Hi There!

You know what is hilarious? And slightly embarrassing too?

When your kid gets old enough to mimic you, starts to do it, and then you wonder, "where did he learn that?" Until one day you catch yourself saying it. The lightbulb comes on and you realize you've been saying it all along.

I am fortunate, because my little guy picked up a completely innocuous phrase and nothing telling about my verbal bad habits. He could have very easily been walking around saying, "SERIOUSLY!" all the time. Instead, any time someone, or especially if he walks into a room he says, "Hi There!" It is the cutest thing. I realized that I say that every time I go to get him out of bed. It was a telling moment.

So from Party Boy, Jr. to all of you - "Hi there!!"

Given the current political and economic climate of late I decided that I needed to focus on my blessings. Here are a few:

 

Created with BeautyFall by eNKay Designs at enkaydesigns.com, nuts4digi.com, and digital-scrapbook-art.com.

Oh my!

Well, fall has fallen in most parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Not so much here. It's still 90 someodd degrees every day, although we are supposed to get a cold front sometime this week, I think. Then the daytime highs will drop to around 85. Woopee. Color me excited.

Anyway. I told you all I would be busy!!

AWANA got off to a rocking start and is sailing along pretty well now. I went to an amazing Fall Conference last weekend and learned SO MUCH! I am excited about the things that I have planned for my club and the work that I see the kids doing!

I joined another CT - Pamela Donnis is a new (not that you can tell) designer and is selling at Elemental Scraps. Probably one of my fave LOs with her stuff is this one with the Snips N Snails Kit:

 

 We went to an book signing with Mo Willem(s?) and got to hear him read his new Pigeon book. How fun!

In other news - my super-brother ran an ultra-marathon last weekend in Lake Tahoe. I was here being a wonderful sister and dog-sitting his 90 pound toddler Great Pyrenees, W. W is almost a year old and a toddler in every sense of the word! I haven't been that tired in a LONG time. You can read all about my brother's run here.

I plan to be blogging more now that things have settled down some. Of course, with things settled down I don't know if I'll have anything to say? 

Just kidding. I'll think of something! 

The lake

We spent three days at the lake this week with my inlaws. It was good. We stayed in a rental house that was okay. Let's just say it would have been perfect if we were all college age drinking buddies. I'll leave it at that.

This week is going to be sooooooo busy. I need to finish getting the school stuff ready and get all that set for the first day of school on September 2nd.

All the fall church stuff starts week after next so there are MORE meetings. Ugh.

Junior has decided that now is the perfect time to increase his skills and he tries to escape every time the gate gets left open. Or a door. Or a cabinet. He's started making word sounds too. You know what I mean? Sounds that really sound like words? Like at the lake - he would point (another new skill) and say "DUH!" (duck) and "KAA!" (quack).

Maybe I give the kid too much credit?

Anyway, back to the school thing and prepping for that. I am looking forward to being in a groove again. As much as I enjoy our breaks (and I really need them too!) I like having the schedule too. I like knowing that from 7:30 to about 12:30 we'll have plans. After 12:30 it usually all goes to pot, but we're getting better. This will be the first year with a toddler in the house. It should be interesting to say the least. I'll let you know how it goes!






*

Fall Must Be Getting Closer...

It must be getting close to "fall." I say "fall" because here it stays HOT until it just one day get COLD. We really don't have a real fall. Anyway, it must be close to fall because I feel liek my life just shifted into overdrive.

We start school back up on September 2. So I am in the middle of getting our year all settled and planned and organized.

I agreed to head up our church's AWANA program. It's a huge job and I have now 20 days to prepare for the first meeting. I'm not in it alone, but that doesn't mean it's any less work! It just means that I don't have to do EVERYTHING! Thank goodness. Whew!

Bible study promotion is in a week and a half. We're in the midst of planning a great kick-off activity. Gotta get that all organized.

There's tons of trainings, meetings, prep times, cleaning, etc. for all associated activities.

In a word? SWAMPED.

On the bright side though, it does mean a return to routine, which is nice. I am looking forward to that.

How is your fall shaping up?

Wild Week Ahead!

I wanted everyone to know that posting may be sparse this week because we are having Vacation Bible School this week!! How is it that I can work a 3 hour VBS and come home feeling like I have done hard labor for a 16 hour shift?!?

My goodness it's just exhausting!

MOTS is loving her class and Hollywood is next door to me, which is fun because her class and my class are teamed together so I get to see her quite a bit during VBS.

