weekend babble

It's a big weekend at my house!

This afternoon we are off to watch my neice perform "Good Ship Lollipop" in her tap recital. Excited and bummed at the same time, because I really wanted Morgan to do it but she was very anxious about performing in front of an audience so I withdrew her from tap back in April.

She'll do soccer in the fall instead, lol.

I still had to buy the costume. Anyone need a $60 costume? ack.

Tomorrow is an even bigger day. Steve is running his very first half-marathon. It's called the dirty half. He'll be running in terrain with hills and valleys. I am SO proud of him. He's been training a lot and has been totally fine, but he came home from work today with a belly full of butterflies. He's a bit nervous because he doesn't know what to expect. Completely understandable! So think of him tomorrow morning. His goal is to finish, not to win. A good goal for your first try. His race starts at 8:20am. They limited it to 800 entrants so they are encouraging carpooling as there isn't a lot of parking, so the girls and I will show up a little before 10 and hope to find a place to park and a spot to stand so we can cheer for him at the finish line.

After the race is done, we are hosting a surprise party for my father-in-law. He turns 70 next week but will be out of town. We're breaking out the beer cooler, so anticipate a fun afternoon, as long as it isn't RAINING. Good grief. I live in the high desert and we have been having intense thunderstorms and torrential downpours just about every day for the last week and a half. This is very abnormal for our area and I would like for it to just STOP already. So wish us luck. We don't really have seating for 30-40 people, and kids, should they all show up.

I did want to share my layout for the latest edition of True North Parenting magazine today, though. My article was focused on scrapbooking those 4th of July pics. If you are like me, you take a couple hundred, as it's a long day, and at least at my house, full of activiity. I did a two page layout highlighting the big events of the day. 7 photos! We usually do the pet parade in the morning, then head to Sunriver for the Fireman's picnic. Air Life lands in the middle of the festivities, which is very cool. They also have kid games, and then we head somewhere for a barbecue and fireworks. It's a long and fun day!

You can read that article here.



As you can see, I replicated an American flag in the design of this layout. I also did this on a layout in the July issue of Creating Keepsakes. I can't share it yet, but it was more shabby and very Betsy Ross, with hand stitching and ribbon for stripes.

True North did have a fun article on crafty projects for your kids. Check those out here. The underwater scene project reminds me of Eric Carle and the book Mister Seahorse. I'm a huge Eric Carle fan but somehow missed this book until we checked it out recently at our local library. My kids loved it so much we'll have to go out and buy that one. It would be fun to do the craft project and read the book too.

Another project in that kid craft article was the fireworks painting, which would be a great piece of artwork to decorate for the 4th. I did a similar project with my kids last year, you can see it here, and you can also see my project in the July issue of BHG.

It was a great month for me and my favorite magazines! BHG also has a very very very special layout to me that a certain step parent knows nothing about, and I am SO excited to send it to her as a surprise. It has my favorite photo of the two of them on their wedding day, and it got a big 'ole page of the magazine all to itself. SO excited about that.

Have a great Saturday! In the next edition of "Days of our Chickens" (omg, Lisa, I laugh every day because of that), I'll tell you about our coop..... and... Prince Lafawnda. I didn't realize how much of a resource I would be for raising chickens, so I'll do my best to do my duty and keep you edumacated. :)