Merry Christmas!

Created for a couple of challenges around the blogosphere, and used as my Christmas card this year. The nativity is the life sized one at St. Michael's Catholic Church in Wheaton IL.

Aaryk turns 39...again!

It's so nice having Aaryk's Mom close by, she's in town to help take care of his Grandma, and they (with Uncle Gregory) took us out to eat for Aaryk's Birthday~

It's always a good time when we get together with any of his clan, and this was no exception!

Is it December already?!?

Wow, time is just flying past, seems like just a couple weeks ago it was 80 degrees outside...oh wait, I live it Phoenix, and it WAS 80 degrees! ;)

Looking back at this year it has really gone by quickly, and I'll have more of a 'retrospective' at the end of the month.

For now though, a little something to get you in the holiday spirit!

This is my brother, Christmas 1972, getting one of his very favorite presents of all time- his pink Underdog!

Daddy Jim 2004

No new pics to scrap, so I'm working my way through some older ones. I'm headed to IL next week to see family and scatter my father's ashes. So I"m looking for pictures of him to scrap right now.

Here's some from 2004-

Miss you Dad.

My Grandpa

I made a couple of variations of a page for two different challanges-

Over at Stuff to Scrap, I used the provided kit to make this page:

Then I rearranged it a bit and used it for the 'Thankful For My Guy(s)' challenge at Scrapper's Guide here:

When I started putting the page together, I wasn't sure what photo I was going to use, I like how the plaid in his shirt plays against the paper/ribbon strips on the page!

One Beautiful Day in November

We went for a drive to see the fall colors up in Oak Creek Canyon. We took the back way up through Prescott and it was a GORGEOUS day for a drive!

(And Angel only got sick twice!)

Then and Now

For a challenge over at Scrapper's Guide:

Sad Day in Our House

How about that...a non scrapping post.

Aaryk was in a motorcycle accident two weeks ago today and we got word yesterday that our insurance was going to total the bike. The good news is that it just barely covers what he still owes on it, but the bad news is that he will be without a motorcycle again for a while now.  :(

The BEST news though, is that he wasn't seriously injured when the other guy turned left in front of him, and that we have two cars so that getting to and from work is not an issue.

God does look after us!

One more for Halloween!

When I got around to unloading the pics from our drive yesterday I found the ones I had taken on Halloween of our Jack-O-Lanterns. We had bought the pumpkins in plenty of time but just didn't get around to the carving until after work on the 31st.

I think these came out very well!

Happy International Digital Scrapbooking Day!

All across the web today people are gathering for digital scrapping challenges, chats, and FREEBIES!
Even I'm getting in on a bit of that. Here's a link to the three QPs I made last month over at The Studio for various things:
Elegant QP (from T-or-T challenge)
Spooky Memories QP
Farmer's Market QP

And here's the pages I made for my October pics:

Our annual trip to the State Fair was fun, as usual, and we were joined by Aaryk's folks, his Grandma, and his uncle Gregory. His folks stayed for the Demolition Derby and that was a riot!

I'm trying to master the art of sing a SINGLE photo on a scrap page, and the Dog Days layout is one of my favorite so far! The one photo give the idea of the warm day, the two dogs playing, and I really didn't need anything else.

Oh, and the paper for the State Fair pics I made from scratch!  I'd taken a photo of the cracked concrete floor under the grandstands:

Turned it to a black and white image, and then overlayed a colored layer on top of it. It took some playing with blending modes and such, but I'm really happy with the result!

Learning new things with PSE every day!



Now, I'm off to spend iDSD on a drive up north to see the fall colors, and have something to scrap about!

More Halloween goodies!

I finished my last two Halloween challenges over at The Studio today:

This is from the Frankenstein Scraplift Challenge:

And finally, my final entry in the Halloween Progressive Scrap:

I love that I was able to showcase something fun about both Brian and Aaryk this weekend!

Now, off to work on the State Fair pics!

Happy Halloween!

Over at The Studio (see the link on the sidebar!), they are having several terrific challenges this weekend!

Here's what I've done so far-
Created a Halloween avatar:

Created a QP based on a list of Halloween 'treats':

Here's the post that tells about the rules for this one- Trick or Treat anyone?
and here's a link to the QP download if you are interested- Trick or Treat QP

And then there was the Pumpkin carving event. How do you carve a pixelated pumpkin you ask? Well, digitally of course! :) We were given a pumpkin template and told to decorate it how we wanted and to use it in a page.  Here's mine:

This is the QP that I submitted, you can grab it here- Spooky Memories
I also used a 'Tip of the Week' from Digital Scrapper to create the SPOOKY letters for this page. I had so much fun putting it together!

I had to dig up some old Halloween photos to put in this page, so here's the finished page-

There are a couple of other challenges I'm still working on, but I'll post them when I get done!

Canadian Thanksgiving!

Kate and Brian tried to surprise Share by planning a special dinner for her on October 10 (Canadian Thanksgiving Day). I helped out with a few side dish items, and they had a great time. I made this LO as part of the Progressive Scrap for October over at The Studio.

The Quick Page version of it is here- October Progressive Scrap It's one of the few 12"x12" pages I've done, and i thought it came out pretty well!

I'll be posting other QPs soon, ones that I did for the Halloween events at The Studio.

I am the mother of a 25 year old...eek! :)

I forgot to post Brian's birthday LOs here, shame on me! :)

We took Brian and Share to Dave & Busters for their Eat and Play package deal. Danny & Kate and Lisa joined us, and we had a good time. Unfortunately, my camera battery died and so I had to rely on the camera in my phone. Not great pics, but passable and certainly enough to help me remember the day!

Hey look!  I found another Catholic Scrapbooker!

Catholic Scrapbooking

Posting the link here so I remember to check back often!