such a hoot

Hailey has been getting a lot of face time on our blog lately with her starting school and turning 5 right beforehand. I thought it would be nice to share some of that spotlight with Sarah today.

Our 3 1/2 year old Sarah is quite a hoot.

Really, she is.

Sarah is a funny little girl with a very clever and very funny way about her. She does things that catch us off guard, things that make us laugh and laugh and laugh.

And, when I asked her to smile for the camera the other day and she gave me this silly cheesy grin I couldn't resist the urge to scrap it.

Supply credits: everything is from American Crafts except for the little googly eyes I added to the cute owls.

my little flipper

As of this coming Monday all of our girls will be enrolled in gymnastics classes at a local gym. Hailey and Sarah have loved it so far, love practicing what they learn here at home, spend lots of time jumping on their mattresses, doing rolls and flips in the living room and climbing the walls, hanging from the bars on our treadmill (at least it gets some use that way!) and doing all kinds of crazy stunts.

I love that the girls have the opportunity to do gymnastics- it was something I wanted to do so badly as a kid but because of finances I was never able to. My sisters and I watched the "Nadia" movie on tv and taught ourselves how to do cartwheels and other kinds of flips, the splits, etc. and practiced these around the house and put on shows for our neighbors in our front yard.

Going to gymnastics gives the girls something to look forward to each week, has helped them gain confidence in themselves and their abilities and allows them to run around and get some good exercise before bedtime.

Yesterday while Hailey was at school and Aimee was taking a nap I was sitting at home with Sarah and watching part of a gymnastics program we'd recorded from television when she asked me, "Will I be able to do gymnastics like that some day?"

Take a look at these pics and tell me what you think.

I would dare say that since she is doing these things as a 3 1/2 year old there is a chance she'll learn to do some of those fancy moves the gymnasts do. Not that we're looking to keep our kids in gymnastics long-term but it's fun for them to do for now, and I love watching them practice their tricks in my living room :)

fun scrap stuff for you, $$$ for me

As many of you know I am a member of the design team at My Scrapbook Nook. It's a great company with a monthly kit club and each month club members get a kit full of the latest and greatest products in the scrapbooking industry, paying just $28 and usually getting more than their money's worth.

The deal is, we need more members!!! Before joining the design team in July I had been a member of the kit club for about a year and have loved each and every kit I have received. With some scrapbook kit clubs you might like a kit one month and hate it the next but this is not the case with the Home Scrap Club at My Scrapbook Nook. Our team leader, Leah Killian, very carefully designs the kits each month so that all of the products coordinate beautifully, the kits are versatile and fun and are something I've come to love.

I've shown you some projects in the past that I created using kits from My Scrapbook Nook and from those you can see the variety of the products available. The September kit will feature the following:

10 sheets of Amber Road Paper from Pink Paislee
2 die cut sheets of Amber Road
1 package Amber Road Punch Outs (die-cuts)
1 sheet of Amber Road borderlines Stickers
Making Memories Ribbon
Zva Creative Black Bling Swirls
Prima Cherry blossoms in starlit night
Maya Road grey pearl pins
Maya Road Chipboard Postage Book Coasters
A coordinating Making Memories alphabet

Doesn't that sound fabulous? All of that for just $28 for our club members. And, if that is not enough for you there are also add-ons available in the online store, products carefully chosen to coordinate with the kits. You can check out this kit and previous ones at http://www.myscrapbooknook.org/club.shtml

If that sounds good to you, here's something to sweeten the deal. Not only do you get a fabulous kit each month if you become a member of the club, I get $5 store credit for each person who joins the kit club and mentions my name. Now I know you'd all love to help me, right? And, as a member of the club you get tons of inspiration from the design team and other members to help you use up your kits, free classes and lots of fun new product to play with. We have a friendly online community, gallery overflowing with beautiful projects that you will just love.

Pam, the owner of My Scrapbook Nook, runs lots of incentives for new members of the Home Scrap Club and if you sign up for a kit club membership you just might get a little something extra!

So, what do you think? Head on over to My Scrapbook Nook, take a look around and there's a pretty good chance you will get hooked!! If so, let me know what you think and make sure to mention my name, Becky Williams, if you decide to go ahead and join.

scrappy goodness with Cherry Hill

As I've mentioned before, I haven't been able to do a lot of scrapbooking lately.

I did get a couple pages done this last week that I'll share with you today and hopefully after we get settled with a routine with Hailey in school and Sarah starting the preschool group next week I'll have more time to do some scrapbooking.

