Keep the Faith

Woohoo!!! Here's my new stuff for the week. AND, I actually remembered to post it on Friday morning. Sweet! hehehe. Click HERE to go to scraporchard to pick up this weeks Fresh Fruit at 20% off the regular price (one week only), making it $2.00 per pack.

Layout by Jaimee

Layout by Diana

Layout by Trina

Layout by Charmaine

Layout by Charmaine

Layout by Charmaine

Isn't my CT great? I'm constantly amazed at the WONDERFUL layouts that they make for me. Thanks, girls! You're the best :) I appreciate all you do for me. And that you put up with me and my craziness. And you know that I AM crazy - LOL! But you still like me - hehehe.

AND, if that's not good enough, for Digital Scrapbooking Day (DSD) this weekend, we're having a sale over at Scraporchard. Go check it out. You'll like it. I promise - hehehe.

Thursday was a good day, but kinda got to me at the end. Ooooo, epiphany. I bet I'm PMSy. It's about that time. Hmmm, good to know :) hehehe. I'll have to go and tell Captain America. He was wondering why I got on his case this evening. Mystery solved. Hormones are to blame - ha!

Got kids up for school, did Joe's homework with him before school, kids off to school, then Andrea and I went walking. It's such a nice way to start the mornings. Chatting with my good friend, and exercising. Thanks, girl, for going with me!

I came back home, and spent a big part of the day on the computer. I'm not sure what I did, but I was on the computer. I did get a WordArt pack designed. A Christmas Masks pack. And they looked pretty cool. www.obsidiandawn.com has the BEST brushes. Go give them a look :) I used some Christmas brushes from the holiday section. They're pretty cool. I especially like the star, the snowflakes, and the Christmas ornament.

Jake was in the process of writing a Literature paper about "Heroes", and picked Benjamin Franklin. I helped him edit it, and get his Art project scanned in and sent off to his teacher.

I spent a lot of time looking online about the shooting at Ft. Hood. Sad, sad, sad. And no, I'm not at Ft Hood. Thanks to all of you who either Facebooked me, texted me, or emailed me well wishes. We're at Ft Bliss. I feel SO bad for all those families affected by the shootings. It's just horrible.

When the big kids got home from school, we loaded up in the truck and headed for the store. It was Tom's b-day, and he had money. He thought about getting an MP3 player like Eme's, but once at KMart decided against it. He didn't want to spend all his money in one spot. OK, fair enough.

We headed off to Wal-Mart to pick up some supplies for Cub Scouts. I got red, white, and blue pony beads, and some very thin craft twine. I picked up some Halloween face paint 75% off, and Tom spent $10 of his b-day dollars on a nerf shot gun. hehehe.

We were supposed to go to the Dollar Tree for the little kids to spend their "Grandma Ida Halloween Dollars", but we ran out of time. We hurried back on post, and I started to get stuff ready for Cub Scouts. Andrea and I were running the Tiger meeting. She was bringing the snack, and I was bringing the activity.

The Program Helps are a GREAT help. They give all the fun stuff to do during the meeting. We played a game that talked about how the service people who help us are heroes. Like the police, soldiers, doctors, fire, teachers, etc. It was SO cute to get a 6-7 year olds perspective on it all. They're adorable.

Next, we made a craft. Strike that. Construction project. Boys don't do crafts - LOL! We used the pony beads to make flags. They looked ok when they were done. I'd like to say they looked great, but that would be a stretch. LOL! The boys were able to hang it from the button on their shirt, so it worked out ok.

We were home by 7:30pm, and I got the kids to bed. I let Jake and Tom stay up and play D&D with their uncles online for a while. It's nice to be able to let the boys have relationships with uncles that way. Other wise, they'd never get to see/know them. We just live too far away.

I watched some TV, and did a bit of "housekeeping" jobs (dishes and wordart store stuff), and designed, and now I'm off to bed. It's almost 10:30pm, and I'm tired. My night owlness seems to be wearing off.

This WordArt seemed appropriate in lite of yesterdays shootings. When things go SO wrong, and seem SO terrible, it's good to remember this saying. To keep the faith. To believe in the goodness of people. To trust in your faith. To know that there's a "bigger picture". To know that there's good all around us. I hope you like the mask that I made for ya!

I even scrapped a page out of it. I used Tracie Stroud/Ziggle Designs kit, Americana, to make it. Click on the links below to go to my accounts to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

4shared
box.net

Bountiful Harvest

First off, I need to put out a very special HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my son, Thomas! He's turning 10 today. Double digits! Woohoo Tom :) I love ya, kid! You're such a GREAT son. I love how you LOVE to read (just like your mom!), you care about other people, you are SO funny, and you are so sweet with your brothers and sister. Thanks for being in our family, Tom!

Wow, my Wednesday was SO non stop busy. Sigh. I don't wanna repeat performance on Thursday. It'd better be slower - hehehehe.

Started off like normal, getting kids ready for school and out the door. We'd failed to do Joe's homework the night before, so we did it from 7:10 to 7:30am. Worked out ok, though. Sent the kids off to school, then spent the morning on the computer.

First off, I remembered that I needed to design some invites to Andrea's son, Sam's, Arrow of LIght and Cross Over ceremony for Cub Scout/Boy Scouts. I'd promised the Cubmaster that I'd do it on Sunday, and forgot. Dang! SO, I sat down and designed it. I think it looked pretty good when it was all finished.

And yes, I see the typo. But not before I got it printed. Oh well. I just went with it :)

Next, I designed the baggie toppers for Tom's b-day. I decided that I could design baggie toppers, and put them on baggies filled with the Halloween Candy that we failed to pass out. And I found Halloween pencils at Wal-Mart the other day on clearance. I really think they looked cute when they were all done. Here's the finished product.


