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. : )