Full Swing

I hope my scrapbooking is back in full swing, however, I can't always count on the little boys to nap together. Plus, Michael is 4 now and doesn't always take a nap. I was proud of myself to head downstairs today, even in the cold basement to do some paper scrapping. I finished off a few pages that just needed journaling. I had started them at the annual crop I attended earlier this month with some girlfriends in Des Moines.

Well before show-and-tell, how about a little family update? :) We'll start with the littlest guy...William is 13 months old and is trying to figure out how to RUN already. He has the walking thing down pat now. Oh, and as of today he can climb up on the couch. (Please say it isn't so!!) He figured out how to get on the coffee table last week. Once up, he dances around and generally gives us a heart attack. So far he's only fallen off once, when neither Jeff nor I was in the room. He wasn't hurt, thank goodness. He seems bound and determined to do everything at an earlier age than his brothers (except grow hair).

Michael is fighting a cold and cough this week. The preschool teacher wondered if I could pinpoint what activities we'd done the night before or how we'd done our morning routine b/c he was so calm, serene, and grounded on Wednesday....yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh...he was just getting ill:( (Mental note; Michael behaves better when subdued by illness) He's getting more interested in Legos but is constantly forced out of the room for inadvertently (well usually inadvertently) breaking creations Christopher made.

Christopher is apparently a perfect angel at school and is doing very well in his studies, especially reading. Yeah, I'd like to see the perfect angel a bit more frequently at home;) He just turned 7 last Friday. The weather and Jeff's bronchitis curbed our party plans a little. Due to some GOOD cold meds, Jeff was able to do the friend party at Perfect Games here in town. I stayed home with the little boys while Christopher and friends whooped it up on pop and cake, bowling, air bouncing, and gaming to their heart's content.


Summer 2008 trip to the Des Moines Science Center
I am VERY near to being totally done with 2008!


The first and only time I've seen a praying mantis in the wild. Daisy was acting very peculiar in the backyard so we went out to investigate and found this!

More bug stuff from 2008. I actually did all these paper pages while getting ready for and packing for the retreat a few weeks ago. I still need to upload the pages I did at the retreat itself! :) It's been a papery sort of month!

Family Photo Link

Follow this link to see our pictures: http://maharryphotography.smugmug.com/Families

Click on Jill Purcell

I was impressed with how they turned out! I had no idea if any of the kids smiled for any of them so was excited to see that several photos had happy child smiles and/or neutral expressions and everybody pretty much looking at the camera! :) They are clearly taken chronologically. If you look at the later poses I am visibly holding Michael in the frame, lol. Also, check out frame 17 closely...what do you think Michael is holding up toward the camera? Yep, that would be his stick "gun." Oh boy...

Pie Bandit has a page already :)

This one begged to be scrapbooked right away!;) See previous post for more details...

Mandy Steward Spice Collection
Brandy Hackman Blossoms & Blooms Holiday
Paula Wright Ribbon Journals emb. templates
Cheryl Barber inked edges neutral style (tweaked to make the edges light golden brown)
LD Dear Diary font
Pea Kristin font

The Pie Bandit and other Christmas Moments

Here's the pie bandit (so named by her grandparents, my in-laws), and otherwise known as Lucy (my niece) in action:) This one is worth big-ifying (in other words click on it!)

Michael was tearing wrapping paper into tiny little pieces with his teeth.

I'm not sure who was more interested in Christopher's stocking...him or Zoe (my s-i-l & b-i-l's dog) :) Obviously there was candy in the stocking!

Michael in action...jumping off the ottoman.

And last but not least, instead of "The Great Pumpkin" we have "The Christmas Beagle" :) She is framed in the humongous wreath we purchased 1/2 off at Michaels a few weeks ago and will get decorated, lighted and hung next year on the peak of the garage facade of our home.

Jumping in the Leaves

More quickpages:


The quickpages were designed by Glam Fairy Designs and SMD Designs...just wanted to show off a few cute pictures:) The leaf jumping was in our own front yard. We barely have enough leaves to jump in. The other picture is at Ada Hayden Park here in town. A man came this fall to build an artistic sapling structure that turned out really cool.



Click any photo to "bigify" (Janet's word), but especially the last one...I checked...you should be able to read all you ever wanted to know and more about the stick house!

Milestones

Our 9th anniversary was last Thursday (thus the beautiful flowers, same periwinkle color as at our wedding). At first it looked like we might not get to celebrate alone, but we ended up celebrating two days in a row! I have a maternity aqua exercise class that meets T/Th evenings until 6pm, so my friend Amy watches the kids. She offered to keep them Thursday evening while we went out to eat at The Cafe. This is probably the coolest restaurant in our town...awesome food, awesome ambiance, and they are dedicated to providing as much locally produced food as possible, which is great.

