Layout Madness!

I'm so lucky to be a part of Tracy Blankenship's creative team. Her templates are really fun to work with and I find I get a lot more scrapped when I use them. Today is Funky Playground Designs big re-launch event, and now I can show you some of Tracy's fabulous new stuff!

Mini Mom

Credits:
Template from Tracy Blankenship's TWA Set 16 (modified to 8.5x11 size)

You and Me Baby kit by Shawn Clingerman and Lauren Grier at Sweet Shoppe

Font: DJB Kelli



Birthday 6

Credits:
Tracy Blankenship's Eat Your Cake 2 - Toolbox 9 Element Templates
Papers and sprinkles by Michelle Godin
Number tag by Tracy Reed
Font: DJB LauraT Script


Stitch Happy

Credits:
Tracy Blankenship's Templates w/Attitude 16 (modified to 8.5x11)
Love Bites by Traci Reed, Shawn Clingerman and Lauren Reid at SSD
Fonts: CK Ali's Handwriting, DJB Kelli


There will be more to come!


::What's for Dinner?::

Leftover Bison (or Beef) Stew - Crockpot
Cooked bison roast, chopped
2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, cubed
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
3-4 cloves garlic
1 large can whole tomatoes, chopped
1 cup tomato juice
Spices: sea salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne pepper

Throw it all in the crockpot on high for about 5 hours.

I hope this comes out good! It's an experiment. :-)

LO using Traci Reed's stuff

Credits:
Traci Reed's CYa L8r Boi, available at Sweet Shoppe Designs
Kim Jensen's Spell It Plastic Beads, available at Scrapdish
Template by Andrea Gold
Font: DJB Laura T Script


We live about a mile away from our city's zoo, where they hold free concerts every Sunday night during the summer in July and August. I used to go all the time as a kid, but like a lot of things, we got away from going since we had the kids. Since I knew there would be dancing with the music this time, we decided to go. We met my good buddy Melissa there (posing with the girls) to watch and they had a great time. Gretchen especially love the Irish dancers' outfits (lots of color and sparkle...go figure).

Wordle: a fun new toy

LO with Tracy Blankenship's templates

Credits:
Tracy Blankenship's Templates w/Attitude-Magic of Childhood and Toolbox 7 Element Templates
Traci Reed's Sunshine Playtime
Traci Murphy's Date Stamps
Font: DJB Kelli

My girls get to see my brother twice a year, so this was a special day. :-)

LO with Traci Reed's Easily Amused

Credits:
Traci Reed's Easily Amused
Template by Michelle Filo
Fonts: CK Ali's Handwriting, DJB Kelli

Since Brian only gets here twice a year, it was pretty cool to be able to go to Cedar Point with him. I don't think he's been there for probably15 years or so!

Don't you love how the girls are starting to pose like little models for photos? LOL

New page with Traci Reed's "In the Air Tonight"

Credits:
Traci Reed's In The Air Tonight
Font: CK Ali's Handwriting

I took this photo of Gretchen a couple of weeks ago, and was so pleased with how it came out. I don't usually scrap one photo pages, but this picture demanded to be the center of attention.

New page with Kim Jensen's stuff :-)

Credits:
Kim Jensen's Spell It Plastic Beads
Quick page by Weeds & Wildflowers (blog freebie)
Font: DJB Kelli

My grandma officially turns 92 on August 18th, but we celebrated her birthday today. Her favorite thing in life is to have her whole family together at once...2 children, 4 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren. It was a great day.

Great Lakes gal

Fun quiz...

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Midland
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The South
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

The Rules: Answer the questions using only one word. Then tag four others.

1. Where is your cell phone? purse
2. Your significant other? couch
3. Your hair? chopped
4. Your mother? obsessive
5. Your father? innovative
6. Your favorite thing? blankies
7. Your dream last night? Woodhurst
8 Your favorite drink? coffee
9. Your dream/goal? peace
10. The room you’re in? living
11. Your hobby? RVing
12. Your fear? skunks
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Chicago
14. What you’re not? sane
15. Muffins? yummy
16. One of your wish list items? Kindle
17. Where you grew up? Toledo
18. The last thing you did? sniffed
19. What are you wearing? jeans
20. Favorite gadget? iPod
21. Your pets? none
22. Your computer? on
23. Your mood? odd
24. Missing someone? Melissa
25. Your car? geeky
26. Something you’re not wearing? shoes
27. Favorite store? CJ Banks
28. Like someone? yup
29. Your favorite color? red
30. When is the last time you laughed? 7:30p
31. Last time you cried? ?

Back from the wild...almost

We have finally taken the camper on its first "real" trip! We were gone almost a week, and everything went very smoothly. I was amazed that I was able to pack the right clothes and planned meals well. I thought I'd share a few photos from our trip...