For now I will show you these:

This is just a quick card using one of the October Afternoon Cherry Hill journal cards, some scraps, American Crafts Thickers, glitter glue and some twine.

And, a layout of my cute Hailey girl. I love the cheerful colors of this collection and it went just perfectly with this cutesy picture of Hailey.

Have a great day!!

first day of kindergarten

As most parents can attest, taking your oldest child to school on the first day of kindergarten can be a bittersweet experience. We were excited for Hailey to begin school and she was more than thrilled. She is a smart girl, her preschool experience last year more than prepared her for what was to come at school today. I think a lot of what she'll learn these first few weeks will be review for her, which is fine...I like the idea that she'll understand things well and that will hopefully help her grow in confidence that she can do it. We were a little sad to leave her at school all day, too used to having her around all the time.

Here she is all dressed and ready to go, backpack on and lunchbox in hand.

While Matt was trying to play it cool I think he was a little sad to leave Hailey at school.

And, here we are after leaving the cafeteria where the kids gather in the morning, on our way to her classroom. She seems so big to us at home but looked so little there with the other kids.

I picked Hailey up from school this afternoon, excited to hear all about her day and instead of her being anxious to tell me about her day she seemed a big sheepish- she'd gotten a time out on her first day because she was hungry- hadn't eaten enough of her lunch- and got up to get a snack out of her bag. So, she got in trouble. Poor girl. I know tomorrow will be better.

p.s. I talked to Hailey's teacher and it turns out she didn't give Hailey a time out; what actually happened was that H just ate her snack on the way outside to play instead of waiting until they sat down together outside so she just had to sit and wait for her classmates to eat before getting to go play. No big deal.

and some new layouts...finally

I have been promising you some new layouts and I can finally show you those.

First our computer was down and I had no way to transfer pics to the old computer.

Then we had to get a new photo editing program since my ACDSee got cleaned off with the repair. (I got Photoshop Elements to replace it, WOOHOO!!!, but I'm still trying to figure out how it works as it's much more complicated than the other program).

So, today, I will share with you a few I have been holding onto lately. I can't promise the best pictures yet because I am still figuring out my photo editing program so hopefully the camera did its job :)

I am still trying to get back into my groove with scrapbooking. It seems that I lost my creativity somewhere and these pages are my attempt to get it back. There's nothing earth-shatteringly amazing here but at least I am scrapping again, right?

i am back!!

Yippeeeeee!!!

Can you tell that I am excited to have my computer back?

Now to download some photo editing software since ours was cleaned off with the repair.

Turns out we had a massive virus that our virus protection software didn't catch and it was slowly eating away at our computer causing all of the strange white screens, not-so-unexpected shutdowns and other issues.

I am so happy to be back.

Are you happy to see me?

Leave a comment so I know I still have some readers out there :)

I'll be back again a little later with some scrappy goodness for you.

Maybe now my mojo will return.

Until then...have a great Saturday!

i've come a long way, baby

While my pictures are stuck in limbo-land on my camera (our old computer won't recognize the camera/install the driver correctly for me to transfer pics to the computer- can't wait to get our other one back!!) I thought I'd share some old layouts so you can see just how far I've come.

Don't laugh too hard, remember that these are years old and that I have learned so much since these were created. I also do not have my photo editing software on this computer nor is there room on the hard drive to download something to use in the interim, so these are as-is. No fancy touches, sharpening or color adjusting.


But at least they will keep my blog from being so lonely. I have done some new pages and can't wait to share them with you once everything is up to speed again.


Remember, be gentle. These are so old. Hopefully you can see some improvement since I made these old pages.

This is little Sarah when we lived in Boise. Can you believe how little she was back then? She has changed so much but still has those big brown eyes and long, curly lashes. Real old Crate Paper, Basic Grey stickers, Heidi Grace brad flowers and some old chipboard, not sure who made those flowers.

And this is Hailey, now 5 years old. All of our kids have worn this cute little pumpkin costume. Check out the little Chatterbox letter stickers on the little blocks. I thought the cork paper was so trendy at the time.
This, too, is little Hailey, about 2 years old here.

This family pic was taken while we were on a campout in McCall, Idaho the summer before we moved down to Texas. Hailey and Sarah have changed so much since then. Old KI Memories paper, Maya Road and Prima flowers.

This is Hailey and Sarah (and some really old Basic Grey paper)when Sarah was less than a week old. Yeah, Hailey was sticking her finger in Sarah's ear. Silly girl.

