Gatlinburg

Frank and I got to sneak away on Thanksgiving weekend for some much needed time to ourselves. We try to do this every year and usually go to a cabin in the mountains. This year we decided to try Gatlinburg since we have heard so many good things about it. We didn't even make reservations, we just got in the car and drove up there.....lol. We left out about 5:30 on Saturday morning and were in Gatlinburg having breakfast at 9:00. It was a really nice drive and the scenery was lovely! We found a nice little motel that let us check in at 10:00-it even had a fireplace in the room! We checked in and started walking around enjoying the sights and sounds of the city. Can you believe Frank shopped with me until after noon??! We even rode the skylift to the top of the mountain-it was awesome!

We drove into Sieverville and Pigeon Forge for dinner and loved it!! We decided that the next time we go we will probably stay in Sieverville. It seemed to have more to offer in the way of hotels and dining. Dinner was great!

We got back to the hotel and Frank built a fire then we spend a quiet evening watching Christmas movies and relaxing. It was a lovely time.

I got some great pictures of the mountains on the way home. We stopped at every pulloff in the rode to look at the view and/or read the signs that told about the history of the road and just took our sweet time coming home.

I didn't scrap all the pictures I took-there were just too many, but I did pick out the best ones. Some of the layouts seem to need something else, I may go back and tweek them a little. Overall I am pleased with the way they turned out. I can't wait til next year when we can go back again!!

 This one needs a little something, I may go back and add something to it......

 /\ This is my favorite!

More Malachi layouts

I got some more layouts finished of Malachi's baby pictures. It's so hard to believe that he's already 9 years old. It seems like these pictures were just made yesterday. It's amazing how fast time goes by when you have children. He was (and is) such an adorable child!

I think this was one of his most favorite toys-he would spend hours and hours riding up and down the driveway, until the battery just died.

2010 Christmas Card

This is the card I made for us to send out this year for Christmas. I made the svg from a clipart I found and it cut out pretty well. I think the card turned out really nice. I am SOOOOO glad I finally got them all done. I've even gotten all the envelopes addressed! Now all I have left to do is writed notes in the cards and they are ready to go. I'm ahead of myself for once! YAY!!


Click here for the wise men svg

Malachi's Scrapbook

Lately I have been working on getting the kid's scrapbooks caught up. I have been spending most of my time on Malachi's.

I don't have a lot of his baby pictures because of the fire so I borrowed Mom's photo album and scanned just about every picture she had of him when he was little. I am using those to scrap his babyhood. Man, he was cute!! I would rather scrap baby pictures than any others, although I love doing them all!

Anyway, the photos aren't dated so I am doing a lot of guessing as to when they were taken and how old he was in each one. Occassionally I am coming across one or two that have the date printed on the photo so that is giving me some reference points to use.

I think the pages are turning out pretty nice and he will enjoy looking at the book when he gets older. Actually, he likes to get it out and go through it now, but he hasn't since I added the new pages. He'll be surprised to see them in there I think :)

My Gifts, Talents, and Hobbies

I had to journal for a page in my life book about my gifts, talents, and hobbies. It really got me to thinking. I had never given much thought to what my talents or gifts were.

I know I have always loved working with kids and I am good at it. At church I have worked witht he smaller kids, ages 4 - 2nd grade since I started teaching. And I loved working with the kids whne I worked at the schools. I was good with them and loved especially doing the groups. The kids all responded to me really well. I guess those would be some of my gifts-working with kids and teaching.

As far as talents, something you are born with or something you have developed, I love to create-scrapbook pages, bulletin boards, crafty stuff, etc. I supposed I would have to say one of my talents would be my creativity. I am good at making things and really enjoy it.

When I think about hobbies, I use my talent for my hobby of scrapbooking and cardmaking. I never really got into my hobby until just the last few years-after the house burned down. I used to collect lots of things to put into scrapbooks but never actually got around to making them. After the fire, I realized how precious those things are and started making scrapbooks for the kids. I have now made over 20 scrapbooks with so many more to do. It's very relaxing to me and something I really enjoy doing. It's really the only hobby I have.