Credits: Traci Reed's new Build a Dream, available at Sweet Shoppe Designs tomorrow
Font: Courier New











I say we are almost back because Rob and I are taking off again, this time without the kids, down to my alma mater Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. We're staying at Hueston Woods campground, where I had a job during college cleaning...guess what...the campground potties!!! I think it is ironic to go back there after all these years in a giant camper. I love it there...it is so beautiful...wooded sites, a lake where you can canoe, and of course it's 5 miles from campus. It's been so long since I've been back there.

Back next week! :-)

The naming of the camper

Many, many names have been tossed around for this big rig we just bought. Today Rob is going to get the license, and here's what we came up with....








wait for it....

















With the last name Gasser, how could we NOT get this? LOL

Two pics for my camper scrapbook

Credits:
Date stamps by Traci Murphy, font: Facelift

Trying a different style

I'm an avid fan of Ali Edwards' work, and love her simplistic style. She has these cool new journaling frames out at Designer Digitals, but since I'm on a pretty strict budget right now (that wampa party bus is sucking all the extra fundage right out of our house!!), I thought I'd try my hand at making my own. Here's what I came up with:



Credits:
Date dots by Amber Clegg
Fonts: DJB Kelli (journaling), Facelift (title)

We had fun yesterday. After church, where we played/sang a rockin' rendition of Let It Rise (LOVE that electric guitar in there...woohoo!), we had lunch at a cute little local diner near our house called the Mayberry Diner. I highly recommend it to all my Toledo friends...great food, and reasonably priced. Later in the afternoon we decided to go on a spontaneous picnic in the camper. We picked up Rob's parents and my grandma (ages 87, 86 and 91!) and headed out to Secor Metropark. Grandma didn't know we had the camper so she was shocked when we picked her up. It was cute, listening to all of them chat like they were sitting in someone's living room.

Today Rob is in Valpo for LBAA meetings, so it's a girls day. After we watch The Return of the Jedi for the 68th time, we are going to go swimming. Hope it doesn't rain!

Happy Birthday USA!

Credits:
American Kit by Redju
Alphas from Traci Reed's iCandy and Stampy Foamy Messy Alpha
Notepaper/arrow from Traci Reed's Bare Feet and Blue Jeans

When it rains, it pours...literally

Right now, we have...

-Bowls and buckets holding several inches of water that leaked through our porch roof last night
-Water covering 3/4 of the floor in our basement
-A kitchen table covered with all the stuff that was in the porch
-Two kids who are so exhausted from getting up early to go to Safety City, all they want to do today is watch movies (I can't say that I blame them...it's still rainy and yucky outside).

I'm about ready to pack up the motorhome and take off for a few weeks and forget that we even own a home! You can't have a leaky basement in an RV! LOL

On a more positive note, yesterday was our 14th anniversary. We went out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, Carraba's. I had some yummy ravioli, Rob got canelloni and we shared a bottle of wine. Mmmmm! Afterward we tried to go to the bookstore, but it was storming and the tornado sirens were going off. Apparently a funnel cloud had been spotted in the south end of Toledo (S. Byrne and Hill, for those of you who know Toledo). When we got to the bookstore (in Monclova), they were closed due to the storm. I've never heard of this! They offered to let us come in and stay in their break room, but we decided to just get back in the car and go get the kids, who were staying at Rob's brother's house nearby. Sigh. At least it will be a memorable day!

Tomorrow we are planning to go to our neighborhood's little July 4th celebration. It's so cute...great for kids. There is a bike parade, a clown, jazz band, face painting, games, snacks and the fire fighters bring the truck so the kids can sit in the driver's seat. We invited some friends to come along too, so it should be a good time.

Happy birthday to the USA...wishing all my friends in digi land a safe and happy holiday!

Welcome to...The Party Bus!!

Well, we did it. We actually went out a PURCHASED A BIG HONKIN' RV!! It has been quite a process since Thursday...

By Wednesday we had our choices narrowed down to two, both available at a small dealership in Flint, Michigan, about 2 hours north of us. They were both really well priced and looked like they were in great condition, so we decided we'd go up on Friday and probably buy one of the two. Thursday night I was so nervous/excited that I didn't sleep at all, except for about 30 minutes around 6:30am, which let me in a daze and almost hallucinating. We took the kids over to my folks' house and headed north. All the way up I was so excited I could hardly stand it.

We looked at the older, less expensive model first. Right away we knew it wasn't for us...more wear than we expected and just generally not a good feeling. Then we looked at the newer, more expensive model. Of course that was the one we loved! We took it for a test drive and the whole time I felt like I was going to spew. The enormity of the purchase was starting to sink in and I was freaking out. I had run all the numbers but since we are so conservative with our money, I wasn't sure. We had to go to the bank to get the bulk of the cash for it, so I figured we could talk it over on the way. Our GPS unit, Gustav (yes everything has a name), led us to the address but alas, no bank. After asking at a gas station, we tried a second location but nope, no bank (it no longer existed). I was really freaking out now! I thought God was trying to tell us something here. Finally, on the third try we found our bank, went over the numbers again and realized that our payments were actually going to be less than I had figured. Hallelujah! All systems go!!

