Halloween Lanterns

My cousin shared a picture on Facebook of some lanterns that she made and I decided right away that I just HAD to try them as well! Here are some pictures of my kids, nephews, and my sister and I at work! All we needed were some jars, tissue paper, Modge Podge, and ribbon. Sorry it has been 100 years since I've posted!

Madison putting the tissue paper on her jar.

Taylor and Brady working on theirs.

Everyone hard at work.



Clean table, eh??



We struggled to get the candles lit on two of them but they were cute!
There were Madison's, Taylor's, Dylan's, Renee's and Brody's.

They were so cute, I'm thinking that I need to make some for other holidays... maybe, we'll see!

It's paper, but the working type...

So what's been keeping me from scrapping... 1st grade... and my type A personality... I just have to tell you that 9 years ago, in my first year of teaching my principal said something to me along the lines of, "Well with you being a type A personality..." I don't even remember the rest. I said, "What? Type A? Me??" and he said, "Yes!" I walked out of his office VERY offended, even though I adored him as a principal... He was soooooooooooooo right and I didn't even know it! Anyways, back on track, I bought some clipart to use for my classroom this year from Scrappin' Doodles so I have been busy creating things with that clipart to use in my classroom. So these items are things that I made in Word and Excel on paper, but for work, not for fun... but it's still been fun and will hopefully keep me organized this year, while still lookin' cute!
Made a calendar for each month... these are just some of them...

I also made a calendar of the months to do some Long-Range planning for the year:

This is a list to record how the kids get home each day... need this for 1st graders:

A Birthday Chart by months to record my students' birthdays:


And finally, I need to give credit for these ideas to the blog at Littlest Learners because her blog has been very useful to me for these ideas and I LOVE her ideas for the classroom.

I've still got it...

Well, I think it has been MONTHS since I have scrapbooked but yesterday I realized I've still got it! LOL! I had a scrapping date with my friend Honeye and without her locking me into a date to scrap, I probably would not be posting this right now. I was able to get 4 layouts done, well one was a two pager. I'm trying to work on our Yosemite album. We went there for vacation LAST summer and I've never scrapped the pics until recently. I want to get them done before I forget what I was taking pictures of... yikes, I better get my wedding done then, as well! LOL!

Can I tell you how much I LOVE these papers??? Just loved the colors and I really like the way this page came out, given that Taylor is rubbing her eyes and it's not all THAT great of picture of all of us, who cares! Who takes a crawling baby to Yosemite for a week anyways? Crazy people do! Not to mention that this rock was really high up and I'm afraid of heights and just wanted to get DOWN!

These are of us at Yosemite Falls which was beautiful. Josh's parents watched Taylor while Josh, Madison and I hiked in on the rocks a little closer and got sprayed from the falls. That's what the arrow is pointing to... it's us!

Finally, these are pics of Madison and my Father-in-law washing the breakfast dishes. Madison was really excited about helping Grandpa wash the dishes.

I won't lie and say that I LOVED this vacation, but I did survive and I still do want my children to be able to look back on these pictures someday... but I did make my husband promise that we won't go back until our kids are able to do the hikes on their own. I think it would be much more fun because Yosemite really is beautiful!
Thanks for visiting!

Thanks for "popping" in!!

I haven't had much time to scrapbook and already the summer has flown by! I just can't believe how fast this time goes, every summer, same story! This is the first year that I think I am THIS excited about going back to school. I am moving to 1st grade this year (I've taught it before) and I CANNOT WAIT!!!!!!! I didn't mind teaching 6th grade, don't get me wrong, but if I had my choice, 1st grade is where my heart is! I am sooooooo excited! Soooooo... instead of scrapping lately, I've been working on things for my classroom... they still involve paper, of course! On the Friday before school starts, we have a 3 hours block of time where the students and their families can come see the classroom and meet their teachers. We haven't done this in the past so it is new for us this year, because of ALL the changes in the district. Anyways, I decided to make these and put them on the students' desks. It is a bag of microwave popcorn. I think they came out cute! I can't wait to meet my future students and hopefully have a WONDERFUL year!!! Thanks for visiting!!!

Sometimes you just have to try!!!

