MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

We're off to our parents house (aka 'hotel room') to celebrate the birth of Jesus and have fun with family. Have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

2007 Calendar for my MIL

Jen and I joined together to create a calendar for my wonderful MIL! We did every other month. Here are mine, starting with February!

This last December one is a scraplift of the layout we did in Sonja Mclean's 'Booker's Club'. Thanks Sonja for making December an easy month to do!

2 more sleeps until christmas!

at least 10 times a day, my children ask me how many more 'sleeps' until christmas???!!! they're driving me nuts, but i love to see them soo excited. (after all it wasn't that long ago that i was driving my mum up the wall :0) hee, hee) i'm pretty excited too for christmas. this may be our last christmas living in the GVRD, so i'm cherishing every moment i get to spend with family, doing things in traditional family fashion. maybe we'll have some white christmas' in manitoba though!

VERY excited to be taking off for hawaii soon. this vacation is just what jonathan and i need right now. sun, sand, and 'US' time! YAY!!!

I’M UPDATING!!!!

Thanks for the ‘gentle prodding’ Wendy! Life has been busy, busy, busy, and full of fun! I’ll try to remember everything, be warned, this could be a long post!

WE’VE MOVED!!

As I posted in an earlier post, we sold our home in August and have moved into a rental home owned by Jonathan’s 1st cousin’s husband’s family. Confused yet? Lol. Jonathan’s parents came out from Manitoba to help us move and renovate. It was a crazy time, and we couldn’t have done it without them! Jonathan’s Mom is a cleaning machine, and Dad loves to help paint and reno. We’ve painted the kitchen a deep, chocolate brown and the rest of the house a cappuccino (thanks Doug for the name!) I’ve gone back to the safety of browns (my favorite color!) and I’m loving it. We’ve also put in new moldings and doors and helped Doug put in a new bathroom.

The kids are loving all the space that acreage provides. They’ve whipped around on their new motorbikes and even found trails behind the property to explore. Jonathan has even bought me an old motorbike that I can use (or HE can use until he buys himself another one, lol!) It just needs a little TLC before it’s ready though.

The house is great. It’s quite old (100 years???) and needs a lot of TLC. But we’re settling in nicely and will have lots to keep us busy in the future.

E-mail me for new address and phone number!

THINKING OF MOVING AGAIN (maybe)

After our trip to Manitoba last summer, we’ve been thinking seriously about moving there. A job opportunity has Jonathan VERY excited, so pray for us! It’s been on our minds a lot….

LOVEBUG CROP

During the whole move, I managed to ‘escape’ work for a whole Saturday so that I could attend a Lovebug Crop! It was great to see friends and work on a layout. ~ With the help of my tablemates (Sonja, Anna, and Felicia, I actually managed to finish a layout! A special thanks to Sonja for her supplies and suggestions :0) !!) I’ll post it as soon as my scanner/printer is up and working! I’ve also got some pictures to post too…

CKC

It was sooo awesome that my SIL Jen could come out to Vancouver so that we could attend CKC together! Here’s an account of our ‘girls’ weekend together:

Thursday: We dropped the kids off at school at 8:30 and headed towards to border. We only had a one car lineup! We stopped off at Treasury of Memories and Target in Bellingham. Shopping!!! Then we headed down to Seattle. Even without a map, we made it to the Meydenbauer Convention Centre without any problems. We picked up our registrations info and even bought the new Ali Edwards book and a T-shirt as a souvenir. Jen bought some amazing chipboard! Then we headed off to our hotel. We stayed at the Hilton (formerly the Doubletree) and let me tell you, those beds are COMFORTABLE!!! For dinner we went for Pho with Sonja and Nancy. Jen’s first time for Pho, and she liked it!

Friday: Woke up early to get to the Vendor’s faire by 9:00. Our first stop was at the Technique Tuesday booth. Boy, am I a sucker for stamps! I got some great Alpha sets that I’ve had my eye on for a long time. Spent more money at the Rusty Pickly booth and adhesives at ScrapPals.com. Also bought some paint condiments at Delish. (Thanks Sonja!! You always know where to find the deals!) We had 3 classes that afternoon. The first one was definitely a learning experience. It was my first scrapbooking class, and wow!, I learnt tons, but mostly I learnt how to scrap FAST!!! It was super-fast paced, but it prepared me well for the rest of our classes. We met up with the Lovebug gang for dinner at Azteca. I couldn’t decide what to get so I ordered a combo platter. All I’d had to eat that day was a granola bar and meal shake, so I was starved! I’m not sure if I ate too much or it was just a greasy meal, but I ended up in the bathroom at 5:00am spewing it into the toilet. YUCK! We went for a late night hot tub and relaxed in bed watching a movie.

