Sugarplum Blog Challenge

There is a Scrap Pink challenge right now on the Sugarplum Paperie blog. I decided to scrap one of my favorite pictures of my sister and one of my nieces reading a book together.


Somebody's crying... off to investigate!

Some graduation pictures

(If you're here for the blog train, scroll down a post... )

Out of all the photos I took the two days we were in San Diego for William's graduation from boot camp, most of them didn't come out very good. It was such an emotional time, that I guess I must have had trouble focusing the camera well. These are a few of the better pictures.
The first ones here are photos I took while walking to the stands on Family Day. These are all the new Marines that were about to be released for their first liberty in months, five hours worth.This is Will's platoon marching out and then all lined up, waiting to be dismissed.Our family
These are two of my favorites: My mom getting her first hug, and James who wanted to hold Uncle's hand.
These last two of Will's platoon are from graduation day. I wish I could convey to you the excitement that built in the crowd as they marched out; the amazement of watching 585 men move and speak as one; and the pride that radiated from the new Marines.And now he leaves in just a few more days for combat training, and I will miss him again but at least this time he'll be allowed to bring a cell phone! And I'm sure my mom will continue to update the blog as his exploits continue!

Thanks for dropping by!

Family Matters blog train!

Yep, it's time for another blog train! This time there are quickpages and addons to be collected from this kit by Matahati Designs and Sya's Blueprints:

Here's the layout that I've made and turned into a quick page:


Just click on the layout or ~~ here ~~ to download the quickpage!

These are all the blogs where you can find a goodie:
1. Zakirah htpp://matahatiseni.blogspot.com/
2. Sya - http://scrap-stuff.blogspot.com
3. Jess http://myboycrazylife.blogspot.com
4. Stefanie - http://stefgonedigi.blogspot.com
5. Holly http://mommaholly.blogspot.com/
6. Lisa - http://www.kandykanekreations.blogspot.com
7. Alice http://designsbyarisu.blogspot.com/
8. Kim - http://kimbytx.blogspot.com/
9. Fliffy http://funwithfliffy.blogspot.com/
10. Len http://celebratinglifesmemories.com/blog

Thanks for stopping by!!

New Miss Tiina Collection

Just wanted to "pop" in with a quick post about Miss Tiina's fun new collection at Funky Playground: Splendor Pop.

You can buy the whole collection and save, or you can pick up the pieces individually. Here's the page I scrapped with it:



To get my page as a quickpage and see all of the pieces in the collection, just visit the Lil Missies team blog here and you can also take part in a fun challenge that will give you the chance to win a gift card for Miss Tiina's stuff (just scroll down one post)!

Photoshop Magic

Someone with too much time on his hands must have come up with this:

http://producten.hema.nl/

Give it a few seconds to start.

Hugs!!

Just a couple of pages...

For the challenges over at the Shabby Pickle...

Here is John enjoying the perks of hanging out in the kitchen while I'm baking:


And this is just a snapshot I took a couple of days ago while trying to get the hang of the camera we just bought. Since I have so few recent pictures of Simon and I together though, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to scrap it!


Okey dokey... off to get some important work done now...

It's Motor Mania!!!

This is such a fun kit; perfect for all kinds of pictures!! And Britt has a free addon on her blog so go check that out as well! Here's my page...

As always, thanks for stopping by!

So proud!

Just a quick update... see that handsome Marine surrounded by a beaming family? That's my little brother and us (well, not me because I was taking the picture) on Thursday at MCRD (Marine Corp Recruit Depot) in San Diego. Today we got to see the graduation ceremony which was amazing. I wish I could convey the sense of pride and history the ceremony had. I have to sort through the couple hundred pictures I took and then I can put up a picture of him in his dress blues. What a wonderful, emotional couple of days it's been, and I can't wait to get a chance to spend some time just talking to him and catching up on life. He's home for ten days on leave, then gone again, so for ten days, the world will be as it should for my family!

Color Me Happy

Zakirah has a fabulous new collab with Jana M. and I made not 1, but 2 pages with it! The colors are so bright and happy and I love all the fun embellishments! There's one that reminds me of a toy we had as a kid where you would turn the spinning motor on and then drop paint onto it and it would make a swirly pattern... now what was that thing called? Oh well, it'll come to me, probably at two in the morning! Anyway, enough of my rambling, here's the kit and the pages I made:


It will be available tomorrow at The DigiChick, but you can find it at ScrapOrchard today.

