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My early days of scrapbooking are pretty embarrassing. I redid these pictures! How do you like the new layout?

Everything

This is one of my favorite pictures of Grant. I love how happy he looks sitting on top of his Grandpa's shoulders. Look at that hair!

This is my newest layout for my Now We're Rocking class with Jessica Sprague. I learned SO MUCH this time that I feel light headed and giddy!

As always, click to enlarge!

Start-to-Finish challenge

Today, Jessica's challenge was to create a layout start-to-finish in 30 minutes. We had to take a picture today and the subject had to be off-center so we could journal or place our title in the white space. Then, in just 30 minutes, we had to create a layout from scratch and upload it to the gallery. All the while, we had to practice all of the new stuff we are learning. This was fun! It was a little difficult trying to get anyone to cooperate with the picture-taking, however I finally got a shot I could work with. How did I do?

Newest layout!

This is Grant at 3 months. It is a sad thing when you are so caught up with your scrapbooking that you have a tough time finding pictures to use in new layouts. Argh. (Can't believe I'm complaining about this!) Of course, I am SO behind on journaling. That is another thing I love about digital. I journal ON the layout, then print it. Nice. It is DONE.

Alumni Game 2004 layout

I started a new Jessica Sprague class today! This is the layout I did. (click to enlarge):

I think I am going to do this lesson again with another picture. By the way, this is Grant when he was 16 months old! Doesn't he look like Cole?

He did it!!

So, last night Grant and I were talking about our family and he told me how much he loves me. Then he said, "You know who else I love Mom? Jesus." I asked him why he loves Jesus and he started telling me all the reasons: Because he loves me. He forgives me. He died on the cross for me. He wants me to do what is right. He protects me. Grant had a pretty good list going.

Then, I asked him if Jesus lives in his heart. We have talked about this MANY times and sometimes he says he is shy and will ask him later. Sometimes he says, yeah, I already asked him. Who knows? When I asked him this time, he said no. I asked him if he wanted to pray and ask Jesus to live in his heart right now. He said, "Hmm . . . maybe tomorrow." I told him that right now is a perfect time and that I could help him with the words. He agreed.

We sat on the couch together with our heads bowed while I led my oldest son in the sinners prayer. He repeated after me and ad libbed a little. It was very sincere. Cole, who is very familiar with praying, came over and put his head on my lap and touched his brother and closed his eyes until we were done. Precious.

So, does he understand? I think so. He can certainly tell me all about Jesus: his birth, his life, his death and his resurrection. We have conversations about that stuff all the time. His faith is strong and pure, innocent and untested. He will need guidance as he is molded into God's image. As parents, Mitch and I are giddy to fulfill the role God has given us.

What an exciting event this was for us. One that I hope Grant will remember forever.

Mardock Adventure

My family (the parents and siblings still living at home) left for a short-term mission trip to Argentina this morning. You can keep up with them on their new blog!

Organizing stuff

We've been on a big organization kick lately.

Last Saturday, Mitch organized the garage. It was already more organized than most garages, but Mitch just loves making it more functional and neat. I'm amazed. I come from a family where the garage is used for storage. Mitch comes from a family where the garage is used for parking cars. I must say that it took some getting used to his philosophy (because I was always wanting to "just put it in the garage"), but I LOVE parking in the garage. I am so spoiled. I never get wet getting in and out, and my car is never icy! The little things bring me joy.

On Sunday we came home and gathered ALL the toys in the family room, put the boys to bed, and sorted toys. We got rid of a BUNCH of toys! Very cool. We also brought the little table and chairs downstairs to Cole's room and put all "Cole appropriate" toys within easy reach throughout his room. We took pictures of some of Grant's toys and labeled canvas bins with them and reorganized his room a little. He loves it and is doing a great job of keeping up with making sure his toys are in the right spot. He has also rediscovered a lot of toys that he forgot about. Nice.

Also on Sunday, we moved the white dresser that I keep trying to get rid of into my scrapbooking room. I LOVE it there! Lots more storage and a great spot to put the little TV my grandparents gave us. We also moved the chair from Cole's room into the scrapbooking room, so now Mitch has a place to sit and watch TV while I work on paper projects. My scrapbooking room has become a second family room! We have been hanging out upstairs a lot lately!!

On Tuesday, I gutted the little closet in the downstairs hallway (where I used to keep my scrapbooking supplies) and reclaimed it as a wrapping paper station. I found an old spring-rod that I was going to use for curtains in my bathroom and hung my ribbon spools on it. I reorganized and sorted all of my gift bags and wrapping paper, ribbon, bows and accessories and put the little items into mason jars and sorted by color. It looks cool. Since we built a "desk" into the closet, I have a great surface to wrap last minute presents! All supplies are ready to go.

