More Scrap Pages...Only Two Months Behind...56 out of 212

Oh Good Lord!
Obviously, I'm so NOT good at keeping up with my blogging or my posting scrap pages or anything in general.   So, here are a couple of my pages...my favorites of the last couple months.

I love this because it has several pix of our first nephew, Alex, born 13 weeks early!!!  And he was the cutest peanut!  He and our daughter, Anne, were best buds and still are.  

I was excited about these two because I'm still working on my youngest daughter's DD book.  Well, I guess I got a bit carried away with picture-taking................duh and I really decided I needed to consolidate.  So I began doing Hilite double layouts.  She had a busy year.  

Now this one still makes me cry.  The groom is a former student.  The groomsman in the top right is a former student.  The beauty on his arm is our daughter, Anne.  It was an amazing event and the three of us moms were sobbing.  When I asked who we were crying for, both said, "we don't KNOW!"  hehehe.........

This was from my first trip to Edisto Island, SC.  Mom took us three girls down for a special Girl Only trip.  We picked up Aunt Joye in Rock Hill and headed down.  We spent two days in Charleston, two days in Savannah and finished off by hitting the Biltmore Mansion on the day before we left for home.

Since I'd been there only a year before, Freddy bowed to me to plan our trip down to pick up Anne from USMC Boot Camp.  Again, we flew into Charlotte and stopped to visit Uncle Roger and Aunt Joye, but went immediately down to Charleston and stayed there for two days.  On the third we decided to head towards Savannah again, but got waylaid ..................... ALL the way out on Folly Beach!  What a find!  Would go there again in a minute!  And plan to.....................

And our GOAL!  To grab our little peanut! after 13 weeks of Boot Camp!  We couldn't have been more proud!  First we get to see and hear her after 13 weeks of nothing but letters.  And to add to our thrill, she was promoted during Boot Camp for being in the top 10 of her entire battalion!!!  She was pinned by the Commander and had lunch with some big-wigs!

So, that's not all of them, but that is what I've been doing for the past couple of months!  

Love and Blessings, my friends!

MY First Wordart Freebie

Okay, now bear with me please. My hope is that you can click on this image and it will open up the WA and you can right click and save it. It's one of my favorite quotes and something that I'm going to use in my All About Me scrapbook.

PLEASE let me know if it works or doesn't..............but please also be kind. I'm quite new at this. I've nabbed freebies from so many of my talented friends out there in cyberland, it's time to give back.

Love and Blessings.

Love you Dad! Say "hey" to Daddy, Mildred, Russell, GG, Gramps.......

Jack Cooper Obituary: Jack Cooper’s Obituary by the Star Tribune.

God Bless my wonderful father-in-law, Jack Cooper.  I was Blessed for knowing him and loving him and having him love me, my husband, our children and grandson.  Rest In Peace Dad.

Scrapbook Challenge......(btw, 190-5=185 pages left in 2012)

Just had the most amazing trip at the end of last week. HAD to scrap it immediately.

So, here's the deal, my bestest online friend and fellow Marine Mom, Sandi Coast, just graduated from Army basic training and Fort Leonard Wood, MO. Yeah, she's 51 years old!!! This woman is phenomenal!!! All I did was drive 1200 miles in three days to surprise her and watch her graduate and receive the Inspiration Award. GO.....Google Sgt Sandra Coast! You get through 18 pages before you even begin to get "sgt", "sandra" and "coast" as separate words. There are over 200 posts on various news, blogs, media about this fantastic, Hard Corps, soldier!!!

I am proud to even call her friend!

http://thestir.cafemom.com/in_the_news/133411/amazing_51yearold_mom_completes_army?utm_medium=sm&utm_source=facebook&utm_content=military_fanpage

Here's one article that just chokes me up.

http://www.ky3.com/news/ky3-army-basic-training-graduate-outperforms-recruits-more-than-half-her-age-20120216,0,6834196.story

And here's the video clip the local media did on the day of her graduation.

Love and Blessings.