PBJ is okay being in the nursery, although he can't sleep through the crying. On the plus side, cutting his naps in the morning to 20-30 minutes has meant that he naps for almost 2 solid hours in the afternoon. This is a good thing except that I am too exhausted to take advantage of it.

So, enjoy your week and I will update as I can based on schedules, etc.

~C

A Webkinz Tale of Woe....Almost

Let this tale of woe serve as a warning to all of you in Webkinz World!

MOTS (Mouth of the South) discovered that she could change her Webkinz password at will. So she did. Whenever she felt like it she changed her password. I had to make a hard and fast rule that she could NOT change Hollywood's password. She was disappointed, but she complied.

While I was in the kitchen I hear from the computer, "Mommy, I changed my password again!" I asked what she had changed it to and she told me that to make it easier to remember that she had made her password the same as her screen name. Oops!

I explained what a bad idea that was and asked her to change it back. She came in a little later to tell me that she had changed it to a new password! I just shook my head and told her that I didn't think it was a good idea to change password's unless you have to. She smiled and headed off to play.

A couple of hours later I hear a wail from the computer and much gnashing of teeth. Uh-oh.

"Mommy, I typed in my new password but it won't work!"

So I tried on my computer. No luck. Should be a simple fix for this, right? Yeah.

Webkinz has a plan for just this kind of thing. You just enter your screen name and the code from one of your animals. Simple, right? For a family that leaves the code tags where they belong maybe. But not this family.

So, I had the unhappy task of explaining to MOTS that she may have just lost her account and that very likely she would have to create a new account when she got a new Webkinz. This was especially heartbreaking since to get one she would either have to spend her own money or wait until Christmas! The horror! The tears! The wailing!

And then, what to my wondering eyes should appear but one lonely Kinz Tag. On the floor. Under a bag. But! Would this tag allow access to MOTS account, or was it a tag from Hollywood's account? The suspense.

We tried and, much to MOTS delight, were granted access to her account. I kindly fixed her password and we all learned an important lesson. Never change your password unless you have to.

And the Webkinz all lived happily ever after.

P.S. Please disregard my advice to never change your password if in fact your local IT guy has advised you otherwise. Thanks!

P.P.S. Webkinz World is the online world where you can play games and do things with the e-version of your real life stuffed animals! It's fun and only slightly addicting. You don't even know how close I have come to buying my own Webkinz. The shame.

Strawberry Girl

No, I haven't renamed my kids again. Yet.

We just finished reading a book by the name of Strawberry Girl. It was a really great book. I particularly enjoyed it because it takes place in Florida and everyone has a backwoods, Southern accent. I can do that particular accent really well! I am not backwoods, but I am Southern. I struggled with previous books that had French, Italian, and British accents. The girls always giggle when I try those for some reason.

I think though, that the most rewarding thing about the book was that it made my girls realize just how easy they have it! I mean, they don't have to set a gazillion Strawberry plants and then water them by hand. They don't have the endless job of weeding a large plat of land. Their family's livlihood does not rest, in any part, on their shoulders.

And they realized this last week. That alone made the book worth reading. I can't recommend it enough!

The First Half Marathon!

Do you love it? Party Boy ran his first ever half-marathon yesterday! His time was 2 hours and 15 minutes.

I am so proud of him! Of course, this means that he has met his goal for the year, which also means that he does not have to suffer the punishment that he picked out if he did NOT run a half-marathon in 2008, wearing a tire around his waist on 1/1/09. Bummer.

The race was great. It started off pretty bleak and rainy, which was a bummer, but the rain let up after about 45 minutes and then it was just cold and VERY windy.

He's so psyched by the whole experience that he decided that he wants to run a marathon now.

Maybe as early as September.

Wow.

Hollywood and Party Boy

My DH (previously known as Super-Sonic Cheeseburger) has a habit of changing people's names. He either nicknames them or just forgets their names and calls them by some random name. And since most people are too polite to point it out (especially sales people that want his $$$) he just goes on calling them by the wrong name. I haven't yet figured out if he does this on purpose, or if he really is that bad with names. He won't tell me either. He just smiles knowingly and evades the question.

So anyway, daughter #2, previously known as Tater Tot, loves sunglasses. Loves them. She wears them all the time, even inside.

So, DH started calling her "Hollywood." It was funny, and now it's stuck.

