My First Blog Award!!

I got this award from Lei at Fairydust Princess - Magicmaker-scraps. Thank you so much! This is my first blog award! I am so flattered - you made my day! Check out her blog - she's got some amazing kits and freebies. I just love her stuff. :)

1.The winner can put the logo on her blog.

2.Link the person you received your award from.

3.Nominate at least 7 other blogs.

4.Put links of those blogs on yours.

5.Leave a message on the blogs of the people you’ve nominated.

6.If the Blogger you nominate has already received this award they don’tneed to pass it on.

I'm not sure who has already gotten this, so I'm just going to try to pick my next 7 faves, and hope I don't hurt anyone's feelings if I don't send it to you. I have all my fave blogs listed on the side bar of this blog - and you can see how many there are! I love them all! (and many more not listed, too). I'm awarding this to:

Bethany of Elegant Wordart by Bethany. I absolutely LOVE her work, and her blog is fun to read, too. :)

Pamela of Digitreats - who has been working on the most amazing ABC freebie kits. They are HUGE, and I've been collecting all the pieces for a while now. She's another amazing designer.

KimB - who I know has recieved about a million blog awards - but she deserves it! And she makes me laugh, which I love!

my friend, and budding designer, Christina, who gets the credit for getting me started in digital scrapbooking. Thank you, and I miss you! One of us may have to move!

Andrea Dickenson - who seems to be such a sweet and talented lady. I have enjoyed her blog, her designs, and her comments that she has left me on my blog.

Kimberly of FishinmomDesigns - who was kind enough to give me my first "gig" on a CT. I've really enjoyed working with her kits. She's a fun, sweet, and amazing woman and designer. Thank you for having faith in me and for giving me a chance.

Cen of Cen's Loft - Another great designer who posts freebies and CU items on her blog. She also keeps me smiling.

Well, that's my 7 - but like I said, check out all the other great blogs on my sidebar. :)

I hope you're having a wonderful day!

Busy weekend

Well, since my last post was about Thurs., I'll start w/ Friday. First thing on Friday was that Angel got Student of the Month! Yay! I am so proud of her. The student of the month is awarded to 1 student from each class that has best represented the "character education" word of the month. For Sept. it was RESPECT. I went to the school to watch the assembly and to help out in the teacher's work room for a little while. Fri. evening, Damian had soccer practice. The kids love rolling down the hills next to the soccer fields.
Saturday, Damian had a soccer game, and team pictures. His team didn't win, but he played hard. Toward the end of the game, Damian got knocked flat by a ball kicked straight to his forehead. From where I was, I thought he'd gotten hit in the nose, but it was his forehead. It was a hard kick from pretty close, so he was really hurting. I felt so bad for him. He did get back up and go play the last few minutes of the game. Tough kid! After the game, we went to lunch w/ Aunt Denise. Mmmmmmm, I hadn't had Zio's in quite a while.
Frank got home from his race late last night. He crashed in the first hour, but wasn't hurt. It took a while to get the bike back into the race, though - so he was pretty disappointed. :( It's always nice to have him back, though. :)
I think today will be a nice, relaxing day of church, and being with the family. :) I hope yours is the same. :)

Another week

has gone by without me posting! Sorry! I've been pretty busy over the past week. For the weekend, we went to OK for the boys to do some dirt bike riding and foam pit jumping. Angel played in the dirt, and I took pictures. This week has been the normal, busy week of story times, dance class, BMX and soccer, and I think we're starting cheerleading soon, too. I have FINALLY started to work out again, after about a month off. I have made it to 2 pilates classes so far. ( Yay me!) It feels good to be excersizing again. I've done another couple scrapbook pages this week, too. Here's Sam. I used Fishinmom's Turtle Time, a frame by Andrea Boyer, and a sticker by Brenda Mascari. Fishinmom's running a sale this week - check it out! I entered this LO (layout) in two challenges: Designer Techniques Out of Bounds at Hummie's World, and the SAS-y Layout Design Challenge at SAS.
Here's one of me w/ my friend Miss Chris. It was made with HER kit, The Sun Also Rises. I used Elegant Wordart by Bethany, too. Two pages in one week is a lot for me - but I hope I can keep it up. I'm so behind on scrapping my photos.

A lot to catch up on!

Well, I've been back home since Tues., and trying to get back into a routine. My bro and his kids came back with me. He's planning on moving here. He's been working w/ Frank, and I've been taking care of the kids. It's been nice to have them here. The kids and I have had fun going to storytimes, etc.
We also went to the kid's school and had lunch with them.
I was so excited yesterday to hear that Julie is getting out of the hospital! Yay! I made a scrapbook page about her last couple weeks in the hospital. (I hope she doesn't mind me posting this).
I made this layout with Digitreats Skip ABC kit. I've been collecting the pieces on her blog since the beginning. I entered it in the layout design challenge at SAS, too.
Well, I'm off to OK for the weekend! Have fun!

