Not a baby anymore!

We celebrated our baby's first birthday on Sunday. She had so much fun smashing her "smash cake"! I had to scrap it (of course!)
She is growing so fast! She's been walking since 9 months and has 4 teeth (and working on 4 more!) She brings so much JOY to our home!


And there will be more joy next Summer when #8 arrives!

So much for getting back to it

Here we are over a month since my last post, so I haven't done very well at keeping up with my blog! I'll start with an update. First, I didn't make the DET at DSP. I did make it to the Finalist Round, so I'll try again in March. : )

School is going well. The kids are enjoying it and learning a lot, but it's very time consuming. I'm at the computer teaching from 9 am to 3 pm with breaks in between. The kids aren't that much, but I'm teaching M & L 2nd grade and Mi 6th grade, so I spend time with all of them.

We had a great trip the end of September to a family reunion in KY and went to Cathedral Falls in WV and to Blue Lick State Park to the Pioneer Museum and learned about Daniel Boone. Then we went home by way of Cincinnati and spent the day at the Creation Museum. It was incredible and the kids (and my Dad) really enjoyed it - (well, Jeffrey didn't enjoy the Planetarium much - in fact, I got kicked out. LOL!)

What else, OH, our little one will be a year old on Sunday!!! Already!!! AND for her birthday, I got a little gift, too... a + pregnancy test. #8 is due June 26th!!! (Lord willing!)

OK, leaving off with a bit of fun... Irene grabbed this from Jamie's blog and I grabbed it from Irene's, so here's my little name game...

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car) - Snickers Express
2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie) - Strawberry Delectable
3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name) - VPAS
4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) -Teal Cow :)
5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born) -Michelle Warren
6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first) -Pasvi
7. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink) -The Purple Java
8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers) - Everett Everett (it really is!!)
9. STRIPPER NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy) - Red Kisses (LOL!)
10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names ) -Lou Gene (Redneck at that! ; )
11. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter) -Smith Seattle
12. SPY NAME/BOND GIRL: (your favorite season/holiday, flower) -Autumn Rose
13. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”) - Peach Panty (LOL! My kids aren't allowed to watch that one!)
14. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree) -Coffee Birch
15. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”) -The Digital Scrapbooking Fall Tour

MIA!

This Summer has been so busy that I have totally ignored my blog. Today's entry is an update of what's been happening...

SCHOOL
I'm homeschooling again! Last year for the first time in their lives, the kids went to school. They enjoyed a year at the Christian School, but this year it's just too tight to send them all, so our oldest daughter is the only one going and I'm teaching the other three at home. (AND taking care of the 3 little ones who aren't in school yet).

SCRAPPING
I'm trying to finish as much of my heritage album as I can before our family reunion in a couple of weeks. I'm also working on a heritage album for my mother in law, plus I entered the Digital Elite Team contest at DSP. The Digital Elite Team is a group of gals who use new kits in the DSP Store to make layouts that have a "Wow" factor to encourage other members to buy the kits. The contest is an elimination style challenge with 4 rounds. There were 99 layouts in Round 1 and almost half of those were eliminated. My Round 1 Entry was good enough to move me on to Round 2 (see left: Winter Sunset) .

For Round 2, we were given a kit to use that was totally out of my comfort zone. I'm not sure if I'll get past this one. The kit was called Rainbow's End and there was also a pack of Word Art. As soon as I saw the words, This HAPPY Face, I knew I had to use the pictures of Abby I had been saving for just the right layout. So here's what I came up with for Round 2. This one is called, Abby's Happy Face. I did five layouts before I was finally comfortable enough to upload this one. I finished it one night at 1:30 am and went to bed knowing that I had accomplished what I was trying to. I took the pictures one day when Abby was crawling around in her room. She was crawling on her comforter which is beige with roses all over it and it certainly did not go with the kit, so I just pulled the pictures into Photopaint and extracted her from her surroundings. Then I tucked her into a frame I made out of a strip of squares. The next picture I tucked into a circle of dots and added another circle to make it look like she was crawling through. Then the upper left corner was begging for something to balance it out, so I put the picture of her side profile. The final effect makes it seem like she is crawling across the page through the frames. I'm finally happy with it, though I'd MUCH prefer a traditional layout full of ribbons and paperclips and gold frames. LOL! This one is called Abby's Happy Face.