We were at the mall the other day and Hollywood was, once again wearing sunglasses, as if she needed protection from all of the paparazzi flashbulbs! Dh starts in on the Hollywood nickname again. She just smiles and plays along.

And then, are you ready for this? He asks her, "You ready to go Hollywood?"

She replies, "I sure am, Party Boy."

Now at this point Party Boy is speechless and DD#1 and I are laughing so hard that we can barely walk. We were creating quite the scene at the mall.

And it's stuck now. Hollywood and Party Boy. I love it!

As an editorial note, DD#1 will now be refered to as "The Mouth of the South." Go figure. She picked that one. :)

This One is Going to Cost Me!

I discovered the coolest new toy today! Have you seen this? It's the Lowe's Garden Planner. I have spent the morning laying out my house, the fence, the patio, the driveway, and all without taking any real measurements! It's okay though, I only want an approximation of what I can do.

I got the idea to poke around on the Lowe's site because we are redoing out front yard flower beds. We wanted to use stone to surround them. I think they look great. Check out the after.


Before featured a pathetic black rubber border that didn't serve much purpose beyond annoying the heck out of me. It wouldn't stay in the ground and it did absolutely nothing in the way of keeping the grass out of the flower beds.

Now we have new lovely, castle style stones bordering the beds. We also leveled and raised the beds with manure (SSCB pronounces this muh-NOOR, which cracks me up, but I don't know why). This will enrich the soil and also improve the drainage, or so SSCB says. I'll just take his word for it. I am mostly concerned about what we will be planting this year.

Truth be told, I am not a big fan of the bushes that are in our front beds, except for the dwarf nandina that we planted. Sadly, they were already there and mature when we moved in. We could remove them, but it would be a huge pain, so I live with it. I would however like to have a few words with the genius that decided it would be a great idea to plant holly berry bushes in front of the outside faucet. Everytime we go to turn the water on we come in looking like we lost a cat fight.

Which reminds me of the best lines in the movie I, Robot:

[Detective Spooner enters Calvin's home after the demo-bot destroyed Lanning's house... with him in it. His head is bleeding and he looks really bad]
Detective Spooner: Hey, do you like cats?
Susan Calvin: What?
Detective Spooner: Cats, do you like 'em?
Susan Calvin: No, I'm allergic. You're saying cats did this to you?
Detective Spooner: How the he!! would cats do this to me? Are you crazy?
Susan Calvin: Why are we talking about cats?
Detective Spooner: [as if it were the most natural thing] Because I have a cat in my trunk and he's homeless.

Sorry about that...

Anyway, now, I am inspired and wanted to see what I could come up with to do in our side yards, which are pretty much bare right now. I think they need some work, which usually translates into money spent and back-breaking labor for poor SSCB. Awwwwwwwww.

So, as we put in our new flower beds someday I will be sure to post before and afters of that, okay?

Poor Dad

I know that I tend to mention Mom in a lot of my posts, especially lately. That's because she actually READS this blog! Hey, it's what Moms do. They support their children's lame creative endeavors. She even saved a lot of those early crafts. They replaced pictures of my brother in the memory box, which is my explanation for why we only have three pictures of him. Well, he was a second child after all.

:P

About my Dad. He did contribute to my childhood, but I don't know that he actually reads this stuff. I'll tell you about him though. He's a writer. He doesn't admit it, but he is. I remember reading some stuff he wrote when I was little. One story was about the brutal murder of a State Trooper. That one still haunts me, but not as much as the one story he wrote about Biker Boy, my brother.

That one haunts me for a different reason. Because I am a parent now, and remembering that story and the raw emotion contained within just makes me shudder. Through my eyes as a five year old there was nothing impressive about biker boy when he came home (as evidenced by the fact that I remember little about him until he was about 18 months old!). But he had some eventful early months and I know from reading that story that my parents lived those months with their hearts in their throats and their stomachs in knots. And I know this because it's how I would feel now if it were my kids.

Dad is also a photographer. Always has been. He has a unique way of seeing the world. I swear, even without a viewfinder to look through, that's what he sees. Composition, color, light, shadows, Photoshop. It's what he lives for. It's who he is!

I get my creative instincts from him. I love photography too. I enjoy writing. And I played trumpet in band in High School. Just like Dad.

Mom is a reader like me, and she taught me sew. And crochet. And cross-stitch. And how to cook.

And now you know all about my Dad, and what he is like (and a little more about my Mom).

P.S. Hi Mom! :)

Coffee Talk

When I was growing up my parents did not drink coffee. My grandparents did. They drank it black.

