First Day of School

So Riley is back at preschool today. still mornings only. such excitement took place this morning. Riley told me he knew that 5 of his friends from last year were going to be there. Especially Kara. So he was excited. He has 2 new teachers, but he was so excited when he saw Miss Ada (last year's directress Assistant)

So today I decided to make it a Jager morning. He was really wanting to stay at Riley's school. Actually DID NOT want to leave. So instead I took him to the river, we walked on the Meewasin and stopped and played at Gabriel Dumont park. GREAT park. Enough uniqueness that kept us busy. But when I said let's go get Riley he was ready to go.

I just love his adorable smile! We had a fun morning hey Jag?

One stop before we picked Riley up. Yesterday's Memories got all of the Daisy Bucket line in. (*they are one of my sponsors, whose product I've never seen in real life yet) So I went and looked, shopped, and left exhilarated because the line is fantastic and FEELS cool. I love double sided patterned paper every day, but textured always makes it the best. Just a little scrapbook shopping to make a girl feel great.

So I plan to scrap tonight, get ready for my classes tomorrow night:

I still have openings in the Who Am I? & All About ME class tomorrow night starting at 6pm. email me if interested. scrap-mommy@hotmail.com

• I'm looking forward to having an awesome visit tomorrow afternoon with Kate Kading. Seriously, she is amazing. She is starting up an awesome program for kids, and I can't wait to get together with her to hear all of her plans. Ladies, if you are coming to my house Scrap, Swap & Chat- Sept.18th 6pm - 10pm just let me know. I can only hold a certain amount of people. Just to remind everyone, it is a night where we can get together and chat, share our albums, have appetizers and look through each other's products to swap & then also donate to Kate's group.
• Oh, so I definitely have awesome news to reveal on Aug.31st, not a moment before. So please come back then, and I'm hoping to have the best news to share tomorrow.
• I have some new sponsors for the cruise, AND I will show you a picture of all the LUXE design product I received. I hope that you guys are excited to receive it for FREE in your goody bags I'm giving at the 2 crops. Remember, if you weren't able to get into the crops, please come and say hi anyways because then you are eligible to win a $100 worth of free product.
• Cannot wait to see you tomorrow. Have a great sleep.

Our big Adventure! Lot's of pics!

Today was such an awesome day! I dedicated it 100%to the boys. Riley starts school on Wednesday so I thought, summer's over. No more unlimited play dates, late bedtimes, etc. Instead regimen, sports practices start, early bedtimes. So today I decided that we would do whatever the boys wanted to do, go wherever, eat whatever, do everything fun!!! no worries about deadlines, emails, phone calls, or scrap assignments that I HAVE to get done!!!! (I saved that for tonight) Today was the kid's day! and you'll never believe this. I received a massive LUXE shipment (like $3000.00+ retail that contained all my class products & prizes, goody bag product & prizes for both crops & then just stuff for me to design with!!!!!!) from the awesome UPS dude! (Lovin' UPS!!!!) just as I was walking out the door. And did I stop and go through it??? NOPE! Was it killing me all day???YES! But that didn't matter because just to have the day with my boys, seeing their endless smiles, to wrestle with them by the river. It was the best! And I took over 300 pics and about 80% are scrapworthy. We went to different parks we've never been to, in really remote locations. We'd stop only if they liked what the park looked like. Then we walked on different bridges, then we spent almost 2 hours playing on the new walkway bridge under Circle Drive. The boys LOVED this bridge. Then we drove out to Bare A@@ Beach and played in the river beds, splashing through the water, the sand, making castles. The water was so super warm. I turned my eyes to see Riley laughing and next thing I know I hear Jager right below me saying "fwimming". I looked...yes, yes he was! In full clothes! Never dreamt today would turn into a swim day. So stripped down to our britches and had a gay ole time for another hour and a half. then we had to pack up because tonight was Emily's 13th bday party. Our extended family always gets together for relatives bdays. This was a blast. We went to gramma's washed our clothes, ran around naked until they dried(we attempted toga towels for the boys but they kept falling off )too skinny, and then the clothes were ready just as people started to arrive.WHEW! So today turned out to be the best 12 hours of my entire summer. The only thing better would've been if Jim took the day off from work and joined us. We missed you honey! So here's just a few pics from the day! Enjoy!

