Here is part 2 of our "getting our house ready for Christmas 2008" story. Dad & Megan always lay out all of our ornaments onto the dining room table, then we all pitch in to decorate the tree. This is an idea of what our table looks like when full of ornaments. The glass snowman happens to be one of my favorites.

These are some pics taken on the day we brought our Christmas tree in. It's so nice that Tucker is old enough and BIG enough to be able to help bring the tree in now! Megan loves to wear the "Santa" hat while decorating the tree. It was a fun day!

My dear friend, Kathi, and I go on a trip together every year that we have dubbed Girls Weekend. We go from Thursday to Tuesday, sometime in October or November. This year (our 11th Girls Weekend) we went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wherever we go, we always try to make the most of our time and see and absorb as much as we can about that particular city or part of the country and find the things that make it unique. On this trip we had to, of course, go to see the Liberty Bell. This, unexpectedly, became a moving experience for me. After reading all about the origins of the Liberty Bell as well as how it symbolizes freedom throughout the world, I came to the realization that Kathi & I could not only stand there together and have our picture taken by the Liberty Bell, but we have the freedom to be able to travel together due to the many battles that were fought by our forefathers. I am thankful for this freedom and grateful that the battles were fought & won & will do what I can to make sure that future generations experience this same freedom.

Ghostly apparition in cemetery in Philadelphia

So we went on a haunted tour of historic downtown Philadelphia on our first full day there and one of the places we stopped to visit was this cemetery. We did not actually go into the cemetery, just stopped outside the closed gates while our guide told us stories of the spirits that have been seen here. I just put my camera up on the wall of the cemetery and took a photo and upon downloading to the computer this turned out to be one of the photos!!!
















Ok, I totally photo-edited the image of our tour guide into this cemetery photo........so don't go getting all excited!! I was just having some fun!!

Warm October Day in Salem, OR

I went downtown a couple of weeks ago on a Wednesday to meet a friend for coffee and it was such a beautiful day that we decided to walk through the weekly Wednesday Farmer's Market. I happened to have my camera with me and just couldn't resist taking photos of all of the beautiful colors of the market. A good cup of coffee with a friend on a beautiful fall day and an opportunity to look at beautiful things and buy fresh produce and flowers. Does life get any better than this??

BrothersReunited

Got the brothers photos done up in a layout.
Just wanted to put it out here!

Halloween Layout 2008

Our house all duded up for Halloween courtesy of Megan and her friend Maisie, along with a little help from big brother, Tucker!

Megan does it again!!

Just needed to put a shout out that Megan got STRAIGHT A's again this past 6 weeks. This is the second time she has accomplished this.......the first being the final 6 weeks of last year. This is remarkable because reading does not come easy to this child, but she works REALLY hard at it and it shows!! Keep rocking, my little Meg.......you make your Mama proud!

Ok, so I WILL eventually get these done up in a layout of some sort, but I wanted to get them posted out here on my blog. Got these two (half-brothers--they share a biological father) together for the first time in about 7 years). I was reminded, once again, of how amazing genetics are. Not only do these two boys look alike, but they seem to share a lot of similar personality traits, as well. Colin's Mom & I both enjoyed watching the two of them together and hope to do a better job of keeping the relationship up than what we have done in the past.

Meg & Lavendar

I love this photo of Meg and the lavendar taken at The Oregon Gardens. Just wanted to share.

Joe's High School graduation

condensed version of summer

Thoughts on PKU

The challenge was to scrapbook a memory with no photos. This gave me an opportunity to get down some of my feelings/memories from the day that I received Tucker's diagnosis of PKU.

My stylin' boy!

Tucker in blue jeans. I never thought I would see the day.

Megan 5thGrade Photo Shoot

These are photos that Megan's classmates took of her in 5th grade as part of an art project that the 5th graders do every year at Candalaria. I really loved these photos so wanted to do a layout with them. I'm fairly pleased with the result.

Marengo Cave, Southern Indiana

This is a cave that we went a visited while in Indiana in March of 2008. It was the first time that Tucker & Megan had ever been in a cave and this was a really good one. BIG!! With beautiful formations. We really enjoyed the trip.

Bowling in Indiana

The Journey

This layout is about Tucker's journey, not only to Indiana, but to manhood. I love this boy!!!

"Me" Time

The challenge for this layout was to scrapbook about what we do in our "Me Time". This is my contribution.

the JoeMan

This is the layout that Jill did for me, when we did the scrap swap challenge, of Joe in his tuxedo the night of SnoBall. Jill has two girls so all of her layouts are pretty girly. I challenged her by giving her boy photos!! I think she did a mighty fine job!! Thank you, Jill

Houston, Texas Photowalk

Scrap Swap

This was a challenge where we exchanged photos with a scrap buddy and scrapped a page for them. These are Jill's two beautiful little girls, Kieryn and Megan. Her photos, her journaling, my layout.

Character Builder

This was for our No Paper Trimmer Challenge. This actually is a paper layout and I used only some of my decorative-edged scissors to cut the paper.

Lyric/Quote Challenge

I used a lyric from the Doobie Brothers Song--Listen to the Music. Digital Layout.

Megan

Megan got straight A's these past six weeks!!!! This is SUCH a great thing for her. Such a confidence booster. She is the first of the kids to do this and she is very pleased with herself, as she should be!! Doesn't come easy for her, she has to work at it, but she seems to feel that it was worth it. LOVE IT!! You go, girl!!

Challenge was to scrapbook 7 random things about your life. This is what I came up with. All digital layout. Played around with brushes.

God as Artist

Scraplifed the layout from DesignerDigitals.com website ad challenge. Loved the circles off to the side. Seemed like a great way to used nature photos.

Ribbon Challenge Layout

I used the BasicGrey Periphery paper that I bought at convention along with the coordinating Bazzil Cardstock. This was a difficult challenge for me because I am not really much of a ribbon user, and frankly, I didn't use a LOT of ribbon on this layout, but even SOME is more than I usually use!! Journaling reads: "Megan, you have not had an easy time with reading. It has proven to be quite a challenge for you, but you have worked very hard & overcome your difficulty and have even learned to enjoy reading. There have been a few books that have especially captured your interest and the Spider wick series has been one of those."