Happy Halloween

I gave this freebie, made by Cindy Wyckoff, out at a recent nightowls chat and I thought it was so cute that I had to make a little card with it. Happy Halloween everyone!

we're snowed in

We are SNOWED IN here in Colorado today. Yep, there is an official blizzard going on outside. Lots of snow and high winds. We are supposed to get from 6 to 12 inches of snow. The mountain areas will see more. We've had a couple of small snowfalls already this month, but this is the first big storm we've seen this year. Absolutely everything is shut down today, even businesses have announced they won't be opening- usually it is just schools. Bryce's 5th grade class was supposed to do their halloween musical tonight, but now that has been moved to next week. I'm just hoping we will be spared a power outage, the heavy wet snow and winds have knocked the power out in several places around town already.

Here's what it looked like when I got up this morning:

Halloween sneak peek

I've been working on the November digicraft, a CD case calendar (templates made by Irene and given to me- thank you!) the last few days, and I needed a Halloween costume picture for the October page. So, I told all of the kids to go get their costumes on for me. I didn't have anyone refuse LOL!

After I took all of the pictures, Brenna announced she was ready to go get some candy ROFL!! I always take pictures of everyone before they head out to trick-or-treat around the neighborhood, so I guess it was only natural for her to expect that. Too funny!
And here is a LO I put together with Robin's latest paper pack at SBB, called October Night. Talk about papers that are perfect for showing off some of the halloween jack-o-lanterns we've carved! I just love the oranges and how they 'glow'

I got a new set of pumpkin carving tools with a coupon at Michael's a few weeks back, and they came with a computer program of some sort that lets you design your own carving patterns. I should probably load that onto a computer (not mine lol!) and let the kids go to town figuring out what they want this year's pumpkin to look like.

Tomorrow, Sarah has a well baby check-up and is scheduled for shots. She's had a bit of a runny nose the last couple of days, but it isn't bad so I don't think it will interfere with getting the shots tomorrow. After the doctor appointment, Brenna was invited to a birthday tea party for one of her little friends from church. She is more than a bit excited, to say the least. We picked out a little puppy in a carrying bag at Target today to give Leisha. Brenna has been very protective of it. I hope she can give it away gracefully tomorrow LOL! I think She needs one of her own for Christmas since all of her sisters have puppies in bags.

They are predicting a large snowstorm to come in tomorrow night. I think it is going to be a long, cold winter here in CO.

I'm off. Sarah has had her late night snack, and I found a new book by Aimee and David Thurlo a the library this afternoon. It is a new Ella Clah mystery called Mourning Dove. It was on the Rapid Reads shelf, which means I get it for one week and I can't renew it. So, I will be getting it read this week!

Pictures from Sarah's first birthday party

Ready? I'll just jump right in as there are quite a few....
the finished cake and candle.
The birthday girl, caught in the act of promptly removing the party hat Mama was torturing her with.
Fluffy was a bit more obliging in the hat department, Brenna thought it was cute to put the hat on her bear LOL
We had homemade macaroni and cheese and sausage, salad and bread for dinner.
After dinner we had cake. We sang to Sarah, she didn't quite know what to make of that. Mama helped Sarah blow out the candle.
and then we got to eat the cake!
Sarah was getting a bit fussy at that point, so we moved right to the presents. Becky and kids gave her a stuffed poodle in a backpack carrier. She squealed with delight when she pulled it out the bag. She carried it around by the handle on top quite a bit Sunday. Brenna adores this too, and I find myself reminding her regularly that it is not hers and that she needs to give it back to Sarah if she wants it. LOL
Then, we pulled the big dinosaur drop box out of the bathroom where I had stashed it. Sarah kept looking at it with a puzzled expression. I started ripping the paper to show her what to do. She still didn't get it. Then, after I ripped a piece off completely, the picture on the box started to show. She lifted up the paper to see the picture better and started pointing at it and 'talking' in her babble.
It didn't take too much longer for the whole thing to be unwrapped (Mama helped a little more), and she was excited to see it.
After having to practically fight off the kids, I got the toy put together and batteries installed. Just like I predicted earlier, we had to keep the older kids from crowding little Sarah out of the way.
She really loves this toy and especially likes it when someone sits down and plays with her. Here she is asking for Becky to play with her by offering a ball to her.
It didn't take any explanation for Sarah to know just what to do with this toy, she was putting the balls in the holes right off.
All in all, I would say the party and gifts were a success! Now, if only Brenna could figure out that her birthday is still several months off and quite bugging me about it LOL

A few more favorites pages

I worked on this week's set of favorite things pages today.