Another thing I did this Summer (well, actually it was the last week of August) was take a picture (well, actually, it was 27 of them) of all the kids together. It took 27 tries to get ONE good one - where they were all looking at the camera and smiling. So #27 was it and I quit. Here is a layout I did of it and if you click here, you can see a page I did with the "out takes". What fun! : )

That's all I have time for this time. I'll try to keep up with it a little better in my spare (haha) time. : )

DSP Blog Prompt - Elementary School

Let's move up to elementary school. What school did you attend? What was it like.. big, small, etc.? Did you ride a bus or walk? Take a lunch or buy? What was your best memory there and what was your worse?

Oh, I loved elementary school. I have so many happy memories. I went to a small school called Jackson Elementary School. There were several elementary schools in our town, so there wasn't much busing as you were sure to live within walking distance to one of them. The only time I rode the bus was for field trips and I always got car sick on the bus. LOL! (This is me in Kindergarten!)

Speaking of getting sick, my worst memory is when I threw up in the hallway in 4th grade. We were standing in line to go out to recess and I just had to barf. The teacher moved the class down the hall to a different door and the principal made an announcement over the loud speaker asking the janitor to please clean up the vomit in the hallway. I could have died. Like I didn't feel bad enough already! The kids were all saying, "Ewww, did you see the throw up in the hall?" "Who threw up? Vicki?" LOL!

It's hard to pick a happy memory because there were so many. Taking cupcakes to school on my birthday, dressing up on Halloween, spelling bees and school fairs and art class. I won 2nd place in the 50 yard dash which surprised everyone including myself. Band practice and getting chosen to play taps on veterans day on my trumpet. My first boyfriend - Fishface Smith - in 5th grade. LOL! Making the honor roll and having my name on the list in the hall by the front door.

I hope my own children have happy memories of their school days. We homeschooled up until this year and I often hear them talking about things we've done for school. I guess every parent hopes their children have a better life than they did. I had a pretty good childhood, so it's going to be a tough act to follow. I think I'll go call my Mom. : )

DSP Blog Prompt - My room

As a child did you have your own bedroom or did you have to share? What was it like? Did you spend a lot of time playing in there or was it reserved for sleeping?

There were 3 of us girls in a 3 bedroom house, so my oldest sister got her own room and Kim and I had to share a room until Diana got married and moved out when I was 11. Kim and I had bunk beds and I was on the top bunk. I remember that we would hang blankets up around the bottom bunk and play "tent". My imagination was so vivid, I would often believe that the things we made up that were outside the tent were really there. I specifically remember Indians (probably after watching some western on TV) and scary monsters. Kim figured out that I was young and gullible and she could intimidate me into doing whatever she wanted by scaring me half to death. LOL!

As I got a little older, Barbie dolls started taking over our space. The Barbie Townhouse was at the end of the bed and we would spend hours acting out events in Barbie's life. Then one day, when I was about 6, Kim came home from school and informed me that she was too old to play with dolls and dolls were for babies! I was devastated and had to learn to play alone!

When Kim moved into Diana's old room, my mom gave my room a makeover for my next birthday and I got a new canopy bed, bedspread and matching curtains, carpet, wallpaper and a new mushroom lamp (remember those?) My bed was white wood, the wallpaper had roses and blue ribbons entertwined which matched my red carpet. The bedspread and curtains were pink and the mushroom lamp was purple (not sure why Mother picked a purple lamp for a red and pink room, but I loved it anyway!) I have a picture somewhere that Mother took of my face when I walked in and saw my room for the first time. (She did it all while I was away. It was just like "Trading Spaces" except I didn't redecorate her rooms until much later when I was grown and married!)