I just opened up a blank 4x6 in photoshop, then designed a card for 1/2 one direction, and 1/2 the other direction. So when they were printed out, I just folded them in 1/2, and it worked like a charm. Cute, eh?

I sent the Birthday photos and the Invitation photos to Walgreens.com for printing. They're running a special right now, where you can get prints for 10 cents a piece. Not bad, eh?

Next, there was a lady from where my mom lives that wanted me to do some WordArt for her. I worked up an estimate of how much money it would cost, which took a bit of time.

Next, Captain America needed me to work some more on his Crazy Train logo. Wanna see it?

He drew it himself, then scanned it in. I took out the background, then re-colored it. It's gonna go on a red shirt, hence the red background. It took me about an hour and a half worth of extracting/recoloring to get it just right. Sigh. It was quite a process.

I got done about 15 minutes before I had to leave the house to pick up the kids early from school. It was Parent Teacher conferences, so school got out early. I had just enough time to hop in the shower and get ready. Captain America came home, had enough time to cook his lunch, then I was ready to head out. I made him come with me to pick up the kids, so that I could at least ride in the car with him for a while. He's always so busy.

We got the kids, chatted with the other parents there picking up their kids, and headed back home. I had just enough time to see Captain America back off to work, and get the kids all situated with lunch and such, and we had to turn around and head back to school for conferences.

Joe's was up first at 1:15pm. We got there about 10 minutes early, so we decided to check out the book fair. We needed to get the last book in the Percy Jones series, and luckily they had it there. Tom desperately wanted to read it, but it was already checked out at the library. This worked out perfectly.

Joe's conference went very well. Joe's doing fabulous in Kindergarten. He's right on target (if not a bit ahead) as to where he should be. It was definitely the right decision. His teacher is such a sweet lady. I like her.

Next, it was on to Tom's conference. His teacher was running a bit behind, so we went to Eme's teachers room. She only had good things to say about Eme. She's the perfect student, apparently - hehehe. She's so smart, the teacher's not quite sure what to do with her. The only reason she gets problems wrong is because she does her work too fast. Otherwise, she'd have had straight A's.

The teacher said that she got Eme in a 3rd grade math class (Eme's in 2nd grade), and tries to find books for her to read. She reads them as fast as she finds them. I sent her to school with "The Hunger Games - Catching Fire". LOL! I think it's a bit hard for her, but she's LOVING it! Any recommendations for chapter books for girls? We have Junnie B JOnes and she's read "The Magic Treehouse". But she just blasts though those. I think they're a bit too easy for her. Suggestions??? Anyone??? I'm out of my realm here. I do boys, remember - hehehe.

Next, on to Tom's class. His teacher said that he's a super smart kid too. He's got more AR points that most 5th graders (Tom's in 4th). He got all A's and 2 B's. Good job, Tom! She said that he's a good kid, but needs to socialize a bit more with the other kids. He reads too much. LOL! Funny, but Tom used to be a social butterfly like Eme. I wonder what happened. I'll have to encourage him to make more friends.

Next, it was on to Tom's 2nd teacher (math). She said he was a good kid, too. He just needs to practice his multiplication tables a bit more, and ask when he doesn't know the answer to a problem, or how to do a problem. Everyone likes Tom :) He's a good kid!

Next, it was on to chat with the Vice Principal about Speech for the boys. We decided that the speech therapist would evaluate the kids (Tom and Joe) in the classroom over the next few weeks, and they'd let me know. They seemed loathe to label the kids at "special ed" to get speech help. We'll see how that goes. I really don't want Tom to have speech issues forever. Woudln't it be better to bite the proverbial bullet now and get it taken care of?

By this time, it was almost 3pm. We stopped at Wal-Greens on the way home to get the photos (they turned out beautiful, btw!), bought some ice cream, and headed home. We stopped by Andreas house first to give her a few Invites. She loved them :)

Once home, we broke out the ice cream, and had a little ice cream party. Mmmmm, Cookies and Cream ice cream is the BOMB!!! Love it!

I spent a few hours designing. I got 2 WordArt packs done, and decided to give the kids left overs for dinner. Yeah, I know. Then, I decided to re-arrange my room. It was getting to be such a PIT. Stuff strewn everywhere. SO, I piled it ALL onto my bed, then arranged it how I wanted it. Then, I put all the stuff on my bed away. It looks pretty good. I'm all about change :)

I ran out of steam, so I didn't make cupcakes for the Cub Scout for Tom's birthday. A man's gotta know his limitations, right? I had good intentions. I'll make up some cupcakes later for Tom.

We headed out for Scouts at 6:40pm. At 7pm, Jake went to Boy Scouts, Tom went to Webelos Scouts (Joe went too), and Eme went to Achievement days (Jim and I went with her). Dang, we're busy.

Jake and his group was watching Journey to the Center of the Earth. Something about a Theater Merit Badge. Hmmmm, whatever. hehehe.

Tom went with Andrea (who is his leader), and learned about something good, I'm sure. Citizenship, I think.

Eme and I and Jimmy went with the Achievement day girls, and had a really fun time. We played "The Newlywed Game" with the girls. The moms/dads answered questions about the girls, and the girls answered questions about the parents. It was a very nice activity.

The 2 most embarrassing parts were :

When asked "what's the one thing that you'd give rid of of your parents?", Eme answered "My mom's anger". Thanks, hon. I'm sure ALL the other parents got a kick out of that one.

When Jimmy grabbed my boobs and said "Mom, your boobies feel like they have sand in them" You've gotta love 4 year olds. I happen to like my padded bra - hehehe.

We got done with activities at 8:15pm, so I pulled Jake out of Boy Scouts to go home. I don't know how much longer the movie had, but I wasn't waiting around with 4 little kids any longer than I had to - hehehe. He didn't seem too upset.

