Sketch 104

Looking for some great scrapping inspiration for the New Year? If you haven't joined Sketch Inspiration yet, you really must! My sister, Trisha, provides a new layout sketch every Sunday....and starting in January, she will offer a donated prize to one lucky winner a week! :) Here is my interpretation of this week's sketch, Sketch #104:

Christmas Aftermath

Still recuperating from the four...yes FOUR...Christmases with the family. One with Van's parents, one with his grandparents, one with just us, and one with my family. They were all wonderful, and we are so blessed. However, my living room still has toys and stocking stuffers scattered all over the floor, 2 new bicycles in front of the fireplace, and the tree and decorations are still up. After everything that's been going on, I just haven't even felt like messing with putting all the stuff up, etc. I did manage to get Aaron's stuff all put away in his room and most of mine...but that's as far as I got. :( Will post more soon!

And by the way, don't forget to enter my giveaway!

Merry Christmas!

Giveaway!!!!!!!

Here's the deal. I love comments. I ain't gonna lie. So, leave me a comment on any post anywhere on my blog, and your name will be put into a hat to win a set of 3 Christmas stamps from Crafter's Companion (shown below). The more you comment, the better your chances of winning. Crafter's Companion was our sponsor this month at HYWWP, and they generously supplied us with these cute little stamps!



So comment away and you could win this set of adorable stamps! Winner will be drawn on or around January 1, 2010!

Fa La La La La

Whew, it's been over a week since I blogged! You know all those fun holiday things going on just really take up a lot of time! Let's see...here are some things that have happened since I last blogged:

1. We had our Christmas program at preschool. During practice, one of the kids threw up on stage, so that was exciting. We had a song where all the kids were going to get to use little "jingle bells" to shake, but that ended up being totally chaotic, so at the last minute, the jingle bells were all taken away and only the teachers used them. Aaron had his heart set on getting to use one of those and was heartbroken to find that he wasn't going to get to because of the way other kids were acting with them.....so he refused to sing for the whole program. He knows all the words and sings all the songs at home...but he just stood there on stage. Didn't act bad or pout...just stood there. Not a word was sung by him. LOL

2. The preschool Christmas party was last week. I received some sweet gifts from some of my students, and the kids had a great party. Aaron got to meet Santa and sit in his lap to get a picture taken with him. Cute, cute! After the party, I went out to eat with the other teachers. It was really nice.

3. Evan's class party was last Thursday. I got to help with that and was in charge of the craft (go figure). We made cute little foam snowman ornaments, and the kids really seemed to enjoy it. Evan came home with a big sack full of nice little goodies from his classmates and teachers. I love seeing all the little Christmas projects he's been doing at school. Definitely keeping some of them for the scrapbook!

4. On Thursday night, Evan had a Dual Language program in his school's library. This is his first year in the Dual Language program, and I am just amazed by how quickly he is learning it. He goes to regular English classes with one teacher for a week and then to a Spanish class with a Spanish-speaking teacher for the next week. He has picked it up so quickly that he was chosen out of all the 1st graders in the program to read a story in Spanish at this program. He read the whole Rudolph story in Spanish (and the other kids would repeat the sentences after he read them), and he never missed a beat. He reads Spanish faster than I can even pretend to read it. His pronunciation is amazing! I was so proud of him that when he first started reading the story, my eyes welled up with tears! They read the story and sang a few songs both in Spanish and English. My nephew, Austin, is also in this program as a kindergartner and is doing a FANTASTIC job as well!

5. Friday night, we had our church's leadership Christmas party. Yummy food, great gifts, and good friends...I'm so blessed to have such a great church family. :)

6. This morning, Evan had art class at his daddy's work. They made some very cute paintings that I will display proudly on my fridge until it's time for them to go in the scrapbook.

7. This afternoon, Evan went on his very first deer hunting trip with my dad. Dad loaded up Evan and Austin and headed to the deer lease with a backpack full of snacks and activities to keep them quiet. In Dad's exact words, "It was like trying to take 2 little puppies to church." LOL I received a picture message on my phone right at sunset that showed both boys holding up the antlers on the head of a 9-point buck that Dad shot. Not too bad! ;)

And so there you have it....a brief update on all that's been going on for the last week, and thus the reason why I haven't been blogging until now. I wanted to upload a cute little picture to go with each paragraph, but frankly I'm just too tired to mess with it tonight. We've got our church play (Evan is a wiseman, and Aaron is a donkey...so fitting), Church luncheon/gift exchange, and a birthday party to go to tomorrow, and then we're going to attempt to finish up shopping on Monday out of town. Wow...December is so crazy!!!