journaling: Red roses are my favorite flower, though really, just about any color of rose will do. I love their shape, their smell, and their meaning- love. Roses remind me of my mother; they are her favorite flower too, yellow and pink ones in particular. She always has roses in her yard, and growing up the rose bushes were planted in the flowerbed by the front door where you would see and smell them when you walked by. The pink rose named ‘Peace’ was the one I liked best because of it’s beauty and wonderful smell.
credits: February 2006 RAKscraps Megakit: green paper by Amy Wolff, everything else by Kim Jensen; fonts: TXT Delicate Script

journaling: Fall is my favorite season. I ove the drop in temperatures, the beautiful deep colors of the leaves and flowers, and the approahing holidays where we spend time with our family and friends.
credits: Autumn Blooms by Tracy Blankenship at Digital Freebies and ScrappinDigiKreations; tree paper by Cindy Wyckoff from RAKscraps October 2006 megakit; fonts: TXT Delicate Script

journaling: These days, I am a one-stop shopper as I usually have 2 or more kids with me. My goal is to get everything I need in one place and get it done as quickly as possible. This receipt from Walmart shows the wide variety of things I usually have on my shopping list.
keywords: favorite mini-album shop receipt
credits: Leaps and Bounds by Amy Knepper at Scrapdish; inked twill label by Carrie Stephens at Fishscraps; creative crops template by Dani Mogstad; fonts: CK Neat Print

Tomorrow I need to start getting ready for Sarah's birthday party on Saturday. I have to clean up the house a bit more, bake the cake, and make sure I have all of the groceries I need. I think I'm going to have to go get some shortening for the icing as well as some salad items and anything else I decide to add to the menu at the last minute.

Octo-bbbbrrrrrrrrrrrr

Bbbrrrr!! It's cold here! It was gray and dreary all day yesterday as a large stormfront was coming in over the mountains. The temperature started dropping around lunch yesterday and it had started snowing before we left the mall yesterday around 4P. It snowed off and on throughout the night, and I think there were about 3" of snow in the backyard. We got a call early in the morning telling us that Mark's office was on a 2hr delay (we can't figure out why they do that when all he has to do is turn on the TV in the morning; getting early morning phonecalls with all of the health issues family members have been dealing with is not good for the system). If the kids weren't on vacation they probably would have had a delayed start too. Brenna went to bed last night talking about being able to go out in the snow and make a snowman in the morning. So, that is what they did. Bryce was of course being the nasty big brother and trying to pelt the girls with snowballs, but they just joined in and he was quickly outnumbered. They made a little snowperson. When I commented on how small it was they said it was a snowbaby LOL Brenna came in fairly quickly after that and wanted hot chocolate. Bryce followed a few minutes later. Beth and Carissa stayed out for quite a while longer and had fun building a 'city' with some of the sand buckets we have laying around out in the yard.
The weather report just said that the official 'high' temperature for today was a whopping 33 degrees F. No wonder my toes are cold right now! It is supposed to warm up a bit into the 50s tomorrow, but then drop again Friday night when we have a good chance of getting more snow. It seems really early for this- a sign of what the winter months are going to be like? I hope not, though we can always use more moisture around here. I'll leave you with some pics of today's activities and a new Sarah LO.

journaling: I can’t believe it has already been a year since you joined our family. You have been a challenge in many ways, but in more you have been a total joy. You are a happy child who loves to be with your family and who can make anyone happy just by giving them a smile or a giggle. You have grown so much during your first year and can do so many things now! I will enjoy watching how you continue to develop in the years to come. I love you, Sarah!

credits: Leaps and Bounds by Amy Knepper at Scrapdish- Papers: http://www.scrapdish.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=795
and Elements: http://www.scrapdish.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=796
Creative Crops template by Dani Mogstad
fonts: Tangerine, Technical, FG Maria

Happy First Birthday Sarah!!

I ventured out to the mall this afternoon to have some first birthday portraits taken. Considering she should have been napping, these came out pretty well. I also got a couple of Christmas portraits done too, but you will just have to wait a little bit to see those. Sarah had had enough of picture taking by the end when we were trying to get the shots with all of the kids and wouldn't hardly sit still. She actually looks pretty good in the group shots, but at least one of the older kids has a goofy expression because they were paying too much attention to Sarah and not the photographer. Oh well, such is life LOL! I'll share those a little later when the holidays get a bit closer ;)

