I absolutely love this time of the year--even though it is the busiest part!  I love the family time together, the reason for the season, and the warm glow of the lights that start to show up soon.  I love having hot chocolate in the glow of the Christmas tree while Christmas Carols fill the room with their familiar words.  I love the smell of goodies baking in the oven, of holiday scented candles, and cinnamon scented pine cones.  I love the glow of anticipation in the childrens eyes as they (not) so patiently await a visit from jolly old St. Nicholas.  I like to watch them pour through toy catalogs as they make their lists of wants. 

I don't particularly "like" shopping in the crowded stores, but I do enjoy the feeling of satisfaction when I find the perfect gift for someone on my list!   I love giving gifts.  It is almost an art.  Sometimes I bomb though--and buy something either too old or too young for the person.  I miss shopping for the freshly cut trees we used to buy--but do enjoy the fake tree because we can leave it up and enjoy it so much longer.  It's always fun to pick out the "best side" of the artificial tree!  We'll be assembling the tree on Friday, and I hope to share some photos of little Birds and possibly little Staleys as they may be here to help grandma and grandpa with their tree!

In the meantime, I have a couple of layouts to share.  One is of the three little birds last month, and the other is from when Micah was just a little guy in 2004.  The layout of Micah is a "classic" baby layout.  I hope you enjoy it!

Look at that sweet little face!  Poor Micah!!

Two posts in one day!!  Record day!  :)

I did this layout for a challenge at How Much Is Too Much?   Find the blog here: HMITM BLOG
Everything was supposed to be in green tones.  I made it except for the white title and the black journaling and black swirls.

Don't Get Wet!!
The journaling says:  Journaling says: Yeah right! What else would a 3 year old do with water just sitting there? Isn’t that why God put him and the water in the same spot at the same time?

I used a freebie blog template and a freebie kit called Addie the dinosaur by Jenny Cereal.

Yesterday Grandpa and I spent the day in Pasadena at the Cal Stewart Train Show.  It's a once a year event for model train enthusiasts where a bunch of train people go to sell their wares.  I akin it to a scrapbook convention for scrappers--
We had a good time walking the aisles, looking for bargains, and buying a few things.  There was an awesome floor display of several running train layouts, and also several other layouts for us to examine.  There was an upside down Christmas tree with a train running on the ceiling around the base of the tree, and another tree on the floor around the area the tree would have been, had it been on the floor.  The action of the train was possible with the use of magnets, but it looked pretty amazing running around in a circle on the ceiling.

I attended the auction.  Although it was only open for bidding to the club members, I had a good time resting my legs and feet while looking like I was actually a bidder!  There were some good deals, and some of the people were buying things at the auction and taking them right out to their booth for sale to the public.  I'm sure they were hoping on a big profit in the double transaction. 

I didn't get many photos of the show because dh had the camera--but I guess he took photos of the things that were important to him!  :)

I was browsing the web this morning and found some cute word art, so made a layout with it.  I've used this photo before, but absolutely love these photos of the baby backs and their shar-pei look before they start filling out.  Jacob may be on the mend after a rough start in life.  He spent several days in the hospital after originally being released after birth.  Then, he contracted a cold which turned to bronchitis.  Poor little guy spend a few days in an upright position because he couldn't breath while laying down.  He's such a sweet little fellow! 

Besides the wordart by Vicki, I also used a blog freebie kit by Jeanne Marie Scraps for this layout.

I took part in a chat tonight on the digi board at 2 peas, and found the weekly challenge with a little help from Sheri!  Thanks Sheri!  :)  Anyhow, the challenge was to use a DVD cover as inspiration for a layout.  So, off I went to the DVD cabinet, and I found the one I wanted to try!! 

We saw this musical (?) group at our local fair the past few years.  They are a lot of fun to watch.  Silly kind of fun.  That's us--silly!!

So, I took it and decided since the background is black, maybe I'd do a Halloween layout.  It was fun to see the grandkids in their cute costumes this year.  We usually don't get to have TWO families together for the evening.  

I came up with the layout--and posted it at 2 peas--

I did my own morph! 
journaling says:   Megan was Darth Vader, Kelli was the cute cat, Emily made the cutest little butterfly princess you’d ever want to see. Ashlyn was Princess Leah, Jonah was a little fireman, and Noah was the Pirate! Grandpa is holding the newest one-Jacob who is going to give everybody a run for their money next year.

 

 It was fun getting some photos from Debbie when we visited San Diego.  I remembered her telling me about this day a few weeks ago, and had a good time scrapping the cute photos!
Kelli and Emily had such a good time in their square dance class! It is part of their co-op classes where they read the Little House on the Prairie Books each week. They dressed up like Laura and Mary with their prairie hats and cute sun dresses. Mom helped the girls make a pie for the feast after the dance! Yum, the pie was GOOD!!

I used a mini kit called Funky Rainbow from Flutterbye Faery Designs for the layout.

