Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Wow - it's been a while since I updated my blog. I'll try to keep this bullet pointed!

• I have a new blog for those that are interested - it's called A Blessing Each Day and is my attempt at improving my photography skills using my Christmas gift from hubby - a Nikon D60 DSLR! it hasn't been updated either, but I have taken a picture every day, and just need to upload them.
  
• We just returned home from our Christmas Camping Trip - which took place after Christmas this year. We left on the 26th and returned home today. Our intention was to go to Bonham State Park, but when we got there, picked a spot, and started to set up, we realized there was no water and no one there to help us! So, we packed up and headed for Cooper Lake State Park - where we had water and sewer (ahhh)! Heehee Had an incredible time and took a 2 mile hike one day, geocached one day, and spent one day looking for herbs to remedy a cold I was coming down with. I tend to run from sinus infection into full blown brochitus, so we needed to do something quick. I'm happy to announce that today I'm 95% better! We also spent a lot of time playing Clue and Are You Smarter than a 5th grader - two games our children got for Christmas.
  
• We had an incredible Christmas. How was yours? My parents and sister came over on Christmas morning and we spent a wonderful time together opening presents and eating, and playing games. They had to leave early when my Mema was being taken from the nursing home to a local hospital because she seemed out of sorts. She's 91 years old, so that is understandable. They sent her home that night after diagnosing a UTI and rehydrating her.
• My dad is starting to breathe again! He's on a newish medication, that without my mom's insurance, would cost them $8,930 per month (and is instead costing $12). Is it outrageous to anyone but me that they can charge this much for meds?! Anyway, they are helping and we are praising the Lord! He was actually able to lay down in bed for 2 hours. He's been sleeping, sitting, resting, and otherwise doing EVERYTHING in a recliner for a month now!
• Scrap Matters is gearing up for a great year of more incredible digi scrapping challenges. These ladies are awesome (owner, designers, creative team, scrap matters gang, and all the ladies that make it a great digi home). Check it out - Scrap Matters.
• And I'm gung ho - fired up - to declutter! I've joined the classes at Christian-homemaking.com and am doing the Desperate Declutter Boot Camp. Why? Because I'm desperate! I've gathered my supply list of needed items and am on fire!
• Does the New Year fire you up? It does me! There is something fresh about the New Year that gets me set up to make some wonderful changes in my life. More on those to come.
• I'm going to be spending on Thursday with my Heavenly Father. Big P set up the camper right outside and I'll get some time to go out there all by myself with nothing by my Bible, a big box of Kleenex, and some devotionals. I'm excited to see what God has for me as a wife and mother this year.

That's about it from me. Not sure how much I'll be posting over the next week or two. The decluttering challenge is 6 weeks long (I have 5 weeks left - the first week is a prep week).

*******UPDATE******** - I couldn't keep up posting on the Blessing Each Day blog and will shut it down eventually.

Digi Scrapping is Devine

Have I told you lately that I love digi scrapping? Ooooh, I do!

With our break this week, and in between cleaning sessions and loving on the littles, I've been able to get some things done. I have a total of 5 pages done in B.4.B.s album. I'm working on the pages for the next layout - pages 6 and 7.

I really love 2 page spreads. They are just my favorite to work on. I think this is why I love Yin's templates and I found a site that has a ton of 2 page sketches (click on the right sidebar where it says 2 page sketches). I think that it is so much easier for the layout to flow, the colors, etc.

I'm really trying to stick to a color scheme throughout this album, but finding it more challenging than I thought it would be. I thought it would be easier, but it is making things go a bit slower, so I think I'm going to throw caution to the wind and just do whatever! I'm sticking with oranges and blues - because he loves orange so much - but I'm not going to do all the same orange and blue.

Also, I placed my order for my Missouri album pages directly through Scrapbooks to Share on Friday. Even with the holiday, I had them on Tuesday!!! I'm simply thrilled with how they turned out. The colors are vibrant and they were very inexpensive. They are laser printed on cardstock - so they look great and will last a very long time (more than likely longer than a photo), but they are stiff and are more like a traditional scrapbook page.

