Project 365

So I jumped on the Project 365 bandwagon. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can go here for more detailed information. But basically, you take a photo every day for a whole year and then at the end of the year you have this year-long photo album that shows everything you did for the last year. I was kind of waffling around about it, cause I know what a big procrastinator I am and was afraid to commit and then not take pictures. So I've been taking the pictures, but not saying that was why I was taking them. (I did actually miss a day already, but I'm not going to stress about it.) The other part that I'm adding to it is that I'll be making a 2 page scrapbook layout for each week, hopefully at the end of each week, showcasing that week's photos. This way I'll have every picture recorded and journaled soon after it's taken, before I can forget what we were doing that day or why I took the photo. So far, a lot of my pictures have been taken later on in the day, as I've realized "Oh crap, it's 7:00 and I haven't taken a picture yet". Hopefully I'll get better at remembering to snap those photos earlier in the day as this continues on.

Last night I finally sat down to make my first layout. It took me over three hours. But that's more because I was trying to decide how I wanted the page format to look, as I'm going to use the same format for each 2 page spread - that way the finished album will be more consistant and it'll be easier for to scrap every week, as I'll have a specific format to follow. And I kept it pretty simple, so the photos would be the focus of the layout, not the extra embellishments. After I finished it, I called Keith over to come see it. He said, "This is so cool. You know what would be neat? If you did a page like this for every week this year - then we'd have this super cool album at the end of the year." I was all, "Um, honey, that's the point. That's what I'm planning on doing." (I hadn't even told him I was going to be doing this, I was that afraid of failing.)

Well, after that long explanation I better show you my page. I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to start a new blog for just the pictures and post them each day, or if I'll just post the weekly layout here. I don't know. ** I went ahead and made a new blog just for the pictures. You can find it here and I'll put a link on the side. ** But for now, here is my Project 365 Week 1.



Amya's upset with me for not having a picture of her on this page, but for some reason, she really wasn't in any pictures I took that first week. So now I have to be more aware of who I'm taking the pictures of and try to keep it so that everyone is seen in equal amounts.

And here are the pages separately, so you can see them more close up.


Finally, for credits you can click here.

A New Creative Team!!

Just a couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across a new blog that I thought was SO cool....it's called The Hybrid Kid and it's a website that was started by a mom who had an idea one day. She said in her opening post: "This blog will be dedicated to using digital art in the everyday things we do. I hope to pair teachers and digital designers to create printable activities that serve three purposes...educational value, together time, and to look pretty". She's already come up with some really cool projects like The Color Book and The Popcorn Word pack. Just recently, she asked for people who would be willing to try out her projects, use them with their kids, take pictures of them in use, and provide feedback so that she can better showcase and promote her projects. I replied and was one of the moms (and therefore my kids as well) chosen to try out her things. I'm so excited about this!! Elena and Téa both are working on learning to recognize their letters and numbers and are so in to anything that has to do with learning and also art. These projects are perfect for them!! So you'll probably be seeing me showcasing some of these projects as we put them to good use.

Night Owls

Keith totally surprised me with my Christmas present. While out in WV over Thanksgiving break, I was looking at all the Black Friday ads to see if there was anything worth waking up for. The only thing I really wanted to get was a laptop and there were some good deals, but since Keith had just surprised me with all of them joining me in WV, there wasn't any money for a laptop. When he asked me what I wanted for my Christmas present, I said a laptop, knowing he wouldn't get me one. Do you see where this is going? I don't know what I did to get the husband I have, cause he totally went above and beyond on this one. He got it from Costco, where it was on sale and then even more on sale as the display model was the only one left, so he got an even bigger discount. I don't know how he does it. This was the best picture I could find of my lovely gift and it doesn't even do my laptop justice - this thing is beautiful and I LOVE it.

We have definitely been putting this baby to good use. We installed Skype and used it to talk to my uncle in Germany. That was way cool. I've scrapbooked on it and it's AMAZING. And every night, Keith and I have been laying in bed, watching episodes of The Office, trying to get caught up. (And when I say trying to get caught up, I mean we jsut started watching it and now have 4 seasons to watch). This is one of the coolest things he's ever gotten me....I love my husband!!

And I love him even more right now cause he just went out and bought me a package of Oreos to eat while I'm watching. What an awesome husband I have!

Scrapbook Catch-up

Be prepared....this could get long. I realized that it's been FOREVER since I've posted a scrapbook page on here and, even though I didn't creat any new pages while my computer was broken, there are a lot of pages you guys haven't seen. So, in no particular order, here they are.....

Keith made some cakes for a cake walk at our ward Halloween party. They were definitely the most talked about cakes of the night. We were really proud of his work! (I have no idea why it's cutting off the side of this one. Sorry!)

I made this page for a speed scrap 2 nights ago. It's my sisters, Amya, my mom, and my uncle Eric and aunt Kusi playing Apples to Apples while I was home in WV.

I made this page for a speed scrap I hosted on Monday. It's a picture of our tree this year, right after I'd finished wrapping the presents and getting them set up. The red presents in the tree and right in front of it were the ones from Santa. Amya saw me scrapping this picture and said "Mom, those are the Santa presents. I thought Santa came after you went to sleep. How'd you take a picture of that? Maybe you're Santa..." To which I so cunningly replied "Or maybe I woke up in the middle of the night to take a picture after he left". I don't think we can fool her much longer. :)

These pics were taken on the 4th of July. Elena and Téa were trying to see who could make the biggest splash.

