The Ides of March

March 15th was called the Ides of March by ancient Romans. It was made famous by Shakespeare in his play, Julius Caesar, but did you know that there are actually 11 other ides during the year. Ides is also the name for the 15th of May, July and October and the 13th of all other months. Anyway, there's a bit of trivia for you.

This is also the day that we remember my Grandma Mary Lou. It was on this day 3 years ago that she passed and ever since my mom, siblings and all the aunts, uncles and cousins have gotten together at her favorite restaurant, Smitty's. It's just a little hometown diner where she felt very welcome. I wish I had pictures to share, but for the 3rd year, I forgot my camera.

In other happenings for this weekend, Brown & Caldwell held a family bowling night for the company. There was good food and then bowling. I didn't actually bowl but Hannah, Justin and Dale did. Hannah and Justin had a great time. They bowled with a whole group of kids and did quite well--better than mommy ususally does, but I might do okay with gutter bumpers up like they had. Owen just had fun running around and clapping for everyone and trying to lift the bowling balls. I do have some pics to share from the bowling fun.

Here is another random photo from the weekend of the kids being crazy singing and dancing to songs from itunes.

My Sketch World March sketch

I'm a few days late, but the first sketch that I had to work with as part of the new design team over at the My Sketch World blog is up. Here is the sketch and the layout that I made with it.


If you do a layout using this sketch and upload it in the MSW forum, you will receive a ballot in the drawing for some goodies at the end of the month. MSW also has a separate contest going on right now with a brand new sketch and a theme. The prize is the awesome Feb. spice kit from Scrapdango, which I've had the pleasure working with. You can see my creations from it just below. Check out the MSW blog for the contest details.

Scrappy stuff

Once again, I've had a lot of scrappy stuff going on. First off, we had our February reveal of the design team designs over at Scrapdango a few days ago. Unfortunately for you, both the fantastic kits for the month are sold out again for like the 3rd month is a row, so if you like what you see, you need to get over there early to get your kit. The March kits will be available to order on March 1st and here are some sneak peeks at those:


March Sugar kit:

March spice kit:
Now, here are my creations I made with the gorgeous February spice kit.

Now, on another note, I found out that I made another design team. I was chosen as one of the new designers for:

This is an awesome blog where a talented sketch artist, Lucy Chesna posts 2 sketches each month for the team to design with. It's always neat to see how different people interpret the same sketch. I am so excited to be a part of this team and working with Lucy's great sketches. To celebrate the 2nd blogoversary of the sketch blog, My Sketch World is hosting a crop that starts today, the 19th, and goes through Monday the 23rd. There will be challenges, games and prizes from sponsors, so if you want to get your creative juices flowing and do some chatting this weekend, come join us on the forum.

Happy Valentine's/President's Day

Hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day and were able to spend it with someone you love and hope you are having a wonderful long weekend for those of you who have Monday off. Dale and I are actually currently sitting in the Hood River Inn in Hood River, OR for a night away from the kids for a belated Valentine's Day. Grandpa Robert and Grandma Pom came down this weekend to visit and kindly offered to watch the kids while we went away--maybe they didn't actually think we'd take them up on a whole night away, but give us an inch and we'll take a mile when it comes to getting a break from the kids. We love them to death, but they can be exhausting. G'pa and G'ma were keeping them occupied by cooking homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs for dinner, making beaded jewelery and building a Lego StarWars ship that was one of Justin's belated birthday gifts. Owen also got some little mini StarWars figures that are now his new obsession, and he was totally content playing with them when we left.

Harold and Sharon, we know you'll appreciate our location. We're sorry you weren't able to make your trip here over Christmas. We'll try to enjoy it for you. We walked around town a little and went to a nice dinner in a restaurant that we realized we had been in many years ago on a day trip around Mt. Hood and back. We are now relaxing in the hotel and watching the first episode of the newest season of The Amazing Race.

I want to leave you with a few photos I took of Justin and Owen for Valentine's Day. Hannah was at school at the time and probably wouldn't have cooperated anyway.

My Lover Boys

A New Pet

Well, this family has not had much luck with pets so far. We had a cat, Murray, that we got as a kitten 4+ years ago, but he only managed to live a couple years. The vets could not figure out what was wrong with him, but he was not in good shape, so we had to have him put to sleep. The kids still ask about him and wish we had him. We also had a beta fish, Red Fins, (yes, not the most original name) that did not last long either and fish are want to do. Well for quite awhile, Hannah has been saying she wants a guinea pig. Over Christmas break, she got the chance to pet sit her class guinea pig, Shadow, which went well. The cage was just in her room on her window seat (although I just learned that guinea pigs are highly susceptible to heat stroke, so we'll have to make sure the blinds stay down when it's sunny) and as Dale said, we were relatively unaffected by his presence. We decided that for her birthday she could get one. Well we finally went last weekend and got Fudgey. Now, you might think by the name, that he is dark brown, but we were rather limited in our options and Hannah was rather set on the name, so here is Fudgey--he's peanut butter fudge.

