Monday, November 12, 2007

My NEW Computer

...IS TOTALLY AWESOME!!!


Ben worked on my computer this weekend...installing all the new parts (motherboard, processor, extra large fan, memory, video card & 2 large hard drives), then installing windows, new anti-virus program, all my "must-have" programs and all my backup files. Now it is finally running very smoothly and super fast! YAY!!! So, I just had to try out Photoshop to see how much better it works w/ all my new super cool stuff. WOW! It's so great! THANK YOU THANK YOU my dear hubby for all the work and time you spent on my computer!! I just can't say it enough...You're THE Best!!! I LOVE my new computer!!

Anyway, here's the new layout I created w/ my smokin' hot computer!

Credits HERE

Saturday, November 10, 2007

My Boys

Our family would not be complete without our BOYS - Nathaniel & Anson!!

I love our girls, but our boys definitely help even out the drama (by not having much of it). They are SUPER!!

When Nathaniel was a baby, I called him "my little sweetpea" and Ben would call him "chicken wing" for some odd reason. LOL :) He was definitely the CUTEST baby! And talk about CUDDLY!!! YAY! I love to cuddle. We would fall asleep on the couch together for the longest time in the early morning hours. He is still my big HUGGER and tells me all the time how much he LOVES me and how I'm the BEST Mom!! How can I resist his charming ways? I can't! He's a great helper, smart, talented, kind, loves the bugs and outdoors, energetic, good worker and super fast, so sweet, very loving and adorable! (<- oops I mean Handsome.) He's also incredibly good at video games, since a very young age. He can totally work the electronics and figure stuff out so easily, he's clever that way. He enjoys taking things apart and putting them back together. Which I don't mind, as long as it's not my stuff. ha ha. He has been a climber since before he could walk. Boy would that get him into trouble! He was a major handful once he could climb & walk/run! It didn't help that his sister was only a year younger and wanted to do everything he did. I can't believe he's 9. I told Ben the other day that he's already half-way to 18. Oh my gosh! I don't want him to age another day, stay young and sweet forever!

Credits HERE
Then, there's my happy little Anson. Oh how I love that he's small (not petite just small). He is the cutest little thing! He thinks he IS Diego (you know, Dora's cousin or something). He just cracks me up! He is SO Funny! His little nickname is "Bubbers" or just "Bub." Don't ask me how he got that, I'm not really sure. That's what we call him sometimes and he answers cuz he's used to it. At least it's not "Bug" cuz I knew a family growing up that called their littlest one that. ha ha. My "little man" is also a sweet little cuddly bear. He gives me hugs and kisses when I tell him I need some love. And he's becoming quite the little helper. He's at that stage where he's trying to do everything by himself for himself. So, sometimes it gets difficult for him because all my other little helpers want to help him. They're being so nice, but I have to remind them that sometimes he doesn't want their help. And he can definitely throw a fit once in a while, but thank goodness he's a cutie pie cuz I just can't be upset at him for long. He's 3 and growing, but I also want him to stay this age forever. I'm enjoying my kids so much! They're all at ages that are so FUN! (*again, they can all be major pains in the rear end, but for the most part they are pleasant)
Credits HERE

Nathaniel and Anson, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!

Friday, November 9, 2007

My Girls

I am so Thankful for my GIRLS - Felicia and Ashley!!

Felicia is my little mom and super duper helper! When she was little, her nickname was "FiFi" (pronounced FeeFee). She was so cute that sometimes we would call her "Miss FiFi" and she loved it! So, she went into nursery at church (at 18mos) being called FiFi but seemed to outgrow the nickname by the time she was 3. She loves to paint, write me little notes, help cook, sing (esp karaoke), and dance (in her room when she thinks no one is looking).

Ashley is our "Little Bunny" or just "Bunny" well that's her nickname, but we call her that almost all the time. She seems to like it. She's always had a little 'bounce' in her step and she's such a cutie pie. She definitely has her own style and stubborn attitude.

