of dishwashing duty

So I finally have my boys in a dish washing routine. Daniel does dishes one week and Duncan does it the next. I was thinking of having them do as we did growing up, with each of us taking a job in the kitchen each evening. There was four of us so Mum had us 1. washing, 2. drying, 3. clearing the table, and 4. sweeping the floor. Having my three kids in the kitchen trying to work around each other sounded like a recipe for disaster, not to mention I've always been a big believer in air drying. I read somewhere, once, that dish clothes have been found to be the dirtiest household items (in terms of quantity of germs). Haven't dried a dish since.

Having someone else take over the dishwashing chore means I have more time to scrap. Even if I have to do the pots and pans left to 'soak' and wipe everything down, after the boys have finished.
Here's a layout I just finished for Unforgettable Memories.

I love how this following layout turned out. And it took about 5 minutes to put together. I used a Basic Grey chipboard piece that I had popped the snowflake out of and 'Frosty' Glimmer Mist for my background. Some scraps of SEI patterned papers left over from the layouts I've been working on this past week. I'm loving the lacy diecut from my Revolution; have used it on a half dozen layouts in the last couple of months. The chipboard circles, tag and ribbon are all SEI. I used some Kaiser pearls to embellish the chipboard.

Of lasagne and that double pager I promised

So I guess I'll be eating lasagne leftovers for the next few lunches. Rick saw me getting ready to cook dinner this evening and noticed the spinach thawing on the counter. "You're not putting spinach in our lasagne are you?" he asked. I always mix spinach in with the middle cottage cheese layer. "Fine! I'll just put it in half the lasagne and you can eat from the other 'spinach free zone' half," I told him...
Dinner's cooked and I'm dishing up and all of a sudden spinach is a big deal to EVERYONE. So half the lasagne is gone and the other half, with the 'green boogers' in the middle, is now in the fridge ready for me to take for work lunches.

I did get a double page layout done. I used the Becky Higgins sketch from this months CK. What a great way to use all the little 2" x 3" photos Breanna and I had developed. I did this one for my LSS, Unforgettable Memories.

Where are the two pagers?

I always do at least as many two pagers as single pagers, but lately it seems I have the photos for just one 12 x 12 layout. I've been going through my older photos (not that I don't have enough recent ones to scrap) and I'm finding single photos with a story that I want to get in my albums... And they just seem to get done quicker.
I've also been working on my Scrapmap challenges. Just one more Canadian Province to do and then we're heading down in to the USA.

For the Nova Scotia challenge we were supposed to be 'Artsy' so I sprayed on Glimmer mist and the red Maya Rds spray. Punched out a few butterflys and cut the flower out of a coordinating paper. Everything is SEI except the title which is one of the Thickers alphas.

This is the PEI Scrapmap challenge over at ScrapCentralThe instructions were to use water pictures with a multicoloured title. There are 3 ghost flowers on there.(one's on the title)They show up much better IRL.

I just love this photo of Breanna. I've already scrapped it once and now I'm doing it again with not one picture, but four identical photos all on the same layout. I did this one for my LSS, Unforgettable Memories.

Found these older photos of Duncan on the boys' Honda 50 and had to scrap them. He had so much fun on it, bombing around the yard and in the field behind us. For the New Brunswick challenge the instructions were to use their logo as inspiration; thus the curves from the edge of the pp. And we had to use a song title or lyrics on the page.

Another older photo. Breanna was about 4 here and we were hiking a HUGE hill. She was such a little trooper. I didn't have to carry her at all! I think her Daddy carried her most of the way back down :) This one was for Unforgettable Memories also.

Another Scrapmap challenge. Ontario is the province we're scrapping today. The theme was travel and/or a place you've been("Is There Any Other Place You'd Rather Be?"). I know I spelled Niue wrong ~ I've got it fixed now.

I have a couple of double pagers in the works so maybe I'll have something else to post tomorrow.

Of hearts and butterflies

It's Valentines day. Breanna had to wear new earings in honour of the day. They say Love with a heart for the O. She's off to a sleepover birthday tonight and guess what she got for a gift? Earings! Claires is officially her favourite store right now.

I scrapped last night. This is for the Quebec challenge at ScrapCentral
We had to use vibrant colours which I think this Rouge de Garance certainly is. And at least 3 hearts. The hearts and butterflies are K & Co. We also had to use a foreign word on the page ~ thus the French title.

