I would absolutely never EVER wear shoes if I didn’t have to. I totally love that in the summer I can go barefoot as much as possible and when I do have to wear shoes I can just slip on flipflops. I love that I can slip out of them real quick to chase kids through the yard. And finally after all these years, Jade has finally developed a love for flipflops as well. She wants them in all the colors of the rainbow to match her outfits. Seeing those cute little piggies in flipflops, nails painted “herself” of course, that makes me happy. Oh sunflowers, dont sunflowers make everyone happy? You just look at them and smile. These sunflowers are special, they wern’t planted by us. The were planted by the birds, I guess, from all the seeds falling out of the bird feeder. But gosh, they sure are beautiful and tall. It was certainly a plesant surprise to look out there one day and see these growing. The birds did such an awesome job except they also planted corn in with the sunflowers, lol. Jade decided last night that it was time to l earn to ride a bike without training wheels. I never thought this day was going to come. Before this she was just SO not interested. Of course I had to grab the camera and take it out with me (always thinking of layout ideas). I got some great shots, can’t wait to scrap them! Anyways, Jade did really good. Yes she crashed some but she got right back up and tried again. I was so proud of her. She says we are “practicing” again tonight. Pretty soon she’ll be zipping through the yard like Joey.

I am having SO MUCH fun competing in the Last Scrapper Standing contest on The Effers blog. The layout of Joe (Tough?) is the one I did for the first weeks challenge – all
journaling on a pic. Of course, once Joe saw this layout he rolled his eyes, lol. I LOVE this pic of him that Jen took. I love how you can see his tattoo right beside the stuffie he’s holding. It just captures “him” to a T.

This weeks challenge was a little harder for me. We had to use 13 pics on one layout. Wow, what a challenge for someone who is use to showcasing one pic per layout. But this is what I came up with, a sun. And 13 pics of my kids as “beams” coming out from the sun. I sang “You are my sunshine” to my kids when they were babies so I thought this was fitting. Now when I say I worked on this layout for hours I mean it, literally HOURS. I was happy with it but then just wasn’t quite sure if it was what they would be lookign for. They said BE CREATIVE and I think this qualifies as creative. I’m pretty happy with it.

I totally am in LOVE with my camera I got for my birthday. It’s a Canon Powershot S2….LOVES IT!!!! My family is a little worn out with me playing with it, lol, but hey..I have to figure all the bells and whistles out right? I love the quality of pictures it takes, the color is amazing. I think I need to take everyone out in a nice nature setting and take some portraits to really see how it does. But I might have to wait until I get my tripod for that one.

I love the innocence of children. Yesterday we were driving to Clearfield and Jade said “Look, someone is putting all those rocks in the river

and making the river stop”. Joe explained to her that we need rain and the water is low. She then said “Yes we do need rain, all the water is leaving the river”. That sure is a scrapbook moment!

I am so excited for Fall, I can’t hardly wait much longer to put out my decorations. I love burning candles, breathing the crisp autumn air, driving when the leaves are falling off the trees, canning season, craft shows, pumpkin patches and of course the Harmony Grange Fair.