So, now that you've had a good laugh you can go back to your day. I hope to have some recent work to show you in the next few days.

Happy Birthday to Hailey

It's amazing how time flies, isn't it?

While it seems so long ago that we first had our baby, Hailey, it's also hard to believe that today she is turning 5 years old.

We tried for so long to have kids that when we finally had her it was almost surreal. We'd had to wait so long and finally our little girl was here. What a sweet blessing she was back then.

Now she is growing up, getting smarter and smarter every day, learning to read, sharing with us stories that we've read so many times she has them memorized, singing Primary and Princess songs at the top of her lungs with a most beautiful voice, making the most creative and lovely drawings. We love her Princess pictures with the puffy sleeves!

We love Hailey's zest for life, her enjoyment of little things, her willingness to help with dishes and other things so that "you can have fun, mommy" (she told me this yesterday), her sweet desires to do what is right. She really is such a sweet girl and such a blessing in our home.

In just one week she'll start kindergarten and I am going to miss her being around all the time. I still can't get used to the idea that she'll be gone all day. I know Sarah and Aimee will miss her, too. Hailey is the organizer, the one who keeps everyone going from one activity to the next. She readies the "tea set" so they can have parties, she turns on the music so they can dance, she orchestrates the mattress jumping sessions. She is perpetually happy. Sometimes a little bossy but really a sweet girl. Yes, I will miss her.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HAILEY.

We love you so very much.

I will have to try later to upload some other pictures of Hailey. The files on this older computer are all messed up and it's not letting me access everything for some reason.

serious blog neglect

Sorry I haven't been around much lately...we've had some computer issues and today our other computer completely died. Nothing we'd previously done worked...all resuscitation efforts failed.

My genius husband hooked up our OLD, super-slow computer so that we can connect to the internet for necessary things but this thing is slower than molasses. Seriously.

We hope to be up and running again soon and I should have some fun new things to share with you.

Since word is out at My Scrapbook Nook I can tell you that the September kit will have some beautiful Pink Paislee...I can't wait to show you a pic of the kit! I can't wait to SEE a pic of the kit, either, lol.

going on a Road Trip with OA*pic added

The August kit from My Scrapbook Nook is such a fun one, and so versatile for scrapping things other than travel. In fact, a lot of what I've seen from the rest of our time has been subjects other than travel if that tells you anything. The colors will go with just about anything.

I would like to think that I am a fun mom, that I am easy-going and let my kids be kids.

There are times when I am probably too hard on them.

Times when I just need to chill out.

But I let them have fun and turn my head and ignore things sometimes just so they can have fun.

One thing I love to watch is them jumping on the bed.

Some people don't like it but we actually encourage it. We pull the mattresses onto the floor and the girls do straddle jumps and tuck jumps and forward rolls and whatever else- flying leaps from the dresser (now that one I don't particularly like) and they laugh and have so much fun.

Seeing these pictures reminded me of part of Celine Dion song that talks about kids. The chorus says something to the effect "let them dance, let them soar, for their lives have begun..."

Kids need to be kids...time passes too quickly and they'll be all grown up.

Let them dance, let them soar.

well, I wanted to post a page but Blogger is having issues uploading pics right now. I'll try again later.

Ok, it's working now. Here's the page I was talking about and a simple card as well.

my poor neglected blog

I haven't had time to scrap much lately with all that's been going on. I really would love to have some time for me to just sit and scrapbook to my heart's content.

I am, however, struggling with my 3 year old right now. It's like I have a rebellious teenager in the tiny body of this girl.

Anyone else ever go through this?

It is so hard.

I am struggling to keep my cool at times.

I did create a page yesterday from our awesome August kit from My Scrapbook Nook and I will try to get it loaded here later on today. And, wait until you see what is coming for September. You will absolutely not want to miss it. And that's all I can say. For now.

lots and lots of pictures

We had so much fun this weekend visiting with old friends. I am so grateful for the time we were able to share with them.

In order to get ready for this weekend I had LOTS and lots of cleaning and shopping to do, then our time was wrapped up being with our friends so I don't have any new scrapping projects to share but I do have some fun pictures.

So, no Sketch Monday today (I really need to get this going again since I missed last week due to no internet.) Maybe I'll get something up for that later today. Or, maybe I'll do that once or twice a month instead of every week. We'll see...

Anyway, here are some fun pictures from my weekend with two of my old college roommates and the time we spent with them. What a blast it was. I was so sad to see them go.

