Look! I scrapped!

It turns out I had some leftover mojo after finishing my Hall of Fame entry. (Wouldn't Leftover Mojo be a great name for a rock band, as Dave Barry would say?) We still have 0 out of 2 scanners working, so I have to take photos of my layouts. Grr. Fortunately, the changing table (I'm not kidding) makes a pretty good backdrop. I need to have these on my computer one way or another, because I want to submit some of them. And share them with you all, of course.

You probably remember my shock when I actually got a decent picture of the kids seeing Santa. Any occasion that momentous deserves to be scrapped, in my opinion. The patterned paper came from the goodie bag I got at Kristy's crop - I just love the colors and the vintage prints. And Betsy's cowgirl hat, of course.

I can't get over this picture of Porter. He's really developing a sense of humor lately. Also, I'm using a lot of kraft paper backgrounds right now for some reason. It was nice to use up some bits and pieces of patterned paper that I couldn't bring myself to get rid of. (I usually throw all of my scraps away, so that's actually saying something, for me. Yes, I know it's called scrapbooking.)
Some pictures from Epcot last September. I still haven't started the actual Disneyworld album - it will probably be an 8x8 with a lot of photos - but I thought it would be fun to do a couple of 'highlights' pages and put them in the 2007 album. My apologies for the title; I really couldn't resist.
I think I shared this picture before on the blog - it's one of my favorites. And I love how my kids' winter coats match so well with the KI Memories winter paper. I swear that was a total coincidence.
Betsy's birthday: I loved the pictures but for the longest time I couldn't figure out what to do with them. I used some seriously old paper and stickers for this one, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. (Although I must apologize to Susan for all the inking!) The little tags are actually supposed to be a Valentine's Day embellishment but I think they work perfectly for a little girl page. You really can't go wrong with pink, can you?

My stuff is still spread out all over the kitchen island and I have a lot more I want to get done, but it has to wait. Because I Desperately. Need. A Nap. Right Now.

I forgot this in my last post...

Probably the sweetest love song ever to be sung by a guy with half a face.



Don't you agree?


I had a fun, fun weekend. I got to hang out with Beth and Susan! We met up at Scrapbook Corner and sat in the crop area until they kicked us out. (I'm not kidding! That never happens to me.) I got to see some of Susan's layouts and a sweet album she made, and talk about scrapbooking magazines with Beth, and show off some of my layouts and admire their extremely high tech camera! I don't think I can even tell how much fun I had with them (I even picked up a few sheets of paper and some tags, even though I am not buying scrap stuff right now!)

Beth and me

Susan and me

The three of us

And you can totally see the adorable yellow Bug in the background! I love it. I had to laugh when they took off in that and I drove away in Matt's Yaris, which has all of the little without any of the cute and also isn't as clean.

Umm... in other news, Matt did our taxes on Friday, and we are getting some money back. Hooray! I always make him do the comparison between filing jointly and separately. I could file separately because I do have a very small income and my tax bracket would be a lot lower than his. But every time, it still turns out to be better to do a joint return. Why, this year alone Matt was better off by $1,000 just for being married for me! I bet he had no idea when he met me that I would be such an investment.

Betsy told me the other day that when she is a grownup, she is going to have a boy baby and name him Bane. That's spelled B-U-R-U-Y in case you're wondering.

Since I don't have any tutoring or seminary tomorrow (double hooray!) I've decided that it will be Anti-Procrastination Day. I'll tell you all about it later, ha ha! No seriously, I've been putting off a lot of small tasks because even with Matt around all the time, I've still been unusually busy. I'm not just talking about laundry, either (although I have mumble loads waiting to be folded). I sort of still haven't boxed up the Christmas plates! (Since they are decorated with snowmen, we've decided that they are winter plates. Umm, yeah, that's the ticket.) I have a lot of other little projects, some phone calls to make, I need to write a resume, and Matt will put together the entertainment center that we got just after Christmas. Doesn't that sound exciting?!

Happy Valentimes-today!

That being Betsy's interpretation of the holiday. I know a lot of people hate V-Day but I have nothing but love for a holiday that revolves around candy. (Wait, you thought it was celebrating love?!) Betsy and I made infinity of heart-shaped cookies after lunch today. Delicious! Can you tell which one she frosted?

Speaking of infinity, I have four baby showers to go to in the next three weeks. Isn't that fun? I just love baby showers. I went to Babies R Us today and bought a whole bunch of shower gifts (diapers, wipes, and onesies with fire trucks on them). One of the showers is even for me! I always assumed that you don't get a shower for your third baby, but I seriously had at least four or five women from church ask if they could throw me a shower. (Maybe it was just a polite way of saying that I stink. Get it? Because it's a shower?!) I think that in our ward, people just really love a party.

And other fun things: we have a scrapbooking night at church once a month, so that's tomorrow. I talked about it for a while but another lady actually started the group. Yay for organized people! On Saturday I get up to meet up with two of my favorite scrappers, Beth and Susan. Beth is a previous HOF-er, and Susan is one of the funnest scrappers around (and it's not just me that thinks so). Despite living in the same state, it's been waaaay too long!

After the kids go to bed tonight we're going to grill up some more of the steaks from Matt's now former boss, and watch a movie. I can't decide if we should watch Dark Passage which we got from the library (Bogie and Bacall, quite appropriate for V-Day), or Now Voyager which arrived in the mail from Netflix. Matt thinks I'm crazy, but I have this theory that you should watch a black-and-white movie on Valentines' Day, because b&w is sexy. I'm not crazy, am I?

Crafty

We were driving to Hobby Lobby today, and Betsy told me, "You put things on paper, and you do sewing. Those are both of things that you do." I'm glad that she can tell that I am almost obsessed with making stuff; I mean, it's practically taken over the house so she'd have to be blind not to have noticed it. And when I was at Hobby Lobby, a lady came up to me and said, "You're a scrapbooker, right? Can I ask you a question?" (It turns out that she needed to make some stuff for a bridal shower; I sent her on her merry way with an armload of iridescent paper and an EK Success circle cutter.) So, I guess I just send out that vibe. Is that a good thing or a bad thing, do you think?

On the job front, Matt's last day of work was yesterday. (It was supposed to be the 19th, but apparently the board convened early and agreed to the changes. You just know that if they were voting to give everyone raises, it would have taken months!) On the other hand, the severance package they're giving us is very generous, so we don't really have to freak out for quite a while. And his interview the other day went quite well. In the meantime, the kids like having him around (although Betsy is going to be confused and think every day is Saturday) and I like that he can entertain them while I do things like update my blog, tutor, and put off finishing my HOF entry.

Crop 'til you drop

I just wanted to say, I had an awesome time at my crop weekend! My friend Kristy is a great motivator as well as being the comsummate hostess. I got so much accomplished; I have a huge stack of layouts just waiting for me to plug in the scanner. Plus there was tons of yummy food and nice people to socialize with. I got seated next to one of the few people in the world who's ever taken a scrapbook class from me. (I had to teach a few classes in '06 when I was on the design team; I averaged something like 1.3 people in each one, so I didn't do it for very long.) I realized it when the lady started telling me about a tip she'd learned in a class, about saving the negatives from your sticker sheet... as she was telling me this I realized I was the one who'd taught her that! It was kind of a funny concidence.

Oh... and Matt has a job interview tomorrow! For a call center manager job that's much, much closer to home... our fingers are crossed that it's a good fit and they hire him!