the rest of the week

So, the rest of the week was uneventful. Again, a good thing! They were forcasting a large snowstorm to hit us Thursday night; it did snow some, but not nearly as much as the first said might fall. School and work proceeded as normal on Friday morning, though Mark did get to come home about an hour or so early. More snow is supposed to start falling in the next hour or so. They're predicting 4-7 inches this time, I guess we will see ;)

Several department stores around town have been having huge clearance sales on their fall and winter clothes lines. We have been out stocking up on kids' clothes- you can't beat 75% off, even at the used kids' clothes places usually! Of course that means that the closets and drawers had to be cleaned out too. I need to go through the twins' closet again still, but Sarah and Brenna are done and Mark went through all of Bryce's clothes this evening too.

And while we were at the mall, the girls finally had a chance to get the Build-A-Bears that they had been wanting with the gift cards and money they recieved for Christmas. Beth and Carissa both went for the limited edition bears that have magnets in their hands and face so they can blow kisses; Brenna chose a bunny. Here are what they named their critters: Beth- Sparkle, Brenna - Hoppy, Carissa- Lovely. Beth and Brenna chose fairy outfits and Carissa got the valentine heart dress. Technically Brenna didn't have nearly enough funds left in her gift money to pay for her bunny, but Mama and Daddy were generous and covered it anyway. I dont' think she would have understood at all if we had said that she didn't have enough to get one and therefor couldn't join in the fun. Call it a belated Christmas gift.
Bryce chose to save his christmas money for the time being. I don't think he has settled on anything in particular to spend it on yet.

We've been trying to work on getting a higher quality version of the slide show of my Dad's pictures done, and after 3 days of trying and about 5 different versions we still don't have one that is completely right. If the graphics look good, the wrong music file was attached. Once we found the correct music file, things keep going wrong with the titles or a photo being left out. It's nuts! We're beginning to feel very lucky that we were able to come up with a useable version with no major mistakes in time for the service after only 2 tries. The computer uses tons of processing power when it outputs the show to a wmv file, and we kept having problems with the computer just shutting down in the middle of generating the show. We finally decided we should check the innards of the computer and see if it needed to be cleaned out- yep, it was awfully dusty in there! I was a bit amazed at how just about everything had to be unscrewed to get it open. the battery, HD and DVD drive had to be completely removed and more screws taken out to finally get down to where the heat sinks and processor could be seen. Everything seems to be in working order so far, and Mark didn't even have any leftover mystery screws when he was done LOL Hopefully that has fixed the problem. The laptop is running much quieter now too!
Once we finally get a good wmv file, we have to convert it to something that can be read by a DVD player- that should be loads of fun (and bad files) too!

Sarah has had a cold for the last week and has not been sleeping well at night. She seems to be slowly improving, though I am not feeling so well myself now tonight. So, I think I will finish with showing off the rest of the layouts I've done this week.

journaling: I found this picture of Daddy in Grandma Doris’ photo album of her trip to visit us in Pullman. Daddy drove to OKCity to pick her up and then gave her a tour of the country on their drive to Washington. This picture was taken on the deck on the back of our house. The picture windows of the the livingroom and masterbedroom can be seen down the side of the house behind him. He is wearing his favorite denim hat, which he wore for almost 10 years for everything from running errands, working in the yard, and relaxing on vacation or at home.
credits: Chambray Shirt by Amanda Rockwell and Kelley McDonald, a Perfect Pairs kit at SweetShoppe; LO template by Misty Cato; fonts: CK Thick Brush and CK Invitation

journaling: This Lone Star quilt was made by my Dad’s cousins Faye and Pernie. When Daddy received it, it was in bad shape- much of the stitching was coming out and the whole thing was ready to fall apart. My Dad knew their old neighbor on 27th St., Elma, was a quilter so he asked her if she would restore it. She agreed, but only if he would help her. So, my Dad learned to quilt. He spent several hours a week at Elma’s house for almost a year, learning to quilt and chatting with her while they worked together. We now have a restored family heirloom to remember not only Faye and Pernie by, but also my Dad.
credits: Grandma's Attic by Audra Little at DigiScrapShak; holes and stitches by Tracy Blankenship; fonts: CK Heritage

journaling: If we were buying a shirt as a gift for my Dad, we all knew that a plaid one in the colors brown, red and blue would be liked and worn by him. Looking back through all of the years of photos, I found him wearing lots of different plaid shirts. Striped shirts in the same colors were his second favorite. He often wore his dress shirts with one of his silver indian bolos instead of a tie when he didn’t need to be formal. I think I will just about always see him wearing a plaid shirt in my mind when I think of him.
credits: First Love by SweetShoppeDesigns; sketch template by Traci Reed for DigiScrapDivas; chipboard and silver actions by Atomic Cupcake; fonts: Impact, TXT LongHand, TXT Annesia, Fulton Artistamp

journaling: Sarah’s favorite gift Christmas morning was the Glo*e bear that Santa brought. I found this surprising since she had also received 2 Dora dolls as well. I think she found the glowing, changing colors fascinating, and he is very soft. He turned out to be a big comfort to Sarah Christmas night as we drove to Spokane, lulling her back to sleep when she woke.
credits: Family Traditions paper pack from the Wonderland Collection by Jeanine Baechtold and Jen Reed at Scrapdish; Already Embellished LO template by Gina Miller; sequins and alpha by Correen Silke; circle stitch by Karen Hunt; fonts: TXT Longhand and
TXT Romanesque

A special request to family members! If you see anything wrong on my layouts of Daddy, please let me know. Or, if you have anything to add too!! I can change dates and text really easily, so don't be afraid to tell me if I have a date wrong or remember something incorrectly. Leave me a comment or send me an email, please! :)