Over in the blink of an eye...

I can't believe with all the preperations and hustle and bustle of everything Christmas is over so quickly. I was at the store yesterday and can you believe they have Valentines stuff out already and before you know it Easter stuff will be out! I don't know about you, but I am going to savor the season of Christmas for a little while longer....
I had to work on Christmas eve this year, kinda sucked. The poor kids had to wait until after nine to open presents. I literally got bombarded when I walked in the door and not because they were happy to see me, but because they could finally open presents! Oh well, at least I got to spend about an hour and a half with everyone.
Alyson was busy tracking Santa's progress on the internet(gee, how did we ever manage when we were kids...LOL) and finally went to bed when she saw that he was getting near Illinois. What a wonderful photo of my hubby don't you think? Heaven forbid I get a photo of his face, and well as far as Andrew goes...no pictures for him either! What a bunch of fuddy-duddies!

Tis the season...

to be jolly! I know some of us are having a hard time doing that this year, but if we take the time to remember what Christmas is really all about and be thankful for what we do have, you should have no problem being jolly. Christmas to me is a time to celebrate my faith in God and to spend it with my family and friends, not to see who gets the biggest or best present, but to be thankful we have family and friends to give these presents to. So when I look at my family and know I get to spend this holiday season with them, I know I am blessed and have every reason to be jolly!

My half finished tree. I still need to put on the garland and tweek it up a bit, the kids decorated it all by themselves and for some reason they felt the need to put all the ornaments is one spot and in some spots more than one ornament. All in all, it is still pretty to me!
This is one of my favorite things on my tree, besides all the special ornaments, you know the ones, the construction paper ones with all the glitter and the kids pics on them, the ones they make in school. The tree topper has no special meaning but she is beautiful isn't she....

What better way to spend a cold windy Saturday than at the Harley shop visiting Santa and eating pizza? We met grandma and Kyle at the Crete Harley shop where Santa just so happened to be bike shopping. Alyson was glad that he took some time out to listen to her christmas list....

Forget me not....

With the combination of the denial of my 40th. birthday and being sick I forgot to add a few layouts that I did. These are just a few random layouts I managed to get done...maybe I should be cleaning the house or getting some Christmas shopping done....?
This first one was for the CSI Crop that ACOT just had. It was to make a Christmas Thank You card....with bling. I found this cute little guy hidden in my stash, added some Ting a Ling glitter glue from Carolee's Creations and tada...a Christmas Thank you card with bling! This was a monthly challenge at ACOT. It was to let the music move you. The song was "You are my sunshine". We had to use any part of the song somewhere on our layout. I used the ever so popular title.....

This challenge that ACOT had should have been an easy challenge. Use the colors of summer...yellow and orange. They killed me at the CSI crop having to use yellow once...now I had to use it TWICE! Bring on the Bling! This is the monthly contest at ACOT. You still have to time to enter the contest doesn't end until the 14th. of this month. The winner recieves a $25.00 GC to ACOT and the runner up recieves a $10.00 GC. Go check it out.....hthttp://www.acherryontop.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=201404 4 You can also check out all of the monthly challenges ACOT has by clicking this link...

http://www.acherryontop.com/article?a=5324

Monkey see, monkey do...

Lately the only thing I have had on my mind is turning 40. Inside I am not dealing with it very well so my creative mind has not been really working so I had to use a little help to get the creative juices flowing. This first one is a layout using the wonderful sketch help from Pencil Lines. It kind of took a whole new look but the concept is there. Thanks Pencil Lines for the wonderful sketch.

This second one is a scraplift of a very talented lady over at A Cherry on Top. Thank you Tracy for the beautiful layout to copy! Your work is OUTSTANDING!!! Mine is the first layout titled "My Sweetie"

This is the wonderful layout from Tracy that I scraplifted... Thanks again for the wonderful inspiration for both of these!

The big 4-0 birthday RAK!