I have so many happy memories of my room - sitting by the window and listening to the mourning doves outside while the sheer curtains blew in the breeze. We lived at the bottom of a hill, and my room faced up the hill, so I could see when my friends were coming and run out to meet them! : )

Every now and then I would get bored with it and move the furniture around (which meant a LOT of work because I had to clean out from under the bed! LOL!) That's a habit I still haven't outgrown (in fact, I'm typing this in my new office which I moved from the dining room to the sunroom yesterday, so I'm going to get off the 'puter and get stuff organized and put away!) : )

Liddle Lamzy Divey Revisited

Awhile back I did a layout called Liddle Lamzy Divey. As I was trying to scrap our lamb pictures from last year, that song kept going through my head, so I just used it on the page. Apparently, that song has sticktuitiveness since everyone else who views the page also seems to be unable to shake it's haunting refrains! I've begun to get complaints (all in fun of course) from some of the grannies at DSP who can't get rid of that song, so today I did a new lamb page and dedicated it to them so they have something to look at while they hum. : )

Travelling through Childhood

You are between 5 and 10. You are going on vacation. What form of transportation was used to get there? Did it take long? And what did you do to entertain yourself while traveling?

Since my parents moved from Kentucky to Ohio when they got married, most of my extended family still lived in Kentucky, so we traveled back to KY alot to see our relatives when I was a child. We had several different cars that I remember, but thinking back now, what I remember most is that we had no car seats! I laid down in the back seat, put pillows on the floor and sat there, climbed over the seat into the back of the station wagon, climbed over the front seat and sat between my parents and had a lot of freedom as I don't even remember wearing seatbelts much. Mostly they were tucked down in the back of the seat to get them out of the way! The speed limit was 55 back then, so it was an 8 hour drive. There were certain places that we always stopped along the way - Renick's Farm Market near Chilicothe, Ohio was a favorite and I always got a big dill pickle out of the jar on the deli and a rainbow snowcone out of the freezer. (I know, just the thought of it now makes me feel sick!) Daddy always stopped for gas once we crossed the Ohio River into Southshore and they had little red gingerbread men cookies in the case at the little store at the gas station and he always bought me one. Along the way we played "Cars". Everyone picked a color and every time a car of that color passed, you got a point. Then when we crossed the river, we always sang, "Over the bridge and under the bridge" until we got across. We had so much fun together as a family, the time flew by quickly and it wasn't long until I was running into my Mamaw's arms and giving Papaw a big hug before heading off to play with my cousins. What I wouldn't give to go back for just one day...,

What made me happy today?

Tell about something that made you smile yesterday or today.

It would have to be this layout and the memories that go with it. I don't usually attempt to go anywhere with all the kids without DH, but I had promised the kids I would take them someplace fun when they had a day off school. I was surprised at how easy it was and how good they were. My oldest son was the "keeper of the map" and he told us which way to go and what we were going to see next. My oldest daughter was in charge of my youngest son and they were so excited about seeing the animals and wondering what was going to be next that they forgot to fight! : ) On the way home, we stopped off for all the makings of ice cream sundaes and we went home and made them to share with Dad (who was working and not able to go with us). We just might have to do that again real soon! : )
Page Credits can be found here. And in case you're wondering, that wonderful baby carrier I'm wearing is a Kozy Carrier made by my friend, Kelley!

Zzzzzzzz

Blog Prompt: What do you think about when you can't fall asleep?

There are a couple of things I always pull into my mind in those wee hours of the night. I'm usually awake at least a couple times in the night to nurse the baby. First, I usually pray for my friends and family that come to mind, and other times, when I really can't sleep, I rearrange all the furniture in my house. (My husband HATES those nights! LOL!) ; )

Once when I was in college, I stayed all night at my sister's house. I had finals the next morning and had to be up at a certain time to get to the college on time. My sister set the alarm and apparently was so worried I would sleep in, she kept waking to make sure we hadn't. At 4:14 am, she woke up, looked at the clock and for some reason, her mind thought I was late, so she ran into my room and shook me yelling, "VICKI! It's 4:14! Hurry up, it's 4:14!" I jumped out of bed and then I realized that it was 4:14 and I had at least another couple of hours to sleep. LOL! To this day we laugh about that and oddly enough, often when I wake up in the middle of the night now, I look at the clock and it's 4:14. Immediately, I pray for my sister as that's something of a "code" for us. Later in the day I call her and tell her, by the way, I was praying for you this morning at 4:14. : )

DSP Blog Prompt - Free Cash

Blog Prompt: Tell about something that made you feel good this week.

