Better late than never...

I finally got my CMK June kit in the mail this week! (I teased the postmistress that I thought maybe she and her co-workers had been scrapping with my stuff in their breakroom. She said she would have called me to come and help them, since they would have no idea what to do! Ha!)
So, without further ado, here's my sneak of the one layout I've made with the kit so far...


(Are those Sassafras chipboard numbers adorable??)

And here's my layout:


(The numbers at the bottom mean.... 1 for Austin's first tournament, 2 because he came in second place in sparring and got a silver medal and 9 because he was nine at the time.)

It is such fun, colourful kit!!

I also wanted to post a reminder that Scrap For A Cure is having their Jump into Summer crop this weekend, so be sure to stop by for your chance for some fun prizes!

And here's a peek of a layout that I made with the SFAC June mini-kit:



Thanks for looking!

It's blog day...

A few things going on today...

First of all, it's reveal day for the June CMK kit...

But, unfortunately, I haven't gotten my kit yet. I'm wondering if I pop by the post office, if I'd find a bunch of workers playing with it in the break room... ;)

I do have a layout to share with the May CMK kit. I created this one for today's Monday Muse, where I posted the challenge to use scrappy packaging on your layout. Here, I used the woodgrain packaging that came with the Making Memories letters.



And, it's my turn to post on the MSS Blog, where my theme for the week is "in the details." This is the layout that I posted there today...



... and you can check out "the details" about it here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Friday news

Well, our day started off with Sage's kindergarten orientation this morning. We got to meet the teacher, Mme. Routhier. She was Jonah's kindergarten teacher, too, and because Sage often came along with me to volunteer, she is quite familiar with her.

It went well. Sage played with a little girl named May, while Mme. Routhier filled us parents (there were probably ten of us) in on what to expect for next year. Then we set up play dates for the kids to come back where they'll be paired with a "buddy" from this year's kindergarten class and get to experience what kindergarten is like. When Mme. Routhier asked Sage and May if they knew anyone in the class that they could be buddies with, May said: "I want to be Sage's buddy!"

Isn't that great? It just makes me so happy when my kids make friends!!

Challenge #21 is up at The Inspired Scrapper today. You can check out my post for the assigned sketch here.

Thanks for looking!

Taking a hike, round two

Since the weather was nice out, we decided to try a different trail at the Pembina Valley Provincial Park yesterday. And I took my new camera along, so here's my warning... this post is photo heavy. ;)




(These two are just so sweet together!)




The boys wandered ahead a little, so I got a few pictures of my best girl.


And a nature shot-- this was on my macro setting-- I was quite pleased!


I had them hold hands for this one. They were good to me and cooperated. :)



Cameron took a few pictures, too:




(Jonah named this guy Chippy. Yup, Chippy the squirrel.)

And I wanted to share a few layouts today, too.

I made this one for the mid-month challenge at MSS: layers:

And this one using last Friday's Scrappy Formula at CMK:



And this one with Sketch #82 at Got Sketch?:



Thanks for looking!

(And by the way, thanks for all the kind comments you left me about my scrappy space. I am loving it and would love to have all of my scrappy friends over to scrap with me! That's be so fun!!)

My new scrappy space...

is finally complete!!!

Here's the view of it once you come down the stairs (it's in our basement):



I have a little nook-- and look!! My computer is in the same place as my table! I'm very excited about this! A friend from church made the table for me-- it's 32" wide and 8' long. :)



My friend, Pam, is the secretary at our church and she had this wooden valence over her window in her office. They just repainted and said they weren't going to put it back up, so she gave it to me. I decided to use it to display a favourite layout (in a cool shadow box I picked up at Winners) and some favourite photos.



A close up of the baskets on my table which hold my tools, embellishments and pictures. The caddy from IKEA holds scissors, pens, papers, 8x10 photos, etc.




I had two of these shelving units before for my scrappy stuff, but now that we've put six of them together, I figured that I can take a little more space...

