Halloween

The boys had a really good Halloween. First, they designed their own pumpkins for Dan to carve. I'm not sure who loves this more, the boys or Dan :)


Then they had to pose for Mom...Adam is in character (our little Obi Wan), but I'm not sure where the Ninja-Gangster pose came from...


And Dan couldn't be left out of the "costume" thing, since he was chaperoning:


Where was I? At home passing out candy to the tricksters that came to our door. I probably had about 10 sets of kids come knocking...including this motley crew!

It's great to have a group of friends in the neighborhood that you can run around with!

My favorite trickster of the evening was a little boy - probably about 4 years old - dressed as Darth Vader. When I answered the door, he told me he was worried that vampires had taken over my house because I had "danger signs" in the front yard.

Gotta love the imagination of litte kids.

Overall, it was a great evening for the kids. After trick-or-treating, then spent about 30 minutes down the street jumping on a trampoline...because running around several blocks just isn't enough excercise, is it?

A Lesson in Self Portraits

or, Why You Shouldn't Leave Your Camera With a 9 Year Old.

Geary had his first swim meet this weekend. It's different from Summer League swimming. The kids are required to "circle in" (circle their number on the Heat Sheets). They are also responsible for getting their Heat Number/Lane Assignment once it's been published. So, being the Mom, I went up to the great hoarde of people to figure out Geary's Heat Numbers and Lane Assignments. I figured it would be safer to leave the camera with him..HA! This is just one of the fun little surprises I found on my camera :)

The swim meet was a huge success! Geary had a fantastic time and did very well. On Saturday he swam the 100 Free, 100 Breaststroke and 50 Butterfly. He even won his heat in the 100 Free! On Sunday, he swam the 50 Free and 50 Breaststroke. The results still haven't been posted, so I don't know the final outcome, but I am a very proud Mama! His coach was really impressed, too. He told me he thought Geary would excel in Breaststroke - which is Geary's favorite stroke!

Here are a few photos. We weren't allowed to use flash inside the Natatorium during the competitions, so it was hard to get good action shots. But, I think these are a good representation:

--Self posed :) Geary wanted to make sure his team cap was showing!


--Waiting for his heat to begin.


--Take your mark!

The Amazing Things You See...

Or, why I should carry my camera with me at all times!

I was driving to work this morning a little later than normal. As I cut through the neighborhood, I saw a couple walking with their baby. The wife was wearing a Snuggli and the baby was grinning and waving her arms about. They looked like your average, happy family. OK, what so amazing about that? Nothing...except it sets up my next sight. I turn the corner and down the street I see another woman walking. I can see from behind that she also is wearing a Snuggli. As I pass her, I look in my rearview mirror to see the baby, but instead I see...
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A YORKSHIRE TERRIER!!!!!!

Oh, how I wish I had my camera!

Finally, here's my Sunday photo from my Week in the Life series. Next week, I'll start sharing my completed LO's.

A Week in the Life

I am a huge fan of Ali Edwards. Her ability to capture the simple things in life really appeals to me. So, I was really excited to follow along on her "Week in the Life" challenge. I have one more day to complete the challenge, but here are some highlights from the first 6 days:













I've really enjoyed carrying around my camera this week. It really got me thinking about all the "things" that I see and do during a week. I'm not sure there is any "normal" week for this family LOL! But, this is as close to what we normally do as any other week.

More blog fun

Hi there! Nothing new to report today. But I do have this fun quiz I got from The SweetShoppe Blog:

What Your These Fireworks Say About You

You are jubilant and easily excited. While you aren't very intense or passionate, your happiness is abundant. You can always find cause to celebrate, laugh, or even just smile to yourself. You find that life is full of things to be happy about!

The Fireworks Test

Happy 4th to all my family and friends! This weekend I'll bring you photos from the annual Blow Up the Neighborhood Party.

Another fun Quiz

Here's another fun quiz from my friends over at the Sweet Shoppe Blog




Yeah...not as big a nerd as I thought I'd be. I thought I might get at 75 at least LOL!

Fun Blog Stuff

We interrupt the regular mutterings to bring you this fun blog post (courtesy of the SweetShoppeDesigns.com Blog

What Your Fridge Says About You

You like to be surrounded by things you love. You aren't exactly greedy, but you can be materialistic at times. You tend to be a fairly thrifty person. You splurge occasionally, but you're mostly a saver. You are a very adventurous person. You love to try new things, and you get bored very easily. You are responsible, together, and mature. You act like an adult, even when you don't feel like it. You are likely married, possibly with kids.

What Do the Contents of Your Refrigerator Say About You?

OK, not sure how much the "You act like an adult" part fits LOL! But overall, this is a pretty accurate description of our life at home.

OK, I'm trying to keep this more up-to-date (HAH!)

The boys have been swimming for the neighborhood swim team for the last few weeks. Neither one was a very good swimmer before joining the team. Adam was not comfortable at all in the water unless he could touch the bottom. 4 weeks later, both are fearless!