They are so cute, sweet, lovable, cuddly, smart, funny, helpful, grateful, creative, talented, and growing up way TOO fast! I can't believe they're already 8 and 5. I remember when they were born, seems not THAT long ago! Well, I could go on forever about how fun they are, but I will spare you. Anyway, I created a layout using the pictures we were trying to take on Sunday after church. We were in our front yard just enjoying the nice weather and beautiful sunset. So, I decided to try and take our picture together, plus Ashley was wearing the craziest outfit and her new boots. She loves her boots and wants to wear them with everything (and I mean everything). At least she looks darling wearing them, so she can get away with it, for now. LOL! Felicia has new boots, too, but seems to be a little more conservative with them. ha ha :)

I LOVE YOU, MY SWEET ANGELS!!!

Credits HERE

Thursday, November 8, 2007

I'm Thankful For...

MY HUBBY!!! He's so Awesome!!! He's the Bestest husband I could ever ask for!


Why?

1. He's my BEST FRIEND

2. He's HOT (I mean, who can resist Spider-Man??)

3. He's FUNNY and always makes me LAUGH (that's very important to me)

4. He's a ton of FUN to be around

5. He's a great DAD (the kids totally adore him)

6. He LOVES his Family
(pics-Ben w/ his sisters & Mom, Us @ Mesa Temple Visitor's Center)

7. He's very HANDY (he can fix tons of stuff! he's also great at construction-he did most of the remodeling on our house himself, with the help of my Dad.)
(pics-our kitchen before we bought the house, Ben doing demo, our kitchen Now)
Incredible, huh?!

8. He HELPS around the house when I ask for it, including helping the kids with whatever they need help with (baths, getting dressed, band-aids, homework, listening, etc)
9. He can be very SPIRITUAL, when he wants to be (pic-Nathaniel's Baptism)

10. He is an excellent LEADER

11. He let me FRENCH-BRAID his hair when it was longer last year (isn't he the cutest?)


12. He is always willing to HELP and SERVE others

13. He ROCKS at Karaoke on the XBOX (he can pretty much sing any song - boy or girl parts- cuz he's great at mimicking and doing impressions)

14. He's an ok SPORT about me kicking his butt on fighting games on the XBOX 360 (tee hee)
*ok to save his rep, I'll add that he's way better than I am at Gears of War and Halo3 online (I do good in co-op, but online, well I get killed way more than I do the killing).


15. He hasn't gotten UPSET at me when I haven't wanted to cook dinner for the past few weeks. Normally, I love to cook, but for some reason, I haven't been in the mood to cook or plan what to make for dinner. So, we've had super-quick-easy meals (like quesadillas, nachos, cannery beef stew, cannery chicken & rice, pasta w/ sauce from a jar, etc) or some take-out lately.

16. He's building me a NEW COMPUTER because I asked him to (well, it's my early-Christmas AND Birthday present) and I got to pick all the parts that go in it!!! YAY!!! We're talking HUGE harddrives so I can continue to digi-scrap! :) Woohoo!!

Ok, I could go on and on and on, but I'll stop now.


Ben, Thanks for ALWAYS being there for me and LOVING me so much!!! I LOVE YOU OODLES & GOBS!

(Ok, I admit, I got the idea for listing what I'm grateful for during the month of November from Kristy & Julie. It's a good idea, so yes, I'm being a copycat. Oh well. I needed an idea and theirs is good!) I also had tons of fun finding some old and recent pictures of Ben to add to my post!

