Hi everyone. Since my last post we have been soooooo busy! School has started, soccer has started, Tyler had his 4th birthday, today is Laurel's 10th birthday and the biggest chunk of our time has been....another PLAY! Laurel auditioned for a play at the local university. The theater dept. here has a great theater season with at least 4 shows every semester. The plays are done as part of the theater majors required credits and occasionally they need children. The auditions for the fall semester were held the end of August right before school started. For the four plays being done this semester Annie Get Your Gun needed 3 kids, and the other 3 plays needed a total of 5 more kids. Since it was our first experience with all this we let Laurel audition for only Annie Get Your Gun. There were at least 30-40 kids there for audtions and Laurel got a part!!!!!We were so proud of her! She played Nellie, Annie Oakley's little sister. After 5 weeks of practice, sometimes 6 nights a week and some practices lasting over 5 hours, not getting home until 11:30 on a lot of school nights...the show finally opened on Sept. 25th and ran for ten shows through Oct. 4th. It was GREAT! Unfortunately no cameras or video were allowed because of copyright laws but my mother-in-law did manage to get a couple shots with her phone. So here is one final shot of the kids taking their bows. Laurel is the one on the left with the red longjohns under her light colored dress. The sad part about after it was over was that the next morning she had a fever of 103.9°F and was home sick with the flu for the entire week last week. Now this week her brother is home sick! UGH!

OK...I got some of the smaller video clips to upload...see if you can watch these and if not...go down to the next post to see the photos...

Laurel had drama camp last week and got a lead part in Cinderella Kids! It was her first time auditioning and she did great! She started camp on Monday, auditioned Monday afternoon, found out she got the part of Drizella, one of Cinderella's mean stepsisters, at about 5 PM Monday afternoon, had camp everyday from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm and put on 2 performances on Saturday. It was amazing! One week! I've been trying to upload a video, but I haven't had any luck...I think the file is too big so I'm going to try to do it on You Tube and post from there. Until I figure it out...here are a few photos of the performance. Laurel is in the red dress with blue flowers and trim.


"Why does she get to try on the slipper?"
"Cinderella, go clean up that mess!"

"It fits! I told you it was my slipper!"

"Girls, don't forget to give Cinderella your laundry...It's DIRTY SOCK day!"

"Oh, poor Cinderella, there will be other dances!"

Well howdy everyone! I haven't posted on this blog in quite a while. I've been posted on my scrapbooking blog more because I've been scrapping old pictures but here is a layout I did the other day with some recent pictures. The week the kids got out of school they earned coupons for the local ice cream parlor so I took them for their ice cream. Don't you love their silly, messy faces!

credits: About a Boy kit by Designs By Mel, template by Ginny Tallent at the Pretty Scrappy July Template challenge

Laurel at the Talent Show

Our church has an annual talent show to raise support for our short term missions team. Laurel played in 2 numbers this year. Here she is (on the left) playing the duet of "Chorus from Judas Maccabaeus"

Hey all my faithful blog readers... I haven't been here in a few days but we've been busy here at our house. We had a nice Easter with 27 people over! It was a beautiful day so we could be outside, thank goodness! I don't think I could have fit everyone in my house.

I've also been trying to do some more scrapbooking lately and have found that speed scraps help me get pages done. I have specific instructions and don't have 5000 choices...so I just get it done. It's amazing how many pages I've gotten done lately. I also have met a lot of friendly ladies over at Stuff to Scrap. Kathy from The Latest Scoop, Too let me play with her new kit, Every Day Matters Too, Home and Family...

...and here are a couple of pages I did with the kit.

Thanks so much for letting me play with this kit, Kathy! Just knowing that you are looking for pages helps me to get pages done! The feeling of completing lots of pages is great! Keep those great kits coming!

I accomplised my goal! and don't forget to vote for Menus4Moms!

My goal was to complete one more week of picture-of-the-day layouts and I actually finished it last night! So maybe by the end of today I will get another one done! These lazy, rainy days when the kids actually play together allow me to do some things that I normally don't get to do!

Keep going down the page for a little video of

Zachary playing basement b-ball....

credits: date brads "P365" by Greenfield Original; paper "I Miss You" by Sya's Bluprints; swirl "WinterShabby" by snoflake Beach Design; template by Katy Larson

He shoots...he scores!

Don't forget to vote for Menus4Moms in the StartUP Nation Moms in Business Competition! Only 2 weeks to go and Menus4Moms is ON FIRE!

My latest installment of Project 365. This is the fourth week. I figured I'd better do some 1 page layouts or my book at the end of the year will be too big! It does make everything a bit smaller, but if you click on the picture it may enlarge it for you. Only about 7 weeks behind! That's pretty good for me! My goal is to get one more week down by the end of the weekend!

credits: Journal block & brads-Thunder Moon Designs; Hanger-AE Designs; paper-Wild Cherry Tea by Ginger Snaps; bracket-WinterShabby by Snowflake Beach Designs; fonts: genuine and felix

The Big Kid Sleds!

I always post videos of the kids (mostly Tyler because he is so funny) so I thought I would post one of my biggest kid! He LOVES the snow!

Don't forget to vote, I was published on a blog, and a few other notes...

Don't forget to vote for MENUS4MOMS in the StartUp Nation's Leading Moms in Business Competition! This is only going on for a couple more weeks!

I sent one of my layouts to 3s_enough over at Midnight Scrapping using her sideB of Double Template #16 and she posted it on her blog! I was checking out her new Projest 365 template and boy was I surprised when I saw my layout somewhere other than on MY blog! (And then was I mortified when I caught a typo and realized I saved the file wrong and can't go fix it! Oh well...worse things could happen!) Thanks so much for posting it and for the sweet comments, 3s_enough! She has some great templates over there! Go check them out.


and finally...I told you a few posts back that I had another video of Tyler being his silly self. So here it is!

