Carving Pumpkins

We carved our pumpkins this evening.

The kids each chose a pumpkin and got to draw a face on it. (I stressed "happy faces.")

(I think Sage's is my favourite (don't tell the boys!) It just makes me smile everytime I look at it!)

Time

It’s been a fairly large focus for me this fall.

How do we spend our time? Within our family? As a family?
How do I spend my time? What’s important to me?

For us, fall has included taking both boys to school everyday. Picking them up for lunch and taking Austin back to school after lunch. (Except on Tuesdays when he has voluntary choir and eats at school.) Then we go and pick him up after school.

On Mondays, we have skating lessons after an early supper.
On Tuesdays, Jonah, Sage & I go to Stay & Play in the afternoon, from 2 to 3:30pm.
On Wednesdays, Sage & I go to Bible Study in the morning at church.
On Thursdays, we drop Austin off at piano lessons at 8:30am, take Jonah to school, go back for the rest of Austin’s lesson and then take him to school. Sage & I have been going to Shake, Rattle & Roll, which is now done, and playgroup will start every second week. And we have skating lessons after school.
Fridays are our free day, but might included coffee with a friend or running errands.

Add to this the job of taking care of a home (tidying up, laundry, etc.), meetings for R.O.X., helping Austin with spelling & dictée homework and practicing piano, devotions together in the evenings, connecting with friends and wanting to pursue my hobbies and interests …

I want to be productive and for my kids to be exposed to different activities that will be good for them, but I don’t want to be crazy busy.

So lately, it’s been about finding a balance that works for us.

Bye-bye cheetah...

Hello, crocodilian!





A friend of ours dropped off this costume on Saturday and Jonah has worn it every minute that we'll let him (I make him take it off for night, for church and for school!)

I think it would be an understatement to say that he really likes it!

(Btw, a crocodialian is the family to which alligators, crocodiles and caymans belong. Since the costume has no lower jaw, we can't tell which one it is, so it's Crocky the Crocodilian.)

online crop & other treasures

My Scrap Shoppe is having an online crop this weekend. Lots of great challenges that you can check out here.
Here are the layouts that I made:

For my challenge "8 is enough"-- to use 8 items on your layout (not including photos):

For my challenge "Alter It" to alter chipboard on a layout:

For Marcy's challenge to include something blue, something off the page, initials and a heart on a layout:

For Marcy's challenge to include 5 patterned papers, a number, your handwriting, staples, chipboard and stitching on a layout:

For Marcy's challenge to scraplift someone from the Gallery. I lifted Eva's "Treasure" layout.

And for Liz's sketch challenge and Anita's "Odd Man Out" challenge to have one colour on the page that pops out (mine is the orange "he said" chipboard circle):

Our next door neighbour had an auction sale and Sage and I saw this little stool there and we both fell in love with it. Cameron bid on it for us and got it for $5.

I thought it would be perfect for sitting on for pictures, like this:

And yes, this is the new colour of my kitchen walls. I didn't go as dark as what I'd first planned, (Cameron already thinks it's too dark as it is!)

Update

Well, I survived the weekend.

The baby shower went well. Not a bad turnout and my game was a hit (I think!)

The Take-It-Home event was a success as well. Almost all of the grade ones attended with one or both parents.

Huge sigh of relief.

So, here's what I've been up to since.

On Sunday afternoon, we decided to take the kids public skating. They loved showing off their skills and Sage loved skating with her Daddy.

Yesterday, I decided to paint my kitchen. I picked a dark olive colour called Eucalyptus Leaf. It's pretty dark, but I think it goes well with my light maple cabinets. I'm currently painting my shelving unit that sits under the phone (Windmere Cream) and once it's done, I'll take some pictures and post them. I want to hang some pictures of my kids along the wall, so these are my favourite from the past few months, which I just ordered from Walmart in 8x10.




(Man, I miss those curls!)

It's Friday

Wow. What a week this has been.

The biggest stresser for me this week has been the fact that I have two events on the weekend that I am in charge of organizing.

The first: a baby shower for someone at our church. So I've had to coordinate the food, collect money, make a card (not to self: finish card!), find a speaker, organize a game, get the room set up and decorated...

And the second: our first Take-It-Home event for our church. We want to start equipping parents to be the spirirtual leaders of their homes, so we're starting to have Take-It-Home Events, where the kids and parents are learning together and can hopefully "take it home" and implement what they're learning at home to impact their kids for Jesus. So for this I've had to redo a booklet we'll be working through, organize the supplies & make 21 felt Bible covers for the kids to decorate for their craft-time, write my talk and meet with another volunteer to plan who's going to say and do what. (Okay, the volunteer is my good friend, Val, so that wasn't stressful or anything, but it still takes up time.)

But, as always, God is faithful and gives me good things to balance out stress in my life. Some of the good things have included:

Connecting with Anita-- always a favourite for me!

Coffee with Val this morning.

My Scenic Route prize arrived on Wednesday:

I got 12 sheets of patterned paper, a sheet of die cuts, some alphabet stickers, word stickers and chipboard words. Nice!

We started skating last night. Austin, Jonah & Sage are all taking lessons this year.

They were all pretty excited, especially Sage.

I was a little worried because she fell down a lot, but she was smiling when she came off the ice and said she loved it! :)

I had a children's ministry meeting last night at Marlo's and she invited me to scrapbook with her afterward and I got these two layouts done:

Tinkertown mini-book

I took so many pictures when Mary & I went to Tinkertown with our kids in August that I filled my memory card! (Not the 2G one-- but my 256MB one!) Anyway with so many pictures, I decided to make a mini-book with them. Here it is:

I used Bazzill cardstock, Scenic Route patterned paper and alphabet stickers, a Bohemia transparency for the title page, some 7 gypsies tags, Basic Grey rub-ons, my Heidi Swapp acrylic stamps and my new label punch.

Thanks for looking!

Thankful

So many things to be thankful for, big & small.

Here's are some of mine:

1. that Jesus died for me & rose from the dead

2. my husband

3. my kids

4. my friends

5. my extended family

6. my church family

7. our home

8. scrapbooking

9. music

10. books

11. that we are healthy and food-allergy-free

12. our town

13. hugs

14. phonecalls

15. emails & pms

16. My Scrap Shoppe

17. sudoku

18. vehicles that run

19. warm clothes

20. R.O.X. and all the kids that come

For these things, and infinitely more, I'm so thankful to God.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Two months in a row

I'm so excited!!

I got an email from Scenic Route telling me that I won their September contest. The challenge was to submit a layout using their Ashville line. This is the layout I submitted (it's one of my favourites):

Anita took the picture-- I think it's my favourite one of me ever.

The journaling reads: "On September 1, 2007, Sage & I were sitting on her bed when she said: “I love Grandma Davies because she gave me this [Dora] hook. And I love Abbie because she shares her dollhouse with me.”

“And why do you love me?” I asked.

She threw her arms around my neck in a big hug and replied: “I love you because you are so beautiful!”"

For my prize, they'll be sending me out some goodies from their Salem line.