Let's see . . . I also cleaned out my silverware drawer, reorganized my throw-away plastic food containers and straightened up my pantry. Hee hee!

Next is the office. Well, actually, I cleaned up my desk and created a surface organization system a couple of weeks ago (I used to just pile stuff and now I've gone vertical!). Next is going through our filing system and purging, throwing out all old software manuals and boxes, putting child locks on the cabinet doors (WOO HOO!), and pulling out our big, honkin' scanner and setting it up. I have my little "All-In-One" scanner, but I want to be able to scan my 12x12 layouts and not have to piece them together . . . which is something that I learned today, by the way.

I have to tell you, I'm loving all of the organization going on, and so does Mitch! I'll let you know if we tackle any more projects.

Oh, by the way, the reason Mitch decided to organize the garage last weekend was so he could put together the new foosball table and we could set it up in the 3rd car garage. However, he brought it into the house to set up, then convinced me that we need to keep it in the living room until it is not so rainy outside and we can move it out the front door and into the garage. So, now my living room has a chair, a bookshelf, a fake ficus tree and a foosball table. Who says we don't have furniture!?

My 2008 Goals!

Hmm . . . here are a few. I'm sure more will pop into my head in the next few days.

1. Be better about sending birthday cards to my side of the family. Shoot. January 4th is my sister's birthday and my brother-in-law's birthday. Okay, here is the addendum. Better late than never. Note to self: Make "Happy belated birthday" cards.

2. Lose 10-15 pounds by April. I am not one of those people who resolves to lose weight every year. I never do that, actually. I have, however, decided to lose weight, so I will. I am not a fad dieter. I WILL lose weight. Just watch!

3. Submit layouts to Creating Keepsakes and digital sites for publication or contests. I don't actually have to win, but I can at least challenge myself to do it!

Detour -

My friend Alysun found an article about dreaming on the MOPS International website and posted it on her blog. Please read it, it is very good! It got me to thinking about my life and my dreams.

Not many people know that when Grant was born, I felt like I lost my identity. I was suffocating in "baby". I was absolutely consumed with Grant. I would have a little panic attack if I wasn't with Grant. I couldn't ever leave him. Not that I had many opportunities to leave him since Mitch was in training in Washington at the time and we lived 45 minutes away from family. I was both desperate for alone time and desperate to be near him. I cried a lot. I was scared a lot. I didn't talk about it much because I felt like a wierdo. I wanted someone else to take him away for just 1 hour and let me get a haircut or go to the store or sit at the coffee shop by myself. Instead, I had him with me everywhere I went. Once, though, a friend did take Grant so I could get a haircut, and I was nervous and panicky and felt like I couldn't breathe the entire time. It was a quick haircut.

When Mitch came back from training, we talked a lot and he helped me to find my individual self again. He watched Grant while I went to Bible Study. He stayed home while I went to the store. He gave me Saturday mornings to go to garage sales by myself. When I discovered scrapbooking when Grant was 5 months old, Mitch was very supportive. In fact, he wanted me to start scrapbooking months earlier, but I resisted! (Can you believe that!?)

I've decided that it is a very good thing that I have a hobby that I am passionate about. I sometimes get embarrassed when people roll their eyes or make derogatory comments about scrapbooking. I don't know why they do that. I don't roll my eyes when they get excited about canning tomatoes or making quilts or singing music. I'm usually impressed and would love to learn how to do that. I don't belittle.

Mitch appreciates what I do and loves that scrapbooking is a hobby of mine. He notices the little details that I put into my pages. If I leave a scrapbook out, I will find him flipping through it and he always tells me how much he loves what I do. The bottom line is that scrapbooking is not just paper and glue and pictures. It is preserving stories through photos and journaling. It is capturing my love for my family. If I died tomorrow, my children and husband would not have to wonder how I felt about them. They would know how much I love them by the pictures I take, the pages I put together and the stories I write. That feels pretty good. I don't think I should be embarrassed about that, do you?

So, this year I am going to stretch myself and actually submit my scrapbooking pages for contests and publication. Scary. Fun. Exciting!

The bad dream

2:45 am, sounds of whimpering coming from the little guy standing next to Mitch's side of the bed.

Mitch:"Buddy, what's wrong?"
Grant: "I had a bbbad dddream."
Mitch: "Come here. {Mitch pulls Grant into bed.} Do you want to tell me about it?"
Grant: {crying, wobbly-voiced and shaky} "Cole fell into the Lightning McQueen box and there was an alligator in there. I tried to save him with a rope, but I couldn't save him. I couldn't save Cole!"

