a few more new layouts

All of the kits used to make these layouts are available at www.kathrynbalint.com

Our Christmas Tree

Thought I'd share this layout of the kids helping to get the Christmas tree decorated this year. I haven't had a chance to try to get a pretty picture of it at night with the lights on yet. If I do I'm hoping to swap the new pic for the one of the tree on this layout.

In other news...my baby girl is 4 today!!!! :(
She's growing up too fast. And the fact that Kyle is 5 1/2 and I'm turning 30 next month is really doing nothing but making me feel OLD!!!! LOL Her party is tomorrow and I'm hoping it goes well. We have a surprise in store for her (a new bike) and I hope she likes it. The only problem with having a December birthday is that the weather is crummy and she probably won't be able to ride it for several months. But at least it will be waiting for her first thing next summer.

We're also about to begin the craziness of the holiday season. Meaning running from place to place to place. We have a Christmas on Sat., one on Sunday, one on Monday, one on the 30th, one on the 31st, then the game feed on New Year's day, another Christmas on the 6th of Jan. and one on Jan. 23rd. Then I think we'll be done! Whew! We even missed one of our Christmas get togethers on the 17th due to Jason hunting and then going to Grandpa Notz's house for his birthday. There would have been one more on the list!

The kids are extremely excited about Santa coming this year which is making it really fun for me as a parent. Their excitement is contagious. :)

They both had their last day of school today and tomorrow starts winter break. We'll see if I have fun during the week that they are off school or if I go crazy and lose all my hair. lol Maybe they'll learn how to sleep in during this time. ;)

Hey, I had a rare opportunity to sit down and watch a movie from start to finish with no interuption. Jenevieve even snuggled up on my lap and fell asleep. Staying there through the whole movie. (she hardly ever naps anymore and almost never wants to fall asleep while being held so i really enjoyed it) The movie I watched was Akeelah And The Bee. If you haven't seen it yet, watch it! It was wonderful.

Well, I'd better attempt to get this place presentable for the party tomorrow night. Lots of cleaning to do still. I'm also going to post some of the other new layouts I've done recently. Enjoy!

Have a great night,
Jen

two more

here's the images mentioned below

bad bad blogger lol

I know, I've been terrible about keeping up this blog. I did so good for a while there. :(

Well, let's see. What's new around here? Kyle had his Christmas performance at school last night. Actually he did two shows, one in the morning for Grandparent's day and then one in the evening for parents. He did a great job and knew all the words and actions to the songs. We're really proud of him. For only being in kindergarten they gave the kids pretty hard songs to learn. Their final song was Believe from Polar Express. Thankfully I have that song on a Josh Groban DVD so Kyle was able to practice it a lot. He seems to really enjoy music. Who knows, maybe that'll be his thing.

Before his performance we went and FINALLY got our Christmas tree. We decided to pick one that was much more manageable in size this year after last year's monster sized tree. The one we got is pretty small compared to what we normally choose but it has a nice shape and seemed to call to me last night. All we had time for last night was getting it in the tree stand and Jason has bowling tonight so who knows when we'll get it decorated. When we finally do I'll post a picture on here.

I've been busy making more kits and templates to sell. It's been going pretty well and it's nice to have this creative outlet. I'm going to add a preview here of my two new Christmas kits. It evolved into a huge kit so I split it up into part one and part two so people can buy both or purchase them individually.

I also got a layout done for Mason's scrapbook. It's of all his hospital visitors. I'll post that here too. Credits on that one go to: papers and flourish by Jen Wilson and templates by Faith True.

Oh, an update on the city housing grant. The final bids came in and were proposed to the city. If you remember the original estimates were incredibly high and we really didn't figure there'd be ANY way for us to afford to do the grant. (Because anything over the amount of the grant has to come out of our pocket.) But the actual bid is much more doable and I think we're going to proceed with the grant. The contact won't be signed until after the 1st of the year which is good because at least we don't have to deal with any of that until after the holidays. But once all this gets started we'll be moving out while they work here. Due to the lead paint in the house. Not quite sure where we'll be going but I guess they have a furnished house they use for this situation. We'll see. :(
If I've read the paperwork correctly the contractor will have 100 days to get the job done so that's how long we could be living elsewhere. This grant will be a huge blessing for Jason though because this means that he won't have to do all the work himself. Majorly freeing up his to-do list and helping us out tremendously financially. They will be putting in all new windows (which we have a TON of), painting all the trim work or anywhere they presume to be lead paint, new doors, new boiler, new roof, siding on the garage, new gutters, painting the basement, new kitchen cupboards (major YAY from me!) and a new garage door. I think that's everything. :)

Once this grant project is done then we'll start tearing into the wall between the living room and office. Time for it to come down! Then we can start redoing how the rooms are laid out. Opening up the area will be really nice. We have so many plans for this old house but they all take time and money and we never seem to have enough of either.

Kyle had a 2 hour late start for school this morning due to fog and that meant that Jenevieve's preschool class was cancelled. I've never seen a child so sad about not being able to go to school. She was really bummed. It's now 12:30 PM and it's just finally starting to clear off and the sun is trying to come out. At least it's warmer than it has been. In the 40's today.

Guess that's about it for around here. Nothing too exciting I'm afraid. Jenevieve's birthday is quickly approaching as is the hustle and bustle of Christmas so we're trying to get geared up for all of that. Lots of cleaning to do as always. Can't ever seem to stay ahead of Kyle and Eve around here. Jenevieve just got a new foam art set that's all over the kitchen table now. Ugh, it never ends. LOL

Have a great day everyone and I'll try to be a better blogger!
Jen