06. November 2011 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

Dave Update:  With the kids at home to help Dave (most of the help he needs now is picking up stuff that he’s dropped, by the way), I was able to go back out to the weekend crop on Saturday and take advantage of a few more hours of making pages.  Dave had a really good day, although he’s really starting to get bored just sitting and watching TV.  He’s having trouble reading with the drugs he’s on, but hopes to get into reading a bit more once he’s off them.

After I got home from the crop, we took Dave out to dinner — his first outing since he came home from the hospital at dinnertime on Tuesday.  We just went to Vinnie R’s, a local Italian restaurant that’s right on the edge of our neighborhood (1.5 miles from home).

At about 8:30pm last night, Dave sneezed.  He typically doesn’t suppress sneezes, and he didn’t with this one.  The pain started right back up again and we felt like he was back at square one, the jolts of pain and muscle spasms immediately returned.  He was on a minimum of pain medications, so he felt every bit of the pain until he went back up the recommended dosages and could get things back under control.

This morning (Sunday), he’s feeling better.  He slept a little funny and had a knot in one of his glutes that took a couple hours to relax.  But otherwise, he’s ready for another day of sitting and healing.

Saturday’s Progress: I did 9 more pages on Saturday: 5 more pages for Timmy’s 1st year baby book and 4 pages featuring our October 2004 Bahamas cruise for our family vacations scrapbook.

Angela had proclaimed “This isn’t a competition…BUT….”.  We didn’t mean to, but we girls were definitely counting the pages we made up over the weekend.  I completed 17 pages in over the two days, which is pretty impressive for me 🙂  The other ladies will have cranked out anywhere from 25-40 pages over the weekend, but they were staying at the hotel and had 18 hours per day available…I did not.

One of the ladies gave me a ton of design help on Timmy’s 1st Christmas pages.  I realized how far into the stone age I am with my styles.  I broke out my circa 2002 Coluzzle and you’d have thought I was breaking out Medusa’s head, lol!

Things have come a long way since the days I last did marathon cropping, back when we were stationed at Patrick AFB and I’d get together with Angie, Kasi and Suzy for afternoon crafts about once a month or so.  For the first time, this weekend I was able to try out a Xyron sticker machine, a Cuttlebug cutter/embosser, and the electronic Cricut paper cutter system (with an infinite choice of cartridges!).  I could get lots of use out of the Xyron and should probably buy one, but the Cricut scared me to death!

Dave should be proud that I did all of these pages without paying a DIME for any new scrapbooking materials — only a payment into the meeting room at the hotel, and about $30 worth of photos that I had printed up at our local Walgreens.  Although I now want to hit up A.C. Moore and stock up on some of the latest and greatest!  With a 40% coupon, of course!

I’ve completed 13 pages of Timmy’s first year scrapbook and probably have about 6-7 more pages in mind.  They aren’t chronological (I have a traditional baby book that documents his first-year milestones), but rather fun collections of pictures I had of him in his first year, such as eating, bathtime, and family gatherings.  Jacob has a similar book that I finished several years ago.

These title letters came from the Cricut machine.  We also embellished some of the Christmas trees in the header paper with glitter.

Some captioning went into the lower left.

We took a cruise in October 2004, just after Jacob turned two years old.  Dave’s Mom joined us and we had a lot of fun.  We squeezed it in between all those hurricanes that hit Florida in 2004.

That pic of Jacob in the upper left is one of my favorites in the whole world, and Walgreens cut off the word “Pirate” that was written above “Jacob” on the hat (because these are digital prints being blown up into 4×6 size or something like that).  The Carnival Kids Club had the kids dress up as pirates and “attack” one of the restaurants and cause all sort of mayhem.

This was from our visit to the Nassau Zoo.  These were the friendliest flamingos we’ve ever seen.

I further embellished this page with homemade stickers of gas station pumps and tanks (hence the strange caption).  We have so many pictures of Timmy eating and drinking — always so happy.

Just before I left for the evening, we got to watch a sunset beach wedding out the window.  We had fun coming up with our own stories of how the couple met and what their circumstance was for having a wedding with only a bride, groom, clergyman, photographer and three flowergirls.  We had two hypotheses: a husband and wife privately renewing their vows with their three daughters, or a servicemember quietly marrying a single Mom of three girls just before he takes a deployment.

Thanks to my maximum zoom on my iPhone camera, you too can watch a sunset beach wedding!  The bride is just off the picture to the left.  There are three flowergirls walking from the stairs to the aisle drawn into the sand.

The bride is standing right under the pirate flag.

It wasn’t that warm (upper 60s), and it was rather windy, as you can see from the bridal veil.

