Banner - A miserable failure

Well I tried and tried, even took Diane's advice and still couldn't get it. I guess I'm going to have to read the directions! Ugh, help me please! Put me out of my misery. This is my attempt at making a banner for my blog. But it was too big. I tried 10 inches by 3 and it just looked funky. A task for another day!

But since I made the Banner a pdf, I think I have to DO IT OVER.

Teddy Bear Parade

We had great fun at the Teddy Bear parade! We even saw people we knew along the way. Madeline made me so proud! It was COLD! But it didn't rain, which is what I feared the most.

By the end of the parade, Cody was copying the "jab cross," along with the class. He'll be trained before he even starts going with his Sissie.

Yes, I'm in my late 30's and this was the first time I've ever seen the parade! Makes me shake my head a little, because it was more fun than I'd expected.

Mouser

Well, I thought I'd share another itty bitty mouse story with you. Remember I said every night at 8:30 pm a mouse would come out from behind the couch, or under the entertainment center, or Dooda's cage and look at me as if to say, "What are you going to do about it?"
Well ever since I pulled out furniture and cleaned, I haven't seen him since. He moved. Well I found out where he went. (Take a wild guess!!!)

Last night Cody came into my bedroom and said he saw a mouse run under his bed. I told him to go turn off the light and come get in bed with me. He left and came back VERY scared (I've never seen him so scared, little bugger must have run right in front of him). His little eyes were full of tears. I held him for a minute then we went to investigate "said" mouse.

The mouse was about 1 1/2 inches. And he didn't seem to be scared of us at all. In fact he was under the bed munching on something (I'm assuming it's something the kids left on the floor). But he just kept doing what he was doing. I went to go get something to capture him. Well, right about that time, Dugan came in and I said, "Get the mouse Dugan!" Not expecting him to do anything but sniff it. (We're talking about the dog who can't wake up to protect our poor little chicken from coyotes!!) Well, I assumed the mouse would get away, but when I finally pulled Dugan away, the mouse lay there, under the bed, not moving. Dugan chomped him! We've got a mouser!

So Dugan IS good for something!!!! ;)

New House?

Well, I was pretty sure I was getting that house on Condor and that my inspection wouldn't uncover anything major. I was SO wrong! It was cut short once the inspector found that the entire house was covered with LP siding that needs to be replaced right away. He found rot in several places that the Seller had tried to cover up with huge amounts of paint. So unless the Seller replaces the siding and repaints the house with no additional cost to me, the deal is falling through! So there's still hope, but I don't know how much! :(

I'll know by early next week when they get an estimate for the repair. The inspector thought it'd be around $12k. Ah well, if this one doesn't work out, another one will!

First Scrapbook Page in HOW long?

Well, I needed to do some kind of page! Have to do it when the inspiration hits, right? I've got so many great safari photos, I think I need to make an album of them. A couple pages isn't enough. The lion was magnificient. I can't believe I caught him sitting up like this.

Since I started scrapbooking, I've been taking photos of things I would never of thought of before. FOR INSTANCE, that "Wildlife Safari" Title is actually a photo of the side of one of the maintenance crews trucks! I'm so crafty! Always looking for that little extra thing to put on my pages.

Safari

The Wildlife Safari in Winston, OR was GREAT fun! We got SO close to all the animals. However, we missed the Rhinos, whom were responsible for tumbling over a Toyota Corolla and SUV last week! They were sleeping when we went through. We were extremely close to a couple of giraffes and of course had the Elephant Encounter, which entailed feeding Alice (a 37 year old, 9,000 lb elephant), and getting an Elephant Ride!! :) I've never petted an Elephant before! I got a ton of beautiful photos. It was a great experience!

Muddy Boy

This is what happens when Grandpa watches the kids for a mere hour. When asked why my son looked like he bathed in mud, Grandpa exclaimed, "I told him not to!" Ha!!! Ah, well...it's all in good fun!

Enchanted Forest

Myers Briggs

I don't know why, but I figured this test that I took recently would be interesting to look back on. So I've included characteristics (according to the test) about me!

Interesting facts about me

High School Photos

Yearbook photos don't scan very well! But here's me! I loved High School, but wouldn't do it over again!

Here's ME!

All the words to describe ME! Let me know if I left any out!

Garden ~ 2 pages

Scrapbooking/Coast Pages

So what's the count for everybody else??? What are the penalties for late completion? Picking lunch for another year? Ritha?

JJ Jump

Here's my little munchkins at JJ Jump. Yes, I played on it too! Lots of fun! HOWEVER, my son dropped my Nikon and now the lens no longer auto focuses! I heard fixing such things is very expensive. But my Nikon is like a limb, and it must be fixed, lest I whither and die from not being able to digitally record as many parts of my life as possible.

Goals

Alright! This is my 12th page, but who's counting?? (tee hee). This is officially my 1st template, and I have to admit, yes they are COOL!

Cody

Ok, I admit, I struggled with this one. Where to put all the embellishments? Are there too many, is it too busy? Poor Cody won't know what to do with all that stuff! ha! Anyway, maybe it's too late or I'm comparing myself to Diane the "overachiever." Have a great weekend girls!!