We'd bought GI Joe the other day, and the kids were just starting it when we went ot Scouts. SO, he was all excited to go back home and finish it off. We got home at 8:30pm, put the little kids to bed, and let the big kids watch GI JOE.

Captain America called at 8:30pm and said that he was STARVING, and asked if I could bring him some food. He was still at work. Sigh. I cooked him up a taco salad, left Jake in charge, and drove up to the battery.

I got to see his new office (I guess only a few people actually have offices there), and meet a few people. Poor thing works too hard. He had papers ALL over his desk. He was working on getting a binder put together.

I was back home by 9:30pm, and got to work on my freebee for Thursday. I was texting Andrea, chatting with my friend Jen on gmail chat, AND chatting with my mom on gmail chat, AND designing all at the same time. Yeah, it was slow going, but I got everything done. Then I blogged. And here it is, 11:48pm. Still no hubby. He's still at work. Sigh. I really am never gonna see him, right? It's good that I made him come with me at lunch, eh?

I've got a SPECIAL treat for you guys today! My good friend, Jen (Graham Like the Cracker) let me "play" with her new kit!!!! And, I've got a few WordArts for ya! You'll have to hop on over to her blog to pick up hers. Click HERE to go to her blog.

And, here's the one from me. Isn't her kit WONDERFUL! Great colors, girl! Click on the links below to go to my accounts to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

4shared
box.net

Little Blessings

Hi all! Well, I'm feeling a bit better than I was yesterday. Not 100%, but better. At this point, I'll take better. Andrea and I were supposed to go walking, but she had to take her father in law to the dealership instead. And it was probably better for me. Give me another day to feel a bit better.

I designed for a bit in the morning, then Jimmy and I packed up and left for a baby shower at 11 am. Oh yeah, right before we left, I made up some more of my cake truffle chocolate thingys. I put the chocolate for melting in the microwave, and when I opened the door to stir it 30 seconds later, I noticed that there was a pink bubbly spot on the rotater tray. Hmmm. Jimmy must have put gum or candy in the microwave.

I removed the tray, and put the bowl of chocolate back into the microwave. About that time, Jimmy put his finger into the pink bubbly stuff. And screamed. And ran. Sigh. Once I caught up with him, and put his finger under running water, it was white. The tip, that is. Poor kid. He was crying and screaming and clearly in pain. I filled a baggie with ice and water, and had him hold onto it.

We got to the baby shower about 20 minutes late, but we go there. Andrea met me there, and she was 30 minutes late - hehehe. It was a nice baby shower. We played a few games, won a few prizes, and at a bit of food. I tried the pumpkin soup, and it was DIVINE! Mmmmm.

Andrea, me, Jimmy, and Andrea's mom-in-law jetted out early from the baby shower, and were gonna head to Olive Garden for lunch. Mmmm, soup and breadsticks were calling our names!

Just outside the baby shower house, we saw this entertainment center sitting in someones trash. Sweet! I'd been looking for one. hehehe. I know, I know. Dumpster diving. It's actually one of my specialities! I backed up my surburban, and Andrea and I loaded it up. Sweet! It had a spot for the TV, 2 glass doors, 3 shelves, then 2 wooden doors below, with a shelf or two on the bottom. Really quite nice. The back paneling was coming off, but I had a hammer and finishing nails at home. Sweet!

We headed off to Olive Garden next. Mmmmm, I SO love their food. I got the potato/sausage soup, then the minestrone soup. I couldn't finish it, so I got a to-go soup container. Did you know they had those? Jimmy got a pizza kids meal, and ate none of it. 4 breadsticks, but no pizza. We got a to-go box for him, and brought it back for Jake. Andrea and her mom-in-law brought home some breadsticks and all the extra salad for her dad-in-law. Aren't we nice - LOL!

Jimmy and I stopped at Wal-Mart on the way home, and got the 3 items that Captain America needed, and some clearance Halloween pencils, and a few other things, but got out of there without Tom's seeds. Dang. I told you about that, right? Tom's science project. Sigh. I needed to buy the poor kid seeds so he can start it. Wednesday. I'll try and remember on Wednesday.

I got home about an hour before the other kids got home from school, and had Jake help me bring in the Entertainment center. I took it to the garage, and nailed it back to sturdy. It fit perfectly in a little nook in my living room. One of my favorite quotes is "The Universe will Provide", and it was SO true today :)

Kids came home from school, we did homework, and chores, and dinner, and such, and at 6:30 when Captain America came home from work, we loaded up the kids and headed to McDonalds for Ice Cream. Tom's b-day is on Thursday, and since we have scouts on Wed and Thurs, I figured that ice cream at McDonalds on Tuesday would be fabulous! It was a fun little trip.

We came back home, put kids to bed, let Jake and Tom play D&D online with their uncles, and I helped Captain America with a logo for his company, Charlie Battery. Did I tell you that he's XO of the Battery? They announced it yesterday. I'm not exactly sure what all it entails, but I do know that he's now 2nd in charge, or something like that. So, basically, I won't be seeing much of him. But it was a great honor for him to be chosen. Good job, sweetheart!

My mom was watching a Wedding show the other night, and the photographer gave out these tips for a perfect picture: 1) Never tip your chin up. 2) Square your shoulders back. 3) Stand with one foot slightly in front of the other, putting your weight on your back foot.

OK, now you guys need to go out there and try these tips and see if they work!

So, it's WordArt Wednesday again. I found this cute saying while looking online today. And I just HAD to make a WordArt out of it . I hope you all like it! Click HERE to go to Scraporchard to download the zip file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

[Insert Evil Laugh Here]

Yeah, I'm not feeling any better today. I woke up at 5:30am with a MASSIVE migraine, and attempted to eat a cracker, take a pill, and resulted in puking 30 minutes later. I laid back down, tried to sleep, and woke up at 7:00am in the same predicament. Sigh.