KC

I've been in KC now since Thursday. It has rained the whole time I've been here! I've stayed with my sis in the hospital a few times, and will go again today. Even though this isn't the best circumstance, I do enjoy spending so much time with family. When I'm not at the hospital, I'm staying w/ another sis and bro - which has been nice. She's even making french toast for breakfast this morning. I told her this is an awesome hotel. :)

My sis in the hospital is showing improvement, so I'm very encouraged to see that. She's starting rehab today. I hope it goes well. I can't wait to see her back to her old self.

Yesterday, I also got to meet a friend from one of my fav. scrapbooking websites, HummiesWorld. It was so nice to have lunch w/ a friend, and to meet someone that I've only known online for a while. We had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. It was great! I've only eaten there one other time, but really like it. We don't have one in Springfield - which is probably a good thing. :) My diet would be shot!

Well, since I'm not home, I don't have any way to put any new pics on here. I'll probably go home in a few days, and I'll catch up on posting pics. Right now - I'm going to go have my french toast!

Going to see Julie

The last couple of days have been crazy. I've been trying to be ready to go at a moment's notice to go help with my sis in the hospital or my bro and his kids. Looks like today's the day. I went to have lunch w/ my kids at school and tell them goodbye because I'll be gone before they're home from school. I'm a little surprised that my Angel's not handling me leaving very well. She's usually super independent, but today was very clingy, and asking me not to leave. :( That makes me sad. I'm sure she'll be fine, though. I may be home as early as tomorrow, or I may stay w/ my family for a few days, depending on what everyone's needs are once I get there. Here is a scrapbooking layout I made of Julie. I entered it in the Layout Design Challenge at SAS. It's made from JulieO's kit, Feelin Welcome - the welcome kit when you sign up at SAS.
Here's another page I made for the Quote Challenge at Hummie's world.
Well, this is a short one, but I'm in a hurry. I'll try to post more in a day or two. Take care, and thanks for checking in on me and my family. :)

Surprise, Surprise!

There have been surprises galore around here! Frank and I like to randomly surprise the kids with short trips, or visiting friends, or going out for dinner or ice cream. Well, Angel's been working on a surprise for me for a couple days. I knew about it, but didn't let on. She's been working on making me a bracelet or anklet. It's taken so long because she's dropped the string several times and all the beads have fallen off, and she keeps having to start over. Yesterday, I fell asleep on the couch for a while, and I could feel her wrapping a string around my ankle - to measure for fit. When I woke up, she was picking up beads from the floor - another failed attempt. But because it was a surprise, she didn't complain or whine - just quietly picked everything up. So, this morning, I was sleeping in because I was up LATE working on a scrapbook page, and I feel little hands and string on my wrist. I kept my eyes closed, and even dozed back off for a min., and when I woke up, I had a beautiful bracelet tied on my wrist. :)
Another surprise I got yesterday was a new car!!!! Not a NEW car, but a 90-something Toyota Solara w/ sunroof. It's in good shape, and looks nice. I haven't driven it yet, though. Frank drove it today. I still love my other vehicle - so I'm not heartbroken not to drive the new one. Frank wants to clean it up a little more, too. It will get much better gas mileage, though, than my SUV. The surprise was pretty funny. Apparently the car was parked out there for 2 days before I realized it! I know that seems weird, or obvious, but to those who know Frank and I well, maybe you'll understand. There are always more vehicles around here than there are people to drive them. I should be more observant, but I'm just used to things coming and going. Here's the scenario. I don't even know which day he brought the car home, but I noticed it Sat. night. For the past week, or two, we've had my MIL's SUV here, and she had our 2-door dk. green car. She came for a visit this week, so we had the SUV and the green car here. Also, we have a friend's green car parked in our driveway so that Frank can work on it. Also, my MIL owns another dk. green car that is being worked on, but I knew was supposed to be picked up this weekend. All these cars are different makes and models, but all dark green. While my MIL and the SUV were here, I didn't pay attention to all the cars in the driveways - I just knew it was crowded, and I was driving MY SUV - not any of the other cars. Driving home Fri., I noticed that there was at least one extra car in the driveway, something wasn't quite right - the tail lights looked unfamiliar, but then I remembered we were having a couple over, and I recognized their car. I don't know why I didn't question the other car - maybe thought it was just our car, or the one being worked on...I don't know. So, it wasn't until we were driving home from being out last night, and as we pulled in the driveway next to the new car, I saw that it said Solara on the back. OK, I know we don't own a Solara! I asked Frank whose car it was, and he just started laughing. Then he told our son, D, "she finally noticed" - like it was an inside joke! He said our friends that came over Fri. were wondering how long it would take for me to notice, also. :) So, apparently, I need to be more observant! :)
Anyway, here's what I made last night. I used a kit by Julie.It.is - her blog is listed on the right side - and some wordart by Bethany, also listed on the right. These two ladies are very talented designers, and I love their products. Thanks Julie and Bethany! :)