One week from tomorrow I will be turning the big 4-0 and I am not liking it at all! I thought what better way to make myself feel better...a birthday RAK. It always makes me feel better when I am giving to others so that is what I am gonna do.
Use this sketch of mine to do a layout, you can do any size, you can flip it, heck, you can even use it for a card...just have fun with it. Post with a link to your creation and your name will be entered into a random drawing for a nice little RAK. If you have a blog, mention this on there and for everyone you steer in this direction you will get an extra entry. Just tell them to put in their post that you told them about this.
I will draw a name on December 3rd at midnight my time(central) so everyone have fun and can't wait to see your creations!

Oops, forgot a couple....

Oops, I forgot a couple. This layout is a sketch from PageMaps. This sketch was really fun to work with.
This layout was for a challenge for the ACOT crop. It was to use a funny photo.

Let's go to the crop!

A Cherry on top hosted an on-line crop this weekend. It was so much fun. Friday night I spent the night at Kelly's and we cropped until 3:00 in the morning and up again at 8:00! The morning was supposed to be promising, but...BOOM! down came a huge tree branch and out went the power. Just as I logged on and got my stuff all ready to go. So we ended up leaving Kelly's sooner than we thought and came over to my house. We cropped again until almost 2:00 in the morning and started again at around 9:00. We cropped again until just about 7:00 when Kelly and the boys went home I got so much done this weekend...well scrapbooking that is....from the Fast scraps that had us making cards to ornaments to all of the wonderful challenges. I just had to share with you all the stuff I created. These first 2 layouts I did just before the crop but, I wanted to share them too...


This layout was for a challenge to be a serial scrapper. You had to take one thing you used on this layout and use it on two other projects. I chose the flower with the jewel and created two cards with them also. This is one of my favorite pictures of Andrew and I am sure he is going to be mad, but for some reason, I can't get away from using pink on layouts I have been doing of him.
This layout was for a Challenge were we had to choose things to create a crime scene. These items were then assigned products that we had to use on our layouts.
This layout we had to do a Challenge of someone being "Caught in the act" What better picture than this! I think this is one of my most favorite photos. Rob captured Kelly trying to take his picture at the same time he was taking hers. This picture captures total honest emotion and pure total candidness. I just LOVE it!
This Challenge was the hardest one for me. We had to add the numbers of our age together and then match that number with the corresponding color and do a monocramatic layout. I got YELLOW. My least favorite color. I think maybe I have one other layout done in this color. I really didn't have much stuff to work with so this is what came of it...
This Challenge was to cover up the evidence. We had to alter our photo somehow, using photo shop or putting embellishments or the title on our photo. As long as something was on the photo.
All in all, it turned out to be a fun weekend. Got to spend it with my sis and I got quite a few layouts done. Thanks ACOT for everything you did for us this weekend!

On a roll?????

I stayed the night at Kelly's Saturday for some long awaited scrapbooking time and...Yay!!! I got her to scrapbook!! Finally!! I only managed to get two layouts done, maybe if we would have devoted as much time to scrapping as we did snacking....
Well, I did get this one of all of us done. Can you believe this is probably the only picture of the six of us? What is even more unbelievable is that nobody is making a silly face! This is just a fun one of us girls and to quote the famous Jonathon Brandmeier.... This one I did a few days ago for a sketch contest over at A Cherry on Top. The sketch was provided by Jennifer...aka...sarawithers. If you get a chance go on over to ACOT and check out her gallery and maybe give this wonderful sketch a try while you are at it. The contest ends the 15th. of this month at Midnight.

I didn't think I would ever get any of the pictures from our Monster Truck adventure done but this sketch was perfect for these. Hopefully there will be more from that day because I got a ton of them!

Happy Halloween!