My oldest daughter has loved horses almost since the day she was born. From the time she was two years old, and was able to talk, she started wanting a horse of her own. Any cash she got for birthdays or Christmas or Allowances went into a savings account and by the time she was nine years old, she had saved up enough money to buy her horse. Tasha was a four year old draft/paint mare and Tori cared for her, rode her, fed her, babied her, for three years. Then, last March, Tasha got colic for the second time. The first time we were able to get her through it, but this time, she was down and wasn't going to get up. We did everything we could for her - even had a chiropractor come out and adjust her, but it was not to be. Tasha died on April Fools Day 2006.

I worried that Tori would be hurt and bitter and be put off horses, but we prayed and cried together and the Lord used the experience to teach us both. Shortly after, Tori made a list of things she would like to have in her "dream horse" and started saving all her cash for the day she would finally have enough to buy another horse.

This week, my friend Sue called me. She was with us the night Tasha died and knew how much it meant to Tori to have a horse. She had talked to her sister in law who had horses about finding another horse for Tori. Would you believe that someone GAVE her sister in law a horse? After months of watching and trying this horse (whose name is Cash, btw), she has declared her safe and ready to move in. The incredible thing is - as Sue began to tell me all the details about this horse, I started mentally checking off the items on Tori's "dream horse list". This horse IS Tori's Dream Horse! And since Cash was a gift to Sue's sister in law, she is GIVING her to Tori! Tori has been out in the stable all week cleaning out Cash's new stall and getting it ready for her. She's even talking about making curtains for the window. LOL! Several times this week, she has said to me, "I'm afraid I'm going to wake up and find out it was all a dream." As soon as we can find a trailer, we'll be off to bring her home.

I did this layout awhile back of Tori on Tasha and oddly enough, it's called "Dream Come True". I guess the next layout will have to be called "Dream Come True...Again!"

Scrapbook Page Credits: Nameless Beauty Page Kit Created by ©2007 Beth Nixon
http://store.digitalscrapbookplace.c...ucts_id=5 091
"T" from the Boy oh Boy Sparkle Alpha from the Kit Created by Valeri Brumfield

Lambs, lambs, and more lambs...

Our first twin lambs were born on April 22nd and they've been coming steadily since. So far we're at 23 and there are 3 more first time - about to be Moms who aren't quite "done" yet. Here is a sampling of a few of them. Since we've been Shepherds, one of my favorite books has been A Shepherd Looks at the 23rd Psalm by Phillip Keller. Here's the description from Christian Book Distributors..."Walk the green pastures of faith and drink from the still waters of peace hidden in Psalm 23! Drawing from his experience as a professional sheep rancher, Keller leads you verse by verse through this beloved portion of Scripture, offering unique insights into the love our Good Shepherd bestows upon us, the sheep of his pasture." Having read this book and being blessed to be able to go out into the green pastures and sit among the sheep, knowing them all by name and having them come up to me to get their head scratched or to have them call me to come see their new lambs when I step through the gate, has just been a phenomenal, faith lifting experience. It makes me glad to have a "Good Shepherd" to care for me in the same way!

Scrapbook Page Credits: Mother May I Page Kit by Linda Rechtin

Annoying

Blog Prompt: List the 5 things that annoy you the most.

1. Cleaning a room and walking into it 5 minutes later, only to find it trashed by one (or more) of the kids.
2. Not being able to find something - especially when I knew exactly where it was a few minutes ago (I often find one shoe by the door and another somewhere else in the house - just ask the 2 year old where the other one is...)
3. Jealous neighbors who make your life miserable. (But we won't get into that...
4. Trying to mow the lawn and running over rescue heroes and the rock used for 2nd base because they weren't picked up when the "pre-mow warning" was sounded.
5. Dressing the baby in her beautiful Christening gown (which has been worn by all the girls in the family) only to have a "diaper blow out" resulting in a yellow stain! (Time to get out my cloth diapers to avoid that happening again!)