I did not drink coffee. Even when Starbucks came to town I only drank hot chocolates and the odd cappuchino. Not really coffee. And never black!

And sometime after Small Fry was born my Mom went over to the dark side and started drinking coffee. I blame the pod machine that made custom coffee stocked in every flavor imaginable with unlimited cream and sugar supplied for free in her office at the time. French vanilla coffee with french vanilla creamer. Oh, it was good. And when I ended up at the office with her she introduced me to the beloved, wondreous coffee maker. Never mind that I was pregnant with Tater Tot at the time. I checked with the OB/GYN and one or two cups of coffee a day was approved and so it began. My on-again, off-again affair with coffee. French Roast with Irish Cream flavored creamer and three sugars. So what if it was more cream and sugar than cream? I needed the dairy - pregnant remember?

But then I left that office for another job. A job that sadly did not have a personal cup of coffee machine brewer. But there was a Starbucks next door. So the daily coffee habit became a twice monthly iced coffee habit. Starbucks is expensive!

And then I left that job and became a Stay-At-Home-Mom (SAHM) without a coffee maker. So the coffee habit died.

And then....my mother the dealer :) made coffee last Thanksgiving while we were staying at her house. Sweet mom made a cup the way she likes it for my sweet SSCB (Super Sonic Cheeseburger).

Two months later I had to go to Wal-Mart and buy a coffeemaker, French Vanilla Folgers and creamer because my husband was craving coffee. It is now a daily addiction for both of us. Sad. But, I still won't drink it black!

Now? McDonald's is my new dealer. Their vanilla iced coffee? Oh, it's GOOOOOOOOOOODDDDD! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I try to make it at home and can only create a pale washed out version that passes for iced coffee but it lacks the richness of the McDonald's version.

The point of this post? Thanking Mom for getting me addicted. Thanking Mom for getting SSCB addicted. And forcing me to buy a coffee machine. The first hit's always free, right?

And you want to know what the real injustice here is? Mom quit coffee! Can you believe it? Now she's pushing Chai tea! Oh, the humanity. Thankfully I can brew the tea in my coffeemaker. Mmmmmmmmmm, chai tea. With milk and sugar.

But I'll wax nostalgic on the chai some other time!!

:)

Here's a little Freebie for you!

American Girl

Tater Tot picked out her birthday present. Kirsten.

She was adamant that she wanted a blond haired, blue eyed doll. Much to Small Fry's chagrin. Small Fry had been campaigning for weeks that Tater Tot should ask for Felicity because Small Fry is the proud owner of Felicity's best friend Elizabeth.

And because Tater Tot loves her sister (and because Small Fry no doubt led TT to believe that it was a given that they should have matching dolls) she went along and at first told us she wanted Felicity.

And then I pulled TT aside and explained that she could have any doll that she wanted. She didn't have to get Felicity, that all of the dolls could play together!

Her eyes lit up! It was a toss up between Kit, Julie, and Kirsten. The tie-breaker? Kirsten has blue eyes and long blond hair.

Now she just has to wait for her birthday. What a cruel, cruel world.

And does it bother anyone else that Julie, the latest historical doll, is from the 1970's? That is really disturbing to me. I mean, come on...what's next? Jessica of the 80's complete with parachute pants and a Member's Only Jacket? Ugh. I don't like to think of the 1970's as historical. It just makes me feel old.

We are TOO Scientific!

We Small Fry was born she had a club foot. Thankfully our pediatrician recommended that we take her to Scottish Rite Hospital for Children. She was enrolled in a new therapy for club feet that was far less painful and less invasive than the traditional therapy.

When she was three she had surgery to ease her range of movement. It was a great experience. She really only remembers that she got lots of toys when she got to the hospital and that she was coddled and kept entertained by the wonderful staff!

After her surgery we were called and asked if we would participate in a scientific study involving children with club feet. Sure! We love science. So, every two years we pack up and head to the hospital and the scientists hook Small Fry up to leads and reflective balls to measure her muscle strength and gait. She walks around and they video her and we all have a great time.

We also go in every 18 months or so to see her orthopedist and he checks her progress. The kids love going to the hospital because, well, because everything there is all about kids! They have toys and books and games and we never go that we don't come home with something fun. I am not even sure that they understand that it is a hospital.

