Didn't know we lived on the prarie, did you?

Yeah, well this is our local lake. Well, it was...before we had no rain this year. It should be full of water from tree line to tree line. It has a little more water in it today than it did last week since we had three days of rain, but it's not nearly enough.

Another view from a few feet away. This is off the access road near I-85 and Exit 186. I'll try to get some other pictures off the bridges another day.

It's done! And he put it on!!!

Well, the hands still need the elastic sewn onto them, but they're the last bit! He was okay with putting it on, and even wanted to wear it for a little while. He doesn't really like the tail, but that's okay. We made it detachable as well as the little crest between the head and the tail.

You can see we were practicing Trick Or Treating too. We have a picture of A with some of the kids in Mom and Dad's neighborhood, including the granddaughter of A's former sitter attached to the door to the garage. A went over and talked to the kids to tell them about his costume. I hope we can see them on Halloween. I think our plans will be to head over to Mom and Dad's house for A to Trick or Treat, and then he can help them hand out candy. I think with his shyness, he might not want to go door to door. But if he does, we can do that in their neighborhood.

Special thanks to Mom for helping me make this costume! Yay Mom!

Friday, lovely Friday!

No picture today! We went to the nursery last weekend, but not the Fireman's Day parade. I got a few good pics of A, but keep forgetting the camera this week so I can upload them! The nursery is a family owned, very friendly place, so all the staff wanted to talk to A. He was very shy and was very happy to have his little (it went with a 9 month outfit!) baseball hat on, covering his eyes. The last picture I attempted of him was to get him in front of a couple of huge mums with his hat off. I said, "Say cheese!" and he said "no" and lowered his head. Click! It spoke volumes about the day. :-) I'll try to get it uploaded this weekend.

Have a good one!

**Edited 10/24 - this is the picture I was talking about. Not as bad as I thought it was.

Fallish Friday

Yay, it's Friday! We have a busy Saturday planned, but nothing on Sunday yet, although there's always cleaning and working on A's costume to do. We're thinking of heading over to a local nursery for their Fall Festival in the morning, and then to the Fireman's Day parade tomorrow afternoon. A has been told (and has repeated back to us) that the parade could be very loud tomorrow. Let's hope he can manage it. This summer when we saw the Nova Scotia Tattoo parade, he was a little afraid of the loud bagpipes and bands. He still talks about it!

A has still been a clingy this week at day care drop-offs, and even at bed time. I'm not sure why. He did seem a little warm one evening, and his nose was a little stuffy. Maybe that had something to do with it. The rest of the time, he's his crazy self. The fun at bedtime this week has been that he wants one of us to play horsey. Once he climbs off, he runs over to the other parent and declares "Your turn!". Back and forth. Back and forth. He doesn't even make the horse go around the room. He'll just climb on, sit for a second or two and then slide off. Silly kid!

Here's another digiscrap page. I used the same papers as yesterday (I really like them) to complete a challenge at oscraps. The challenge is to use only two sheets of paper, three pictures, three elements and one font. The beige edge along the green column is part of the frame, so it's still one of the elements and doesn't have to be counted separately. :-)

Credits: Everything from Rebecca Lynn's Fall Days Freebie at http://www.oscraps.com

Still a quiet week at home. We're hoping to go to the Fireman's Day parade on Saturday. It starts at 3:30, though and that's usually prime nap time (for *all* of us!).

Yes, I'm a year behind in my scrapbooking. I think that's part of why I'm enjoying the digital scrapbooking so much. I can take my lunch hour and work on a page. This is the one I did today. I still need to add the month/year to it, and I think I might tweak the word art in the upper corner. That's the other beauty - I *can* go back and tweak! This was my first try at getting a pin to go "through" the embellishment. I used Misty Cato's tutorial (http://mistycatodesigns.blogspot.com/).

Credits:
Template "The Big Picture" by Tracy Dane at http://dranet.blogspot.com/
Everything else from Rebecca Lynn's Fall Days Freebie at http://www.oscraps.com

Wednesday Already?!?!

Yikes. Where does the time go? Not much new in our household. A has been a little clingier this week than past weeks, but I'll hope it's just a phase. He doesn't seem ill.

We're finally going to be seeing some cooler weather. And we had a little rain last night. The skies opened up about 4:00 a.m. and woke me up! It was great to hear though. We need the rain!

Here's another one of the cards we made on World Card Making Day. This one was pretty easy - just a little stamping and coloring, and a little ribbon to cap it off! I really like the snow people in this set. I think I've used this set for our Christmas Cards multiple years!