While we were waiting for the pictures to be printed, we trooped down to the Build-A-Bear shop and picked out a bear for Sarah for her birthday. She loves her stuffed animals and picks one out after she wakes up to carry around with her for a while. So, adding to the collection seemed like an appropriate gift. The older kids loved helping pick which style to get and stuffing it. Brenna carried the box to the van for us. I passed on getting an outfit for the bear as I don't think Sarah would care either way and would probably only chew on it LOL They had some adorable halloween outfits for them that were really hard to resist. You can check them out if you like at the Build-a-Bear website. some of the halloween outfits can be seen here. They don't have all of them there- there was a really cute pumpkin fairy outfit that I dont' see on the website. I think the spider fairy witch outfit was my favorite. It reminds me a little of Carissa's halloween costume.
Here are some pics of Sarah getting her bear when we got home.
She was so cute- after getting Fluffy (what we named him at the store, you fill out a 'birth' certificate) out of the box, she took him over to the little rocking chair and sat him in it and started rocking him. Then, she climbed into the chair with him. He's quite a bit bigger than the others that she has been carrying around lately, but as she grows he will eventually be a more manageable size for her.

the kids were all drooling over the bears and clothes (Bryce liked the frog), so I had to remind them that they usually get some money for christmas and maybe they should think about using it to buy a bear and outfit if they really wanted one.

nothing exciting weekend

we didn't do anything exciting this weekend. the girls spent the night at a friend's/neighbor's house on Friday night. Bryce went to a friend's birthday party/sleepover Saturday night. It was nice to have it a bit quieter those two evenings, but at the same time it just wasn't right to have them gone. Today we went to church and cleaned up the house. whoo hoo!
Not much else to report, so I'll just leave with a few LOs I did during the week.

journaling: I had tried just about everything I could think of to get Brenna interested in being a big girl and using the potty. When browsing at the craft store one day, Brenna got very excited about doing crafts, so I told her only big girls got to do crafts. I purchased a couple to see how it went. A couple of days later things were going well, so we went and bought some more! Brenna is showing off her jingle bell ghost here.She was so excited to do a craft- she picked it out in the morning and talked about it all day until after dinner when we finally put it together. It had to dry overnight, so the next day she carried it everywhere.
credits: Monster Mash by Robin Carlton at Sweet Shoppe Designs; LO template by Rachael Giallongo for DigiChick sketch challenge
fonts: Black Adder ITC

journaling: This is my favorite family photo because it is the first one with all 7 of us in it (even if I did have to add myself in digitally)
credits: Sensible paper set and burgundy paper from Classy paper set from Colorfully You Collection by Robin Cabana at SBB; beaded wire from Hampton kit by Gina Miller (recolored); ricrac and fibers by Gina Miller; gold aspen leaf charm, aspen leaves, frayed hemp paper, and gold staple are mine; paper tear action by Atomic Cupcake; fonts: CK Renaissance

journaling: Music has always been a large part of my life. My parents have a tape recording of me singing ‘Itsy-Bitsy Spider’ when I was two, and I have fond memories of us all singing together at church. I took piano lessons for 8 years, sang in various choirs in church and at school, and in 6th grade I began playing the oboe. I also learned to play the clarinet in 9th grade so that I could be a part of the marching band. The oboe was my favorite instrument and I enjoyed being a part of orchestras in highschool and college. I listen to Contemporary Christian music most often now, but classical music will always be my first love. *The black oboe pin was given to me by my parents and the silver oboe charm was a gift from MommyPat.
credits: background from Vintage Vashon by Amy Knepper; music paper and violin by Marcee Duggar; silver music symbols by Ronnie McCray; fonts: CK Renaissance

journaling: My favorite indulgence right now is a piping hot cup of coffee from Starbucks; my favorite is the pumpkin spice latte that is only available during the winter holiday season. I don’t indulge very often as I have a hard time spending almost $4 on a single cup of coffee. At home I ‘make do’ with a mug, or two, of spiced chai tea, my favorite brand being Mystic Chai.
credits: green background from Naturally Shabby by Robin Cabana at SBB; flocked floral stamp by Rebecca DiGrazio; coffee cup image from Stock XChange; Mixed Greens stamps by Nancie Rowe Janitz at Scrapartist; fonts: CK Heritage

journaling: My favorite subjects in school always involved science of some sort- biology, chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry (ok so i hated having to memorize the chemical pathways), physiology, anatomy, etc. My part-time jobs during my school years were in various labs across the WSU campus helping with research projects and keeping the labs clean.
credits: Bkgd paper and notebook paper from School RuleZ by Jeanine Baechtold, Krista Mettler, Melissa Goerke and Jen Reed at Scrapdish and Digiscrapz; Nuclear stamp from Retro Flavour by Kim Jensen at Scrapdish; tomato and flask photos from Stock XChange, Beaker and periodic table images from the web; fonts: CK Chemistry

