Hello Santa!

Our tradition continued with our annual visit from Santa at auntie's house. I recently bought a Gary Fong 1/2 cloud Light Diffuser for my flash and I must say I am impressed so far. I kind of wish I would have bought the cloud instead of the half cloud, but hey, there's no harm in having one of each eventually. Sometimes the Santa photos are touch and go. Poor lighting, too much movement, anxious kiddos, and on and on. But this year, Santa was on a roll with making sure I got a good shot (and the diffuser helped a LOT too!) Here are some highlights:





















































































































































































































































































































































































































































Can you tell we had fun?

Festival of Lights

Last night Jonathan and I went to Auburn to attend the Festival of Lights Parade. Apparently, it is a really big deal for the locals to all come out and begin their holiday season with these festivities. We got there early and staked out our spot and then did some sight seeing.

We found a real record store on our walk! I was so excited to see their Christmas album display int he window!















Then we went to dinner at an awesome bar and grill in downtown Auburn. I wish I could remember the name of the place, but I am sure we will go back some day. Great food, awesome drinks, and a nice atmosphere.

Then we were off to watch the parade. I don't know who this guy is, but we sat next to him and I just HAD to get a picture of him, since I really don't think this smile EVER came off his face the whole parade.















Jonathan was like a little kid himself. He waved at all the people waving from the floats and yelled out Merry Christmas when they passed. It was so cute! This photo came out blurry, but I love that you can tell how excited he was.















Then there were the floats. This was my favorite.






















This was Jonathan's. They were marchers in front of their float, and who can resist a lit up Boba Fett, Darth Vader, and all the Storm troopers?











































And the real reason why we went was to see Samantha in the parade. She was with her 4H group riding on the float that they made. Here she is (with Jacqueline and Hannah too!)...















And their float...















And what Christmas parade would be complete without Santa!















If you get a chance to go out next year, I would highly recommend it. It was a really fun time with a great community and we were still home before 8!

Another Layout

They are few and far between, but they are actually getting accomplished nonetheless. Here is the layout I created for the pumpkin patch visit we took in early October.






















Scraplift from a sketch in Scrapbooks Etc Magazine. PP: Bo Bunny. White and Orange Cardstock: Bazzil. Stampin'Up scalloped border punch (for the small scallops, I hand cut the larger one). Brown Letter Stickers; Scenic Route (sigh - I'm sad to see them close their doors). Font: Angelina (for the journaling and the "patch" in the title, which was cut on my Wishblade).

It feels good to be creating again. Oh how I have missed you. I hope I don't let the chaos of the holiday season make me lose sight of that again.

On a lighter note

Here are the other layouts I've finished so far for Ali's class:

The Cover Page






















The template and words are by Ali Edwards, The papers are digital from Michelle Martin's Manchster kit at Designer Digitals, the tag is Making Memories,The outline is from a Jen Caputo template from Scrapbook Graphics


And this layout is about random Childhood Memories.













The template are the frame for the journaling blocks are by Ali Edwards. The ribbons are mostly Creative Imaginations and some others from my stash. The cardstock is Bazzil and I used is Calibri.

This was a tough one...

I have been multi-tasking my classes lately. One of them is the Ali Edwards class at BPS called Yesterday and Today. I have been so inspired by the class and am (for the most part) actually keeping up to date on the layout assignments. Well, she didn't take it easy on us. In week 4, she asked us to do a layout about a challenge in our life, because those are what makes who we are along with the good stuff.

I struggled with this one... I knew in the back of my head it's been almost two years since the foster kids left us and I still hadn't scrapped a single picture of them. They were all still hiding on my hard drive, waiting to tell their story. So I finally buckled down with this challenge and got up a couple Saturdays ago, sat at my computer, and started typing. Before I knew it, the words were flowing, and so were my tears. It was very difficult to get through, but quite therapeutic in the end.

So to go along with my blog class, Shimelle talked yesterday about posting layouts that maybe you don't want too much info out on. And of course, for legal purposes, I can't post photos or their names. So here is the edited result of my layout...













If you click on the image, it will enlarge it and you can read the journaling. It's rather lengthy, but once I got started, I couldn't stop! There was a lot more to tell in this story then I thought there was.

I am really glad I did this layout. Hopefully it'll help me bring a little closure to that chapter in my life.

Blogging fro the bloggily challenged

Ok, I know that's not a real term, and probably horrible grammer... but I must admit, my name is Lynne and I am blog challenged! I originally started this blog to document the every day. To use it as a tool to help with my scrapping since life gets really busy and I forget what happened this morning, let alone last month. But it's been a challenge to keep it updated.

I have been seeing it lately as a chore rather than a tool. So I joined a class called Blogging for Scrapbookers at Shimelle.com and I have already learned a lot on Day 1. I can't believe how much time I was wasting surfing from blog to blog for updates when Google has a great tool to do it for you! Ahhh, Google Reader, where have you been all my life?

So my quandary lately is .. to December Daily or not to December Daily? I did an album last year, like so...
















































This turned out to be my most favorite project that I have ever created... but alas... I wonder if it will get boring if I do it every year. Not much has changed. Except my job... and Jonathan's job... and our nieces and nephews are bigger... and I'll probably be taking a lot more holiday photos for other families this year... hmmmm...Boring, boring me.