Liitle MIss Ellie Shae

What am I ever going to do with my little pill? The photo below shows Ellie happy as can be. This one is less than 45 seconds later! Complete turn around! This little girl knows what she wants and when she wants it. The problem is that we are all too eager to do just what she wants!

When Ellie woke up from her nap, she had bed head really bad! I took her in the bathroom to fix it and she wanted one of Mikayla's necklaces that was sitting in a basket on the counter. She was so cute with it that we decided to take some pictures.She went from trying to get the necklace off to completely ignoring it and back to choking herself trying to pull it off.

What a doll....most of the time anyway! She's usually such a happy baby and she's so comtent to play and crawl around. She's an absolute joy to have around.

A Few Fun Things this Week

My mom is taking a Photoshop class and she had an assignment to take pictures of something that showcases that something in good taste and a picture that showcases that something in a worse way. She came and took pictures of all of our hands doing various things. This is Braquel holding one of my flowers that I got for Valentine's Day.

I think we got a bit carried away with the photos because this one has no hands even in it! This is Chelsey looking like she is 20 instead of 13!

Before mom got here, I was playing with my camera and took a bunch of pics of Ellie (which I will post Sunday). She was starting to get fussy so Braquel picked her up and I had to get a few of the two of them together. This is the happy one. I have two more that Braquel is kissing on Ellie and Ellie is one unhappy girl!

I have been begging Gary for new couches for four or five years now. Our old ones were threadbare! He kept telling me no- when the kids were gone we would get new. Well, Treven tipped over our less-than-one-year-old tv and ruined it, so when he got a new tv, I told him I was getting new couches, too. After days of looking around, here they are. There is a bigger couch and a loveseat. All dark chocolate brown!!!! I love them! I went and bought a couple of pillows to bring some color to my living room!

About a week and a half ago, I hosted a Stampin' Up workshop. I really wasn't expecting a big party, but it turned out twice as good as I had expected! Janell told me she thought the stuff would be here on Monday so I was going to make a thank you for everyone that ordered over the weekend. She called me on Friday and said it was here....AAAGGGHHHH! So I quickly threw these little thank yous together. They turned out pretty simple, but I think everyone got the message! Thanks to everyone that ordered- I really appreciate it! Now, I'm off to make something fun for next weeks challenge with my new stuff! Have a great weekend!

Braquel's SR Mini Album

This is a little mini album that I made for Braquel using the fabulous senior pictures that my sister-in-law, Robin took. I love the pictures so much that I wanted to showcase them and I also wanted Braquel to have something to keep forever.

On the first page, I wrote a letter to Braquel telling her how proud we are of her. I included some advice on continuing her education and I encouraged her to keep learning throughout her whole life.

On every page throughout the book, there is at least one sparkly star to remind her that she is our "SuperStar".

This is one of my favorite photos. She's such a beautiful girl inside and out. She's been an absolute angel from the time she was born!

On the last page, I printed out the lyrics to the Rascal Flatts song "My Wish". Love that song and it seemed to really fit what I wanted to accomplish with the book!

Retreat Challenge #5

This weeks challenge for the retreat was to use your scrapbooking supplies and make something for your home or something that you could use as a gift. I've had some plain old white sacks forever so I decided to jazz one up. I used all scraps on the bag so that was kind of cool, too.

I used some cute little sparkles in heart shapes on the bag. There is one big one in the center of the flower and two smaller ones going up the side on the pink polka dot paper.

I make this tag to hang off the handles of the bag with the same paper scraps. Again, there are two heart sparkles just for fun! I added two sheets of turquoise tissue paper to finish off the bag and voila!

Valentine's Day

On Valentine's Day, we decided we just couldn't sit around the house. We decided to take a drive out to Almo and have lunch at the Almo Outpost. They have a wooden horse outside of the restaurant and Chelsey put Ellie on it. She was so cute!

After we left the Outpost, we took a drive through an area called The Narrows. You can't tell from the picture because we were too far away and my lens doesn't zoom that far, but there were deer EVERYWHERE! We probably saw 100 deer and we didn't even go all the way through. Can't wait for hunting season!!!!!

Gary surprised me with this gorgeous watch. It is so pretty! It's white gold so it matches my wedding ring perfectly! My honey ROCKS!!!!

On the Saturday before Valentine's Day, I had a serious sinus migraine. I was just dying and I didn't want to go to work. I drug myself down there and was greeted with these beautiful flowers! I love red and white and these were so awesome! It made my whole day a bit better. All in all, it was a great Valentine's Day!

Challenge #4 for Retreat

The challenge this week was to make a scrapbook page and then use the leftover scraps and make a card. I had enough scraps that I was able to make 5 different cards. The only thing I used on my cards that I didn't use on the scrapbook page was my stamp set. Other than that, I was able to use my leftover flowers, sparkles, and paper!!!

This was an Easter page that I did for Braquel. I'm a little behind because it was from 2002!!! I don't scrapbook chronologically anymore, but I sure wish I was a closer to current! I used three different patterned papers plus the cardstock so I would have lots of leftovers to use on my cards. I think it turned out pretty good!

