Retreat Challenge #2

The theme for this weeks challenge is to create a layout about a personal hobby. I chose to do my page on scrapbooking, mostly because it's for the retreat and it kind of all goes together. I put some pictures of one of the retreats on the page with some journaling about why I choose to scrap.

Ellie's Mishap

My poor little girl; she was up early one morning and Gary and I weren't ready to get up. We put her in the rocking chair with a cup of milk and some cartoons just like she does almost every morning. After awhile, I decided it was too quiet; I got up to check on her and found her with this little face...

apparently, she learned to unzip zippers and had opened my make up bag. All of the contents were scattered on the table and most everything was dug into pretty deep! It's so hard to get mad when you're busy taking pictures!

Friends Christmas Party

Every year we have a Christmas party with some friends that we have had for years. Instead of a regular gift exchange, we did a gag gift exchange. The only rule was that it had to be $1.00 or less. I bought this big pair of sunglasses for one of our gifts and Michelle ended up with them. However, it wasn't long before everyone was wearing them and getting silly!

We had so much fun! I wasn't really sure how it would turn out, but we laughed so hard I thought I would burst. Some of the other $1.00 gifts were: tattoos, toilet paper, sunglasses that were colored with fingernail polish, a kazoo, a pregnancy test, and disinfectant wipes.

trying to get a photo shoot with Ellie

Trying to do photo shoots with Ellie is no longer any fun! She is everywhere; she won't sit still, she won't look at the camera, and when she does look, she gives the weirdest cheese smile that completely closes her eyes! I don't know why I even bother anymore!

Retreat Challenge #1

The first challenge for our April retreat was to create a 12 x 12 layout about yourself. I asked the ladies to put a photo of themselves along with some information and facts about them. When I was typing the information about me, I had so many things to write! Everything didn't fit on the space allowed, so I had to just put on the most relatable things!

Ellie gets over her fear of Santa!

A couple of years ago I bought Mr. and Mrs. Claus. They are really cute and when you turn them on, they sing and dance and Ho Ho Ho every time they sense movement. Needless to say, most of the time they are turned off! Ellie loves this couple. Several times a day she will walk up to them and hug them and kiss them and carry on little conversations with them. Anytime we ask her what she wanted Santa to bring her, she would say CANDY! So, whenever she would talk to them, she would ask him for candy and then nod her head as if he was talking back to her. It was so cute the way she thought they were real! For some reason, though, they really did help her get over her fear of Santa. It might have been because they were more her size and not so big and scary! Whatever the reason, I sense a scrapbook page about it!

Chelsey's 14th Birthday

I wrote about Chelsey's birthday a little while ago, but I wanted to post some actual pictures. This poor kid was so sick she couldn't even enjoy her day...her day that only comes once a year! We all came down with some sort of nasty flu that week and three of us were feeling really yucky that day. I probably should have rescheduled the pizza party we had with grandparents, but honestly, there were no extra days between her birthday and Christmas; it was now or never. We all sucked it up and went down, but Chelsey was literally throwing up as we walked into Doc's. It was horrible!

Chelsey got really spoiled for her birthday. She got money from her dad and I and each of the kids got her a gift. Braquel got her the cutest black coat with zebra stripes in the belt. Chelsey is really into zebra right now so she loved it! Mikayla got her some jewelry, Treven got her a beautiful teal shirt, and Ellie got her some zebra shoes. She also got an ipod case from grandpa and grandma Wood, her own expensive shampoo and conditioner from grandpa and grandma Jones, cash from grandpa and grandma Gibbons, and a set with tons of perfume from her Aunt Shannon. Her best friend, Linsday, also joined us and gave her an American Eagle shirt and a bracelet with her name on it. Totally spoiled!

I had preordered 5 pizzas thinking we would surely eat that much. I was way off! Since half of us were currently sick and the other half had just gotten over being sick, we didn't hardly make a dent in the pizzas! Oh well, it will be a birthday she never forgets!