Online Crop

This weekend I participated in an online crop at Personal Scrapper. There were 17 challenges I got them all finished. I ended up with 15 layouts, 3 cards, and two mini albums. Here are a few of my favorites.

"Big Help!" was for a punch challenge. I used a circle punch to make my journaling circles. This is a picture from our St. Louis trip. I had to tell the story of Kevin wanting to carry his cousin Olivia's luggage all by himself.

You know my boys are involved in sports. I was shocked to walk in the door one afternoon to get a call from Tom asking me to come pick Kevin up from baseball practice. He'd taken a ball to the face. Luckily he just had a bloody nose and was ok. I took this picture the morning after. He was tender for a few days. This layout was for a "write about it" challenge.
I can't take credit for the design of this layout since it was a scraplift challenge (copy someone else's page). My sister Adriane took these pictures of Kevin wearing her boots she got for her birthday.
I was able to work a Disney page into the challenge for "use 5 pictures on a layout". I am just about finished with our vacation album. I'm currently scrapping our last day at Disney which just leaves the last day at the beach to do. I take a lot of pictures though!
There was a challenge to use up an old kit from Personal Scrapper. I pulled out one from August 2005 - that's old! I paired it with pics from a couple years ago of Blake with a friend, Brooklynne. I don't remember ever not being friends with Brooklynne's mom, Shelly. It was a fun page to make.
I made a Disney layout for my personal album comparing the boys' sizes from our Disney trip in '05 to our trip this summer. They are growing so fast!

Here is another vacation album page. I pulled out some Halloween accents for our page about the ghost tour. We didn't see any ghosts and it wasn't a scary tour, but we had fun.
For the 'summer in review' page, I decided to document the fun things (and some "firsts") that Blake did during his last summer "in single digits." I still can't believe he'll turn 10 in less than a month!
Here are the cards I made. I am so not a cardmaker!
I made a couple mini albums during the crop. In the picture below, the one standing on the right is the original one I made last month. It was a make & take I ordered from Pink Paislee's blog. It came with directions and everything I needed to make it. I wanted to make up a couple to try to sell, so I traced the shape out on chipboard to make another one and bought more supplies locally. I altered the design a little bit. When I sat down to make this Sunday, I decided it would be just as easy to make two at once. I still need to add the bats flying out of the chimney to the two I made. I thought they all turned out cute.

A Month full of fun

It's been over a month since my last post...we've been staying really busy!

In mid-August, the boys both started fall baseball (6 weeks long). They are each playing in the same league they were in this spring. Tom is Kevin's coach and Kevin just keeps improving. He loves baseball and gives 100% every time out. Blake has been getting in a lot of pitching time. This Thursday is their last game.


We took a family trip to St. Louis the first weekend of September. It was a great trip planned by my favorite brother-in-law Terry (no offense, Tim!) and his wife, Dawn. :) The plan was to meet Terry and his family with Tom's mom over there, but we ended up meeting up en route. (What are the chances???)

For years as a kid I'd go to St. Louis with my family every year for a toy tractor show. We'd pass the arch EVERY year. I can now finally say that I've been up in the arch. Although Blake and I DID NOT like the ride up to the top (or back down...), it was amazing once we were up at the top. You could see everything! The cars going up held 5, so our niece Olivia rode with us. She's quite the character!
Here is a shot of the cousins all together - Jax, Olivia, Kevin, Vince, and Blake. My boys love spending time with their cousins!After a very filling dinner at Mike Shannon's steakhouse, we all attended a Cardinal's baseball game. We got to see Albert Pujols hit a home run! My boys were each sporting their own Pujols jersies at the game.
For Day 2, we went to Grant's farm. It's the Ulysses S. Grant national park, but "sponsored" by Anheuser Busch. We saw several different types of animals while on a tram ride, but they also had a walk through area that included goats that you could feed. The kids loved that. Terry did, too. He had the kids cracking up as he'd run around yelling, "they're looking at me!" After a couple goats headbutted, Terry acted like he was going to headbutt them, too. (As seen below.) It's no wonder Kevin likes him so much - he is really fun!I think the biggest memory of the trip...and one talked about for years to come...will be when Blake lost his flip flop on the tram ride. !!! We had the tram stop, but we were too far away to get the shoe. The next tram ended up bringing the shoe to him at the depot. Blake was embarrassed, but we were all laughing about it. I've already scrapbooked the event to remember it!
Here is a family shot of everyone together. The only way the trip could have been better is if Tim could have come in from Alaska.
Earlier I mentioned that Grant's farm was sponsored by Anheuser-Busch...you could get free samples. I'm not a beer drinker, but they also had Bacardi products. (Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum!) They limited two drinks per person...but 1) Tom's not a drinker and 2) he had to drive. Lucky me, I got one for each hand! Oh, and a "sample" was a whole bottle. ;)
We got to pose in front of the beer wagon (as seen on TV), but the Clydesdales were in a different part of the park. We saw them on our way out.
Great trip!

