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

Watching Fireworks

I don't think I've mentioned this here on the blog, but I applied for and was accepted on a digital scrapbooking creative team. A creative team is a group of people who make scrapbook pages using a designer's products to showcase on the internet to get other people interested in buying the products. Make sense? So the team I applied for is a new designer to ScrapMatters who specializes in templates. Her store can be found here. I'm really excited to be able to do this. Here's the first page I've done as a member of her creative team...this is for a template pack that will be available tomorrow.

For credits, click here.

comin to ya live... (part 2)

from San Diego!! We left our hotel this morning to drive down here to take the girls to Sea World. They were so excited to see Shamu again. And this time we got to feed the dolphins and all the girls got the chance to touch a dolphin. That was pretty dang cool. We also fed the seals. The trainer told us not to dangle the little fish over the edge because there were seagulls all around, just waiting for you to do that so they can fly in and steal the fish before the seal gets it. Sure enough, Elena dangled hers over and I got a picture of the bird stealing it out of her hand. Speaking of Elena, we only lost her twice today. So I'd say our parenting skills have greatly improved. Side note - I walked away from her just a little (like 5 feet), but she didn't see me walk away. She turned around, and started looking all around for me. Once she saw that I was nearby, she kind of chuckled and then said "Oh! I thought I was lost again!" And if anyone is wondering, the Orlando Sea World is definitely better than the San Diego one. Not that this one wasn't fun, because it was, the Orlando one is just bigger and better. I don't know what we'll do tomorrow. We don't really know. Maybe check out the Pacific coast beaches (I've never seen the Pacific before - but I'm sure it can't compare with the beaches of Naples) or just sightsee around town. I guess if you care you can check back in tomorrow night. And I still can't post any pictures, but I was able to find these ones of us from the Buzz Lightyear ride at Disney. The one of Amya and Téa didn't come out for some reason, but there's one of me with Maricela, and Keith with Elena. And just so you know, my score is slightly lower than Keith's because I was trying to take pictures and wasn't really concentrating on shooting. (It's actually an improvement on my score from last year!)

comin to ya live...

from Disney!! Amya and I have our fall break this weekend. Keith and I had talked about taking the girls to Disney but didn't have any definite plans. Wed night we were talking about what we wanted to do over this break and Keith said, "So what about Disney?" We packed up and left the next morning. We just spent 11 hours at Disneyland with the girls (which may have been a few too many). I don't have a cord to connect my camera to my laptop, so I can't post any pics, but we had a great time. The girls looked for characters to get autographs, we rode all the rides they wanted to, we lost Elena at least four times and we watched the parade twice. It was a blast. But I'm seriously thinking about stopping at WalMart for a leash for Elena tomorrow before we take off for SeaWorld. If our hotel down there has wireless, I'll update again....maybe we'll only lose her three times tomorrow.



=

ummm, I don't have a fun title today

sooo...yes, I know it's been awhile. But in my defense, we've had some problems. Our computer completely shut down (we think it was a virus) and we went to Texas for a week. So I haven't been able to post for awhile. But now I'm back.

In Maricela news, that girl is movin!! She's crawling all over the house. She can pull herself up to stand (and does it quite often). She follows her sisters wherever they go and has so much fun playing with them. And the girls are so sweet to her. They bring her into their little clubhouses that they make, they make special clubhouses just for her, they share their food with her (not always a good thing), they get her toys to play with, they read to her, etc. It's so neat to watch them play together and know that they're developing this strong sister bond. You can tell that they all just really love each other. Hopefully they won't lose that closeness during the teenage years.....

Yesterday was a great day. We had so much fun together. We went up American Fork canyon to swim in a lake in the middle of the mountains. The water was a little cold at first, but once you got used to it, it felt SO nice. Here are some pictures of us at the lake.


There was a little prairie dog (I think that's what it was) that came over to where we are to beg for some food. The girls thought it was so cute and Elena was trying to get it to eat out of her hand. He was just about to when she moved her head and it scared him off. She got bored of waiting for him (she really did a good job of staying still - I wish she would stay that still at church!) and never did feed him out of her hand.

But Keith did and one of our friends that was there did, too. It got to the point where we had to shoo him away because he was trying to get into the Doritos bag!

Amya definitely won the "staying in the lake the longest" award. She was like a fish! She had her goggles on and was swimming around in tubes and with water wings. She did not want to get out of the water. Her lips were purple and she was shivering, and we couldn't convince her to come out. After she finally did, she ate a little, warmed up, and then said she was going back in!!! Crazy girl!

Tea had a good time. She loves rocks and dirt, so she was totally in her element. She didn't like the cold water very much. It took her awhile to get used to it, and she didn't want her whole body to be in it. She sat on top of me while I was in my tube.

And Maricela had fun as well. She has recently discovered the amazing taste of rocks and dirt and we had a hard time keeping her from eating every one she could put in her mouth. She didn't like the water at all. I tried to put her in it, but as soon as her feet touched the water, she lifted her legs up to her b*tt so that she wouldn't have to feel the cold water. Needless to say, she spent her time on the blanket, trying to eat more rocks.


When we were all tired out from the lake, we packed up our stuff and headed down to the farm. We rested up there and hung out with Bonnie, Joseph, George & Angie & their kids, and Keith's mom. We lit some fireworks around dusk and the girls had a lot of fun with that. They must have thrown hundreds of those little poppers, and the girls had fun going around and stomping on the ones that didn't explode. (Notice that Elena's barefoot but that didn't stop her!)

We also had a lot of fun with the sparklers.


Amya took this shot of Keith, Maricela, and me. I like how she's looking up at us.

George and Angie brought those little neon bracelet and necklace thingies. I think the girls were more excited about those than the fireworks. They had a lot of fun making necklaces, crowns, and bracelets.


One of my favorite shots.

july desktop

Just thought I'd show you guys what my July desktop looks like. All of these pics were taken at Keith's family reunion we went to in Texas. I love the picture of Amya dancing in the top right corner. She was doing "the swim". Enjoy!

Random Pics from the dub-v

I just wanted to get some pics up. Since our camera broke, we didn't take as many pictures as we normally would have. I'm tellin ya, Keith goes crazy with that thing. He took 393 pictures Christmas day, before he dropped it. Imagine how many more we would have if it had been working for the rest of the vacation! So we don't have pics of paintballing with Robert, or going to the Huntington High basketball game (they're ranked #3 in the country, by the way). We don't have pics of us playing games with my brother and sisters, or my girls playing with them. But we had a great time, and I'm sure that we'll remember it without the pictures.

Maricela really liked my dad's beard.


Here's Sally and Ben with all the kiddos.


Here's Memmie, Amya, and me. (Don't I look like a giant?)

This is my mom, Jan, and Kara.

And here's my dad asleep with Maricela. Did you spot the puddle of drool she left on his shirt?


That's all for now. I hear the baby starting to fuss. Oh, I added some more pics to the West Virginia recap post, so be sure to go back and check those out.