Fun Scrap Challenge (not all here, but.....210-20pages done=190)

Perhaps I should have actually listed the Astrology sign, but I think people who want to know can figure it out. The challenge was to find a picture of yourself when you "became an adult with your whole life ahead of you" and then to get some characteristics of your astrology sign and make a layout. I love a challenge, especially one that specifically tells me what to put on the page. I do feel like I'm quite imaginative and creative. I'm definitely a dreamer. My favorite color is red, but I find I scrap in blue more often than any other color with shades of teal and aqua being my very favorite.

I told Fred about this layout at dinner tonight and said that I was using "that picture of us right after we got engaged, where you were sitting in Mom and Dad's living room in one of the lowback chairs and I was on the arm, leaning into you...." He said, "I remember that picture!" We both thought about how great a time that was in our lives. We were just starting out, knowing that we didn't want kids for awhile so we could just enjoy being married and really getting to know each other. And we did! It seemed as if nothing could go wrong and our entire life WAS ahead of us. The kids came along 10 years later and we still have an amazing life!!!

Love and Blessings!

ps. I'm a Pisces.....

212 in 2012...210-3

This is for the scrapbook weekly challenge too. "Use 7 pix". Conveniently, I was already getting this layout done. There will be a second page to this as well...............duh, I have no fewer than 12 pix of Kolten for any given "event", even if that event is Tuesday!

So there ARE two other layouts for this post, but I CAN'T get them uploaded!!! ARGH. I'll get it done and get them here...... I will, I will, I will.

Love and Blessings

My 212 in 2012 Project......

August 2011!!! Are you kidding me? I haven't posted anything here since August! Okay, well I guess we had quite a bit going on with Anne going off to boot, graduating, and shipping out. I just can't believe I haven't scrapped anything or posted anything about it!!!

Okay, the game plan is to complete 212 pages in 2012. So I'll have to do minimum 4 pages each week. I'm thinking there's no really good, simply, methodical way to go about it because I tend to get easily bored with working on the same theme over and over........ SO! Gonna jump around a bit.

The first is page is from an album I've wanted to do for years. It's "All About Me". So this one is called "My Survival Kit" ... all of the things I love and want and need for survival. My family, friends, and passions.
This one is from Christmas 2011 (this year). I was so Blessed to have everyone home for Christmas. Lacy and Kolten were with us and brought Shawn too. It was good. They're trying to see if they can work things out and be a family, for Kolten and for them. Anne was home on leave from Camp Pendleton. It was wonderful because, when we sent her back on January 2nd, we recognized that we don't have any idea when we'll see her again. She'll graduate MOS school the end of January, be assigned to her PDS (permanent duty station) and head there immediately. Then she'll probably be deployed in June. She might get some pre-deploy leave, but we just don't know.

So, we're getting ready to leave for church on Christmas Eve and Anne sneaks up behind me and says, "Do you want me to wear my blues?" and I'm almost crying when I say, "Yes, please." Lacy was the one who actually insisted on the family picture.

I am so Blessed!
Pray for me. 4-5 pages a week is gonna be a challenge! I'm 2 out of 212. It's a start.

The other thing I want to do with each post is include a favorite quote.

"We would worry less about what others think of us if we realized how seldom they do." ~Ethel Barrett

Love and Blessings!

Scrapbook Challenge- Aug. 19-26!

This is gonna have to be the scrap anything layout as I couldn't find anything to scrap with 7 pix or green and yellow (what are you, a Packers fan?!?!?!)

So, as some of you know, I'm working feverishly on Anne's DD book and this was when she was 4. Can't remember who the layout sketch was from, sorry! But I loved it and it fit so well.

Love and Blessings!

Scrapbook Challenge- July 8-15!

Okay, this was the layout I'd planned to do for last week which included a 4th of July theme.... and this week's theme includes bling and embellies over two years old............well the bling IS over two years old....hehehe...... So if I really wanted to get technical, I've done two weeks in one layout...........but I would NEVER get technical with y'all, yeah right!!!

