Base Pages

Our theme for our unit swap tomorrow is base pages.... Base pages come in 12x12, 9x9 and 6x6. They are monochromatic and are pre-printed with places to put your photos, etc. Our mission was to decorate a set of 6x6 base pages so that we could swap them with each other at our meeting..

Personally... I've never used the base pages before. I wasn't quite sure what to do with them.... I spent the weekend creating a board for convention using our Lovely Leaves paper packet and I'm obsessed with it... so I grabbed a piece of 12x12 and had fun decorating the base pages with it.

Sorry the pictures aren't so good. Hubby got a new fancy schmancy camera for his birthday and I don't know how to use it yet.... Once I figure it out I expect my pictures will be beautiful!!!

Sweater Progress

Just thought I should show a picture of the progress on my toddler sweater....lest you all think I've stopped knitting completely. I missed the class where we checked our guage and my sweater is coming out much bigger than everyone else's. Which means I've had to make some adjustments along the way....

My sleeves are not done. The directions said to knit them to 5.5 inches... however I quickly figured out that my sweater might look a bit funny if my sleeves were that short. So I knitted them up to where I wanted them to end and put stitch holders in. I plan to see how the length is in proportion to the sweater.

And my latest worry is the colors... Right now the off white is bugging me. I'm hoping I like it more as I go along....

ahhh...the woes of a beginning knitter.....

I'm sooo glad it's Friday

This is my day so far....

alarm at 5:30am... oh man I don't want to get up!! Wait...it's Friday isn't it? Is it? Yes, it's Friday... bwa hahahaha.... it's hubby's turn to get up....

"Rick, wake up, it's time to take Josh to seminary."

7:04 am Rick asked me if I wanted a donut. And I said "No!"

8:00 am Phone rings... I look at the clock.... Oh my gosh!!!! I am soooo going to be late for work..

Frantically jump in shower and get ready for work. Grab purse, look for keys... Oh where the heck are my keys... Josh.. help... I can't find my keys..... I always put them in my purse... what did I do with them.... What is that jingling....

My keys are already in my pocket!!!!

Run out the door... get to work 10 minutes late....

Perfectionism and the Blog....

My perfectionism equals infrequent blog posts.... I've been really busy doing lots of stuff... so why haven't I updated in a few days? I think I had a post in mind that needed a picture or something silly like that....so I was waiting to update it... and then I got busy and I can't post all the new stuff until I post the old stuff... and how ridiculous is that?

So we're going to play a bit of catch-up on this post... pictures... or no pictures....

Scrapbooking
Saturday's crop was fun, but it went by way too fast. You'd think that 7 hours of scrapbooking would drag on forever, but I swear... hours went by in the blink of an eye. Considering that this was the first crop in 6 years that I didn't hold in my stamp room....it went well. But, I definately felt handicapped by not having access to all my papers and accessories.

When someone scraps at my house I can look at their layout and think...hmmm... you need a little layering there... how about Barn Red? Pull the paper and they're all set... In the rec room, I can think they need Barn Red all I want, but if it's not in their paper packet....my suggestion isn't all that helpful.

The other side of that is the fact that you really can make do with what you have and make gorgeous layouts. I guess it's kind of like this blog. I can choose to do an update with the info I have....or wait for the perfect info and never get it done.

Overall I think everyone was fairly pleased with the crop. I know there are improvements to be made, I just haven't quite put my finger on it yet.

Road Shows....
Ok, so one improvement in the crop would have been for it to keep going.... we didn't want to stop... but I had to go watch the road shows at church.

First - what is a road show? The Stake decides on a theme, tells the wards and they develop a skit based on the theme. The basic premise is that you develop a skit, costumes, props etc. that can be loaded into the back of a truck. You go to a building, do the skit, load the props into a truck and travel to the next building... where you unload the props and do the skit.

The variation in the skits, costuming and props is absolutely amazing. Everytime I go to one of these I am amazed at how they all come together and how talented everyone is. Most of them were absolutely hilarious. I laughed and laughed and laughed. I love how even the most serious teenagers get into the spirit of it. It's almost as if, for one night, it's cool to be a dork.

Scripture Chase
And in a weird twist of opposites... Sunday night we went to the annual seminary scripture chase. Seminary is a class for 9-12 graders that is held from 6:00am - 6:50am before school. This year they are studying New Testament. In addition to studying the NT, they memorize 25 key scriptures. At the end of the year they hold a scripture chase.

There are four rounds. In round 1 they are given a clue and 20 seconds to find the scripture. In round 4 they only have 5 seconds to find the scripture. I graduated from seminary 20 years ago and I STILLL have many of the scriptures memorized....of course I like to remind Joshua that we had to memorize 40 each year!

This was Joshua's first scripture chase and his team came in 6th out of 17 teams.... not too shabby! I had a great time being one of the judges. The judges rotated around the tables. First round I was with an all girl team from our building. They were VERY serious....and VERY good. They finished 2nd. Round 2 I was at Joshua's table. They did really good. They only missed a couple of points during the round. Rounds 3 and 4.... were hilarious. I went from tables where the kids were REALLY into it... to tables with kids who showed up.

