Relief

Ahhh . . . camera is back. Here is that mini I was telling you about!

My Sisters

These are my two youngest sisters, Hannah and Christina (age 9). Aren't they cute? They were adopted from Russia (same orphanage) when they were around 1. Actually, Hannah had just turned 1 and Christina was about 8 months. So, yeah, I'm about 23 years older than them!

Besides their wonderful, sweet, hysterical personalities, I LOVE the way they bring a smile to my Dad's face. Since they were tiny little things, my Dad has always completely lit up when they entered the room. At Thanksgiving, my Dad is thankful for the joy that Hannah and Christina bring to our lives. It is amazing to me that these two were considered "throw away" children by some, and yet they are so heartily embraced by our family. That is adoption for you! What a wonderful thing.

my camera (sob!)

I left my camera at my in-laws' house and I'm too lazy/cheap (gas prices) to go pick it up. I had no idea how much I NEEDED my camera until I didn't have it. I have resorted to using my old camera, which has to be plugged in for 30 minutes to take about 30 seconds of photos which turn out blurry. I attempted using my camera on my phone. Not so great with inside light.

I have completed the coolest hybrid mini-album and I am DYING to post it in the galleries, but the pictures I have are SO bad. Look.



I will have to wait, none-too-patiently, until I get my camera back so I can post this to the galleries and let the accolades roll in. Yes. I'm proud of this cute little album that took me very little time to create.

Soon

Notes:

I cranked out this layout pretty quickly last night. BRIGHT colors, I know!!

The snake

My handsome husband helped me figure out how to get the pictures off my camera! Here is the snake picture I was talking about:

Surfer Style

Saturday was Grant's 5th birthday, and we had a great time! This was Grant's first "friend" birthday party. Grant decided on a dinosaur theme, so we had a dinosaur pinata, a dinosaur egg hunt, and cupcakes with dinosaurs on top. It was low key and a lot of fun! I'll be doing a page about that soon, but in the meantime, here are a couple of the "cake" pics. Don't you just LOVE that hand that popped up at EXACTLY the wrong time? The scrapbooker in me wants to scream! Hopefully I can still do something with that pic.



Also, here is a page that I did this morning featuring my cutie!




Last night, the whole family gathered outside to wash the cars. I hate washing cars. I think it is because I had to do SO MANY fundraiser car washes as a kid. I hate getting my knuckles scraped on the wheels, I hate having cold hands and trying to get into tiny crevices and I HATE being sprayed with water. I really do. So, I was not excited to be going out in the HEAT to wash cars last night.

We were filling up the bucket when all of the sudden Mitch says something like, "Oh my gosh! Nobody move!"

At times like this, I wish my cell phone had a memory card in it for my pictures. I don't know how to get the pictures off of my phone, so let me describe this. A HUGE (although Mitch said it wasn't that big) gopher snake had slithered halfway out of the wheel on Mitch's truck and was coiled at the base of his tire. It was HUGE. I accidentally left our good camera at my in-laws, so I took pictures with my phone. Argh. At one point, my snake charmer husband sent me inside to grab a pillowcase, so I also grabbed our old (and practically dead) camera, so I did get to capture a couple of pics.



My brave husband used a hoe to "subdue" the snake, then PICKED IT UP and put it into the pillowcase. The rest of us were saying, "Kill it, kill it," however Mitch had a plan to let it loose in one of the empty lots by the creek. The boys walked down the street and showed everyone who happened to be out in their yard at the time. I guess the neighborhood kids loved it. On a semi-related note, my friend Cindy, who lives 3 houses down, had just watched "the release" and went back to work in her hard pulling weeds. Not 5 minutes later, she let out a yelp and jumped back at the sight of a snake in her garden! What in the world? (It wasn't a gopher snake, but STILL!) Mitch is now telling us that the female gopher snake is probably lurking in our garage waiting to strike. Nice guy, huh.


By the way, if someone could tell me how to get rid of the frame around my png files, I would appreciate it! :o)

Catscrap blog

I participated in a challenge over at the Catscrap blog. Very fun. It was basically like the telephone game, except with layouts. Check it out here.

This was my contribution!



Also, I finally finished the ADP scrapbook that I have been working on for Mitch's State Farm class. I printed up 2 albums (one for each instructor) and, of course, forgot to take pictures before I sent if off with Mitch this morning. I think it turned out great, though! They are 8x8 and feature one page for each agent who participated in the class that Mitch was in. I'm anxious to see what everyone thought.

This little project made me think hard about my album size. I've been using 12x12 albums almost exclusively since I began scrapbooking in 2003. Digital layouts can be printed as 12x12s, however I do not have a wide-format printer. I either have to send them out to be printed (which is very costly) or take them to my local print shop (where I would have to deal with the grumpy old man). While working on the ADP project, I began thinking about printing my layouts in 8x8 and putting them in an 8x8 album. This would typically be a no-brainer for me, however Close To My Heart doesn't sell 8x8 albums, and I LOVE Close To My Heart albums. Argh. Well, I bought an 8x8 album anyway. It is CERTAINLY not as nice at CTMH, however I am still very excited to begin printing my layouts here at home. Wahoo!

My Little Light

Happy Independence Day!

Goodness, it has been a while!

I'll try to quickly update.
- My 17-year-old sister is living with us for the summer. It is fun having her around!
- We've spent the last 2 weekends on Grandpa's boat. Expect some layouts in the future since I got some GORGEOUS pictures of Grant (which is pretty rare since he hasn't been cooperative lately).
- We had some friends over for a 4th of July BBQ. Relaxing and low key. Did fireworks in the driveway:



I've also done this layout:



And this one:


And this invitation to Grant's birthday party (which is this Saturday!):



And then there is this one that I put together SUPER quickly the other morning:



Oh, and the same designer who put my frame clusters in her shop (see below) asked me to play with another of her kits, and this is what I came up with!


Happy Independence Day!