Finally

I finally got all my mom's 2009 calendar layouts done. Here they are (not in order by month). Sorry, I'm not listing all the credits. If there are things you like and want to know where I got them, just drop me a comment and I'd be glad to tell you.

Goodness!

Wow, it's been awhile since I posted. Sorry about that. It's been crazy at our house.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We spent it with my family and went up to my sister's house. She just moved in last fall and I hadn't seen it finished. She's done a wonderful job decorating! The kids had a wonderful time with their cousins.

Christmas is fast approaching and I've been busy getting my mom's calendar ready for our family party on Sunday. I've got the pages done, just need to pick up ink and cardstock today so I can get it printed.

Once I've given it to her, I'll post the layouts here (warning though, there won't be credits for anything, because I didn't keep track).

So, there's your update hehe.

Lots of Layouts

I've done a lot of layouts in the last month or so and haven't put them here on my blog. So, since I am not able to go to church today because I have 2 sick kids, I thought I'd take some time and load them on. You can find all the credits in my gallery at Treasures to Scrap

EWWWWWWWW

I can't believe I went for it.

It is so gross to me that I had always said no way.

There was no way I was going to allow anything

so absolutely ewwwweeeeey in my house.

They're dirty.

They just might stink.

They have beady little eyes.

But . . . .

It's so dang cute now that I actually said yes.

Yes, it's a RAT! A baby one at that. I can't even fathom what possed me to give in. But, it's pretty gentle and Stacia is absolutely in love with "Snowball." (Why she named a brown and white rat "Snowball" I still haven't been able to figure out.)

Daylight Savings Time

Okay, I use to really love the fall time change . . .you know the whole extra hour of sleep. Not this morning! My body works according to the clock on the night stand not an internal clock. BUT, our dog's clock is internal and so is Joshua's. Chuck had to get up for a church meeting this morning at 5:45 (6:45). The dog is use to getting feed about 6:30. Normally on Sunday mornings when Chuck gets up early the dog is patient and waits to eat. NOT this morning. She started whinning as soon as she heard Chuck up. So, I had to get up and feed her and let her out. I just crawl back into bed and here come Joshua wide awake and bouncing off the walls. So, Sunday morning and here I sit with the clock saying 6:44 and me really wanting to go back to bed for another hour.

I am really stiff and can hardly walk this morning on top of wanting to go back to bed. We spent from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm gathering pumpkins from a farmer's field. It's become our day after Halloween tradition. We need them to feed our worms through the winter, and the farmer generously gives them to us for nothing. Yesterday we did take a couple of boys with us along with our kids. The worse part was the waiting. We'd load the van and trailer and then Chuck and a couple of the kids would come back to the house with him to unload. Those of us that stayed would move pumpkins to the roads so that when Chuck got back with the trailer we could quickly load it again. Next year I'm taking a book. We did go the park a 2x's because the flies at the pumpkin patch by 12:30 were horrible and swarming in my van.
I think we managed to get twice as much this year than we did last year and that is good because we will have twice as many worms to feed.

While we were off gathering pumpkins two friends were here finishing the roof of the new worm shed. I'm glad they got it done yesterday and Chuck got all the wood that will be used for the side moved under the shed. It started raining during the night and with the wood under the shed, hopefully it didn't get as wet.

Okay, so Halloween was a blast. We went to the Trunk or Treat at the church. Had dinner the kids played some games and then we had the t-or-t. It rained for just a few minutes, but the weather was really nice. I think most people had on light weight jackets. I just had Joshua in a long sleeved shirt and he was fine. I like Halloweens when the kids can actually show off their costumes rather than having them hidding under their heavy coats. After the t-or-t we took the kids into Richfield for some door to door. Joshua fell asleep on the way there, so he missed out on that. He can do it next year. I did get a couple of pictures:

The kids:

Makiya and Joshua walking over the neighbor's house to trick or treat there.

Chuck went as an injured person. Told everyone he'd fallen off his worm shed. Me, I stuck a black wig and hat on my head and called it good. Pretty funny though because two different people that needed to talk to me at the church couldn't find me.

Here is Makiya and one of her best friends. This young lady has a voice like an angel. She is an amazing singer. If Makiya's voice lessons help her get even 1/4 as good Makyia will sing beautifully. They take voice from the same teacher. The friend has competed on a State level with her singing.

