On the FIRST day of Christmas...

That's today, by the way, in case you weren't sure -- Dec 25th is the FIRST day of Christmas! Eleven days of cheer to go! And in our house, I prefer to see it straight through to Epiphany!

Especially in my house on a year when my older boys spent Christmas with their Dad and all has been slowed and we have a whole week of no-rush Christmas cheer ahead of us culminating in our master New Year's celebration!

If you're looking for my Journal Your Christmas album - rest assured, I'll catch up the posting soon! I fell behind as I whipped through final Christmas projects -- an 8x8 album for the ILs with 50 pages of their most recent vacation photos, 2 chipboard minis - one for my parents, one for my brother's family, and a big stack of Ornaments that were a major part of everyone's gifts (And I did NOT get photos of all that stuff but I will have a few pages here sooner or later.... if I can tear myself away from Epic Mickey!!)

Did anyone else watch the big DLR/WDW parade?

So -- Merry Christmas to all my blog-land friends. I thought happy thoughts of you guys today!

More Journal Your Christmas 11, 12, 13

And a few more Layouts for JYC.

 For this page - I used a totally cute sketch from Liz at the Scrappiest!
One of the fun things this year has been the Little Guy's expanding skill at reading and writing. I printed special paper for the boys and they each wrote their own letters to Santa.

 For the last several years, one of our favorite traditions has been an annual ride on the Pike's Peak Cog Railway's Santa Express. This year there was almost no snow and there was something different about Santa, but it was still Great.

We've been doing a lot of singing carols in the car this year - it helps DS3 to keep from falling aslee on the drive to pick up DS1 from wrestling, and every drive becomes a Christmas light viewing experience. DS3 also likes to clap along.

Catching up on JYC 8, 9, 10

 More Journal your Christmas!

 These two are a two pager.... Had to follow up on that Dec. 7th too-depressing to-do list.

 And I cheated on this -- these are premade pages. I just slapped some pics and journalling in there!
Reads:
After a little bit of stress over yesterday's to do list - we got a tree, hung some outdoor lights and began a little baking - Christmas is closer!

 On the topic of Christmases Past... check out that awesome vintage pic of my family! Sorry Andy-Pandy, this one predates you!
This photo gives me a lot of vague Christmas impressions = but not specific memories. I do NOT remember my dad wearing that beard! I do remember the cut-outs on the wall and the candles on the mantle. I also remember being Happy! (And WHAT is Jason wearing?)

 Used the Fantastic Dec 1 Sketch from Stuck Sketches for this one!
As soon as DS1 got home from practice - he started putting up lights. DS3 got to put the star on and DS2 did a lot of ornaments.

More soon!

Scrapbooks & Cards Today Calendar

Have you seen this AMAZING calendar from Scrapbooks & Cards Today?

This limited edition 13-month calendar will keep you inspired all year through. We have matched 14 fabulously talented industry designers with 14 brand new PageMaps all resulting in a calendar that showcases brand new products along with tips, tricks and techniques. We have also included additional PageMaps as a bonus! 

And the best part? A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the 2011 PageMaps Sketch Calendar will be donated to both Canadian and the American breast cancer research charities!


I'm getting my hands on one --  Thanks to Davinie! and I cannot WAIT!!!

JYC Dec 6th and 7th

More pages from my Christmas Journal:

Today I blew off the prompt, I just wasn't inspired by it... but I was in love with this beautiful paper!

"Last weekend (aftr Thanksgiving) we made a visit to Santa's Workshop - we've never visited during the Christmas Season before. Probably because it was FREEZING up there! and started getting dark at 2 PM! Still it was a great time."

Today's topic was a To Do list, in years past I've had a neat little list of tings to finish... this year the list is shorter and a lot bigger!

"TO DO:
Every SINGLE Thing!
No, really! I haven't even started anything Christmas but this journal and some shopping... but baking, decorating, etc. I haven't done a thing."

And I am caught up ;) for at least a today!

JYC Dec 4th, and 5th

I'm a little behind in my blogging (like everything else this season).

Here are Journal Entries for the 4th, 5th and 6th of December.

 "The perfect Christmas, in my head, looks like something out of an LL Bean Catalog - snowy, rustic, woodsy, and relaxed... of course that has little bearing on our actual Christmas."