(Do you see the paint splat I'm talking about? What was that thing called, it's really bugging me now. Spiro-something maybe? Somebody help me out here... I think my brain might be dying! )

Now Playing at the Funky Playground!

Miss Tiina made it through all the rounds of the Teacher's Pet contest and you can now find her fun kits and fonts at the Funky Playground. She has so much fun new stuff out to celebrate the opening of her new store that there's no way I could scrap with everything, but I did manage to make a couple of pages.
Here are James and John enjoying one of their favorite books together; I always love hearing James "read" to John.
For the photo on this one, I tried a fun new technique of turning the photo into a pencil drawing.
Off to pack for our graduation trip... I can't wait to see my brother!

my morning

Yep, this pretty much sums it up:


They're all crying, and I want to just sit down and cry with them!

So, how's your morning going?

Some "Shabby" Challenges

I've been working on completing some of this month's challenges at Shabby Pickle using two fun new kits. The first challenge was to pick a LO from Sabrina Dupre's gallery and scraplift it. Here is the page I picked and here is the page I created:

The challenge on this one was to do a page using colors from your favorite room in your house. I picked my living room, and did this page. The pictures are of my mom and dad in Japan this spring. They just celebrated their 29th anniversary a few weeks ago.

This next one was probably the most challenging, because you were only allowed to use three items from each designer you chose.
This last one was the easiest because the only requirement was to use a particular font. The photo is of me and James the day after he was born.


I'll be back with some CT layouts for Miss Tiina Designs this afternoon.

Just a few photos

It's been a few weeks since I posted any pictures of the boys, so I thought I'd share a few that I took this week. The first ones of Peter are from this morning... I think it's the first time he's worn a hat since right after birth. The weather here has been so cool in the mornings this week that it makes me long for autumn to really come. I even got out some of the fall candles and decorations yesterday (of course, it's supposed to be 101 on Monday, but maybe I'll just crank the air down to 68 and pretend!) Notice his two teeth; I think another one is coming in right next to the bottom right one. He's going to look pretty funny if he never gets any top teeth, don't you think?


Because it's been so nice, the boys have been able to play outside a lot. And because Simon's been working or gone much of the week, they've been sent outside a lot! I think these are from Thursday... if you notice the peanut butter on James' cheek that'll give you a clue about what kind of a day it was. By the time lunch was over they must have been bugging me so much that I didn't even bother cleaning them up before I sent them out!


This is John's newest "look" and we see it often now. It's the "I don't want to do what you are saying" look, the "I'm going to pretend I don't know you" look, the "don't touch me, James" look, the "things aren't going the way I want them to" look, the... well, you get the idea. It's pretty funny really, but we're trying to work on the attitude behind it, because it won't be too funny if it continues into the teen years!!

Peter, again. I can't help it. He's so doggone photogenic... must get that from his father! He is sitting up by himself pretty reliably now so we should finally be able to ditch the infant carrier this week. Thank goodness, his feet were hanging off the edge! He loves to be with the "big boys," especially if they're outside, so he's spent three or four mornings out there this week too. (If you're reading this, Mom P., he LOVES that blanket that you made for James, and we frequently go in to get him up from naps only to find him with his fingers through the holes all wrapped up in it. I'll try to get a picture for you!)


On Thursday night at Biblestudy, the girls in charge of childcare for the night brought gel to give Peter a mohawk. His hair wasn't thick enough or long enough, but guess who's was? This is the next morning and it isn't quite as impressive as it was Thursday night (when it was kind of like a preview of the rebel teen hairstyle that would go with his new "look") but it's still pretty wild. The best part about it was that when the boys went outside to play that afternoon, they threw dirt and little leaf pieces in each other's hair, and because of the gel residue -- well, let's just say that it wasn't coming out easily! You wouldn't have wanted to see the bathtub after that bath. So thanks girls! I can only pray that I will have the opportunity to return the favor someday when you're both married and have kids!


I hope that everyone is having a wonderful week! Only five more days until we get to see Will! (Not that I'm excited or anything! )