Stop. Getting. Injured!

Look, I know that getting injured comes naturally to our family. I am constantly hitting my toes on one thing or another anytime I forget to wear slippers for even 5 minutes. I get that it's hard to avoid. But the sheer volume of serious injuries in our family this year are starting to get me down. First Trinity broke her wrist, then Dad's knee, then Trevor with his burn scare, it's just been quite ridiculous, even for us. And now Nicole has her foot in a boot and Dad's knee had a flare up.

Nicole is on fire with her impromptu acrobatics lately. She is always doing handstands and cartwheels, and even has her youngest son joining the act. A recent failed attempt left her in even more pain that she apparantly has been in the month since originally (and secretly) injuring her foot. Enough pain that she finally admitted there was a problem and went to visit the doctor, where she told him not to give her any bad news. On the up side it isn't broken, but there was bad news to be had - she has a level 2 sprain. That means No Zumba. The amount of time is sketchy - the doctor told her what might have been 2 or 3 weeks, which she has interpreted as 2, and I personnaly think 5 is more appropriate.

My sister thinks I am being very unsympathetic to her plight, and that the boot is overkill. This is a girl that's been in pain for a month, didn't tell anyone about it, and continued doing 7 Zumba classes per week on a sprained ankle. Anything less than chains on her leg is too light a deterrant. I'm sure the doctor at least momentarily considered a full body cast. She didn't even give herself 24 hours to get used to wearing the boot before she was clamoring for its removal. Aye Carramba! This girl! I told her she needed to get used to it, and she responded that she didn't want to get used to sitting on her arse. (She wants me to tell you she used the word butt instead, but she didn't.) I told her: "If you didn't spend so much time on your head, you wouldn't have to get used to sitting on your arse." Someone tie the girl down!

Dad's knee swelled up earlier this week and that was quite a concern, but luckily he seems to be on the mend once again. He was impressively well-behaved as a patient during his stint in physical therapy earlier this year, but the bottom line is we never want to have to go through that again! I need my Dad well, and able to travel. We haven't been able to go anywhere together this year, which is not the norm.

I'll wrap up this post with layouts of each of them, during less injury-prone days:

Nicole has recently taken up archery, which opens a whole new line of superhero possibilities for her (or at least Olympic chances):

And here's Dad and I on our trip to Boston a few years ago:

That's it for today - happy scrapping!

Cute Kids and Other Stuff

Happy Belated Memorial Day to everyone - God Bless our Armed Forces.  A shout out to our soldiers, Rest In Peace Grandpa and Uncle Pots who served their country well, and thanks for Dad for his years of service as well.

We had a fun holiday, picnic and kickball in the park with friends and family and bbq ribs. 

I finished an album tonight - it's my Cute Kids Album.  I finally pulled together a title page for it:

And some recent cell phone pictures from Nicole helped me round out the pages:

Yep, we know some cute kids!

Family Values

I love my family - they are what matters most to me.  Take a look:

Luck vs Blessings

Some would say they are lucky - lucky to have a wonderful family, healthy children, a good job, a piece of cake...  Some would say they are blessed.  Sometimes, I'll admit, I use the term lucky, but I always mean blessed.  I know I am truly blessed and I am thankful for these blessings. 

Nicole is blessed too - here she is with two of her blessings, her sons.  She'll be the center of their world for some time to come.  And I know she'll love every minute of it, even when it's hard and the diapers are poopy.  Here's Nicole with the boys:

Credits: Being Green by The Busy Elf Designs

Meeting Connor

We had a wonderful weekend spent at my sister's in Alabama, meeting her brand-new son and hanging with the rest of the family.  Here I am with Connor when he was 2 days old.

Credits:
My Endless Love by Steph Designs

It's Like Looking Through a Window

I had the privilege of playing with the new Folded Papers series from Scrapdragon Designs, just released over at E-Scape and Scrap.  These papers are fun!  And even better, in every kit a set of solid papers in the same colors is included, giving you backgrounds for those windows if you choose not to completely fill them with your picture.  I used the Jewel Brights and Pastels lines.

Take a look at what I've done with these:

Ushering in a New Era
Moving Mom last December was a family affair.  Here I used the whole paper and embellished on top of it.

Rocks the Band
I haven't played in a while, but I love playing the drums in Rock Band!  For this layout I chose to use only the top half of the folded paper in order to leave room to show more of my photo.

Concentrate - Create
Trinity drawing; doesn't she look serious about her work?  I wanted to use multiple photos on this page so I backed the whole layout with one of the solid papers included in the folded paper pack and sized my photos to fit along the opening with the solid paper showing through to separate them.

Love Doesn't Need Special Events

Love is a gift that we can give and receive every minute of every day.  It's the most precious gift God gave us.

Congratulations to Dana and Nicole - by this time next year they'll need a new family photo to highlight the new addition to their growing family.

A Little Bit of This and That

"I've seen a lot of sad people,
I've seen a lot of strange things,
I've seen a lot of bad people, yeah,
Do a lot of bad things.

You know I've done some climbing,
I've done a little bit of this and that,
You know I've done some running,
You know I always come back.