Layouts, fun times & swimming lessons

Gramma & Grampa had bought this horse for us when my brothers were 4 +5, now they have created a place for it in their yard for my kids & hunter. they LOVE it. They even named their horse Blackie.

I'm a little cheesed that I wasn't ready to take a photo. Jenn was pulling the boys around last night in the wagon and they were squealing, so I just missed Riley's whole face. I still love it anyways.

It is funny how life evolves. This man, MY Grandfather was the strict military man my whole childhood. The full "children should be seen but not heard". I swear that my 2 brothers, my sister and I drove him nuts because we were so "full of life" (as I will politely put) As I moved onto my own I have seen him still tackle every issue with full force. (and the man has only a 1/3 of a lung. He hasn't had 2 lungs since his twenties because of tuberculosis) He never stops working and especially helping us grandchildren out. Now that he is a great grandfather to Riley, Jager & Hunter he has become such a gentle man, who I have seen smile so many times. He is having so much fun with the boys. Jager just adores him. He always runs to poppa first. I find this amusing sometimes as I remember being scared of him when I was little, now I can't picture him as anything but the way he is now. These are memories that I will capture, because I want my boys to remember their time with him!

My gramma just adores her great grandchildren. I am so fortunate that she helps me out with the kids. We have so much fun with her! When I was growing up she took us to our swimming lessons in the summer, and we biked for miles. She would always take us to the paddling pool, and now she takes my kids!

Swimming lessons are going GREAT! I have a little swimmer on my hands.

he loves to practise his floats. Today they were in the deep end so they needed life jackets!

This page actually has a lot of different things going on. The paper comes with all the awesome bumps on it. Then I painted areas with 2 different colors of paint, especially the green so that would allow the clear brown acrylic letters to pop. I wanted to continue with the theme of lot's of plant life like the dinosaur show had. So then I added the Basic Grey Urban swirl rub ons & Luxe flower rub ons. Then to stay with the magical theme of this show, I added different colours of glitter. I had so much fun with these dinosaur pages.

I really love dimensional items, so these KI Memories Alphabet soup letters totally rock!

The following 2 layouts are a 2page spread. this one is the left hand side.

pg.2 (right hand side)

Here is a close up of how I used UTEE on the entire background of the layout previous. I stopped embossing it just after it started to melt but before it became smooth. The reason being, the dinosaurs look so lumpy so I wanted to mimic their appearance. Used a lot of UTEE(UltraThick Embossing Enamel) but it was worth it.

So, since I have been stock piling for years, here is another layout mixing old with new product. I did more whimsical sewing on this layout, which was fun. I have a pullout area on the left for Jim to write some stuff to Jag. I do most of the journaling lately so I have been consciously trying to include Jim in that part more. He hates his writing shown, which is silly because it is nice but I don't want him to feel embarrassed so I tend to do more hidden journaling on his layouts. Jim's more private with his thoughts for the boys so he'd rather they weren't for anyone to read except for the boys anyways.

Thanks for looking guys!

a slower day, nothing too exciting...

Jager at Kinsmen Park the other day. He wants to swim so badly!

Here's Riley and his swimming instructor. He is trying so hard. Way to go Riley!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

So I had fun this weekend. The BBQ at my cousins was fun, it was great to see relatives that I haven't seen in a year! Doug & Paulette had their yard set up so wonderful too! Riley & Jager of course love everything about their yard especially since they have a huge playhouse & a fort treehouse type of set up. Jager even started getting brave and walking up the slide like big kids do! our little boy is growing up!

And well Sunday morning was a hoot. I go to sign up some friends & family for the Cruisin Away Crop and here there are crazy friends of mine all pitted in on lawn chairs totally doing the concert ticket line type of wait. So what was I to do???join them! We had fun. So I can't believe with only 2 days notice 32 people signed up instantly. I wasn't even at the store for very long too. so maybe more have sold but when I left they still had a few tickets so if it interests you, love to see you there! *****edited*****sorry it sold out today! I have 2 tickets in my possession that possibly might be available. Email me if you want them. Well, I just spent 4 1/2 hours cleaning my scrapbook room. Almost totally done. The coolest part that I feel the best about is I have 2 big boxes of stuff for Kate's children's group she is starting up. If anyone else has scraps or gently used items to give away we will be gathering a collection for her on Sept/29th. Of course if that day doesn't work we can arrange something! Well, I have to admit I'm tired! and I do have to wake up in 5 hours so I better try and sleep. Bon nuit!

smores & layouts, fun!

