catch up

How is it that another two weeks have gone by with nary a post from me!? I think I'm feeling like there isn't much to write about but I'm going to try and dig deep...

I have been:
--getting ready for the baby
I purchased a baby album kit and got it all put together which makes me feel one step ahead.

After recognizing the fact that I had not a stitch of baby girl clothes, I asked me sister to take pity on me. She sent clothes to CO with another sister which will then come out with my mom. Isn't family great! I still had to have something for the first week so I went to Kid to Kid and got a few sleepers and then some more essentials from Target.

I had grand plans to make some freezer meals but that never happened. Instead I put together some pancake and muffin mixes so Emma can get breakfast ready easily. I froze about 8 dozen balls of cookie dough. We also made Snickerdoodles but none of those made it to the freezer!

I'm in cleaning and organizing mode (when I have enough energy). Each night I make sure the house is picked up in case I have to call my neighbor to come over in the middle of the night. There are plenty of things I haven't gotten to but the house is generally good to go.

--playing outside
The weather has been lovely lately and the kids have enjoyed being outside again. The tramp is getting lots of use. The bikes and scooters have come out again. Emma has enjoyed a few games of football and basketball with the neighbors. The snow from our yard is almost completely melted too. Can't wait for spring!


--editing pictures
I have been working really hard to getting our family snapshots edited and printed. I finally finished 2007 and am working on 2008. The kids have been pulling out the albums and scrapbooks a lot lately. I am feeling a strong desire to focus on getting our family stories scrapbooked this year. I am retaking the Library of Memories class at Big Picture Scrapbooking. I think that Stacy Julian is a genius and absolutely love her philosophy and system. This is my third time through the class because alumni take it for free. Each time, I get a few steps closer to really getting a good system in place that will get me back to scrapbooking. I have lots of stories to tell. Watching the kids look through the pictures and the few scrapbook pages I have done makes me even more motivated.


--definitely watching too much TV
Currently, one of my favorite nights of the week is Tuesday. American Idol, Biggest Loser and NCIS are all on that night. And Fridays are for CSI:Miami.

I won't even begin to talk about how much my kids are watching. Afternoons are the worst. It is just so much easier to let them entertain themselves so I can nap/clean/work on the computer. With the weather warming up it has been easier to turn it off. I need to be better about this. Play games. Read out loud. Something! However, I'm thinking that a new baby in the house is not going to help things.

--going, going, going
Besides all the usual places we go, I took the kids to Frog and Toad at the SCERA on Monday. It was great. Even Sawyer did well since each child had a treat box and the show was only an hour. We'll have to go back. Dave and I went to see Keri perform in The Phantom at the Hale Center Theater. The performers were great. The writing...not so much. Dave took Emma and Slade to the police station for a tour on Thursday. Finally, we all went as a family to Chuck E. Cheese's on Friday for a last family-of-six fun outing.

I am scheduled to be induced this Friday (eek!). Hopefully I'll manage to get a few more things accomplished, spend some more quality time with my kids, get more pictures printed, and get off the TV and computer. We shall see....

round and round

Marc's monthly photo challenge for October is all about circles. I love circles! I did the photo challenge and a scrapbook layout all at the same time. I shamelessly copied a layout in the August Creating Keepsakes magazine.

digi in deep

I'm taking another online scrapbooking class from Jessica Sprague. Her classes really are fantastic. This one is an advanced class. My head is swimming a bit from information overload but it so amazing to see what Photoshop can do. And again, I'm just glad that I'm actually getting some scrapbooking done. With this class each week, the first layout is a copy of Jessica's. We design the second layout ourselves trying to incorporate the things we've learned.


On a sidenote, obviously I spend a lot of time on the computer with email, blogs, forums, photo editing and scrapbooking. Last week the computer just kept getting slower and slower. On Sunday I came in to find it completely dead. It would not turn on. I didn't totally panic because I knew at least my pictures were backed up but I was worried about the rest of the things on the computer. Dave figured it was just the power supply though. Today we called our favorite computer guy. He came over with a new power supply and had it up and running within thirty minutes. Big sigh of relief!

breath of fresh air

This is the final layout I completed for my digital scrapbooking class.

I am really glad I took the class. I learned a lot. Hopefully, I will apply these newly learned techniques to many more pages in the future. Regardless, I got four great layouts done which is saying a lot.

still rockin'

I'm in the third of four weeks for my digital scrapbooking class. I am learning a ton. It will be interesting to see if I can translate any of the techniques into layouts I do on my own. I am finding the hardest part is choosing the pictures! Jessica Sprague's style is not totally in sync with mine but I still like the layouts I've created.

One more to go.

now i'm rockin'

I am taking an on-line digital scrapbooking class from the ever so fantabulous Jessica Sprague called Now We're Rockin' with Photoshop. I know a lot about using Photoshop for editing pictures (though there is still tons to learn) but I am enjoying learning tricks for scrapbooking. Click on it to see the layout bigger.

This layout took me WAY too long to make, mostly because I am a perfectionist. I had to have the perfect photo so I spent hours looking through photos. Then I decided I had to try to personalize it so I spent a while playing with the papers only to decide that I didn't like what I was doing. I used the original papers, colors, basic layout design and just decided to get it done! I haven't completed a page in a really long time so I am feeling good to have done something. I completed this page but there were also two challenges and a mini album that I didn't do yet. Slowly but surely...