kids' educations and where they are at with anyone. Just because honestly to me grades don't really mean as much as them doing their best! And feeling good about what they did!

A mini update....Family related

My baby is walking! Completely on her own. Slow but steady. I have ready to get her on camera for the last week but no matter when I am ready, she doesn't walk for me to get it on film. lol lol. But I am going to get that picture one way or another. And it doesn't help that every time I pull out the camera LeiLani comes and gets right in front of it.

I don't have any photos to share...oh wait...maybe one on cookies. I have a batch of these cooking right now.