Big P will be getting up soon, so I better finish up my kitchen org project so that we can work on getting ready for our camping trip. We will leave tomorrow around noon. B.4.B. is so excited. It's been a bit cool here, because of Gustov, but I think we'll still plan to go swimming. High is 87 - now we're getting into my kind of weather. This weekend I won't be scrappin' of course, but I'll be taking tons of pics to scrap. :)

Our vacation: Day 2

Don't have a whole lot of time right now. My entire dining room table is covered with school books that need to be put onto shelves and breakfast is ready. I have a nursing baby on my lap, though - which is the only reason I'm sitting down.

I'm trying to figure out how to do put all of Day 2's photos into a photostream on flickr. And I was just looking at them, I discovered that Big P has a ton of photos on his phone - so I'm going to ask him to upload those today.

On Day 2 we spent almost the entire day at The Passion Play. Our first even there was the New Holy Land tour and that was at 10:00. Rebecca (our GPS), took us down a very weird way to the grounds and thus we were late. This was literally the wildest road! There were people that lived down there, but it wasn't really paved at all. It made our road to our home look like the highway! We passed some people and asked them if we could get there on that road. They said we could and that the view was beautiful. They were right!!

We were able to get on the next tram ride for the tour.

Later that afternoon, in between doing things on the grounds, we went into Eureka Springs. Rebecca, once again, got us around the "locals" and we got views of beautiful homes built into the sides of mountains and very small backyards with very big houses! It was really incredible. We visited the railroad there. As Big P was driving by he said "oh no", knowing that the little boys would see the train and want to check it out closer. So, we pulled in and checked it out. It was great. They had one of those rairoad turnstile things, many train cars, an engine and caboose. All for free. Big P tried to leave a donation because we had taken a mini field trip, but they wouldn't accept it!

Oh, I have to mention that we happened upon all of this while looking for a coffee shop. Eureka Springs does not have a Starbucks, that we could find!

On the way home from the play that night, we were driving and heard something hit the van. Pete thought it was a rock, but I knew it wasn't unless someone had thrown it at the van. Sure enough, he pulled over and found that we had been attacked by a pink paintgun! (You are probably thinking at this point that I must have had a whole lot more time than I originally said in the beginning of my post. NOT! I saved and am resuming this post now!). Big P was going to play Commando and went back to look for the guys (assuming here! why would they choose pink?) that did it. He got out this HUGE flashlight and starts looking all over the place. I couldn't help but laugh. He's been hit by one of those things before (and was a Marine - I know once a Marine, always a Marine!) but wanted to scare the bejivvies (his word - not mine! Heehee) out of the guys. No luck - they were long gone or really quiet!

We then headed to the car wash - after asking "Rebecca" to find us one with no luck - there was one about 2 blocks down the road on the way back to the campsite! Hello!

A very full day indeed! We LOVED the Holy Land Tour, the sacred arts center, the Museum of Earth's History, the gift shops, and of course the Play! The buffet that night wasn't bad, either. y in-love's (mother and father) were the ones that blessed us with tickets to go to all of these things. We got a package deal and they took care of the bill. What a blessing!!!! Today is my mother-in-love's birthday! :)

I'm going to try to insert the pics here - let's see what happens.

Okay, coming back to this post and trying again. all books have been put away that were on dining room table! :)

Our vacation: Day 1

I wanted to post about the vacation that we just returned from. I'll probably only add a day at a time - for an 9 day vacation that may take me a while! LOL

Day 1 - we drove and drove, and drove, and DROVE some more!!!

When mapquest tells us that we will arrive somewhere in 7 hours and 58 minutes, we should just go ahead and plan for at least 10 hours. And that's about how long it took us. Actually, I think we made it in just under 12 hours! Hahahaha

We drove from Texas (northeast) to Eureka Springs, Arkansas via Oklahoma. We actually left the area (straight from the Walmart parking lot) around noon that first day. We arrived at the KOA in Eureka before midnight! Everyone was tired and we set up in the dark. Actually, Big P and the two oldest set up in the dark, while I sat in the car with the three youngest and tried to stay awake.

