Memorial Day Cook-Out

We had a cook-out at Maw's house last night. Nothing big or fancy. Just us, Maw, Sarah & her kids. David & Clay both were working. We grilled some burgers & dogs & ate out on the patio.This is what happens when the kids get hopped up on Mt. Dew......Meet little Madeline. LOL

Ashely thought she was getting out of the shot.....but I got her anyway. Hee!Hee! Not sure what she & Sarah were talking about.

What a nice evening to kick off our sumemr!

New Every Morning

Just thought I'd share my morning with you...........with a cup of coffee & my book, 'The Power of a Praying Mom' in hand, I head out to my front porch glider to enjoy the early morning beauty....
It just doesn't get any better than this!

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'It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.'

~Lamentations 3:22-23~

Cherries, Strawberries & Scrapping

Some of the strawberry preserves that Clay & Ashley made. We cut up the rest of the strawberries & put them in the freezer to have for smoothies & what-not. Then Ashley & I pitted & froze several quarts of cherries that the kids had picked at Mason's on Friday. And Ashley made us a yummy cherry cobbler last night for dessert. Below is the layout that I worked on yesterday afternoon. One of the Blue Plate challenges over at Cookin' Up Creations this past week was to grab a handful of those little paint samples that you find at Walmart or Lowes & to use those to make some cute embellishments for your layout. I used to have a STASH of those things, but then the trend kind of died off & I purged my drawers & storage bins......so I had to make sure I grabbed a small handful when I went to Walmart on Friday.
I used a pale blue paint chip to punch the tiny little snowflakes. These pics were from Chris' 21st BD....last year.......when we got dumped on with like 18" of snow. What a memorable birthday!

Like these, Inger?

One is Ball & the larger one is a Mason jar.
Pay no never mind to my Mickey D's sweet tea over there. LOL! These jars were here at Memaw's house when we moved in......lots of antiques here.......I love antiques. I can keep my eye for them next time I go to Good Will if you want me to. Then Scott will HAVE to let you come back......to get your jars! ;-)

A Good Day at Good Will

Just have to share my thrifty finds with y'all this evening! I've been needing a new dish drainer for a good while now, but just couldn't bring myself to pay $7-10 for a new one at Walmart or Target......so, I've just been keeping an eye out whenever I'm in Good Will. Well, today was the day.....I walked down the aisle & there it was.....this nice 'good as new' dish drainer & the best part......it only cost $1.55!! Doing a little happy dance in the aisle!Then, on the shelf above, I noticed two stacks of these nifty little snack bowls. You can imagine how tickled I was when I looked & saw the Liberty logo on the side! I remembered that Chris had gotten one of these with nachos in it at a football game once. I thought they'd make awesome little snack bowls for the kids.
Some had price stickers on them & some didn't.......the ones with stickers said .55............which isn't too terribly bad. But I picked through & got ones that DIDN'T have stickers on them....took them up front & asked the girl how much for them & she charged me .75 for my whole stack of 7 that I had! Yippeee-Skippy! I got one for each of my kids & one to give to Anna & Daniel too. I thought that would be a fun little treat for them.

I found two more pairs of capris today. I can not go wrong with some nice comfy capris for summer. This pair is a tad more dressy....with tiny pen-stirpes.

This is just a nice pair of cream-colored linen capris. So soft & comfy!

Then I found these awesome jersey knit ones with a little drawstring waist at Sams. I bought two pair....this black pair & a creamish/tan pair thinking they would be great for sleeping in. These were $4.81 & the Good Will ones were $3.50. Oh & I also found two Tshirts in the dollar bin at Good Will.........a gray Liberty one for Michael & a really nice Coke on for me. Not a bad day of thrifting at all!!

