Tuesday Sketch Upload

Here are the 2 latest sketches. Number 10 and 11.

Number 10 uses 3 photos and 2 large circles! Love the large arrow as well!



Number 11 uses 13 photos! Love the use of many photos on a layout!



ENJOY!

Just thrilled!

Had a photo shoot with a very energetic 18 month old on Monday after our trek to Hatchers Pass! This little one is so energetic and overall a hoot! Ended up chasing him all over his yard but managed to take a lot of pictures. After going through all the photos today and editing etc.. I am so happy to have a lot of photos that are keepers despite him running off during each shot!! Wanted to share a few of my favorites from the shoot!

Visit to Hatchers Pass

We have lived in Alaska for almost 10 years now and I have never been up to Hatcher's Pass. The remains of the old Indpendence Mine is up there and just beautiful scenery. We went up there on Monday so this post is a few days old but at least I'm posting! Ha! Anyways- it was a gorgeous day to go and it is only about 30 minutes from home. We had the afternoon free after spending the morning cleaning out the garage (yuck)! So we were tired from that but wanted to enjoy the beautiful day by spending it outside doing something!

Here are a few pictures from our adventure. The view from the top of the hill was amazing!

Blog Challenge - Favorite internet sites to visit

Katie at ScrapbookPlayground.com challenged us to share our favorite palces to visit on the internet. Well I like to visit a lot but here are a few I've visited in the last week:

Cote' Scrap - a french blog so I can't read most of it but I love to look at the pictures she has posted here. Beautiful stuff!

MuggleNet - LOVE mugglenet! I am such a Harry Potter nerd!

Crockpot Cooking - A huge list of crockpot ideas! Love this site!

Cricut - love all the tips and techniques I'm learning about here. I have the cricut expressions and I am still learning how to use it to it's full potential.

TV Clubhouse - So I am a reality tv show junkie! I go here to get filled in on all the good stuff! Like all the big brother happenings on the 24 hour feeds! Love all the discussions with people who are just as addicted as I am !

Anagram Maker - I always have leftover sticker letters and this site helps me use them all up! Just type in the letters you have left and the site will come up with words you can use.

Andie's Phototips - Love all of Andie's phototips that she shares here. A wealth of information!

I love Photography - a wonderful photography board. Great topics, tips, and more!

Canon Digital Learning Center - I still haven't figured out all the gizmos's and gadgets on my digital rebel so I go here to learn more! Great site.

Sesame Stree Workshop - My 3 year old is highy entertained by playing all the games here! So for me it is a very valuable site!

Crafster - Love this website. So many ideas and think outside the box techniques! Love it, Love it, Love it!

Well that is all for now. I'm sure I'll come across more another time! Have a wonderful day!

2 new sketches

Poppin in to add the 2 latest sketches. A one pager and a two pager. These were for the 14th. Obviously I'm 2 days late posting them but life happened ya know! Had to go school clothes shopping last night for my 2 oldest and that took a while. They were both so excited it was a mad house! Wal-Mart was a zoo, so many people so I decided to have the boys try their clothes on at home. All of Derrik's fit but Hayden's jeans were all too big. So back to wal-mart before monday to do an exchange. (oh, goodie! LOL!)

Anywho here are the sketches;

Sketches

I recently have been playing around with Photoshop to create my own sketches. Just dabblin of course but I am happy with them! I am hosting a sketch challenge at ScrapbookPlayground.com so every Tuesday I am going to post a new 1 pager sketch and a new 2 pager sketch. I'll post them here on my blog as well. So here are my sketches so far! Not that many yet but I'll get there!

Enjoying Nature - Thunderbird Falls

Went on a fun hike this morning with the kids and a few friends from church to Thunderbird Falls! A beautiful waterfall and just a great hike overall! The kids had a good time and were easily able to handle the trail. I am so thankful to live in a place where nature is just begging me to go explore! There is so much to see here in Alaska. And I have to admit that I have lived here for almost 10 years and I have never been here! Anywho- here are a few of my favorite shots from today!

