The end of summer...

Not officially, but to my children it is. Today they started school. It really did seem soon since our summer was really strange this year. This school year is gonna start out weird for them. They will go to school for 2 days and then off to Florida we go! Every year I have to take pictures of the kids on their first day and every year the file for Alyson gets bigger and bigger. Like I said, she is a ham! When I saw this photo, it made me smile, but, it also made me sad...the picture is perfect but it also reminds me of how grown up she is getting. She just loves to get her picture taken so I guess it is a good thing that scrapbooking is my hobby!
My green thumb kinda wilted this year. Normally I take her pictures in front of the other tree in our yard where I plant all the pretty colorful flowers but this year I really wasn't in the mood to plant any so her "photo shoot" was in front of the wilted and out of bloom day lilies. We even tried a new spot on the front porch as she anxiously waited for the school bus.

This one on the other hand wasn't as anxious. He would not let me take his picture this morning so I had to take it when he came home. Not as easy as it sounds. He reluctantly "agreed" to let me take his picture, as long as I did it in the backyard where he made sure nobody would see him.Besides having to practically bribe him for the photos, I had to constantly remind him not to make goofy faces. I can't believe he is in 8th. grade already. Now I understand when people say that they feel old when they see a photo or hear someone else's age. Seeing this picture makes me feel real old. Old, but proud of what a handsome young "man" he is growing to be.
At this point I think I am getting all the pictures I can get out of him.

Challenge #2 winner...(insert drumroll here)

We had another nice turn-out for this challenge. Thanks again to everyone who played. I am gonna take a break for a few weeks (we are headed out to Florida this weekend, hopefully Fay will allow us there). I will most likely put a new challenge up sometime in September so I hope you all will take me up on it. So know, back to the subject at hand... the winner for "Are you in shape" is.....
Favorite Grandma! Congrats to you and I loved your layout. You can pm me over at ScrapAttack with your addy and I will get your prize out to you. Here is her layout....

Over the river and through the woods...

Well, not really, just kinda through the woods. We have a nice forest preserve just seconds from our house and would you believe, I have only been there twice so since Alyson had been bugging me to take her there that is where we went. At first the kids just wanted to "hang" around a bit and just relax and have some fun on the trees.

I guess all that "hanging" around makes you quite thirsty so they found a water well with some very cold water to wet their whistles.

You know me, I will take a picture of anything and everything so when I saw this bug I just had to snap a picture of it. I think it is a dragonfly of some sort. I have never seen one like this and was really amazed at how different it looked when I came home and uploaded these photos. I really thought I would be able to get more photos of interesting creatures, but for now I will have to settle for just this one.

Challenge #2...

Here is what you guys have so far, and might I add, they are awesome!

My best friend...

Not only is she my sister, she is my BEST FRIEND in the world. She has always been there for me when I needed her most and that has been alot over the years. She is the kind of person you want to have in your corner. I don't tell her enough so I thought I would do this layout and show her and tell her...I love you Kelly, my sister, my best friend!

Are you in shape?

I had a wonderful response to my first challenge so lets do this again...
We all use shapes on our layouts and if you are like me, I tend to stick with a coordinating shape and stick with a theme. Lately I have been trying to mix it up a bit. So for this challenge I want you to use at least 3 different shapes on your layout. They can be any shape you want but use at least 3. In my example I used a heart, a star and circles. I will make another slide show of layouts as they come in and remember there will be a great prize for this challenge also. I will post that up later when the sun comes out and the rain goes away. Have fun and can't wait to see what you come up with this time! I forgot to give a deadline for this challenge. Please post a comment here with a link to your layout by August 18th. at midnight central time. And while I am at it here is the prize for this one...

And the winner is...

First of all I wanted to say THANK YOU to all of those who took on this challenge.There were quite a few of you and all of the layouts were wonderful! I will have another challenge for you all posted tomorrow or later tonight and I hope everyone can play again, there is a great prize for that also. Anyways, back to the winner...I had my daughter pick a name from a hat and the name she picked was bgraceb. Congrats Brenda! Shoot me a pm with your addy and I will get your prize out to you. Here is a look at what Brenda did with this challenge.
Again, I want to thank you all for playing and good luck on the next challenge!