March 2011 - Project 12 Layout

Here is my March 2011 Project 12 page. I used the Echo Park Springtime line. It seems a little plain this month, but I am just done with it.


Pictures are from the International Wildlife Museum in Tucson, Jessica, Deb and another friend and I at our scrapbook retreat, a horrible picture of Colston holding his three fingers up on his third bday, Peyton at her first day of baseball practice, and Remi getting his cast off.

January 2011

I have to say that as I was putting away the Project 12 layouts from last year I LOVED looking at them all in a row. I can see this is going to become on of my favorite albums to look at. I had a hard time deciding, since I am doing Project Life this year and taking and documenting a photo a day is it overkill to do this too? Probably, but I committed to Project Life with friends and family and honestly, for me, I can't give up Project 12. So, I guess I'll do both even though it is a bit overboard.

So, here is January. Pictures from a MESA bridge break that Remi did. Peyton with her cousins at Sip and Sew. Colston at the Colorado Rockies Fan Fest day. Remi working on jumping rope in the double dutch rope trying to make the requirements for JV. Peyton at Dance Sports Challenge. And my sweet Colston walking in the snow.

Project 12 - December 2010

I have really liked doing the Procet 12 this year! I love looking at 2 pages and getting an idea of what we did in a month. So much so that even though I am doing Picture a Day this year, I think I am going to continue with this too!!

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme
TodaysMama (link to: http://bit.ly/tmwishlist) and GameStop (link to: http://bit.ly/gamestop10) are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.
1. What is your holiday wish for your family?
I wish for a healthy and prosperous year in the coming year. It has been a struggle for the last few and I think we are seeing a turn - I hope!!
2. What is your Christmas morning tradition?
One of my favorites is all three kids sitting at the top of the stairs until we get down and get the cameras ready. Then they get the go ahead and can run down and see what Santa has left them.
3. If you could ask Santa for one, completely decadent wish for yourself, what would it be?
I love to travel and I would LOVE a trip to New York City for our family to show the kids all the fun sights and great foos and fun things in NYC!
4. How do you make the holidays special without spending any money?
We spend time with our immediate family and extended family. We have game nights and a Christmas tea. We also go up and cut our own tree from the forest which is a wonderful tradition.
5. What games did you play with your family growing up?
We are huge game players! Growing up we loved a game called Masterpiece (which I credit with developing my love of art), Risk, and lots of card games - one I loved was Canasta.
6. What holiday tradition have you carried on from your own childhood?
Making cookies trays. I love to bake during the holidays and have continued to do that with my kids. Sometimes my mom or brother will even join us.
7. Where would you go for a Christmas-away-from-home trip?
Well, as I said above I would love to go to NYC. We did that once with my family growing up and I loved NYC at Christmas (well, except for the bitter cold!). But I would also love to see Disney World at Christmas!
8. Check out GameStop (link to: http://bit.ly/gamestop10) and tell us, what are the three top items on your GameStop Wish List this year?
1.)I would love to get a PS3. We would love to use it for games as well as movie watching! 2.) Currently, we are missing one of our 4 wii remotes so I really need to replace that. 3.) I saw the Epic Mickey game on the website and that looks pretty cool! I think my whole family would enjoy that!

January 2010 Project 12 Page

I decided to participate in Project 12, a challenge to scrapbook a summary page each month of this year. I had a lot of fun choosing the pictures for this. I used a sketch from Becky Fleck that was provided.

Here are the highlights:

1.) Baseball starts - we have a tennis ball machine in the garage that the kids practice with.

2.) We went to the local hunting place to do soem target practice. Jock helped Peyton shoot for the first time.

3.) Remi broke another brick - that makes three times.

4.) Colston and Charlotte hanging out and "playing" together.

5.) My brother, sil and Remi playing our new game that we are all addicted to - Dominion.

6.) Peyton and her best friend dancing in their after school dance class that the gym teacher does.

7.) DH and the kids waiting in line at the Colorado Rockies Fan Fest.