05. November 2011 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

Dave Update:  Friday was a pretty good day for him.  He was able to rest very comfortably, and after the kids came home from school he walked up and down our block — the kids walked the dog.  With the back brace he’s keeping very nice posture while he back heals…

He’s looking great, and moving decently all things considered.  His spirits are high during the day.  By evening as the medications wear off he’ll get pretty worn out.  Which means he’s sleeping well at night…

Well before Dave’s surgery was scheduled, I had arranged with a childhood friend Angela to meet for a weekend of scrapbook cropping on November 3-5 with some other ladies.  We pool our resources — such as all those computerized, digitized tools that I haven’t invested in yet — and banter ideas back and forth.  I love doing these, and I hadn’t been to a crop since I was stationed in eastern Florida right after Timmy as born!  Most of the ladies booked rooms at a hotel on the beach and we rented one of the hotel’s meeting rooms to do the cropping, but my plan was to do marathon cropping during the day and sleep at home at night.

Our view from the meeting room we rented to crop.

We’re playing it by ear, but today I was able to go out and join in on the crop briefly while the boys were at school.  Dave stayed home and since I wasn’t far away, I could be back quickly if there were problems.

Enjoy some of the pages I made Friday for Timmy’s first-year scrapbook.  I did 8 pages…many of which I started at the crop and then finished at home tonight.  As I finished each page at the crop I took quick phone photos and texted (ahem, iMessaged them) to Dave.  They aren’t great photos here, and the scrapbooking supplies took a beating during our PCS last year so we have lots of upturned corners.  Make sure you see the last picture, it’s my favorite of the bunch…

If Dave is still doing well, I would like to go back Saturday and see if I can crank out 8 more pages.  I’m taking the ladies a lasagna, at a minimum…

There’s a page to the left of this titled “FIRST”, that looks the same with four other visitors (mostly family).
This is a pre-made page that I won as a door prize at a Stampin’ Up…or was it a Creative Memories? Party.  Today I just had to add the pictures and the word cutouts.

Some “journaling” (i.e. captioning) will go on the right side of this page.
A caption will go in the lower right.
My favorite so far.  Thanks to Angela for her Sizzix that makes “shadow” letters that made this so much fun to do…

02. September 2010 · Comments Off on A Thomas-Themed Scrapbook. Really? Yes, really. · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

How crazy are we?  My next scrapbook project is to use this lovely Thomas-the-Tank-Engine-themed scrapbook I got many years ago as a gift (I honestly don’t remember where/when I got it).  I opened it up recently after several years of it sitting with my other unused scrapbooks…and counted TWENTY available pages.

Could I possibly come up with 20 pages of Thomas?

To quote our favorite former Alaska governor: “You Betcha!” (insert wink and thumbs-up here)

We’ve been to enough Thomas-themed events, had enough Thomas-themed birthday parties, and gotten enough Thomas-themed toys to make a fun 20-page scrapbook.  Over the years I’d slowly accumulated Thomas-themed decorative papers, stickers and die-cuts.  I’d also accumulated generic-train-themed items.  It was time to put them to use!  My boys have attended Thomas events every year since 2003!  I also have plenty of pictures of Thomas birthday cakes (3 of them), Thomas toys, and a photo collection of the Thomas-themed clothing they have…to include Grandma Fox’s homemade pants and the Vans-style slip-on shoes she got in Hong Kong.

Yesterday I chose about 100 pictures from my photo files and sent them over to Walgreen’s for developing.  I knocked out 6 pages and it was so much fun going down memory lane!  I predict that my boys won’t be wanting to do this for much longer — Jacob already has outgrown Thomas and sticks to “prototype” toy trains.  Timmy still is enthralled with the magic of Thomas, and lucky for us, we found a TINY little narrow gauge tourist railroad in Alabama that hosts the event in the springtime if Timmy’s still interested.

Here’s the cover of the book — it’s a cool 3-D chipboard Thomas.

From 2010 09 01 Thomas Train Scrapbook

And here are the pages so far.  4 years, 4 different venues.  The next page I’m doing is from 2007, not a Thomas train ride, but our trip to “Thomas Live!” in Raleigh:

This is my favorite Thomas picture!  I believe this was 2006, based on Timmy’s shoe’s.
From 2010 09 01 Thomas Train Scrapbook
2003. The 3 pics on the left are our attempts to get J to look at the camera!
From 2010 09 01 Thomas Train Scrapbook
From 2010 09 01 Thomas Train Scrapbook
Trying out my new “Toy Train” font in the title.
From 2010 09 01 Thomas Train Scrapbook
In the upper right, J’s laughing hysterically, not crying or screaming.
From 2010 09 01 Thomas Train Scrapbook
From 2010 09 01 Thomas Train Scrapbook