Just a couple of quick notes...

It's been very crazy around here lately. For the last 3-4 weeks, Steve's been working 20+ hour days. This trend of longer days has really been going on for 4 months now (12-14 hr days). It's been rough on him and everyone else. It's been awhile since I've had to be the single parent so it's taken me a couple of weeks to get in the groove. The girls - not so much. Annde's been upset more (more tantrums at night when Steve isn't home) and Meg cries/won't be put down by Steve when she does get to actually see him. Me - I am doing my best to roll with it. It's hard, to say the least.

I want to thank the officer who pulled Steve over this morning on his way home. Yes, this morning. Steve left for work on Wednesday at 5am. Steve came home from work this morning at 5:30am. He dropped off a co-worker at a hotel and was making a (what he now knows is an illegal) u-turn around a center median when he got pulled over. He explained the situation to the officer, who thankful let him go with a warning. It would have made an already bad day even worse. Luckily, Steve got home and went straight to bed.

So - since I have been resuming my role of Super Mom, my scrapbooking has somewhat fallen to the wayside. I did pick up this cute Mom Calendar at CVS for $8 (for 1.5 years!!) to replace my bigger calendar, which was too big for my purse now. (Thanks to Katy for hosting that purse party - I LOVE my new 31 purse!!) I love that it has a removable cover insert that I can scrap book and the whole calendar has a plastic case to protect it! Here's my first cover... obviously it will change when I get bored. I scrapbooked over the insert (folded over frame) so I can replace the pictures whenever I want with new ones, without impacting my layout. The back also has a envelope for paper so I just slid a solid piece of the black flower paper in to complete the look.

Looking forward to the weekend! We have the Ghost Ship Barry (The Navy Yard turns the Display Ship Barry into a haunted house for kids (2 levels of scaryness for different ages) on Friday, Cosmic Bowling and Soccer on Saturday, Trick-r-Treating with the Rashids on Sunday and the Annde gets 2 days off for parent teacher conferences... Yikes! I hope she does well...

Plus - it's only 2 weeks until Meghan turns one! How you resist this cute little giraffe?!?!In case you were wondering, the comb was to comb the mane of the giraffe but Meghan wanted to play with it instead of letting Annde comb it.

Have a good day! My hubby is up so I am going to go smile and chat with him!

GOAL!!! (and a few pages...)

So, Annde is still learning the basics of the sport but we were so excited that she had a breakaway goal this week! She tried really hard the WHOLE game (for the first time ever) - no picking grass, no daydreaming or trotting behind the pack until she could be substituted out.

Before the game, we had team pictures. Yes, I bought them. Yes, they are overpriced. But, how cute is this girl?!?! (These were mine afterwards)

Here's her goal - look at that shy little smile on face as if she's realizing that it's going to go in. I was clapping too much afterwards to take a picture - wish I had. She was sooo excited this time.
I've also finished up a few more of the challenges over at Collections Coordinates. This one I did using the first Get Picky sketch - it's a new sketch site and I love what I've seen so far. The Challenge at CC was to use a quote in the title... I used the song by JaneDear Girls called "Wildflowers"...
This one I did with Annde. She picked out the materials and she drew the heart I stitched (thanks Crate Paper for that suggestion on your blog). We worked together to lay it out although I did all the actual work). I love the result!
That's it for now. I am working on a couple of mini books right now. Pictures to come once I'm done! 2 lucky people in my life will be getting these mini-books in the mail within the next couple of weeks...

Cyber Crop at Coordinates Collections & lots of pictures for Grandma!

I'm having fun this weekend playing at the Cyber Crop over at Coordinates Collections. I challenged myself - since it's a Friday night and I've been up since 4:30am to do a couple of layouts. I hope to finish the challenges later on this weekend.

So, here's the first two:

This challenge was to use 5 different patterned papers (of 3 different manufacturers). I wanted the page to stay simple so that the pictures would really stand out since they were so dark. I like the mixture of colors and the simplicity in the embellishments.

The next page is a page to document Meghan's trip home from the hospital. I wanted these to go side-by-side in the album so I had to try and fit all the pictures on one page. That worked well with the second challenge I completed, Use 6 pictures in a layout. I've really noticed that lately my pages are taking on a cleaner look - maybe the days of Jana's 10 pound pages are gone... :)

Then I noticed that my scrap idea notebook was out of pages so I whipped together a new one with scraps from Basic Grey's Indian Summer collection (and a bit of other stuff)... I think I will take out some thread and stitch around the edge of the pink paper to finish the look off a bit more. I have to sew that button back on Steve's shirt anyway... :)
And lastly, because Mom doesn't have Facebook, here's some cute grandkid pictures for you! Meghan is walking all over now - not much knee walking anymore. Look out! The kid can easily take anything off the table or countertop now if it's near the edge. Dad learned when Meg took his Mt. Dew away... HA!

This was one of my favorite pictures! I love her expression here... Plus, you can't see it but Meghan now has 8 teeth! (4 top, 4 bottom)... Dad rode the "cow train" with the girls. I love the fact that he made the effort to fit as you can see below... definitely not made for 6'6!
One of the best parts of a pumpkin patch on a farm is the corn maze - this one was pretty neat too!
Here's some cute pictures of the girls in the patch!


A few more pics from the day before at the Burke Fall Festival:... and after MSU destroyed UM on the football field....


I can't believe this baby is almost 1 year old! It doesn't seem like she's been with us that long but we are glad she has... I can't imagine life with out our little chatty, walking, and always happy NutMeg!

A sneak peek in time

It was a long weekend, with plenty of fun, and plenty of parenting. Here's two bright spots and I'll fill in the rest later. :)

And now a visual treat - Annde's Mad Hulla-hooping skills:




And Meghan's walking skills