pigtails

man, I am on a roll. Here's my third layout in a week. 2nd in a day. pretty amazing if I do say so myself. This one is for that class I'm taking. I am having a lot of fun with it, and learning a lot of stuff that I think will help me be a better digi-scrapper.



p.s. these pictures were taken the very same day as the cocoa puff ones. i had to photoshop some chocolate off her face in the large picture. but that's about all i did to these pictures. aren't her eyes beautiful? that's what you get when you have an awesome lens and a lot of natural light. not to mention a gorgeous subject. :)

snow day

While I was helping my neighbor become addicted to this digital scrapping thing (hi Amy!!), I started another page of my own and finished it tonight.

cuckoo for cocoa puffs

look at me! look at me! (pointing upwards) I have a new blog header. I figured it was about time to update it. ;P Let me know if it looks funny to you so I can make any adjustments it might need.

And here's a page I just finished about Maricela's first time eating cereal by herself. Enjoy!

For credits, click here

In case you can't read the journaling, it says: "This was Maricela's very first time eating her own cereal, in her own bowl, with her own spoon. She was super excited to be feeding herself. It was so funny to watch her hold the spoon with one hand and guide it into her mouth with her other hand. She totally knew I was taking pictures of her and was hamming it up for the camera. And now she won't let us feed her any more - she HAS to do it herself. I am so proud of my little baby, who's not so little any more."

Thanks for looking!

no walls

so I've mentioned a few times that there aren't any walls in our upstairs. Some of you may have doubted me. I wouldn't blame you - it sounds quite strange to not have walls in the whole upstairs portion of your house. While previously I could only have said half of the upstairs, as of today I can now say the whole upstairs. You heard that right - look at what I came home to today.

There are two bedrooms up there and a big landing halfway up the stairs. Before, just one room and the landing were missing their walls, but now the other room has succumbed to the same fate. It is FREEZING up there (not to mention in my portable at school cause the heater's broken) and really messy. All I can say is this better not take him two more years. If it did, I don't know that he would live to see it's completion, as I would most likely kill him from frustration before eh was able to finish. ;P What am I gonna do with him?

Araceli

I have really been slacking off on the scrapbooking thing lately (not to mention the blogging). So to get myself going, I paid to take a scrapbooking class over the computer. I figured this would help me in two ways - one, you better believe I'm going to scrap if I paid to take a class and two, now I can learn some new things and improve my techniques. So this is the layout I did for the first lesson. I really had a hard time finding a picture for it. We learned how to change a photo to a sepia color and then have make part of the photo be in color. I finally settled on this one, and I think it turned out pretty good. Let me know what you think.

found another good movie

Keith and I went to see The Great Debaters last night. It was really good. A movie that makes you think. I've been staring at the screen for the last 4 minutes trying to think of what to say to describe this movie, but I can't think of anything that wouldn't sound, for lack of a better word, silly. It's a movie that deals with racism and prejudices and, for a few minutes, helps you see what it was like back then. And makes you glad you live now. Anyway, a very good movie. Keith was afraid it was going to be dumb, but he liked it as well. I would totally recommend this movie to anyone, but I probably wouldn't take Amya to it. While there were hardly any swear words and one brief sex scene (brief as in like 5 seconds and they don't show anything) it's a movie that deals with racism and extreme hatred. There is a lynching scene that is hard to watch. I wouldn't want to expose her to that kind of hatred. Not that I don't ever want her to know about things like that, I just don't want her to see that now. My mom teases me about letting her watch X-Men and Spiderman, but that's pretend. This is real. And sad. (But still a good movie.) So anyway, don't take your kids, but go see this movie.

january desktop

I'm a few days late, but oh well. Here's my desktop for January.

beautiful face

so I totally wasn't planning on doing a scrapbook page. I came up here and was organizing my scrapbook supplies and came across a few tutorials. I started messing around with them, trying to figure them out and try them out so I could remember how to do it, and then after I had spent so much time on that, I decided to turn it into a page. So on this page, I learned how to make it look like the ribbon was threaded through the letters, and a better way to brighten eyes than the one I had been using. And then Amya came up here and was giving me suggestions on what to do on the page - "I want a little more blue....Can you add some purple? It's my favorite color....I don't want that glittery thing to be touching me (it was over her hair)" and so on. So I guess we both made it. :)

the day of never-ending throw up

**Disclaimer - if you couldn't already tell from the title, this post is going to be gross. Don't say I didn't warn you.**