Saturday: Woke up early for a class. 5 classes today! It was a long day, but I learnt soooo much. I loved all my classes (except one, didn’t learn much). I especially loved the Rusty Pickle classes. The mini-books we made were so much fun, and I’ve got tons of ideas! I also loved the ‘Down and Dirty with CK’ class. ( I had to go buy some texture paste at Michael’s as soon as we got home! Can’t wait to play with it!) Did some more shopping at the vendor faire too. Couldn’t resist more at the Rusty Pickle booth. They had lots of amazing stuff! Went for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with Jen, Anna, Nancy and Gillian. YUMMY!!! I ordered a pesto pasta dish that I’ll never forget, and has to be repeated one day. Had another hottub before bed and a visit to Rae’s room to see all the goodies they bought! I took photos that I’ll have to post soon. There was enough supplies in there to stock a store!!! Lol!!!
Sunday: Managed to make it out of the hotel by noon and headed off to visit the Space Needle and Pike’s Market. We got some great photos with the veggies! Once again there was only a one car wait at the border, but we had to go in to pay duty. Spent quite a bit, but only had to pay about $30 in duty fees. Not as bad as I thought! Picked up the kids from Mom’s house and headed home with Jen.

I have lots of photos to post! Hopefully I'll get them on here soon.... I also had PRK (Laser Eye Surgery) and have lots to post on that, but I'm not supposed to be on the computer right now....lol.....

Here's my two most recent Circle Journal entries. They're off and mailed! Since there's a good chance I may not ever see them again, I thought I'd post them here!

I got my camera 2 weeks ago, and I've been doing a lot of playing around with it. There's definately a learning curve that comes with this camera! I've put it straight into manual, and I'm determined to 'get it'. I've had one problem though. I've been doing some of my recent shooting in RAW, and my editing program (Photoshop Elements 4) does not recognize RAW from my camera. I'll have to update to PE 5 when it comes out! I've changed it to Jpeg now so I can see my photos easier! I've downloaded a trial version of Capture NX, but it seems to take forever to process the photos and save them into JPEG so I can work with them... Does anyone have a faster solution????

These are photos I took yesterday on the front lawn with Joshua and Nathan.

I bought my first camera-related item!

My camera will be here in 10 days. (Yes, I'm counting down..... ) and I've been researching lenses and accessories all over the web. I stumbled across the most awesome site for camera bags. Have you ever seen a Crumpler camera bag before? These things are awesome! I almost ordered one on-line from the dvshop in Toronto (best prices I could find and they have the lensbaby 2.0 on sale!) however I was very torn on which size to get. It's so hard to tell from pictures on the web. So, I drove to Beau Photo (downtown Van) to take a look at their bags. It's a good thing too! I originally had wanted a '5 million dollar home', but after looking at it, I realized it would be too small. The '6 million dollar home' is a perfect size. It will carry my wallet too! I was really tempted to get the red one, but opted for the 'safe' black one. I think I'd like to get the '4 million dollar home' later to use as just an everyday 'grab-my-camera-n-go' bag, but I didn't want to spend too much at once. (shhhh, I also got my lensbaby ;)

Here are pics from Crumpler's website:

Kids are back in school!!!! YAY!!!

Not quite sure what I'm going to do with all my free time! I'm sure I'll be missing the kids soon, but for today, it sure is nice to know they're safe in a classroom and I don't have to deal with fighting, and "I'm bored" comments. I have some housework and circle journals to catch up on, and then I'll be looking for some activities to fill me and Nathan's time together. What to do?!?!?!

Some good news and some bad news....

We accepted an offer on the house last Thursday! The purchaser has until this Thursday to remove all subjects. The inspection is coming up and I think things will go well.... but you never know!

Bad news: My parents had a fire in their house, and everything in the house is either burnt, melted or smoke damaged. It'll be quite a few months until they will be able to move back into their home. However, they have been taking it very well, all things considering... It's a good thing they had good house insurance. I know I'll be looking over my insurance again to make sure I have good coverage.