Though I miss her terribly, I am so very, VERY PROUD of my baby girl, Anne! She's in boot camp as a Marine recruit for 13 weeks. She'll graduate on September 16 and move on to the next chapter in her life. It's an amazing step for her and she IS an amazing person. Can't wait to watch her grow into this.

Love and Blessings,

Back on the Picture Track.....Day 09 – A picture that motivates you to do more (Day 09 A picture of the person who has gotten you through the most)

Sorry, I've been gone for quite awhile. For better or worse, our youngest daughter enlisted in the Marines last March with a ship date of November 2011. She received her orders on June 15th, for a ship date of June 20!!! WOW! All of a sudden, we were faced with having a grad party (originally scheduled for July 9th) and getting her ready to leave (2-4 months early!!!) and calming our "fears" and "anxiety" and sadness regarding her leaving...........

Now I'm back................

Remember (maybe) that when I started this, I'd found two lists that were slightly different, so I tweaked them together.......so some days have two pix. This is one of them.

Okay, this may get a little boring for y'all cuz my favs and my inspirations and my closest's all seem to be the same people.............with slight variations.

KOLTEN. Yep, the picture that motivates me to do more is Kolten, my bubba. Also just lucky to be included is my hubby, Freddy. He, by far, has gotten me thru the most. Now, bear in mind, my MOM is one of my best friends and is always there for me, no matter what. I chose Freddy to go thru life with 30 years ago! We've been thru a lot together. It hasn't always been easy; don't let anyone tell you it is, but he's always there; we always do it together.

So this is a pretty cool picture that covers both "days".

I also noticed on another blog, that the person included the list (and names of the pix) on each blog............so I'm gonna do that here too. The nice thing about that is that I can just look at "yesterday" to see what I need to blog about "today".

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Day 01 - A recent picture of yourself (Day 01 A recent picture of yourself with ten facts)...Mom-me-Jen

Day 02 - A picture of you and the person you have been closest with the longest...me & Kerry, me & Mom

Day 03 - A picture of your inspiration for weight loss...Kolten

Day 04 - A picture of the cast of your favorite TV show (Day 04 A picture of your favorite color)...Grey's Anatomy, Kolten w/Green cake all over

Day 05 - A picture of your favorite animal (Day 05 A picture of your favorite memory)...Bailey (duh), Mom & Daddy dancing at anniversary

Day 06 - A picture of a person you'd love to trade places with for a day...Bill Gates

Day 07 - A picture of your most treasured item...my scrapbooks

Day 08 - A picture of your favorite color (Day 08 A picture that makes you laugh)...my REAL fav color, Corvette Red & Kolten w/a mohawk

Day 09 – A picture that motivates you to do more (Day 09 A picture of the person who has gotten you through the most)...Kolten&Grandpa in Marine gear & Mom

Day 10 - A picture of your closest friend

Day 11 - A picture of your IPOD or other music playing device on shuffle, and then list the first 10 songs that play. (Day 11 A picture of something you hate)

Day 12 – A picture that defines you (Day 12 A picture of something you love)

Day 13 - A picture of your favorite band or artist

Day 14 – A picture of you now (Day 14 A picture of someone you could never imagine your life without)

Day 15 - A picture of something you want to do before you die

Day 16 - A picture of someone who inspires you

Day 17 - A picture of something that has made a huge impact on your life recently

Day 18 - A picture of your biggest insecurity, and the reasons why it is the biggest

Day 19 - A picture of your nicknames you have; why do you have them.

Day 20 - A picture of somewhere you'd love to travel

Day 21 – A picture of an exercise you can’t do, but would like to try (and then try it if you want to)

Day 22 - A picture of something you wish you were better at

Day 23 - A picture of your favorite book; why is it your favorite?

Day 24 - A picture of what I would find in your bag (Day 24 A picture of something you wish you could change)

Day 25 - A picture of your favorite super hero and why

Day 26 - A picture of something that means a lot to you

Day 27 - A picture of yourself and a family member

Day 28 - A picture of something you're afraid of

Day 29 - A picture that can always make you smile

Day 30 - A picture of you last year and now, how have you changed since then?

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Love and Blessings.