One Little Word Challenge

Here's my layout for the word "perfect".

Have a great weekend.

Taking A Break

Chery, one of my best friends in the whole wide world, is coming to visit this weekend!! She and I met in college over 20 years ago; I was the editor of the campus literary magazine and she was my assistant editor. We just clicked and have been friends ever since. It's been over a year since we've seen each other and I am SO looking forward to spending the weekend with her and her wonderful little family.

I'll be working on my kit from Crop Paper Scissors, so hopefully I'll have some layouts to post next week. I'm almost done putting the finishing touches on the baby album I'm making for Ben. And I'm sure there will be at least one good story or picture from the weekend to share.

The End

I have reached the end of my posting marathon. I am out of layouts that I want to share, so now I'd better get busy creating some more. Otherwise there's sure to be more rambling about weird stuff like dog food.

Speaking of dogs, I got a call from some lady yesterday saying she had my dog. I was a little confused because I knew I had seen my dog earlier and we live about 13 miles out of town. So I looked outside and sure enough, my dog was laying in the yard. Turns out it was my father-in-law's dog and the lady was calling me from 120 miles away! We kept his dog for about a year while he worked back east and he'd never changed the tag. The lady was on her bicycle calling me on her cell phone, so I told her to ride the dog home, since she wasn't too far away. My mother-in-law was very surprised when I called to tell her that some stranger was going to show up at her house with the dog in tow. She didn't know he was gone and even used a choice cuss word, which I loved because she never cusses and it was so cute coming from her!

Layout for One Little Word challenge. The word was automatic and I chose to protray the water guage in my kitchen, which drives me crazy with worry each and every day.

Also a One Little Word challenge. This one was balance and I felt very tired after completing it, thinking about all that I balance in my life!

Ridiculous Advertising

Yesterday I had to visit the-store-that-shall-not-be-named to buy pet food. The bag of dog food we usually buy had been redesigned and in the corner of the bag was a big advertisement that read "new colors and shapes". As if the dog would care that they'd added green morsels in the shape of triangles. And, if the advertisement was meant for me, the consumer, I say "Who Cares?" I couldn't stop laughing at the ridiculousness of it. I even pointed it out to the lady who was loading her car next to mine. At least it was good for some community interaction.

Thanks Sam.

Do you know American Girl? We've got the fever around here. Claire saved all of her birthday money and bought these Itty Bitty Twins. So cute.

This is a layout I did with the word "seek" for the One Little Word challenge.

And Claire on the Oregon Coast on New Year's Eve. The surf was incredible.

But I Eat the Sides

We had some friends over for dinner last week and we were trying to decide if we should have blackberries on our ice cream for dessert. Ben said no way he was having anything on his ice cream, just plain please. Our friend suggested he put some blackberries on the side, to which he replied "But I eat the sides!" Such true logic for him at five, and so hilarious for the rest of us.

A page about kite flying on a very blustery day last spring.

Ben doing his pokey, proddy, destroy-stuff "boy thing" in the woods. The same little boy who touches my face gently in the morning and says "I love you."

We've sung this song to Claire since she was a tiny baby and it was so nice to reflect on that memory while I was making this page. I also sang it for quite a while after I finished because it was stuck in my head. When I used to work the freight crew at our local food co-op, the other girls and I would try to think of the worst jingle ever to sing, knowing it would get stuck in everyone's head for the day. Funny how all those memories came out of one little page.

TGIF

Amen. Stayed up late with the kids watching Star Wars, and now everyone is tired this morning. Looking forward to the weekend. I get to check out the new kit club at Crop Paper Scissors, led by none other than my friend and favorite teacher Erin. From the sneak peaks she's given me, it's going to rock. Lots of American Crafts paper, one of my many favorite lines.

Gotta love these shots where the kids are actually enjoying being together. Claire had on Mark's leather jacket and was chasing Ben and trying to kiss him. Every time I look at this page I think of monkeys because the pattern paper that coordinates with the stripes has monkey all over it.

Another paint ball picture. Notice Claire is in one of her princess dresses as she's holding the gun, which I think is just hilariously appropriate for her. The brackets really work here and I'm so glad to finally use them.

And here's our budding photographer. She's since moved on to actually shooting great pictures with my digital SLR. Love it that she's showing an interest in one of our favorite hobbies. Now if I could just get her to take piano lessons!

Have a great weekend!

Thanks Dad

for posting a comment on my blog. I like to know our families are seeing what I'm posting. It's such a great way for our farway relatives to get a little peek into our lives. So here goes the next three.

Ben likes Claire to help him dress up as Mrs. Nesbit from Toy Story, complete with makeup.

I am really proud of Mark and the work he does. It amazes me that he has such an acute understanding of the life of plants at such a deep level. The event we attended was orchestrated by the university and celebrated him as an inventor and patent awardee. This event is where I met the woman whom I then met again later. I talked about these meetings in my coincidence post.

Ben has a discovery toys race track that he likes to do all kinds of things with besides using it as a racetrack. This time he made hats for all of us to wear.

Claire has been so upset to go to school this week because she wants to stay home and play in her room. One of the downfalls of living so far out of town is that we have a lot of travel time. She's often gone from home nine hours on a school day. I know this is normal for a lot of kids, but not for us. We all really like hanging around home. I'm hoping we get a little down time this weekend for her to lounge around. It's got me thinking a lot about how we overschedule our kids. I really like to hear my kids say they're bored because it means they've got a lot of extra time to relax and do nothing. And so it should be with kids. There's plenty of time for busyness later in life.