Matthew 13 Parable of the Four Soils:

"A farmer went out to plant some seed. As he scattered it across his field, some seeds fell on a footpath, and the birds came and ate them. Other seed fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The plants sprang up quickly, but they soon wilted beneath the hot sun and died because the roots had no nourishment in the shallow soil. Other seeds fell among thorns that shot up and choked out the tender blades. But some seed fell on fertile soil and produced a crop that was 30, 60, and even a 100 times as much as had been planted. Anyone who is willing to hear should listen and understand!"

Jesus describes 4 types of soils:

the hardpath - those who hear about Jesus and don't understand

the rocky soil - those hear and receive it with joy, but wilt as soon as they have problems or are persecuted.

the thorny ground - those who hear and accept the Good News, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the cares of this life and the lure of wealth. No crop is produced.

the good soil - represents the hearts of those who truly accept God's message and produce a huge harvest.

My soil is often thorny. Pray for me!

Yay!! I'm so excited I can hardly keep myself from jumping up and down! This weekend I finally put myself on a waiting list for a camera. I've ordered the Nikon D-80 with the 18-200 mm VR lens. The wait is really getting to me though and its only been a few days! Apparently this camera doesn't start shipping until September 15... and with the usual short supply of Nikon, this could mean an even longer wait. The good news is that I'm first on the waiting list for the camera (I think), and third for the lens. Now all I need is a good class so I can learn how to use it!!!!

The Open House was this weekend also. No news on this front. Apparently there was lots of interest and almost 30 groups of people coming through, however no offer... Our realtor remains optimistic though and ensures us that we are not priced too high. Tomorrow there is a realtor's tour in the morning and a showing in the afternoon. It's not easy to keep a house clean and keep packing up the kids for outings. Pray that our house will sell soon!

Haven't been too busy with scrapbooking. The house has been a big priority for us. I am however, looking forward to fall. I'll be going to the Creating Keepsakes convention in Bellevue (Seattle) and staying there for 3 whole sleeps! Jen, my SIL, will be going with me so it'll be a great bonding time. We'll also be meeting fellow scrapbooking friends from Lovebug, and having a grand ole girly time! I REALLY can't wait for this!! ...and I'd better have my new camera by then....

Also in November is the Ali Edwards classes at PE. I've signed up for her 2 album classes. Sonja and Anna will be there too, so it'll be another Lovebug Party!

AND... October 21st is the Lovebug Crop.... and these are always sooo much fun!

I see lots of Scrapbooking in my future!!!

Today's devotion: Matthew 11
Verse 29: Not even a sparow, worth only half a penny, can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it 30: And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. 31: So don't be afraid; you are more valuable to him than a whole flock of sparrows.

Verse 32: If anyone acknowledges me publicly here on earth, I will openly acknowledge that person before my Father in heaven 33: But if anyone denies me here on earth, I will deny that person before my Father in heaven.

Crazy Summer!!!


What a crazy summer it's been! Our home has a 'For Sale' sign on the front lawn. We've been talking about selling it for a while now, but we (ahem - Jonathan) finally decided to get 'our' butts in gear and finish up the renos. The Open House is this weekend, so I'm trying to get the house clean. My kids think I'm a big grouch.....

Signed up for CKC classes in Seattle today! Can't wait to enjoy 4 days of FUN away from home with my SIL and friends. WOOHOO!!! I can't wait for November!!!

Had lots of fun at the Lovebug crop last Saturday. I got to test out Anna's camera. Thanks Anna! I'll be getting one of my own soon to play with. YAY!!!!

woah, it's been awhile......again! it's been non-stop busy, even since the last post. we're so excited and counting down the hours until we go on vacation though!!! we'll be leaving soon to drive to manitoba with stops in calgary and saskatoon. can't wait to visit with family and friends!

had to get a quick scrapbook layout in this morning. it's a pic of james taken in april. he had his head on the counter and he was complaining about how bored he was. i think I'll be hearing that a lot this summer!!! HELP!!!!

april guest designer

i can't believe i didn't post about this yet. for the month of april i was chosen as guest designer for lovebug scrapbooking. it was fun!!! (and i got my kit for free :) ) i had to use the april kit to do some layouts. here's a couple i did with the kit: (check out lovebug to see other projects i created!)

it's been soooooo loooongggg!!!!


