Tuesday layouts

The weather has been so nice lately. I love to take the kids for walks in the stroller, but I have been reluctant to do so recently because BittyBit is still in the potty training phase. If I'm going to get out and exercise (and sweat, yuck!) then I might as well get my time in. I used to take 3+ hour walks with BittyBit before LittleMan was born, but I don't know where to stop for a bathroom break along my route. I finally decided that I'd walk to a park about a mile and a half from my house, then after BittyBit had played for a little while, I would go to the nearby strip mall and try to find a restroom we could use. Instead I ended up making a mad dash for the nearest elementary school when I saw the look on BittyBit's face that told me I had about a minute to find a potty or it would be too late. It was almost 6pm, but thankfully the building was still open, so our mission was a success. Then we were able to play for a few more minutes on the playground and I was able to take my time the walk home. LittleMan even fell asleep on the return trip, which was nice.

I completed two more scrapbook pages today. My goal is to scrap the rest of my pictures for 2005 by the end of the summer. Then I am hoping to finish 2006 by the end of this year. We will see if that actually happens. Here are my layouts.
Credits: Template by Mrs. Wresh, font - Georgia, papers from Miriam Lima’s LDD Celebration kit, bear sticker from Nancy Kubo’s Hullabaloo kit.
Credits: Template by Andrea Gold, Papers from Mints & Taro kit by
Fei-Fei’s Stuff.

My mom's birthday bash

I have stayed pretty busy since we got back into town at the beginning of the week. I can't think of anything specific that I did, except that I helped a little in putting together my mom's birthday party. I was going to post pictures of my mom's birthday party and how my sister's neighbor's house caught fire, but she beat me to the punch. You can check it out on Jenni's blog.

Jenni and I started thinking and we realized that we couldn't ever remember anyone having a birthday party for my mom. We usually had a little something as a family, but we couldn't remember a party with guests. When we were growing up we didn't have any money for parties, and as adults it was some of the same, plus several of us girls have moved out of state at some time or another, so it just didn't come together. Jenni planned the entire thing, she just delegated a few things to me. I created a slideshow with pictures beginning when my mom was a child, and concluding with pictures from this year. I also made the punch, which Tyson told me it didn't taste very good, but I don't really care because it was pretty. I thought it tasted alright. We met at Jenni's house for cake and punch, then we went out to eat with most of the party guests to a restaurant. After dinner my mom said that this party was the second birthday party she had had in her entire life. The first one was when she was eight. I'm glad that we were able to have this one for her and that so many of her friends and family were able to make it special.

I also have a few more scrapbook layouts to share. I didn't do these a while back, but I'll share them here anyway. Credits: Sketch by Becky Higgins, font-Eras Medium ITC, polka dot paper by DCorbitt, Dreadfully Happy collaboration kit by Digital Crea used for the remainder of layout. Atomic Cupcake action used.

Stupid Computer

I fully intended to post yesterday, after Jenny G. and I had another fun scrapbooking session, but my computer is acting up. The power in our neighborhood has been intermittent since the last big storm. It usually works, but it will surge a few times a day and then my computer turns off and I lose whatever project I was working on. Tyson had a spare battery backup and offered to plug my computer into it so that it wouldn't die if there was another power surge. He also gave me some new RAM for my computer a few days ago. After he plugged my computer into the battery backup, my computer wouldn't boot up. I started stressing out because I knew that Jenny would be coming over soon to learn more digital scrapbooking and my computer wasn't working. He messed around with it for half an hour and finally got it working. He thinks the new RAM might be incompatible with my computer, which would be a shame, because it my computer was running twice as fast as before with the new RAM.

I was so glad when Jenny showed up with her two boys, because the kids entertained each other for the most part. Before she showed up I was seriously considering locking BittyBit in her room and not letting her come out until she was ready to be married off. She kept trying to play with LittleMan, but she was being way too rough and I kept having to pull her off of him. At one point I stepped out of the room to start a load of laundry (my next house will have a laundry room in the house, not in the garage). Tyson was home, so I thought I could step away for a minute, but through the walls of the garage I heard LittleMan crying, so I charged back into the house. When I got to the living room, I found him lying on his back fussing. BittyBit was leaning over him, repeatedly slamming her forehead into the softest part of his stomach. I think I set a land record running across the room to pull her off of him. I was so mad, because I had already chastised her three times for hitting, pushing, and "tapping" him with her foot. She looked at me with this blank look and said, "But mommy, I'm not hitting him, see? I'm just bumping him with my head." Right...I guess I'll have to sit down and consider every possible physical assault so that I can forbid each one individually.

The computer worked the entire time Jenny was here, but almost as soon as she left, my monitor went out. It started blinking, then repeatedly turning itself on and off every few seconds. I finally had to unplug the darn thing. I have a feeling the motherboard is going to go out on my computer soon. So many things are going wrong with this computer. I really wish this would happen at a better time, not when we just got hit with a huge tax bill. That is another story entirely, but one that I don't want to talk about right now.

Well, Jenny told me that I should post more of my layouts, so here are some pages I finished today. The first one I completed several months ago, but I tweaked it today and created the second page. The templates and papers are by Andrea Gold. The rusty brads are from Jennilyn's RustIron kit. The overlay around the edges is from Shabby Princess's Two Soon collection. I used CK's Corral font for the title and journaling.


I am thinking about creating a freebie mini kit of digital papers, and maybe a couple of elements. I have never done this before, so I don't know how long it will take me or how good they will turn out, but if anyone has a specific theme or color request, leave your suggestions in the comments and I will consider them.

New Scrapbook layouts

I thought with all the time that I am spending teaching others to scrap, I really ought to do more digital scrapbooking myself. I am way behind and trying to catch up. Here is a double page spread I did today of a friend's birthday party in June of 2005, when BittyBit was 5 months old. (You can click on the images to view them full size.)


I based my layout on a sketch by Becky Higgins. The papers and embellishements are from Sweet Moon Graphic's Summer Sea kit.

Master Bath progress report

This is the famous master bathroom remodel that is 3+ years in the making.
Here is a picture of what the shower area looked like when we first bought the house. There was not even room to put your arms out to shampoo your hair. Tyson and his dad demolished the old bathroom and discovered termite damage in the sheetrock and studs, so he had to completely rip the bathroom apart. He replaced the studs one at a time and re-sheetrocked the entire bathroom and outer walls. We decided to enlarge the shower, so we took about a foot from the linen closet that was on the other side of the bathroom wall. This picture below shows Tyson's dad helping to install the new window. This picture was taken from the hall before they re-sheetrocked the wall between the closet and the bathroom.
This is what the shower wall looked like after Tyson installed the travertine tile in the new shower and on the floor of the bathroom. He even built in a bench.He poured the shower pan in our master bathroom earlier this week and today he installed the mosaic tiles on the shower floor. Terrence came over to help. Really he usually offers moral support, but it gets Tyson motivated to do the projects, so I welcome all the "help" we can get.
This is the completed shower pan, all ready for the tile installation.
Tyson and Terrence prepping the floor for tile installation...
And here is the floor with the tile. He'll grout it next week, then we're going to pick out a new pedestal sink and faucet and install all of the fixtures and hardware. Tyson still needs to seal all the tile too, but the end is in sight!