Enjoying Nature - Floating the Willow

Monday - August 6th - we packed up the car and the boat and headed to the Willow River! We floated down the river and had a grand time seeing the sights that nature had to offer and we would pull over every now and then to fish and for lunch! The boys had a grand time. We went with our friends the Marshalls and just enjoyed the day! My DH was the "driver" and he did an amazing job keeping us in the middle of the river considering that there were 8 people on the boat and the river water was high because of all the rain. We all were wearing life jackets and rain boots.

I got some hip waders that were on sale but they only had certain sizes. I had to get men's size 8 which were HUGE on me so I looked oh so stylish!

We stopped at a sandbar that had a good fishing hole next to it and Charlie and Mike started reeling in the fish! They were pink salmon and not really worth keeping but the boys had fun helping to reel in the fish! Derrik had one on his line and he got so excited! A little too excited because he jerked the line a bit to fast and the fish got away, but that excitement of actually having a fish on his line stayed with him the rest of the day! Tanner did not want to touch the fish at all! He looked at them from a short distance but that was as far as he would get. Hayden wasn't sure at first but ended up touching the fish as well.


I did not want to touch the fish but held one after Charlie reeled it in and it was so slimy and gross! I have to admit when Mike had me hold his fish by slipping my fingers through the gills and in the mouth I was freaked out! The fish started moving it's mouth and body and so I dropped the fish! Didn't want to hold onto it any longer! LOL!
We had a great time overall and I was so grateful that it didn't rain on us!

Joining the real world now.....

I have finished the last Harry Potter Book! It Rocked!!!!! Every last bit of it was awesome! I do think the epilogue could have been a bit longer and more detailed but perhaps she is planning on writing more in the future? Well... a girl can hope! Mike finished the book this morning so I have finally been able to talk to him about it! It was so hard to go 2 days without talking to him about the book. I was about to explode! I will wait a bit until I post anything here spoilerish wise in case there are those of you who haven't read it yet... if you haven't read it Do So!! It is great!

Well I'm off to bed! I am going to scrap, scrap, scrap tomorrow. I haven't scraped in a few days and I am itching to do so! I'll definately share my creations here! Have a good one!

Soccer Tonight!

So the boys have soccer practice tonight! Kind of a whirlwind because Derrik has practice from 6-7pm and Hayden's practice is from 7-7:45pm. And of course Hayden's practice is 20 minutes away. So Mike and I have to coordinate scehdules Tuesday evenings so both boys can go to practice! Needless to say we are both tired at the end of the day. Tuesday is also PLAYDATE day. We get together with 20 or so other kids from church and the kids play for a few hours. It is a lot of fun. The kids sleep pretty hard on Tuesdays! LOL! I love taking photos at soccer practice! The kiddos are so cute!



Derrik wanted to check out the lake behind his soccer field after his practice last week.



During practices Tanner just runs around the field in his own little world! At Hayden's practice there is a playset so he can keep himself entertained. He wants to play soccer so bad but has to wait until next year when he will be old enough. Here he is yelling at me to take his picture! LOL!! (and the mosquitos LOVE him so that is what the ouchies all over his forehead are. He picks at them so it takes forever for them to heal!)



So we're off to playgroup and then soccer this evening. BUSY day!

A fun Class Yesterday!

Taught a fun group of girls at my LSS yesterday! It was a birthday party and the girls made mini-albums out of flip-flops! They followed the sample I had made but they had free reign on which stamps they wanted to use, colors of flowers and inks. They got really creative! I was very impressed with their creativity! This group of cute 13 year olds are well on their way to becomming scrapbookers!

15 things I love right now

Katie has challenged us to write about 15 things we love right now. This took some thinking since this list changes frequently. But for now here are my top 15! (sorry for the novel! LOL!)

Number 1: This is definately my family! I am very close to my family and when we were home at Christmas we had a family picture taken. (all 18 of us!) My immediate family is at the right of the photo. (me, my DH, and my 3 boys)



Number 2: My Scraproom! I try to scrap in here at least once a day. In a housefull of boys this is my "girly" area that is all mine! I definately love this area. It is central to the downstairs area so I can scrap yet still be aware of what is happening around me!



Number 3: Alaska and the Great Outdoors! There is so much to see here. The scenery is AMAZING! We could camp every weekend and still not be able to see it all! I definately love ALASKA in the summer! Green everywhere and just beautiful!