First, we were able to meet with Heather and Brian Smith and their son, Zach. Heather and I were roommates at college about 15 years ago but we'd lost track of each other until she found me one day on Facebook. They happened to be driving through where we live on Friday to go to New Mexico to visit some family of theirs and we were able to get together for lunch. I'd met Brian at school also since he and Heather had dated and then got engaged and he spent quite a bit of time at our apartment back in the days. We had a great time reminiscing and catching up on what has happened over the years. It was so much fun to get to see them again and meet their son.

Brian, Zach and Heather

me and Heather, reunited again :)

me and the family- Hailey, me, Aimee, Matt and Sarah.
Finally a recent family picture with all of us in it.

Here's cute Andi, Hailey's playmate for the weekend. Dylan is Hailey's age but he didn't seem too interested in spending time with her. Silly boy.

And my Aimee. She's such an angel girl.

Here are Sarah and Hailey with Andi on the tire swing at the park

And cute cute Peyton...he kissed Sarah before they left yesterday and said he was going to marry her forever. Is that adorable or what?

And sweet little Soni. She and Aimee had quite the rivalry going.

And little Sarah climbing around

Aren't Sami and Cameron so cute? And to think I knew them before they were even seriously dating. I told her she was going to marry him. I really know how to pick 'em.

Here are Hailey and Andi doing "snow angels" on the grass after we stopped for ice cream.

And my Hailey, almost 5 years old now. Time goes by way too fast.

All of the kids having fun after ice cream. It was great because all of our kids are around the same ages. Andi is the oldest but Hailey and Dylan are only 2 days apart, Sarah and Peyton are close in age as are Aimee and Soni.

Matt and Aimee...I had to beg Matt to give me a "normal" expression for this

pic instead of one of the silly ones he usually pulls. Aimee, however, was not

going to cooperate with me so that I could take her picture.

Wasn't that fun? I have lots more pictures from the weekend but will have to share those another time so that you don't get picture overload :)

Now off to scrap...if I can get the girls to cooperate. Keep your fingers crossed for me!!

and we have a winner!!!

It's about time I picked a winner of my AdornIt blog hop drawing, don't you think?

Well, here it is: #25 (chosen by random.org)

sherree said...
your swing page is just adorable I just love the colors.What a great blog thank you for sharing :)
July 31, 2009 12:34 PM

So, Sherree, I'll be visiting your blog to get your contact info to send you a fun prize, a sampling of the August kit from My Scrapbook Nook (yeah, i got two kits!!) and whatever else I choose to throw in there for ya.

Thanks to all of you for stopping by!

those silly girls and a couple new layouts

Do you know the song, "On top of Spaghetti?"

You know, the one that says, "On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese, I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed."

Well, we were driving home last night from an activity at the church, Matt was at work late so I had the three girls with me and Sarah all of the sudden busts out with this song, only she keeps adding...it rolled in the garden, it rolled in a bush, it rolled in my closet, it rolled in my toilet, it rolled in my...and then it went on and on and on and on for about 10 minutes as we drove to Matt's store to visit for a minute and then she shared a bit of her song with him, and then it continued down the road about 5 minutes until I was going out of my mind with this silly song and I made some comment about how big the moon was and finally got her distracted.

Oh my goodness. Talk about the song that never ends. We went from that song to a talk about going to the moon, what we would take with us on a trip to the moon, why we can't go on Tuesdays (because of gymnastics) and if Jesus is in the moon. I was relieved to have a break from the spaghetti song.

Poor Hailey was about to punch her, I think. Not just because the song was going on and on and on but because when Sarah does something it is never half-hearted. She is sweet as can be but SO feisty and loud for such a tiny person. Oh I love that girl but I was going to lose it if that silly song went on any longer.

And, because I am up at 4 in the morning(!!!) I will go ahead and post a couple of new pages for you. I want to make sure each of my kids gets equal face time here on my blog. I don't want someone to ask why they were hardly featured here and get a complex about it. Hailey has in the past been known to say, "Why did she get to be first? Is it because she is the prettiest?" I don't know where she comes up with these things.

Page credits: everything is Pink Paislee: Office Lingo and Cupcake collections. I used one of the die-cut flowers as a template for making the layered flowers you see here. I then stapled the flowers to the page.

