We're Alive!!

I haven't posted in a while . . . I simply haven't had the time. In fact, I don't really have the time now so I won't journal much. I hope you can figure your way through my myriad of photos here. :) They aren't in order, so . . . good luck!

I will tell you that this summer we took a mini-vacation to Lake Lanier Islands Waterpark during Greg's birthday. I arranged to have cake and ice cream and balloons put in our room before we arrived to surprise Greg. It was great!

Also, as news: we are homeschooling the boys this year. So far, so good! I am so excited about it - still! :) This was not a decision we made lightly, and we feel very confident that this is right for our family for right now.

K, let the show begin:

Liv is wearing a bookmark on her head. Josh on the waterslide.
Greg
My boys in the wave pool.
Liv got tangled up with Greg's birthday balloons. :)
Josh doing a cannonball off a "jumping rock" at an indoor pool.
Calvin's first day wearing his Bear uniform for Scouts - yes, I need to sew his Wolf patch on!
Calvin on the waterslide.

At the beach

Josh found some great bubbles at the sink one day and made some bubble soup for us.
Night at Stone Mountain.
Our sky during a lightning storm
Greg's birthday surprise.
Just chillin' at the kiddie pool while the boys played on the waterslides


Do you see that mittle stick figure on Liv's forehead?? Josh told me that SHE did that all by herself. She is so talented!

More at the beach
Look at the poor tree on the right . . . we had to say goodbye to our two trees this year. I will post an "after picture" later.
Liv's new funny face.
Liv's one-year photo



Liv's birthday balloons - each year we blow up balloons and leave them on the bedroom floor of the birthday person the night before their birthday. That way, they wake up to a colorful floor decoration. Of course, we only put Liv's balloons in her crib AFTER she woke up. :)

Every child's dream play!!
Hello down there!!

Josh's Field Day

Josh saw me coming from across the playground and ran to meet me. It was such an awesome sight!!

Josh made chicken soup . . . they threw rubber ducks into a bucket! ha ha.

Mother's Day

josh was trying to catch the kite's tail

check out the look on his face . . . and ignore the grass in the background. greg cut the yard, but neglected the "pond" this time around.

calvin is trying to catch the kite's tail

So, I made some fun this Mother's Day. The wind was really ripping outside, so we took out our only kite and made it fly. The clouds were soo pretty!

Gotta love Veggie Tales!!

My favorite scrapbook pages

Only a select few of you will want to see all of these photos. For the rest . . . don't even bother scrolling down. :) lol
Please note: I am a great copycat. I come up with very few of my own ideas. I can't take credit for many of these layouts, but I CAN take credit for the really cute kids pictured on each page.
Also, I am very behind on my books, which will explain the absence of Liv's pages. :) LOVE this page - all from scratch. I made the curtains out of velum, and you can actually "lift" them up to see the window better



nothing special about the layout, just thought i would share some joshie pics.

love the page - it soo fits josh! "A Joshiesaurus is . . ."

if you are able to read the journaling . . . that is my joshie!

just thought the photo was too cute not to share. :) got the letters for the title from HN's sizzix!! Man, I miss that thing. :)

love the page - - now to add the photos!

got the idea from creative memories. i used velum for the letters spelling "ICE"

love the stickers on the side bar.

Dino-mite Uncle was a great title for Uncle Matt - what a stud he is. :)

this one took a while - c built a tower out of videos . . . the page is covered in little construction stickers. it took a while to do, but i think it turned out nicely.






i have always liked clean lines, and thought this page "fit" together nicely





what good brothers they are :) i used two-tones circles at the top of the page




the paper behind this page looks like a terry cloth towel - very cool.

like the right page - idea came from creative memories

left page shows what Aunt Nanny can do with my boys and markers - if you zoom in to Calvin's back you will see that Jan wrote the word "turd" on there. Hmmm.

i had no idea how to jazz up those photos - no real theme and no stickers to add, so i punched a bunch of dots and there ya go.

love the stickers - used CM square punch to make the little box frames

this one is one of my mostest favorite pages - doesn't even need journaling

My first "real" page done - Josh's first girl scout cookie






each year on Labor Day our stake hosts "Family Day at the temple - the temple opens on Monday just for our stake. That way we can "labor" for our families. It is awesome! i had to do a page for each boy's book, and these are the two formats i came up with for the same photos this is a different year - my favorite photo is on the right page, top left. the sun's rays were just perfect as the boys walked up together

This page isn't really that great, but the idea behind the activity IS! I boiled several boxes of spaghetti noodles in colored water and put them all in a small swimming pool. Added a slide and some kids, and we had a great time!!

we spent thanksgiving at the fire station that year

calvin's first fishing trip. greg still needs to journal that page.

Festival Days!

Our city's annual festival happened recently! Yay - we always love it. We didn't go to the parade this year, but had a good time (free time) just the same.

You see that Josh had no problem doing flips on the bungy . . . he even had a cheering squad. Some people were standing outside the fence cheering him on and giving him tips. They were cute - no idea who they were.

Calvin, on the other hand . . . . had a cheering squad; his brother and cousin. "Do a FLIP!!" they yelled. Calvin said that he could feel the "throw up" in this throat and tried to keep it down the best he could. He didn't think the bungy was as fun as Josh did. ha ha. Poor kid!

STRAWBERRY TIME!!

So, Greg picks 5 gallons of strawberries so that I will have something to can.
I, in turn, tell my dear "old" friend that she will learn to make strawberry jelly this year (actually, I told her that she would learn to make it last year but we were too busy having babies to make jelly). :)

It becomes a family affair.
Here's the breakdown of responsibility:
The moms wash and stem the berries
The children get the juice out of the berries (amid "boyish" comments about the juice looking gruesome)
The moms cook the jelly and fill the jars
The dads screw the lids onto the jars and moved them to the table to cool

Four batches of jelly later but still more juice to go, we call it a night.

This is the good life, people!
Now, this is no special jelly recipe, but I think I will enter the jelly into the county fair this year. I don't expect to win by any stretch of the imagintation, but at least I can say that I entered the county fair! lol.