Its a revival!

For this blog that is! Update blog has been on my to do list for so long now that I started to ignore it. Hopefully today will be the last day I ignore it for such a long time! It would be impossible to "catch up" so I'm just going to start with current info and move forward.

Halloween is over. Thanksgiving is on the way and then Christmas. My calendar for the next two months is slowly but surely filling up. I like being busy but I want to really enjoy each and every day and all the activities. One thing I really enjoy about this time of year is the decorating. The style of our home is very simple - we don't like clutter. But we get a little more intense during the holidays!

One of my favorite areas to decorate is the mantle.

Here is my Halloween version for this year:

I plan to get it back to just a fall display this week.

More!

I owe all this scrappy mojo to my wonderful friend Tracie who challenged me to only use the products from Jenni Bowlins kits. The snow layout is one I had going before the challenge. The other four were done at Tracie's house with no pictures! That picture of me and Mark was taken at a marriage retreat and they printed it as one of those greeting card photos and the border matched exactly! So I guess it was meant to be! It feels good to get some layouts done and play with my stash!

Some Scrappin'

I am ashamed to see that I haven't posted since January! But hopefully these layouts will make up for it!

Layout #3

I can't believe I have done 3 layouts in a couple of days! I hope to continue with the momentum!

layout #2

These pictures make me sad and happy at the same time! Sad because my baby girl is growing up and happy because she is so darn cute!

I scrapped!

I'm trying to start the new year off right. I am going to try and document our daily life by doing an album with a photo for everyday. Evidently in thinking about this, I got in a scrappy mood and did a page! Granted its a scraplift but I'll take what I can get!

First Week of the Fourth Grade

Courtney has had a wonderful first week of school! We have prayed long and heavy for this year and it looks like God has answered once again.

I had promised her that I would walk her into the school everyday this week. Today as we walked down the hall she said, "I think everyone is looking at me because you are walking with me"! I guess I won't be walking her in anymore!

Where does this stuff come from?

These first two photos show my empty scrap room.





























I am very blessed to have a wonderful scrap area. But it has become a catch all place. I decided that the only way I could get it organized was to start over. So I pulled everything out of the room. This picture shows what came out of that room! Where does this stuff come from? It is like it mulitplies overnight.


Once I waded through it all I ended up with 3 bags of trash. I have moved it all back into my scrap room but I am still organizing it. So far I have gone through my scraps and reduced that pile greatly! I have gathered all of my photos into one place and am in the process of organizing them. I think I am going to put them all into slip in photo albums. I am going to use all black and get a bookcase of some sort to put them on. I put all of my completed scrapbooks on a shelf downstairs. Why didn't I do that before?! After getting my photos in order, I will start going through my scrap supplies. I am considering separating all of my embellishments by color but I'm not sure about that yet.

I will post photos of what it looks like once everything is in place.

Science projects

Courtney is studying landforms in science at school. They were assigned a project to make a 3D presentation of any landform. So we paper mached, painted and glued (at the last minute, of course)! Courtney's project shows a mountain, waterfall, river and valley.

#4

Our baby turned 4 yesterday. We had a great party with friends and family. Kirsten was happy the whole day. She was lavished with love from everyone. As usual, I am overwhelmed with how fast time flies!