"Alright, I admit it, I may have gone a bit overboard on the Advent Calendars this year. In addition to their chocolate calendzrs, the kid are opening a Lego calendar and a virtual calendar on the Wii."

On the topic of the Wii game -- we picked up "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" for the kiddos on the wii -- it's just a collection of minigames (elf bowling, present collecting, etc...) and activities (roasting marshmallows, decorating a tree, sticker sheets and more) plus an advent calendar (with things like new sticker sheets for the sticker book, ornaments for the tree, etc.)... and our kids have been having a BALL with it!

JYC Dec 2nd and 3rd

Another entry for my Christmas journal - though I fell behind yesterday and got to it today instead...

Yesterday's topic was weather. Since the weather.com link on my desktop currently reads SIXTY NINE DEGREES  - I am despairing of winter. The fall was long and warm, it finally cooled off and we got some snow... it was cold this weekend and now... it's back up...

 

For this one, I used a sketch from sketch savvy (scaled down to 8x8). 

Journal reads :

"Where is winter? I love the snow and cold - and I find it awfully hard to get feeling "Christmassy" without it!"

And here's one for the Third, the topic is Christmas cards and my journalling is about how I haven't even tarted on them.

Started with another of Sus' sketches for this.

Journal MY Christmas BEGINS!

December 1st has arrived -- the advent calendars are open, I'm feeling appropriately overwhelmed by Christmas speeding our way... and my first prompt for Journal Your Christmas appeared in my e-mail inbox this morning (thanks Shimelle!)

And here's the first page of my journal! (I'm working in 8x8 again, by the way)

Reads:
Today is Dec 1st. which means the start of our annual countdown to Christmas (and New Years!) and the beginning of my fourth Journal Your Christmas. When I first signed up for JYC, I was nervous that it would be another Christmas-time obligation that would bring stress as well as joy. I am delighted to report that I was wrong. Opening my e-mail to find a JYC prompt is one of my favorite things and carving out time to journal and create every day - instead of feeling like a seasonal obligation, brings me a moment of solace from the busy-ness of everyday and time to reflect on the things I love most about Christmas. So I'm committing myself to another year!

The Time is At Hand...

For another year of Journal Your Christmas!
This will be my fourth year! And I cannot wait!

What is Journal Your Christmas? It's a class, it's a community, and it's a heck of a lot of fun! Sign up once and you're in for life. (and yes, there is a cost up front the first time you sign up)... Every day from Dec 1st to Jan 6th (Epiphany, the Twelfth Day of Christmas) - Shimelle sends a journalling prompt to your e-mail inbox, covering all kinds of Christmassy topics - trimming the tree, wrapping gifts, things left to do, etc...

You're thinking "This sounds like a lot of work! I'm already too busy in the Holidays!" Lots of people have those kinds of responses and I get it! I, too, am VERY busy in December... but for me, JYC gives me a sense of continuity and enjoyment of my holiday, it lets me reflect and focus on what is really important to me and my family.  It's a gift I give to myself.

If you'd like to see my album from last year -- it makes up most of my December and early January posts from last year!

Project 12: October (and a peek at what I've been up to)

I've done almost no scrapping this month.
But I did finally get around to getting Project 12 done for October!

 If you'd like to see some previous Project 12 pages -- January, February , March , April , May, June , July, August and September.

However, I've been cranking out cards like crazy... for charity.

Falling behind...

Hello?!

I know, I know, trust me, I know how very lax I've been in posting lately! I'm sorry!

It's been hectic at our house! We're up to our ears in Eagle Scout service project, wrestling season has begun and the Little Guy has not adjusted well to the time change. It's been cold. DH has been working a ton. I feel like the laundry is ganging up on me. I've been wrangled into a massive card-making project.

And there are less than 40 days until Christmas and I have so many projects to work on and not a one of them is so much as started!

I have no positive accomplishments, no cute photos, nothing to share... I haven't even gotten to Project 12 for this month (though I did print my photos, so that's something).

A couple of pages

I managed to knock out a couple of pages for the Crop this weekend before the icky sickies got the better of me.

 This first LO was inspired by a challenge from Katt which included using Fall Colors and "tracing"... I have been using Fall Colors and themes for the trip album from our trip to Missouri last Fall. This page of misc. pics from Silver Dollar City started with Susan's Double-Sketch #8 from Sketch Savvy . I got this masking template that I used for the circles on clearance recently and I love it! The papers are WRMK, the alphas are Sass, and that tag has been sitting in my stash for a long time - made it at a class one time.

