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!!!!

Marie-Therese Gown GIVEAWAY !!!!!!!

Marie-Therese Gown GIVEAWAY !!!!!!!

This is THE most amazing costume I've ever seen. I can not believe she's giving it away!!! You HAVE to go check it out on her blog.

SM Birthday Blog Train!!!!!

Welcome to stop #19 on the SM Birthday Blog Train!! You have arrived in Utah!!


To help celebrate ScrapMatters' 1st Birthday a whole bunch of us (CT members and designers) created brag book pages to share with all of you!! They've all been made using the new (free with $10 purchase) kit "You Say It's Your Birthday". It's an AMAZING kit!! If you follow the links, you'll end up with an AWESOME album! Most of the links have 5x7 quickpages in PNG format - all you have to do is add your pictures and you're good to go! But some have even more, like treat toppers and invitations.

These are the stops you should have already made.
1. www.scrapmatters.com/wordpress (team blog)
2. www.andilynn.wordpress.com (Andrea)
3. www.brittishdesigns.blogspot.com (Britt)
4. www.scrapmuss.blogspot.com (Maria)
5. www.chiascraps.blogspot.com (Andrea)
6. www.digitalcreations.typepad.com (Sharon)
7. www.mommaholly.blogspot.com (Holly)
8. www.stacysbackdoor.blogspot.com (Stacy)
9. www.scrappykate.blogspot.com (Kate S.)
10. www.scrap-stuff.blogspot.com (Sya)
11. www.kimbytx.blogspot.com (Kim)
12. www.zane-escraps.blogspot.com (Erica)
13. www.kandykanekreations.blogspot.com (Lisa)
14. www.neeceebeedesigns.blogspot.com (Denise)
15. www.geekydiva.wordpress.com (Kim - tgmousechick)
16. www.plumdumplingdesigns.blogspot.com (Mary)
17. www.joyrevisited.blogspot.com (Heather L.)
18. www.taterscraps.blogspot.com (Tater)


Whew! Are you tired from all the traveling? (And just think, there are still a whole bunch more stops after mine!) Well, without further ado, here is the quickpage and birthday invite I've created for you.....

You can download my brag book quickpage and birthday invite here.

Also, we're all sharing a birthday tradition from our family. One of our family's traditions (that we got from my family, that came from my mother's family :D ) is to let the birthday person pick their birthday dinner. Whatever they request (within reason of course) is what we eat for dinner. We've had spaghetti, enchiladas, macaroni and cheese, and lots of other special requests. Tonight we're having Italian Crockpot Chicken for Amya's birthday dinner. Feel free to share one of your family's birthday traditions with me (we could use a few more)!!

Next stop on the birthday blog train is www.haynay.blogspot.com (Heather N.)

And please remember, we are an international train, so if one stop isn't ready yet, be patient and wait for it to be posted. The freebie links will be valid for a long time, so you won't miss out.

Have fun guys!!!!!

Scrap Matters Birthday Party

The Scrap Matters website is turning one tomorrow (and Amya's turning 8...ACK!!!)! There is a huge freebie they're giving away with every $10 purchase (and almost everything in the store is on sale), there'll be a chat and a Blog Train with freebies! Lots of fun stuff going on. And I'm participating in the Blog Train, so come back tomorrow morning to see the brag book page I made to give away.

more pages

So apparently, I've been a huge slacker about posting scrapbook pages. I have a whopping 7 that I've done in the last month and not posted. oops!! So here they come......

This is the one I made for the speed scrap I hosted today. I came up with the design all on my own (I've been using a lot of templates lately, so this one took me a little longer than usual!) and then came up with 7 instructions to give to the people participating in the speed scrap. The instructions were:
1. Pick 3-5 photos to use. They must show a sequence of events or be a series of photos. If you want, you can run an action on them.
2. Line up your photos, either horizontally or vertically. The focal photo should be larger than the others (it doesn’t have to be a lot larger, it can be just slightly larger).
3. Pick your papers (no more than three). Your background paper needs to be solid, but the other two can be patterned.
4. Mat your photos. (You can use one of the papers you chose…) Your focal photo, however, needs a frame.
5. Add some elements. You need at least one ribbon, one flower, one “bling”, and one staple.
6. Add your title. Your title needs to be a combination of alpha and font. One word should stand out more than the others.
7. Add journaling on some sort of journaling block (it can’t just be typed on your background paper) and date your layout.
It was a lot of fun to host and not as nerve-wracking as I thought.