And I've relied upon you so,
I've decided on you,
Now I wonder
Do you think about me?"
-- Sister Hazel

Taba and I went to see Sister Hazel in concert this past weekend. I love them and I finally had the chance to introduce Taba to them properly (there's nothing like seeing Sister Hazel in concert to capture the essence of their music). We had a blast, and of course their music has been playing over and over in my head every since. These lyrics are from Think About Me - and now for a little bit of this and that from my latest creations. The products used in these layouts were provided to me in return for scrapping layouts as a member of E-Scape and Scrap's Creative Team.

This first layout is about my Grandma - I still miss her so much.

Kay Eflin's Sew Sew kit felt like the perfect kit to work with some of these precious pictures I have of Grandma. I linked together cutouts of her eyes from the 3 pictures to create a border that would highlight my journaling.


Next we have a layout about a summer spent at Grandma's when she lived on the farm - fun times!

My title was inspired by Sus Designs' Birdie Mini Kit. The fun little birds seemed like the perfect match to my memories of that summer.


And finally a layout with some more recent family shots - here are some of the many special girls that make us smile.

The soft design of Ingeborg's newest painted kit Feeling Blue Elements and Papers complimented these sweet pictures I had of our nieces at a party last year. I used the bubble in the kit to create overlays for each of the pictures and added a bevel effect to make it appear as if each girl (and her name) was in a bubble. I loved the various starbursts included and used them to mat my title letters.


Well, that's all for today, folks! Happy Scrapping.

"Well I know that it's been a long
Time since I've been gone,
It's easy to forget - help me remember.

It's funny but I've never been
Good at staying close
That don't mean that I never remember.

And it's been so long
You've been gone
But feels like we're one again,
So long.

And it's been so long,
You kept thinking maybe tomorrow,
Now I'm going to leave again, believe again,
So long!"
-- Lyrics from So Long by Sister Hazel

We’re Grown-ups Now (Says Who?)

I wrote up the best blog post last week after a fantastic weekend of Gator Football and Sister Hazel Concerts and then forgot to post it. Now it’s all ancient history, so I guess I’ll just save it for a layout instead. I only have one more thing to say about that. Go Gators! It was great to see Tebow back in action and to watch my boys pull out a victory over L.S.U.

This past weekend John and I attended a wedding in Key West for my almost-sister Holly. After 6 years her and Frank decided to make it official and I couldn’t be happier for them. Not only did we get to see these two get married, I also had the chance to reconnect with Holly and her sister Ashley after too many years of silence. The last time I was around the two of them together they were 11 and 13, I believe. And they were both shorter than me. What I have noticed is that except for my cousin Anna and my brother-in-law Jimmy, every single kid in my generation has outgrown me. In fact the kids in the next generation are outgrowing me too – Tabatha is already as tall as her mom and Trinity is catching up.

Here I am at Holly’s wedding with Holly (right) and Ashley (left):

Notice how I even remembered to use Holly's new initials.

Layout credits:
Tulip Papers and Tulip Elements by Werinka
Fonts – LD Enchanting, LD Formal

Holly’s wedding was amazing. She put us all up for the weekend at Old Town Manor, a B&B on Key West, and the wedding was held in their courtyard. Holly’s dog Dillon was the ring bearer, which I thought was absolutely precious. All of her guests served as the “aisle” as she walked towards her true love. She was beautifully decked out in a gold dress and a dazzling smile of happiness. A steel drum played in the background. The reception was held in the same spot with a delicious meal of pasta, chicken, fish, garlic bread and veggies. And for desert – Key Lime Pie on a stick!

The B&B was just off of Duval Street so those of us who didn’t go for a late night swim after the reception went off to join the all-night party that defines Key West. John, Ashley and I stopped at Bilmar Station for a late night meal after hitting a few of the local bars. One of John’s favorite discoveries about Key West is the number of live bands playing at local bars and restaurants for no cover charge; towards the end of the night we came across a seriously good rock band performing a Pearl Jam cover at Dirty Harry's. Key West nightlife doesn’t cut off until 4 am (well, that’s the official cutoff, although it seems most of the people in Key West prefer to watch the sun come up before they think about crawling into bed) and we surprised Ashley by lasting until the end.

8 am comes too early when you don’t go to bed until 5; we almost missed breakfast on Sunday morning. Breakfast at the B&B is not to be missed – it’s the best Continental Breakfast spread I’ve ever seen with delicious mini pastries, fresh fruit salad, several different fruit spreads for the bagels and toast along with the traditional cream cheese and butter, hard boiled eggs (for that boost of protein), yogurt with fruit & nut toppings, gourmet cheese, and of course plenty of coffee and juice. We were sorry to have to call it a weekend on Sunday, but duty calls and we had to head back home for a full day on Monday of “things you have to do” like returning the rental car and going back to work. On our way home we stopped in Miami to visit the family – Richard met us at Fernando’s house and we ate dinner with them (Fernando grilled meat – skirt steak – YUM!). By the time we got back on the road Highway 27 was pretty deserted and we had smooth sailing all the way home.

Luckily the Gator Nation did not disappoint, to cap off a wonderful weekend Mom sent me a text message that the Gators squeaked past Arkansas to win 23 – 20. That’s a little closer than I like to see them get, but a win is a win. Go Gators!