Everyday Stuff-January

Daddy and Bryan were playing Mario Party on the Wii when I got home from work super-late.

Saturday-Daddy is reading up on a problem that my car was exhibiting on the way home from Walmart. Seems it may have been induced by the way that he was driving ;)

Elizabeth is wearing purple to show her support for the Vikings on Sunday after the whooping that the Jets took. She took off her "Vilma" jersey because she didn't want the Saints to think that she was rooting for them (Vilma plays for the Saints now.)

William hanging out with Pudge on the couch.

Bryan IS the DREAM star! Have a great Tuesday! And may you ALL be the DREAM star!

Project 365-August & September

I finally got caught up on my Project 365 layouts for August and September.

Have a great weekend!

10 Things I Loved About Today

Picnic at Pleasant Creek in Palo, Iowa.

1. William helping Bryan with word finds in the car on the way to Pleasant Creek.
2. Bryan quoting a previous conversation,"We have a Monicals...oh no that's Wm: "Grandfathers." ...he he....Godfathers....
3. Me: Periodic table of the emelents...
4. William's story about making up bad words with Weston using the symbols for the elements in the periodic table.
5. no complaining...well....except for me...and William...

6. Wiliam working on word searches instead of eating his KFC.

Play wrestling at the park.

7. Bryan powering the canoe sitting in the back while Daddy was in the front.
8. William getting mad at me for changing sides with my paddle.

William is catching up, Daddy!



You can't tell these 2 are related....not at all...

Photo by William-actually both boys took photos of us and they both turned out great! But I like this one because we are laughing. A piece of my hair blew in Daddy's face and William took the photo. The resulting picture looked like he was picking his nose.



9. Taking photos afterwards. (I LOVE how grown up you guys are getting!)

10. I FINALLY got to go canoeing!

We missed you, Elizabeth! We will have fun on Vacation though!

(grungepaper5 by fudgegraphics and font karabine)

I love this look so much that I just might use it for my Christmas card. So if you get a Christmas card this year that just shows sun tea on a table....yea...that would be from us...but anyway..

(grungepaper4 by fudgegraphics and font karabine.)

This is SOOO easy. Loving this free class by Jessica Sprague. This last 2 weeks marks the first time that I have used textures in my photos. Now I want to use textures on all of my photographs! I may have to join textures anonymous-I am just that addicted to textures....

Anyway...Last year I created a Summer mini-book {insert photo here-I lost one of my cameras and don't feel like going upstairs right now to snap a photo anyway} showcasing our "everyday" activities throughout the summer. I have been trying to decide what I want to do this year. In a way-my blog is my showcase of everyday life-whether it is summer, school year, or holidays. So I might just post to the blog and be done with it. Or I might use the photos that I post on my blog to print out in 4x6 and put them in a photo album. It just might be that simple. Anyway-I'm getting excited about our trip to Colorado! Off for more planning and figuring out how I'm going to pay for gas! Yay! Happy Tuesday! Hope it's a great one!

Sunday Funday

Hello Sunday!

(Sunday overlay by Ali Edwards for Designer Digitals, available here.)

Hy-Vee was having a sale on roses, so I picked out a dozen that I knew my husband would want me to have ;) They are truly beautiful! And-my first large tomato is ripe! We will eat it tomorrow!

Taking lots of photos, making strawberry freezer jam, sun tea brewing outside, hanging around the house. Didn't do much of anything...just playing around with some photos. Have a great start to the week!

Junque Shop Finds

Loving this Kodak camera, circa 1939-1949.

I was sick yesterday and am still not 100% today, but I WAS able to make it through 9 holes of golf. I just shouldn't have eaten dinner.... Anyway, rather than spend a lot of time taking photos, I decided to share my junque shop finds from Friday.
Nothing like a simple blue bottle to spruce the place up.

I bought 3 aprons. Yeah, I know-WHAT am I going to do with 3 aprons. Well-2 are for the studio and one looks pretty :)

Loving this vintage tablecloth. Yes, I am aware that it is too small for the table. I love it anyway.

And finally...a frame that I found that I used to create my inspiration board for Jenni Bowlin's class at Big Picture Scrapbooking. It turned out awesome!

Happy Wednesday!

Project 365-June 2009

Here it is-June in a nutshell {help! how do I get out of this nutshell?} he...he...Anyway-we were VERY busy throughout the month of June. Good times. Looking forward to July!

Edited: We bought snowcones and lots of summer projects at Michaels. The birds have been eating like crazy out of the feeders. We had a 5th grade celebration for Bryan and an 8th grade graduation for William. The guys have done lots of mowing with all the rain. I painted Bryan's room blue. We celebrated father's day. There was storm followed by some beautiful sunset colors in the sky. Bryan found the first 2 cherry tomotaoes {still waiting for more}. I took the kids shopping at Coral Ridge for Elizabeth's birthday, celebrated Elizabeth's birthday, and Bryan started his first trumpet {cornet} lessons. Good-bye June!