Round 3's table had real potential. It turns out that they were all freshmen and apparently they didn't really see the "vision" of this whole thing. They weren't all that prepared.... but I think they wish they had been. They were so far behind in points that it didn't really matter... so when I knew things that would help, I'd give them little hints... like reciting more of the scripture, repeating the clues.... etc. Ok, so maybe I wasn't being the most impartial judge, but I think the bigger picture here was to get the kids familiar with the scriptures. We laughed and goofed around and I think I helped them feel a little less dorky. Maybe they had enough fun that they'll be more prepared next year.

Round 4? Ok so they each picked a scripture and opened the book to the same page for every clue. They played the odds... and eventually their scripture came up and then they picked a new one. Out of 125 points possible... they got 17. I'd say that they'd probably improve next year, but I'm pretty sure none of them really cared.... they were nice kids though.... and hey... they showed up.

That's My Boy...

One thing I can say about life with my son... it's never dull!! We've had several little "incidents" since he's been helping friends re-build their house....

There was the time that he was nearly killed by a falling beam. A beam that wouldn't have hit him at all if he hadn't tried to help Kelli. He ended up with a huge bruise on his thigh and he was pretty sore from trying to hold/push the beam.

Nail guns... the latest is a puncture wound to the thumb....

Then there are the constant bruises and scrapes.

This week??? This week is projects week at school. One of the school projects is THE house. And what did Joshua do? Well he didn't wear protective eyegear. This is the story I heard from the teacher in charge...

I saw Josh coming out of the trailer with a crazy looking eyepatch taped to his eye and I asked him "what happened."

He said "I got something in my eye"

Teacher "oh, ok."

Josh "It's only bleeding a little bit now."

Teacher "WHAT?"

Then I get a phone call...

Josh: "Where's Dad? They're driving me down the hill. I have something in my eye and Mrs. S. is making me go to the hospital."

Another version of the story that Josh shared was the phone call Mrs. S. made to the principal... and Joshua heard... "No, I'm not calling an ambulance."

So here's the picture of Joshua......after the incident....after yet another trip to the hospital....after I gave the "you're actually supposed to wear the safety glasses speech," after Mrs. S became militant about everyone wearing safety glasses.... and after the doctor said it was plant material and had nothing to do with building the house......

Love them safety glasses......

What's for dinner?

What's For Dinner


Yesterday I started thinking about that dreaded question I hear every day when I get home from work "What's For Dinner?" And since my brain seems to take huge leaps from one subject to the next... in a matter of moments I was thinking about a scrapbook page.

We actually had a lot of fun talking about our favorite meals and our not so favorite meals. I guess I've overdone the whole salmon thing. Joshua doesn't want another piece of salmon....ever!

This is the first 9x9 layout I've made. When I first cut the paper and put it in front of me it seemed so tiny, but it worked out perfectly for this type of page where I have little or no photos. I'm planning to add a photo to the page on the left... either a picture of us at the dinner table, or a picture of my cool dishes...

The paper is from the sunflower paper packet and actually has tiny little pears on it. I figured it had that old fashioned kitchen look to it... kind of like old wallpaper patterns.

So What's for Dinner at your house?? What are your family favorites? Where do you like to go out for dinner?

Field near Julian

All you have to do is look at this picture and you know that it was an amazingly beautiful weekend!! Stamp Camp was a huge success. We had a wonderful time. This picture was taken on our "road trip" from Mt. Laguna to Julian. Everywhere we looked it was beautiful. Some of the areas were an interesting mixture of destruction and new growth. We've had so much rain this year that the hills are green and lush, but sticking up through the green fields and beautiful flowers are blackened remains of trees and bushes. In fact, as we turned one corner, I said to Candace "As many times as we've been here, I can't believe I never noticed that view before." She said "That's because there used to be trees there." That's true... the fires have truly changed our views in many different ways......

Stamp Camp Preparations

Three more days and we head up to the mountains to enjoy a fun stamp filled weekend. I don't know who enjoys it more, me or my customers. We usually start planning stamp camp months in advance. We get a general idea of what we're going to do... but it never fails to amaze me at how things just seem to fall into place. The last few days are always filled with brilliant brainstorms that add that finishing touch.

I always design a scrapbook page for the girls to use to document their "camp" experience. This year we're doing a paper bag book. I designed the book itself a week or so ago but now I keep coming up with all sorts of fun extras.

1) In one of the pockets we're putting little tags with ribbons on the end. My brainstorm? Each girl will get 8 tags to design with her name and anything she wants to write and then they'll swap the tags. How cool is that? They'll go home with a tag from everyone at stamp camp... a little mini swap.

2) I took a picture from last year's stamp camp and "embellished" it. I used a transparency fade and added words... It's my first attempt at marrying digital scrapbooking and traditional scrapbooking. I can't wait to see my printed picture to see if it works they way I have it pictured in my mind.

I have a feeling I've started down a slippery slope though... I don't own photoshop. I played with my photo in microsoft picture it. I wonder how long it will be before I "need" new software....