Anyone else want to join me in the life of leisure. I think I'll quit my job too and let Mr. Obama put gas in my car, food on my table and pay my mortgage. What happens when everyone gets all these "freebies" and nobody is working anymore?

Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

You are thoughtful and care very deeply for your family. A loving home is of great
importance to you and you always try to make people feel welcome. Although you have a great capacity to love, you also have a great capacity to hurt, so at times you can be
sensitive. You're firm when you need to be, but people trust your judgment and
appreciate the kind way you always handle things.

Thirteen

What an important number in a girls life! My oldest turned 13 today! Happy Birthday Makiya!

We had her party on Wednesday since school was out Thursday and Friday and we were afraid kids would be out of town and unable to attend. As it turned out she had 11 of the 15 girls she invited actually show up. I don't think I had that many friends when I was her age. They had a blast. We gave her her gift today (well, the party was part of her gift), but we gave her a music CD and some good smelling body spray and body cream that she's been asking for.

Funny for the day

I asked Stacia and Shayla to clear the kitchen table so we could eat dinner. Neither one of them moved very fast, so Joshua starts yelling, "I will, I will." He went over to the table and started pulling everything on the table onto the floor. It was pretty funny!

69 pictures and 1 video of nothing!

Oh my heck. . .Stacia went on a field trip two weeks ago to Thanksgiving Point. She took the digital camera. There are 69 pictures and 1 video of nothing! I mean I think I found maybe 1-2 pictures I could actually scrap as a reminder of the trip . .or maybe scrapping nothing would be even more memorable. What do you think? Here's a few examples:

I don't know if she was taking a picture of the light pole or the handicap parking spaces.



I think there is a chicken in there somewhere.




The backend of a duck maybe?



An anteater perhaps? I don't know, I don't think anteaters live on farms and the snout doesn't like quite right . .but what else could it be?



Is that the back end of a pig or a black lamb? It's in the sheep pen obviously, but it doesn't look like one from this angle.


I thought ostriches only had 2 legs.



Now, here's something with 4 legs . . . I know this one!!!! It's a horse!!! Or a really tall goat.

Yep, every farm's gotta have power and a trash receptical!

So, there's Stacia's field trip. . hope you got something out of it, because I'm not sure she did. I still haven't figured out why the school drove 2 1/2 hours to Thanksgiving Point to see a farm, when we live in Rural Utah and there are farms by the dozen here! Oh I know . . .most farms don't have handicapped parking spots or blue trash recepticals and 2 huge power boxes! The kids needed to see and learn about those things. roflmbo!

Thanks for looking.

Hey everyone!

We had a good weekend. Spent most of it watching General Conference (a bi-annual meeting done in Salt Lake City by the leaders of our church and broadcast on TV, Radio, Satellite and Internet). We also played Cranium yesterday afternoon with the kids. My dh got a card that said he had to hum or whistle a song. The song. . .The Star Spangled Banner . .You know our National Anthem! He started humming The Battle Hymn of the Repulic roflmbo. I was on the "other" team and had seen the card, so I told him he was doing a great job humming the wrong song. He looked totally puzzled and then sat there in complete silence unable to come up with the correct tune. I finally gave him the first couple of notes and he got it and Makiya and Stacia (on his team) guessed it. They ended up winning the game, but did they really win?

I just got put on a new Creative Team. It's for Treasurestoscrap.com It's a great store. I downloaded my first kit on Saturday and will try to have a layout here in the next day or two.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Please join us in an interfaith fast on Sunday, October 12th for California Proposition 8. Whatever your professed faith may be, your faith and fasting can bring forth the powers of heaven. Please abstain from food and drink on Sunday, October 12th and please pray for a positive outcome for California's Proposition 8, that hearts may be softened, and that understanding and wisdom will prevail. Please FORWARD this to those in favor of protecting and restoring traditional marriage in California. We would LOVE to have residents of other states or nations join us in our fasting and prayer!

Isaiah 58:6,8-9Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.
You can read more about fasting here on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting

Dems vs. Rep.

Well, I have to say I was a bit upset at Makiya's Utah Studies teacher today. Makiya is in 7th grade. I had to pick her up from school today because she stayed after to work on Math with her math teacher. When she got in the car she asked me who I was voting for. I told her McCain (yes, I'm republican and proud of it.) Anyway, she said that if she could vote it would be for Obama. I asked her why. She said in her Utah Studies class the teacher went through what the Democrats want and what the Republicans want and then the kids had to mark which one they liked. The topics were economy, war, gas prices, global warming, jobs over seas, cost of college, test scores (for k-12), immigration, and terrorisim. She said he just had them write down some things he said and didn't really go into any details on anything.