Happy 4th of July!

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, and safe 4th of July Weekend! Not much going on here. Rainy day-great for the flowers-not so great for being outside! Great for relaxing inside! Happy 4th and have a great weekend!

Nothing Ever Changes

Texting.

I ran across these photos and I realized that nothing really ever changes. Whether you are 3 or 16-some things remain the same. Check this out....

After washing her hair

On the computer.

After taking a bath.

On the Phone

On the computer.

There is something coming up on Thursday. Wow!

In the Studio...

I realized that it's been quite a while since I posted any of my project stuff, so here is some of what I have been working on in the studio! Above is an 8.5x11 layout that I started by painting on a sheet of watercolor paper in a color combo that I was playing around with. It sort of sat around and I would add things to it as I walked by it sitting on the table. Finally, i decided it was time to just FINISH IT and put the definition sticker on it and called it DONE.

The 2 photos above were inspired by a class that I am taking online called Creativity Unleashed that is taught by Traci Bautista. I love her style and I have learned a ton of new techniques and ways of creating and "unleashing" my creativity since taking her class. There are 2 weeks remaining and I am not ready to be done with the class yet! There are several different types of acrylic paint, gesso, and spray inks, as well as marker for the drawing. I love these colors together! The paintings are done on a cotton duck fabric that I bought at JoAnn's.

This is a 12x12 canvas (cotton duck) page inspired by donna downey's kits. The kits are here. I just cut down the canvas to match the 12x12 scrapbook page size and painted it in one of my favorite blue acrylics. Then I painted the bird which is also one of donna downey's designs for Prima-I think the words are from a supply list she had on her website as well. I love this photo of Sarah and I from Elizabeth's confirmation night! I threw on some pink flowers and sewed a piece of ribbon on (both from Prima) and Voila!!

I did the stitching with my ancient sewing machine...

Here is a close up of the words. They are applied with gel medium and then I added some Ranger ink. (Sarah-your directions for the gel medium transfers are coming. I sent the email and then realized that I forgot to send you directions. I have them typed up, just need to send them off.)Aaaaahhhhh......good times.

While I was taking photos of my projects in the studio, Tigger decided to hang out on the ledge at the top of the landing. She looked so cute that I had to add her. Happy Weekend!!!

Bryan's Graduation

Getting ready to go to school on Wednesday morning.

Sitting in the auditorium, waiting for awards to be handed out. Every time I go to one of these, I swear that I am NOT going to bring my camera. Because let's be honest...photos taken 2 miles away indoors in a poorly lit auditorium do not turn out. Especially when I can't sit still in the first place. Yet I delude myself and let my husband "guilt" me into taking the camera every time. I will not do it again. I will take pictures outside after the event. NOT inside.

Setting up the tripod outside to take a photo with Bryan.

One of the photos that I took had a real smile from Bryan and Bill. I looked like an idiot in that photo so I refuse to post it :)

Happy graduation, Bryan. We love you very much!

Celebration Sneak Peaks

William decided to go with a nice white Calvin Klein dress shirt (and jeans...) for his 8th grade graduation on Thursday. We decided dress pants wouldn't work quite right. But he looks awesome with the tie.

Bryan decided to go with a short sleeve dress shirt and tie for his 5th grade celebration on Wednesday. They really clean up nice! I am so proud of them. I was really surprised that they both decided to dress up for their graduations! Yay!

Elizabeth even decided that it was time to learn how to tie a tie. (Confession....going to a Catholic school, all the guys already knew how to tie ties, so I never needed to learn...even my husband already knows how to tie a tie...just something I never learned to do...)

Saturday snowcones and Graduation Lilies

I found some beautiful pink lilies at Hy-Vee on Sunday morning. I love to put fresh flowers in vases around the house. It makes everything more cheerful!

We got snowcones on Saturday after we bought some Summer project supplies at Michael's. (Mostly supplies for Elizabeth...) We decided to take a photo of our brightly colored lips after the snowcones!

Puppies

When we were visiting at Mom's over Memorial Day Weekend, I had the opportunity to take some photos of the dogs on the farm. They LOVE to go for walks and they are so interesting to watch! And, of course, they don't complain or whine or complain or talk.... I printed both photos out at 5x7 on my printer and put them in the frames that I have on my desk at work which are for the dogs. (The photos that were in the frames were 2 years old. Ralph was much thinner then...) Happy Friday-have a great weekend!