July Sketch Bucket

Here are a couple more pages I did for the July Sketch Bucket on ASP. I had two 5 x 7 photos that were really good so I asked someone to give me a layout sketch that used a 5 x 7 photo. I loved the sketch I received and used it for both of my photos. I really like how these pages turned out. I helps to have great pictures!

Here's a picture of JD and Bud at a restaurant in South Padre. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture!


This is a picture of Ashton and Timothy walking down the beach in South Padre.

Bud's new "toy"

So Bud finally got a new toy. He used to have the 1975 Nova that I bought him for Christmas in 2006 (after his gun accident!). He sold it last month and has been feverishly looking for a new car to play with. This time, though, he wanted something that he could actually drive. The Nova sat in the driveway for over 2 years and we never even put insurance on it because he couldn't get it to consistently run.

So after being on Craigslist almost every waking moment of everyday since selling the Nova, he came across this 1999 Camaro Z28. The original asking price was a little over his budget, but his negotiating skills came in handy (I swear, he should either sell cars for a living...or work in a flea market in Mexico! LOL!) So he negotiated a really great deal and the whole family drove up to Round Rock on Sunday. That was a fiasco...the traffic in Austin was horrendous for a Sunday afternoon. It was bumper-to-bumper the entire 2 1/2 hours! We finally made it to Round Rock, and the car was beautiful...even better than the pictures. So Bud bought the car with the cash he had from the Nova, and we drove back to San Antonio - me and the kids in the Tahoe, and Bud in his new car.

The kids spent more than 5 hours in the car and were extremely restless and agitated (we all were!), so the drive home was not a fun one! But we made it.

Then Bud spent the entire evening yesterday cleaning, organizing and rearranging the garage so he could fit his new toy in. I can't believe he did it! [Our next purchase? A shed! If you know of a good deal on sheds, let us know!]



Bud's really happy with his new car. And I'll admit -- it's very nice. Kinda brings back memories of the Z28 I had when we got married. I just hope this time he doesn't do so much exhaust work that we set off car alarms when we drive it! LOL!

My Dark Hair

So I dyed my hair this weekend, and it's pretty dark. I'm still trying to get used to it. I will walk by a mirror and look over and kinda get that surprised feeling all over again, like I forgot I had it done. LOL! I really like it though. And Bud LOVES it. I think he likes Italian girls, so this is about as close as he'll get to one! Haha!



So how did I decide to do it? Well, it was time to get something done - either more blonde highlights to blend the dark roots, or dye it. I'm kinda tired of blonde highlights and it was getting to be almost too blonde, which makes the roots more noticeable (more quickly) and requires a lot of highlights to keep up with it. So I called my "hair girl" and told her I was ready for something different and wanted to dye it. She got really excited about the change and said I'd look great as a brunette. When I got there on Saturday, I went with her recommendation. Hey, it's just hair, right? It can always be changed.

So it ended up a little darker than I had expected, but I'm very happy with it. I've always wanted to go darker, but was afraid to, so I'm glad I went with her recommendation. I think it makes my eyes stand out a little more too, which is cool. For some reason though, it makes me feel like I have to wear a little more makeup.

Anyway, use the "comments" link below the picture to tell me what you think.

My beautiful boys

I took these pictures one day when the boys were being so loving to each other. It was adorable. Ryan just kept hugging on his big brother. They play so well with each other now that Ryan can get around and is interested in whatever JD is doing. JD is getting so much better about sharing too, so it's a blast watching them play together. I just love these pictures!

Rise to the Challenge - Week 5

So I was a part of a 5-week scrapbook layout challenge. It's called Rise to the Challenge and is meant to push you out of your scrappy box. And that, it did! It was really tough for me. Each week was totally different.

The first week's challenge was the 7s -- we had to use 7 pieces of cardstock, 7 pieces of patterened paper, 7 different techniques, 7 brads, 7 flowers and 7 letters/words in our title.

Week 2: We had to use 28 or 82 embellishments, a summer theme, as well as orange paper (color of the sun), blue paper (color of water) and brown paper (color of sand). That was the hardest week for me. Ugh!

Week 3: Raw journaling -- we had to write some heart-felt journaling, and had to use a household item to stamp something on our page, and we had to do some distressing.

Week 4: The Cindy Lauper challenge - we had to use some of the lyrics from Cindy Lauper's song "Time After Time" in our title or journaling. In addition, we had to incorporate a clock. I really loved how that page turned out. I'll have to post it here later. I need to get it off my camera.

Week 5: ABC logo week. We had to incorporate 1 of about 6 logos we were provided into our page. I chose the Kraft logo. We also had to use the entire alphabet on our page, and use a masking technique. The page below is what I came up with.



The RTTC challenge was exactly that....a challenge. I wondered, at times, if I was creative enough to do it. I'm glad I did though. I certainly learned a lot!

Layout Challenge

Here's one of the layouts I had to do for the July Sketch Challenge. One of my scrapbooking buddies gave me a sketch to work with, and this is the page I came up with. It's really hard to get good pictures, but I think these are all really good ones. I love our faces. These pictures were taken at the Sea Ranch Restaurant in South Padre Island last month. We had a nice dinner there. Ryan and JD shared spaghetti. The night before, we ate at a place called Parrot Eyes (pronounced Paradise) and Ryan shared my grilled mahi-mahi with me. He loved it!

The Deck is Done!!!

Here's the finished deck. It just needs to be stained, but I think it looks sooooo awesome! Bud, Jason and my dad really worked hard on it, and it paid off. It was finished just in time for Ryan's first birthday party last weekend. It's completely shaded by about 5pm so it was a perfect place for everyone to hang out during and after the party! Big thanks to everyone that helped!