And a really positive side-effect has come of this. SRHC doesn't just treat club feet. They treat lots of different childhood afflictions. The girls have gotten used to seeing children on crutches, in wheelchairs, with walkers and in every state imaginable. They probably won't realize for a long time just how lucky they are to be healthy and whole, but I imagine that someday they will look back and understand just what a gift they have in that.

All the Smelly Animals

We went to the zoo on Monday. It wasn't a holiday, unlike Good Friday, when we last attempted a zoo visit, along with the rest of the free world.

It was a beautiful day. Sunny and just the right temperature. The animals were more active than I have ever seen them and we usually try to go to the zoo a couple of times a year.

We gave each of the girls a disposable camera for them to take pictures at the zoo. Tater Tot used most of her film on random pictures around the house. "Oh, Mommy, can I take a picture of the light fixture?!?"

Small Fry took lots of pictures of the first three animals that we saw, despite warnings that the film was limited. Poor kid, she was thinking of Mommy's digital camera that has room for 400 some-odd pictures. She had 27. Life really isn't fair, is it? Everything was okay after I promised to share some of my pictures. I am sooooooo nice.

Here's some of what we saw:


A red wolf. As many times as we have been to the zoo, we have never seen this wolf. It has always been safely hidden in the foliage at the back of the exhibit. The girls were so excited to see it come walking right up towards us.


Here is one of the coyotes that put on quite a show for us! As we were standing there discussing that these coyotes were so much smaller than their brethren that we see around town they started howling and yipping. I could not believe just how loud they were. It was painful and yet, I couldn't walk away. It was a haunting sound and had such a rhythm to it.


Here is the poor jaguar that is forced to live next door to the coyotes. The jaguar was, frankly, not as enthralled with the coyote song as the rest of us. Probably because he has to listen tot he show several times a day (and most likely, night too!). As the coyotes were reaching a peak in their music the jaguar charged the fence in between them and roared. We all jumped, including the coyotes. They quieted down and the poor jaguar marched to the other end of its enclosure and started pacing.

And here is the parakeet that we fed. Actually we fed quite a few of them. They are in an aviary and you can buy seed sticks and the birds will fly down and perch on the sticks to eat the seed. It was so much fun! The buzz kill was the people that insisted on elbowing in to get at the birds and trying to "steal" birds from other peoples sticks. Sheesh!

Much to your relief I did not take a picture of the single most interesting thing we saw. The boa constrictor in the herpetarium having his breakfast. Mmmmmm, yummy.

Excuses, excuses

I apologize for the unexpected (and unannounced) hiatus. Life gets in the way sometimes, you know? I could come up with a ton of excuses, but, truth be told, I was catching up on some things I let slide... like housework, laundry, dishes. Nothing like a threatened mutiny of the rest of the household to reset your daily to-do list!

No, really, things weren't ALL that bad. Really, we have been busy with school and Junior Burger has decided to go and get all mobile and everything. That means I have to spend a LOT more time chasing him down and checking the floor for things like Barbie shoes and hair bands (not Motley Crue or Poison, silly! ponytail holders!). Okay, that was a bad joke...

We went to the Botanic Gardens last week. It was great fun! We had started out thinking that we would go to the zoo, but when we got there we noticed that people were parking over a MILE away from the front gates. So, we nixed that and decided to go on a day when the general public would be back in school. So shoot me, I forgot it was Spring Break and Good Friday to boot. Duh.

Anyway, here's a few pictures for your enjoyment, with apologies to any of you that are not experiencing spring yet...it is wonderful...I know you can't wait.



Was that exceptionally cruel?

Well, hopefully the belated appearance of the long-awaited Second City Elements will make up for it!

YAY!

Yes, the torn papers are part of the package. I really enjoyed this one. I am hoping to get some more designing done in the future. Mainly, I am waiting for inspiration to strike.

Enjoy!

P.S. Good Luck Mom and Bro in your race on Saturday!

P.P.S. Thank you all for your wonderful comments and support on my last post. It meant alot. I was really afraid that I was going to put people out when I posted that. Whew!

P.P.P.S. Erika - Thank you for being concerned about me. That was so sweet of you to check on me!

Sickness, Scrapping, and Thinking. Oh My!

This has been a challenging week in many ways for me. My little guy, Junior Burger, has been fighting his first bout of the "crud." So, he's not sleeping well and has been needing lots of extra cuddles and TLC. Thankfully he seems to be on the recovery side of things now and his outlook has improved dramatically. Yay!

The other challenge that I have been dealing with has been in relation to "the seamy underbelly" of the scrapping world. Scrapbboking has certainly changed since I started my hiatus back in 2003.

