..... different

My mother-in-law had little competitions for color challenges and Iwas going to try my hand at it but realized that, for challenges 10 and 11 I did not have all of any set of the colors.... so, I kinda combined them and made my own little card with the following colors.
-Garden Green
-Sahara Sand
-Daffodil Delight
-Chocolate Chip
-Very Vanilla
And, this was my final project.

Calendar Pages

I made a few other digital pages to put on a calendar I am working on for my Grandmother for Christmas. I want to do one for my Pampaw in Ohio too, especially since Mom has been working on genealogy and we have TONS of pictures of all my extended family on that side. Anyhoo, these pages dont have much in common with the month they represent, just fun pages to look at really.

Thanks Juanita!

My Mother-in-law recommended to me a way to do my scrapbooking without making a giant mess all over the room and worrying about my kids eating random scrap pieces! She has been asking me and Andrea to try this digital scrapbooking program called My Digital Studio for awhile now and for my anniversary last month my husband went ahead and bought me the program and a few extras to play with it. Of course, right after that my computer went down for awhile so it has taken me a bit to get around to doing some pages. I was very excited about this program because recently, in May,we had quite a bit of horrible rain here and some flooding. We had a box downstairs full of some books we had packed away and one of them was Ciara's baby calendar that I wrote EVERY little detail down in. Practically every day had something written on it. Well, we got quite a bit of damage in the basement and along with about 6 boxes of clothes, the box of books was ruined. Molded and destroyed. I could deal with all the other books not making it, but my heart broke when I saw Ciara's book. I copied down what I could from the pages saved, but pretty much everything was lost. With My Digital Studio, I can make all my pages, keep all my pictures and memories up to date and protcted from ruin, and make them fun too! So, here are my first few projects. I am learning so dont judge me too hard. lol.








On this one I actually took a few pieces (different sized and shaped stamps) and put them together to make the little hummer type truck. Very intermediate at best, but I thought it turned out quite cute.




I made the syringe on this one with the same concept as the truck.














My first few pages were all Chase pages because those were my most recent photos. More everybody-else pages to come. lol

I plan on doing a page like this for all the girls. I am starting a baby-book/calendar type scrapbook for each kid as a timeline type thing.






Well, that's what I got for my regular pages. I will post some from the calendar I am working on for my Grandmother soon too.

Still No Pictures

Wow. I am officially blog-grounded I think. I have posted sparingly and insufficiently these past few months and added like 3 pictures total! To quote the typical teenager these days "OMG!"
Sorry!!!! lol

And still, I post without ANY pictures to post. Well, not that I dont have any to post, just that I havent gotten them on the computer yet.... mostly bc I am lazy, but also bc I cant find the darn memory card reader to transfer all 4000 of my pictures onto the computer. Lame.

Well, Cadince just turned 4 last week. FOUR!!! How did that happen?! It hit me hard too. One day I turned around and my tiny little bug was 4! In case you are wondering though, she is still tiny. LOL! She has grown so much in this past year and is such an amazing big sister. It is nice to have the days while the big girls are gone at school to hang out with Cadie and Chase and watch them together. She and I do some school stuff every week for our "at-home" daycare and she is SO SMART. She catches on so fast and she really loves to learn. Chase absolutely adores her and when they play together he laughs so hard. She gets down on the ground and they crawl around together across the livingroom. Lovin it.

Ciara is loving Kindergarten and making tons of friends. She has had one minor incident (stepped on a girls foot when she cut in line at the slide) and we had a talk but other than that she has integrated quite well. Her teacher is quite lovely and I feel very blessed she feels comfortable in school and isnt scared without me.... but it kinda hurts sometimes. She doesnt even look back anymore when she gets on the bus or worry about what I am doing while she is gone. She had to stay home today because she was sick and she cried so hard because she loves Kindergarten and didnt want to miss her teacher anymore. lol. I guess I should just be glad she likes it while it lasts... pretty soon she will be faking illnesses just to stay away from school.