DSP Blog Prompt - My Mom

Blog Prompt: Describe your relationship with your mom or a mother figure.

Hmmm...I love my Mom. She's my best friend. I live two hours away from her, but talk to her on the phone every day (sometimes two or three times). In recent years, she's been inflicted with Deteriorating Joint and Disk Disease (among other things) which has caused her a lot of pain in her back. She's had back surgery twice, neither of which helped her. She has to live with constant pain, and sometimes (as you would imagine) she has a hard time dealing with that. (I can't even begin to imagine what she goes through!) Sometimes, when she's at the end of her rope, she calls me (and/or my sisters) for support. I try to listen and understand, but it can be frustrating, knowing the pain she is in and not being able to do anything about it. And being in pain all the time can really get on your nerves, so occasionally, she takes her frustration out on those she loves (don't we all?) She has her good days and bad days, but we love her and try to do what we can. The best thing I've found is to try to be cheerful and tell her funny things the kids do or ask her about her childhood and get her reminiscing. That usually gets her laughing and feeling better. As I said before, laughter is the best medicine. I miss the old days, but change is inevitable... and I guess, overall, I wish I were as good a mom to my kids as she was to me. I never had to wonder if I was loved. It was evident in everything she did - and still does!!

DSP Blog Prompt - Best TV Mom?

Blog Prompt: Since Mother's Day is approaching, who do you think was the best TV mom and why?

That's an easy one. It has to be June Cleaver! I just watched "Leave it to Beaver" yesterday and all I could think was, "Her house is SO clean!" "She has showered and done her hair!" "She's Super Mom!!" There aren't too many days when my house is clean for longer than 10 minutes. I just finished cleaning the living room yesterday when the couch was attacked by an army of goldfish crackers (whose general was a 2 year old boy). So anyway, as I was praising June, it finally dawned on me - NOW I know why she's perfect! SHE doesn't have a computer! (Oh, not to mention her husband and children are perfect, as well, and they all do their chores without complaining! : )

Our herd has grown!

FINALLY, a week and 4 days after Buttercup's due date, Pansy has made her appearance! She's our first Normande/Jersey cross (hence the white face). Here she is!

Go Crazy 'til the Cows come home

I haven't updated for a few days because we've been busy here with farming. Most days are routine, but every once in awhile you get "one of those days". Yesterday was one such day... The morning started as it always does - going out to the pasture to check the sheep and lambs, see if there are any new ones that were born overnight and put out their feed. We had been having a problem with one Ewe who lambed twins on Saturday and rejected the second one (it wandered away while she was cleaning the first lamb and since she didn't bond with it right away, she wanted nothing to do with it). We were able to graft the lamb onto another ewe who lambed a short time after she was born, and they were doing OK as a family unit. We had one ewe left to lamb (we thought) so I went to see if she had lambed, but she was still wide and waddling. ; ) There was a new lamb, though. One of the yearling ewes that we assumed was not bred, was standing there licking a newborn lamb. She was one of the smallest yearlings, so I went and looked at the other 3 yearling ewes that we also counted as "not bred" and noticed that they all looked like this one did just before she lambed, so we're waiting to see how many more there will be.

We missed church because we had to care for a ewe that had prolapsed just before lambing and we were bottle feeding the bum lamb until we were able to graft her onto a new mom. In the evening, the ewe we were waiting on to lamb had twins while I watched in the pasture. They were number 22 and 23.

Mike had gone to another farm to pick up some laying hens we were buying with them and when he came back and walked into the chicken coop, he noticed it was full of smoke! The chicks had somehow knocked down the heat lamp and it was laying on the pine shavings smoldering. Luckily, he caught it in time, got the coop aired out and remedied the situation without losing any chicks. He was able to get the new chickens settled into the coop before the kids realized it was getting late and we hadn't had dinner yet!