And here are the kids looking for him under the

entertainment center when he got away from Hannah

Unfortunately, he hasn't quite gotten used to us. I think he'd rather be back in his cage at Petco with his other guinea pig friends. He's rather skittish and seems very nervous. It doesn't help that Owen has learned to open Hannah's bedroom door, where he is not allowed, and gets in there and "plays" with Fudgey. I go in there and find him and he has had the door open and done who knows what and there is cage bedding everywhere and Fudgey does not look happy. Hopefully he gets used to us soon and can be a family pet for years to come.

I've been tagged

Quite a few days ago, I was tagged by Michele from Scrapperie and am finally getting around to doing what I was supposed to do and pass this along. So what I am supposed to do is:

Go to your Picture Folder on your computer or wherever you store your pictures.

1. Pick the 6th Folder, then select the the 6th picture in that folder.

2. Post that picture on your blog and the story that goes along with the picture.

3. Tag 6 other people that you know or don’t know to do the same thing and leave a comment on their blog or an e-mail letting them know you chose them.

So I have numerous folders where I store photos for each of the 4 digital cameras we have had (and still have), but I will go to the biggest one and this is the photo that comes up.


This photo is from March 24, 2007 and it is Hannah and Grandma Pom making origami. They brought down some origami books and paper and they did it the entire weekend. They still do it every weekend they come down. Ironicially, Grandpa Robert and Pom are coming down this weekend and Hannah has mentioned doing origami again. Man, I'm really glad the photo wasn't some dorky one of me like most of them are. I probably would've lied and skipped to the next photo. Thankfully, I didn't have to do that.

Now, I have to tag 6 people. I am tagging

Annaliese
Tara
Ginni
Julie
Jana
Kerryn

Beautiful Monday! & some scrappy news

It's not often that the words beautiful and Monday come out of my mouth together. In fact, I've probably never said those together. I am NOT a Monday person. I don't like getting back to having to get up early and get the kids off to school, especially in the cold, wet and, lately, very foggy weather we've been having. It's been pretty much nonstop fog for about 2 weeks- some days not burning off at all making it rather dreary. But today we woke to bright sunshine, and it's relatively warm out there. For the first time in many months, I actually walked up to the school to pick up Justin from school rather than drive, and it was very nice. It even feels like a touch of Spring, which I am so looking forward to. Here's hoping that the groundhog is wrong in predicting there's 6 more weeks of winter. I hope that this BEAUTIFUL MONDAY is the start of a great week.

In other news, there's lot going on in the scrappy corner of my life.

First off, I want to remind you that Scrapdango's Crowned contest started yesterday, but it is not too late to join in on the fun. The first challenge has been given, and it's a great one involving bling on your layout, and you have until Sat., Feb. 7th to do a layout and post it. If your layout is chosen as the best by the DT for the week, you will be sashed and win this wonderful prize:

Yes, it a full Lemongrass kit by Crate Paper. Wish I could win it. :) There are games going on during the week, a Miss Congeniality contest for the person who keeps the boards rawkin', there will be a new challenge each week with more wonderful prizes, and the overall winner who is Crowned will win a guest design spot for April with a full kit along with another full kit (choice of 2 from February). How awesome of a prize is that?!!!!!! So join us for all the fun throughout February.

In addition to Scrapdango's contest, I also just found out that I have been chosen to be on the design team for Scrapperie, another wonderful scrappy site with great kits each month. I am now a Très Chic Girl and am so excited to join another talented bunch of ladies and start creating with their wonderful kits. They are also having a contest over there called Fantastic February, and the theme is Love is in the Air. If you want even more games and challenges and prizes, this is the place to be. There will be 4 project challenges each week that you have all month to complete along with games and even classes where you can earn points. At the end of the month, your points can win you prizes from the prize pool consisting of gift certificates to the boutique, tons of mini kits, mini-albums, acrylic albums, stamps sets (with inks) cardstock packs, cards kits, Essentials, Extras and Trimmings monthly kits- and someone can even win a Pièce de Résistance kit! Here is an example of the last Pièce de Résistance kit:

Now who wouldn't want that?

So get out there and get scrappin' Hopefully I'll get some scrapping done soon and post some layouts for you all to see.