One more cracker, one more pill, still more puking, and a little bit more sleep. Since I hadn't gone grocery shopping yet, I had nothing fast and easy to feel my school bound children, so I directed Tom to dress Joe and to have them leave early for school. They can get Breakfast there, if they get there early enough. They were gone by 7:15am. 15 minutes early should be enough time to get breakfast.

I went back to bed. Everyone else in the house (well, Captain America was up and gone at 5:30am) woke up at 8:30am, when Captain America got back from PT (Physical Training - army exercise). Jake started on School, and Jimmy and I spent some quality time in my bed with our friend, Mr. DVD player :) I slept on and off all morning long.

I finally felt well enough for some chicken noodle soup at lunch time, and a few more crackers. At 1pm, I simply HAD to go grocery shopping. Never mind the weakness, the migraine, the puking. We needed food.

I hobbled through the store best I could, taking it nice and easy. Good thing there was a shopping cart to hang on to - LOL! I got all the foods I needed, and got back home in about an hour. But I was SPENT. All my energy for the day was gone.

Jake brought in the groceries, and I managed to get most of them put away before I retreated to my bed. I think it took me 2 hours to recover from the shopping trip. Andrea and I were supposed to make dinner for Adela, and for my part, I bought potatoes at the commissary for Andrea to put in the soup, bought a loaf of French Bread, and had some Chocolate truffles things I'd made on Friday/Saturday. Hopefully she liked it! I tried :)

Kids got home around 4pm, and at 5:15pm I managed to drag myself from my bed long enough to start some hamburger frying and some water boiling. I had Tom watch the burger, and set the timer for the noodles. I went back to bed, and came out 10 minutes later to assemble the spaghetti. Probably not the worlds best spaghetti, but hey, it's dinner.

At almost 6pm, Andrea stopped by to give ME some soup too! Awe, what a great friend! I hadn't tried the spaghetti, but got myself a bowl of the homemade chicken soup. DELICIOUS! I wasn't really hungry, or feel like eating, but I figured that getting it in my system should help.

Captain America and Jake went to wrestling at 6pm, and I directed (from my bed) the other kids to do their chores. Then Joe worked on his homework, and Tom realized that he had a Science Experiment that he was supposed to be working on. He couldn't find the paper that told all the important info, like what to include, when it was due, etc. Nice. SO, I made him use Jacobs homeschool sample lab report to write it up. MUCH more involved and scientific, but that's what he gets for losing his assignment, I guess.

He's doing a science lab about wether using different types of liquids affect the germination process. He's gonna use tap water, lemonade, grape juice, and milk. Should be a good experiment. Now, I have to go to Wal-Mart on Tuesday and look for seeds......

Captain America came home around 8:30pm, and put the kids to bed. Good thing, too, because helping with homework wiped me out again. I don't know if this is still "caffeine withdrawals". It's starting to sound like the flu, or something. No fever, though. Hmmmm.

I was trying to think of an easy WordArt to do today, and this one popped into my mind. I know, I know, there's a TON of requests in my inbox, but I just didn't feel like it today. And I'm SO sorry to ALL of you who have written to me, and I haven't gotten back to you. Between my parents coming, Joe's stitches, and getting sick twice in a weeks span of time, my inbox has been SORELY neglected. All I can say is "I'm Sorry!"

Click on the links below to go to my accounts to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

4shared
box.net

Give Thanks

OK girls, it's gonna be a short one today. I'm feeling kinda icky, but my husband tells me it's because I'm not eating the right things. Why do men always do that? Why do they tell us the thing that fixes our problems, rather than give sympathy. I know that's why I feel icky. I want to hear "Oh, you poor thing! That's awful that you feel icky". Not "Well, maybe it's because your eating is off". Sigh. Why can't men be more like girls. LOL!

I'm going to be early to try and sleep off this "sugar induced coma". LOL!

Since it's now the start of the Thanksgiving season, here's a nice little Thanksgiving WordArt for ya. Give Thanks. Simple, eh? If only we could remember this more often, we'd be a lot more happy.

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

4shared
box.net

Sugar Overload

What a great Halloween :) It really was a fun day. It started off with me actually SLEEPING in! It felt SO good. I slept in till around 9am. Yeah, sure, my kids had trashed my house while I slept, but still. It felt good!

I went to the church with Andrea at around 10am to decorate for the Ward Halloween party. We set up chairs and tables. 7 tables on each side, 10 chairs to a table. Then we put table clothes and doilies and centerpieces on each table. It took us about an hour and a half to get everything situated just right.

When we were done decorating, we decided to swing by McDonalds and get a dollar soda. Mmmmm, soda! Wanda and Karen (two ladies from church) joined us. We had SO much fun sitting at the tall tables at McDonalds, drinking soda, munching on fries, and chatting. It was a GREAT way to spend 3o minutes. We had a good time :)

Next, it was home to the family. The kids were all playing computer, and Captain America as cleaning his guns. Everyone was in the dining room, playing and having a good time. I brought my computer in, and designed for a while. While we were all doing different activities, it was nice to have everyone in the same room.

At around 3pm, I went down to Andreas house to show her some of my old Halloween costumes for her to try on. Snow White, a peasant, an 80's outfit, and Cesear for Ryan. While there, her mom-in-law and her convinced me to come to the post Craft Sale with them. Yeah, it took a TON of convincing. There was a TON of neat stuff there to look at. Fun times!

We were home by 4pm, and then it was a mad dash to get everyone ready in costume. I helped Joe with his Jedi robes, put Eme's hair in pig tail braids and painted on Cat eyes, nose, and whiskers, turned Jim into Frankenstin with makeup, and transformed myself into a witch. Green face, black hat, long gray hair, pointy black shoes, pink/black striped socks, cape. I was pretty cool!