The challenge for this was to do a Halloween LO, but not use Halloween products. Well, I had the easiest out for that! Last Halloween, my then-four-year-old was Santa Claus for Halloween. So I decided this would be a perfect opportunity to comment on that! I was inspired by another of Susan's Sketch Savvy Sketches #46 for this page. And I ADORE these WRMK papers!

The journalling reads:
While dressing as Santa for Halloween may not be traditional - it was very you! Your love for all things Santa certainly lasted all year in 2009. As we trick-or-treated, people would see your costume and proclaim 'I've been good!' and you would tell them "It's only a Costume, I'm not the Real Real Santa!" Best Costume Ever! -2009

Halloween has come and gone...

Not only Halloween, but also the Oldest's birthday!

I can hardly believe how my little boy has turned into a young man.
And for his birthday, he decided to take his little brothers out trick-or-treating!

It was a pretty good holiday!

This is Halloween

I've got Halloween on my mind today!

It's a whopping 20 degrees outside here. It was 18 when I took the kids to school. ~~BRRRR~~~ Supposed to get up to 60ish today. That would be nice

Today, I need to go to the grocery store.hen I need to prep stuff for the kids' school Halloween parties tomorrow... I was planning to skip the doughnut eyeballs I usually make for them but they both were dying for them so I have to make them, plus the T cheese and crackers that their teachers asked me for (we're cutting the cheese with Halloween cookie cutters)

They're easy to make - those are powdered sugar mini donuts, the irises are jelly-savers, the pupils are chocolate chips and the bloodshot is just red icing. Simple but always a huge hit!

The kids are going to carve their pumpkins tonight, I hope.

In the meantime, here are two fun Halloween Layouts to get us in the mood.

Halloween is also my oldest son's birthday. This 5x7 has been sitting in my scrapbox for a long time. I love the pic, I mean what geek girl doesn't love seeing her son in Starfleet uniform? (And I remember he was very specific that he wanted a 3rd season or later Next Gen uniform, in red... not the yellow DS9 engineers costume we already had :LOL) The journalling is about having a holiday birthday, The papers are Fancy Pants, the pumpkin details are K and Co, the journalling card is LYB from St. Patrick's day.

And this one is from last Halloween (yes, the Little Guy is dressed as Santa Claus, the middle one as Harry Potter and Oldest is in a Hulk tee shirt), we were in St. Louis on vacation in October and decided that since we'd miss Boo at the Zoo at home, we'd go there - it was lots of fun! Great event!  I could not resist the Echo Park products for this one plus my super cute Martha Stewart Spiderweb border punch!!

Think Spooky, folks!

Fright Night Crop

This weekend I'll be participating in the Fright Night Crop at Croppin' Paradise!

I love a good online crop! So, all of my scrappy readers -- you're welcome to join us! We'll be having loads of fun with challenges and great company, too!  Come crop with us!

Pumpkin Patch

We don't have a single pumpkin patch tradition... I love going to the pumpkin patch and we love the one at our local apple farm... But last year - our vacation during October break put it off too long, and we got pumpkins from the grocery store.

This year, my kids were determined we were going to a Pumpkin Patch. Unfortunately,the real patch at the apple farm was out... so we decided to try another place. As it turned out, they hauled in their pumpkins rather than growing them, which was a bit disappointing but they had some fun activities and we had a good time! So, here come the photos = a bunch of them!

 Our very first stop was the giant Hay Slide!
 And after the Hay Slide, a Hay Ride!

 There wasn't a corn maze...

 Instead there was a snow-fence maze!

 There was a giant straw pyramid to climb -- as you can see it was fun for the little guys, but the Oldest, yeah, he's sitting up there texting. TEENAGERS! ARGHHH!

 There was pumpkin launching with a giant sling shot, and a hay maze for the littler kids.

And of course there were pumpkins!

Bright and Delightful

I picked up this cute Fancy Pants paper the other day at our fantastic local discount store - Scrap 4 Less. It's bright and funky and fun!

