Saturday's Akron Marathon

Well, the 2008 Akron Marathon is history. Mike finished (yeah!) with a time of about 5:50. It was a great day. Sam and I were able to go and cheer Mike on along with Mike's sister Jen and her two girls, Lydia and Abigail.

They haven't put the race photos online yet, but when they do I will post them here.
But here is the start. There were over 10,000 runners!

From today....

[credits]

What I've done this week

So about 10 days ago my 30-day trial of Photoshop ended. I was missing it terribly! Last Sunday I found a really good deal on it at Amazon and I just happened to have a couple gift certificates. It also had free shipping which was good, but that meant it came on the slow boat from China and I didn't get it until this Monday. So finally I've been able to get back to some scrapbooking! This is a page I did with Grace's Spring school picture from last year.



credits

I also used Photoshop to make a new header for the blog. Yeah!! I've been wanting to do that for a long time. I hope my faithful reader(s) like it! LOL!

Tomorrow is the big Akron Marathon and Mike will be running! It is always exciting.....and a little nerve-wracking too. I'm always afraid he's going to get sick or hurt. but I know the Lord will protect him. I am always so proud of Mike for taking on this challenge.

So that's what our weekend will hold. Hope yours is a good one!!!

Diggin' out the old photos.....

and found these from 2006 to scrap.



[credits]



[credits]

Yesterday stuff....

Yesterday, my sister Sally and niece Shelby took Grace out for a belated birthday lunch. Grace got to pick the restaurant (Cracker Barrel) and pick out a gift too (a new Webkinz Bluejay). Sal took this photo of the girls at lunch and I think it is so cute. Shelby and Grace are in some ways very different and some ways very much alike. But they are good friends!

Our House

I did this page today for a challenge at ScrapMatters. You had to scrap something about your home. When I saw this background paper, I knew that I would use it for a photo of our house someday. I vividly remember the first time we looked at this house. It was May 2003.....on my birthday, in fact. When we got out of our car, the scent from the pine trees in the backyard was glorious! This is our "Miracle House." It took a LONG time for it to become ours. We made an offer and said, "It will be a miracle if we get this house!" The sellers laughed at that first offer. After a couple more offers and a lot of red tape, it finally became ours. We moved in October 2003.





[credits]

Okay....so I just think this is cute!

I drug these photos out from 2006.....thought this turned out cute! Don't the kids look little? Awwwww!!!!

[credits]

And here's Noah.....

[credits]

Sam, 3rd Grader

[credits]

Back to School

It's been "Back To School Week" at our house. It was VERY obvious that Mommy was more excited about this than anyone else! LOL!

Samuel moved up to a new school this year. He's been very excited all Summer. Last Thursday night we went to his open house and by the end he was totally overwhelmed. So, come Monday morning he was pretty nervous. But I just kept reminding him that he wasn't the only new 3rd grader and that everyone else would probably be feeling the same way. Of course, he wound up having a great first day and week.

Noah and Grace both had good weeks too. They seem to like their new teachers and we had no major incidents! Yeah!!!

So we're getting back into the swing of things and it's nice to be back in a routine.

I've been trying to scrap pictures from this week. The more I get into digiscrapping the more I realize how much better my layouts would look if I use PhotoShop. So I downloaded their free 30-day trial a few days ago and have been working with it and trying to learn all I can. It has a pretty high learning curve. But I think I've learned the basics and have been able to complete a few pages. It really does make a big difference in how they look. The one problem is that I don't really have enough memory on my computer so it runs really slow. It's very frustrating and I hope to get that worked out. So it's been hard to crank out the layouts like I would like too. I'll post the back to school ones as I get them done.

First up is Grace!


[credits]

For Grandma....

[credits]

A new hangout

I've found a new place to hang out (I know....just what I need! LOL!) If you're interested in in digital scrapbooking or even if you're a traditional scrapbooker, check out Scrapmatters for some great inspiration!

Life is rough when you're a kid!

[credits]

A cute LO!

I thought this turned out cute. I love this picture of Grace and her Nana (Mike's Mom) from 4th of July.



[credits]

Crankin' Em Out....

'07 Birthdays.....DONE!

I figured while I was on a roll I should get the boy's birthday pages for last year finished too!

Just A Little Behind!

[Typing that title made me think that that would be the perfect title for my memoirs should I ever choose to write them....LOL....but I digress.....]

Our little Gracie turned 8 on July 12th......and just a couple days ago I actually scrapped her birthday party pictures from LAST year. It's true....I'm just a little behind!

So here's the scrapbook page for last year's birthday....



And some pictures from THIS year.....





So I guess we need to work on some more original poses for next year! LOL!

Extreme Makover: Blog Edition

A new look for the ol' blog!! Woo hoo!!!!

More layouts....

Here are some more layouts I've done in the last couple days. I've decided to do a photobook of our trip.....probably at Shutterfly. They only offer 8x10 in a horizontal album, so I've decided to go with 12x12....which I've never done before. So some of these may look familiar because I've been reworking some of the old pages.

Ode To Toy Story

I don't want this to become a blog about how our children are destroying our home, but after I was finished being furious, this just cracked me up! Look what Noah wrote on Gracie's bedroom wall.....(Buzz Lightyear was added for affect. LOL!)



I guess we've watched Toy Story a few too many times because no one in our house is named Andy!!