Captain America was a Civil War Union soldier (ha! a Yankee!), Jake was a Sith Lord (Star Wars), and Tom was a knight. We loaded up in the truck, and headed out to the church party. Our plan was to stay for about 45 minutes, then head home.

Captain America, Jimmy (frankenstine), Joe (jedi), and Eme (cat)

Eme (cat), Tom (knight), Jake (sith)

Here's my friend, Laurie, holding a new tiny baby (not her's). She's Bride of Frankenstine. I guess that means she's Jimmy's wife - LOL!

And Captain America I told him, Look Hungry for the picture. This is right before our food showed up - LOL!

We ended up staying for a bit longer. They had a "mystery" dinner. Servers came around to your table, and gave you menus with choices on it. All the utensils, drinks, appetizers, and main course dishes had funny names, so you were just blindly picking your items. It was pretty fun.

First was drinks and utensils. I ended up with Root Beer, a straw, a napkin, and chop sticks. LOL! Since I don't drink sugar soda, I gave it to the boys, and shared Captain Americas water with him. The big boys ended up with Milk - hehehe.

Next was appetizers. Captain America, Jake, Tom, and I ended up with some YUMMY cheesy potato soup. It was pretty good. I was SO starving that I actually ate the Green Olives that I ended up getting. And I HATE green olives - hehehe. The little kids got crackers and pretzels and cheetos.

Next, Main Course. Jim and Jake and Joe got Hot Dogs. Eme and Captain America got Chicken Pot Pie stuff, and Tom and I ended up with an enchilada dish with rice and beans. It was pretty good, and I was quite good with the ole chop sticks. LOL!

As soon as our table was done with food, we jetted. We came home to go trick or treating in our neighborhood. We'd failed to leave out our candy (oops) and grab the stroller, so we sent Jake home to do it. We'd stopped at the Reay's house (Andrea and Ryan). We had originally planned to go trick or treating with them.

We let the kids go to our neighborhood houses, and visited for a while with the grown ups. At one point, Andrea and I wandered a few house down to see "The Scary Guy". There was this guy, dressed up in a dark scary costume, laying in his front yard. As the kids would get close, he'd be real still, then slowly stand up, and drag his shovel after him as he inched towards the kids. OMGosh, it was scary and funny to watch the kids all at the same time. They would SCREAM and run.

Jimmy wanted NOTHING to do with it. But he was giving out good candy, so I carried him kicking and screaming up to see him. Yes, I know. I'm probably gonna give him nightmares or something. hehehe.

We stopped at Adelas house to say hi, and found her wearing a protective "cough" mask. Apparently she'd been diagnosed with a weak strain of Swine Flu. What the heck??? Poor girl. She was on meds, so she was feeling better. We stayed and chatted with her for about 10 minutes.

When we got back to the Reays house, Captain America had gone in the Truck to look for me. He was a bit upset that I'd "ditched" him. Oops. We finally got all back together, and went trick or treating around the block as a family. The Reays had to leave to go to a different Halloween party.

Captain America didn't stay upset long. I think I was TOO beautiful as a green witch for him to be mad at me. hehehe. The kids got a TON of yummy candy, and we didn't even make it to Coronal row. Our neighborhood was good enough.

We came home, and they ate a TON of candy. So much that my tummy hurt watching them. All the while Trick-or-Treating, they'd come and give me my favorite chocolates. SUCH nice kids. Joe even brought me a baggie of chocolates that he'd saved out for me.

Ok, Ok, I know this isn't Faithbooking. Not religious or churchy in the least. But this is how I and my whole family feel today. We ate WAY too much candy last night. WAY too much. It's sad when you're kids offer you freely of chocolate, and you have to turn it down because you think you're gonna hurl because you've already ate WAY too much - hehehe. Believe me, I know. Not the worst problem in the world to have - LOL!

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. And yes, next week, we'll be back on with the Faithbooking Sunday WordArts :)

4shared
box.net

2009 Halloween Blog Train!

Happy Halloween!!! Welcome to the Scraporchard Halloween Blog Train! "Knock" on my door to get a nice little treat, then head on over to Lyndsay's blog for more "trick or treating" fun!

Or click HERE for the box.net download (clicking on my door takes you to 4shared)

And there ya go! Hope you girls like the Trick or Treat fun! It's gonna be a quick post from me today. It's almost 1am my time, and I'm tired. I know I should have got my blogging done earlier, but what can I say. Sometimes I'm a procrastinator - LOL!

I got my walk in today with Andrea, and spent a long time at home in the morning, waiting for the "bug" guy to come and spray. He showed up 15 minutes after he was scheduled to come (window of time between 8am and noon). Nice, eh? At least he came, though! Good bye, crickets!

I got a few WordArt packs designed, and watched a few PBS cartoons with Jimmy. I should have taken a nap, but didn't get around to it. hehehe. I made dinner for a person in the Ward who was recovering from Heart surgery, and even made these YUMMY cake ball truffle things. SO tasty.

I went to the park at 4pm with Andrea and the kids, then Jake went to Wrestling, and after all that, Captain America and I went on a date and saw a movie, "The Stepfather" (SCARY!). All in all, it was a good day. Much better, emotionally, than the day before :)

I'm SO looking forward to Halloween. We've got a busy day planned, so I hope I fit all my fun in. BUT, It won't happen if I don't go to bed. So off I go! Hope you enjoy the blog train!

I See The Moon

So I'm remembering to Blog about my New Releases this week. Yeah for me :) There's 6 new ones this week for ya to choose from. And the Vampire one? It's my favorite - hehehe. PERFECT for making a tee shirt out of and wearing to the New Moon movie. Don't ya think???