In the busy-ness of lambing and waiting for Buttercup to have her calf (which she hasn't done yet - 1 week and 2 days past her due date) we both neglected to lay out the steaks for dinner, so we were all starved and dinner was frozen solid. We decided to order out and when Mike was on his way home with the food, he approached our farm, only to find 11 cows standing in the middle of the road - in the dark - with cars coming in both directions!!! He called me quickly on my cell phone and I called for the kids to get outside. (Whenever the call "THE COWS ARE OUT" is heard, that's a sign to drop whatever you are doing and get outside!!) So here it is, 9:30 at night and Mike and I and 3 of the kids are chasing cows back and forth up and down the road, all while trying to get them in pastures or barns to get them off the road. In the stress, they are running in all directions, and cars are still coming in both directions. I'm trying to flag down cars with my flashlight, DD is chasing cows through the hay field (she's wearing flip flops and falls in a ground hog hole before she gets them to run back toward the barn), her younger sister is manning the gate on the pasture, trying to make sure cows are going IN not OUT - (inspite of her best efforts, she lost a few!), DS is blocking traffic coming the other direction and holding the flashlight for his dad to see how to fix the electric fence they had knocked down to get to the "grass that's always greener on the other side of the fence".

FINALLY, after 45 minutes, we had all the cows back in place, the fences and gates were secure, everyone was happy and we sat down to our cold Supper (It's now after 10 pm!) By the time we settled down and everyone discussed what part they played in the saga, it was 11 o'clock before we got to bed, so we told the kids they could sleep late and we'd take them to school when everyone was up and ready.

So I called the school this morning to let them know the kids would be late. I told them, "Yesterday, we had sick sheep, bum lambs, almost burned down the chicken coop, got 50 new chickens, and the cows got out. We ate dinner at 10:30 last night. We didn't have the nerve to wake the kids up at 6 am. We'll be there in a little while..." Just a taste of life "on the funny farm"!

Dork

Tell a funny story or your favorite joke.

My daughter Emily has me laughing every day with the things she says, but the funniest thing I heard yesterday came from my Mom. I was talking to her on the phone and she said, "Your father cut his own hair today. He used the clippers to trim it and he ruined his head. He looks like a dork!" If you knew my parents, you'd realize just how funny that is - first that my Dad, for some unforeseen reason, took it upon himself to cut his own hair (which there isn't much of in the first place), but for my Mom to use the word DORK was the funniest thing I'd heard in a long time. It was just so out of character for her and I laughed out loud, right on the phone. She had to wait for me to quit laughing before she could go on. Obviously, it really frustrated her because SHE usually cuts his hair, but he got in a hurry and couldn't wait and decided just to do it himself. Sometimes they crack me up. It's good to laugh. A merry heart does good, like medicine, But a broken spirit dries the bones. Proverbs 17:22

What is Success?

What is your definition of 'success'? Do you know any 'successful' people who inspire you?

My definition of success has changed a lot in recent years. I used to think that being rich and famous - or just rich - meant success. When I looked at the big picture, though - where we're going in life and what our purpose is, that all changed. Wealth is no longer the goal (yeah, it would be nice to have a ton of money!) But after reading The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, I realized that we are here for a purpose and only as a stopping off place to eternity. Success (in my mind) is now measured by my relationship to our Creator. How much money I have now won't matter a hundred years from now. How I use the gifts He has given me is the most important thing. Everything we own belongs to God anyway - we are just stewards of it.

The most successful person I know would probably be my uncle. He is pretty "well off" in most people's opinion - he's wealthy, owns a prospering business, has a nice house, drives new cars, buys whatever he wants when he wants it, but the thing that strikes me the most is how giving he is. I've seen him hand money to a total stranger in need. He's almost like a predator on the prowl to find a needy person - always ready to share his wealth with others. And God blesses Him. God's been dealing with us lately about giving. It's easy to sit back with a tight fist and say, "But God, I NEED all my money!" What we didn't realize, though, is that we are required to tithe, but He blesses the gifts - what we give beyond our tithe.