As most of you know, I'm about to embark on my 1st half-marathon. My husband, Uncle Dick and I will be running the Rock n Roll in San Diego. We fell off the training bandwagon but we tried to pull it together in the end. We have 4 hours to finish 13.1 miles. It should be doable but I'm nervous as hell!!! Yep, I said that! I hope that it will be more on the fun side than the painful, miserable side but I really have no idea what to expect. This is something that I have been wanting to do ever since my cousin lost her sweet daughter Ravyn to cancer last year. I am running, in part, for her tomorrow! For both Ravyn who had to leave this Earth FAR too early at the age of 7 and Kathy, my cousin, because her strength through this all has been amazing to me. Tomorrow is also exactly one year to the day that we lost my Aunt Amy to cancer. Even in her fifties, it was an unfair loss. She still had so much life to enjoy and grandbabies to play with. We miss her! Finally, this particular run benefits the Leukemia and Lymphomia Society and this year my cousin, Alison was diagnosed with Lymphomia. She is the reason I signed up for this race. At 25, she is an amazing person and handled this diagnosis like a champ! She is running the relay tomorrow! The relay is with 4 people for the full marathon. They each run between 4-8 miles each. My cousin Alana and her husband, Tim are running legs of the relay too! I'm excited to take on this adventure with them and for a good cause. Everyone knows someone who has been impacted by cancer but this is my turn to give a half-marathon a try! Night all! 3:30 am will come early!

Like Mother like Daughter...

I have been trying to post this picture FOREVER on my blog but life has just been FAR too busy lately and I haven't even been at the scrappin' table in what feels like months. But being that today is Mother's Day, I figured that I just HAD to get this one posted today because this blog is all about how I LOVE PAPER!!!! This seems to have been a trait that I have passed along to my oldest daughter Madison. She appears to have more fun tearing apart the paper in her coloring books, rather than coloring in them. At first I didn't mind... then I got REALLY annoyed with the constant piles of torn up paper laying around the house... finally, I have accepted the fact that she is just like ME!!! She just loves paper. Whether she is coloring it, cutting it, painting on it, or tearing it... so I will continue to clean up after her messes... while blaiming myself. LOL!

Happy Mother's Day to all the fabulous Mom's out there and especially my own!!! She is truly amazing and I am so thankful for our close relationship. Josh made a full spread for a late breakfast for my sister, my mom and I this morning. Of course all the kids and my Dad were there too! And did I mention the Chandon... FABULOUSNESS with fabulous company! I hope that your day was just as wonderful and that I will be back to share some layouts with you all very soon!

Spring Break Accomplishments

It's my Spring Break from work... well, it's actually almost over. We spent a week up in San Jose visiting my In-laws but we are back home now. I'm sure that you will be seeing plenty of pictures from that trip soon enough as I have already ordered the prints (thanks to Snapfish having a great deal) and will be scrapping them soon enough. For me, as you've probably heard me say before, I measure the success of a vacation or weekend by how many pages I get scrapped. LOL! Well, here are the two that I just finished. I still have one more day off (tomorrow) and with any luck, there will be more to share.

First is this layout, which is for my In-laws album. More left-over Bo Bunny papers!! The pictures are of my In-laws and Maddie making Candy Cane cookies. If you haven't had them, they are DELICIOUS but I don't cook/bake (if I don't have to) so I leave this part to them, and my husband. Margaret (my Mother-in-Law) bought Madison this cute purple apron and they had a great time baking. Steve just came in to steal a cookie. I always see people adding the little dots to their lettering and so I decided to try it on this layout (which I will refer to as an lo for now on, for those of you who don't scrap).



These next pictures are from June 2007 when Madison was 13 months old. Josh is a HUGE San Francisco Giants fan so for Father's Day I took Madison to get her picture taken in this Giants outfit. I also did this lo in Giants' colors. Josh loved it... I think it's just okay, because I'd rather it be PADRES!!!!!!!!! LOL!



I love when I get some pictures from the past done. I have SOOOOOO many pictures to scrap so when I can get some pages done I feel a sense of accomplishment. Did I mention that my mom took Madison to the movies?? Only having 1 kid at home helped too! Josh is building and installing a new garage door at my parents house yesterday and today... he's never done this before... let's hope it all works out. I tried to help today, but I was useless. Crossing my fingers for a successful, WORKING garage door at the end of this. Thanks for visiting!