Click HERE to go to Scraporchard to pick up the Fresh Fruit at 20% off (the first week - $2.00 a pack).

This is my sisters' daughter, Lily. Isn't she adorable! They live somewhere that has trees, so leaves in the fall. LOL!

Well, I'm hoping that Friday goes better than Thursday. Actually, Thursday as a whole wasn't too bad. But my evening wasn't terribly great. Do you ever just feel like you're falling apart? Like you wanna yell and cry and scream at someone all at the same time? And you can't pinpoint why? Yeah, kinda like PMS. Only it's not even close to that time. Hmmmm.

Anyway, the day started off late. I woke up 23 minutes after my alarm. Oh well. It was cold anyway, so I drove the kids to school. The temperature in El Paso dropped to 35 degrees (holy cow!), and there was a dusting of Snow in the mountains. Amazing!

When I got back home, I got Jake and Jim situated, and got myself ready. Andrea and I were going Visiting Teaching. We had 2 sisters to visit. One we had an appointment with, and the other we just dropped by her house. Very nice visits to very nice ladies :)

After that, we stopped by the on post internet coffee cafe, and had hot chocolate. Mmmmm. We also got a cheese danish to split and a Pannani. Mmmmm, what a perfect lunch!

Next, home to feed our families lunch, and do what we needed doing, then off again at 2pm for more Visiting Teaching. We visit 2 ladies who live in a nursing home. One is my age, and the other is probably in her 50's. Both too young to be in there :( Nice ladies, though! It was a nice visit.

After that, we took her father in law to the dealership to talk about the car repairs (I did mention that they were in an accident, right?), then to Sonic for a happy hour drink. I mean, we WERE out and near Sonic, so it's only right to spot there, right???? hehehe.

I came back home, and started to get things cleaned and organized. The housing office is coming on Friday to spray for bugs. We've been having uninvited "visitors" all summer long. Nasty. And while directing children to do their chores and clean up (the other kids were home at this point), I lost it. I started yelling at everyone, and practically crying. I don't know what hit me.

I ended up going upstairs to the big kids' room and cleaning it by myself. I decided that they had WAY too many clothes, and started going through their closet. New things and the nicest things could stay, but the rest needed boxed up.

There was a Math Halloween Party at school at 5:30 that the kids REALLY wanted to go to, but I wasn't sure what my mental state would be. I tried to calm myself down by taking a shower, but it didn't really work. I dressed up as a vampire, with face paint and all. I got the kids all ready in their costumes too.

We headed off post to the school, and got there relatively on time. OMGosh. There were kids and grown ups EVERYWHERE. What was I thinking? Bringing 5 kids, by myself, to a school event. Yeah, it was a mad house. Tom and Eme had a BLAST. Jake hated it. Jimmy just wanted to run around and get candy. Joe wanted candy, but I had to be right by his side. I was still battling ripping someone's head off (LOL - it's just a perfect way to describe the feeling...).

We say Andrea, Ryan, and family there, and hung out a little bit. But it was so crazy, we mostly just spent the time looking for missing children. We got hot dogs and nachos for dinner, and of course a few hot dogs and a nachos were spilled before taking it to the table because of fighting kids. I wasn't too happy about that. I made whoever did it eat the dropped hot dog and nachos. Yeah, I was feeling that mean. Sigh. Some days, I'm not very nice.....

We didn't stay much longer after that. I was truly on my last nerve. I got home, and of course everyone was still starving . I cooked Sausage and Eggs for them, then finally Captain America came home. I retreated to my room, and he spent the rest of the night with the kids. Hopefully they know that mom still loves them :)

I took a warm bath, tried to read my book for a while, then designed and blogged. I'm feeling a little bit better, but not much. I guess some days are just like that....... Here's hoping that Friday is a better day (and that everyone's heads remain intact)

This WordArt request is from Jenna. And you know what? It's a poem that my Grandma used to tell me! I love this one :) CLick on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work.

4shared
box.net

Faith, Hope, Endurance, Strength

Wow, I sure didn't feel good on Tuesday night. My eyes were burning, and I definitely had a temperature. BUT, the Niquil did the trick, and I felt a lot better when I woke up. Still not at 100%, but it was enough to work with :)

I got the kids off to school early (we were out of milk, so I made them eat breakfast at school), got Jake and Jim situated at home, and at around 9am went to the grocery store with Andrea. Not a full day of grocery shopping, but enough to get us by for a while. It's always more fun to go shopping with friends ;)

After food shopping, she dropped me and my groceries back at home, and went to deliver her groceries to her house. I put mine away, fed my kids, and she came back to pick me up. Next was a stop to Wal-Mart. Captain America needed a few things from there, and she wanted to look at Halloween Costumes. Her mother in law, Cathy, and Luke (18 months old) came with us. We did Wal-Mart, then lunch at Taco Cabana. Proof positive that I'm not at 100% is the fact that I couldn't finish off a Cabana Bowl. hehehe.

Home again, and more school, play time, online for a bit, other kids came home at almost 4pm, snack time, worked on the Pack Meeting (Cub Scout) stuff for a while, tried to take a nap with Jimmy (yeah, 4 year olds don't like to nap, did you know?), dinner time, homework time, then off to Scouts.

Captain America got home 5 minutes before we walked out the door. Poor guy. Cub Scouts went well. Everyone had a good time! We were home by 8:30pm. I got kids off to bed, got my designing work done for my Wednesday night deadline, then it was bed time. Boy, it was a busy day, for trying to relax. hehehe. Can you tell that I'm not good at relaxing?

Thursday I have Visiting Teaching in the morning, then Cub Scouts AND a Math Halloween Party at the kids' school, same time. Hmmm, might have to split the group into two. Maybe Captain America can take Joe to Scouts. We'll see. He's been working pretty late the last few nights. Poor guy works real hard ALL the time.

