Christmas cards have been ordered and they should be here soon! I already have the house decorated & we are ready for Christmas! It's the most wonderful time of the year after all. I was able to get a great shot of the kids in front of the tree with out to much effort. The kids cooperated and everything. I have been listening to Christmas music for a few months now & I am ready to start singing carols & watching all of those fabulous Christmas movies!
It's the first Black Friday in forever that I haven't been out there shopping. Today we are going to take it easy!

Happy Halloween!

Argh! Evan makes an adorable Captain Hook! Sophia as Cleopatra.

The kids always love dressing up for Halloween & they always look adorable! I took a few shots before school on Friday. I am hoping to get some more photos taken Sat. or Sunday. With these photos I actually used some amazing actions. My favorite is called "Fresh Color", I think that I have found a new addiction! They are fantastic & so super easy to use! I look forward to collecting many more!

sharing a layout

My sweet boy. Had fun with this LO, went crazy with the brads. All of the paper is Fancy Pants. I love the bright colors...so typical of Evan! When it comes to my scrapping I tend to go in creative waves. There will be days, weeks even, when I don't scrapbook one photo. Even though I am not actively scrapping I am almost always playing around with photos or learning more about photography & photo editing. I think that one of my favorite things is seeing the transformation that my scrapping has gone through. I guess that's one of the things I love about this craft..the growth & change is evident in my albums.

It finally feels like Fall!

What says that it's finally fall more than a trip to the pumpkin patch! We went to the pumpkin patch with our dear friends & had so much fun! Here's a picture of Fia & her BFF. Such lovely ladies!

Here's to prove what a good friend my GF is, I asked her to sit on a pumpkin for this pic & she actually did it for me! Thanks Stace!
Here's a pic of the whole gang with their scarecrow adopted family, we especially loved the pig!

Sweet Sid, she was more cooperative than Fia, as far as pictures go! I think Sophia is a little over the whole photography thing! :)

Meet Wilbur! I loved this pig...so stinking cute!

We love Bishop's Pumpkin Patch! It was pretty crowded but we still had an amazing time! I took some great shots of the kids. So many great memories made. We can't wait to carve the pumpkin. The kids wanted to carve it when we got home but I reminded them that carved pumpkins really don't have a long life. They decided to wait till a couple days before Halloween! Good choice guys, no one like a moldy Jack-O-Lantern!

Richardson Springs

Here's the whole group. It was so much fun getting to know everyone a little bit better!

Here's one of my mom & her sister (my aunt) I was thrilled to be able to get a few good pics.

It was such a blessing to be able to go to the retreat with my mom. Love that I was able to get some pictures of her, she is usually the one behind the camera. The one thing that I do regret is that we didn't get a pic of the two of us! Maybe next time.
Richardson Springs was so beautiful...so many great photo ops! I wish that I would have had the extra time to really explore but, since I was part of the music team I didn't really have the down time. Hopefully next year!

more vacation layouts

I am still working on vacation LOs & I am having so much fun with this awesome kit from MME. Definitely the best 19.99 spent on scrapbooking supplies! I can't wait to get the whole album completed and then I can calculate how much I spent on each page. Yes, I am a dork! I have started scanning & stitching my LOs at the nudging of my hubby. I love the vibrancy & detail of the LOs but I cut off the tiniest bit off of the sides. I am still mastering the process! For the Tidal Pool Lo I used my 2$ cuttlebug Die that I scored at Big Lots. Love that!

Love this paper! I added a few rub ons from Me & My Big Ideas, plus a few flowers & gem brads. I am still debating whether I want to do a title or not!

The kids had so much fun watching the Elephant seals near San Simeon.

Summer vacation: Layouts Galore!

I am in love with Peachycheap.com, I ordered an amazing MME kit from them. Perfect for my vacation LOs. I am tickled pink! I was so inspired that I knocked out three LO's. OK, so this one isn't from the kit...but I just thought that I would include it. Love that the kiddos get along (most of the time). The pp is from DCWV, the chipboard is Elsie for KI Memories (a Tuesday morning find).

Ok, back to the beach. Sweet Elli loved the smooth stones at Montana De Oro. She spent forever just stacking them into Papa's waiting hands. Too cute! You'll note at the bottom that I tried my hand at selective coloring.

River & Rayne, these California cuties are the kids of my dear friend Cyndi. They drove up for the day to hang out with the kids at the beach. They loved the boogie board. I have so many more boogie board shots! Needless to say there will be a couple more boogie board LO's in the future. I loved the surfboards at the bottom. To add a little dimension I added pop dots to a few extra surfboards. I really like the way it turned out. Love this kit!