Back in action...again.

I feel like a stranger to my own blog... like I've managed to sneak backstage, but I really don't belong here.
Since I last posted a month ago, I figured it was time. I'll ease back into things, and share some layouts with you today. But I AM now operating with a new planner (I'll try to come back and share about that), so perhaps I can actually begin to plan some blog time into my craziness that I call life.

Anyway.

Can I tell you something? I love Halloween time. I love the colors. And I love the decorations. And I love the candy. Oh, sweet candy! And I love the digital kits that come out at Halloween. (No, I'm not saying this to be a sales person... it's the truth!)  Something about the kits - the black and gray. The purple and orange and green. The angsty moody kits, the fun and kid-friendly kits. They all make me happy.... maybe because I have a very complicated personality that is both fun and kid-friendly as well as angsty and moody? I digress...

So anyway, that being said, this has been a good week for me. TLP's designers have been releasing tons of fun Halloween goodies this week, and I WANT.THEM.ALL!  I have already snagged a few of them, and have major plans (maybe next week while Lucas is traveling... I always seem to think that's when I'll get to play, and it always seems to turn out that i have ZERO free time when he's gone) to go back and grab a few more. For real, you should go check them out. They're having a big Halloween bash, with giveaways and games and prizes and whatnot.  Fun times, my friends.

Okay, so I managed to find time yesterday to finish 2 pages! What?! Two pages in one day is unheard of anymore. So, yes, I was pretty excited about that.

Click layout to view credits

Click layout to view credits

Sandy Bottoms

Last weekend we made a trip to Ohio for a day with family. While our schedules have been crammed full lately, I'm SO glad we made the time to get there. We had a great time!

It was the first time we had traveled with both dogs (other than to the vet). It was also the first time either of the dogs had had a chance to play in water. While Weimaraners are water dogs, apparently Dublin did NOT get the memo. He's not such a fan of water. Translation....hates it.... so much so that when we go running, he will run around rain puddles so he doesn't get his feet wet. Seriously. He's not a fan. So we weren't sure how this pond playtime was going to go. As it turned out, it wasn't so bad after all (although I'd say he's still not a big fan of water).

First things first... right away he and Arya sniffed out a dead crayfish under the dock. Dublin snagged it, tossed it up on the beach, and proceeded to roll all over the dead fish like it was his long lost friend (see its claws sticking out under his cheek here? Ewww). Weird. And gross. But apparently it made him happy (just look at his goofy smiley face in the 2nd picture)

For the longest time he watched safely from the dock as the kids splashed and played. He wanted so badly to play with them, but he just wasn't willing to get wet in order to do it. So he looked on longingly, wishing he could be part of the action.

This is my niece, C.

And goofy Meagan, of course!

 

And C's little sister, D. The girls had a great time playing together all afternoon! 

Finally, at some point, Dublin decided that  he would test the waters. There was a football that he wanted, so he very cautiously tiptoed in. He never dared to go out far enough to where he couldn't reach and was required to swim.... that is until I scooped him up and plopped him out into the deeper waters. He swam just fine, but wasn't too happy about the whole thing.

Let's face it... this is NOT a look of joy on his face. But hey, at least he retrieved his football!

Arya seemed to have less of an opinion on the water in either direction. I think she was okay with it, but she didn't go in because Dublin wasn't going in. Plus, she had quite an affinity for the sand and was perfectly content to dig down into the sand and make a cozy little spot for herself.

Cracks me up!!! She looks like a cartoon character!

So, that, in a nutshell was our day with family. We went to the park and did family photos. We cooked out. We went swimming. The kids played on a big giant water slide. And the dogs ran around outside all day in a cloud of happy puppiness. It was a great day! So worth making the time to get there!

Of course, I had to get the memories into my 2013 album. Here's my 1st page... Dublin and his crayfish.

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Mr. Bubbles

A new layout to share with you today! I used July BYOC goodies available at TLP.

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Sick Day Snuggles

I shared these pictures right after I took them, but I finally got around to putting them into a layout. I used a bunch of TLP products mixed and matched. You can click here to view full credits. I used this layout that I had pinned on Pinterest as inspiration for this layout.

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catching up on layouts (again)

i have a bunch of layouts i just haven't had the time to post. i'm just trying to get caught up a bit, especially now that puppy-head is becoming less needy in the evenings... MAYBE i might get a wee bit of my free time back? i'm not holding my breath. but here's hoping!

Where the Birds Fly

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Silver Orange Boy

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Tackle Football

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Creepy Crawly Pumpkins

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check you out

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Layout Upload

Once again, I've fallen behind in getting things posted in a timely manner. I really need to work on being not-so-busy and not-so-tired-when-I'm-not-so-busy.