8.) Remi's new karate belt - he is now an Advanced II Black Belt.

9.) Colston drawing - one of his favorite activities.

Yup, another $100 Give Away

Another chance to win a $100 Visa Gift card on http://www.commonsensewithmoney.com/2009/12/fun-giveaway-100-visa-gift-card/#comment-37632

Wouldn't that be a great thing to win!!!

Visa Gift Card

Erin at The $5 Dinner blog is giving away a $100 Gift Card! Wouldn't that make a huge difference in Christma sSjopping money!! I would sooooo love to win!!

December 3 Daily December

december third

quote:this is my wish for you: peace of mind, prosperity through the year, happiness that multiplies, health for you and yours, fun around every corner, energy to chase your dreams, joy to fill your holidays!" ~ d.m. dellinger

I really like this quote!!

write:what does the word "joy" mean to you? does it play a part at the holidays?

Joy definately has to do with my kids and family for me! My kids bring me so much joy in their accomplishments big and small, their giggles and hugs and kisses, their enjoyment of each other and the fun our family has together.

photograph:take a photo that represents the idea of "joy"

Ok, silly picture of Joy above but I was trying to get a picture of the kids playing nice together and they happen to be playing with Nerf guns. But I guess they do love their Nerf guns. LOL!

do:host a christmas party

I will do this on Christmas Eve. We always have Christmas Eve at our house with my family and Maxine and maybe Rod if he is in town. It is always such a nice time together. It truly is a joyful time.

remember: think back to a time of holiday joy in your life. where were you? who was there?

Oh, gosh, this is really hard. I can't really pint point one joyful holiday. That is why I love the holiday season so much - there is so much happiness and joy.

Workbox Give away!!

This is an amazing giveaway! I love these Workbox products! Jessica has the biggest one and it is really cool!! I love how much she gets in it and then can open and close it as she wants. I have always thought it would be such a fun product to have. And now they are doing a change for a giveaway on Stephanie Howell's blog. I would be so excited to win one of their products!

December Daily - December 4

december fourth

quote:"the joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others' burdens, and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of christmas." ~ w.c. jones

write:talk about a sentimental piece of holiday decor

Oh, gosh, I have waaaay too many favorite holiday decorations! I have so many boxes of decorations it is hard to choose. But I would say one of my favorite things (tonight anyway, LOL!) is one of my newer decorations. A few years ago mom and Remi and Peyton painted a nativity scene for me. It is so pretty and it is so sweet beacuse the kids and mom made it.

photograph:a favorite piece of holiday decor

See photo above.

do:go to a christmas party

Going to the Christmas tea tomorrow - maybe if it doesn't snow too much.

make: wrap a gift

We'll see if I go to the tea tomorrow - if so then I'll wrap something tomorrow. Otherwise I hope to start wrapping things this week. I have never had this much Christmas shopping done this early.

remember: do you have any decorating traditions that were handed down to you?

I don't know about decorating traditions. But I do love getting the ornaments out each year and remembering where they came from. I love that so many of the ornaments on our tree were made by my kids or by me when I was a kid.

Dec 5 - December Daily

Ok, so I will start blogging a bit maybe. Starting with some holiday stuff. This is from a Jessica Sprague class that I didn't actually take but the prompts look fun so I am going to copy and paste from a lady who is doing it on her blog. Have a few days to catch up so I am starting with todays and then going to try to do a couple each day until I am caught up.


december fifth

quote:"o holy night! the stars are brightly shining, it is the night of the dear saviour's birth." ~placide cappeau de roquemaure'

write:write about a specific holiday song that has meaning to you.

