Check out Christina's blog http://sameoldscrap.blogspot.com/. She is giving away some awesome blog candy!

I got this layout from a challenge on a group at Cafemom.com. It was DEFINITELY a challenge! Trying to get those papers to line up just right was a booger. I think the bottom picture was supposed to be a 4 x 6 landscaped because there just seems to be too much background showing, but, oh well. This is how it turned out. I think I am going to go back and outline the "YUM" with a marker or stickles to make it pop out a little more. There is still something about it that's missing, but I can't tell what. It seems kind of plain to me. I guess I am just too critical of my own work. Suggestions are appreciated!

Psalm 22:26The poor will eat and be satisfied; they who seek the LORD will praise him— may your hearts live forever!

I kind of made up this layout as I went along. I loved the papers! I had the stickers and knew I wanted to use them in a cooking layout, but I didn't have any pictures from when the girls and I made cookies this year. I had taken these pictures of Frank on Christmas Day so I thought they would work well with them. They didn't show up to well against the patterned paper, but they were so small I didn't want to have to cut each one out either. I got the idea to use my circle punch and group them on the white paper. Turned out okay, I think. It's funny, because the picture of him with the deviled eggs is staged. Rachel had told him to pretend like he was cooking so he just stood there over the eggs while she took the picture. I had already made the eggs earlier!

John 6:57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.

Christmas Morning Layout

The kids were so excited when they found out they had gotten the Wii game system for Christmas-it took them a few minutes, it was hidden behind some board games on the fireplace hearth. Chayce was the first person to find it and tried to claim it for himself. He set it up right away and they started playing it. His favorite was Guitar Hero (something I have yet to have the nerve to try-I think I'd look like a fool with it!). Malachi liked the baseball and the bowling. I snapped these pics of him while he was playing.....the girls said he looks like a ballerina when he is bowling.

I already had the layout in my mind, I just needed to find the guitar. I found it on Debi's blog, http://debiscardnmore.blogspot.com/. She has a SCAL file with a lot of rock band shapes on it. I went into Inkscape and took out just the guitar to use for this layout and it turned out pretty good. It's really the first time I have done anything productive with Inkscape so I'm pretty proud of myself for that! I think the layout turned out rather nice, I should've gotten the picture a little straighter though.....................lol.

1 Corinthians 12:4There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.

Card for the February card swap

I think I am getting a little hooked on card-making. I decided to try and get a little ahead and made the cards for the February card swap for my group. I scrap-lifted the design a week or so ago and knew I wanted to use it for something and thought this would be perfect. The only problem is I got so involved in finding the right ribbon I forgot to put another piece of paper under the ribbon as it shows in the design. I think it turned out ok anyway. I bought the stamp at the Hobby Hobby in Alabama when we took Chayce back to AIT and have used it a couple of times for the inside of cards. I like how it looks on the outside, too. I sure hope the ribbons stay tied when I mail the cards out-I was afraid if I glued them it would take away from the appearance of the card. As always, comments and suggestions are welcome!

Psalm 68:3But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God; may they be happy and joyful.

A new card

I kinda got on a roll with the card making and decided to make another card while I had the supplies out. I made two of these and sent one to a friend congratulating her on the news of her pregnancy. It's pretty simple, but I love the stamp.

Ecclesiastes 3:12I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live.

Christmas Morning

I finished the layouts for Christmas morning. There is nothing better than watching kids on Christmas morning. The older kids came flying into the living room and started going through their stuff to see what they had gotten, Malachi, the youngest, just sat on the floor in front of his and looked like he had no idea whatsoever where to start. It took him about 15 minutes before he ever picked anything up and looked at it and a good hour to even figure out everything he had gotten. He checked out each toy one at a time very carefully. Of course, after that first hour, his stuff was everywhere......lol. Chayce, the 19 yo was almost as bad as the younger ones. His was kinda bittersweet. We all knew this would be his last Christmas at home -next year he plans on having his own place. We told him he can come spend the night at home on Christmas Eve and Santa may still visit..........I think that's his biggest loss........:).

Birthday card for swap

I finished my first set of cards for the swap for a group I am on. I kept procrastinating because I never could get an idea that seemed to be as nice as the cards I was getting in the mail. All the ladies that are sending me cards have done such a fantastic job I felt like I really needed to make something nice to send them. I hope they like this card! I printed out the message on the computer, used brads for the flowers, and the little glass balls are from The Robin's Nest. It's the first time I have used them and I love them! They are so neat.

Haley on a pretty day

I can't wait to scrap these pics of Haley. Alyssa had her outside last Friday when the weather was so pretty. She was "modeling" her new birthday clothes. I think she looks absolutely adorable-but then I always thinks she looks adorable! She is doing such a good job of standing on her own-she looks so grown up!! It won't be too long now before she is walking on her own. She just turned 1 a week ago--my, how time does fly!

Christmas Eve Presents

I got my posts a little out of order, but oh well.................that's just the way I am. I did this layout about the gifts we opened on Christmas Eve. We had gifts piled around the tree all the way out into the middle of the living room. Guess that's what happens when 7 kids exchange names. Haley even got into the excitement of tearing the wrapping off the presents.

