Happy New Year!

I know - shock! that I'm updating this. I don't know why I feel like it's so hard to keep up with this.

Anyway, Christmas came, and went. It was a quiet Christmas for us, no extended family around, but as it turned out that was fine since a couple of us were sick. We had lots of celebrations the week before Christmas though (well, I did...dinners with friends and such). The boys enjoyed their Christmas break from school. We bought them a second Xbox 360 to alleviate some of the fighting between all 5 of them (yes, I include my DH also). So now we have the front room set up with a TV and a computer monitor where they can play side-by-side. My DH was a genious and found that you could hook the Xbox up to a monitor - yay, we didn't have to buy another TV!

As usual, we are into sports - Kent and Kurt start flag football (with DH as their coach), and Wyatt starts tackle football on Saturday. Grant is on a break as high school footbal just finished up in the middle of December. He played JV this past season, but was moved up to Varsity for the playoffs - it was quite an honor!

I'm still busy working for TJFormal and prom season is starting up so things will get even busier soon!

Have a GREAT 2009!

Pterodactyls

I just wanted to test out putting a video on my blog. This clip is from 2003 when K&K were almost 5 years old and they put our king-size pillows on their arms and acted like pterodactyls. It's very tiny since it took it with my digital camera. Note to all mom videographers...no talking or laughing! Ugh!

The digi layout I did of this moment is down below.

Back to School

Actually, my boys have just completed their THIRD week of school. The summer went too fast, and we have to start school way too early. Here's the boys on their first day - since I digi-scrapped these, I think I had them done that same day! For Grant and Wyatt's, I just swapped out the photos and a few other things and voila! I was done. This exercise in duplicating pages did make me realize that 2 times is my limit, so I went with a different design for K&K (I'll just print that one twice).

The Pope Conversation

More than 2 years ago, I detailed a conversation I had with 3 of my boys about becoming Pop. Iwanted to scrap that conversation since it was so cute and funny, but I put it off because I felt like I needed to scrap it for each boy (yes, I'm still stuck on the boys having their own scrapbooks). Enter the digi-world of scrapping and now I just have to print it 3 times! Woohoo!

I'm really having a blast with the digi-scrapping. No, I won't give up paper scrapping...but I do love not making a big mess and learning something new!

Digi-Scrapping!

Gosh darn it...I said I wouldn't do it. Ever. But dangit if Libby didn't get me started just because she has this fancy new job at Sweet Shoppe Designs.

First of all, after a hiatus of about a year from scrapping, trying to get over all the professional stuff I was involved in that almost ruined scrapping for me...I finally started up again this summer. I think I've been able to get back to the joy of just scrapping as a hobby, and for me, for the right reasons. My goal for the summer was to get 4 Athlete albums done for the boys with all their sports photos in them. Turns out that was a lofty goal. I did finish Wyatt's though and it's over 40 pages (OK, a few pages were already done)! I went with the KISS strategy, but I'm very pleased with my pages. What a RELIEF to use whatever supplies I wanted and not have to worry about whether it was "fresh and new" enough for ANYthing.

So in the middle of this...along comes Libby who tempts me with digi. I give it a try and so far I'm loving it. I've only done 6 pages, but it makes so much sense to me to do Kent and Kurt's pages this way so I can just swap out the photos and print them twice!

For their Athlete albums, I will just combine paper and digi scrapping and be OK with it. Their professional sports pictures will be done on paper and the snapshots will be done digi. Somehow I'll make it work!

Here are a few of the pages and I think I'll start a photo album with just digi pages.

Sorry, no trendy white-space pages for me! I like my pages FILLED with photos! :)

sneaking in...

Shame on me...I haven't even looked at this blog for months, yet alone actually posted on it, so imagine my surprise when it was blank! I thought it always just showed the last post, but who knows.

So just a quick hi to the air around here as I'm sure no one is reading this anymore. Life is busier than ever. I'm working 3/4 time for TJFormal with my sister Roanna as my boss, and still running Lemon Oak Studio - Etsy Shop with sister Tricia as my partner. SO much fun being able to stay in such close contact with my sisters who are 1300 miles away.