I would say one of the holiday songs that has a very stong memory for me is "Do You Hear What I Hear". Growing up we would often go to the midnight church service. And Pastor Carfrae's son who was a Broadway singer would come home for the hoildays and would always sing this song at the service. Our church was not huge but big enough. Yet, when he would come up the aisle with his huge beautiful booming voice it was an amazing thing to hear! You just had to sit and marvel at the beauty of the song. It was magical!

photograph:something that reminds you of your favorite holiday song

picture of the car radio on the Christmas music station. I love when I can change to the station that plays all Christmas music! And the kids enjoy it too - particularly Peyton is enjoying the music although she really likes the music that has vocals and not the instrumental music as much.

do:visit santa clause

The last few years we have gone to see Santa on the day they get out of school. I am not sure if we will do that same thing this year, but maybe.

make:

Today I "made" the Christmas look to the house. We got up early and went to cut the tree down in the mountains. Then took a short break for Peyton's ballet class. Then went to work to get more of the Christmas boxes. Then came home and got the tree up. We got the lights on and started on the decorating. Jock and Remi went to the Air Force hockey game so Peyton and I stayed home to work on the decorations a bit more.

remember: recall a specific instance where you sang or listened to your favorite holiday song. what stands out in your mind?

Two holiday song memories come up for me.

First, very random. My piano lesson career was fairly short. I don't think I took them for more then a year. But I do know I enjoyed them. I just didn't really practice much. But I do remember learning to play "We Three Kings". I always liked the pattern to that song and enjoyed playing.

Second, a much more clear memory. In high school at Fairview, we always had a holiday concert. and of course it was always beautiful with so many talented choirs. But the thing that I remember is the last song - a mass choir version of Silent Night. It was amazing to have several hundered voices singing that beautiful song but then they also invited any alumni that were at the concert to join in. So it was so beautiful and so peaceful and just amazing! It gave you a shiver in your spin to listen to!

Still Here?

I was just messing around with my profile after entering a contest and noticed that this blog is still linked. Hummm, I thought it would be long gone. Will this publish??

Update on Rai

Jill asked for an update on Rai - the man we know that was hurt in the fireworks accident. He got out of the one hospital and has moved to Craig Rehab. Hospital. His wife is living in an apartment in the Denver area and his kids, I believe are going back and forth between the grandparents here and their mom. There were apparently a number of scary moments - his face was so injured that there was an issue as far as infection getting into his head and brain. At one point a lady that I know said that they were worried if he was going to make it. But it seems that he has turned a corner and is recovering now. I saw on the news one evening a press conference that his wife did and she thanked the two MP's that first helped him and then took them up to his room for him to thank them too. There have been quite a few different fund raisers for the family although, I am sure that it is a huge financial burden along with all the other problems that this has caused.

Let's see what else have we been doing??? Remi has finished all his sports camps that he did this summer. He love them but I think he is reasy for a little down time. Last week he got to opportunity to go to see the the Rockies play the NY Yankees and they saw Roger Clemens ptch. He was thrilled! As was my dad - sort of one of those never forget grandpa/grandson things. And Remi turns 9 tomorrow!! I can't believe it! So we are in party mode this week trying to get all the plans made and things done for the party.

Peyton is doing swim lessons and loves it! And I have thouroughly enjoyed hangin at the pool with my book! I have even convinced Peyton that when it is adult swim she should sit on the lounge chair next to me and read her books. LOL! It is awesome! Love the pool days!

And we are also getting everything finalized for our trip to Disneyland in July. Made reservations for meals this morning. Need to call the shuttle and the hotel later this afternoon.

7 Random Facts

Melanie tagged me on her blog, so here goes...

My 7 random facts:
1. While I don't consider myself much of a cook, I love to try new recipies.
2. I actually worry about the fact that there are so many more books that I would like to read then I will ever have time to read.
3. I always wanted to have a boy and a girl and now I do!!!
4. I only got in trouble at school once and I was mortified! And it was just the teacher telling me not to talk while we were walking in the hall. But I still remember that to this day.
5. I did the triple jump in high school. It was the first year that they had that event for high school girls so my friends figured that even not very athletic me could do that! LOL! And I was pretty good at it.
6. I have twin brothers that are a year and two weeks younger that I am. Now, I look at how my mom did three kid basically the same age and can't imagine.
7. I really want to take a photography class and learn how to use my camera better.