If you want to see what the participants did with my instructions, you can click here. Oh and this page showcases Erica Zane's products, which you can find here.

This is one my pages for Sya's CT for this month. It's from when we went to Fort Bridger at the end of August for the annual Mountain Man Rendezvous. Kinda fun! (I'll have to remember to tell you about Maricela swimming in the hotel pool when we were there.)


Being on the ScrapMatters CT means that each month I'm assigned 3 designers from the store. I need to make at least one LO for each designer, showcasing their products. This is my LO for Ellie Lash (you can find her things here). These pictures are of the veggies I picked in about 1/2 an hour at the farm.



This was for a speed scrap back in August. I can't believe I never posted it! I won that speed scrap by the way. :) These pictures are of Keith's niece, Ashley, and her baby, Tenley, at Tenley's baby blessing.



This page was for a Template Challenge at Scrap Matters. While in Hawaii, we went to the Dole Plantation and one of the things we did on the tour there was plant a pineapple bush (are they bushes?). Anyway, I had no idea that all you needed to plant pineapples was the top of a pineapple you've already eaten. Cool!



This one was also for a speed scrap in August. I LOVE my wide angle lens - it's the only way I get to be in pictures, since I'm usually the one holding the camera.



Finally, this one was also for a Template Challenge and also showcases Ellie Lash's designs.

Whew!! That was a lot of information! And because I'm lazy and hungry, I'm only going to post a link for credits once. If you go to my ScrapMatters Gallery you can find all these layouts and click on the individual ones to get credits. I have two more pages from other speed scraps during this month that I still haven't finished, therefore totally missing the point of the SPEED scrap. Once I finish them, I'll post them.

Speed Scrap

So I'm hosting my first ever speed scrap at Scrap Matters this Wednesday at 11 am MST. I am super nervous and way excited at the same time. Hopefully it'll go as smoothly as possible!! So here's the annoucement and a preview of the participation prize if any of you are interested in joining me. Wish me luck!!

good or bad?

The girls were eating ice cream sandwiches today and Keith told Téa to go get one for Maricela. She did, but she brought it to him with a big bite missing. Here's the conversation that followed:
Keith: "Téa, who took a bite out of Maricela's sandwich?"
Téa: "I did."
Keith: "Why did you take a bite out of her sandwich?"
Téa: "Because I wanted to see if if was good or bad. And it was good."

Table Cloth Skirt and Dinner Party Top GIVEAWAY !!!!!!!

Okay this is THE coolest outfit I have ever seen. EVER. And I can't believe she made it herself and is giving it away for free!!! You have to check this out...

Table Cloth Skirt and Dinner Party Top GIVEAWAY !!!!!!!

September Desktop

So here's the Sep. desktop.....aren't those veggies huge?

And while I'm at it, here's the August one. I just realized I never posted it. Do you like how we're all wearing our Drywall shirts?

And I'm way too lazy to have done these myself....you can find the Sep one here and unfortunately I forgot where I got the August one.

WooHoo!!!!

I am officially a member of the ScrapMatters Creative Team!! They had a CT call and I applied, not really thinking I would make it. But I did!!! So I'll be on their CT until Feburary and will be creating layouts mainly with things from their store, occasionally posting on their blog, and maybe even hosting some challenges in their forum. I'm really excited about this new opportunity!!! And tonight there will be a speed scrap that I'll be participating in....here's the announcement for it:

And this is the cool prize you get just for participating in the speed scrap:

So if any of you who read my blog are digi-scrappers, hopefully I'll see you there!

so frustrating

I AM SO ANNOYED WITH BLOGGER! I have tried to get this posted three times now and it keeps messing up my post. So I decided to split the update into two posts and hopefully it won't mess up again. ARGH!!!!


