Totally MIA.....

Well, it seems like I havent posted in forever...I am so neglegful of my blog!! But of course....there are reasons.....

I am just getting ready to head in for my 3rd 12 hour night this week!! I am adjusting pretty well, to the whole night shift thing. I am sleeping in the day without too much trouble, and my kids seem to be ok with it. My sweet hubby is helping out GREATLY....I couldnt do it without him.

I do feel a bit disconnected from my life, LOL!! I have not been scrapping AT ALL!.....not a stitch. I miss it. Hopefully once I am in a routine, I can work that back in. I should be able to. I havent been getting online much either....so I am missing the boards/blogs and the scrappy discussions. But it will all come with time.

Also, I wanted to post a quick update on DH...... Lennie had a CT this month, and ALL IS STILL TOTALLY CLEAR!! YAHOO.....I am grateful that Heavenly Father continues to bless us this way!! YAY for Cancer FREE!!!

After tonight, I dont work again until Monday night....maybe I'll be able to check in on the blogging a bit this weekend. :0)

Gotta go back....back....back to school again!....

(After reading that title anyone singing the song from Grease 2??? hehehehehe)

Well, the kids have just finished thier first whole week back to school!! So far everything has been great. The kids love thier teachers and have not had any homework, so we've cruised through this week. Hopefully we can keep it up as the weeks roll on. Here are some pics of the first day!





I didn't get any pictures of them as they walked onto the campus, because this is as far as I was with them. I had to get ready for WORK each day, so Lennie was taking them to school.

Yep, I finally started work this week. It has been a long week!! I worked 40 hours....It's been a LONG LONG LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time since I have worked 40. Even when I was "full time" at the hospital last time I was 32 hours. PHEW. This week was all day shift, and I feel like I cannot settle in really since this is not going to be my schedule. But it was all good! I couldn't have gotten through the week without Lennie, Mom, and Lennie's dad to help me out....THANKS SO MUCH!! I am glad it is the weekend, and I don't work until Tuesday (more day shift).

Curly Locks...

OK, so this is the layout that I was originally working on for the ScrapLove challenge #3 when I remembered I was not allowed to use a sketch for the contest entry. I used this sketch by Becky Fleck over at pagemaps.com (love all her sketches!).

I am really happy with how this layout turned out...the color combo is just SO Sadie! Even though this one didn't make it into the ScrapLove contest, PageMaps is also having one right now....so it will go in that one...YAY! This layout is also done on a transparency, so I am again providing two views of it....one photo with nothing behind the transparency, and one scan with a piece of white cardstock behind.

The pictures of Sadie were taken over a year ago when we were getting ready to go to my brother's wedding reception...she was a flower girl (which is the ONLY reason she has a bit of makeup on!!).

Thanks for looking!

My Future's So Bright...I Gotta Wear Shades!!...

Another challenge down over at ScrapLove.com's Summer of ScrapLovin' contest....and once again, it WAS a challenge.....especially photographing it!! I must have taken 50 shots of this thing!! The challenge was to do a layout using a transparency as a background....also incorporating a song title or lyrics into the title.


Breathing a HUGE sigh of relief that this one is wrapping up!! This one nearly knocked me for a loop!! Partly because as I was working on a layout for this challenge and as I was minutes from finishing it....I realized that I had absent mindedly picked up a sketch that was on my desk and I was using it for that layout. ARGH!! For this contest, we had SPECIFICALLY been asked NOT to use sketches for our layouts. I had to start over from scratch late yesterday afternoon...the day it was DUE. THEN, getting a picture of this thing has been HARD. I really wanted a good pic of the transparent layout, but I am afraid that just was not happen....especially since the natural sunlight was long since gone by the time I finished it last night, LOL!! The good news is, I like this layout almost as much as the one I originally was working on for this challenge....YAY!! I did go back and take a new picture of it this morning now that the sun is shinning and I like it much better...PHEW!


Just look at little Grant (goes by Lenard now, but it was Grant back then)!! These photos were taken 10 years ago!!!!


This is a scan of the layout with a white piece of paper behind the transparency.


The journaling under the photo is a line of lyrics from the song that I used as my title. "Things are going great, and they're only getting better." Then all the words on the transparency (it is by K & Co.) are things that the future holds for him!! Thanks for looking!

Family Home Evening Assignment Board...

A friend and I are working on these FHE Assignment boards to teach at an upcoming Relief Society Craft Day (what is Family Home Evening?? - Click Here). I finished mine up this week so it can be one of the samples on the sign up table, so I thought I'd also share it here. We started with an idea from sugardoodle.net and totally modified it until it was unique to us. Click on the photos for a better look!

Her husband is going to cut all the wood and router the edges.

I painted the base, and cut a piece of scrapbook paper to fit just inside all the edges. I inked the paper (because I ink EVERYTHING) then modge podged it on. I got 2" binder clips, and decorated the fronts with coordinating cardstock and patterned scrapbook papers, ribbons, flowers, bling, etc. She printed the words onto strips of paper from her computer....I inked those too and added them on! The clips are hot glued onto the base (we tried magnets, but the clips were too heavy to hold).

Then we took hard plastic baseball card holders and inserted photos so that when the photo was right side up, the opening was at the bottom...then we slipped the card holder over the tall metal handles (?) sticking up from the clips. I had my photos fill the card holders completely, but you can use smaller photos and scrapbook a mini-layout to go inside the card holder.

This system makes it very easy to change assignments from week to week. The board is light and portable and free standing, so it can go with you no matter what room you are having family night in (which is hard if your assignments are hanging on the wall). I like it because it is easily customizable to your colors or style...adding as much or as little embellishement as you like!

So what do you think??