Of Vacations and scrapbooking.

Victoria was loads of fun. We had dinner with my brother and his wife the first night. We ate gluten-free spaghetti. It is rather 'gluey'. LOL. After dinner we played a version of the Lewall's favourite card game 'Oh Hell'.
My Aunt and Uncle came over the next evening for dinner. It was lovely to see them. I don't think we've seen them since Breanna was a baby.
We took lots of Kona walks along the sea trails and dog parks. Didn't do much shopping, though we stopped at Old Navy on the way to the airport yesterday and grabbed a couple fleece hoodys and t-shirts for the boys. The hoodys were on sale for $6.97 ~ can't beat that. Though Duncan was perturbed to find his hoody didn't have a hood.
Mum showed us a fun little flip book she had made in a class so we dropped by Michaels the first day, to buy the supplies to make our own. Breanna and I both used one for our trip photos. Here's the front of mine.

Here are the inside pages. Lots of handwritten journaling. The photos we got developed at Walmart in a 2" x 3" size. Some we still cropped, but the small size was perfect for our mini albums.
This is a view from the top. You can see how the top pages go left and the bottom pages go right.
Breanna is supposed to wait another week before she takes her studs out, but she has been so good at cleaning her ears twice a day and has had no trouble with infections so this morning she decided to try some dangly earings on. Aren't they pretty?
She's wearing the new t-shirt she bought herself at Old Navy.

Of Glitter and little girls

Breanna and I are heading out to the airport in an hour. We're flying to Victoria to visit with Mum and Dad.

I found these two old photos of Breanna posing in the garden. She is so cute at 4 smiling for the camera. And then again at 7 having fun beside Rick's fish pond.

I just bought these two butterfly punches. Breanna loves them as much as I do. You should see her science fair project. There are glittery butterflys fluttering all across her backboard!
The patterned papers are Rouge de Garance ~ some new stuff from Unforgettable Memories. The glitter paper is Doodlebug. I covered the Maya Rd chipboard trees with two different pp, sanded the edges and then decorated with the mini butterflies.
The flowers are punched from the same glittery paper with my Quickutz and I put a brad that coordinates with the paper line, through the center of each.

Better finish packing :)

Of X-box 360s and cardmaking with the girls

I had a pretty lazy weekend. The kids have been pooling their money and saving for an Xbox 360. They finally got enough to buy one and so we went down on the weekend and got it. Rick said he'd buy the 3rd controller so they could all play together, and he'd buy them one game (the two that came with it were 'baby' games according to my boys). I don't think Rick realized how much it would cost ;) So that kept my boys busy and out of my hair for the rest of the weekend. Daniel spent a long time figuring out how to use our baby laptop to get the Xbox online so they could play with their friends.
Breanna had a sleepover at her friends, next door. They came over to our house just after lunch and skated on the rink for an hour. Then they came in for hot chocolate and saw my scrapping stuff all over the table. Breanna thought it would be fun to join me so the girls all made a couple of Valentines cards each, before heading out to the rink for another hour of skating. Here's our Creative mess.

The skating rink is open for business.

Breanna has been itching to get out there, but it's just been too cold. It warmed up over the past week, and she's out there every chance she can get. I took some pictures after work, Thursday. It was getting dark so they aren't that great. I think there's some tricks to taking photos with all that snow and ice ~ and I need to learn them.

The ice is pretty bumpy and lumpy, but Breanna still managed to do some 'tricks' without falling too often. She has a wicked bruise on one elbow from falling. That hasn't stopped her wanting to get out there.

One of Breanna's friends brought her skates over, and Tikanii decided he wanted in on the fun too. He had a little trouble keeping all four paws going in the same direction on the ice, but he was so happy to be outside and have someone out there with him he kept trying to keep up.
Tag's always fun! Not sure how Breanna managed to stay on her feet after this one, but she did :)
A spin and a flourish to finish it off.


I also participated in a 5 for 5 challenge at ScrapCentral.ca. Just like in CK :) Melissa sent 5 of us an envelope with 5 items; acrylic journaling spot, glitter flower, grunge arrow, pink ribbon and a page from a spiral journaling book.

I love butterflys. Just picked up this butterfly punch at Unforgettable Memories and couldn't wait to try it out.