New cards for sale

I made a couple of cards tonight and hope to sell them either on etsy or at the yard sale we are having next month for the Foster Parent Association. One is a 1st Birthday card in red or blue and the other is a birthday card in pink or blue. I think they both turned out really nice. The ideas just came to me after I made a sympathy card for a dear friend of mine. I've never sold cards before so I hope I have some luck with these.

Kymberly and Becca

It seems so long ago that we took these pictures. Kymberly has grown SOOOO much!

Wagon wheel svg

I made a wagon wheel yesterday for a friend who asked for one. I cut it and it cuts pretty well, a little more detailed than I intended, but not bad. Just click on the title to get to the svg.

I'm going places....baby....

I got this little bling from my friend, Christina, BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, HAVE THE LAYOUT!: I'm going places....baby..... She has a most amazing blog! There is a catch though-isn't that always the case. I have to

1. Link back to the person who passed the award on to me........done

2. Post where I'll be in ten years.....Hah! I'm not sure where I'll be tomorrow, but I'll give it a shot! Let's see.....I will only have one kid at home (that hasn't happened in 27 years) and she will be just about 12-going into middle school. Hopefully we will still be fostering so we could be caring for more. My daughters will be 24 and 25 so they should be finished with college and maybe married (more grandchildren??). My grandbabies will be 10 and 12 and will hopefully be spending a lot of time at my house :). My son and his wife should be finished with the Army and have their children as well so I will be spending time with those grandbabies as well. Hmmm.....sounds like my life will still be filled with children. Sounds absolutely perfect to me!

3. Pass this award on to ten friends. Oh, the hard part. Now I have to choose ten friends to pass it along to........and figure out how to do it, too. I lost my list of favorite blogs when my computer crashed so I don't know the addresses of ten friends. The only ones I know are Wanda at http://wandascrafts.blogspot.com/ and, Penny at http://pennyduncancreations.blogspot.com/. And of course, Christina, but since she gave it to me, I obviously can't give it back to her....lol.

Here is the award:

Blake

Here are more pages I did for Blake's scrapbook during my weekend crop at church. I had so much fun making these. I wish the pictures of them turned out better.

Blake's first scrapbook pages

I scrapped Blake's first pictures, taken by Alyssa, and loved the way they turned out. The pictures of the pages aren't that great due to the glare of the page protectors, but you can still see the pages pretty well so I decided to leave them as they are. Alyssa is a phenomenal photographer! She really should do this for a living. I love, love, love the photos she takes!! It makes scrapping so easy-except for the part of deciding which ones to do-I simply cannot afford to scrap everything she takes!! HAHA. Haley already has two big albums full of pages and she is only 2 years old! And baby Blake turned a week only yesterday and I have 8 pages for his album already. One thing is for sure, I will never run out of scrapbook subjects-I just may need to take out a loan for the supplies.......LOL!

My grandson has arrived!!

Blake Isaac Filkins made his arrival April 21, 2010 at 5:08 am weighing in at 8lb 5oz and is absolutely adorable-of course!! Seth called me at 4:48 to tell me they were at the hospital and Alyssa was fully dilated. He called back at 5:30 to tell me that Blake had been born! They said they got to the hospital at 4:00, spent 10 minutes or so registering, got to the room, pushed three times and out he came!! No time for any drug so it was all natural. That's the kind of delivery every mom should have!! Way to go, Alyssa! I am so proud of her! She is living the exact life I always dreamed and prayed she would have. God is so awesome!!

Two new layouts for Haley

I finished these Saturday. Haley turned 6 months old in July 08 and it was the first time she got solid food. At first she wasn't impressed and Alyssa got some great shots. When she tried the peaches, though, she loved them. I loved the pics Alyssa got!

Sugar

I finally got some good pictures of Sugar, my little Sugar Glider. It's been hard to catch her on camera since she is nocturnal and doesn't want to come out of her pouch in the daytime. She's the sweetest little pet I've had since Baxter, the prairie dog my brother gave me years ago. She won't get any bigger and is very social. The only thing I wish I could convince her to change it that she "barks" to me every morning around 4am so I have to get up and get her some raisins. I think she is spoiled already!