Let me just take a moment to explain and comment a little.
(Explanation part)
The Lightning McQueen box is the box Grant's new sleeping bag, tent and flashlight set came in. It is not THAT big! It's not even as big as Cole. Of course, in a dream, it is capable of holding an alligator and a little brother.

Grant LOVES his brother SO much. Mitch told him how happy it makes us to know that he loves his brother "more than anyone." He said, "We think Cole is pretty special too, so it makes us so happy to hear how much you love him. Do you want to go check on him so you can see that he is okay?" Grant did. He went back to bed.

(Comment part)
Grant has had about 3 nightmares in his life. Apparently, nightmares (or night terrors, or bad dreams, or whatever) are pretty common in young kids. I used to think that if parents didn't expose their children to such violent stuff (on TV/movies, fights between parents, etc.), then they wouldn't have bad dreams. I have thrown out that theory.

You see, much to my chagrin, my children watch "scary movies". This is pretty hard for me to admit to such a wide audience because I know that some of you have strong opinions. Just know that I am embarrassed. You don't need to leave a comment to tell me how wrong we are!

I think it all began with Finding Nemo. Grant was a little frightened of the sharks, so Mitch started saying, "Name's BRUCE!" just like Bruce, in an effort to desensitize our young child.

Next came Shrek. "No, not my gumdrop buttons!" It is a little loud and scary and has a fire-breathing dragon. It was, however, the only other animated movie we owned at the time.

Soon, he was watching scary movies such as Tarzan (which has a gun!) and The Incredibles (which is loud and has a freaky bad guy).

Jump a year or so ahead. Grant loves sharks. His 3rd birthday was a Shark birthday. When he was two, he knew the names of most major sharks and could tell you some really interesting shark facts. We have checked out ALL of the shark books and movies from the adolescent section of the library at least twice. If we are flipping channels and Grant sees a shark on TV, we have to stop and watch. We found a few $1 shark movies at Walmart and now Grant's heroes are "Mark and Rob" the divers who swim with dangerous sharks. Grant told me the other day that he is the only one who likes to watch shark movies and he doesn't know why. So, okay, he likes shark movies, including one called, "Great White Death" (which is quite the bloody documentary).

One evening, while Grant was about 2 weeks into his latest obsession (which we'll just add to the list of obsessions since he never really lets go of the last one), I walked into the house to find my husband and son watching Jurassic Park. Uh. That was WAY too much for me to handle. I "asked" Mitch about it and he said that he was only going to show Grant a couple of parts so he could see the dinosaurs. I said something about Mitch being the one who would be getting up at night when Grant has a bad dream about dinosaurs. Never happened. Grant now watches Jurassic Park. All the way through. Argh.

Later, I walked in to find my husband and son watching Star Wars I - the one with the young Anikan Skywalker. Grr. Grant thought it was the best movie ever. He has now seen 5 of the 6 Star Wars movies. Over and over and over. We still won't let him watch the 3rd one where Anikan turns into Darth Vader. The sad thing is that Cole LOVES the Star Wars movies, too! He's 18 months old. Argh. So embarrassing! You should watch them play light sabers, though. It is SO cute! Cole makes light saber sounds and sings the Darth Maul song just like big brother.

Okay, so this is the part where I exonerate myself of all wrong-doing. One time when Grant was about 3, he had a bad dream but couldn't remember what it was about (or maybe he just wanted to warm up in my bed). A few months ago, he had a dream about me leaving him at a store. Last night, he dreamed that he couldn't save his brother from the alligator. Not the shark or the dinosaur or Darth Maul, the alligator.

Let me make it clear that never, under any circumstances, would I make the decision for another parent to expose their child to Star Wars or Jurassic Park or any other questionable movie. Katie has never been allowed to watch any of those movies in my house (no matter how much they beg), and she never wants to watch shark movies. In fact, we now own Ratatouille, which, according to my sister-in-law and oldest nephew, scared her boys and they walked out of the theatre. So, I will not show my nephews Ratatouille. (If someone could point out where the scary part was, I would be grateful, because apparently I am so desensitized that I can't find it anywhere.)

So, I don't know what causes bad dreams, but it has to be more than just exposure to scary stuff. I think 3 bad dreams in 4 1/2 years is pretty good. It is probably pretty normal for us to be scared of losing a loved one. In our family, when we have bad dreams, we pray that God will take those scary thoughts away and fill our minds with happy thoughts instead. We may have to pray over and over and over to get the image of the alligator eating baby brother out of our heads, but it always works!