Here is what he gave the students:

Economy d- hands on r- hands off
War d - get out now r - stay until we win
Gas Prices d- new technology r - drill here
Global Warming d- solve global warming r- it doesn't exist
Jobs over seas d- leave them there for cheap stuff r - same
Cost of college d- college more affordable r- stay the way we do it now
Test scores d- schools not doing good less tests and homework r - no child left behind
Immigration d- stop illegals treat nice (ie give benefits) r- stop illegals send them back
Terrorism d- world fight r- attack Iraq

Now, how in the world are these kids suppose to even understand this stuff without the explanations of how each party plans to accomplish each item. Like on the war in Iraq, just pull out now? Leave it worse than we found it. I'm not saying whether we should or shouldn't have gone to war there, I'm saying now that we have there would be serious problems if we left too soon. Did he explain that? Did he tell the kids that to make college more affordable the dems want to raise taxes? did he tell them that with the dem's ideas on global warming we'd eventually be told how warm we can heat our houses in the winter and how much electricity we could use in the summer for cooling? Did he mention that the dems want to allow illegals to stay in our country at the tax payer's expense . .oh yes, we pay for their medical, food stamps etc. through our taxes. Did he happen to mention that while we are developing new energy technology we have to continue to be dependent on foreign oil?

I happened to mention this problem today with a friend of mine that works for the school district. She new exactly which teacher I was talking about without me even saying his name. I guess I'm not the first parent that has complained about him pushing his liberal views on his students in this very conservative community. I'm sure if Makiya had liberal parents we'd be applauding what took place in her classroom today. Indoctorating children at an early age is all the rage in the left's agenda (do I sound extreme hehe). Liberals can take every one of these issues and say whatever they want and they will believe them as strongly as I believe the things I've posted. That's the great thing about America. We can agree to disagree and we have the freedom to do so.

I'm not going to complain to the school. But, tomorrow in class if the discussion comes back up, Makiya said she is going to tell him that he is just like the democrats running for election. He told the class the plan, but failed to tell them the process of how they plan to accomplish their goals. I say, "You go girl!"

Now, this post is going to tick a few people off. I do moderate comments and anything I don't like won't show up here. It's my blog and I can put on it what I want and you can't hehe.

Love Horses

I love to watch horses ... horse racing, jumping, etc. I was at Cute Overload and found this youtube video of a horse. I couldn't believe it! It was so good. Thought I'd share it.

Scrapbook pages

Wal-la, I have finally finished the layouts from our Living Planet Aquarium trip we took at the beginning of September. Took me long enough! I got several done and then had a lack of desire to scrap for a week or so. So, the kit I used is called Swim Fishy and it is by Kristin Aagard Designs and I found it at Plain Digital Wrapers.




Makiya scrapped this one of her pretty much by herself. I put together the torn paper on the side and reolored some stuff for her, but other than that,this is her layout.

This layout I did for a challenge at Get Digi With It. You can find the credits in my gallery there (link on side of blog).

Doin' the happy dance!

Anyone care to join me in a happy dance?! My water is back on!!!! Oh yeah, Oh yeah, doin' the happy dance.

The Water Saga Continues

Still no water. I finally got the "right" part Saturday morning and put it in and it STILL didn't work. Chuck tried when he got home Saturday evening and still no luck. He's going to pull it apart today and replace the "insides." Cross your fingers he gets it fixed today!

We had friends over yesterday and played Phase 10 Twist. They love Phase 10, but definately agreed that Twist is so much faster.

That's all I have today. I've got to get some layouts I've been working on posted here, all in good time though.

This Water Thing

or lack of water thing is really getting old. It's getting old going out 2-3 x's a day and turning the main water on/off, but we can't leave it running until the faucet is fixed. I should have had it fixed by now, but my dh and the plumming store guy had a bit of a mis-communitcation. My dh measured the pipe from end to a certain spot and the faucet guy thought he was measuring it from the end to a different spot, but guess what that left me . . .NO water! The tube ended up being one inch too short. I took it back into the plumming store and the guy there (Tom) is so nice. He's going far beyond the call of duty to take the part home and fix it himself (cut and welding). I can pick it up some time tomorrow morning. In the meantime I get to turn the water on for a few minutes to refill the water in the fridge and flush toilets. My dishes are piling up, I didn't do them last night and tonight, because I had to leave the old part with Tom, I can't let the water run as long as we could before (the old part kept it from leaking horribly).