So to finish up with Maricela, she gave us a scare yesterday also. She already had a doctor’s appt scheduled to have a wart removed from her finger. About 20 minutes before we had to leave, she was running around in the backyard and ran right into a pitchfork. She got a nice little puncture wound on her leg right where her leg meets her foot. We cleaned it out and figured the doctor could look at it too. So he did and said it should be fine and put some steri-strips on it to help it stay together while it healed. Well after she woke up from her nap, she was crying and saying her “footy” hurt. I thought it had just fallen asleep and tried to calm her down. But about 10 minutes later she was still crying and when I sat her down she cried even more. We quickly figured out that it was her puncture wound hurting her. She couldn’t put any weight on her foot at all and started to cry if it even looked like someone was going to touch it. I was afraid it was infected and we’d have to go back to the doctor’s.
But after some Tylenol she started limping around on it and by the end of the night she was running around like normal.
Keith was joking that it was more like a stab wound and now she can say she’s a true Mexican. Okay. Maricela is also a huge copycat! If anything is said in this house, it’s said twice because you can always hear her little echo. She ADORES her older sisters and follows them around all the time, trying to be just like them. So if Téa’s out doing bike tricks, you better believe Maricela is trying to do them as well.








We went to a demolition derby two weeks ago and had a blast! I was not too keen on going, but once we got there I had a lot of fun.






It was cool to see cars crash into and knock over the cement barriers and one even landed on top of a barrier! Keith and the girls really enjoyed themselves and we all had a good time together.

Last week we went to a ward luau and that was really fun as well. Amya kept calling it a lu-how. Anyway, Amya entered the watermelon eating contest for kids. It was a race to see who could eat the most slices in 20 seconds. While Amya didn’t win (she ate 3), she did go on to eat 7 more that night. I love the little bit of watermelon dripping off her chin in the picture. And Maricela had so much fun playing that she zonked right out as soon as soon as we got home. She loves this little chair.

Whew! I hope that was a good catch-up for anyone who cares and I’m really going to try to not get this behind again.

blogger sucks

Sorry about all the weirdness of the picture placement and the annoying large spaces in the next two posts. Every time I try to go and edit them, blogger acts like there's nothing in the post. So it's either delete the whole post and start over, or leave it like it is. Seeing as how it took me three hours already to get those stupid things posted because blogger was already being annoying, I'm not gonna mess with them.

buckle up, it's gonna be a long ride

I realized the other day that I have not been updating like I used to. I've posted scrapbook pages and a few tidbits here and there, but I'm not keeping track of what the girls are up to... and that's what the original plan for this ole blog was. So I'm gonna try to stay more on track with keeping all y'all up to date with the goings on of our household. Here goes.......

Amya got her ears pierced this month! Or to quote her, she got her "earrings pierced". I think it sounds cute when she says it like that and Keith keeps trying to correct her. She was so brave. She sat right down, let the lady clean and mark her ears, and then counted down for her to pierce. It hurt a little bit, you could tell she was kinda cringing for the second one, but she was a trooper. Didn't complain at all, cause she knew it would scare the other girls.
We plan on getting theirs done too, but we're waiting to find a time when there are 2 girls working so that they can do both ears at the same time. That way it won't be as bad for the younger girls. Keith has said since before Amya was born that his girls couldn't get their ears pierced till they were 18. I fought him on this, as that was a rule for me and I HATED it, but he wouldn't give in. Then while we were in Hawaii, he saw some pretty flower earrings and said "Wouldn't those look pretty on my girls?" and that was that. He is such a softie! :)










Amya also started 3rd grade! I can't believe how old she's getting. We braided her hair the night before so it would be curly and she was very pleased. I think Spanish will be a little harder for her this year, as the Spanish teacher is pretty demanding, but she should be able to do it. We'll just have to practice speaking it more at home because that's where she's the most behind.