Yesterday was absolutely horrible.....I think we were food poisoned. :( I woke up with my stomach feeling bad, but I thought I was just hungry. So I ate some cereal and went to work. All day long I had awful stomach cramps. Keith called me halfway through the day to tell me that Maricela and Tea had thrown up (Maricela in the crib and Tea in our bed) and that he had kept Amya home just in case she got sick as well. I had a half day which was lucky because I could hardly stand up by the time I left school. I got home and found out that all the girls were throwing up, except Amya. I laid down on the bed, only to have Maricela throw up on me. I went out onto the couch, and then Tea and Elena threw up on me. None of these girls are able to make it to the bathroom in time, so we were all sitting out in the living room, with towels to catch the puke. I was literally holding towels in front of Elena and Tea at the same time, trying to keep it from getting on the rug. And all of this while my stomach is badly cramping. This went on ALL day long. Keith went to the store to get some Pedialyte for the girls and some Sprite for me. They drank it, and it came right back up. Tea kept asking for more, it was so sad. She'd beg us for more soda, she was obviously hungry and thirsty, but as soon as we gave her any, even just a little sip, it came right back out. So sad.

But it seems like they're all over it now. The girls are all playing in their room. Except Maricela...while she's not throwing up anymore, she's still not back to her normal self. I've already changed three dirty diapers today (and when I say dirty, I mean DIRTY) and she's just been sitting on my lap all morning, till she fell asleep a few minutes ago. Hopefully the nap will give her a little more energy. But the worst is over. I wouldn't wish what we went through yesterday on anyone.

Oh, and it started snowing this morning and still hasn't stopped. We've got over six inches out there. I took some pictures, and I'm gonna take them upstairs so I can post them. While I hate the snow and cold, it is kinda pretty out there.

i elfed the girls

Hopefully this will work....I thought it was so cute!!!!

click here

I think I'm in love....

Sorry the picture's not that big, I found it on the internet. And it doesn't really do them justice. These are the cheese fries from Outback. I had them for dinner tonight. I think they'll be the new thing I crave. And in case you were wondering, here is their nutritional information:

Outback Steakhouse^©
Aussie-Tizers - Aussie Cheese Fries^©
Serving Size: 28 oz
Calories: 2900
Total Fat: 182 grams
Carbohydrates: 240 grams
Protein: 75 grams

Totally worth it though. I think.

amy

How could I forget about Amy? What was I thinking? Amy, you're tagged too! haha

Okay, so I was tagged by Lyn. I've never been tagged before and this one has really hard questions, so I'm not going to be very good. But I'll try.


1. if you owned a bookstore what would you name it: The Shop Around The Corner (because I love You've Got Mail and her name is Kathleen so it works....)
2. which literary hero [male or female] would you like to be: Bella (Twilight fans, you know why)
3. if you were given the chance to be born in a different decade which one would you choose: I don't know....I've always thought it'd be cool to be at a bar-b-que like the one in Gone With the Wind. I like the dresses.
4. who would play you in a movie: I have no idea - Keith says mix Sandra Bullock and Meg Ryan together and that would be me. Whatever.
5. what was your favorite toy of all of time: I think the thing I remember having the most fun playing with is the dress-up box my mom gave me and my sisters one year. She had gone to a whole bunch of thrift stores and bought old prom dresses/bridesmaid dresses/whatever and gave them to us for dress-up clothes. We LOVED them.
6. what do you like to collect: Cookbooks and scrapbook supplies. Oh, and Nativity sets.
7. what is your guilty pleasure: buying clothes and scrapbooking stuff.
8. if you had the power to change one thing in this world what would that be: too hard. i pass.
9. what is your most embarrasing moment: If I could choose one out of the many I've had, I'd keep it to myself. There's a reason those things are embarassing. :)
10. what is your favorite christmas movie: Elf
11. what is your favorite vegetable: Corn and Broccoli
12. tell 3 things about yourself (2 true, and 1 untrue ) and see if we can figure out which is fantasy: If Keith would let me, I would stay in my pajamas and read all day long. I enjoy cleaning my house. Football is my favorite sport to watch.

And now I tag Elaine, just cause she's the only person I know who has a blog. :)

keith's take on the video

so, I made the mistake of showing Keith the video. He thinks this is proof that it's okay to act the way he does when he gets sick. This is what he said...

"Honey, it's true. It's a mancold. You wouldn't know because you're not a man. On a scale of 1 to 10, if you have a 2 (referring to how bad the cold is), we have a ten. You could never have a ten. Cause if you had a ten, that means we're dead."

He may be crazy, but I still love him...