'It'

Remember the Stephen King movie 'It'?Well, last fall around Halloween time Alli decided to paint Jon's face & this is how it turned out. I told her she had done an awesome job of painting 'It'. LOL!
Just now getting around to scrapping these. I was trying to get at least one last challenge in today over at My Scraps & More. This challenge was to make at least one hand-made embellishment for your page. I had seen this technique in the latest Scrapbooks, etc. magazine & had been wanting to try it, so I figured it was the perfect element for this challenge. In the magazine they showed how to use broken button pieces made into cute little heart embellies, but I just opted for a circle embellishment & ended up making it a center in my little flower-type-thingie that I made. I'm really pleased with what I got done......I did 9 out of the 11 challenges. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself! ;-)

Two more

Two more layouts done today. For the one below we were challnged to use a banner on our layout. I happened upon these pics that I had taken of the crocheted garland that I made for Valentine's Day. Thought that they would work perfectly with a little heart banner across the top.This layout was a color challenge......to use the colors red, blue, green, yellow & orange.


The colors worked perfectly with these photos of the little icecream cone that Ashley crocheted for her little cousin's 1st birthday. And that cute icecream paper that I had picked up at Michaels worked out just right too. I just realized that in my total randomness of choosing pics to go with sketches, etc. that I ended up doing TWO layouts about our crochet. Hmmmm.......wonder what that says about me??

I'm on a roll.......

.....with the scrappin' these days. I'm totally loving the challenges over at My Scraps & More. They're awesome!!This is one of my favorites now!! It was a sketch challenge.....leaving some 'white space'. And after doing that other music/lyrics challenge I kind of had songs on my brain. It just happened that Ashley was online at the time & I asked if she & Chris had a special song that was 'Their Song' & she immediately wrote back with 'Me & You' by Kenny Chesney. Gotta love Kenny & I love that song too.......so it became the title for this layout of the two of them taken the night of Ashley's senior recital.
This layout of Jesse was done for a challenge to scrap a 'celebration.' I loved the sketch & found this awesome piece of paper in my stash that was just perfect....fitting the sketch & theme of this layout.

Funky Jesus Music

I felt the afternoon just got away from me yesterday. We had a family meeting after church yesterday & it went kind of long.....we even had to finally just slip out because Clay was working different hours & I needed to get home so he could have the van to go to work. We ate lunch around 2pm & like I said, the afternoon just kind of went from there.I did manage to get ONE layout done in the time between our late lunch & supper. This was done for a challenge at My Scraps & More to use a song title for your LO title. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do until I flipped through my pictures & saw this one of Jon being goofy the morning of his 16th birthday. I immediately thought about this Toby Mac song & thought it all came together perfectly after that.

Crop Time

I just recently came across a new scrappy site & they are having a fun Grand Opening Sketch Crop over the next couple of days. May 20-25, I believe. I've enjoyed a lovely scrappy day today......actually gotten a couple layouts done & a birthday card for a special someone who has a birthday coming up this week. Come check things out at My Scraps & More.

All of the challenges are sketch challenges....but with a twist. This one of Michael we were challenged to use 1 or more photos that were smaller than 4x6. Pretty easy for me, because I love to use the wallet sized photos.

In this one of Ashley Cates' senior recital we were challenged to use words as part of the design element.

And this pretty birthday card sketch was combined with the challenge to use PINK.....any shade. ;-)

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Here are a few of the things that I had scrapped this past week. Several kids at church are graduating this year & so I needed a few grad cards.

And this was Ella's birthday card.....her BD was this past Wed.

Now, I love how this last layout turned out.....but I HATE how it scanned. The stupid scanner kept cutting the very top edge off. I flipped & moved & scanned & re-scanned until I wanted to scream!! So, I finally just gave up & posted it as is. You get the gist of it.......just the very top edge cut off.....as you can see by the little bee embellishment.

This Week......

