Happy Halloween!

This is yesterday's challenge....a product challenge...to use both Cosmo Cricket & Technique Tuesday on the same LO. I just eeeeked by on this one....had to SCROUNGE to find these tiny scraps of Cosmo paper & I still had these little flowers/swirl that Anya had stamped for me with her TT stamps. Today is the last challenge....can't wait to see what it is....hopefully something easy that I can whip out this evening when I get home! I got my prize in the mail yesterday for a challenge I won a few weeks back at Lifetime Moments.....something I did for their Birthday celebration. A cute little 6x6 sized album with page protectors, lavender binding & chipboard cover that can be decorated/altered however I want!
Gorgeous weather here yesterday & today....just right around 73 degrees! We will be headed off to Maw's house a little later for our Homeschool Halloween party. I'm looking forward to it as much as the kids are! We've baked some white chocolate chip cookies, I have candy treat bags for the kids & I'm also taking my tray of paints so we can do face painting. Also have some lovely Halloween colored nail polish to paint the girls' nails.....green, orange & purple. They did that along with the face painting last year at church & it was a big hit. Off to grab a cup of coffee & read emails.....will update later with all our fun adventures!!

Sat. 10/28

I'm so tired right now...ready to curl up with my book. Today has been ONE busy day!! Picked Chris up from his all-nighter about 9:30am this morning & have been going ever since. He had a really good time & managed to take about a 3 hour nap this afternoon....said it's really hard to sleep when it daylight though. While he slept I vacuumed downstairs, baked my cake for the Family Night at church tonight all the while trying to keep the other 4 kiddos playing QUIETLY downstairs. We headed out to our Fall Family Fun Night about 4:30pm. Danielle & her kids met us there. They had a really great time.....hay rides, face painting, games, food, etc. Then the teens did their drama presentation & Pastor Steve gave his testimony. Maw, Sarah, David & their kids got there in time to catch the tail end of the teens' drama & then Anna & Daniel got to join the other kiddos for a flashlight candy hunt outside. They all left with bags full of candy!! Really nice evening of fellowship!

I really wanted to get all caught up & be current on the last few days of chllenges on my scrapping board....BUT, I managed to get ONE layout done this morning.....will have to upload that tomorrow. I think I am just totally burned out right now.....feel like all the creative juices have left my body. I've been trying to do the challenge a day on LM...'Scraptoberfest' PLUS keeping up with our 'Midway Madness' cyber crop over at ASF. I've done REALLY good up til now.....I REALLY, REALLY want to finish the challenge a day thing at LM & get my name in the drawing for that prize.....I mean, I've come this far, I'm sure I can PUSH on through & get 3 more LOs done!!

Amigos

OK...so I'm working basically a day behind....this LO was for yesterday's challenge to use some sort of foreign language in your title. When I sat down to scrap this afternoon I pulled out this pic that Danielle had given me of her kids & I immediately thought of the new Cheetah Girls song.....thus my title/journaling.....'Amigos...our friends for life'. It was an awesome photo to begin with & I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

Just got back from taking Chris to meet up with the Youth Group from church. Lewis & Lindsay Widener were taking our group of teens to a 'Lock-In' over in Waynesboro for the night. They will get back about 10:15am tomorrow morning. Not exactly my idea of fun....staying up all night long....but he was looking forward to it & I know he will have fun. Me....I'm just going to curl up by the fire & sip a nice hot cup of coffee. ;-)

A little more of our 'Unschooling' news....the kids(the older ones) have really been into wanting to watch 'scarey' movies these past few weeks. Anyway, since they are soooo into this we're using it as a learning experience....HOW, you may ask....Well, the movies they've been allowed to watch, Chris & Ashley have written movie reviews for me.....ya know, things like movie title, star(s), main character, what it's rated, a brief summary of the plot, their favorite part, etc & then how THEY would rate the movie. Along with this, Chris has also been learning to edit our movies for us.....he has learned to do the video editing, but is still working with the audio editing. Of course he is practicing on movies that DON'T actually need the editing.....just practicing his skills.....now the trick is for him to teach CLAY how to do this so we can make some more family-friendly movies. The other research that Chris & Ahsley are going to do is making a list of all the scarey movies they can think of & then they are going to research where they were filmed, what year they were made, etc. They are really into all the behind the scenes type stuff that comes with the dvds nowdays...it really IS interesting! Seeing the difference in the really OLD mummy & werewolf movies....where everything was filmed onstage with painted backgrounds & so forth. We also went off on the 'Sleepy Hollow' rabbit-trail....looking up info on Sleepy Hollow & Tarrytown, NY (geography) & Washington Irving & the lengendary tale of Sleepy Hollow (literature). I must say that I've been having fun with all this too! Oh & let's not leave out Music Appreciation.....they've been downloading theme songs & music from the different movies....gotta love that Phantom of the Opera music!