Number 4: Harry Potter! Okay it's a silly pick I know but I am loving all the HP stuff going on right now!!! Just finished watching Movie 5 and loved it! My DH came home with the Harry Potter 5 Wii game and I have been playing that with my boys and it is a blast!! And this Saturday Harry Potter BOOK SEVEN is coming out!!! Very excited but also sad because it's the last book in the series. Can't wait to find out what happens. I will probably hibernate for a few days and read away!

Number 5: My Camera. I LOVE my Canon Digital Rebel. Love it! I have been learning so much more about it and have been getting better photos! I got a few attatchments for it and am just excited to play and learn!!!!

Number 6: My new car! Have had it a few weeks and it drives like a dream!! Love the gas mileage it gets.



Number 7: My Crocs! I have a pair of orange colored cros and I LOVE THEM! They are so comfortable!

Number 8: Have to throw my 2 favorite movies in here! "The Count of Monte Cristo" and a "Knights Tale". LOVE these movies! So I guess Number 8 would have to be my movie time!

Number 9: To go along with Number 8 I have a few TV shows I can't seem to live without! LOL!! RIght now I am watching - "So you think you can Dance" , "Big Brother 8" , "Hell's Kitchen", and "Pirate Master". Okay so that is more than a few but I enjoy watching them all!! I'm addicted to reality TV. I do only watch these shows during the day while I'm folding laundry or doing something else productive. Since I got my DVR I haven't watched TV in "live" mode in a while. I love that I can forward through all the commercials and record what I want so I don't miss my shows!! LOL! So in short Number 9 is all about my DVR!! (aka TiVO)

Number 10: Teaching! I love teaching at the Scrapbasket! (my Lss!) Teaching is so rewarding and I love meeting new people and helping others to preserve their memories! Here is my latest class. (teaching this in August!)



Number 11: Right now I love my CLEAN KITCHEN! (Thanks Val!!) Normally my kitchen is a mess. And for a FULL week now my kitchen has been SPOTLESS!!! I have a good kitchen routine going now and it is making me so happy! It is so fun to walk into the kitchen to make dinner and not have to do the dishes first or scrub the pot I need. It's great!

Number 12: My silly boys! I know I mentioned family earlier but I have to mention my boys again! They are so funny! Here is a fun picture of Tanner from his birthday party! He is such a hoot! And I have to post a layout of all three of them just CRAZY!





Number 13: I truly love my house! Love each and every room and pray that I can keep it clean and keep it a place my kids and husband can enjoy being! I love my yard and our little piece of woods!

Number 14: Orange/Vanilla Ice Cream Cones from Little Miller's! LOVE this ice cream cone flavor!! It is So yummy!!! I take the boys for a treat here at least once a week! YUM!!!

Number 15: SUMMER!! Love being outside! Love not having to wear a coat!! LOVE wearing sandals and shorts!!! LOVE the beauty the summer brings!! (on the flip side I am not fond of the winter at all!! Having grown up in Arizona and New Mexico, Alaska is really a change for me but in the summer I truly enjoy being here!


That was a bit harder to do than I thought it would be!! I am sure next week my 15 will change a bit but for now that's me at the moment!! Thanks for readin!

It's Official

I have finally created a blog! Now to be honest I have created a blog before but NEVER kept up with it! Figures!! LOL!! I hope to be able to keep up with this one! I plan on sharing inspiration, projects, layouts, ideas, daily life, and more here! Even challenges every now and then! I love to scrap and as you can tell by my blog title that's what I do the most! Today is a rainy day so it's a perfect day to scrap! And that is exactly what I plan on doing this evening! I am going to go scrap with my good friend Azur'de at the Scrapbasket. Now to go figure out what I am taking tonight! Hopefully I'll be able to pack it all up in a few hours. I have a few ideas in mind!

Anyways- I would love to share a project or some kind of inspiration daily! So here is todays inspiration:



This is my youngest son Tanner! He loves books and so I had to scrap his latest book craze. "The Hungry Little Caterpillar"! I absolutely love Ric Rac and I love these fun colors! Scenic Route also happens to be my favorite paper manufacturer so you'll probably see it used alot!

Well I'm off to pack my bags for the crop!