Update on that Orlando Trip...

Still waiting on little sis to get those pics to me. Someday I'll be able to tell you all the stories....

Sharing one of those Forever layouts!

I have been trying to scrapbook much more this year. Last year, I only did 1/2 as many layouts as I did in 2006. So I need to set aside time this year for it! I've been doing OK and getting them done. I've been trying to focus on getting them done quickly and not taking FOR-EVAH to do them.

This one, however, took me FOR-EVAH! First, the painting of the arrow / question mark / and word the. For some reason, it took a long time. I changed my mind on what font of letters to use and had to paint the word 'the' twice. But the longest thing was the brads! That's a lot of brads there and it took quite the time to make sure I had a good pattern going and enough brads to keep the pattern up all the way around! (I ended up with four brads left - love it when I use up packages of stuff - makes me feel less guilty about having all that stuff! See! Someday I might use up that gallon jar of blue flowers!!!)

I always ask Ryan, "Who's the best?". And he always shouts out, "RYAN!". If you look closely, you'll see that I raised up the letters R Y A N on the bottom of the page. Good thing his name is what it is or that part might not have worked!

Anyway, thought it was worth sharing! Here it is...

Getting the house together feels sooo good!

I'm loving my living room these days!  After a disaster with a leather couch that didn't fit and has now been put into the basement, Dave and I picked out another couch for the living room.  Our old one was done.  It had tears, spills, stains, you name it.

We looked and looked for the right one.  When we found this one, it had really ugly sage green paisley pillows on it (in addition to the big brown ones).  It looked quite formal and icky.  So....  I used whatever creative instinct I could muster up and found some other decorative pillows to put on it.  Once I did that, we LOVED the look.  (Well, I loved it.  Dave may not have had the same passion that I did.)  Anyway, the look of the pillows matched us and really made the couch.

Dave was a little worried about the size of the ottoman and the size of the coffee table, but I think it works and I absolutely adore it!

We also bought a couple of bookcases for the guest room.  I have now moved the books out of my office and into that room.  

Here are pics...  

Next stop - my office!!!

Christmas Morning

Yes, I know.  It's been ages since I have posted.  I have been insane!  Here is a portion of my to-do list from the past several days...

-Taking down the Christmas tree (if you remember, I take it down ornament by ornament per the lists that I keep!) (400 ornaments!!)
-Taking down the Christmas Village that covers three scrapbooking tables!!!
-Painting Ryan's bathroom. We're starting potty training and thought a new bathroom would help him. He and Annie have always shared the bathroom in Annie's room. 'His' bathroom has always been disgusting. Old wallpaper half torn off the walls. The kitty box in there. Blech! But now it's beautiful.
-Painting the guest room. Same as above. It's always been so blech. I painted it 'Iced Tea' and got rid of some furniture. I'm going to buy some frames and put pretty scrapbooking paper in them to decorate!
-Learning this new Mac and trying to get things transferred over.
-All the usual After-Christmas return shopping
-Getting all the January kits shipped out
-Getting a new battery for my car
-Getting Emissions testing on my car
-Still trying to get the stain out of the carpet from the water leaks that we had
-Taking care of Annie who has strep.
-Actually getting a couple of pages done

And those are just the bigger things!  I have had a little bit of fun playing with the mac (more on that below).  Here's a little 'movie' that I created.

It is from Christmas Morning.  Christmas was soooo nice this year!  We spent the evening of the 23rd with my stepmom.  We usually do this on the 24th, but the kids always end up overtired from all the excitement.  So, this year, we did it early.  Which left us the 24th to just relax.  That evening, we watched the Elmo Christmas Special that was on TV, put out cookies for Santa, and got the kids ready for bed early!

The next morning, we woke up to the most beautiful snow!  I had no idea that it was supposed to snow so the surprise made it even better!  The kids were wide-awake, not a grump in sight!  We enjoyed the morning, had a great dinner at my mom's!  I was especially surprised when my mom (who, mind you, had already given us all of our presents) handed over a brand new mac power book for me when we got to her house!  That (and the new iPhone) are keeping me very busy.  They're the coolest inventions EVER!