Thurs. 10/26

I'm playing catch-up today as far as the 'Scraptoberfest' Challenges go. The one of Memaw & Aunt Dolly in the kitchen was done for a 'Hidden Journaling' challenge....my journaling was tucked inside this book pocket. Then yesterday's challenge was to use cirlces on your layout....lots of them....at least 3...so here ya have it as seen in 'Tiny Baby'. These are pics of my best friend & her new little baby girl, Taylor. I still need to do Today's challenge....use a foreign language in your title. Not sure what I'll come up with for that one!

Wednesday 10/25

Here's a few goodies from yesterday....just a couple of Halloween cards & another challenge of the day....this challenge was to use any 'Technique Tuesday' product....which I have NONE of.....thankfully a friend on LM offered to stamp me a title or something & send it to me so I could complete the challenge!! So sweet of her.....so, thanks to Anya for my 'Meow' title!
Beautiful fall day today....met Danielle & kids & Maw for lunch at O'Charley's. So nice to get together on Weds. & have lunch & visit!! After that, we basically just headed on back to Walmart to do our grocery shopping. Got candy treats for our Homeschool Halloween party that will be at Maw's on Tues. Also got my baking goodies to bake my apple cake & white chocolate chips for the Fall Family Fun Night at church this Saturday night. I volunteered to do some baked items for the 'Cake Walk'. The kids are all excited because Maw, Sarah & the kids are coming & most likely Danielle will bring her kids too!! Always so much fun.


*5 Things that I am grateful for today*
~Gorgeous fall day-blue sky, pretty colors, falling leaves swirling all over.
~Wednesday lunch dates
~Clay's eye is better--he got trash blown in it yesterday while stacking firewood.
~Frozen Burritos for a quick, easy supper ;-)
~Peppermint Mocha creamer for my coffee-YUM!

Taco Sauce Math

Just had to share our 'Unschooling' math moment from the other day......Clay had gone to Taco Bell the night before on his way home from work & he grabbed a handful of those little sauce packets to bring home because the kids love it on their tacos! Anyway, Michael found them in the frige the next morning & was tickled to death. He dumped them all out on the table & began to sort them into piles...mild, hot, fire....(sorting/classifying going on here). Then he counted each pile...27 mild, 27 hot & 20 fire (comparison). I heard this & decided to seize the moment & run with it....I asked him if he could figure how many we had altogether....after all, that is what we've been working on...adding 3 numbers together. His first response was that he'd dump them all out again & count them ALL. I told him NO, that we could just write down 27+27+20 & figure out the total. Well, he looked at me & said we have 74..... I asked him HOW he figured that up so fast (I'm still over here counting on my fingers)....he says 3 20s is 60 & 2 7s is 14 & that makes 74! Not exactly how 'I' was figuring it (27+27+20) but anyway.... ;-) One of those cool math lessons that he didn't even realize he had just had. I love it!!

More...

And a few more!! I'm on a roll this afternoon, huh?!

More Reunion pictures

OK, as promised...some more reunion pictures!

Jackolantern

This was yesterday's challenge...a product challenge...we had to use the Cosmo Cricket line of papers (the dots & stripes.) Anyway, I ran across this 'Way Back' picture of Chris & Ashley....from 1996. Aren't they cute?
Been having fits trying to get my pics/LOs to upload here, so praying that this goes through!! If I can get the hang of this I will post some more of my reunion pictures that I've scrapped. Need to go get busy now.......later.

A Little Piece of Paradise

My most recent 'creation'.....done for a challenge on Lifetime Moments....Scraptoberfest....where there's a new challenge posted each day for the month of October. Today's was a sketch challenge & this is what I came up with. I went with Clay down to the pond one evening after supper just a few weeks ago. He goes down there to feed the goldfish & the catfish. I made sure to take my camera with me this time....just wish I had grabbed the zoom lens...tried to capture that old catfish as he rolled the water trying to gobble up all the food (the top three pics). Anyway...it was such a pretty evening & I enjoyed snapping away.

Reunion pics.....

Testing 1,2,3.....testing..... OK...looks like I did it! Yay! Now, I can use this space to share my pictures, layouts/scrapping creations & any other of 'Life's Little Treasures' with my family & friends. Hopefully this will be easier than sending around seperate emails & links & what-not.