Santa visited our house

Well, Santa came and left and the kids started calling us at 6 am to get up so they could come downstairs. I am still in awe that they don't sneak in to see what's under the tree then try to wake us up, but they are true to their word and stay upstairs until ew wake up. Of course, Rachel played the sneak this year and used her cell phone to call the house phone to try to wake us up. We managed to stay snuggled under the covers until almost 7 am. Then we tortured them for another 15 miuntes or so by calling out some of the neat stuff we saw under the tree-what fun it is to be a parent!

Making Memories is giving away a Slice!

http://makingmemories.typepad.com/

Who Am I

Christmas Eve Scrapbook Pages

Our Christmas Eve was absolutely lovely :). All the kids gathered at the house with us around 2:00 to open gifts and THIS year I had all the presents wrapped BEFORE everyone arrived so no one had to wait on me to finish.......what a change from previous years. We all got together in the living room and Rachel was elected as "Santa" to hand out the gifts. She did a pretty good job-not too fast or slow. Even as excited as the kids were, they were all very well-behaved and waited patiently as the gifts were handed out.

Haley was fairly well-rested and content to let me hold her for most of time. She liked tearing the paper off the presents and was fascinated with some of the toys she received. She really liked the little talking puppy I gave her as I hoped she would.

Everyone seemed to like the presents they got although Rebecca was hesitant to show all of us the one package of underwear she received-not sure why she wouldn't want all of us to see them.........lol. Malachi liked the toys better than the clothes, too.

It was so nice to have everyone here at one time. Philip and his little girl, Daisy, even stopped by for a visit. This is one of the things I love most about Christmas!

More Christmas Play pages

Here are the last pages from the Christmas Play.

Children's Christmas Play

It took me awhile to get my inspiration, but I finally managed to get the pictures of the children's Christmas play scrapped. It was a really neat play-the kids portrayed characters of the bible leading up to the birth of Jesus. It was hard to come up with different ideas for each page, but I managed to get a little variety. The kids all played their parts really well and the little ones were especially cute. Enjoy!

Lim's Blog Candy!

Hanglar and Whipper Snapper Blog Candy. until Saturday, January 24th. Go to http://lim-thevoicesinmyheadlimblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/hanglar-and-whipper-snapper-blog-candy.html and leave a comment for Lim for blog candy.

Thanks to my friend, Lisa (http://lisaslittlerascals.blogspot.com/) from Scrapbook Bingo! On her blog, she awarded me and seven other friends this fantastic award, meant to show our Proximity - to life, to scrapping, to everything.(Please see the award in the sidebar to the right.)

This blog invests and believes in the PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

Haley's Birthday

Little Miss Haley is one year old today!1 It's so hard to believe she has hit this milestone already. It seems like just yesterday that Alyssa and Seth were telling me they were pregnant! They had a lovely party for her on Saturday with a Strawberry Shortcake theme and, of course, I took loads of pictures. Now I need to find the time to scrapbook them. I'm trying to limit the number of pics I get printed, but it is so hard. It seems like there is never a bad picture-all of them are adorable :) !. I'll try to resist printing them all. Instead I will have them all put on a DVD that I can watch over and over.....hehe.

It was so much fun watching her try to figure out what to do with the cake........she finally stuck her fingers in the icing, but hesitated putting it in her mouth. She really doesn't have a lot of interest in eating. She did get a couple of bites of cake and a little ice cream, but never really got into it. She liked the presents-at least playing with the paper. She got lots of neat gifts.

I can't wait until she is old enough to spend the night with me and we can do all the grandmother/granddaughter stuff like going shopping, making cookies, sewing, etc. I am really looking forward to those days, but then I'm not in any hurry for her to get older. She is precious just as she is and I just enjoy the time I have with her now.

Proverbs 17:6 Children's children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children.

More LOs

Here are the other pages I finished today. These are the pages I did about the girls putting together the Christmas tree and me putting on the ornaments. Kristy helped me with some of the ideas so I have to give her some credit for how they turned out..............Thanks Kristy!

My first "crop"!

I had my first crop with someone else today! Kristy, a new friend I met from cricutlovers and on facebook came over this morning and we spent all day scrapping together. I had so much fun! i will definitely have to do this again. She gave me so many great ideas and shared a lot of tips with me. I also got to look at, and drool over, some of the neat supplies she has. We spent time scrapping and looking at each others finished pages. She has some really cool LOs!! I was able to finish 6 pages today. Pretty awesome considering that yesterday I had no clue what I was going to do with these pictures.

Chayce is back at AIT

We had a great time with Chayce home over the holidays, but we knew we would have to take him back to school when it was over. Nicole and I took him back on the 2nd of January. The drive was nice although it rained on us most of the way. Chayce prolonged going to the base as long as he could and finally went at the last possible minute. Nicole and I spent the night in Huntsville and drove home the next day. Other than nearly getting totalled in Alabama when a lady pulled out in front of us the trip was relatively uneventful. Leaving Chayce was harder this time than when we left him in Missouri. I guess it was he had been home for awhile. He's got 4 more weeks then he will be home for good! It will be his birthday then, the 20th, and we're gonna plan a real celebraion for him.