Still scrapping a little: here is my next installment of my Project 365. I think this would be week 3. Yes I'm a little behind, but I've done more layouts in the last few weeks than I've done in the last few years! Yeah, me!

credits: totally scraplifted from jemenifer22's"The two of you together" layout at Sunshine Studio Scraps Mission Microfilms gallery; Hermitage kit by Amanda Dykan and Love Like No Other kit by AE Desings (both kits from Sunshine Studio Scraps Mission #1); template: Moriginals; number buttons by me using Hermitage paper; fonts: genuine and felix

VOTE FOR MY BOSS!...who happens to also be MY SISTER-IN-LAW :-)

Mary Ann has entered MENUS4MOMS in the 2009 Leading Moms in Business Competition. Most of you know I work for her, writing 2 of the 4 weekly menus on the site. This would be a great opportunity for publicity and so I ask you to vote daily throughout the rest of the month.

Good Luck, Mary Ann!!!

Here are my next 2 pages for my picture of the day project this year.

credits: Sunshine Studio Scraps Mission #1 kits; template by Moriginals; fonts: Genuine and felix

I finally started scrapbooking my picture a day layouts. Here is the first one. I gotta run get kids from school, so I'll be back later to post a cute video of Tyler...again!

credits: sushine studio scraps mission #1 designer kits, template by midnightscrapping,

felt letters by ME:-), fonts: genuine and felix

Tyler plays B-Taar

Zachary decided he wanted to play guitar again, so after he finished playing electric guitar, Tyler insisted that he play his B-taar, too! Chuck IS playing a real song, but you can't hear him because Tyler is playing so loud! So here he is...playing his B-taar.

I'm so proud of myself!

I figured out how to make my own blog background! There are a few things that I can't get just right...like my header. I would also like to get it stretched to fit my screen, but I've got a 17 inch screen so I'm not sure how to do that without making it look really wierd for everyone else...any pointers, little brother? Chuck's Mozilla looks absolutely off...It's perfect on my desktop, but a little off on my laptop. Regardless...I like it and I'm excited! So much for a Saturday afternoon of wasting time!

Haven't downloaded any new pictures yet this month and I've been sick all this week, but here is a couple pictures from Chuck's trip to CO with his dad.

Tyler and I went to the airport to see him off...this was Chuck's view.

For Hubby...
This isn't exactly how I was going to put these pictures on here, but to save some time and get them on here so my hubby can see them...Hi Honey!!! ....I'm just going to put a few on here now so here you go!

Updates....

Hi anyone out there in blog world that may stop by here. I haven't forgotten about you...just been busy! I have been taking my picture of the day that I mentioned in a previous post and I'll put some of those pictures on some other time, but today is a snow day so all my kids are home from school and I'm not getting anything done that I thought I was supposed to get done!

I do want to update a few things and then I have a little video for you.

My artscow order came in a few weeks ago and I'm quite happy with the way the prints turned out and with the other items that I purchased (some I got free with credits for signing up and referring the site to you!)

Next I'm going to order some photo books with a sale coupon I received from them if I can get them done before the coupon expires!

Here is that link again to artscow if you want to check it out....

http://www.artscow.com/?Ref=455265


and now for your video. Enjoy!

Photo Printing Site to check out!

I found this photo printing site through a digiscrapping blog I frequent (daily!) and I just ordered my first set of prints and multiple freebies that I earned as a new customer...mousepads, decks of cards all for the cost of shipping. I'll let you know how they turn out as soon as I get them!

If you want to check it out, use this link:

http://www.artscow.com/?Ref=455265

If you join, you will enjoy the 1200 free prints credits & 3 8"x8" photo books & other great photo gifts credits.

Menus4Moms

I'm back! Can you believe I'm posting 2 days in a row? Don't even know if anyone reads this! Except for my sweet brother! (Love ya, BRO!)

I learned about the idea of taking a picture a day on some scrapbooking blog I frequent called Project 365. I'm not sure which site I found it on, but if you google Project 365 you will find several sites describing the idea. One site that describes it well from previous years is on Photojojo. So far in '09 I've only missed taking a pic of the day one time...granted there's only been 6 days so I'm on a role! So to catch up...here are my pics of the day so far in '09.

1/1/09: Nightime reading with Dad

1/2/09 Basement basketball

1/3/09 Silly faces

1/4/09 no picture

1/5/09 Gettin Down in Da Basement (I think the kids were dancing to Hannah Montana and yes, Zachary is trying to breakdance! He is actually quite good!)

1/6/09 Kindergarten Center time. Z was a little sad being back in school after the holidays and asked if I could help out in the class today so Mrs. G asked if I could come in for Science Lab time. He loves it when I'm the teacher's helper.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Well...I'm not promising to post everyday, or even every month...but I'm going to try to post more than last year! How about that for a 2009 goal? I got a new little tiny point and shoot camera to keep in my purse so maybe I'll have a few more shots this year.

These pictures are actually from November.

Two days before his party, Zachary informed me that he not only wanted a Spiderman Cake but that it should be Spiderman climbing up a building! This was my attempt! Yes the building is leaning! It's a little bit of a challenge to go up 4 layers with a cake!

The kids and I went to visit GrandBetty in NC right before Thanksgiving. We went to the Grove Park Inn to see the National Gingerbread entrants.

This picture is from when we went to see Clemson play at UVA. Clemson won! Go Tigers!