This WordArt request comes from an old friend from High School. Trisha. Hope you like it, girl! Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leaves some love if you like my work. Thanks!

4shared
box.net

Halloween

Dang, girls. I think I really am sick. It comes and goes in waves. I got up feeling rested at least on Tuesday morning. I got the kids off to school, and laid down for another 3o minutes. Andrea had invited me to go with her while her Suburban was worked on. Sounded like a fun girls time out. Even if it was just to service a vehicle. Hey, us mom's will take what we can get, entertainment wise, eh?

So, we headed for the west side around 8:30am. The dealership had free donuts, diet doctor pepper, and free popcorn. We just sat and chatted and ate and drank for a few hours. It was a great morning! Thanks, Andrea, for inviting me to come along! I really enjoyed the company :)

I got home, and fed the kids, and went to lay down. My medicine was starting to wear off. At 2ish I headed up to the school to pick up Joe. He had an appointment to check out his stitches, and see how they were doing. While I was at the school, I got a call from Ryan, Andrea's husband. Apparently Andrea and her father-in-law were headed to the commissary to go grocery shopping, and some drunk soldier, talking on the phone, ran into the side of their car!!! They were fine, but the drunk guy fled the scene, and tried to hide out. They caught him, and he's in army jail now.

The ambulance came and checked them both out, and Andrea was fine, but dad was showing signs of high blood pressure, so they took him to the hospital to look him over. Ryan wanted to know if I'd pick up the kids from school. Of course!!!

I went to Joe's doctor appointment (his stitches and cut are healing fabulously, by the way), then headed to the school to pick up the kids. They came back to my house and played for a few hours. I'd started cooking chicken at lunch time, WAY more than my family could eat. Now I know why I felt inspired to cook so much! I made mashed potatoes, BBQ chicken, corn, and made an apple cake. Mmmm, it smelled good.

Andrea came at around 6pm to pick up the kids, and I hung out with my kids until around 6:30pm. That was all I could do. I'm in bed now, feeling quite achy. I think I need more drugs. Off to find the Niquil......

Here's the WordArt for the day! I thought it turned out nicely. And I just LOVE Halloween. What other holiday do you get to dress up in a costume, beg for candy, and eat till your sick??? I rest my case!'

Click HERE to go to scraporchard to download the zip file, and leave some love if you like my work.

Speak Without Fear

Wow, I crashed hard after my parents left :) I woke up feeling SUPER nasty. I got the kids off to school, then went back to bed. I was SO tired and my chest hurt SO bad. Sigh.

At about 8:30am, I got a call from the school. Apparently, in this school district, if you have an injury where you get stitches or break your leg or somthing, you have to have a doctors note to go back to school? What the heck is that? I've never heard of that. Isn't the fact that I'm sending them back to school enough?

Apparently Joe's teacher thought his stitches and bandaging looked pretty nasty, because he got sent home. Whatever. I was feeling SO sick and nasty. I drove somehow up to the school, retrieved him, and came back home and died some more.

The rest of the morning/early afternoon passed in a blur. I know that a lot of PBS cartoons were watched in my room. I'd fall asleep when one was on, and wake up in the middle of another one. It's really not good when Mom gets sick, is it?

I knew that I had things that needed to be done later in the day, so I decided that at 3:00pm, I had to be better. When 3pm rolled around, I hopped out of bed, and headed to the shower. I must admit, once I looked better it was easier to fake feeling better.

I baked Pumpkin muffins with walnuts and chocolate chunks to take to Family Home Evening at hte Huezo's house (our new bishop). I made 2 batches, but only had time to bake one. We were at the Huezo's house at 6:oo pm. We let Jake skip wrestling so he could come with us.

We had chili for dinner, and a nice little lesson, then the dessert, then home again. Between us and the Huezo's and the Porters (the 2nd counselor), we have 16 kids. That's a lot of little bodies running around in one house - hehehe.

We stopped by the PX on the way home and bought some foot powder for Captain America and some Niquil for me. I took some as soon as we got home. I cooked up the remaining Pumpkin Muffins, and took 1/2 the batch down to Andrea's house. The smelled SO good. I knew that she had company visiting, so they could use the treats :) Now, I just have to get rid of another dozen pumpkin muffins. Well, 11 more, because I ate one before bed. Mmmmm, melty warm chocolate is SO good :)

As I write this, I'm starting to fall asleep. They Niquil is affecting me more than I thought it would - hehehe.

Here's the 3rd part in that Glenn Beck quote thingy. I hope you like it! I really think that this one has many scrapping possibilities. Click on the links below to go to my accounts to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work.

4shared
box.net

Play Too Hard?

This saying is SO appropriate for me today! Is is possible to play too hard? Um, yeah. I think so. LOL! I bearly made it through today - hehehe. Monday, I'm planning on getting my kids to school and napping the whole day. Unless a better offer comes along....

I woke up at 5:45am on Sunday from a dead sleep, realizing that I was supposed to make something for Cub Scouts to hand out on Sunday. Dang. I snuck out to the living room, and got on the computer. Check out my super cute invites I made for the pack meeting. Isn't it cute! I used Jaye Day Studios Jungle kit. She's so awesome :)

I redid a few papers that needed fixed for the pack meeting, and got things squared away. By 7:15am, I was all done. Unfortunately, I needed to leave the house at 7:45am in order to be at a meeting at the church. Looks like no shower day again. I fixed my hair best I could, and made due with day old make-up. I looked fine. hehehe. I know, I know, my standards aren't that high. LOL!