On a positive note, this is the LAST weekend Chuck is going to the farmer's markets. It will be nice to have him home again and tuning pianos and fixing a broken lawnmower and everything else he has set aside because he's only home Sunday through Wednesdays.

Wow . . .a whole week!

I'm still sick! I'm coughing up junk . .okay maybe that was tmi, but we've all been there I'm sure.

Chuck and I were laying in bed last night and I had an itch in an umm, well embarrasing place and was scratching it. Chuck asked what was wrong and I told him, and then said, but at least I'm not sitting the car, that's the worse. We laughed and said we'd been married so long we could actually laugh about it. I said, "yeah, we're parents, if we can talk about poop, vomit, snotty noses, we can talk about weird itches."

I finished the fourth book in the Twilight Series . .Breaking Dawn. Oh the books were good. I cried at the end (a happy cry). My husband was so patient with me during this last book. He only complained once since Monday when I started it. Normally he does a lot more complaining when I read because I become oblivious to what's going on around me. It doesn't matter what the book is, if it's well written I'm going to be oblivious because I move into the book and become a part of it.

Ohhh, guess what. My radiator is fixed! Chuck got it taken care of on Monday . .but now he has my van to go up to SLC because the transmission in his is acting weird. The van is still drivable around town, but every once in a while the tranny freezes up and you can't get it to shift to 3rd gear so you have to drive 30 mph, and on the freeways it's not a good thing. At least I'm not carless this weekend. So, we get my van fixed and on Tuesday Chuck was using the hose and when he went to the spicket to turn the water off the knob broke! So, guess what, now we have to keep the water to the house turned off until I can go get the replacement part today. It had to be ordered. We do have a "key" for the water meter so I go out every few hours and turn the water on and flush toilets and refill our drinking water. I have the hose hooked up to the sprinkler outside so the lawn is being watered while I'm taking care of inside stuff. It's not fun, but it's better than having NO water for 3 days. I can at least do dishes and flush toilets. Everyone got showers yesterday so we're good. Chuck showed ME how to fix the faucet so when I pick up the part I can take care of it instead of having to wait until he gets home on Saturday. Cool huh!

Alrighty, enough from me. I hope everyone is doing good.

I'm sick!

I feel lousy and shouldn't even be sitting here at the computer, but this is important. My friend had a baby on Monday (3 weeks early). He isn't doing very good. He is jaundice and his white blood cell counts are low, now they've been told the doctor's are worried about him having a stroke. So, if you could pray for baby Boston I would really appreciate it. (I'm sure the mom would too.)

Fun Pictures

Here are some pictures I've taken over the past couple of days. These first two of Joshua totally crack me up. One of his favorite movies is Enchanted. He loved to be "Prince Edward." This is Joshua being "Prince Edward." Sword, boots and in the second picture he's even figured out how to have a sheath for the sword rofl. It's stuck through his underwear. He wouldn't let me put pants on him! Like the scowl in pic#2?!

Here's a picture of Prince Edward (the one on the left). Hands are even resting on the swords the same hehe.

This is Joshua and a neighbor boy. Obviously they got into the q-tips while I was working and turned themselves into . . . well, your guess is as good as mine.

Today Shayla got to redeem her busy bucks at school (pretend money the class members get for doing their reading and homework). She picked out these two sets of horrible teeth and some slime. The kids all had fun taking turns wear the teeth today.

Life and Family

I am not Catholic . .but I agree 100% with this video produced by CatholicVote dot com. (I tried to embed it here, but there was something wrong with the html and I'm definately NOT an html kind of person to figure out the problme. Click on the link to watch.

Boy I'm on one today . . .

Another rant! The guy fixing our radiator (remember when I posted about it clear last Monday!) called me this morning. He said he needed to know the year and make/model of our car so he could order the cam. What the *&(*%#$? It was suppose to be ordered LAST monday! He said it wasn't written down on the order form and that our phone # had been transposed, so he'd been waiting for us to call so he could talk to us about it. This is ridiculous, because we've called EVERY day (except Sunday) since last Wednesday! Chuck wasn't home when the guy called and I told the guy I was so angry about this that he better just call my husband (do you think he got the hint?) The most annoying part, the office lady had taken our phone number every time I'd called because she had to "check" on the status and call me back! I won't have my radiator until Monday or Tuesday next week. Another weekend with 4 kids and NO car. Well, I guess if it was just the weekend it wouldn't be so bad, but it's Thursday through Saturday night.