Elena continues to be our reigning dance queen. She dances all over the house. And it doesn't matter what type of music she's listening to - rap, classical, hispanic, jazz, reggae, etc. - she's got a special dance for everything. She goes right along with the beat and makes up moves that totally go with the music. We seriously need to put her in dance classes. In this picture, she's trying to do the chicken dance. A lady on the other side of the railing was doing it, and Elena was copying her every move. She also loves to try and do gymnastic tricks. Cartwheels, somersaults, hanging upside down, she's way into that.

She wears dresses or skirts EVERY day, unless we make her wear shorts. Even while biking, she has to look her best. :) She's learned how to tuck her skirts under her b*m when she rides so they don't get caught in the chain. She gave me a little scare yesterday. She was upset about something she was coloring, so she started to throw a hissy fit. She threw her head back and hit it on the cement blocks we have lining our front garden. Obviously she started to cry and I told her "That's what you get for throwing a hissy fit". Not
a lot of sympathy from me.
She came over to me and leaned up against me, so I started rubbing her head where I thought she had bonked it. My hand got wet. I pulled it away and, sure enough, it was bloody. I ran her inside and Keith and I washed off her head and tried to see how bad it was. Keith didn't think it needed stitches, so we just put pressure on it till it stopped bleeding and then borrowed some super glue from our neighbors and glued it shut.

In Téa news, that girl is CRAZY!!! I think she is, by far, our biggest tomboy. She is SO into doing tricks on her bike, playing in the mud, wearing Spiderman, Diego, Transformers, etc. stuff, runs around without a shirt on, and LOVES bugs. She has about 10 different tricks she does on her bike like standing up, riding with no hands, no feet, one hand, one foot, feet over the handlebars, etc. She is such a little stunt devil!! I love this picture of her riding with one leg behind - it looks like she's been amputated at the knee....crazy kid.


She also LOVES to color. She literally colors every day and does SUCH a good job. She tries so hard to stay in the lines...she gets this intense look of concentration on her face while she's working.
It is SO cute.

On to Maricela.....I cut her bangs yesterday. They weren't long enough to put back, but they kept getting in her eyes, so I decided to cut them. We think she looks pretty darn cute with bangs. Also, Keith decided it was time to potty train her. So she's been wearing und*es this week and doing pretty good with them. She doesn't tell us she has to go, we just make her go all the time. She's had a few accidents when we've forgotten to take her though. So I'm not too sure SHE'S ready to potty train, but Keith is. He thinks if we keep taking her, she'll eventually get the hang of it. We'll see how that goes.

bun in the oven

Elena made this drawing for me today.

In case you can't figure it out, that's me and a baby in my tummy. Yep, you heard it here - I'm knocked up again. :)

Garden Party Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

This lady has a beautiful website and if I link you to it, I'm entered to win a GORGEOUS little girl's dress. I couldn't resist. Check out her website - you won't be disappointed!

Garden Party Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

new scrapbook pages

So I've been a pretty busy scrapper this past week, but I couldn't post any of the pages till this past Friday. Then things got busy, and I didn't make it here to post them on the blog till now. I made three pages for Sya's Blueprints, as she had a grab bag that came out with the re-opening of the Scrap Matters store. We couldn't post our pages until the grab bag was available for purchase. Then last week, I was accepted onto another CT, this time for Jeni Hopewell, who also sells at Scrap Matters. She also has a grab bag out in the store, so I created a page using things from her grab bag. (In case you don't know, a grab bag is kind of a mystery. They're usually around $3-4, but you don't know what's in them till after you've purchased them. But they're always worth way more than what you pay for them.) So without further ado, here are the pages (the first three are using templates from Sya's grab bag and the fourth uses a template from Sya and stuff from Jeni's grab bag).....

credits

credits

credits

credits

Last, but not least, there was a speed scrap over at Scrap Matters this morning and this is the page I made for it.

credits

Amya's Curls

We experimented with french braiding Amya's hair, leaving it in for a few days, and then taking it out to see how curly it would be. Amya was SO happy when she saw her hair! I can see us doing this a lot more often in the future.....