It's been a busy week for the designers I create for, and I've spent what little bit of free time I have had trying to keep up on layouts. Three to share with you this week.

Pumpkin Loot
These photos were taken last October (2011) on the train headed home from the pumpkin patch.

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So Happy Together

These pictures are just some quick snapshots of the kids and a friend playing outside in our back yard. 

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Close Encounter

One of the unique things about our town is that it has an old railroad track that runs right through the center of one of the downtown streets. Apparently, as the train line became more and more obsolete *insert sad face* the town built up around it with little regard to the location of the train track. Now the line is only used by the Transportation Museum when they run train excursions (like our pumpkin patch train ride in the photos above) or when they use it to transport people into downtown Indy for the State Fair and such. So, typically, this track is inactive, and we all ignore it. Well, the other day, we were all in the van on the way home. As we were sitting at the stop light, we saw this big ol' engine headed straight for us. Literally, the thing passed within mere inches of our van, and the whole train just hauled itself parallel to the cars that were sitting at the light. It was kind of a cool experience, as it's not one I've ever had before. 

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Some layouts to share... I'm too lazy to tell you about them... There are links. Click on them. Read about them. See the credits. Done.

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Before I share my layouts for today, I thought I'd pass along some fun stuff... The Lilypad is having a store-wide sale this weekend... 30% off of everything thru the 20th!  Click the image to check out the shop...

I have 2 layouts to share with you this week...

The first one is a memory from our camping trip this summer... I didn't have any pictures of our night by the campfire making s'mores, but I still wanted to document it. I used a fantastic new camping kit by Karah Fredricks & Gina Miller...

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Journaling: "Yes we did make s'mores, but it was too dark out for pictures. Saturday night, just before we got cleaned up for bed, we roasted marshmallows and made s'mores over the campfire. It's a good thing too, because we only ended up staying one night."

For layout #2, Krista Sahlin of Sahlin Studio asked the members of her creative team to pick their favorite Sahlin Studio kit or product and make a layout with it. I thought it would be fun, but I didn't expect it to be so hard! She has a LOT of great stuff, and picking a true favorite is virtually impossible. I do have a handful of kits, though, that I am more drawn to, for the colors or element style or whatever. I chose to use Field Trip and a few other mix-and-match items to go with it...

Meagan's lunch she made for herself the night before her first day of 2nd grade...

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Journaling: "I packed my own lunch for the 1st day of school. Apples and kiwi, cheese, peanut butter and jelly, cherry tomatoes from our garden, mini cinnamon graham crackers, and mommy threw in a mini york peppermint patty."

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Right Now

It's been a while, but I'm hosting this week's Digi Dare. This week, the dare is to scrap about things that are part of everyday life right now. Here's my take on the dare....

I used Little Butterfly Wings' new collaboration with Amy Wolff - Strike a Pose - for the base of this layout, and then added a few extras for details.  (Click here to view full credits)

Come play along with our dare this week! This month is another one full of great sponsors, and great prizes!!!

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Layouts...

I can't believe it's been over 2 weeks since I've posted anything! I'm such a slacker!

Well, 2 weeks ago, we went camping. And then we got the kids ready for vacation with Grandpa & Grandma H. Last week, the kids were gone, and Lucas and I took the week to ourselves... which didn't really involve sitting down to blog much apparently. And while I have plenty of pictures, I don't have any resized and ready to share.  Plus, photobucket is being dumb and difficult right now. So, I'm going to skip that. 


Instead, all you're getting from me right now is a few layouts to get me caught up. And then I have to go get ready for the day. I've been a bum all morning, but it's about time for me to clean up my act and go do something. Plus, I'm working at the Bush/Nickleback concert tonight... I don't care one way or the other about Nickleback, but I L.O.V.E. Bush - at least some of their older stuff... hope they play plenty of that tonight. And besides, I get to spend the evening with some of my favorite friends, so that will be fun no matter who is playing on stage! 


Okay, so the layouts... here they are...


The story behind this one... this past weekend we hung out with Shane & Tina, and sometime late in the evening we watched the documentary It Might Get Loud, which is Jimmy Page, The Edge (from U2), and Jack White - 3 generations of guitarists - talking about making music with guitars. Loved it! I've been a Jimmy Page fan for years, so it was just fun to watch him, but I was really struck by Jack White. He's got a crazy creative mind. He's super eccentric and artsy, and fascinating. So on the way home from visiting, we dug out an old White Stripes album we've had since college and rediscovered his music. I gotta say, I'm a fan, as unexpected as that may seem.