The October RAKfile came out earlier this evening. Go grab it and you too can make your own candybar wrappers for Halloween ;)

credits: all pieces from October 2005 RAKscraps mega kit, by Amy Knepper, Amy Wolff, Jeanine Baechtold, Rachel Dickson, and Shelly Chua.

what I've been up to this week

As usual, I've been doing some scrapping. Here's what I've come up with lately:
these two LOs of Bryce were done with Rachel Dickson's My Boy Papers and Elements at Scrapdish. It was my assigned kit for this month, and what a cute set it is. Perfect for little boy pictures. I had to dig out these old portraits of Bryce and scan them in.

You can see full credits here

I used a LO template by Misty Cato that she provided for the sketch challenge over at Scraphabit.com. It made doing this 2 page LO a breeze! It would have taken me forever to duplicate the swoopy filmstrip mat for the pictures without it.

You can see full credits here

And here is my second LO with Kim's fabulous Retro Flavour kit. I'm going to have to do a few more science center LOs with this kit eventually, as I love the elements and colors :)

You can see full credits here

and I am in love with her Rich Autumn kit too- the deep colors and leaves are gorgeous!! I will have to get my hands on that one too at some point ;) In the meantime, I played with another set of papers from Robin's Colorfully You Collection to scrap a pic from our outing up to Pikes Peak the other weekend.

You can see full credits here

I had to 'photoshop' myself into the photo since I was the one taking the group picture; it came out pretty well, I think.

and one last LO- the companion page to the Feeding Ducks LO I posted a little while ago. Full credits can be seen here

That's the latest in the scrapping department, at least that I can show you. I got my newsletter contribution done too, that will be out next week. I was hoping to get some more pages for my favorites minialbum done today, but I just haven't been inspired. Maybe something will flow later tonight.

I've been reading quite a bit lately too. Here are some of the books I've gone through in the last couple of weeks:
Flyte by Angie Sage, which is the sequel to the book Magyk. I read Magyk a while back. If you like Harry Potter, you would probably like these too. I see at Amazon that the third book in the series is due out next spring too.
The Preacher's Daughter and The Englisher by Beverly Lewis; the third and final book in this series just came out a couple of weeks ago, I heard from a friend at church who works at one of the Christian book stores in town.
Metro Girl by Janet Evanovich. If you like her Stephanie Plum series, then you'll like this one too. I noticed at Sam's Club on Monday that the second book, Motor Mouth, just came out.

I've been trying to think about Sarah's upcoming party a bit too. I wasn't thrilled with the selection of first birthday party stuff at the store just down the hill, so we quickly dropped by the other store on the north end of town and I ran in and found this Pooh's first birthday set for the party, which I'm pretty sure is going to be on the 21st.
I have made Pooh character cakes for all of the girls (Beth and Carissa's 2nd birthday, Brenna's first birthday), so Sarah will be the next. I'm going to get my $ worth out of that cake pan I bought so long ago! LOL We don't do a whole lot for first birthdays- the Tamblyn's are invited to have dinner with us and we'll have cake and ice cream and open presents. That's usually enough for one year olds (and mom too!)

I've got an almost one year old who keeps trying to climb into my lap from under the desk wanting attention and a 10 year old hanging over my should wanting to play on the internet, so I will sign off and see what I can think up for dinner tonight. Talk to you all later!

it's another photo fest!

So, you've all been dying to see what other crafty things Brenna has been up to, haven't you? well, I am here to indulge your curiosity.....

I didn't show you the first craft we made earlier:
Brenna was messing with it and managed to lose one of the ghost's eyes before I got a picture. I thought we might find it, but it still hasn't turned up. So, we have a cyclops ghost up there on top of the roof LOL

We made this Halloween mobile a few evenings back. Brenna threaded all of the beads onto the strings. Beth took the camera and snapped a few pics. She doesn't do too badly most of the time; she took this one of me, Sarah and Brenna.

and after a couple day delay because I was just busy doing other things, we finally got this bat necklace crafted today before lunch.

Last Saturday was the first of the month, so moms got to watch dance lessons. The class had a substitute teacher due to a family emergency, so we didn't get to go into the room like I am told Toni usually allows. I and a visiting grandmother just parked ourselves in front of the open door and took turns snapping pictures LOL Here are a couple of the better ones:
and finally, Brenna wanted to try on her cowgirl costume on, so I releneted and we got it out.
Of course Beth and Carissa wanted to put theirs on too, but we haven't done that yet. I'm sure I'll cave before too long though LOL