Then Friday night my in-laws, who are in the throes of a COMPLETE kitchen remodel (as in no cupboards on the walls at the moment and just got their new appliances), offered to watch the boys while we went out again:) This time to Cool Basil, which has had mixed reviews. Spouse had been there once before for a business lunch and the service was terrible, but the food great, so we figured it was worth the gamble. It was awesome! I had Tom Yum soup and gingered orange roughy. Spouse had Tom Kai soup and angry dish Pad-Pi-Rod.

Then on Saturday, S-i-L had her baby, so I am an aunt for the second time:) Dominic Borg (family last name) Purcell made his appearance during the day and we saw him briefly before I had to fill in a partial shift at the Fast Track Sunday evening. They've been too busy to blog his appearance yet, so no pics of him yet:(

A Crafty Weekend

We had a good, busy weekend. The kids got their flu shots Saturday morning with a minimum of crying, then my parents came to spend the next 24 hours with us. Christopher, Mom, and I (mostly I, but I did have help!) finished 6 Halloween cards (I don't usually send H cards, but these are cute...will post when I get pictures of all taken), 3 witch hats, and several beaded Indian corn decorations. I need Christopher to hold up a backdrop for me to take pics of the hats, I hope this afternoon, then I can post:)


Very close scraplift of Sarah Batdorf's layout on scrapgirls.com
Jeff took the photo of me at Adventureland on the carousel
FEI stuff word art
SG_EHI_Applique collection mini (some recolored)
emerritt (formerly of LDD) feltypaper (recolored)
SG_STI Stiching 1 brush & Cheryl Barber Stitching and Holes Style
SG_TCS_Art Journal brads, some recolored
SG_BHA_orange office tab
2peas well behaved & bluecake fonts (redhead part slightly grunged with standard PS faux finish brush)
SG_ASO_Blackberry brush (arrows)

TFL,
Cheri

Birthday Fireball aka. "what NOT to do!"

We went to my aunt's surprise 60th birthday party at
my cousin's home a few weeks ago.
Aunt Diane had NO freaking clue until she saw
a couple cars in the driveway that looked familiar
(they told her to expect the neighbors' cars in the
driveway), but still had no idea how many of us would
be there hiding in the basement to jump out at her!

Btw, don't put 60 candles all to one side of the
cake...it becomes an enormous fireball, sets off the
smoke detectors, makes the kids all run for the exits
screaming WE GOTTA GET OUTA HERE, and you ruin a
perfectly good glass of beer extinguishing the
candles, not to mention melting another plastic cup.
Yikes! Then you freeze b/c you gotta open the windows
for awhile to let the smoke out.

Actually that just made the party all the more fun. I had
to poke a little fun at Dad. He just stood back watching
the events play out with the fire. I guess when he retired
from volunteer firefighting, he really retired! My guess is
he'd have whipped out his cell and been the first to dial 911
if it had truly gotten out of hand.

The kids had a fun time too, including a dip in the hot tub
and I got to catch up with my two younger cousins who are at the
University of Iowa (where I went) and have taken
several of the same classes I did.

All photos taken by DH:)

Have a great day!

The Borg Siblings

This is my m-i-l with her 6 siblings.

Supplies:
twopeasinabucket.com Rhonna Farrer Vintage Label papers and snapshot frames.
Jessica Sprague "Now & forever"
Shabby Princess "together" from holiday sampler freebie
Selfish font
green paper from Erica Hite's "Love Always" collection at scrapgirls.com
sketch by Thorunn
Passport embellishment (layer your own) from Brandy Hackman at scrapgirls.com (I created the warped text Christmas for the inside).

Thanks to Sarah C, I know how to do the wavy text, but it didn't work very well for this layout.

TFL, and have a great weekend!
Cheri

Journaling reads: We met Dan’s at parade. As long as it took us to find place to park and walk downtown, we
might as well have ridden our bikes like they did! Jonah rode his uni
cycle in the parade. M made friends with a huge yellow lab after it was done in the parade. C had fun grabbing a huge sackful of candy. There was So much candy smeared on Main St. after the parade there was a political cartoon about it in the Tribune later in the week! (And we still have plenty of candy left as of 11/9/07)
To Dave & Pauline’s in the afternoon for hanging out and dinner, then back to Ames to meet Dan’s for fireworks. M loves loud noises, including fire trucks honking in parades, and might be a pyromaniac, b/c he LOVED it when they whooshed the ball of fire noise from the hot air balloon mechanism in the parade (no balloon, just the fire/noise). And he can now make the CUTEST siren noise!


My journaling is usually in more complete and grammatically correct sentences than this, but for whatever reason on this page, I just copied and pasted directly from my journal to my scrapbook page. Just don't show it to "Thane," one of my high school English teachers...SHHHH!

Supplies for the page, for the scrappers out there:
ABR Beloved kit gray and red papers
BHA Holidays Blossoms & flower and sprigs
BHA Retro Brothers alpha
BHA Tints and Tatters number & sketch frames
CK Paintbrush and Primary fonts at top and CK Rugged for caption
CFR_ARC Twilight blue paper (I think this was a newsletter freebie, correct me if not)
All digi items from www.scrapgirls.com (my favorite digital site)