Scrapping Again

Despite the fact that I adore scrapbooking, ever since I purchased Scrapdango just about 7 months ago, I have been consumed with the business side of things rather than the creative side of things. By the time I have time to scrap after taking care of forum stuff and making sure I have everything I need for kits and putting them together and shipping them out, I just don't have the energy or the inspiration to do anything creative for myself. My scrappin' mojo definitely took a long spring and summer vacation. Although slow in getting back into things, I hope that it has returned and will stick around for awhile. I already posted the tray that I made for our friends that moved, but here are a few layouts I've done in recent weeks. A couple of them were for examples I had to do for Scrapdango's School's In contest challenges and the Back to School one was using this month's Scrapdango spice kit, which good for me is already sold out.

This first layout is my favorite that I have made in a long time. I scraplifted a layout by Kerryn on Scrapdango because all her layouts just amaze me in how she can get so much stuff on her layouts without making it look crowded or detracting from her photos. I do not usually put that much stuff on my layouts, but I have to say I love how this one turned out. Meine Liebchen means "My Sweethearts" in German.

I wasn't as thrilled with this one because I think it does need more stuff on it, but it's done and I already have Owen's back to school photos for this year scrapped.

This next layout is another departure for me. I don't usually do such bold, graphic layouts, but I wanted to play with my new Glimmer Mist, which seems to be all the rage, and I have always wanted to use the lyrics from the song, "Seasons of Love," from the musical, Rent.

525,600 minutes. 525,000 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes. How do you measure, measure a year? I think that pretty much sums up how we should remember each year.

I hope that I will have more layouts to post soon. I guess one advantage of the weather taking a big downturn is that I'll hopefully be more motivated just to stay inside and scrap.

Owen's First Day of School

This week, all 3 kiddos were finally in school. Owen was chomping at the bit to go to school and that day finally came on Wednesday after Labor Day. For the first week, though, he only went for 1-1/2 hours for two days. Next week, that 3 hours at school will jump up to 10-1/2 hours. Whatever am I going to do with all my free time?

Here he is on his first day.


And of course he had to show off the new backpack. He was very excited to get a new Iron Man backpack and a lunchbag since he will be having lunch at school one day a week.


Here he is already settled in and playing at school. When I picked him up, I was told that he had a fabulous day. Last year, he wasn't so keen on participating in a lot of the activities, but it seems like a year makes a huge difference, which I knew it would. So proud of my little man.

In other fall news, Justin has his first soccer game of the season tomorrow. He just had his first practice yesterday and we're excited to see how the season goes because his coach is actually the men's coach at Clark College, the local community college. It also turns out that the coach lives right around the corner from us in a house that we once looked at buying before buying the one we're in, and his son who's on the team is a grade above Justin. It's a small world--or a small town anyway.

Well that's about all I have of interest right now.

TTFN - Ta Ta For Now

Season of Change

Well I cannot believe we are into September already. I mean seriously, where has the year gone? How can it be that there's less than 4 months before Christmas? Alright, let's not get ahead of ourselves. We'll worry about that later.

It is definitely a time of change right now. Besides a recent and fairly sudden shift in the weather--it is starting to feel like fall in the air--there has been a lot of other change. Hannah and Justin headed back to school on Wednesday. Neither of them were very thrilled for summer to be over, but Hannah had an especially difficult time as she has the past three years. I was really hoping this year would be different and there wouldn't be any issues, but she did get very anxious and upset starting the night before. I think we have determined that she just has a hard time with the transition back to school and the unknown of a new grade, new teacher, new classmates, etc. I think she was especially nervous because she was chosen to be in a split 4th/5th grade class this year as a 4th grader. Justin was also chosen to be in a 2nd/3rd grade class. Here they are on their first day in their new duds. That's the part of going back to school that Hannah does like, the back to school shopping, especially since she seems to be getting more and more into fashion.

Hannah really loved this shirt with the tie. She's all about anything with black and/or sparkle. She also has really determined she likes dresses, which is an about face from her previous fashion choices. When I asked why so many dresses now, her comment was "A girl can change, can't she?" Yet another example of change. My "little" girl has gone from girly girl in princess dresses and tutus, to a not girly girl that just about only wore jeans, to a new version of rock star girly girl.

Then we have Justin who is all about anything skateboard related including his style. All he wants to do pretty much 24/7 right now is practice, watch or talk about skateboarding. And of course he has to sport the look including the new Chuck Taylor hightops.

Now, there was one kid that was excited about school starting, Owen. Unfortunately, he does not start school until next week. He did have school visitation that morning and had to have his backpack and a packed lunchbag and get in on the back to school photos.

Now in addition to back to school, another major change was saying goodbye to our best friends of 10-1/2 years, the Goves. We became fast friends with them when they moved up here from California over 10 years ago. We were both pregnant with Hannah and Gabby at the same time and had them exactly 7 weeks apart. Those two have been best friends practically since birth. We then had boys just months apart who were great friends and Owen and Evie who were two peas in a pod when they were together. We spent so many holidays and events together over the years. They were like family to us, and it is so sad to see them go. They moved back to California, and only 10 minutes from Disneyland at that, so there will definitely be trips down there to visit. Before they left, we did get to spend a lot of time with them, which was good. I even gathered all the kids together for a little photo shoot and made a going away present.

I am not a sappy quote person, but did want to put something personal on the gift, so I found the quote "Make new friends, but cherish the old." I thought that was pretty appropriate. I know that they will always be friends of ours no matter how far apart we are. We will miss you guys so much but look forward to special visits in the future.

Alright, well I guess it's time to go to bed. Something else I'm trying to change during this season of change is my sleeping habits. I really need to be better about going to bed at a more consistent time and not staying up 'til all hours some nights.

TTFN, Ta Ta For Now