Maybe I was oblivious, but there seems to be more emphasis on the scrapbook "celebrity" now. Layouts need to have a certain "look" to avoid sharp criticism if they are published or displayed online. Many of the online communities have become quite mean. There seems to be a very real "us vs. them" thing going on here. The crafty scrapper vs. the simple scrapper, the kid page scrappers vs. the edgy scrapper.

It feels like for many, instead of enjoying their hobby there is a real need to scrap a certain way, be that like the LOs online, in magazines, or the way their fave celebrity scraps. Scrapping has become more about competition and the pursuit of perfection than about relaxing and recording memories.

It makes me sad.

I flatly refuse to endorse a certain style of scrapping. I can't anymore, because I think we all scrap for different reasons, don't we? I scrap for several reasons.

I scrap to record memories. I have seen too many old pictures where those in the photograph are no longer remembered. I look at these pictures and wonder why those people were there? What were they feeling? Was there a reason for the pictures? A birthday? An anniversary? A reunion? What was their life like? Pictures and (my sometimes too vivid) imagination have the power to transport me. I want to know what was going on, I can hear the echoing of laughter behind the image on the paper in front of me. It touches me. I want those that I love to have the answers to those questions when they look at my pictures.

I scrap to leave a legacy. What I wouldn't give to have a written record of my ancestor's lives. To know how they felt, what they thought about, their ideas, their dreams and hopes, their disappointments. I hope that someday a descendant of mine will stumble across my scrapbooks and be thrilled to get to know me. To see my life through my words and pictures on a page. To know me even through the distance of time in a way that I can never know those that came before me.

I scrap as a creative release. I love mixing colors and working a visual medium. Playing with the layout of a page, finding the right papers and elements. Striving to strike the right balance between decorative and focus on the pictures. Writing the memory down. Trying to capture the emotions behind the pictures.

I scrap because I love it.

We all have reasons to scrap. Maybe your reasons are the same as mine. Maybe they're different. Does that invalidate your pages, does that invalidate mine?

Not all of my layouts are one page, embellishment heavy, one word, single picture layouts. But I do have some of those. I also have tons of two-page, picture heavy layouts. I have a few that are mostly journaling because I had a story to tell.

Not all of them are worthy of being published, but that doesn't make them any less worthy of being made.

My biggest struggle this past week has been in trying to avoid taking a side. I think I have finally found the balance that I need. Part of this means that I have to take myself less seriously.

On the freebie side of things - I will still post freebies, though probably not daily. In using my own kits I decided that I want to make sure that what I am putting out there is high quality and usable. In order to do that I need to sit with my freebies and use them a couple of times to make sure that you all are getting everything that you need in my kits...

I'll be posting the Second City Elements early next week! (How's that for cutting to the chase?)

Snow?!?

What in the sam hill is going on around here???

We must've gotten 3 inches of snow last night. Bizarre because on Saturday it was 80 degrees out. Of course it only stuck in grassy areas, and it will all melt off today. Still, it was fun to watch it come down. It's so peaceful.

And I know that all of you that live in snowy areas are aghast that I can speak that way about snow, which by now must be driving you crazy... Well, all I can say is that when you live in an area that gets snow about once a year, it's pretty exciting.

Don't hate me, 'kay?

Here are the Heritage Neutral Elements. It's a little smaller than my usual kit size, but it is all part of the grand plan...

Enjoy.

We had a great weekend!

I love weekends. On Saturday, we went to a nearby park and had a picnic lunch. Then Junior Burger and I walked around while SSCB and Small Fry and Tater Tot played. It was such a beautiful day.

After we played for awhile we went over to feed the ducks. Ducks which have obviously been overfed. Or have had a very bad experience with bread. Not sure which. Anyway, it was the first time in my life that I have seen ducks swim away from a free meal! I was shocked. SF and TT chased the ducks for quite awhile to try and get them to eat, but, alas, the ducks were so horrified at the thought that they ran from any human contact. I was sad. I love to feed the ducks. When they're appreciative, that is.


Yesterday I worked on my kit offering fo today a little bit and was able to surf the net. Then I went and shopped at CVS. I love CVS. I always spend too much money there though.

Today, I am proud to introduce my Heritage Neutrals Collection. I love using muted neutral colors in my heritage layouts to accent my black and white and sepia-toned photos. Somehow, brights just don't work for that.

P.S. Hi Mom! :)