So Jim lit up only 4 of our tiki lights. We used to have them around our entire yard, but when you lit them all they smelled like a truck stop (diesel burning smell) It used to look so cool like when I was in Fiji and all the pathways were lit up like that. Fond memories... But he brought out a few for ambiance. the boys thought they were so cool. Does Riley look cold or what? Yes it is 10 pm and he just got out of the pool. Crazy hot day, but then started cooling off fast!

since it was so hot, I ran to Mac's and got the boys both little slurpies as a treat! needed to cool them off. too bad pic is blurry of Jg, but is still fun!

our fire was so much fun! we love sitting around the fire. Jim even put in some of those cool colour changers that my mom got the boys, so they loved it.

Then of course what campfire would be awesome without smores???

I love Riley's smile!

It was so funny watching Jager eat his smores. Riley got too full and couldn't finish it so of course Jager wanted it too! We literally all had to spray off with the garden hose because we were all sticky, even me! But I had to keep helping the boys and had a few marshmallow casualties. Worth every minute.

So we slept in the tent last night, was awesome until... it started lightning & thundering. which would have been fine, but Jager starts screaming when he is scared. so we didn't want to freak our neighbors out so as preventitive measure, Jim & I carried the boys upstairs to bed. Then massive wind blew, and in the middle of the night Jim heard cracks, looked out our window, 2 poles of our tent had snapped. So sad! so in the morning we went out to see the tent flooded, lot's of clean up needed. ei yi yi. and I didn't even get a pic! so now I am going to have to see if I can just order some new poles. Because us campers CANNOT live without our tent!

So I did a few layouts yesterday, I was excited to finally get to use some of the Basic Grey paper that I got for a huge deal at yesterday's Memories (15 % off for members, 10% off for non members). So I made a few layouts with it and had fun. I was so excited to scrap this page of Jager running. IT is so characteristic of him. So happy spirited this little guy! And before you ask, along the left hand side of the page is not a rub on, it is in fact a transparency that I cut up and glued there. (my mind's eye-tres jolie line)

It is a tradition for us, EVERY TIME we go to Edmonton we go to Chuck E, CHeese, the heaven on earth place for kids (aka:drive parents absolutely nuts place on earth) The kids have so much fun here, Jager has even figured out how to put the tokens in to make the rides work. too funny. Jenn & Darryl have taken the boys here more than I have so they associate it as something they do with them. Which is good. but they have this little sketch machine, and we always get our pic taken. It is fun!

I love this picture of my gramma and Jager. (his great gramma!) She just loves our kids to death and it shows. This was an amazing moment I captured on Mother's/Grandmother's Day this year. I definitely wanted to keep it warm & cozy so I was excited to use the New Basic Grey "Infuse" line. I knew that the pink would make it more feminine but I think that gramma's pages should be more feminine/girly! funny thought. you can't tell but I raised some of the die cut flowers and glossy accented them. all my own doodles.

So I had these little 2x3 photos and I really wanted to make a page with them. Unfortunately they are not big enough to capture the page so my usual style was too overwhelming for these cute pics. So I decided that obviously a less is more layout would suit it better. So I knew I wanted to use arrows because I really wanted the movement effect. I tried to use a subtler title so it would blend into the background while still being able to be seen. Ultimately I think I created my goal. Hindsight, I might've used an even softer background paper, who knows though since I did need the contrast to pull it off. I love how jager gets his little arms going and tongue out. Too funny!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

just a little pool fun!

Sorry, no pics from last night, we ended up having a little company and the night slipped away from us, before we knew it, bedtime was here. So we'll have to try our marshmallow fun maybe tonight. But we had loads of fun for hours today. The boys burst a hole in our old pool, so I went to Walmart yesterday and bought this cute little pool. Serious amusement. Jager though, HATES sliding down too fast and going under the water. So he pretty much just stays in the pool part, while Riley has to try all the flips and turns and more. Enjoy.

Today in a nutshell!