So I forgot my blog password ;)

I guess that is a sign that I have not been here a lot lately. But I have successfully logged on now - there is no stopping me. LOL!

We are in the midst of the summer time busy at our house. I keep thinking that something will let up but not so far. We had our "Disneyland fund" garage sale last weekend. The first actual garage sale I have ever done on my own. We really needed to do a husg overhaul on Remi's room and he was not at all in favor of it. So we told him we would have a garage sale and any money he made he could have to spend at Disneyland. We also had a few other larger items haning out that we really needed to get rid of and of course a bit more scrap stuff from my big room clean out. I tried to convince Peyton that she should clean out her toys to get some money for Disneyland, but she just told me, "No, mommy, I'll just use your money at Disneyland and keep all my toys!" I really had no good argument against that logic - it is the logic I would like to use. LOL!

We are also in the middle of all Remi's summer camps. Last week was golf - a great camp and a new teacher this year who was really good. Remi, being fresh from end to school year teacher gift season, told me that he really thought Garrett was a great teacher and we should get him a gift. Welllll, what do you get a very, very young good looking single golf pro??? Not, having any very young good looking girls available we settled on a Starbucks gift card - I had noticed that he had a cup of coffee from Starbucks each day. He was actually a bit taken aback by it. I am sure he had never gotten and "end of golf camp" gift. But Remi felt good about giving him something. I suppose I better think about what we can get the more middle aged, less good looking baseball coach from this week's baseball camp. LOL! Yes, we have moved onto baseball this week. Remi has a number of kids from school and former baseball teammates along with one kid from last week's junior golf in this week's camp so he is loving it. Oh, yeah, he is actually learning a lot too.

Next week, Remi is at baseball camp all day for Mon to Thurs and Peyton starts swimming lessons (she is soooooo very excited!!) Oh, and Peyton started her kindermusik camp last Thurs.

So, basically, just call me Madam bus driver!!

And just beacuse we have not had much going on my dearest hubby invited his brother and his son's basketball team to stay at our house last Fri. night. They are great kids but man, can they go through the food!!!

Next up, we are going to get ready for Remi's bday party at the end of the month and then get ready for Disneyland. WOW! Summer is really going now!!!

A Terrible Tragedy!!

A few weeks ago a friend of ours was critically injured in an accident. He works for the local minor league baseball team here and was setting up the fireworks for that night's display when one went off and critically injured him.

My husband got to know Rai through business. We trade out our bins for tickets to the Sky Sox games. We love going so it is a great trade for us. And through the years hubby has gotten to know Rai. What a great person he is! In a lot of ways he is one of the biggest forces behind the success of the team in the Springs. He is the one who is on the mike at every game, he is the one getting donations, he is the one at the different events, he is the one that every one in town recognizes.

And then this! The early word is that somehow static electricity caused the firework to ignite and it exploded in his face. Every time we get updates it is worse - it sounds like one side of his face is gone along with the eye on that side, they have had to rebuild his nasal passage, the part of his face that is still intact is severely burned. It happened on Military appreciation night and so there were military medical people on scene right away and they said that this accident was worse then anything they saw in Iraq. Now, I don't know what they saw there but I would imagine that this is really bad.

I just hurt for him and his family. He has three young kids - imagine their dad will never, never be the same. His wife is now living in a hotel in Denver to be closer to him and help him while his kids are living with their grandparents here. And I know from the time Peyton spent in NICU how hard that time separated from your family is. I think of them a dozen times a day and just say a little prayer for this man and his family and then I say a word of thanks for just how lucky I am!

Here is an article that was in our local paper:
http://www.gazette.com/articles/sky_22332___article.html/sox_team.html

$900.00!!!

Imagine my surprise when Cathy, from my LSS called to tell me that I had $900.00 of store credit at her store!!!!! I did "earn" it but WOW! I never expected that much! They had, for the first time a garage sale. It was $10 to sign up but then you got a $10 gift certificate to the store. It ran for two days and you didn't have to be there - they gave me tags with my bar code and the people just paid the store and I got store credit for what I sold.

