I can't believe I did it!

More importantly...no one else can believe it either! I have wanted a tattoo for the longest time, but anyone who knows me, knows what a big chicken I am. I recently reconnected with a dear friend who is a tattoo artist so I figured it was time to bite the bullet.Knowing that it was a friend doing it made it so much easier. Don't get me wrong, I was still scared to death but having a friend who I could laugh with and make fun of myself with and know I could trust really put my mind at ease. Thanks Mikey for not teasing me too much and for the wonderful tattoos can't wait to get more.....

There is so much fun going on over at Scrapbooking and Crafting Friends! Here is the link to the site in case you have some extra time to come and check us out...http://scrapbookingcraftingfriends.ning.com/
These are two of my projects as a DT of traditional scrapping. The first one is for an anything goes open project and the second one is to do a "Water" themed layout.

My baby is growing up....

Last night I was filled so many different emotions. I was sad, I was excited, I was happy but most of all I was proud! My baby is not a baby anymore...last night he graduated from 8th. grade and is on to high school this fall. I can't believe it, it seems like just yesterday I was changing his diapers and all's I had to worry about was making sure the binkie was always on hand. Each milestone he reaches gets harder and harder for me to hold back the tears...so here is to you my son....Congrats and I am so proud of you!!!!!!

Remember that awesome new site I told you to check out...well look at this! How cool is that?!? I will be leading 2 different challenge groups as a traditional scrapper. Make sure you come and check it out it is free to join and will be lots of fun!

Come and join the fun!

I am part of a new scrapbooking gathering place. You should all come and check it out. There are many friendly faces, many wonderful layouts for inspiration and weekly and daily challenges.
Come on, what are you waiting for...stop by and tell them that "Carrie sent ya!"
http://scrapbookingcraftingfriends.ning.com/

For sale....

As much as I hate to have to do it, I must....
I must part with my Cricut Expression die cutting machine. I have had it for several months now and it has never been used. The Expression machine is the one that will cut a 12x12 sheet and up to a 12x24 sheet. I also have a pack of brand new never opened 12x12 mats. They come 2 in a pack. Along with that I have a brand new Cricut spatula, 3 packs of brand new replacement blades that come 2 in a pack so that is 6 more blades, a brand new pack of primary ink cartridges...yellow,red,green,orange,blue and the original font cartridge that came with the machine. The box for this is missing...my daughter fell on it and crushed it. Also, the mouse pad that came in the Design Studio software is missing. If anyone is interested just let me know and we can work something out.
Again what you will be getting:
Cricut Expression die cutting machine
Plantin SchoolBook font cartridge
Cricut Spatula tool
Cricut primary ink cartidge(5 pack)
3-Cricut replacement blades (2 pack) making that 6 blades total
Cricut Design Studio software
Cricut 12x12 cutting mat (2 in the pack)
Again, everthing is brand new and never been used.

The farmer in the Dells...

Not exactly...but we were! There has been so much "crap" going on here lately we thought it would be nice to take a little break from everything that has been stressing us and so we packed up the kids and went to the Dells for the weekend. We had so much fun I wish it could have lasted a little longer! It has been a while since I have had any good photo ops, so bear with me....there are a lot...
When we first got there everyone was a bit wound up from the 4 hour drive so I was very surprised to get this great picture of the 4 kids actually sitting still.
I think Kyle took this picture of Alyson and me...not too bad for a 9 year old.
The boys just chillaxin!
Not that great, but here is one of me and Kelly...
Andrew being Andrew, I swear that cell phone is attached to his ear!

Poor Matthew! All that swimming and then dinner was just too much for him to handle!

Andrew sporting his new "cool" shades....

Alyson was not to keen on the water slides, she finally went down them about an hour before the pool was closing on our last night. She was so funny, she cried all the way down, pouted as she came out and then quietly asked me if she could do it again!

Matthew on the other hand, we needed to put a GPS unit on him! He was everywhere. We could not get him away from the slides.


Alyson coming down again....

And then trying to act like she isn't having any fun. It was funny because every picture of her going down this slide look the same...eyes closed, mouth scrunched and then a pout when she got out...heaven forbid she let anyone know she was having fun!

Andrew was a little harder to catch going down, the slides he was going down were a lot bigger and a lot faster, but I did manage to get him coming out of the tube...

See, what did I tell you...


It took a lot of begging to finally get Andrew to go down the smaller slide with Matthew but I think they both had a lot of fun....


I even got him to go down by himself so that I could get a better picture, he even had fun on the small slides even though he came down a lot harder because the water wasn't deep enough....


Kyle was the hardest to convince to go down, I did finally manage to get him to do it and lucky for me I got a good picture the first time down, because that was all he would do...

Wait! Did I say Kyle was the hardest to convince...I lied...I was the hardest to convince. Despite the fact that I am afraid of heights and never really cared for slides, I did promise my son I would go down the raft slide with him before we left and boy he held me to that. I screamed like a baby ALL the way down while Andrew laughed harder then I think I ever heard him laugh before. Everyone was laughing...the tubes are dark and hollow so the sound echoed throughout the whole place. In my defense, my son did tell a little white lie about the slide. He told me that because there was two of us on the raft it would go slower, well if I would have thought more about it...the more weight, the FASTER it would go! He told me "that was a scream I never heard come out of you before!" and just continued to laugh.

This pool was a little more mine and Kelly's speed...no slides, no tubes, no rafts and nobody else but us....

Oops, it did have though, buckets of water dumping on our heads!

Last but not least, just a couple of random pics I decided to throw in...


We had such a great time, I can't wait for our next adventure!

It's been a long time...

since I had the time to do a layout, but I think the holiday hustle and bustle is finally come to an end. Now I just have to get through a bit more chaos...my anniversary, valentines day, Alyson's birthday, Andrew's birthday, and then my nephew's birthday...all in a one month time period. I did manage to get a couple layouts done in between all of this. The first one is a scraplift for a challenge at ACOT. We were to scraplift someone from the opposite gallery, me being a paer scrapper, I needed to lift a digital scrapper. I chose the wonderful Pegster. You can see her wonderful work a ACOT. The second one is of my daughter and my sister on New Years Eve.