So Jim decided that today we would go camping in our backyard. So spontaneous that man of mine. The kids are ecstatic. They love to tent! So the tent literally takes up a 1/3 of our backyard. It is a 12 man tent, but we use it more for an area for us, the kids and then an area where we can set up a table and play games in case it rains. So we should have fun tonight. Jim is going to build a fire and we are going to do the whole marshmallow thing and all. So maybe I'll take some pics of our fun time, who knows. we'll see. this is how the boys help us set up the tent...

they love to chase each other around and around the partitions.

So since I did have so many deadlines to get done , I ended up scrapbooking at the kitchen table so I could multi task. See how easy I can create a disaster while scrapbooking. So I only have 1 album left to do for someone, hopefully I will finish this week, finish my sister's pages up,then a few for my mom, 3 for my grandma and the album for the people from Ottawa. They don't arrive for 3 weeks so I have some time still. But after that is done, I am not scrapbooking for anybody for the rest of the summer. I am going to purely scrap for my family, catch us all up and enjoy my time with my family. Since Jim is going to be home more, I'd like to spend my extra time with him getting things done around the house, finish all of our "builds",etc. I have all my pictures ready to build our Pergola but I hit a snag 3 weeks ago, so I have to replan it a bit, but maybe we'll start that someday. I need the shade and it will give us some privacy from the neighbors, and block the wind that comes in from the South.

So, I had to run out and do some serious errands, a million things to do today. Jim was home from work all day since an injector blew on the truck, so the boys had a fun time with daddy! But I told Jim to make sure he keeps the boys covered in sunblock all day. So, I guess the boys decided they wanted to put on their own sunblock... (here is another "Daddy lets the kids do whatever they want to see what they will do day!") So needless to say, a 3yr old and a 21 month old aren't quite ready to do it themselves. Jim grabbed the camera while laughing hard I presume, he took about 50 pics of these 2. When I got home tonight, he told me to go and check out my camera. Some serious laughing went on.

Well life is never dull in this house. Tune in for more adventures in Arbor Creek... LOL

Trampoline fun!

all boys are sleeping!

My house is super quiet right now. It is beautiful! Jim has been waking up crazy hours, and especially since we were up late last night, he didn't get much sleep at all. But all my boys were in bed by 8:30pm. Can you imagine? I was able to have a luxurious bath, clean the kitchen, and now blog and look at galleries. Tomorrow we are going to the smash & crash event and I'm sure that will be a gong show, but I'm definitely looking forward to it. Riley is so excited to go, but he asked me tonight why people just want to smash their cars, then what will they drive? Good question. I am sure getting serious amusement out of his choice of words. I asked him to put away his outside toys , he responded "mom, I don't think that I will right now," to which I ask why... he responds with ,"it is stressing me out right now!" Where does a 3 yr old come up with that? I'm sure me, because I am known to say silly stuff, but can you imagine that he actually uses it in an appropriate situation. Well I live for these moments. Have a good night!

I can't believe I forgot...

to post what Riley made for Jim for Father's Day. I guess I was so caught up with getting our computer fixed & back that I forgot I never posted this. I love this little imitation Andy Warhol! His teacher is always coming up with really neat things for the kids to learn about. In art class they study famous periods & styles of art. They learned about Matisse, Post-Impressionist, Monet, Jackson Pollack just to name a few. How cool is that?? a little culture in our boy! And he carried it onto this painting. Since I was an art history major in University I totally dig that they even explore history. riley was so proud to give this to Jim! this artwork is now hanging in our little art gallery! so proud!!!

a fun time last night!

Last night, Debbie's friends bought all these masks for them to wear. These ladies were a blast. Then all the kids wanted to wear them.

The kids sure got a kick out of these masks. They all put them on and ran around. The adults laughed pretty good.

I took this shot in total darkness, I love the glow around him! The boys were just in heaven. They played all night with their cousins and had a blast!

now off to get some things done before tonight's surprise 30th. (I'm banking that she's not reading this since she is in a ball tournie all day!) looking forward to this! Oh and by the way this new "cougar" has entered the hall of fame. In returning the favor that was once done to her, her sister put this bday girl's pic in the Star Phoenix today below the obituaries section. Look, it's a doozy!

a few shots from Wacky Hair Day today at Riley's school. Of course I had to do Jager's hair to match his brother! They were a hit. Riley and his mini