ahhh!!! it sure has been awhile eh? i never was very good at keeping a diary, so i don't know why i thought doing a blog would be any easier. it's been crazy here in our household. we've recently put a new roof on the house, and we're starting the reno on the outside. (even though there's still little things that need completing inside.....) jonathan's been SUPER busy at work, he's even been putting in quite a bit of overtime. plus, he's got his motorbike race this sunday, so he's spending time fine-tuning his bike. between that, baseball 2x per week, board meetings, committee meetings (eastridge community fellowship 10th ann. is coming up on may 28th!!!!! - i'm in charge of organizing the food and bbq in the parking lot after the service), bible study, and of course ~ my scrapbooking!!!! our family has been on hyper-drive. i NEEEEEDDDDD more hours in the day!!!!! anyways, enough complaining. kids are doing great. they're loving the sunshine and being able to play outside again. i'm loving it too......

had an online crop with lovebug on april 22. what fun!!! (except that was the day we also did the roof.... ) the challenges were great. sonja's file folder make'n'take was great. I got 2 mother's day projects completed with that! i also completed a couple layouts. here they are:

the 1st one was a challenge by tina. we had to keep adding things to the layout every hour. the 2nd one was a 'simplicity' challenge by sophie. I was only allowed to use cardstock, a photo (taken by carmen @ 'spex portraiture'), title, and one 'other' thing. my 'other' was ink. I managed to get 4 layouts done and the file folder album!

Here's my latest layout! I love this picture of Joshua.

nothing too exciting happening here! i haven't got anything new really to tell, but i feel the need to update anyway.

i had a really awesome time at a testimony workshop on saturday with D.I. some people have had REALLY interesting lives, and you can really see how God has worked with them, and through them. my life seems pretty boring in comparison to some of the life stories i heard.

i've been really cramming to get my scrapbook pages completed for the 50 page club at lovebug scrapbooking. i have to do 5 pages a month. considering that each layout takes ~5 hours (or more!), it's been keeping me pretty busy and i've had some really late nights. i'm loving the challenge though. jennifer, my sister-in-law, has joined me in the 50 page club. isn't it cool how the internet can make 2 people ~who live 3 provinces away from each other~ seem so close! (although the phone helps too!)

i've had 2 visits from super good friends who live far away. christine ~the mother of my four beautiful god-children~ was here. We always have awesome talks- thanks Christine for being a soul-sister-in-Christ! and wendy, my dear friend from nunavut who will always think i'm young, ~i hope you still think i'm 23 ~thirty years from now!

my kids are on spring break and i can't seem to ever get the house clean....and i'm thinking.....how will i get through summer?

this month has definately been an awesome month for scrapbooking! fyi, i receive monthly kits from an online store named lovebug scrapbooking, and i'm a frequent poster on their forum. I LOVE THIS STORE!!! every month, members of the forum and design team host 'challenges'. the participants in these challenges are then entered into random draws. well, this month i won three random draws! woohoo! yay! i've only won once before in my whole life, and it was a pair of canucks hockey tickets ~ and i didn't even go to the game (jonathan took a friend ~ i figured they'd enjoy it more!) anyways, one prize was a $5 GC to Lovebug and the other two are rak's. thanks deanne, darlene and sophie for hosting such great challenges!

and to top off my VERY BLESSED month, I won 1st prize in the contest i entered at lovebug. (see my last post!) the challenge was to alter any item using fontwerks products. i love fontwerks products ~ especially their stamps! so, what was my prize? ~ 2 sets of their alphabet stamps!!!! i'm soooo excited to use them! THANKS LOVEBUG!

i do have to say that i feel a little bit guilty for hogging most of this month's prizes. SO, next month (April 1st) i'm going to host a challenge, so that i can share a RAK with someone! Come check out the 'i challenge you' forum at Lovebug!

this is an altered clock i did for a 'fontwerks altered item' contest at lovebug scrapbooking. i had no intentions of entering this contest, however on the last day to enter, i found myself wandering around the house wondering what could possibly be altered! my eyes lit on this clock i have sitting in the bathroom! (for those who know me - YES, i do keep an eye on the time while i'm in the bathtub!). i've always hated the yellowish tones of this clock, it just didn't match my bathroom! so, i decided to see what i could get done in a short time (while ignoring my children and household chores as much as i could get away with) .......i had a lot of fun! but i also had a lot of "oopsies."