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Second layout... some of the TLP designers are featuring Christmas in July. I used some of Lauren Grier's Christmas goodies for this page of Meagan decorating our wooden Christmas tree last year. 

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Last layout... on Monday Lucas and I went to St. Elmo's for a dinner date. Before we left, we snapped this picture of us together... seems we have very few photos with both of us, let alone only the 2 of us.

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So there it is. I used lost of new Froggy Friday stuff in all 3 layouts. You can see TLP's Froggy Friday sale (20% off new releases today through the end of the weekend) in the TLP Shop.

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Butterflies at the Zoo

I know this will seem like something totally obvious to most of you whose brains work like normal people's brains do, but I have this idea to go through a whole year of photos and finish scrapping that year so that I can actually make an album out of the layouts! Novel idea, right? I just don't ever really scrap like that. I don't go in order. I just scrap whatever I feel like... it could be from 2012 or from 2002. So for me, focusing on one specific year is actually quite a challenge. Yes, I'm still going to be scrapping 2012 because I like to scrap the stories while they're fresh in my mind. But other than that, I'll be trying to work my way through 2011 (although probably still not in much of a chronological order). 

These photos are from a zoo trip in July 2011. We met friends of ours there, and spent the day with them. I have about a zillion photos from that one zoo trip. These were just the ones from the butterfly section back in the back (actually, just SOME of the ones from that section of the zoo... *sigh*... I'm a photo-taking junkie, and I need help). 

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Friday Layout Dump

I've managed to do a handful of layouts in the past few weeks, but I've not so much managed to get them posted on my blog. To be honest, I'm still sort of avoiding my blog at the moment, and only giving it my attention when I have a large chunk of time available to give.... it really should not take as long as it has been to post a few pictures. *sigh*

Anyway, since mid-April I've done a few layouts that haven't made their way onto the blog... I figured this fine (somewhat cloudy and gloomy) Friday morning would be the perfect time to get caught up a bit. So brace yourself for quite a few layouts...

Using June BYOC goodies (BYOC just released today, and there's a great sale this weekend, so check it out!!). Meagan got 2 brand new boxes of sidewalk chalk for her birthday. We opened up one of the boxes and took a picture of the rainbow of fresh chalk just waiting to be put to creative use! Our driveway is now artfully covered in random drawings. :)

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I know I didn't tell you, but Meagan and I went to Chicago last weekend! We got tickets to go to the Secret Classic gymnastics meet, which means she got to see Jordyn Wieber in person!! AND she met Nastia Liukin and had a conversation with Marta Karolyi.  Are you kidding!! I think the whole time she was talking to Marta (about her boot), I was standing there trying not to let my jaw hang wide open. It was surreal!  Anyway, before the gates opened, we were standing around outside just waiting. We (well, mostly SHE) made silly faces and took pictures to keep ourselves entertained.

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On our way to one of Isaac's lacrosse games (remember the game where I went trash digging and got the cabinet for the kitchen?), we ate lunch in the van on the way to the game. Meagan wanted Burger King, and even though the boys wanted Taco Bell, they got their drinks at the BK drive through... Vanilla Sprite apparently was too big of a temptation to resist. Vanilla Sprite? Um, sounds gross to me. But they seemed to think it was fantastic! *shrug*

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Just a random layout to document life. I love that our kids are who they are, and that they give little regard to what others think. I love that they have the courage to do what they love. Sebastian, being a gymnast instead of a jock, is definitely the odd man out in his grade. I think sometimes it does get to him a bit, like in gym class when everyone else is better than him at basketball. I worry that he will eventually cave to what he thinks he SHOULD be instead of being who God has made him to be. I hope that never happens, but it is a daily struggle - not just for him, but for all of us I think. 

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2 Easter layouts that I THOUGHT I shared, but can't seem to find on the blog anywhere. If they're duplicates, sorry. 

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Of COURSE I have to document Meagan's first lost tooth! These are the major milestones of life, right?! 

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I've been meaning to scrap the pet caterpillars / butterflies for a while, but just haven't gotten around to it. I still may do another layout to capture a few other things about it. This one is all about setting them free! She was so happy that they flew out and moved into the field behind our house. 

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Some photos from last summer... on one of our trips home to Ohio, we all got together out in the back yard and played dominoes together. We laughed and had a great time until night fell and the bugs chased us away.

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And last but not least... my cake pops experiment. They were pretty, but SUPER sweet. The kids loved them, and at least I had a birthday cake!

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