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Yard Work is HARD Work

This weekend just totally flew by! Yesterday, we finally took down the Halloween decorations. So sad, we love those! And I decided a couple weeks ago that I wanted winter grass. We've never done it before and I always think "why? bermuda stays green a little longer. what's the big deal?" but then I always see all the beautiful lush green grass everyone else has while our Bermuda has died. So, this time I want to have the gorgeous velvet green front yard. Well, we decided to wait til after Halloween (after we take down the deco's because we didn't want them to get wet with all the watering you have to do). Anyway, we spent a lot of time yesterday working on the yard. I helped mow half the yard, but the mower kept messing up, so Ben took over. But I did help rake most of the yard. Whew! That is lots of work, and I got 2 beautiful little blisters on my hand. Ooops, guess I should've gotten some gloves out. We spread the seed and started to layout the fertilizer when we ran out very quickly. We had to go back to Home Depot to buy more fertilizer, which it was close to the time the kids would be home, so we waited and got to drag all the kids with us. As we got the stuff we needed, I decided it would look nice if we did the backyard, too. We had to pick up all the miscellaneous kid toys in the backyard and move their playhouse, but we got it done. Now comes the hard part...watering. We don't have a sprinkler system, so we just use hoses w/ sprinklers attached. It's so fun watering one area, then turn it off, move it, turn it back on, and so forth. Also, now for the next couple weeks, we get to send the dogs to our pool area so they don't tear up our germinating back yard. ha ha. Like that's gonna be easy. Just last night while Ben was pulling weeds in the pool area, the kids kept letting the dogs into the backyard, then yelling at them to get back in the house. So, we'll see how it goes. I just thought the kids and dogs would like some nice soft grass to play in. Instead of the dirt in the backyard.

Well, I'm just glad the hard part is over, now I just get to water (w/ hoses & sprinklers, plus use the sprayer to reach the corners the sprinkler doesn't wet) in 10 min increments 3-4 times per day until the grass is growing. Good times!
We barely got done and cleaned up in time for FHE. And sweet Felicia has had fun being in charge last week and this week. Felicia had a lesson prepared from young girl achievement, so she gave us that fun lesson last week. I helped her put together a game. We all had fun and she was so cute as the little leader. Especially when the kids were moving around and talking (that's how most of our FHE's are), she would put on her serious face and warn them that they were about to miss out on the treat if they couldn't be quiet. And then she also said "Now, not another peep from you!" My parents were over for the fun FHE, too, and all us adults couldn't stop laughing. She was too cute! So, she wanted to be in charge this week, too. She found a lesson w/ an activity and put it all together by herself. She did an excellent job! I saw her notes and they were pretty good (and funny). She had written down what she was going to "tell us" and her "questions" and "answers." She reminds me so much of ME at that age, well the being organized & in charge part. ha ha.


This morning, when I had to let the dogs outside, I had to get ready to corral them into the pool area. So, since they hate getting wet, I turned on the sprinkler out there first and opened the pool gate. I had to open the backdoor and quickly usher them into the pool area. They ran in happily, but quickly turned to look at me as if to say, "what are we doing in here?" Then the kids couldn't eat their breakfast because they were mesmerized at the funniness (is that a word?) of the dogs. One of the dogs had her butt up in the air and leaned over to get a drink from the pool. The kids couldn't stop laughing. ha ha. So, I quickly got them a big bowl of water to fix the problem. Ok, now the kids can finish eating and get ready for school. Hopefully the grass will come in nice and will be worth all the hard work (and money)!

Friday, November 2, 2007

Summer Vacation Layouts

I was on a roll last night creating new pages for Felicia's scrabook to show to her class! Here are a few layouts I created from our summer vacation photos. I need to make more pages for each of the kids, but didn't have time last night. Maybe I can work on that over the weekend.

Background by BannerWoman, Red Fiber & Buttons by ShabbyPrincess.


Backgrounds & "Beach" wordart by AnnScraps, Ribbons by LadieSue, Seashells by SimplySarah, "Swim" wordart by DSP.

Star of the Week, Halloween Layouts

This week Felicia was named as STAR OF THE WEEK!!! Way to go darlin'!!! You GO Girl!! Anyway, she gets a poster board sent home and gets to fill it with pictures of things about her. Well, I created one for her last year when she was star of the week and framed it for her room. So, I told her she could take that to class and her new scrapbook. I haven't made any new scrapbook layouts for a little while, so I was up late last night creating some new ones to go in her book. She is so excited to show off her scrapbook! Awww that makes me feel good.

Here are the Halloween layouts (on the kids' pages I just changed out their individual photo so it was easy, like a template).Backgrounds by SimplySarah, "Ghosttown" alpha & Trick-or-Treat by DSP.