....has been kind of crazy. Trying to get back into somewhat of a normal routine, but not really sure if I'm there even yet. Figured I'd try & catch everyone up on what's been happening. Our long-time bestest friends from NC came up for graduation......we hadn't seen them in like 6 years.....YIKES! SO, so glad they got to come & endure all the crazy hectic-ness of our weekend. After the party at Maw's house wound down, we all (Rodney & family & all our family) headed back home for the evening. We ordered Vitos pizza for supper & finally sat down for what was probably the most 'normal' meal of the day at about 9pm Saturday night. Seeings how we had gone the whole day on nothing but pop-tarts, granola bars & party food for our breakfast & lunch. But all was fine......we were totally buzzing.......flying high! We all crashed late Sat. night & slept in Sun. morning......enjoying a leisurely breakfast & just visiting & catching up. Rodney & Amy left around 2pm.....teasingly saying they'd see us again in 4 years for Ashely's graduation. Let's hope we don't wait that long!!
Sunday afternoon....after Rodney & Amy had left....Michael was outside messing around & happened to come over here to the window by my computer with this icky black snake that he killed down by the pond. He was lovin' every minute of it....showing it to his sisters & listening to them go 'Eeeeewwwwww!'

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Hope y'all don't mind if I share a few more graduation pictures. I keep finding more & more different ones when I look at everyone's photos. These below, were found on Ashley's camera.

Micael.....look at the smirk.....he's such a goof!

Me & my college-bound girl!

LOL....my hand pointing out where Chris was sitting.


All weekend long the boys had been talking about/plotting how they wanted to go to the Snowflex snowboarding. At one point, we thought maybe we'd do it Sun. before Rodney & Amy left so Josh could go with them, but they had to get back for a youth group meeting at their church Sun. evening. So.......the snowboarding got moved to Mon. evening. They wanted to go at night.....under the lights. I opted to stay home becuase my throat was sore & I still felt whooped & welcomed a nice quiet evening at home. The girls didn't snowboard, but they went anyway so they could LAUGH! They sat by the fire, sipped coffee & videoed their brothers all evening long. Below are the pics I got off Ashley's camera. They were, for the most part, dark & kind of blurry....but anyway.....

Chris, Michael & Jon getting ready

There goes Jon....

Jon at the far end....with Michael coming down

The girls & Daddy stayed warm & dry. ;-)

After they mastered the practice slope....they were able to move out back to the intermediate slope.

They came home tired & a little sore, but they had a blast! I'm glad they got to go!

Class of 2011

Wow.....I have a college graduate now! We had a FULL day yesterday. And I just want to say a big THANK YOU right off the bat to all those who prayed for me all week! I had a sense of peace that can only come from God above. Clay had safe travels to & from NYC. And most of all....the rain held off yesterday. Granted it was misty.....but it didn't rain & it wasn't HOT. We only had some sprinkles yesterday afternoon & the kids thoroughly enjoyed playing out in the rain showers. All in all it was a most awesome day!The graduates all lined up ready for the processional.
After the main commencement ceremony at Williams Stadium there was a 30 minute break while all the graduates went to their seperate ceremonies where each 'school' was awarded their actual diplomas. The school of communications held their ceremony in the Schilling Center.




After graduation, we all headed back over to Maw's house to party! Thank you SO much to Maw for opening her home & for Sarah & Ella & the all their help in decorating & getting everything set up for me. They are the Bestest!

Thank you Aunt Linda for doing the beautiful cake!! It was delicious, as usual!

Chris, Matt, Damian & Karch

Charlotte & Ron brought ME these beautiful roses! How sweet, was that.





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Below, I went a little crazy with the photos.....but hey...it WAS a special day & these are just all so awesome! What great friends......& great memories!


Damian, Karch, Matt, Chris & Ashley


The room-mates......these three have shared a room together for the past two years.

They are just plain CRAZY!


Chris had to be out of his dorm by 6pm....so Clay, Rodney, Chris & Jon went to pack things up.


Chris & Rodney......outside of dorm 7....one last time.

When the guys got back from packing up Chris' stuff.....we went outside to take some cap & gown pics. We all got so tickled when Chris put his on WITH SHORTS UNDERNEATH! We told him he had sexy legs! LOL

My two graduates. We are SO proud of these two. God has truely blessed us with some super terrific kiddos!!