So, who wants to come over and scrap with me??

:)

Mother's Day weekend

On Saturday, Austin, Austin's best friend, Soren and I drove to Carman for our tae kwon do promotion test. My friend, Helena took these pictures of us testing.




(me-- facing the camera)

(Austin, in front)

The test was over four hours long and we had to sit on the gym floor the entire time. They dismissed the white and yellow belts after a couple of hours, but said that if we left, we wouldn't be eligible for an award. I wanted to stay to watch our friends do their test, especially Greg, who was testing for his third dan. I told Austin that I wanted to stay because I was fairly sure that I would get an award (a little teasing there-- the awards almost always go to the kids), but we stuck it out for the whole test. Then when they went to present the first award for improved, Master Seward said that she thought this first award winner would become quite the martial artist, as he was interviewing people at the tournament in Lorette. Austin, who had been sitting in front of me, turned around and said: "Mom, that was me! I was interviewing people at the tournament!" Sure enough, Austin won the improved award.



I love the tae kwon do club that we are a part of! The people there are so great! When one of the boys turned ten in Feb, they gave him the bumps after class. Austin thought that was so cool and wondered if they would do that for him. I reminded him that he turned ten on the testing day. I requested this honour for my first born and they were happy to oblige:



On Mother's Day, we hosted a bar-b-q supper at our house-- steak, twice-baked potatoes, fried green beans, sunshine salad and strawberry jello were on the menu. We invited my mom, my MIL, my sister-in-law (who brought a chocolate cheesecake) and her family and our friends Beth and Greg (who brought the most beautiful Mother's Day cake!) It was a really good time.

I'd made cards for our moms:

And one for my SIL:



My mom brought out birthday gifts for Austin (& an early one for Jonah)-- inline skates. My brother Trevor sent me a cheque after instructing me to buy wrist & knee pads for his nephews. They are really enjoying them!



And my mother's day present?

this

Woohoo!!!

(This, apparently, is also my birthday and Christmas present for this year, too! ;)

So, I've had a little fun playing with it and have been so happy with the shots I've gotten. Here are a few of my favourites:
















And my friend, Susan, took this one of my yesterday:



Sorry for the long post!
Thanks for looking!!

Somebody...

is turning ten tomorrow...



And I wanted to do something special for him. He and his friends really enjoyed the Amazing Race I organized for his eighth birthday (more details about that here), so I planned something similar.

This time, they were spies.

I picked them up from school and told them that they were chosen to form a special group of spies called Team 10 who were assigned to retrieve some weapons that had fallen into enemy hands. I printed up clues to reach their next location, as well as missions to complete once they got there, in order to receive their next clue.



Here's a shot from our first location (an obstacle course they had to navigate while balancing a ball on a spoon.)



The various locations were all parks in town. They did a fair amount of running around and, by the sound of it, worked up an appetite for supper.


Here, they were at the ball diamond, where they all had to hit the ball and run the bases (I told them they were going undercover as a baseball team. ;) )

One of their last "missions" was to pose for some pictures for me. I was really happy with these two:

The last location was our house, where they had to retrieve the tenth member of Team 10 (Sage) and then search the grounds to find the weapons (water guns (without water-- it was WAY too cold yesterday!) which they got to take home.) I love this one of them posing as spies!

Then we enjoyed a supper of hotdogs, chips and cheesies-- so healthy! ;)

I made a simple cake and decorated it with chocolate icing and m&ms.

Definitely a great party! I'm so thankful for the good friends that Austin has!

A few Friday things....

1. Challenge #19 is up at The Inspired Scrapper.

2. It's my turn to post on the CMK blog again today. I created this layout using this week's Friday Formula and the CMK May kit :



3. We're having an online crop this weekend at MSS. Click here to check out the challenges and play along!

Thanks for stopping by!

SFAC May kit layouts

I just wanted to share the other layouts that I made for Scrap For A Cure with their May kit:

Thanks for looking!