These are our Halloween pics from this year. This was the fastest I've ever scrapped something after it happened....I think I did this just the day after Halloween.

There's a group of ducks that waddle all around the farm and Maricela LOVES to chase them around. As soon as she sees them, she's after them. Luckily for the ducks, they're faster runners than she is.

We went for a drive in the mountains in the fall to take pictures of the changing leaves. We went a little too late though, and I didn't get the kind of pictures I wanted, but I thought these turned out pretty good.

And here's my new January desktop. Again, I got this from The Shabby Princess. I love her stuff! I took these pictures the other day. Keith borrowed his brother's 4-wheelers and tied the sleds to the back of them to pull the girls around on. They've been having a ton of fun on them. I got on two days ago - I didn't have as much fun. Keith had to help me off......

The credits for all these pages can be found in my Scrap Matters gallery. Thanks for sticking with me through this long post!!

Happy Holidays!!

It's a little late, but better late than never, right? This is the card we sent out this year. If you didn't get one, it's cause I don't have your address. I have a few left so if you want one, email me your address and I'll get one to you.


We were all ready for church one day, so I put the camera on the tripod, turned on the timer and took a few pictures. This was the best one. Amya wasn't even smiling, I had to photoshop the ends of her lips so that it would look like she was kinda smiling. It's so frustrating trying to take pictures of everyone!

I'm Back, Baby!!!

Whew! After almost two whole months of no computer and no internet, we are back up and running. It seems like it took forever!!! And now there's so much to catch up on.

Here's the biggest news that I haven't been able to share on here yet. On November 20, I had my 20 week ultrasound to check on how the baby is growing and find out the sex. Are you guys interested? You want to know? We are going to have......

A BOY!!!! After four girls, we are going to be adding a boy to our (not so) little group of kiddos. I must say it was quite a shock, especially for Keith. He was just so sure that it was going to be another girl, and actually hoping for another girl, that when we realized what we were having, he just sat there in shock for the whole rest of the appointment. Didn't really say much of anything, except "He could be wrong, it could still be a girl". Um honey, no, that's a definite boy. :)

He's since warmed up to the idea and we're both pretty excited for this new adventure. I told Keith he can take care of all the diaper changes on this one. I'm not interested in getting hosed down, which I hear is a a common occurance with little boys. Í'm a little nervous though, as I have no boy experience and am not prepared for a boy at all. There isn't one single piece of blue clothing in this house at all. I guess we've got some shopping to do.

Here's a profile pic of the little booger...

We're pretty excited about our new addition!! (But does this mean I'm going to have to change the name of my blog?)

Live from WV.....

Man, I can't believe it's been over two months since I've seriously posted on this thing. Where have I been? What have I been doing?

Well, October was pretty busy for us, especially the beginning part of it. My dad and grandma came out to visit us. We had Elena's fifth birthday. Amya was baptized. I started a 6 week subbing job for a friend at the school I taught at last year (she was on maternity leave).

And then in the first week of November, our computer broke. Completely. It's been so frustrating. We were able to get part of it fixed but the hard drive was busted as well. Our warranty covers the hard drive, but not data recovery. I have an EHD that I had been backing everything up to and I wasn't too worried, until I checked it and realized that 30 gigs of videos are missing from my EHD. All the videos we took from May of 07 to Dec of 07. A Disney trip, some birthdays, and who knows what else. So we're trying to get those off the dead hard drive before we swap it out for the new one. Hopefully that won't take much longer, cause I am going through some serious withdrawals here. I hate not being able to check my email, I haven't been able to scrapbook, and I can't get on and update the old blog. SOOO annoying.

We're in West Virginia right now - we came out for Thanksgiving and we go home tomorrow. It was actually only supposed to be me and Maricela out here. I thought we didn't have the money to fly us all out here, so Keith said I could go ahead and buy a ticket and he and the other girls would just stay home. Unbeknownst to me, Keith was in cahoots with my mom and sister Kara and about 4 hours after I bought my ticket, he bought tickets for him and the rest of the girls. He couldn't get them on my exact flight, but they flew out an hour after me. He had this whole story about how they were going to go stay at his brother Ian's house while I was gone. He even made me help pack the girls for the trip to 'his brother's house'. For two weeks he was feeding me this story and begging me not to go and whining and asking how I could separate our family on a holiday and even trying to bribe me with money to stay. Basically making me feel really guilty for no reason. So I get here, my mom picks me up at the airport, we drive three hours home, and the whole time I'm on the phone with Keith and he's telling me what they've been doing since I left. Liar. And then about an hour after I got to my mom's house, the front door opens. It was midnight by then and I was thinking "Who in the heck is walking into my parent's house this late?" In walk in Keith and all the girls. Keith says the look on my face was priceless. I was just in shock. I really had absolutely no idea they were coming. Not one inkling. My uncle asked if that shows how good Keith is at deception or how gullible I am. I think it's a mixture of both. Needless to say, I was surprised and glad to see them and we've all had a really good time while out here. And we'll all be on the same flight home tomorrow, so that's good.

Hopefully it won't be too much longer till you hear from me again. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!!!!