But next time we take pictures, we'll make sure she hasn't been drinking KoolAid right before. :)

CUTE camera straps

I am REALLY missing my camera! On Mari's birthday, I went to take a picture of her and the camera wouldn't focus. I tried a few times, turning it on and off, but I still couldn't get it to work. So I thought I'd take off the lens and put it back on, thinking that might reset it. Boy was I surprised at what I saw when I took off the lens! A piece of the lens (where it connects to the camera) was melted AND a part of the camera (where the lens had been connected) was melted! I took it to the shop right away (thankfully we have it under warranty) and all four people in the shop said they had never seen anything like that before. It hadn't been dropped or gotten wet or anything....it was really weird. Anyway, they sent it in to be fixed, but I've been without a camera for 2 weeks now and I'm going through withdrawals. Then when I saw these:

I was even more depressed. I can just imagine putting one of these on my camera. They are SOOO pretty! She has a ton more in her etsy shop: Cotton Candy by Natalie. My friend Amy got one like this the other day and it looks so cute on her camera. Natalie's also having a little contest on her blog where, if you talk about her straps on your blog or on a message board, you have a chance to win one of her straps! How exciting! So I'm crossing my fingers that my camera (my "precious" according to Keith) comes back to me soon and that I win the contest. Go check out her shop - you won't be disappointed!

Happy Birthday, Maricela

Okay, this post is over a week late, but better late than never, right?

Maricela turned 2 on July 21. I can't believe my baby is 2!! I guess that means I can't call her my baby anymore. :( She rang in her birthday in style though, with an Oscar worthy hissy fit performance. She has continued to bless us with the joys of hissy-fitting every day since. Honestly, that girl had probably only thrown a hissy fit a few times before, but it's like she thought "I'm gonna show them what the 'terrible twos' are really like, and what better day to start than on my 2nd birthday?" Today she literally threw herself off my bed during a hissy fit because I hadn't put her shoe on the way she wanted it. Luckily she was okay, but falling off the bed only made the fit worse. Argh. Hopefully this will pass quickly. :)

Since my camera died right after I took the picture of her holding her birthday money from Noel, I have no other pictures of her birthday. :( So I've decided to share lots of other pictures to help describe what she's been up to lately.

She loves playing in water, whether it's stomping in puddles, getting Daddy wet with the hose, shooting water guns, or playing in the little pool at the farm.

She LOVES jewelry. She has this pink necklace that she wears EVERYWHERE. She loves to put 'pretties' in her hair (that's what we call ponytails) and she gets into my makeup.

Maricela loves to draw. She scribbles on everything with anything she can get her hands on. We've had to pay for marked up library books, there's a new art gallery on my wall, she colors on herself and her clothes, etc.

She is definitely an eater. She takes after her daddy. Here's she's eating a bean tapatía. Apparently she was more interested in the beans than the tortilla.

She loves to wear pretty dresses and skirts and is always willing to put on a cheesy grin for a picture.

She loves to be outside. Whenever she hears the door open (we have squeaky doors) she starts yelling "Ah-siy" (outside) over and over, while running towards the door.

She's a goofy little girl who loves to make us laugh. We definitely have another Keith Jr. on our hands in that department.

She loves anything that has to do with Princesses. She has this funny way of saying princess, something like "lellellellella". I'll have to get video of her saying it and post it.

Maricela also loves babies. She has to have her baby with her when she goes to sleep and she carries it around with her all day long.

She's also into bugs. She loves to go out with Téa and hunt for roly-polys. She calls them po-wees, and any other bug she sees is a pi-der (spider).

We love our little Maricela and are so glad she is a part of our family! Happy Birthday Mari!!!

p.s. Mom, these photos are big enough to print and should still look good, not all pixelated.