Geary's favorite stroke is the butterfly:


Adam's favorite stroke is the backstroke:


We won this week 291 - 256! Next week is the Division Meet, then we are done for the summer. Both boys are so happy swimming. It's the best sport we could have put them in. Since they are almost 2 years apart, the will never directly compete against each other (a good thing!), although they do like to compare to see who did better time-wise in their age brackets. I guess I have a couple of competitors :)

Last weekend we went to Texas Motor Speedway with Greg & Shari and their kids to watch the Truck and IRL races. We camped at the track, which made it a whole lot easie with all the kids. I think all the kids had a really good time (including the "big kids" LOL!):

The cousins:


The whole gang at the track:


Greg busting on me:


How Adam spends most of the race:



I'll be back in the next couple days to share some of my more recent layouts.

Weekend Recap

I had to work on New Year's Eve, so I took last Friday off as a comp. day. Dan and I took the boys to San Antonio to go see The Alamo. Dan had never been and I hadn't been since 1984. It's a little different now. LOL! The Daughters of the Texas Revolution have done a fantastic job restoring the old mission and the long barracks (all that remain of the original Alamo.). Now you can go in the old church (called The Shrine). The Long Barracks have been turned into a Museum. There is a large courtyard with many of the canons that the Texans used to defend themselves against Santa Ana. And of course, a gift shop.

The Shrine:

The guys in front of The Shrine:

Adam and one of the canons. The kid is just nuts for all things Army:


One of the best parts of the day was letting Geary carry around a "big" digital camera. We gave him the old Olympus to use for the day.

Here's one of the photos he took. The composition just cracks me up!


I'm still going strong on the Photo-A-Day challenge. I've posted a link to my Project 365 Flickr album under the Inspirations section. Feel free to check it out!

Finally, I'm going to leave you with a layout. I've started the Body For Life for Women challenge. Part of the program is writing down your personal reasons for following the plan. Since I'm a scrapbooker, I decided to turn it into a layout. Coincidently, it goes along with Emily Falconbridge's new year-long challenge of a word a week to put in an Art Journal. You can read more about it here.

Credits can be found here.

One Word

I've been a huge fan of Ali Edwards for a long time. The last couple years she's blogged about her one little word. You can read more about it here. This year, I've picked a word that I think will work well for me: PLAY. I want to PLAY more with my kids. I want to PLAY more with my camera. I want to PLAY more with my scrapping. Here's a layout I did in about my word:

Credits can be found here: Play

In the spirit of PLAY, I've started the Project 365 challenge from Photojojo. You can read more about it here. The basic concept is to take (at least) one photo everyday for 365 days. Since this is a leap year, I guess that makes it Project 366...LOL! Here are my first 3 photos:

Jan01: Our family walk on New Year's Day

Gas price on the day oil hit $100/barrel

My desk at work:

7 for 2007

A new year and a new effort to document our (somewhat boring) life here in Texas. You never know what you may find here, but I hope it's entertaining :)

I saw this thread on MSA a few weeks ago about posting your top 7 photos for 2007. I thought it would be a piece of cake. HAH! My first pass through my 2007 photos garnered 62 photos! I finally whittled it down to my top 7 (with 7 runners-up). So here you go with the Top 7. Tomorrow I'll post my runner-up photos:

Layouts and such

Since I haven't posted since last June, I thought I would post some of my more recent layouts. Tonight I'm featuring layouts using stuff from the FABULOUS Lucy Marino :
Here are the boys waiting in line to visit Santa Claus. I thought it turned out a lot better than the Santa photo!


credits can be found here: Christmas 2006

This was done for Susan's FAB

Check it out Here :

And, probably my most favorite layout right now - eating Sushi on my anniversay!


credits can be found here: I Want Sushi!

This was done for another FAB Blog:

You can see the latest dare Here

Tomorrow, I'll post layouts from Melissa Bennett!

Long time no talk!

Well, I'm baaaackkkkk....
I've got lots to start posting about, but first, here's a fun little quiz I got from Sweet Shoppe Blog

You Are a Chocolate Chip Cookie

Traditional and conservative, most people find you comforting. You're friendly and easy to get to know. This makes you very popular - without even trying!

What Kind of Cookie Are You?

Next, I got selected to be on 2 AWESOME creative teams:

Lucy Marino:

and Melissa Bennett:


I've got some really kewl layouts to post, but not right now. Hope you come back and read about our family exploits in the coming days!

Scrapping up a storm!

The one of the best things I can say about Stacy Julian's class at BPS (so far!) is that I'm starting to feel the mojo working again! Woohoo! After tagging all my layouts, I found that I am seriously lacking in the "Places We Go" category. My W's are pretty well split, so I decided to concentrate on the "Why." For me, that is the most difficult. So I present you my class layout:




Papers - Happy Stripes and Flowers by Michelle Coleman (scrapartist.com); Fonts -CK Grocery List (journaling), Mailart Ruberstamp (Title); Sketch: Scrapbook Shortcuts (SS mag), pg. 54


The boys were seriously concerned with where I was "living" while I was traveling...The things children are worried about!

