family layout

Just wanted to quickly share a layout I did using a family picture Dad took of us on Father's Day. It's been quite some time since we've had one taken so I couldn't wait to scrap it. Everything here is by Jen Wilson. Imagine that! LOL (LOVE her stuff!)

Sorry I haven't updated this lately. The summer months always keep us so busy. The kids finished up swimming lessons, which they really enjoyed. Kyle passed and will be going on to level 2 next year but Jenevieve is a bit more timid in the water and wouldn't put her head under. So she'll be repeating level 1 again next year. Kyle's a real fish in the water. No fear and it seems to just come naturally to him. He has never plugged his nose to go under the water, he just seemed to know what to do. I'm jealous since swimming never came naturally to me.

Friday night Kyle's boy scout troop had a night out at the baseball game in Clinton. It was fun and the kids seemed to enjoy their time there. After that we went to Tim and Katie's house where they had a fire going and ready to make s'mores. The kids REALLY liked that part of the evening! Then we stayed the night in their camper and got to have the camping experience without having to load up our gear and drive somewhere. Saturday was a busy day for Jason and Tim as they loaded and unloaded 2 tons of river rock to put around Tim and Katie's house. They were beat by the time they were done! Sunday we attended a birthday party for Jason's brother's boy. They had a slip-and-slide and a small pool there for the kids which they enjoyed. They both slept all the way home. :)

Last night I went shopping and bought myself a new toy. I purchase my first laptop and am so excited! I'm still getting the hang of using it and transferring stuff over to it, etc. but I've wanted one for awhile now and was happy to finally get one. This way I'll be able to scrapbook wherever I am and keep up with my designing obligations, etc. I'm also hoping to start a new business soon creating scrapbook pages for others. I'm still working out all the details of that but I'm hoping to really start focusing on getting it up and running when the kids go back to school. Speaking of back-to-school...I got all of Kyle's supplies last night and picked up a few new outfits and things too. Trying to get done early instead of waiting until the last minute. They both have backpacks and Jenevieve has new shoes. I still need to take Kyle shoe shopping. He'll need 2 pairs since he has gym. Sure gets expensive! Thankfully I've been taking advantage of all the sales I can. I got his folders for a penny each, packs of pencils and some other things for a nickel each and crayons, etc. for a quarter. I think the 2 pack of erasers was the most expensive thing I bought. No wait, I take that back. The white board markers were the most expensive. Now there's something we never needed when I was in school. I'm getting old! Chalk is considered "old school". Yikes!

I'll be registering the kids for school on the 14th and then it's back to school on the 20th. This summer has gone by a lot faster than I thought it would. Although I am looking forward to having them back in school and back into a routine. And to be honest some quiet time sure sounds good too! lol Jenevieve will be in 3 morning a week preschool now so it's an extra 2 1/2 hours a week for me to have alone time. But I'm also sad that this will be my last year with her before she starts kindergarten. I plan on making the most of our girl time. :)

Kyle is looking forward to school but is also noticably nervous about 1st grade. He keeps talking about how much homework he'll have and I think he's worried that it's going to be really hard for him. Hopefully he won't struggle too much. I'm assuming that he'll also continue having speech class this year but I don't know for sure. I'm actually hoping that he will because I haven't seen as much improvement as I would like. I almost feel like I ask him to repeat things more now than ever because I can't understand what he's saying. I'm not sure if it's just laziness on his part when he speaks or if he's genuinely struggling with speech sounds.

Well, I've written more here than what you probably want to take the time to read so I better wrap it up. Thanks for reading all the way down to here. Hope you aren't completely asleep by now. lol Have a great night!

4th of July pictures

Tim, Katie, Julia and Mason came and hung out with us for the 4th of July fireworks. Then Tim and Katie left super early the next morning for their vacation. Those lucky ducks are in Jamaica right now. Who else is jealous????? ;)

So it's me and 4 kids until the middle of next week. Wish me luck! LOL I promised them I'd post pictures of the kids on here so they can still see them and stay somewhat in touch while they are gone. Most of these pics are from the 4th but I have a couple from here at the house. As you'll see Mason and Daisy have bonded. Daisy is pretty patient with him too. Allowing him to pester her feet and pull her fur. The other one from here at the house is of Julia this morning when she first woke up. She looked so cute toting around the floppy eared bunny. But I especially love the top picture of Mason.

I just spoke with my friend Missy a bit ago and we have made lunch plans to take all the kids to McDonalds and let them play in the Playplace. 7 kids and 2 adults. Are we nuts???? But it's an easy way to let them tucker themselves out. I learned yesterday and the two girls are no fun without naps so hopefully today I can talk them into one after our time at McDonalds.

Well, I better get them all dressed and ready to go. Bye for now.

new pics to share

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't updated this in a bit. The kids and I are back at home and attempting to get back into the routine of things. The changes on the house have been both good and bad. While I'm SO thankful to have gotten the housing grant that paid for all these improvements the contractor who performed the work was less than wonderful. So it's hard because I'm happy to have the improvements done but many of them weren't done correctly or as neatly as I would have liked. He was a bit of a careless slob and damaged both the new cupboards as well as the new countertop. :(

Plus the way things were written up in the contract isn't exactly what was done. And unfortunately Jason's being a bit of a butt and has told me to shut up and stop complaining. I wanted to take it up with the contractor and the man who heads the grant program but he told me to bite my tongue. So I did but I'm bitter about it. Not sure why I allow him to control me that way. Guess I'm just a wimp.

Anyway, I hope to put together a before and after mini album of the house projects soon. Julie and Mason are coming to stay with us for a while so I figure I'd probably better start that project AFTER that because I doubt I'll have much time for scrapping with 4 kids here. lol We also recently took what I'm calling a redneck roadtrip and I have pictures from that that I want to get scrapped too. Our July calendar is already filling up quickly so I'm guessing this month is going to fly by too. Never enough time.

I took Jenevieve out to the church camp to take some pictures the other night. I'll share a few of those on here. Trying to think if I've scrapped any new layouts. Hmm...Oh yeah! I have one I did of Jason and the kids that I did and I love how it came out. I used a kit by Kay Eflin called The Men In My Life. Awesome kit to work with! (available at http://www.kbandfriends.com/) Also did one of Jenevieve using a kit by Angela Sharrow called Star Spangled (great 4th of july kit) and one of my templates. Angela's kit is available at http://www.digitalfreebies.com/. I've done a few other layouts as well but nothing spectacular lately. Mostly all been quick, easy layouts.

Tomorrow is the 4th of July parade and Kyle's excited because he'll be riding on a float with the cub scouts. It's so fun seeing his enthusiasm in cub scouts. I hope it continues! Later this month they'll be doing an event where the boys will attend a local baseball game and then that night they get to camp out in the outfield. They'll be showing a drive-in style movie for the boys too. Sounds like fun. :)

Well, I can't think of anything else to report right now. Once I get the layouts of the house and our roadtrip done I'll get them posted on here. Hope you like the pictures of Jenevieve. This is only a small sampling of what I took that night. I haven't even looked at all of them yet! LOL

Have a fun and safe 4th of July!!!!!!!!!!!