In my last post, Kevin had lost a tooth...Last week Blake came home on PICTURE DAY, of all days, holding a baggie with TWO teeth in it. He'd pulled them in class, but thankfully AFTER his picture. I did this layout over the weekend to document the event!

Blake and I got a last minute invite to attend the Kenny Chesney Poets & Pirates concert in Indianapolis earlier this month. (THANK YOU LINDSEY AND BRANDON!) We went with my sisters Lindsey and Adriane. I was excited to take Blake to his first concert. He was amazed at the size of Lucas Oil Stadium (where the Indianapolis Colts play). It was a really cool venue.

Blake was amazed when we walked it. It was nothing like he expected. He thought it would be more like a benefit concert that a cousin put on at my cousin Tiffany's cancer benefit last fall. That was held at the KC Hall in town! Yes, he was blown away by the difference!Since we didn't find out until 1:30 that we were going AND the concert started at 4:00 AND we had a three hour drive to make, we arrived to the concert late. We got there in time to see the last two acts (and the only ones I wanted to see).

Keith Urban was AMAZING!!! I went out and bought his greatest hits CD last week. Blake has always been a big Kenny Chesney fan - since "She thinks my tractor's sexy" came out. Kenny did put on a really good show. Uncle Kracker even came out to sing with him. At the end of the show, he sang a lot of songs that weren't his and I think that was my favorite part.

The funniest part of the night was looking over about halfway through Kenny's show to see Blake ASLEEP! It was so loud in there, but he was exhausted. I think he gets the "I can sleep anywhere, anytime" trait from my dad! I joked that it was my "Weekend at Bernie's" moment.

Cub Scouts have also started for both boys. Kevin is excited to be a Tiger Cub and Blake is now a Webelo. Religious education also started back at church this month. It's good to have them both excited about learning new prayers and more about their faith.

I can't believe that October is almost here. We will have another busy month with Blake's birthday (his 10th!!!), fall break, the school fall festival, and HALLOWEEN!

"Mom...Kevin fell and his tooth fell out..."

Isn't that what every mom wants to hear??? Luckily for Kevin, the front tooth Blake was referring to was already (very) lose. It didn't make me feel much better though knowing that one of my kids hit the basement floor hard enough to knock out a tooth! I pray now with permanent teeth coming in (Blake's are already in!) that it doesn't happen again!
Blake said Kevin fell and then he noticed something on Kev's shirt...the tooth. Blake ran to find me with tooth in hand. Kevin came soon behind holding a Kleenex up to his mouth. Tom was in Idaho yesterday, so he missed all of the excitement. Kevin called him to tell him the news. It was hillarious listening to the conversation. When Tom asked if he was ok, Kevin replied, "Yeah...I'm just holding one of those...things you use...to get boogers out of your nose...to stop the bleeding." I interrupted to explain that he had a tissue! Kevin has such a way with words.

Kevin is really enjoying the huge gap in his smile. My baby is growing up...

You can really stretch a kit...

For a while I've been admiring the October Afternoon papers online, but had never seen them in person. When Personal Scrapper announced that their August kit would contain October Afternoon papers, I was thrilled. I had no idea how versatile the kit would be and how many layouts I would be able to finish with it though!

When I saw the muted earthtones, I pulled out pictures from April '06 of the boys fishing in TN with their Grandma. It was the boys' first big fishing trip and I had a ton of pictures! I was able to get all of Blake's pictures from that trip scrapbooked (even if it took 3 double page layouts and 2 singles!).
The earthtones also worked really well with our Thanksgiving family shot from last year. (This picture was AWFUL though...that was when my camera was dying on me!)
I also was able to scrapbook our playdoh fun with Adriane after Molly's graduation back in May.
One of my favorite layouts from the kit was made using a paper that I thought would be the most difficult to use. I debated cutting the flowers out of the PP, but decided instead to just cut around the edges of some so I could insert my oversized photo mat behind them. The bonus about this month's kit was that in addition to the earthtone papers, there was a collection of brights, too. I LOVED these papers!!! I was able to make a 'girly' page with a picture from a visit with my cousin Tiffany. For the past year, Tiffany has been battling brain cancer (Glioblastoma Multiform). She named her tumor, Ted, so we are all on team KILL TED!!!