Supplies (All Stampin' Up!):
Card Stock: Always Artichoke, Kraft
Ink: Basic Black, Always Artichoke, Brocade Blue, Chocolate Chip
Stamps: It's Snow Time
Accessories: Uniball Signo Gel Pen, Stampin' Pastels, White 1/4 inch Grosgrain Ribbon, Stampin' Dimensionals, Real Red and Only Orange Stampin' Write Markers, Aquapainter

Visiting with Uncle Mark

My first attempt at "colorizing" a black and white photo using Photoshop Elements. That was pretty fun, and I'm sure you'll be seeing more of this technique. Also, I used some a torn paper element. That's a neat look too - makes you want to reach out and touch it to see if it's real!

It's nearly the weekend! We'll be going to M&D's for supper and another visit with Uncle Mark (Stan). We had a great time with them last night - A took less time to warm up to Uncle Mark than I thought he would. A finished eating before the adults did, so he got down from the table. Dad commented that A had been really quiet, then all of a sudden, A flopped down on the floor and exclaimed "I falled down!". P asked if he needed to go to the hospital (a common question in our house, even for the littlest bumps). A said "yeah" and ran off into the living room. Then he ran back, saying "I went hospital". Then he flopped down on the floor and repeated the whole thing for about five minutes! All the while, he kept his head turned towards the adults, making sure they were watching him! He even ran into the fridge 'cause he wasn't looking where he was going. When the adults conspired to not look at A, it didn't take long for him to notice. He came over, got in my face and said "I falled down. I go hospital.". In other words - LOOK AT ME!

Credits:
Papers, frames and embellishments by Merkeley Designs from the Oscraps September Spotlight Designer (http://www.oscraps.com/news.php)

Torn paper edge by by Jessica Gordon at Scrapbook Ideas: http://scrapbookideas.wordpress.com/

I've been stamping too!

I've created a few cards for the World Card Making class I'm hosting on Saturday, some birthday cards and the card above for a colleague who recently married. Maybe some of my stampin' mojo is coming back. It's hard to feel creative when you're sleep deprived.

This card was an attempt at a technique called Split Negative. You can see a tutorial from my favorite stamping site here.

I've posted a few more cards and my scrapbook pages to my Splitcoast gallery too. You can see them here.

Not much going on "on the home front". Everyone is happy and healthy. Not much more to ask!

Supplies for the card above are all Stampin Up! (Basic Black, Going Gray, Whisper White and Purely Pomegranate cardstock, Black embossing podwer, Versamark and Purely Pomegranate ink, Baroque Motifs stamp set) except for the silver embossing powder.

The Son Shines Bright

This is the fun of a two-year-old. He's very into making silly faces and laughing hysterically at nothing. What a goof! He obviously takes after his father (maybe me too!). Love ya, dear!

I just had to scrap this picture as soon as I got it. And then I found this wonderful brush/word art that was listed in the digifree blog (http://digifree.blogspot.com/). Maybe I should add some more staples to the image. That's part of the beauty, I've found, of doing digital pages. As long as I save the Photoshop file type (not merged or flattened), I can go back and tweak to my heart's delight. I'm really lucky that here at work we have computers I can use over my lunch hour to play with this. The only drawback of using work computers over my lunch hour is that I'd love to play longer!!!

Credits:

Papers, label and string closer by Danielle Corbitt in her Little Rascal Freebie at
http://atexaschickie.blogspot.com/

Smile Shine Brush Freebie by Donna Duncombe at http://hickorydickory.blogspot.com

Scalloped Frame by Misty Cato at http://mistycatodesigns.com (freebie)

Happy October!

We had a lovely weekend weather-wise here - nice temps, clear blue sky... We just wish it would rain! It was a good weekend for some house cleaning. I sent P and A out to do some shopping and I scrubbed, vacuumed, and for a few hours. There's more to be done, but it's a start. Mom and Dad came up for supper Saturday night. Sunday, we played, did a little shopping with lunch at Mc'D's and then rest time. Once the boys were down for their rests, I packed up my sewing machine and the pieces of A's Halloween costume and headed down to Mom and Dad's to do some work on it. A is going to be a "Big Green Crocodile" for Halloween. We saw this inflatable croc when we were on vacation in early August. A loved driving past it! We'd have to stop and wave every time. He's still a favorite two months later!

On another "kreative" note, I've scheduled a card workshop on World Card Making Day. We'll be doing a few cards and some gift items. When I get some pictures taken of the projects, I'll be sure to share them.

Have a good day!