Hailey is certainly a pretty girl, no doubt about that, and she is a little smarty learning to read when she isn't even quite 5 years old. We went to the elementary school yesterday to find out who her kindergarten teacher is going to be and Hailey was positively glowing just walking around in the school, anxious for all of the exciting things that awaited her in the very near future. She's not nervous at all, she tells me. I wish I was so quick to say that as I am a little apprehensive about dropping her off at school that first day.

Page credits: Basic Grey Lemonade collection paper, chipboard and alpha stickers (inked with black), Basic Grey white chipboard alphas, Webster's Pages lace, Hero Arts blue rhinestones, Making Memories tiny alpha stickers. Most of this came from the July kit from My Scrapbook Nook.

And our little Aimee. Such a cutie girl with the sweetest personality. It's too bad that the terrible twos already have a hold on her. Lately she answers every request with the sweetest little sing-song "no." Sometimes it's not so sweet, and as you can tell from the above pictures, she's a bit emotional at times. Add that to her sister, Sarah's temper tantrums over everything lately and we have quite a bit of drama around our house.

These girls...I love them so much but at times I just have to walk away so I don't go crazy.

August kit from My Scrapbook Nook

I have been telling you about and showing you pictures of that awesome August kit from My Scrapbook Nook featuring papers from the Road Trip collection by October Afternoon. Now I am going to show you some things I have made so far using the kit!!

As members of the Nook design team we take turns teaching classes using the kit contents and I thought I'd take the opportunity to sign up for the layout class my first month on the team. It's such a fun kit that I figured, what the hey! Right?

You can find close-ups and all of the detailed instructions for my class here

And here is my page. I decided to make it something fun and something a little more random since the other two layouts I've done so far are more on the clean and simple side.

Isn't that fun? Sarah is such a silly girl and can always make us laugh with her antics.

Here is Aimee with her new-found obsession, the telephone. This page is a tribute to some funny words I taught her not too long ago, a phrase that has come back to "haunt" me time and time again. One day I was talking to Matt on the phone while he was at work and I handed the phone to Aimee so that she could talk to him as well. I told her to say, "hubba hubba" and got a good laugh when she actually did it. "Hubba Daddy," she would say, over and over. Now just about every time she picks up the phone she says, "Hubba hubba. Bye-bye." Such a silly girl.

This third page is a tribute to our long drive from our home in Boise, Idaho to our new home in west Texas about 2 1/2 years ago. Oh, I just realized that I don't have a date anywhere on this page. I'll have to make sure and add that. It was a long trip...too long, too much time for me to think about how much I would miss my friends in Boise, the first home we built together, and lots and lots of memories. I wasn't at all looking forward to moving to our new home and the only thing that I was excited about was spending more time with Matt's parents allowing the kids to know their grandparents really well. I still miss Boise but am trying to make this my home now. Home is where your heart is, right? Part of mine is still back in Idaho but I Texas is surely growing on me.

Isn't that the coolest ribbon? It looks just like a road, doesn't it? And, the 7 Gypsies charms are too cool for school, as they used to say.

Have a great night!

i am back and some fun ScrapStreet news

Have you missed me?

Just kidding.

We had a horrible storm pass through on Saturday morning, tons of lightning and thunder and rain pouring down like crazy around our house. At one point it hit so hard that it set off our home alarm system sending everyone into a panic. It also set off car alarms in the neighborhood and made it so that our cable and internet would no longer work.

You really don't think about how much you are tied to the online community until you no longer have internet access, and of course there was no one from NTS to help us until Monday morning. We called as early as we could today and finally, tonight, had a serviceman come over to check out the problem. Matt had to take a quick trip to Best Buy for a new ethernet port, took a little while to install that and we are back in business!!

Thanks to all of you who commented on my blog hop post. WOW!! I had no idea there would be so many of you. I'll do a random drawing tomorrow or the next day and let you know who the winner is.

Those of you who know me well know that I'd love to be published in a scrapbook magazine someday. I have submitted over and over and over to my favorite print mags in hopes of being pubbed but with no luck. My bruised ego has been helped somewhat by having layouts and cards published in some online scrapbooking magazines.

Because I haven't been able to get online I didn't know this until tonight, but one of my layouts made the cover of ScrapStreet magazine!!! Wow!! That is so amazing to me. Thank you, ScrapStreet ladies, for choosing my page. What an honor.

You can check out the latest issue here http://www.scrapstreet.com/mag2009/09aug/features/oncover.html

Stay tuned this week for fun scrappiness using that awesome August kit from My Scrapbook Nook. I can't wait to show you what I have been working on!!