Online weekend crop

I only managed to finish a few pages this weekend but I'm happy with the ones that I did. This one will be for Robert's deployment book and I like the way that it turned out. That is a picture of his squad.
This is one I did of old school pictures of me and Jim the day that we got married. We went to mom and dad's first and they took a bunch of pictures of us before we left to head to the judge's house on Long Island where we would eventually wind up living after we had kids. :)
And another one with more pictures taken that day by my dad. :)
This is a page I did at a class this week and I added the pictures to it over the weekend. I love taking classes and doing some different fun stuff.

Time to start Alex's baby book...and.....more Iraq

This is a 2 page layout I did with some pictures Robert gave me of when they would go into Iraqi houses and they would feed the Marines. He said it was some of the best food he would have in weeks...better than chow hall stuff.

So I am really bouncing around, while I work on Robert's deployment book I need to move around and do other stuff to cheer me up so I'm not working on Iraq pictures for days at a time.

LIfe is a Puzzle

I picked up a package of unfinished puzzle pieces on clearance for .50 cents and I knew I had to use them right away!! I painted them all blue and this quote/title started coming together in my head as I was putting the pieces of the puzzle around our picture.

Rockin' Girl Blogger

My friend and fellow blogger Mama J nominated me for this...I really have no clue what it is but hey, it's fun. :) Thanks for the nomination, Jessi.

All Star Game 2007

I'm a little behind in blogging so I thought I'd get caught up a bit today. Last week was the All Star Game and Alex got picked to play this year since he's moving up to the next league next spring...to play in the Midgets...ages 10-12...yikes...they start pitching to each other at that age...no more coaches pitching to them. We had good weather for the game and had a lot of fun. The team lined up to get ready.
Alex played catcher for a couple innings but he did have to be in the outfield a bit as well. That is one of the most boring positions in Little League because not too many of the kids hit the ball out there but what can you do? A kid's gotta do what a kid's gotta do....
I guess Alex decided instead of being bored he would start doing something to keep himself entertained.
Alex got up to bat a few times and he hit and got on base each time which was great!! He's a good player and has a lot of fun out there and it's good for him to be around kids his age since he's alone most of the time with his older brothers being off doing their own thing now.
A group shot of Coach Jim with his 4 All Stars from this year's team.
Yay!!! I'm an All Star and I get another trophy for my room!!!

Harry Potter Fever

So tonight was the night that you could get the final book in the Harry Potter series and I've been waiting for this day for a while now. Alex had a Harry Potter party at the library from 4-6pm and then we went to Borders book store for the Grand Hallows Ball starting at 9:30pm and the book was being sold at 12:01 am.

What a crowd there was in the store, it was insane!! Had to be about 900 people in there...it was hot...people were all over the store reading books, walking around, playing all of the different games they had set up...Alex did the spelling bee and did pretty well.

We waited and waited and waited some more...Alex got tired and decided to take a little rest on the floor...


and then I saw the books going by........and I knew it was almost time!!!
At exactly midnight they started selling the book and I was the 2nd color wristband so by 12:33 I was in my car with my new book in my hot little hands. I would love to sit and chat and blog some more but I have a 759 page book to read so I'm outta here!!

Another 2 pager done tonight

I won this "Brothers" page kit by being in the top 10 for challenge points on Scrap N Chat for the quarter. I was able to complete a challenge for July by using the kit and use up some random pictures that I had of Jesse and Robert. Sadly there are some pictures where I am not too sure of the dates of them so I thought this was a good way to use them up. Of course now that I scrapbook I date all of my pictures so that won't happen in the future.

Keeping busy

It keeps my mind off things and I don't have much time to be sad. Took Alex to the movies today, we saw Transformers and it was really good. He wants me to get the DVD when it comes out. :)

I had time to finish a 2 page layout I started working on last night.

Sad

Robert left to head back to his duty station and get ready for his upcoming deployment...his 2nd tour of duty. It was so hard to say goodbye this morning and I just couldn't bring myself to go to the airport so Jim drove him. Just before he got in the car he looked at me and said, "One more time..." Yes son, just one more time and then you'll be coming home for good. I love you and miss you terribly already but we'll keep the candle lit in the window until you come back to us.

Scrapbooking can be such great therapy for me, this layout just made me smile at the sillyness of it...I had pink hair for a while back when I was about 19 and seeing these pictures again just lifted my spirits.
This is just another random 2 page layout that I did at the crop on July 7th, some old school pictures of Jim when we went camping.

