You know you're addicted...

...to digital scrapbooking when your most recent electronic purchase is a 1 TB EHD. I moved all our pictures, videos, and my 60 GB of scrapping files over, and there is still over 800 GB of free space! All I can say is, "bring on the downloads, baby!!" :)






I decided to go ahead and purchase a subscription to DST and had so much fun playing with this month's kit. I just love this picture of John!

Shhh....

I've got a secret! But I can't tell for another week. Want a clue? Check out the new blinkie on the right! And here are two more clues:

27 [another layout]

Just a quick post with the layout I made today using mostly Nicole's Plumberry Teacakes kit again. I won this at DST and am just loving the papers in it!! The yummy looking cake was for my birthday this year... chocolate, of course... is there really any other flavor? ;)

hiding behind my lens

Here's a page I did for a challenge at the Sugarplum Paperie blog. I titled it "hiding behind my lens" because the real reason I wanted to be the picture taker in the family originally was so that I didn't have to be in the pictures. I've since discovered that I love taking the pictures, and I'd even be interested in taking a photography class someday, but I have to confess that I still like having that excuse to not be in the picture! :)

Fun with Playdoh

Since we arrived in CO, Simon's brother Jason has had a number of fun activities planned for the older boys. From indoor bowling to digging for dinosaur bones, they are having a blast. He's such a great uncle; I just wish I could convince him to ride back with us to CA to keep the boys entertained. I wonder why he doesn't want to? ;)

Here's a page I just finished with pictures of the boys playing with the playdoh he helped them make (click for credits):

Counting My Blessings

Have you ever had a day where something happened that really made you stop and consider how gracious God is to you? Tuesday was one of those days for me. Monday night James woke up crying with a bloody nose, saying that he'd fallen out of bed. We cleaned him up and got him settled back down and didn't give it another thought, until Tuesday morning when he woke up looking like this:

His telling of what happened is not the clearest, so the best that we can figure is that he was standing in the bed looking out of the window, and he either had the cord to the blinds wrapped around his neck, or he grabbed for it when he lost his balance, and as he fell it made a ragged cut from the middle of his throat to the back of his head. You can imagine the sick feeling I got in the pit of my stomach when I realized how much worse it could have turned out. Now every time I hug him, I squeeze a little bit tighter, and I tell him more often how much I love him. It's so easy to take God's blessings for granted, but that mark on my James's neck is a vivid reminder that each breath we take is a gift from Him.

Vacation at Last

Well, after two long days of driving, we did arrive safely in CO Sunday night. It wasn't quite the happy family experience I thought it would be, and I am certainly not looking forward to the drive home this weekend (in fact, I already told Simon I'd fly home and meet him and the boys there!) Here's a picture that pretty much sums up the trip:

James and John got to go visit the goats yesterday morning, and Grammie and Grandpa are boarding three horses right now, so we got to see those as well. I even touched one. ;) The goats were a little skittish around the boys (of course, with the way John squealed whenever he saw one and took off after it, it's hard to blame them!) Poor James reached out his hand to touch one, and the goat lowered her horns and just barely caught his hand with one. It didn't hurt him, but he was pretty scared and after that he wouldn't touch one; he didn't even want to touch the horses. Years from now we'll probably look back on this event as the beginning of a deep-seated fear of animals!! LOL I took lots of pictures, but here are just a few of the morning's activities:

Kit for Charity

I purchased a beautiful kit last month from Songbird Avenue, which works with a designer each month to put together a kit and then donate all proceeds to the charity that the designer chooses. Well, this month Vickie Stegall is the guest designer and has put together another wonderful kit called "Leap of Faith." All the proceeds from the sale of this month's kit will go to Mercy Corps. The kit is only available until the end of the month, so go check it out. The papers and elements are fabulous!!

Lotsa Layouts

Even though I haven't posted any recent layouts, I've been busy making pages for lots of different challenges. There are so many challenges that I'd love to participate in, but I just don't have enough time, so I decided I'd just do the ones that I really like, or that have a participation bonus that I really want. I went ahead and added my Scrap Shanty layout gallery link on the right, because I really like their scraplift conversion challenge, and also because they are not associated with any particular store, so you're allowed to post layouts using any designer's products. Here are a couple of the recent pages that I've been working on (everything in the first layout is from Brittney of Britt-ish Designs):

Playing in the Grass

The boys were out "helping Dad" with the yard work last night and I thought I'd take a few pictures of the mayhem.

I swear I do wash that child's face occasionally. How in the world he gets so dirty I have no idea. I'm pretty sure that there's some strange magnetic field between him and dirt that no scientist has ever discovered.




Here are my two trouble makers; undoubtedly cooking up some plot that involves a big mess and the resulting frustrated mother. It's such a joy to watch their friendship grow, but scary at the same time!




Johnny again... I know I take way more pictures of him than the other boys, but he's usually willing to stay still long enough to snap a shot, he's awake for more than five hours a day, and he hasn't entered into the cheesy grin phase yet. Poor Peter is going to think he was adopted if I don't start taking some more pictures of him! Oh well, maybe tomorrow.

Conversations with James

This is one half of a conversation that took place a couple of weeks ago between Simon and James. (I could only hear James, so you'll have to use your imagination for Simon's part!) If we drag ourselves out of bed early enough, we can catch Simon before he gets to work and James is able to chat for a few minutes on the phone. This was one of those mornings...


She (that would be me), she's burping Peter...
She's going to make coffee in a few minutes...
coffee before breakfast...
moms always needs coffee...
she's getting very thirsty for coffee...

I'm a bit disconcerted by this shrewd assessment of my character. Breakfast for the boys? Heck no! Give me a cup of coffee first and let life slowly return to my sleep deprived body. I'm wondering if I have any secrets left if even my 3 year old can so clearly see the way things work around here!