We are very thankful for our hardside RV, because it makes setting up so much easier and much less time consuming - a perfect thing when you are setting up camp 15 feet from your neighbor at midnight - with 5 children and a cranky mama! LOL

And, NO, we did not allow our 2 year old to sit without his carseat! LOL

Only $4 Short!

We are campers! We love camping and have for years. I have a whole scrapbook dedicated to our camping trips - really that album is just the beginning of our camping adventures - with more coming!

This weekend my parents went with us and camped out in the local hotel! They no longer have a camper or camping equipment and all the cabins were booked. We still had a great time, because they only slept in the hotel and spent the rest of the time with us.

On Saturday, we had a discussion with the older kids about their bike riding and not to come back separately again - they were to stay together and compromise on where they would go and what they would see. Big P warned that if they came back separately again, they wouldn't get back on their bikes for the weekend! Ouch!

Sunday came along and my mom and I were having a nice time visiting outside in the early morning. My dad had slept in. The big kids and B.3.5.B. wanted to take a trip down to the park store. They had some change and my mom gave them her change. They probably had about $2 in total. They wanted to get some treats to share. And off they went!

About 20 minutes later, P.8.P. came back saying "I'm not coming back separate, but I need to tell you. C and B are up at the park store and C wanted to get some treats for everyone, but we need some more money - we are 4 DOLLARS short!"

My mom and I immediately started CRACKING UP!!! I could hardly breathe I was laughing so hard and my mom was crying!!! We thought she was going to say 4 cents or 40 cents and I thought to myself that someone could have helped them out with that - but no, we were talking 4 BUCKS here!!!

When Big P started asking what they were buying, she made a list - "well, he got chips and bean dip for you dad, and a Mr. Goodbar for mom, and a peanut patty for Grandma..."

We asked what they were doing up there and she said "just waiting for me to come back with more money!"

All I could picture was these two poor children, no shoes, dirt all over their faces (probably from playing in it!) and this downtrodden look because they were too poor to buy JUNK FOOD!! LOL They did have shoes on (and socks for that matter), but I'm sure the rest was true to life!

Big P gave her a $10 bill, because that is the smallest bill he had and off she went. A little bit later, they came back with their bounty in hand. We started laughing all over again. I started snapping pictures as fast as I could - this was one for the blog and for the scrapbook!



So they started divvying up the treasure - Big P got a bag of Fritos and a can of bean dip (now we know where all the money went!), I got a Mr. Goodbar, my mom got a peanut patty, C.11.B. bought himself some SweetTarts, and P.8.G. got some Skittles. When I asked what they got for B.3.5.B., their eyes popped out of their heads and said "Oh, we forgot to get something for him!!" Hello - he was there the whole time. We found out later that while they were waiting at the counter, he was trying to pillage candy into his pockets!! They made sure it was returned before they left.



B.3.5.B. is trying to figure out where his goodies are! At least big brother shared!

Big P asked for his change, but there was little to be had - less than $2. Big P said "WHAT??? I gave you 10 dollars! Where is the rest?" This was the first I knew of the $10, because I was laughing too hard when he gave it to her to notice.

C.11.B. said in a most earnest voice "well, the total was $8.88." Come to find out, he hadn't used any of the change he had gone with. They just wanted to pay and get out of there. Apparently the park store cashier had been mean to them and impatient. Who could have done such a thing?! I think it was probably the cutest thing ever a boy and his little brother over to the side of the counter as new customers came in, too poor to pay for their food! LOLOLOL

He did tell us that 2 people tried to help him by asking if he needed any money and how much. The first person heard "we need $5" and quickly declined by saying "hmm, I wish I could help you" and they probably laughed all the way to their car! The second person asked if they could help and C.11.B. tried to make it sound better by saying "we need $4 or $5 dollars." Hmm, yea, that sounds much better!!!

And all the while, all Pete could say was "You didn't tell them you were homeschooled, did you????"

Looks like Mama needs to work on estimating cost and doing some practical math!




Most definitely joyfully busy at home,
Christine