 I love this pic of the Little Guy practically nose-to-nose with a bear. (Lots of glass in between!) I had fun with a challenge from Croppin' Paradise for this one -- "the stars challenge"
S - Some brads
T - Transparency (over the photo)
A- Alphabets
R- Ribbon
S - Scrap Card (card below)

 The same Fancy Pants papers plus a shaped paper from WRMK here... and some really cute buttons, too! That's a pic of my dad and my boys :)

 For this last one, the papers are WRMK and the sketch came from Mara, I had a lot of fun with this page - more buttons, funky orange thickers and cute orange-y ric-rac (yes, I've been using a lot of Orange lately... it makes me happy -- and yes, I carry an orange purse, too.) I've always liked orange and lately even more-so.

Delgi Sposi

Something brought to mind this poem today, so I feel like sharing it.

Delgi Sposi (Of the married) by Rika Lesser

Of us
not much is known.
Our lives were not
extraordinary.
Our silence seals
a deeper silence.

Sharing the single bed, how close
we lie, fingers curved over palms
whose fable read: conjugal bliss
is possible.

How simple it was. It is.
But the secret's lost. That's why
you look to us, how we carry
ourselves, our smile. we live
in that space where all's yet
to become: embrace -- a tenderness,
an expectation, a myth, tentative
gesture preceding touch. Before
the shock of contact, when caution
counsels: Leave.

Not at al easy, this, to speak
of love. And to survive. Our skin
glows red with passion in reserve.
Unbridled, it would deaden every
nerve. Feeling -- the reins, the check,
restraint, repose, out of whose thousand
fragments we are restored. Loving
each other even after death. As if
life were not, had not been, enough.

We touch, we hold, we keep
one another free.

And one more LO

Here's one last layout from the other day -- my hopes of getting more scrapping done this week have been dashed by busy-ness.

 Another one from our trip to Branson, specifically on the Branson Scenic Railway - which was a LOVELY train ride! We had such a nice time! For this one, I started with the Oct 7th sketch from Sassy Lil' Sketches.


Hope to get a little done tomorrow morning.

Imaginesce Challenge

Love this adorable sketch from Cindy Stevens

Used it for this cute page!

Back to scrapping

Finally I have some scrapping I can share! I hope to get some more dne in the next week or two while we're on our Fall break.

Speaking of Fall Break - last year, on Fall Break, we took a vacation to Branson and St. Louis, Missouri. It was a really fun trip and I have tons of pics to scrap! I've done a few pages already but there's a lot more!

 

For this first page - I used an adorable sketch that Jenny posted for a challenge over at Croppin' Paradise.  This pic was taken at the Branson Landing shops and from left to right - The Middle Child, Oldest, DH, Me, MIL, the Little Guy and FIL. It's a fun pic and I adore these Cosmo Cricket Nutmeg products.

This page features an attraction at Silver Dollar City -- where the boys had to pull themselves up by hand using pulleys so they could drop back down... sounds boring? but they were very amused by it and competitive over who could pull themselves higher and faster.  For the page, I used Stuck Sketch for October 1st and some really cute MAMBI papers. 

 Our visit to the Shepherd of the Hills Fish Hatchery was a bit of a vindication for me. In the Spring, on a camping trip I had dragged my family to a nearby hatchery with promises that it would be fun and interesting. When we arrived the hatchery was EMPTY -- every channel was emptied. They teased me a lot for making them go there. So, when I suggested we visit the hatchery at Shepherd of the Hills, the teasing began again - til we got there and got a chance to visit channels teeming with hungry fish to feed and watch. The children were amazed.

For the page - more Cosmo Cricket, because it felt like the PERFECT paper for Color Room's Color Palette #27, I used the sketch for that, too, though loosely. I was working from a printout of the color scheme so the matches look a little different that way.

It's really nice to get some fun scrapping done to share with you guys!

Project 12, September

Here it is October, already! I cannot believe we're 3/4 of the way through the year!

And for me, the start of a new month means - time to make a new overview page from the last month for Project 12!

So, I present to you -- September, 2010:

This month's page includes a photo of the Little Guy and Middle Child on Patriot Day, a pic of the Oldest and his best friend and  finally a pic of me and the boys on the day of our runaway into the mountains to view the amazing aspens and go for a ride on the train.

I have so enjoyed the 9 layouts I've done so far for Project 12. Here's a quick glimpse of the work all laid out on my table:

For a quick review of the last 9 months:
January, February , March , April , May, June , July and August

Now that's what I call a Pumpkin!

We went to the "Great Pumpkin Weigh Off!" and saw Giant pumpkins!

The winner of the day was over 1100 lbs!

Aren't they amazing???