Last night was Halloween, probably one of my most favorite nights of the year. For some reason I just love Halloween! I think I even enjoy it more than the kids do. This year was no exception, the weather was almost perfect...darn near 70. Yes, you heard me, almost 70 on Halloween! Usually Halloween starts off with some fighting with the kids because they don't want to wear a coat OVER their costumes, and who would blame them, but as mean mommy I make them do it. After the fighting winds down, then comes the attitude because all the preperation of making the costume look "perfect" is covered by a coat. Well, none of that this year, nobody had to cop an attitude because coats were NOT needed! Alyson stayed true to her name and morphed into my little "Aly"Cat.You better not touch her candy or she will not be a happy cat!Andrew on the other hand, I did not get to see. He is too old to Trick or Treat with his "mommy". He went with a group of friends....girls included...now that is SCARY! It really hurt when we happen to run into him and he said hi to Rob and NOT me. Not only once, but twice. Talk about sticking the knife into my heart, but I had to put on my big girl panties and deal with it, I don't have to like it, but I do have to get used to it. The only picture I was able to get of him was when he got home and only in the house. I didn't even notice the spot we chose was pretty good and the sign on his door was pretty fitting to his costume....

Making the cut!

This was a really hard thing for me to watch, let alone take a picture of. The lady on the phone must have thought I was crazy when I broke down crying trying to make the appointment. I actually had to call her back to schedule one. How silly! I knew it would grow back and I knew she was doing it for a great cause but a little part of me was sad. Looking back at older photos, I am really glad she cut it, now you can really see her beautiful face along with her inner beauty for the wonderful thing she has done.

So proud!

I have had this sketch site in my favorites for a long time now and I never knew they had a challenge blog until just recently. The site is Page Maps by Becky Fleck. Every month she puts out some wonderful sketches so if you get a chance check it out. This challenge was for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The layout did not have to be about breast cancer nor did it have to be pink. Simply use this sketch for a layout about something that was meaningful to you. The "Think Pink" sketch contest is running through Monday, October 27, and the lucky winner will receive a beautiful Melissa Frances "Thankful" prize package! This baby is loaded with papers, stickers, die-cuts, stamps, rubs, ribbons and resin embies—awesome stuff to make a bunch of projects with. Here is the awesome sketch we had to play with....I chose to do a layout of the day Alyson cut her hair. A hair cut, no big deal I know, but this haircut was special. Alyson got it in her mind that she was gonna grow her hair and donate it to woman and children who have lost their hair due to cancer. She said she wanted a little girl to have her hair so that they could be happy like her. I was so proud of her. She is now letting it grow back so she can donate more. For such a little girl she sure has a big heart!

It's a special day!

Just wanted to let everyone know that today this handsome guy turns 9!
Happy birthday to my newphew Kyle...we love you!
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"Saturday in the park"...

I think it was the 4th. of July.....well not quite, but we did have a great time! Kelly and the kids stayed the night and we did not want to waste this beautiful weekend we were having so we decided to take the kids to the park and forest preserve.
Alyson might be following in her mommy's shoes, besides her interest in scrapbooking, she also is always wanting to take pictures. I gave in to her this time only because I don't really have any pictures of me and Kelly. Wow, I think she did a good job here, wouldn't you agree? Every time I take the kids here they feel the need to hang from this tree branch and Kyle was no exception, now all we need is one of Matthew hanging here. "You want me to hang where?" I guess this will have to do! The kids are always getting in trouble trying to play baseball in the front yard so this was the perfect place for them to play. Andrew was first at bat... with Matthew on the pitchers mound.... Next up to bat...Alyson...

Matthew got his turn at batting also...Then to wind things up Andrew was up again to end the inning! After a short game of baseball, we packed the kids up and headed to the park. Here Kelly and I joined in on the fun!

The kids had fun playing on the jungle gym....

Matthew even took the time to sit still long enough for me to snap his picture if you can believe that! If you found that hard to believe...check this out....Kyle-sitting still and better yet...NO silly face! Just a swingin! Everytime I see the kids on the swings this goofy song comes into my head. Alyson wanted to see how high she could go... while Kyle just sat back and enjoyed the ride. One last stop before we leave...everyone had to get their picture taken with the purple dino! Well, everyone except Andrew, he enjoyed the park from the same bench as me and Kelly!