I am officially

a soccer mom! Damian had his first soccer game today, and it was awesome! His team won 6-1, and he made 4! of the goals!!! WOW! It was a really exciting game, and the kids did better than we ever would have expected with only one practice. Even more impressive to me is that Damian has never played on a soccer team before. We let him try it out when he was 4, and took him to a couple practices on a friend's team, but he showed very little interest. Then, this summer, he had the opportunity to attend a one week soccer camp, and he loved it. So with such limited experience with the game, it was amazing to see how well he did today. I'm eagerly looking forward to the next game.
These pics are small, and hard to see, sorry. D's team is the green. In this photo, he's the little green spec to the far left. He's got the ball, and about 4 of the other team's boys on his tail.
On these last two, D's the one in white socks kicking the ball into the goal. He successfully made both of these goals, and 2 more throughout the game. Yay D!!!!! :)

Am I crazy that I actually felt tears in my eyes when he made his first goal, and when he ran through the "tunnel" of parents? I guess I'm just a crazy, emotional, proud mom! :)

I'm sure you're all dying to know

what I've been up to for the past week. :) I can't believe it's been over a week since I posted on my blog. Since I don't even remember last Thurs. or Fri., we'll skip those days. Saturday, we headed to Arkansas. We were planning to pick up the pop-up camper we bought from my grandparents and go camping at Devil's Den .
We got there late enough that we just spent the night at the Grandparent's. Grandma's breakfast in the morning was definitely worth staying for, though! My sis and her hubby also came for a visit, and my uncle also showed up for the weekend! We sat and visited most of the day Sunday, too, before we realized we better get to the campsite to set up before dark. We got there with a little light left, but it was dark before we got all set up. The kids were very excited, and weren't quite ready to sleep yet, so they did some activities at the table - (aren't they so cute?) before bed.
Do these look like sleepy kids? Here they are, all snuggled up for bed. The bed really wasn't too bad. I slept much better than I expected to.

The next day, Monday, was really the fun day of camping. I decided not to cook on this first trip, so we had cold pop-tarts and fruit for breakfast. Then we set off to go hiking - which is my fav. part of camping. There are caves and crevices all through Devil's Den, so hiking and exploring is really fun. Here we are in the Devil's Ice Box. It is a little chilly. Feels good, though, after hiking for a while.
My fav. part of the hike is the waterfall. It's so beautiful, and also refreshing, but unfortunately, this is all there was this time.
Just a few drips. I don't know if you can even see in this pic. :( It's usually a big pretty waterfall. After the hike, we had a quick lunch, then took the kids swimming. We didn't have time to do the paddle-boats, but that's something we usually try to do when we're there. I remember my Dad taking my sis and I out on the paddle-boats as little girls, so it's a pleasant memory I'd like to create w/ my kids, too. After swimming, it was time to pack up and check out. While Frank put the camper back down and hooked it up, the kids and I made s'mores - another camping tradition that we just HAVE to do. :) We got home around midnight.
Tues. I was not feeling well, and Angel stayed home sick on Wed. Yesterday (Thurs), I went to the school to volunteer, and boy, did I get put to work! It appears I won't be bored this year w/ both kids in school. I volunteered again today, and had lunch w/ both kids. This afternoon was D's first soccer practice, and first game is tomorrow! AAAAHHHHHHHH!!! I hope they know what they're doing after only one practice. They seemed to be having fun, though, so I'm sure it will be fine. I'm pretty excited to watch his first game. :)
Tonight, we went to a comedy show that we like with some friends. It's like an improv talk show, with guests, and everything, but it's a comedy show - and it's hilarious! They do this talk show once/month, and we like to try to go each month. Thank you to another friend for babysitting!

Whew! Finally caught up! Now I'm off to bed. :)

First Day(s) of school

Monday, 25th was the first day of school. We had gone to "meet the teacher day" on Friday, and both kids got the teachers they wanted. Yay!!! Angel, especially was very excited about starting kindergarten. Damian was excited to see his friends again, but not as excited about the academic part. :( So, Monday morning, I got up early to make a special pancake breakfast. Unfortunately, my happy faces came out looking a little scary. Oh, well - they tasted good! Damian was not eating much, then started complaining of his head hurting. Uh-oh...sure enough - he had a fever of 101. So, no school for Damian. Angel had the first day celebration to herself. I made the school bus cake that has become a tradition, and each child got a special present after school. Damian got his, too, even though his first day was a little different. Tomorrow will be his first day since today was the first day his temp. was less than 100. He called his best friend today to catch up. They are not in the same class this year for the first time. I'm curious to see how that goes. They'll only have recess to hang out together. Angel, on the other hand, already has a boyfriend! Just great!!!!