A rundown of happenings:

• Grant is driving! And so far I haven't had a nervous breakdown
• I retired from doing the yearbook and took the job of Co-President of the PTO (much easier!)
• Kent and Kurt had perfect attendance at school this past year (yes, both of them!)
• Wyatt just got done playing tackle football for the first time - he loved it
• The boys are out for the summer and we are just taking it easy and enjoying the pool
  

My sis Roanna and her beau Bill, plus her daughter Regan and her beau Andy all came to visit the end of May. We drove up to Sedona and it was cold, but oh so beautiful!!

I'll leave with a fun photo of Kent and Kurt - each year our school has the 3rd grade do a Wax Museum and the students have to pick a historical figure to research and then dress up as them and give a speech. Kurt selected General Douglas MacArthur and Kent selected General George Patton. They were a big hit at the museum! Here's my 2 generals:

What? It's November?

• The first quarter of school is done.
• Football season is over for Grant.
• One week of soccer left for Kent and Kurt.
• Thanksgiving is less than 2 weeks away.
• The boys already have their Christmas lists done.
• WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE??????

I'm having a hard time keeping up with life, let alone this blog. I'd let it go, but I'm hoping I still have some family reading it from time to time. That is, if I would update it. Plus I've worked so hard putting all the bells and whistles on it! :)

Let's see, what's new? Well, I'm officially retired from scrapbooking. At least professionally. And I'm taking a break personally and doing other fun artsy type stuff. Hopefully one day I'll get back to it and continue documenting my family's history - I do still think that it is so important and that scrapbooking is a worthwhile hobby.

As I've said in prior posts, I'm heavy into running an Etsy shop with my sister, Tricia. Our joint venture is all about recycling found objects that would have ended up in a landfill, into art pieces you can put in your home. Doesn't that sound like another worthwhile adventure? At least it is something fun and new and keeps me in touch with my beloved sister, since we live so far apart.

In other news...Grant just got his driver's learning permit. So, yes, football is done, but now we have another activity to pursue - taking him DRIVING!! :) I'm actually enjoying it as it's a rare chance for some one-on-one time with him. It will only last a short 5 months and then he will get his regular license and he'll be independent. Wah.

Wyatt is currently playing flag football. It's one of my favorite sports to watch - just a really fun time for the players and fans.

Kent and Kurt are winding down their fall soccer season. We aren't doing winter soccer this year so we'll be waiting for baseball to start in the spring.

My mom is coming to visit in December. I love having family here while my Christmas decorations are all up!

That's about it for an update. I hope someone is still reading this thing...

The Pool is Finished!

...ok, well, it was finished 2 weeks ago, but I haven't had a chance to update this thing. We've been having a blast swimming though! It's really a great family activity - many nights all 6 of us are out there swimming and chatting. Weekends usually find us with a few extra kids around, but it's so nice having them here instead of my boys at someone else's house swimming - after all, that was the point of building it! So here's what you see when you walk out our door: the basketball hoop has already gotten a ton of use! This is definitely a pool for big kids though - our shallow end is neither very shallow or very big. It starts sloping into the deep end fairly quickly. We do have a large Baja step though that you can sit or lie on. Here's a few more pics - it's not as small as it looks though. ;)

And a couple of the boys in it: As you can see, we still have work to do in the yard. We pretty much tore out the whole backyard when we started this project. The next step is installing a sport court and getting the grass and rocks installed because right now, it's gets kind of muddy out there! More pics of the process will be put in the photo album soon...

Back in School!

Yes, school has already started here! August 6 was the first day for all 4 boys. Summer went by so fast! I was very happy with the teacher Kent and Kurt (3rd grade) got, plus the "pod" Wyatt (7th grade) got into was the one I requested - very happy about that! Grant (sophomore/10th) has a huge workload this year - all honors classes with Advanced PE. I still haven't figured out just what makes the PE class advanced, but it's taught by the head football coach and that's all that matters - the class is full of football players!

Now, if I can just figure out how to slow things down so that this year doesn't whooosh by like last year.

They just couldn't wait!!

FINALLY!! The interior Pebble Tec was done on Monday. On Tuesday we got to start filling our pool. When the boys got home from school, the deep end only had about 3 feet of water in it. Next thing I knew, they had put their suits on and jumped in. I told them it was the only time they'd be able to stand in the deep end with their heads above water. Yesterday (Wed.) it was full about noon so we all got to swim. Today they are installing the diving board, getting the waterfall going, and doing a formal start-up of the pool. More photos of the finished product will be posted soon!