Another funny thing I noticed - I tend to leave off the "who" in certain layouts. Like I assume the viewer knows who is in the photos. Not such a good idea if my great-grandkids are looking at the scrapbook and are trying to figure out which one is Grandpa Geary and which one is Great-Uncle Adam!

I also did another layout for the Simply You Challenge at Scrapartist. This is for week 25 - Cooking. I love to cook. I also love teaching the boys how to cook. A couple weeks ago I had Dan take these pictures of me & the boys making Dinner (Coffee Spice Rubbed Rib Eyes, From Bobby Flay's Boy Meets Grill). Mmmmmm.




Papers - Chelsey's Dream by Michelle Coleman (scrapartist.com); Fonts -CK Shannon List (journaling), Dirty Headline(Title); Sketch: Scrapbook Shortcuts (SS mag), pg. 78


Both of these layouts can be seen in my gallery at Scrapartist.

A Whacky Weekend

I had this perfect Father's Day Weekend planned for Danny. I was supposed to entertain the kids for most of the weekend so he could do whatever he wanted (build models, mostly). It was supposed to be in return for my Mother's Day "day of peace." Of course, things never turn out exactly as planned.

Danny has decided that he wants to can japalenos and other hot peppers. I bought him a canning pot (it's gigantic), the metal ring insert & various tools to encourgae his new endeavor. Saturday he canned 5 jars of jalapenos. Nice! Sunday, we go out for more jalapenos and tomatoes. Tomatoes, because we're going to have fajitas for dinner and I want fresh pico de gallo! So, after all our running around, I tell Danny I want to take a little nap - I'm feeling a little tired. After that, the boys and I were going to make our special Father's Day gift. Well, 2 hours later I wake up. Yes, my wonderful man let me sleep! I get up to see what the kids are doing outside. As soon as I stepped out the back door, my left foot collapsed under me and I fell HARD on the ground and promptly starting crying! Geary rides up on his bike and just stares at me crying on the ground. He finally went to get Danny. Between Danny & Geary, they got me up and helped me back into the house. There went all hopes of Father's Day peace. I spent the rest of the day planted on the sofa.

I went to the doctor on Monday and was diagnosed with a Stage 2 sprain (on a scale of 1 - 4). The kicker - I did the same thing exactly 3 years ago! No kidding! My doctor & I had a good laugh about that! I am supposed to rest, keep my foot elevated and wear an Ace bandage for compression. It feels a lot better today, but I still have a hard time moving around. Fortunately, I can work from home. It's just as easy to yell at Oracle from the comfort of my own home as it is to yell at them in my office {wink, wink}

Laughing at Memories

OK, so I'm taking Stacy Julian's Library of Memories class. Right now, I'm organizing my photos - both digital and print. I thought my photos were fairly well organized... NOT! There is some method to my madness, but it really is organized chaos! So, as I'm going through my print photos, I find a picture from Christmas of the year my son Adam was born (he was born just a couple days before Christmas). This brought back memories of sitting in my DMIL's house with a 3-day-old baby and laughing my head off! (Ok, I thought I was going to split my stitches, I was laughing so hard!) My SIL and her husband brought a game for all of us to play on Christmas Day (a family tradition). We sat in the front room of my DMIL's house being super loud and rowdy playing Balderdash, while my 3-day-old baby slept! Yes! That boy slept through the entire commotion! All this prompted this layout:




Papers - Michelle Coleman( scrapartist.com); Cards - Balderdash, courtesy of Parker Brothers; Fonts - CK Printer (Ali Edwards), Nicotine Stains

I'm a bad blogger

I've been so neglecting my blog lately. Bad Mel...Bad Mel!

Well, the big news is I'm in Stacy Julian's Library of Memories class (which starts tomorrow!). I couldn't be happier! I'm in serious need of inspiration and advice on how to organize my layouts. I've got so few printed out for our albums. I've printed a lot of layouts for la familia, but not much for us. There are 3 digi-scrappers (admitted) signed up...included Lisa Cohen from Scrapartist! Kewl beans!
And - I got my copy of Ali Edwards' font CD - more happiness on my part! So I did this layout using 2 of the fonts from her CD:




Papers - Katie Pertiet (designerdigitals.com), brushes - Michelle Coleman( scrapartist.com), bookplate - Gina Cabrera (digitaldesignessentials.com), Vivid Color and Chocolate filters from PhotoBlast, Fonts - CK Painterly, CK Printer (Ali's Fonts), High Strung

This came about from a dinner conversation last week. Kids say the darndest things! This is the first layout I've been able to create in over a month. Don't know where my mojo went - I just hope it's returned! I hope I can get back to my creative ways. I sure miss scrapping!