My apologies!!!

I'm surprised that Lori hasn't slapped my fingers yet for not posting since OCTOBER.  Ack!!  Sorry about that!!  Things around here have been busy, sad, happy, and everything in between.

First off, 2 of my kiddos had birthdays the first week of November!  Jackson hit the double digits and Makenna is now 7!  Time flies when you are having fun!!

Secondly, we lost a friend tragically on November 18th in a plane crash just outside of our little town... he was a wonderful pilot, brother, son, and father, had a great personality and sense of humor, and he treated his friends and family like gold.  Rest in paradise, Mark.... your pilot wings that you earned so well have now taken you even higher....

And then, we spent a weekend in Winnipeg for How to Train Your Dragon at the MTS Centre, and it was absolutely AMAZING!!!!  

 

I have decided to do a fun little photo challenge from iheartfaces.com and I hope that you'll have some fun with it too!!!

Here is Day 1 - me

I am a mother, a girlfriend, a friend, a sister, a daughter, a granddaughter, a maid, a chauffeur, a chef, a nurse, and about a million other things.... and I also work part time at our local bank.  I love life, I am strong and determined, stubborn perhaps.... but always try to find the positive in any situation.  That is me.

I promise to attempt to post more often.  Promise.  LOL

Friendship!!

Good morning!  I have been trying to figure out what picture to use for this months challenge at i heart faces.  The subject is 'Friendship' and having 4 kiddos, I have a ton of photos that scream friendship to me.

One picture, though, popped out more than others.  The bond between brothers is unmistakable, and hard to hide with my two guys.  Jackson isn't shy to show his love, no matter who is around watching.  And Brayden is more than happy to accept it.

This picture isn't technically perfect, I didn't do anything special to it to try to remove all of the hot spots of the sun... but it's perfect to me.  Best of all, Jackson didn't even know I had my camera... I just caught them in the act. :)

Pop on over to i heart faces.  You won't regret it. :)

Happy Saturday!

Hey everyone!  I just realized I haven't updated for almost a month now.... ack!!  I've been doing a few little projects scrappy wise, and doing a few pictures of the kiddos as well.  We didn't get too long with the beautiful fall leaves, they fell so fast this year!!

This was just a little baby boy mini that I threw together with the Bella Blvd Baby Boy collection.... no pictures, because I might put it in the Christmas craft sale in a few more weeks, and I'm hoping to get a baby girl one done as well. :)

Christmas will soon be right around the corner, so I thought I would start some early Christmas spirit by breaking into my Simple Stories Handmade Holiday collection!

And this frame shows just a small part of what I am thankful for in my life.... my little beautiful town.  Snow Lake is small, but huge and vast in beauty.....

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving (my Canadian friends, anyways!!) and you are still giving thanks and being grateful on a daily basis and not just on that one day!!

Happy Sunday!!

Norine and I did a little something over on the LIITD BLOG for today, and we both decided to re-use some scrapbooking packaging on a layout!  I will show you my finished layout here, but head on over to take a peek at the full post/description, as well as Norine's fabulous layout too!!!!!

I am thrilled to say that I have been sitting at the scrap table a lot more in the last week or so.... which isn't always easy with Brayden the human monkey climbing all over me!!!  But, it feels awesome, and it's something I will be continuing to MAKE the extra time for.

Just taking a moment....

I have never lost a child, and I hope and pray that I never will......  I have experienced walking away from one of my children not knowing if he was going to survive intense surgery or not, at the age of 1...... but he DID, and he is doing so amazing right now.  I don't stop often to think 'what if', but this song certainly made me do just that today.  

To all of the mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, that have had to endure the senseless suffering and loss of a son or daughter, brother or sister..... my heart goes out to you and I just wish that we could find cures for these illnesses that are claiming babies, little children, teenagers.....  

I'll listen to this song over and over again, even if I cry each and every time.  Because it makes me just that much more thankful, and grateful, for the gift that I was given with Brayden... the gift of a second chance...

I Heart Summer!!!

Over at I Heart Faces, their newest photo challenge is Summer Fun!!  We certainly had a lot of fun this summer, in our beautiful little town....  we live right by the beach, we had a seasonal site at the campground.... PERFECTION!

I love this picture of my younger daughter, Makenna... having the time of her life at the beach on the monkey bars!!

So many pictures to choose from, so I had to just do an eeny meeny type of system. LOL!!

I hope you all had a wonderful summer!!

Happy Sunday!

Hi everyone! Welcome to another scrappy Sunday on the blog! Chelsea here with a little something to hopefully get your mojo going. I know that summer can be a really hard time of the year to scrap in, most people would rather be outside enjoying the beautiful weather, taking trips, etc. So now that fall is upon us, school is 'almost' back in, I think it's time to step up the layouts, how about you?

I wanted to share with you a layout I did for a friend of mine.... She recently gave me the best birthday present EVER by having her beautiful son Kade right smack on my birthday!! I met him last week at his baby shower, and he is such a precious little boy... absolutely one of the cutest babies ever.

I used Echo Park's Everyday Eclectic, and chose the subtle blue/greens and browns with just a hint of red. I find sometimes when printing my own pictures at home, that it works better to use the 'antique' setting to change the color of the photo so that it doesn't clash so much with the papers that I am wanting to use.

 I used some die cuts to create my background, and added in some of my own hand cut paper strips to make somewhat of a quilt pattern around the photo. I even broke out my stickles, which have been very neglected lately!

Now that summer is over, let's get cranking out the layouts, people!!! :)