Madeline

I love this layout. Very fun and easy. Thanks Ritha! For the PHOTO and the Plopper!! :) Who needs Sears/Yuen Lui!!!

Here's Madeline's baby page. Although I might need help because this layout was bugging me a little and I felt a little too constrained. Maybe we should have another lunch scrapbooking session before our deadline. What do you think?

Here is the second page for SCUBA!

Here's my High School Graduation photo. Whoa! 18 years ago! Damn I'm getting old!

Here I am! YES, it's me, I swear!!

Scuba

Here's me! In full scuba gear. Do you recognize me? This was taken only a couple days ago. I also updated my flower page, so you can count that for me! :)

New Page!! - Madeline's Party

My precious girl

Here's my little girl with Kiara, Elaine's grand daughter! We had alot of fun taking photos on Saturday! Thank you Ritha for all your wonderful help!! :)

Another

This is just WEIRD to have ME as the subject of my page! I'm so used to my kids being the focus.

For some reason I can't get this to come across very well. Image is really bad. Can you help me with it? (I saved it as jpeg High Quality).

Title Page

I know this is simple, but isn't that what a title page is suppose to be?

Woo hoo! I'm on my way to getting my book done!!

My very first page!!!

Well, I can't believe it, but I think I've substantially finished my very first DIGITAL scrapbook page! It's simple, as you can see, but I assume I'll get more sophisticated with time. I might fill it in with more words or extra little musical notes, but for now...here it is! And I even figured out how to get it on this blog, that is a feat in itself!! Yippee!! Watch out girls! I've gotten the digital bug! Thank you Ritha for showing me how to use those drop shadows. Oh yeah baby!!

Does anyone know how to change that musical note to black? If not does anyone have a black musical note they have in their supplies?

Scrapbooking Challenge

I'm working on my project...in my head. Yes, that's right girls. Since my scrapbook IS all about me, I've got to work up the potential pages to DESCRIBE me. How many ways can I describe the glory of ME? (Sorry, I'm pouring it on now).

One page will be Goals for 2008. Do any of you have paper or a kit that looks like a scroll or notebook paper or something like that? I'm going to write down my goals and then put a box after each so I can check each one as I'm done. (I know, I'm such an accountant. Gotta have the check boxes to indicate completion of the task).

Another page idea is to have a picture of me (recently taken by family or friends) surrounded by words that describe me. Such as: mother, scuba diver, diet pepsi drinker, scrapper, runner, photographer, bean counter, etc etc (feel free to send me little descriptions as you see me, if you have any...only nice ones please!!). And yes, I hate to say it after your last post, Kris, but I'm going to add COFFEE DRINKER.

And yet another page idea will be about things I like to do vs things I do NOT like to do. I wonder if those things will change in time? It'll be fun to look back on.

Well, break is over!!

It's all about ME!

I'm thinking that my scrapbook challenge will involve an album that is exclusively ABOUT ME! Woo hoo! I'm going to have to dig up the 5 photographs I have of myself (4 of them taken by me and my handy dandy camera remote), that have been taken in the last 10 years. HOW many pages are we doing in our album?? I guess if there are 20 pages, with 5 photographs of me, I'll have to fill up the remaining 15 pages about how great I am! Yeah, that's it!

Actually, I've been wanting to do an album about this wonderful topic for ages now, so I have quite a few ideas. If 5 photos isn't enough I might need my FRIENDS help to get me a couple more! ;) Any takers?

In case you didn't figure this out by now, the reason I only have 5 photos is because I'M ALWAYS the one behind the camera. But, I suspect, you girls are just like me...so you know exactly what I mean!!

Tonight I'm going to learn how to do some serious digital scrapbooking. I can't wait!

New Beginning

Hello world!
The accountant in me has kicked in and I'm in planning mode. I'm just about ready to start getting my house to sell, get rid of stuff I've acccumulated over the last 14 years, and start some new and wonderful new activities. Hmm...what shall I do? Join a scuba diving club? Do more scrapbooking (of course!!!), sign up for a fun run, plan a vacation with and without the kids. I think that the opportunities are endless! Plus, I'm excited about thinking about moving to a new house somewhere with a cute little yard, in a nice little neighborhood (sans farm animals) and with lots of other little kids for my munchkins to play with!

Ritha and Kris, my fellow scrapbook buddies, I hope you know...I'm excited to start our challenge! Hmmm...how will we judge? Is it speed or quality or just the fact that we finish?
So many requirements...how will I cope? Now I've got to choose a topic. Kids or me? How to decide! The clock is ticking girls!! Let's plan some scrapbook times to help us out!

New Blog

Hi friends!

Here's me trying to figure out how to use this site. Wish me luck! Check back to find out what new and interesting things I've been up to lately.

Besides running after my kids, work, scrapbooking, scuba diving, reading, watching Netflix DVDs, and gardening...who knows what else I have in store! Will I have time for anything else?

OK, here I go. If I made a blog, would anybody read it? Where's my site counter? Anybody??