My husband was laid off recently and we were struggling. We had bills due (big ones) and the unemployment check was still over a week away. I felt like we needed to give some money to some friends of ours. I didn't even know if they had a need. That Sunday in church, when my husband asked them how they were doing, the first thing he said was "we're having a hard time trying to make ends meet". We gave them the money and that week, the money we needed to pay our bills came in the mail from an unexpected source. We serve a BIG God and He cares about our needs. His eye is on the sparrow - and I know He watches me...

Feelings...Whoa, whoooa feelings

Today I was feeling exceptionally creative and did a scrapbook page that is one of my favorites to date. I did it using Linda Rechtin's Parisienne Evening page kit. It matches our wedding colors perfectly! These are pictures from our wedding almost 16 years ago. Don't I wish I was that skinny and pretty now after seven kids? LOL! I started our Wedding Scrapbook last year using paper elements, but I think I'm going to finish it digitally. I just did our Honeymoon Scrapbook a few weeks ago and had fun remembering our trip to the Bahamas. Boy, don't I wish I were there now!! (It's 43 degrees and rainy. blah!)

Our blog prompt for today is to write a poem. Maybe I'll work on one to go with the page. : )

-------update-----------------------------------

OK, Karen encouraged me to work on a haiku. As a college English Lit major, I usually do more sing-songy, flowing poetry using iambic pentameter with clever little surprises thrown in, so this is a stretch for me.

Here it is:

Fifteen years of love
Waking next to you each day
Still makes me happy

Loving you is a habit
I can’t stop doing
Every day

In our children's eyes
I see your Love
It makes me smile

One soul
inhabiting
Two bodies

My Daily Blog Prompts from DSP

Glynis (Grace Like Rain) from Digital Scrapbook Place hosts a forum called Daily Blog Prompts where she asks a question and you journal about it on your blog. I'm coming in late, so I'm going to start with today's question and go back and do some of the ones I missed as well.

Today's blog prompt is:

What's your favorite cookie? Do you make it? Does someone else? Do you buy it?

For me, this is a multi-faceted question with answers in different categories. First off, if it's chocolate, I'll eat it. Secondly, my mom loves to bake and she makes a huge variety. If she is going to make my favorite cookie, it's definitely Walnut Delectables. My oldest DD loves to bake, too, and she makes great peanut blossoms and chocolate chip cookies. If I'm buying them, I like Girl Scout Samoas and Pecan Sandies - sometimes even chocolate covered graham crackers. Lately, I got my DD hooked on Nutter Butters. :-)

4/23 Is there a time of the day when you feel most creative?

Hmmm...probably mornings. My morning routine lately has been to get the kids on the bus and then sit down and do one scrapbook page a day. Usually when the first cup of coffee kicks in, the creative juices start flowing. Sometimes, though, I don't like a lay out and I'll take a break and do my housework while mulling it over in my mind and come back later and finish it. If I can't sleep, sometimes I'll get up and scrap. Some of my best LOs are the result of restless nights.

Yay for me! : )

Digital Scrapbooking is my passion. Beth Nixon, one of the designers at Digital Scrapbook Place, created a forum to give some blogging tips and with her help I was able to get this thing set up. (Thanks, Bethy!!) My header bar was created using her Nameless Beauty Kit. The children are my "Perfect 7". (haha - yeah, right!) No, really - they're perfect to me. We're perfect together. The animals are some of our farm animals.

Life was hectic last week as DH started his new job and had to fly out of state for the week. That left me as a single parent to care for all the things that need to get done around here. Breakfast, lunches, laundry, dishes and... farming! Once the oldest 4 were on the bus, I had to head out to the barn and care for the 4 legged children - cows, pigs, sheep - all vying for my attention.

Sunday morning our first two lambs were born. We're anxiously waiting for the rest of the flock to lamb. Last Spring we named the lambs "coffee" names. This year, we're going with herbs and spices. So here is a picture of Herb and Allspice with their mom, Shedder. : ) Aren't they the cutest little things!!! Herb has interesting markings. He's the first of the flock to be marked in this way. Stay tuned for more...

New to Blogging!

OK - all my friends have blogs and I have been resisting - after all, do I need something else to demand my time? But I finally caved in and got my own blog. So here it is. We shall see what "amazing" things shall appear here in the future. Sounds intriguing!