We headed back to the dealer, laid down the dough, got the grand tour of all the onboard systems, including the pooper (which is my biggest concern on the whole thing!), and away we went. We had actually rented a car to drive up there so we could ride back in the big rig together, and I'm so glad we did...worth every penny.

The thing is definitely a behemoth...31 feet long and 17,000 pounds. We managed to squeeze it in our driveway and behind our fence. I'm actually writing this from inside the party bus...we are camping out in our backyard tonight. The girls were so excited about it that we just had to try it out. It's so cool - we can put into our home electric and water, so we can run our TV, laptops, fans, etc. I know what you are thinking...that's not camping! And you're right, it's not. It's RVing!

I will post pictures later on, but for now you can check out the dealer's photos here.

Thanks for sharing our joy!! :-)

Rollin' rollin' rollin'

I can't believe we are considering this...

(click the photo to see more photos)



We started talking about buying a camper a few weeks ago. After looking around this weekend, we decided we'd go for a smaller, "class c" motorhome (the kind that looks like a truck with a camper on the back). We met up with some people purely by accident trying to sell their rig, so today we went to look at it. My goodness, it's a GIANT!!! It's 35 feet long and just so big! It's in good condition and I think we may actually go for it!!!

Ironically, a friend of ours told us a while back that she thinks Rob looks just like Randy Quaid in the movie Christmas Vacation. He plays cousin Eddie, who owns the giant RV and shows up unannounced at the Griswold house. I can just see Rob now, emptying our sewage into the city sewer...ROFL!!!

Look out digi friends...I may just show up at your house in something like this!!

The summer vacation {lack of} routine

Ah, summer. How I used to look forward to it as a kid. I remember waking up in the morning (early of course, since we weren't allowed to sleep in!) and thinking that my neighborhood had a different look to it. I don't know if it was the colors, or the height of the sun in the summer sky, but everything had that "summer look" to it.

My neighborhood where I live now has that summer look too, but now as a mom, somehow summer is a bit more challenging. We are in our second week of no school, and I'm still not used to the lack of routine. I'm a person who needs to get up and go somewhere every morning in order to function properly. On the days we don't have this, I often give in the to urge to sleep late while my kids are in bed with me watching cartoons. The rest of the morning is spent trying to catch up and eat breakfast before noon! LOL

Summer does have its fun points though. My girls are enjoying doing several pages in their kindergarten workbooks every morning. They are loving playing outside in the backyard, digging for worms, getting into mischief with the hose and picking strawberries from our little garden. They also love to watch the various creatures that thrive in our yard...Mrs. Squirrel, Chippy the chipmunk and Queen Bumble, the bee. Heidi has developed a fear of bee hives (since we have found several small ones started in our yard) and was recently worried that one was in her bed, under her covers.

Even though it seems like summer will be long, I know in reality it won't be. July 4th will be here in just a couple of weeks! They will be going to Safety City for 2 weeks, and between a couple more trips to Cedar Point and a jaunt to Chicago to visit friends in July,it will go quickly. Then all too soon my babies will be turning six and starting kindergarten. Where has the time gone?

{Okay, end of sappy lament}

Kit for a Good Cause

Traci Reed, for whom I CT, was able to share this fantastic kit with her whole CT so I've had a chance to play with it and I can tell you it's awesome and HUGE!!! Here are two pages I made with it:

Father's Day wrap up & new project

Father's Day

Happy day-after-Father's-Day! We had a great day yesterday. After church (where we got to sit together as a family...doesn't happen very often, between me singing on the praise team and Rob running the power point for the service) we had lunch at one of our favorite local eateries, Dave's. Then we took a trip up to Cabela's, which is about 30 minutes north of us. I figured it would be a great thing to do for Father's Day. Funny, about 5000 other people had the same idea! LOL It was great though. The girls were really into all the "killed animals" this time and loved the aquarium too. We had hoped to look at campers (yeah, we're nuts...actually considering buying one) but they don't carry them any more. Oh well. Still fun!



On the way back we stopped at this place called the Jerky Outlet, where they have every kind of jerky ever created, and you can sample everything along with flavored popcorn, cheese, and even flavored peanut butter! Rob grabbed a few bottles of locally made wine from St. Julian's Winery and then a yummy coffee drink from The Coffee Beanery...mmmm! We stopped at All American Coach but they were closed...bummer! It is rather amusing to climb up on the bumpers of these giant vehicles and try to peak in the windows. Here is the kind we are considering:


Best & Worst Project

I'm a big fan of Ali Edwards and her focus on pictures + words. My mom gave me the idea to ask the girls about the best and worst parts of theirs days when I was putting them to bed each night. I loved the idea and decided to keep a mini-book/journal for them. I'm doing one for me too. I think it's easier to journal when you have a prompt. The book is very simple:


Girls' pages:

I look forward to accumulating lots of pages for these books!