Happy Halloween

I made these tags at Archivers on Saturday for Nik’s class. I borrowed the Stampin’ Up stamps from my sister.
And here are the assembled bags.

Layouts of the Day

Here are the first two of the eleven layouts I was able to finish at the crop at Archivers. Jen, my good friend from high school adopted her son around the same time Nikolas was born. In fact, their birth dates are exactly one month apart. They enjoy spending playdates and birthdays parties together. Here are two layouts from pictures taken of them this summer.

Family Weekend

What a fun (and exhausting) weekend we had! Friday night was the trunk or treat party at church and although the rain almost ruined the “trunk” part, Nikolas still had a fun time—eating treats, playing games and trunk-or-treating.
Saturday my sister and brother-in-law treated Nikolas to the Haunted Forest Walk. Gary and I went along and weren’t too surprised that Nik got scared. We took a hayride from the parking lot to the forest.

Once we got into the forest, Nikolas had Gary hold him—and poor Uncle Todd had to lead the way (because Aunt Mary volunteered him as monster bait). They passed out “power rings" to all the little kids to ward off the ghoulish creatures.

Immediately after, Nikolas said he didn’t want to go there ever again—but then on Sunday, he had a change of heart and started to tell us all about the plans he has for those guys next year (and how I have to bring paper along so he can draw pictures of all the monsters).

After being spooked, Mary & I headed to Archivers to scrapbook. I will be posting some of the layouts I finished soon.

On Sunday, we headed out with Gary’s family to have a family photo taken. This was part of a belated present to my MIL. After the photo shoot, we went back to MIL’s to celebrate our nephews 15th birthday.

Read This

I finished Peter and the Secret of Rundoon last night. It was brilliant—5stars. Check out my review at Goodreads.

Next up--Alice in Wonderland to prep for The Looking Glass Wars and sequel.

Coordinates Collections challenge

Here is a note card (front and inside) I created for a blog challenge on Coordinates Collections. The challenge was to post a project made using supplies from this month’s kit. This is from the Edgar Allan Poe kit. I didn’t think I would ever use the owl and bird featured on the shimmering Screen Prints pattern paper on a scrapbook page.

I discovered the CC website this summer. I love the monthly kits they offer. They are great for some one like me, who loves to scrapbook but has trouble picking supplies that look great together. I enjoy getting paper/accents that I know I would never purchase on my own. It provides a great challenge to use them. They also have a great forum community that feels like having cyber coffee with girlfriends.

Boo at the Zoo

We headed over to Brookfield Zoo on Saturday for their special Boo at the Zoo event. Nikolas, dressed as Scooby Doo, enjoyed playing games, making a scarecrow, playing with Fisher Price toys and kicking a soccer ball with a Chicago Storm player.

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Still swimming after 11 years

Since I have to work Saturday night, we went out Friday night to celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary. We had dinner at Islamorada Fish Company restaurant in Bass Pro shop.

After dinner we walked around the store because Nikolas loves to see all the animals
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When we got back home we played several rounds of Disney DVD Bingo.

Name that blog

Of course, I wanted to come up with a creative, interesting, and humorous name for this blog. But entering the universe this late in the game, all of the really good ones were taken. So, I went with the inside joke…very, very inside. But if you’ve known me for more than a decade, you should be able to figure it out.

Meet the Author:

• Wife of Gary
• Stay-at-home mom to Nikolas (age 5) and Chewy (mixed breed dog)
• Scrapbooker
• Part-time employee of the best bookstore in the world! Which automatically makes me a...
• Bibliophile, specializing in children's books
• Walt Disney World fan
• Book reviewer for Marriage Partnership magazine
• Nesting doll collector
• Christian
• Christmas music connoisseur
• Butterfly fan
• Halloween lover
• Olympic napper

Top 5 reasons I’ve started a blog:

1. Another attempt to journal regularly. Hopefully this one will stick.

2. A place to let family and friends know what’s going on with us.

3. A place to post pictures, scrapbooking layouts and son’s art work.

4. A place to keep track of progress on my “Before I turn 40…” goals.

5. ….everyone else is doing it??