Christmas Festivities

It's been a busy weekend! December is in full swing with all the fun Christmas festivities going on. Yesterday evening, Van hosted the annual Christmas puppet/marionette show at the Fine Art Center. With Aaron being the puppet fanatic he is (thanks to the guys who do this show), there was no way we were gonna miss it! The guys were so nice and let Aaron come backstage, handle a few of their marionettes, and they even let him help them load everything up when the show was done. He talked their ears completely off, but they were so nice and answered all of his questions and gave him some great puppeteer advice. He just soaked it all up!



After the puppet show, Van stayed at the Art Center to help the puppet guys load up, and I took the boys to see the lighting of the downtown Christmas tree. Very pretty. :) It was too dang cold to bother with a really great picture, so this one was as good as it got:



After that, we headed to the church for movie night. We watched Joyeaux Noel...amazing story....just awesome.

This morning was our little town's Christmas parade. Nothing too big or exciting, but fun for the boys nevertheless. It was hard to get good pictures of them watching the parade without jumping out onto main street, right in the middle of the parade...but I did what I could. ;) Van's parents were able to meet up with us and stand with us to watch everything. The boys ended up with pocketfuls of candy, and Aaron even managed to somehow get a little cowboy hat. Okay, so I was the one who ran out in the street and grabbed the cowboy hat when they were throwing them to the kids, but I held Aaron's hand while I did that, so that counts...right? :)

More Pages from The Scrap Room's December Kits!

I used these as my "Recipe Cards" for this month. Recipe cards are step-by-step instructions for the layouts, and you can view these if you are a kit club member at The Scrap Room. I was assigned the Websters Pages kit, and here is what I did with it:

On My Christmas Wish list....*watch out, coffee lovers!*

This is at the top of my wish list....



What is it? It's liquid heaven, that's what it is! It's the Mr. Coffee Cafe Frappe Maker. Here are the specs:

The Mr. Coffee® Café Frappe is the only at-home appliance to automatically brew and blend from a single unit, allowing you to create delicious icy blended coffee drinks, in the comfort of your own home. In just three minutes and a simple press of a button, enjoy endless varieties of frosty frappes made to your customization.
FEATURES

* Brew and blends automatically
* Dishwasher-safe blending jar
* Pulse blending button
* Removable brew basket

This is not your grandmother's coffee maker, people. It's Starbucks at home, and for a lot cheaper. In fact, I read one review from a customer who said this tastes EXACTLY like Starbucks Frappuccinos. See, plain coffee is okay...but I really love all those flavored coffees, especially frozen ones. This comes with a recipe booklet for things like:





Ohhhhhhhhh yeah...........

Sketch Inspiration

If you haven't checked out my sister's new sketch site, Sketch Inspiration, you really should! Each Sunday, she will upload a new sketch, and you have until the next Saturday to upload your interpretation of the sketch to her gallery. A weekly prize from a generous sponsor will be up for grabs too! :)

For her first sketch, I created this layout with a monthly kit from Scrapbook Deals 4 U, featuring Dream Street Paper's Sam Collection.

December Barista Projects from The Scrap Room

I love The Scrap Room! This was the first kit club I ever subscribed to, so to be a Barista/Design Team member for this club is such an honor! This month's kit contains products from Making Memories, Pink Paislee, Websters Pages, and Jillibean Soup. Here are a few of the projects I've made. I still have lots of kit left over, not to mention 2 other projects that I made for recipe cards (can't upload those just yet!). :)

New Sketch Site!

Check this out!

I'm so excited! My big sister has decided to start her own Ning community for her sketches! Each week, she will be posting a sketch for inspiration, and you will be able to upload your layout based on her sketch to the gallery. She just recently taught herself how to make sketches on the computer, and she's so good at it! If you'd like to join, please visit here:

Sketch Inspiration

Everything is still new, and she is figuring out how to use Ning, set up albums, etc. So please bear with her as she figures everything out. I'm sure several changes will be made, but thought I'd let you all in on this new and exciting place! Please stop by the forums there and let her know that I sent ya. Hope to see you there! smile.

Jenny


Visit Sketch Inspiration