Cecilia has been off to a rough start in 3rd grade. Somedays she does excellent and enjoys it and other days she is so absent-minded about what she is suppose to remember to do and bring home and such. I fear she may have some ADD because she can not stay focused on anything... except art and reading. She can zone out on anything when she is reading and drawing. She had saved up money from her good grades last year and she finally bought herself a really nice art set and sketch pad. She is pretty good and Jared (my own personal artist who hides his talent but is really really good) has been teaching her some concepts and having her sketch different things different ways. I love watching her mind open up and her imaginaiton come out on paper.

Chase is 8 months old now and getting too big lol. He just moved into a big boy carseat, no longer in the infant carrier. He is a super picky eater, not with food but with WHEN he wants to eat and how much at a time. Fristrating but at least he eats... he gets like that with breastfeeding too. That one can be more painful than frustrating sometimes. lol. He is crawling (still more army crawl then hands and knees crawl) all over the place and it has become a necessity to baby proof the livingroom and surrounding areas now... and he still manages to find cords and shoe laces to chew on. He is adorable when he sits up and plays but he just doesnt like to sit up lately. He locks his knees so they stay straight and helays or crawls bu hates to sit. Boys will be stubborn boys.

Jared and I are still waiting.... waiting for a new job (his orders are up in 2 weeks), waiting to move into our own place again, and waiting for the other ball to drop so it seems. Everyday is a challenge with little to no friends around, no one to talk to, and with the thought of unemployment being our only income scaring the living daylights out of us. So, everyday I wake up I find a new blessing to dwell on. Something special the Lord has given me to help me smile that day and to keep the walls from falling down on me. Somedays all it will be is finding out that the toe I stubbed earlier that hurts like hades isnt actually broken-just painful. Thats nice. lol. But its a blessing.

I encourage any of you that actually read my ramblings to find a blessing, something besides the obvious fact that you are alive and you have a family bc thats cheating. lol. Its a challenge... and make a list of them for one week.... your list might surprise you. I am challenging my kids to do the same thing too.... a good habit I think :)
May God Bless you all and continue to bless me in all the insane and simple ways he does so everyday.

I blame the Herpes!

Before I embellish let me first say that NO I do not have a STD nor does anyone in my family. lol. My computer got a virus (hence the herpes remark) and has been under the weather for 2 months before we could finally afford to get it in the shop and fixed (expensive!). I have had ti up and running for the past two weeks but about the time we got it home the internet rounter started acting up and now it is nearly impossible to keep a signal on my laptop long enough to do anything really. Mostly I jump on to pay bills and check the bank and read what I can to catch oup on everyone else but I never have the time to really post. Have no fear, I am gathering pictures and information from the past 2 months to post on as soon as we can get the internet working better and when I can have a minute to sit and post my many many make-up posts.

Quick update-- things are becoming more depressing these days around here. We are living iwth my parents to try and save up money to get a place since Jared's orders are up at the end of this month, but even though he has been applying for jobs since April at least 3-4 interviews a month all over the state of Tennessee from point to point- we have no new job in sight. This is making it hard because even though we have been putting some money aside, its not near enough to live off of and we are getting anxious to have our own home again. I desperately ask for prayers that something decent pop up soon, we arent being picky!
Ciara started Kindergarten a few weeks ago so it is just Cadie, Chase and me (and Grammy and Pappy) at home everyday so we have been working on some preschool stuff for her. We cant afford actual preschool and she didnt qualify as "needy" to get into any of the local preschool programs at the elementary schools so we are home-schooling for preschool. She is loving it and I am very proud of her accomplishments so far. Ciara is loving Kindergarten and learning lots already and I will add more to that later. Cecilia is in 3rd grade now and just got fitted fro glasses the other day so she is handling alot of changes and she is doing so very well I have to say. Chase is growing as babies do and is as spunky as the girls were. He has started army crawling all over the place and I am reminded how insane life gets when kids go through the crawling stage!! lol

Guess that's all I can do for now, kids to feed and a husband due home any moment. More to come promise.