Random stuff

Sometimes when I do layouts for challenges on the message board that I belong to I just pull out random pictures from my power sort box to see what will work. These are both for challenges...one is to use the quote, "One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade." and I used a picture of Alex and I when we helped plant 10,000 daffodils at the local park for a 9/11 Memorial. The other challenge was to use your title as journaling.

Couple more layouts from my recent crop

As I go through the pictures of the layouts I'll be posting them. These are both from the spring of 1996 when we visited grandma and grandpa Koop in Titusville. The boys were in 'fish' mode.

Car troubles

So on wednesday we were leaving to head over to the mall and take Alex to the Build A Bear so he can make himself something to hug when he misses his brother while he is deployed. It wasn't meant to be....I had the car in for service last week and I guess they didn't really fix the problem because about 2 miles from home the transmission started to slip and the car was having some major troubles!! So.........we pulled over and waited for the tow truck. My poor car was broken. :-(
We walked to where Jesse was coming to pick us up...
and drive us home, this would be my first ride in Jesse's car, the convertible...hahaha...bad for the hair.Alex on the other hand thought it was pretty funny!!!

Another very full day here

I started out my day with laundry, as usual....what else is there, right? Jesse went down to the cleaners and picked up Robert's uniform for him so that he could sleep a little bit more, seems he's gotten himself pretty sick with a nasty cold...I think he's just run down from lack of sleep, he's been trying to spend as much time with friends as possible while he's home and I can understand that but I hate to see him sick.

At 12:30 we headed off to his road test and I think he would have rather had a root canal than to be there especially when the 3 inspectors came out and they were all women...I think he was hoping for an ex-Marine or something. There was a long line and we had to wait...and wait...and wait...I think it was about 1:45 when it was finally his turn.

When all was said and done he passed and finally has his license to drive, whoohooo!! As soon as we got home he asked to borrow the car to go visit friends and I let him go.

I made london broil and mashed potatoes for dinner (chicken for Jim) and we started out our dinner with a prayer that Jim offered up and it was so wonderful to have all 5 of us together, I cherish these moments since I know pretty soon Robert will be leaving us to head back to Hawaii and then deploy once more and we won't all be together again until next spring.

After dinner we went to Sears and had our family photos taken which I wanted to do before Robert left. We had a lot of fun and we were all laughing and Alex had a blast. The photographer has young kids and after we took our family photo and she took a beautiful shot of the 3 boys she let Alex play with all the props and she took a bunch of fun pictures of him, she was so sweet with him...it was a lot of fun.

Couple of layouts and a busy day

I did this one from a page kit I got in a swap, I love the kit so much...thanks KA....it works so wonderfully with pictures from Robert's deployment. I love everything about this page kit but my favorite part is using the flag as the journaling box!!

This is just a fun page I had to do because I found these funny pictures on Robert's My Space page and he told me that they have superhero names for each other and he's Spidey. :)

I had a very busy day today starting out with a mountain of laundry that I hadn't seen in a very long time. Having only one child with us meant I could wash every few days and I'd be fine. Well I didn't wash on saturday since I was at the crop all day and I didn't wash on sunday well because it's SUNDAY!! So this morning when I gathered everything I couldn't believe it!! Thank goodness my new machine holds a lot of clothes, I was able to do 3 large loads and get it done. Phew!

I drove to check out where the site is for the road test to be sure I knew where I had to go tomorrow since Robert is taking his road test and I didn't want to be late. I had great help from the DMV and lucked out in that the lady who read my email asking if Robert could be granted a road test during the week he was home has a son in law getting ready to deploy soon too...she was more than willing to help me out.

Alex and I walked around the outlets for about 90 minutes and had lunch together and a really nice time. The Border's Outlet is becoming someplace that I need to check out more often since they have scrapbooking stuff. Alex also got to pick out a set with a book and a kit to build a pirate ship.

After that it was the dentist for Alex and then Jim and Robert returned from their all day fishing trip and all I saw out of it was 2 lobsters....in the form of my husband and son sunburned beyond belief...oh boy won't they look lovely in our family portrait we're getting done tomorrow? ;)

I'm pooped, what a full day and tomorrow is going to be much the same!!!

Old school....or maybe it can be called "before kids"

Jim is so young in these pictures that were taken at his grandparents. we sure did love going out there on the weekends and enjoying the boat and the fresh air.

I'm enjoying pulling out these really old photos of Jim and I when we were first together and married, it's fun to remember all the old times. Can't believe I actually wore that dress...who gave that to me for a gift?? HAHAHAHA!

More....

This was a fun time at the Big Apple Circus, Alex had a blast. Jim looks like he's really having fun don't you think? He did enjoy it, just didn't smile for the camera. Alex just loves to ham it up for the camera.

A few more layouts from the crop. I have too many to post!