Sympathy would be greatly appreciated! hehe

Beware my friends, be very aware!

WARNING: Do not sign up with Vonage unless you are absolutely sure you want to keep them for at least 2 years! I just tried to cancel my account and they want to charge me over $90 to cancel. Their service has been crappy . .the person on the other end of the phone always tells me that I sound like I'm underwater . . They claim the information was in a confirmation email (I'm hunting for it), but I read everything they gave me and I honestly don't recall any disconnect fees.

Anyway, that's my tiraid today.

Family

A friend of mine passed the link to this beautiful song/video along to me and I wanted to share it here on my blog. Enjoy!

Fevers and sore throats

Oh joy! Three sick kidos. Joshua started running a fever during the night, and Makiya and Stacia both have nasty sore throats. Shayla is the only one going to school. As soon as she leaves I'm heading back to bed! I managed 4 hours of sleep last night. I'm SOOOO glad I decided to take today off rather than this past Wednesday. I've got to find someone that will pick up some Children's Motrin in town for me. I'm about out and no car to go myself :(

So much for cleaning good today. When Joshua is sick he just wants to snuggle . .which I don't pass up the chance to do that with him . ..they grow up too fast and then the snuggling is done.

Remembering 9/11

I'm sitting here with Fox New's online streaming video of the names being read of those that died during the attacks on 9/11. Yes, tears are streaming down my face. That was such an emotional day for me. My oldest had just been in kindergarten a couple of weeks and when I saw what was happening I wanted to go pick her up from school. I remember the overwhelming feelings I had within me.

Hahahahaha

Chuck and I got a good laugh tonight. I was sitting here working and Makiya had just gone to bed (1/2 hour later than she should have, but really, who can blame her, she's reading Twilight). Anyway, I hear water running in the kid's bathroom. I send Chuck to check and see if Makiya had decided to take a shower. Nope. . .wasn't Makiya. Stacia and Shayla were in there taking a shower. Okay, so that wouldn't really be all that funny, except, I'd put them to bed an hour earlier with the plans that they get up at 5:50 am to take a shower before school. Well, they claim their alarm went off and so they just got up and didn't really even bother to check the clock. I asked them if they were tired and they both said they'd felt like they'd slept the whole night. The clocks were all messed up because our power went out this evening and apparently they didn't get the alarm set right. m EDITED: This morning they still didn't get a shower. They still didn't get their alarm set right and when I got up at 6:20 and realized the house was too quiet, I went to get them up and their alarm had never gone off.

Speaking of the power being out . . .it went out about 4:30, just as I was getting our enchiladas ready to bake. I stuck them in the fridge with the hope that when we got home from the Bookmobile the power would be back on and I could cook them.

We got back home at 5:20 and still now power. I got creative tonight and made homemade gravy with beef chunks and brown rice and corn on the cob. Now, you ask . . ."how did you cook dinner with no power?" That is the joy of a gas stove. I lit it with a lighter and we had a marvelous dinner! The power did come back on just as I was putting the corn in the pot to boil, but by then dinner was ready, so the enchiladas are waiting to satisfy us tomorrow night.

Have any of you played Phase Ten Twist? I got this for Chuck for his birthday and we've had a blast playing it. We love PhaseTen, but it is such a long game, this version takes about 1/2 the amount of time to play, but we are satifying Chuck's need to play Phase Ten AND finish the game. I highly recommend the game.

My poor hubby is sick. He came home from the long week up North with the crud. I'm just praying I don't catch it and I'm being mean and won't let him kiss me on the lips!

My car is dead again. It's been having overheating problems and I'd have to add anti-freeze/coolant to the car every time I wanted to drive somewhere. Chuck pulled it apart today and too the radiator into be fixed. We should have it back by Wednesday. It is a real pain to want to go somewhere and not have a car here!

Well, that's all for tonight!

Museum of Natural History Layouts

Here's are the layouts I scrapped from the photos of the kids at the Museum on Monday. The kit I used is by Paula Phillips called Dino Roar and is available at GDWI (link on the side bar).