So, I spent about two weeks going through my scrapbook room and had quite a lot of stuff to sell. Lots of old patterned paper and about 5 years worth of Club Scrap kit. And TONS of old magazines and quite a few random bags of supplies. I tagged 200 things, I know because that is how many bar code stickers she gave me and I used them all.

A funny store - I knew I had soooo much stuff that I needed help getting it into the store so hubby and I both loaded the back of our Suburbans and went up to the store. As we were making trips in and unloaded stuff there was another lady there with her mom. She saw all the stuff I took in and looked at me with a sad looks and said, "Oh, are you stopping scrapbooking and selling all your stuff?" LOL! Uh, no, I just have a lot of stuff. LOL! So then I walk out and the next time I came in the lady and her mom were looking in all my boxes and oohing and awing about all my stuff. Then I heard them making plans to get to the store first thing Friday morning. LOL!

I stopped by the store at about 10:30 or 11:00 on Friday morning - the store had only been open about an hour and a half and already there was a HUGE chunk of my stuff gone. I had high hopes!

But I really never imagined - the call that I had $900.00 of store credit. LOL! Luckily she carries QK so I don't think I will have a problem using it. But the funny thing is that as I was at my book club on Wed with all this store credit - I had a hard time using it! I don't want to "waste" it. I did end up buying a new QK alphabet (Uptown Girl) and a few of the new Revolution flower dies. Cathy said that there is a new QK release on Tues so I will probably "need" something again. ;)

In the end I picked up one little box of stuff - everything else sold! But that has inspired me even more! I have been on a mission to clean out the scrapbook room. I have more stuff in there that I will never use and it is just getting out of control. So I am going through EVERYTHING! Amazing the stuff I have found - the first letter I got from Janelle about coming to a CM class. Where this whole obsession started (I saved that letter by the way - gotta scrap that!!). I also found a TON of old CM stuff, lots of old idea books and printed out page ideas and just lots of old stuff. Soooooo, after the success of that garage sale I have decided to have another garage sale here at my house! Tons of scrapping, stamping and cardmaking stuff for sale, plus books and magazines plus anything else that I can convince the kids to get rid of in their rooms. If I am lucky I can earn the spending money for our Disney vacation (if we can ever find a time to go).

And the other thing - in my process of cleaning I am determined to be a lot more smart about buying scrapping stuff. I mean really, $900.00 of credit is great but I shutter to think how much I spent on that stuff originally. So I am not going to let myself do that again. I have not purchased a lot of additional pp in the last 6 months. I really do love Felicia's kits at www.scrapaddict.com and they have all the latest and greatest papers so I don't need to buy that.

So that is my promise - clean and purge and then be smart about my future purchases!!!

HUGE sigh of relief!!!

Remi has struggled with reading since the start of school we have spent many hours and lots of dollars and tons of tears on trying to remedy his reading troubles. The kid works so hard and we kept thinking that light switch was going to go on and it would all come together. But after three years of trying it gets hard to believe in that light switch somewhere out there.

We saw progress and we knew how much he was learning but the *%*()^*% tests that they continually make the kids take just were not showing the progress that we knew he was making.

So we headed off for Remi's IEP conference and were expecting basically more of the same - Remi is a great kid and he can comprehend anything you put in front of him but he cannot read at grade level. And his writing skills are are poor.

BUT....... imagine our surprise when his teacher passes over the CSAP score and they say he is PROFICIENT!!!!! OMG!!! I about dropped my teeth! My boy scored at grade level on the CSAP! I leaned over and kisses him right there - much to his dismay. And Remi, he was so proud of himself! All that work is starting to pay off. He still has progress to make but I am so pleased that he is showing the growth that I knew he was making!

