Happy New Year!

And here's a new layout with Nuts About Sketches #195:

Be sure and go over to Nuts and check out the other layouts! And Shawn has a new Design Team call going on right now, so page down to the Jan. 4 blog post and read all about it!

We started 2012 in Mississippi at Grandma's house... we left here in 2011 right after Christmas and returned home the 2nd day of 2012 to finish Math and Science projects, lots of football watching, lots of XBox and iPod Touch playing, and a minor surgery for me. All is well and we are feeling quite blessed already in 2012!

It's December...

and that means we have recently had our annual Christmas Card Photo Shoot. It's a tradition. PJs, Santa hats, humoring mom for 15-20 minutes...

Today I share some of the photos on a layout done for Nuts About Sketches #191. I loved working with this sketch!


While our photos don't show it, we do cherish this Christmas season for it's true meaning, the celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. And just in case I do not post in December again, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Oh, what a glorious day!

I don't have many pictures to share yet, but Saturday 11-12-11 was a glorious day! We celebrated Ken & Annette's wedding and the beginning of their life together. Kent was Best Man, Seth and Tessa were Junior Attendants. The wedding ceremony was beautiful and touching. Don't ask about Friday... let's just say we are giving glory to God and thanks to the many who prayed for Tessa to be well on Saturday (she felt fine and was a lovely junior bridesmaid). We are so happy for Annette and Ken and hope they are having a wonderful honeymoon/vacation this week. I look foward to having more photos to share in the future (esp. since I don't have one of the "boys" in their tuxes!) And my apologies to Pastor Chris for the blurry photo, but the expressions on the bride's and groom's faces were so perfect and so "them" that I had to share!

Nuts About Sketches #183

Today you can see fun, festive sketch #183 from Shawn at Nuts About Sketches! Here is my layout of my precious and much missed Nanny:



Head over to Nuts and see more inspiring layouts of this sketch!

Sketch #181

For Shawn's Nuts About Sketches #181 layout, I went back a while and scrapped some older photos of our "Tessa the Messa" when she was just earning her nickname... now she's almost 8 and her face often looks this messy when she eats a popsicle... or ribs! Go to Nuts About Sketches and see a lot of other great layouts using this fun sketch!

Nuts About Sketches...

I'm so happy to announce a new "gig" with Nuts About Sketches! Shawn makes scrapping easy with her fun sketches and she has a great mix of one and two-pagers. I am honored to be a part of her design team and have my first layout to show you today! Here's my layout:



Now you have to go over to Nuts About Sketches to see the sketch (week 177) and all the other wonderful layouts that the team did with this sketch! Shawn reveals a new sketch each week, so be sure to bookmark her blog (or become a fan or FB follower) so you won't miss any!

Almost "Back to School"

Sunday are the kids' Open Houses. Next Tuesday is the "Welcome Back Breakfast" at the elementary school. Since I'm in charge of PTA's Staff Appreciation, I'm working on the table decorations for the breakfast, as well as a little something for Tessa to give her 2nd grade teacher and English teacher (she attends Spanish immersion school, so will start taking English this year). Here's what I've done so far:

I hot glued the crayons around a $1 tin (and another one that is larger and will hold the napkins). The "supply centerpiece" is mostly held together by glue dots and rubber bands (so it can be disassembled and most of the supplies used later.)

For these little "survival kits" I found the free printable labels online at Bee in our Bonnet's blog and the little storage boxes in the clearance section at Staples.

I also plan to put bundle some pens, expo markers and pencils for all Tessa's "specials" (Music, Art, Computer, Library, etc.) and use these cute labels from Itsy Bitsy Paper by Lindy.
Now, if only the kids supplies would label themselves, we would be ready!