Diana's Birthday Party

We had a little birthday party for Diana's 39th on Feb 6th at Annie's. We invited several couples to come and celebrate with us. I decorated with a dress up type theme so we all had to pose with the glasses!

This is Diana and Glenna.

This was the food and gift table. I did the table in pinks and sprinkled silver confetti all over it. Then I put little kids costume rings, necklaces, and sunglasses on it. I made an angel food cake with a lemon topping and Kathy brought in a yummy veggie tray. We played some games and had a really good time.

Ellie's 11 month photo shoot

These are Ellie's 11 month pictures. She was in such a great mood that day so I think I took about 30 pictures! The little lamb that she got when she was first born (the one that was the same size as her) is now so small in comparison. She kisses and hugs it and throws it around now. It's unbelievable that they used to be the exact same size! I especially love the picture at the top because you can see her little tooth!

Retreat Challenge #3

The retreat challenge for this week was to use an advertisement for inspiration. You could pull from the ad and use the layout or design, color combos, etc. This is an ad in Braquel's Seventeen magazine that I was drawn to. I liked the clean lines and that there are so many picture spaces. Below is my adaptation. I had a ton of pictures from the Jones Family Reunion last summer so I needed a layout that accommodated lots of pics. I really like that there isn't really any white space on the layout. I could leave my pictures fairly large so I didn't lose anything important.

Treven's Basketball

Treven has been playing basketball with the Declo Recreation League. The first two weeks they all met and just went over basic drills. For the last two Saturdays they have played actual games against other teams.

Mikayla was giving Treven a little advice. He had gotten the ball and went to the wrong basket and darn near made a basket for the other team. Mikayla and I were both yelling: THE OTHER WAY-TURN AROUND! He just was so excited he had the ball that he wouldn't even listen! The morning of his second game, he asked me why the boys from the other team kept putting their arms around him. I told him they were trying to block him from getting the ball in the basket. He smiled and said, " it sure is easier when they only lift their arms up and don't put them around you!" Poor kid- the only basketball he had ever played was just shooting hoops; he had no idea that there was another team or that they would try to stop you from making points...what an education he's been getting!

Uh-Oh

The other day I came home from town and sat Ellie down so I could grab the ringing telephone. I left the diaper bag beside her with a cup of cereal (with a lid on it) in the pouch of the bag. I found the phone and by the time I got back to her, she had somehow opened the cup and had dumped the cereal everywhere! She was so proud of herself that I couldn't help laughing and finding the camera before cleaning the mess up! What a little get-in-ski I have on my hands!!!

Preference Dance

Braquel and Keven went to the Declo Preference Dance last Saturday. She had to work in the morning and got off around 3:00. They went to the Hot Springs in Almo and then they went for dinner at the Almo Outpost. She came home and I helped her get ready. I tried to do her hair the way she wanted, but I don't know it was accomplished quite as pretty as the magazine picture she found. I don't have any pictures of the two of them together because she picked him up as it was a girl ask guy dance.

She looked so beautiful. It nearly brought me to tears. She picked out her dress and tried it on before she looked at the tag! She rethought the $95.00 for a minute, but she had already fallen in love with the dress so she bought it anyway. I told her we would help her with her jewelry and shoes so that helped convince her she could afford a dress that expensive....it was worth it to see how gorgeous she looked.

Basketball is finally over!

The basketball season has finally come to an end...no more 6:oo am practices, no more running to Declo at 11:00 at night to pick her up from away games...we're done until next year! I got to go to her last home game last Thursday! The did awesome and really romped on the other team. (Glenns Ferry!) It wasn't even close! This is Mikayla as she tried to defend a breakaway attempt at a shot. She went right passed the other girl and dang near went into the mat behind the net!

Here she is racing to help her teammates. Look at the muscles in her leg....she is definitely fit and trim! All that running has really made her tough.

This is Mikayla looking for someone to pass to. The girls on their team have been playing together for about 3 years and really work well as a team. They will be a force to be reckoned with by the time they are seniors!

Week 2 retreat challenge/ crafty cards

Here is some of what I have created in the last week. The layut of Chelsey is my version of the sketch posted for week #2 challenge. You can click on my link to 4 girls and a dream if you would like to see what some of the other ladies did for their challenge and also my week #1 challenge is posted on that site.

For some reason, my post area is looking funny and I don't know how my pictures will post in the end, so some of my words may not match up with their pics. Sorry if that happens, but I will try to be specific with my descriptions! The cupcake card is one I made for birthdays. I did 4 of them and they turned out so cute. The little sparkles make the whole card and I love pink, so I was happy it turned out so cute. Treven got invited to a birthday party on Saturday and he wanted to get his friend something Hot Wheel. So I made this race card to go with his gift. The outside says "Racing by" and the inside says "with a birthday hi!" It turned out pretty well considering most little boys don't care about the card- just what's in the wrapping paper. The picture of the 6 cards are the valentines day cards I made to give to Gary and the kids. They went together super fast because all of the paper was coordinated. They look a lot better in real life, but the most important thing is that they are done and ready to be written in!