Stripes Background, Sm Bow, Tag & Spooky Eyes all by TangieBaxter, Wrap Ribbons by SimplySarah, Halloween Background by DerekMDesigns.

Credits are the same as above, except that I recolored the red bows and made them pink.

We all had fun trick-or-treating! Ben's sister, Heather, and her husband, Tom, and their son, Trevor, came over to go with us. (I have a picture of them and I'll do another layout for it maybe later today. Heather found a really cute costume.) Heather & I helped hand out candy at first while the guys took the kids out. Then Heather & Tom stayed to pass out more candy while I went w/ Ben & the kids. I didn't get to walk around w/ the kids last year, so I wanted to this year. The kids received TONS of candy! And I have lots leftover cuz I went so crazy at the store buying all the kinds that I like. Ooops! ha ha. Ben and I get some of the "good stuff" (aka chocolate) from the kids loot and they get all the rest. We go ahead and let the kids have their candy and do as they please unless it gets out of hand and they won't eat anything but candy, then we take it away and only let them have a few pieces at a time. I mean c'mon, it's the one time out of the year that they get to have all that candy. It's what bein' a kid is all about, right? Well, they're really sweet about sharing w/ us, too. I only get upset when I find wrappers all over the house. The rule is if I see wrappers, then I will take their candy away and they don't get any that day. I had to remind them last night and they were all very quick about cleaning up!

While I put the kids to bed, Ben and a couple of his friends, went to Mill Ave to strut their stuff! They had a good time and once again, Spider-Man was a HUGE hit! Glad y'all had FUN!

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Halloween Parade

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Today was the Halloween Parade at the kids' school. They had such a blast wearing their costumes & struttin' their stuff!

Here is Ashley - "Sweetheart Bat"
(that's what it said on the tag but she calls it Bat Girl)
Felicia loves her "Vampire" costume
Nathaniel is "Optimum Prime"
(the leader of the Autobot Transformers)

My cutie pie Ashley in the parade!
Anson as "Dash Incredible"
I think he wanted to be in the parade, too.
(hence the grumpy face) Nathaniel looking back at me so I can snap a quick picture
Beautiful Felicia in the parade
Oh, now he's happy once the parade is over.

All the kids & teachers looked great in their costumes! I love watching the parade! Ben went as Spider-Man and the kids loved it! Ben loves to see the kids get excited & give him "high 5's."

I took pictures of the kids tonight, too, but I'm waiting for my batteries to charge so I can upload them onto my computer. I may have to add them tomorrow since it's getting so late. Can't wait to see everyone's trick-or-treating pictures!! Hope y'all had a FUN Halloween!!!

Monday, October 29, 2007

Chili Cook-Off & Another Halloween Party

On Saturday, our ward (combined w/ another ward) had our Chili Cook-Off at the park in our neighborhood. It was fun! There was lots of chili & tons of treats, including homemade rootbeer & snowcones. There was face-painting, too, but our kids didn't make it to that booth.
Ashley really enjoys swinging now that she can do it herself!
Felicia was excited about the monkey bridge.
She did it w/ her eyes closed! Silly Girl.
She spent most of her time on this bridge.
I don't even know how many times she did it.

Nathaniel had to find a large tree to climb (and he's really good at it).

Ben and Me (he's full from all the chili & treats)
Anson was playing with other little kids on the slide.
He was so fast climbing up the steps to slide over & over!
Ashley was happy to find her friend, Lindsay.
They met at our ward campout.

Nathaniel had to try the monkey bridge just before it was time to leave.


After we left the chili cook off, Ben and I went out to another Halloween Party! We met at a friend's neighbor's house party. We stayed for a while, then we all headed over to Graham Central Station for their big costume party!

Ben (aka Spider-Man) and Trey (aka Ghostbuster) Ben and Me (aka vampire, but I didn't bring my fangs this time)
Trey, Ben, Me, Brian (aka Sparta) & his wife Julie (aka 60s groovy chic)
Brian, Julie, Jason (aka Mexican), Nikki (aka Border Patrol), Me, Ben & Trey
Here we are when we met up at Graham's