When Kevin lost his first top tooth, I took a couple shots of him in the bathroom. The pics were just head shots with our light green wall background. I took this opportunity to use flowers on his page. I love how it turned out!

Personal Scrapper had a challenge to use 3 PPs, one alpha, one ribbon piece, 3 brads...I made this page. I had found the chipboard alphas for $1 at Big Lots, but the pattern on them was really ugly, so I covered them with the paper. If you see more than 3 patterns on the page...I used double sided paper! Here is another page with pictures that I had put off using. They are from August 2005! I worked the white space on these and just added some scraps of PP and brads with my title.

Yes, I've been busy scrapping at night after the boys are in bed. I think I was able to finish 16 layouts with the kit. I had to pull out cardstock from my stash, of course. Plus I added some extra alphabets and other embellishments here and there.

I went almost two weeks without scrapping because of our vacation - it was good to be scrapping again! Now I'm working on our vacation album!

Florida Vacation!!!

We have been home from vacation for two weeks now and the boys are finishing up their second week of school. I have finally taken the time to sort through our vacation pictures to pick the best for my vacation update.

We had a WONDERFUL trip. We left after Tom got home from work on a Wednesday night, swung by to pick up two of my sisters (Adriane and Molly) and we headed for Tierra Verde (south of St. Petersburg). We pulled out of their driveway at 7:20 p.m. I drove until we got to the other side of Atlanta and then Tom took over. After several bathroom/caffeine stops and stops for dinner and breakfast, we made it to the condo before noon on Thursday. We got rained on a little on the way there, but soon after arriving, the rain stopped. After a brief rest, we headed down the road to Ft. De Soto Beach. It was the first time our boys had seen the ocean. It was overcast, but we still had a good afternoon. Soon after getting there Blake found part of a sand dollar.
Tom likes to refer to this next picture as the boys' "Baywatch" run. They've never seen the show though!
After the beach, we were ready for some seafood. While we were waiting on my sisters to get ready for dinner, Blake took this picture of me and Tom. It's one of my favorites from the trip.

After dinner we drove around the area and found a beach I'd read about online - Pass-A-Grille. Our timing was perfect - we got to see the sunset. I was happy to have my sisters with us or else we wouldn't have near as many good family shots of the four of us together.
After we left the beach, we found a great ice cream shot. I took pictures of everyone eating their cones, but Kevin had the best shot. (That's the end of his cone sticking out of his mouth in case you couldn't tell!)
The next day we went to Pass-A-Grille to swim. The beach is basically made up of shells. It was something else!

We drove about an hour the next day to Siesta Key. That was my favorite beach. The sand is like powdered sugar. It was amazing! We actually ended up spending two days there. The first day my sisters stayed behind at the condo, so we took them back the next day with us. The water was clear and you could walk out pretty far without it being deep which was good for me and Kevin. Tom also bought us a tube at Siesta Key. We all enjoyed it.

Before our trip, Kevin said he wanted to find a crab on the beach. There were plenty of pretty shells at Siesta Key, but you had to be careful because a lot of them were "homes" to something still alive. I am happy to say that Kevin did find a crab living in the shell on the mat in the photo above.
We also took in a game of putt-putt in St. Pete. Tom won and I came in second beating Blake by just one. Kevin likes to brag that he had the highest score - 89!
We woke up early one morning and made the drive (less than 2 hours) to Orlando for a visit to the Happiest Place on Earth. We had visited all four Disney parks in October 2005. This trip, we stayed at a Hilton on-site and shuttled over to the Magic Kingdom for two days. It was the first time my sisters had ever been to Disney. Blake and Kevin were excited to play tour guide for them.

The tea cups are a favorite of mine. Blake rode with me and Tom, but Kevin wanted to ride with Adriane adn Molly whenever he could.
All three boys (yes, Tom included!) LOVED the Buzz Lightyear ride. As always, Tom was the champ.
On on first day at Disney we were able to hit almost all of the rides, plus see the evening parade after watching the fireworks from Splash Mountain (that was cool!). We took it easy the second day and hit what we missed and what we wanted to see again. We left the park before having dinner and went to Benihana back at our hotel. Tom had been to one before, but none of the rest of us had. It was so much fun!

My boys ate with chopsticks! (They did better than I did!)
I had the best drink of the drink - the Karate Colada - mmmm!
As seen in this last shot...you can't take Blake and Kevin anywhere without having fun!

It was a great trip. I can't wait to scrap it!