• i spilled black paint on the paper, so i ended up "distressing" the paper
• i used white pigment ink and it kept smudging - i didn't even think to try to heat set it, duh!
• i tried to mod podge over it and completely smeared the white ink - had to re-paper the whole front!

despite all this, i managed to get pictures of the clock in 15 minutes before the deadline! i don't know if it stands a chance, but it was fun to do and i learnt a lot.

my biggest lesson??? this morning........ jonathan told me to move the clock or nathan would wreck it. (it was on the kitchen table) i told him i wasn't worried because it had been there all yesterday, and he hadn't been interested. (i was in my morning rush to get the kids ready for school and didn't want to think about 'the clock' anymore) anyway, i hate it when my husband's right - and he ALWAYS is! just as i was rushing the kids towards the door, nathan somehow got at it and knocked it off the table.........grrrrr......... the back mechanism came unglued and the clock hands came off their post...........grrrrr...........it's fixed now, but during this process i managed to smudge some of the ink again! buying the white STAZON ink is now a MUST for me! gotta go shopping!

a story to share.....

i have to share a story of love with all you moms and children. this is a story i read on the internet, and i'm copying and pasting it here. i don't know how true it is, but wouldn't it be cool if it was?!?!

"ok so on the way into work yesterday i was listening to NPR and they ran this story that made my heart melt. at one time it was widely believed that mothers and babies didn't share any cells while the baby was still in the womb. then they proved that there was cell transfer going on an the mother was left with some cells from the baby in her. it was however believed that not long after the baby was born the cells died off. then they started doing studies, and the studies showed that not only did they not die off, the cells stayed in the mother for an undetermined amount of time. that's right little cells from your son or daughter are still with you everyday. as the studies continued they started to notice that if there was a problem in the mothers body, lets say in the kidney, that there were a lot more than the normal amount of baby cells in the effected area. at first they thought that the baby cells could be what was causing the problem in the kidney, but a theory has developed that the baby cells were helping to fix the kidney. because they think the baby cells work like stem cells and can change into what is needed. well, i don't know about you guys but i think that news is AWESOME. even if they don't help, just to know you always have them with you. mothers have the cells even if they have a miscarriage or abort the baby. there is always a piece of them with you, maybe helping you to live longer and be healthier. i mean WOW!"

doesn't this just blow your mind? i'm going to try to find the source of this story.........

had a great weekend with the girls. we went down to birch bay for a bit of relaxing... and a trip to target! it was so nice to get away from the busyness of family life and be able to talk with friends without interruptions. i really think that every mother should have this opportunity every once in a while!

sometimes there are days when i get so caught up in my own daily travails, that i forget what i'm living for. what am i meant to do? where am i meant to go? i can even get caught up in trying to discover what and where God wants me, that i forget the whole point - that right now, today, i am already where he wants me to be. He can and will use me as he wants in every situation so long as i am listening and obeying Him! tonight in bible study one lady was sharing one of her daily devotions, and i was reminded about how short-sighted i can be. i'm living on borrowed time! God has put me here on earth for a purpose. james 4 reminds me that my purpose on earth is not to enjoy the world, but to be a faithful disciple!

oh God, help me to be a faithful christian right now, in each and every moment.

Look at this painting done by my sister-in-law, Jennifer! Isn't she sooooo talented. I'm glad she sent me an e-mail of this picture because I've been sending her e-mails of my scrapbook layouts, and now it feels more like we're 'sharing' our work together! ( Thanks Jen! ) Jennifer also painted a milk can for me a few Christmas' ago, and she did an awesome job on it!

BABY ALICIA!!! Born January 19, 2006

Congratulations Christine and Austen on the birth of your new baby girl! (and my newest Godchild!) She's absolutely gorgeous! I can't wait to meet her and see them all again in just a few weeks. I love this family!

This is the latest layout I've completed! I love this picture of James. The look on his face really shows how much fun he was having. Don't you love how children can show so much 'Delight' in even the simplest things!

My Blog!

Well, I've decided to join the blogging revolution! I've tried a family homepage, and couldn't figure out how to keep it going. (I think the program I used to start it up was a trial version and it expired on me...???!!!) So, we'll see how this goes! I don't know how exciting the life of a SAHM will be to share, but I can talk about the daily blessings and misfortunes that come my way!