Back to Normal Life

Now that all my treatments are done, I'm trying to get back to my normal life. That includes returning to Hillary Heidelberg's digital creative team at ScrapbookGraphics. It feels great to be creating with Hillary's awesome templates again! Here are two pages from the latest template sets:





I love how quick and easy it is to get photos scrapped using these templates.

All Hallow's Eve

This year's Halloween costumes were a far cry from last year's homemade ones. It took all the energy I had just to pull together candy and some store-bought costumes. But that didn't stop the kids from having a great time.

Charlotte's sumo wrestler costume had a built-in fan to give her extra bulk. And Sophie's was recycled from a previous year, but still looked great on her.

I even managed to make one of the mushrooms that were featured in Martha Stewart's magazine. The flat pumpkins were a little harder to find than I expected, so we just had one mushroom instead of a whole patch.

Girl Scout Camp

One of (the many!) reasons that I haven't posted recently is that I was off at Girl Scout camp with Sophie. I had never been to camp as a kid, and I have to say, it was a blast. There were lots of games, crafts, silly songs, and hiking.

One of the crafts we did was tie dye, which I had never done before either. Luckily one of the other moms really knew her tie dye, and showed me how to make the sheet shown here. (The cool pants and T-shirt are hers.)

Sophie used a more traditional method:


Which resulted in this sheet:


We also had some friendly competition in "Olympic Games". Our team was the Yellow Team, so we came up with this banner:


I think the girls did a great job with it!

More Cute Animals

Here's another layout of a cute animal using the Addicted Scrapper's February kit -- this time featuring our Australian Kelpie, Toni:


She really does look just like a fox!

In other news, our little soccer player (seen in the "Play Ball" layout a few posts back), scored the only goal of the game yesterday, allowing her team to win their first game this season!

March Addicted Scrappers Kit

Here are some scrapbook pages I've wanted to do for quite a while, and the March Addicted Scrappers kit is perfect for them:



On the home front, we are still working away at home improvement. The stairs are almost done -- now just the pantry and coat closet are left. The boxes of laminate that have been sitting our living room for 2 years now will soon be gone!

The Perfect Family

The other night as I was picking up my daughter from her junior high group at church, another mom came over to me, saying said she had to tell me what my daughter had done during the meeting. Uh-oh, I thought.

The youth leader had asked the group if anyone had a perfect family. No one raised their hand except....my daughter. So on the way I home, I asked her, "What about [insert family member]'s [less than perfect trait]. She said "Well, they're still perfect to me."

So there you have it. We're a pefect family in her eyes. I can't imagine any better validation as a parent. Although she's only 11. (A couple of months away from 12.) I expect we may have to remind her about this a few times when she's 14.....

On a more creative note, if you haven't already seen this pumpkin coach idea from Hallmark, check it out. The door and windows are made from belt buckles, and the top is a door pull:

Here's the link to the Hallmark site for more details if you're interested.

I would love to do this, but may have to save it for next year, as my hands are already full creating a Wall-E costume out of a cardboard box, duct tape, and foam. (Pictures to come soon!)

Another side note: I was at the mall today, and decided to duck into Pottery Barn to see if those plates from my post last Monday are really as gorgeous as they look. They must have been, because they had sold out already! Fortunately, they are getting more in this week.