Amy shared a lot of photos with me, and there were a lot from their trip to the Pumpkin Patch.  It looks like the boys had a great time trying to find their perfect pumpkin.

For this layout I used a kit called Birdhouse rock collab by Digital Couture and Jen Yurko, and I used a freebie template from Weeds and Wildflowers

I pulled out some "newborn" photos of baby Jacob today since he's on my mind!  He's sick again, poor baby.  Doctor says it's bronchitis, but wasn't sure until today that it wasn't pneumonia.  We're grateful for friends and prayers!!  He's such a good little guy--even when he's not feeling well.

I used two kits-one from Erica Hernandez at 2 peas--the freebie November kit, and a blog train kit.  The sketch is from Scrapsketch.com.  Stephanie gives us great sketches to play with every month!!  thanks Stephanie.

Whoo Hoo!!  I played with a freebie blog template and came up with a second layout for today!  Debbie let me download a bunch of her photos while we visited last week.  The photos I used were taken when their family visited Maryland this past summer.  The sunset photo was gorgeous, so I wanted to used that as the background.  Looks like they had a lot of fun with campfires, riding in the boat, and playing in the huge yard! 
Besides the freebie blog template, I also used a free kit from Sande Krieger at 2 peas in a bucket called Rough Riders.  Since the family was visiting around the 4th of July, I wanted to capture one of the rows of red stars on the paper into the layout!  

Amy downloaded some photos for me yesterday when I visited her and the boys.  I couldn't wait to scrap this particular photo.  My boys are such funny little characters--
The journaling says:  Scott took the boys out for a hike one day.  He wanted to get a photo of them together, and they started “cheesing” it up.  So, which one is the cheesiest?  It's your call!

The two kits I used were A New Day by JMC Carthy and a kit called What a Hoot by Jan Hosford!  Gotta love the cute owls in the kit!!  And the tree isn't that bad either for that matter!

As you know, I'm a "regular" poster on twopeasinabucket.com where I take part in a lot of the challenges.  This week I finished up the Pub ad challenge that is faithfully posted by Corinna every Monday!  I used a Christmas kit from Michelle Underwood for the layout--and although the layout didn't turn out like I had it in my head, I love the results!!  Although the kit is a Christmas kit--the layout is from Halloween!  I bought the kit because it looked pretty versatile, so I'm going to enjoy playing with it!!   I particularly loved the little "musical" bird and the scalloped page I used for the background page.  I hope you like it as much as I do!

This is Kelli--one of the sweetest little girls around.  She's grown up so much and is just as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. 

We enjoyed our trip to San Diego so much.  It was so much fun sharing Halloween with the kids.  They had such a good time carving pumpkins, finding their costumes, and preparing to go out trick or treating. 

When we got back home after trick or treating, the kids went through their candy and boy, did they have a stash!  Ashlyn even made a written inventory  of all her stash!!  Funny!!

On Saturday we all went to Poway Park.  We attended a Farmer’s Market and rode
the little TRAIN. The kids loved it!

I used a kit called Little Red Caboose from Sweet Shop for this layout!  What a fun little kit this is!!

I did today's layout for the Pub Ad Challenge at 2 peas. The journaling says:  Despite the condition of the pumpkin patch, the condition of the animals, and the attitude of the local people, we had a good time in Ramona. We ran around the corn maze, picked out small pumpkins for the girls, and visited one of the local antique shops. I think just spending time together, though, was the best part!

 

I used a cute kit from Bella Gypsy called Apple Pickin for the layout, and an ad for inspiration.

 

Ramona is a little rural area not far from Debbie's home in the San Diego area.  We traveled there on Friday after the girls were finished with their school work for the day.  The pumpkin patch itself had obviously seen better days!!  There wasn't one pumpkin in it that looked good enough to take home!!  The animals in their fenced in cages looked like they could use some love too!  The corn maze was fun, though, and grandpa did a bit of hiding there!  

After we left the patch, we stopped in at one of the many local antique shops.  The proprietor and the workers in the shop were actually quite rude.  They were preparing to take part in the "safe" trick or treating event in the town.  One of the ladies said " "everybody" brings their thousands of children up there and drops them off--there won't be any parking spaces, and the town will be overrun with these "visitors." " She really had a chip on her shoulder, and we were pretty happy to get off of her property and back into the car!  

We made our way back down the hill as these thousands of people were on their way up! 

We were happy to spend Halloween week in San Diego this year.  Amy and Scott even came down so the kids could trick or treat with the their cousins.  They were all darling in their costumes, and had a good time going from door to door collecting candy.  Noah thought it was great except for when nobody came to the door with candy in hand!  When that happened, he cried, and the girls broke down and gave him a piece of their candy to get him to walk to the next porch!  He ended up with more candy than any of the kids!! 

I used the Pumpkin Spice kit from StrawBeary Designs and a blog template for this fun layout.