"I Gotta Call Your Dad"

My hubby is downstairs watching the Rockies baseball game. He just ran upstairs, almost giddy, grabs the phone, and starts running back down the stairs and as he goes he yells out, "I gotta call your dad!" It makes me smile that the two men that I love the most in the world have such a great relationship. And I have been thinking that I need to do a layout about that relationship. It is amazing! They love a lot of the same things: baseball, football, golf, hunting, fishing, etc... And they have so much in common. And now that dh has been hanging around my family for about 20 year they both know all of the other person's friends. In fact I often tease them about how well they share friends. For example, my dh goes to lunch with one of my dad's good friend when he is here on business. He also calls many of his friends on a regular basis just to chat and catch up. Another example, when my dad was in AZ in Feb my hubby's best friend was there with his two boys for a week. So my dad (along with a number of his friends down there) entertained dh's friend. They went to a baseball game and played golf and had dinner together.

It really would be odd to many people how close the two of them are and how they have basically merged their groups of friends and now they all get along and do things together. And I am so thankful for that! I would imagine that having a difficult relationship with an in-law can be really hard on a marriage and I am so blessed not to have that hurdle to deal with!

Oh, and by the way, when I asked dh why he had to call my dad. Apparently the guy pitching for the Rockies boks every time and it is not getting called. DH says my dad is the only one who will understand - and I guess he is right because while I understand what he is saying, it really is not that big of news to me. LOL!

Heaven Sent???

**Warning, work related rant ahead. You may want to just skip this entry entirely. But there is a happy ending. LOL! ***

Leaving our former lives behind and joining our family business has been an amazing thing and if we had to make the choice again I know we would do it the same. It has allowed our family opportunities that we never would have had before and time together as a family that we never would have had. But the down side of our own business is that we are the bottom line. If something has to get done we are the ones to do it. And by "we" I really mean my dh. He works really really hard. And while I think a lot of what my brother does when it comes to the nitty gritty of the bad icky stuff of business it is my dh that ends up having to do it.

Through the years we have been here we have gone through a number of mechanics. In a lot of ways I can't blame them - we don't pay as much as others, the work is really hard work, and there is a lot of outside work - even in the winter. Also we seem to have a knack for attracting employees that are less then great. So, the end result has been that we have been without a mechanic for quite sometime and my dh has been the one that has done this. He has not minded and he is one that gets in there and does what needs to be done. And he is also a "bit" hard headed and would never admit how hard it is on his body. Until recently, and then still only to me. But he comes home with an exhausted and aching body everyday. He gets along really well with my brother but over the years as dh has done move of the hard labor and my brother doesn't really pitch in as much that has grated on me a lot.

A while back the rest of my family was really up on hiring a new salesperson and while that is something that we need I would not back down to the need for a mechanic. I finally just laid it out there that we had to have a mechanic or I was not sure how long dh could handle all the hard labor (plus all the other icky and unpleasant jobs that he has to do cause no one else wants them - like collections). So we basically ended that conversation in an impasse and whenever a salesperson is brought up I let them know my feelings.

Well, then the other day a guy that is part of a religious group here in town that rents trailers from us got to talking to dh. He was saying that while he "works" for this other place they don't really pay him and his family was running out of their savings and he was trying to pick up some work. He told dh that he has his CDL so he can drive our tractors. He has been a mechanic before and has owned his own business. But he chose to give it all up and dedicate his life to the Lord's work. But now he really needed to just be realistic and get some money coming into his family. So my dh and brother interviews him officially and hired him. The three of him agreed that since he was still working for this other place he can have time off to work for them when he needs it.

He has turned out to be this amazing worker! He has learned everything that they teach him. He jumps in to do anything that they are working on - even the hard things that no one but my dh usually does. And my dh gets the break and does not come home hurting everyday. And I think he feels better because his time is freer to do other parts of his job not just maintenance.

When dh and this guy were talking the other he was telling my dh how thankful he was for the job. He told him that his family was worse off then their last dollar and he is so thankful for the job. And he said that he really thinks that God made our paths cross when he really needed it. As dh was telling me the story I was thinking that actually I think God crossed our paths to save us! Isn't that amazing how that works???