We left the kids with my parents, and Captain America and I headed for the church. We were meeting the Stake presidency before church. They extended Captain America the calling of 1st Counselor in the Bishopric. Dang, that's a big calling. But then, with big callings come big blessings, right? I know that Captain America can do it. For us, it means not seeing Dad at all on Sundays. Early morning meetings, after church meetings.... He's gonna be even more busy now :( But we know that we'll be blessed as a family for our sacrifice. We're willing to do it :)

We hurried back home, picked up the kids and my parents, and headed back to church. Here's a pic of Joe right before we left for church. What a handsome kid! Remember this picture for later in the post......

The sacrament meeting was hearing the old bishopric bear their testimonies, then hearing the new bishopric bearing their testimonies. You know what's funny? Remember when I said that Captain America went on the campout with the 11 yr old scouts and that Tom got to come with them? Well, he went with Brother Porter, who got called in as the 2nd counselor, and Brother Heuzo, who's the new bishop. It was like a little Bishopric campout before any of them even know it - LOL!

It was also Jacob's first Sunday for passing Sacrament. Between the flu, conferences, Civil War reenactments, and the bishop being out of town, it's the first opportunity for him. He did a great job, considering he didn't have a lot of coaching. He seemed pretty pleased.

After Sacrament, the primary practiced for the Primary program. We had this Sunday and next Sunday to practice, then the following Sunday is the program. I think it's gonna sound great. We're still trying to iron out all the details and seating arrangements. We have about 60 kids in the primary. Dang! Good kids, though! I love 'em!

After church, we left Captain America to his meetings, and headed home. I think I had too many constricting clothes on, because dang did I feel bloated when I got home. LOL! I have this full body girdle thingy that I LOVE to wear when I'm a little heavier than I'd like to be, and I think it stretched it to it's limit. I think it's time for my diet on Monday morning.

We had left over Chili's for lunch (see, Diet on monday will be a good thing!). Mmmm. Quesidella explosion is just as good the 2nd time around - LOL! We just hung out at the house for a few hours. The kids ate their food, and played in their Sonic drinks. They froze them from Saturday, and were eating these Ice Chunks. Who knew a frozen drink could be so much fun??? LOL!

I think I forgot to mention that Jacob got sick Saturday night after he'd gone to bed. Probably forgot to mention it because it's SO nasty. He puked up Country Fried steak and Fries ALL over his comforter. OMGosh it smelled nasty. My mom got it from the bedroom to the bathroom tub, and I went up to help at that point. I almost lost it all in the bathroom. We took down the shower curtain, and wrapped up the blanket in it. Then, we carried it down to the backyard. Not before a lot of gagging, though. SUPER nasty.

We spread out the blanket on the grass to dry. Well, after church, we went to get the blanket to wash it, and found that it had been picked clean by the birds. OMGosh. Nasty, eh? I guess we're doing our part to feed the hungry pigeons in El Paso. Eeeeewwwwhhhhh!

My parents packed their stuff up, and we headed out to the park at 1:40 ish. We needed to get some energy out of the kids. They were going nuts inside. They played pretty good for a while, then Joe came over crying and holding his eye. Poor thing. I opened my arms to give him a big hung, and noticed the gash. He'd cut his right eyelid on something. He said that he'd ran into a pole.

Mom and I took him home, telling him to close his eye. I grabbed one arm, and my mom grabbed the other. We were leading the poor little thing. This is what he looked like when we got home.


Considering that it was a head wound, it really didn't bleed too much. But you know what it looks like when the skin is gaping open. You just know that it's gonna need stitches. SO, I called Tel-a-nurse to get a recommendation. After I called at 2:10pm, and finally got through at 2:40pm. There's government run health care for ya. They said to bring him to the ER. It was 3pm by then.

Captain America took Jimmy to the ER, and I stuck around to get my parents to the Airport. We needed to leave by 3:35pm to get them there on time. Jake watched the other kids. I dropped them off at the Southwest terminal, and headed to the ER. Thanks so much for coming and visiting me, Mom and Dad! I had a really good time!

I found Captain America and Joe in the waiting room, and traded places with Captain America. He went home to watch the other kids, and I settled in for the long haul. And long it was. We finally got called back to the ER at 6:20pm. Joe had fallen asleep in my lap, so he was sleeping when I laid him on the table.

The nurses up front had triaged Joe and told Captain America that he'd probably just need glue, but the doctors said that stitches would be better for him. The doctors were super nice and friendly. They acted like they had a good time there. Mom, you'd have liked them :)

We held the sleeping Joe down while the doctor cleaned out his cut with iodine. That woke him up. He didn't know where he was, or what was going on. Poor little guy. We finally got him calmed down, then they injected lidocane directly into the cut. Yeah, I know how that feels. NOT happy. Not happy at all. I'm sorry Joe Joe! I know how bad that feels.

His wound got all big and puffy, and nasty looking. They tried to sew it up, but realized that more lidocane was needed. SO, back to the injecting it again. More tears from Joe. Poor thing!

Finally, it was numb enough to sew on. 3 stitches did the trick. Joe was very brave, and did a great job. I'm proud of you, honey! They put some Bactroban cream on his stitches, then a yellow bandage, then a clear adhesive tape bandage. Here's the finish result.

"If you think this looks bad, you should see the other guy!". hehehe. Just kidding :)

We got home at 8:45pm, fed Joe, and got everyone to bed. I was feeling pretty lousy. I was a bit achey, and had a nasty cough, really congested, and just tired. I'm gonna "drug" myself up and go to bed after I blog this. So yes. We played too hard today. Well, this weekend in general. Would I change it if I could? Probably not. We had a TON of fun. Well, maybe the ER visit part I'd change. But then, all my other kids had had stitches except Joe. Now he can join the group - ROFL!!! ( you know I'm just kidding, right????)

Here's a WordArt for ya for today. Hopefully I'll be sleeping and relaxing when you read this on Monday morning - LOL! Paying for playing too hard!

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

4shared
box.net