April coming to a close...

So I haven't been able to scrap much lately and interestingly enough, I thought my volunteer job as Registrar for Bowridge Little League had peaked in work by the registration close but it's actually picked up!
The teams are set, the schedules are set if not published and we are off to the races now!!!
My 11 yr.old Jack is an assistant captain on this team this year. He's quietly excited about it and his parents are very proud of him.
Jack had 2 practices before Easter,  Blake had one, my SIL was in town with 2 of her children and a girlfriend of her son's as well so we had a great time with family! We had planned to finish off Easter weekend with my mom, brother and sister and we had only been at my mom's for about 15 minutes when our youngest (the 3 yr. old) Cole threw up and then started crying and scratching with an overwhelming allergic reaction! So we packed everyone up in the truck and went to Shopper's Drug Mart to buy Benadryl and then carry on to the hospital in case Cole did not get better from the antihistamine. Thank goodness he got better though he did throw up again after we arrived at home, nothing clears a room quicker than someone puking; Grandpa and Grandma had dropped by to check on Cole and they were out of there fast after he threw up ;)

Cole is good now, but he definitely has a peanut allergy, we figured that had ingested peanuts in an Easter Egg hunt when Mom and Dad weren't looking. We had a fun weekend and since we left my mom hanging with Easter dinner on Easter Sunday, we are going to her home on the Friday the kids have off from school to enjoy our meal and pure milk chocolate(no peanuts) Easter Egg hunt.
Here are my photos from this weekend:

Big brother Blake looking after baby brother Cole in the midst of Cole's  bad allergic reaction!

Ray doing a stellar job looking after his family; getting us to the hospital if neccessary and then home.

A New Card & A Milestone Reached

I have not been crafting very much lately, I've been busy with taxes and baseball and taking better care of myself, i.e. going to bed early, getting up early to workout. Some of my time as been spent napping with the early rising ;).

The Card Crew is back at Scrapshotz and as I'm not a cardmaker, I'm trying to do these challenges. It also gets me using up the copious amounts of product I own, I'm not complaining, just sayin' ;)

This weeks challenge was to use vellum. Rebecca created this beautiful card with embossed vellum:

Mine can not hold a candle to this beauty, in fact, it's kind of hard to tell where the vellum is but I say stick a fork in it and call it done ;)

I used some Echo Park, again, don't know why but I've been drawn to this line lots lately. The vellum is the blue background the stickers are sitting on. This will make a cute thank you card or just a note card.

This morning marked a milestone for me, it was the first time I've read the entire bible all 66 books of it! It's taken a couple of years, at least but I can now say that I've read it all at least once in my life. Does this mean that I can put this book away since I've "finished" it? Nope. It's my life handbook and I keep it within easy reach. Now I'm going to work on the last 3 or 4 unfinished bible studies sitting on my bookshelf!

Monday...Done!

We are in our wind down for the night now and I am so looking forward to bed tonight. I had a pretty good day on my first day of back to healthy living.
The last long while I've found myself skipping more and more workouts and making so very many unhealthy eating choices. It's affected not only my waistline but my mood as well and I've finally decided ENOUGH!
So over the last two weeks I've been getting back into a good exercise routine and have worked out 5 times per week but I haven't cleaned up my eating much. Today I'm cleaning up my eating and I'm going to journal my food intake to help keep myself accountable to the food choices I'm making. I'm also going to get back in the habit of getting up early and am setting a 6am wake up call for myself. This also gives me a block of time to spend reading my bible and talking to God. I'm so excited for what lies ahead!
Sweet dreams!

STAR

I've this photo of my daughter on my magnet board for a couple of years now. I thought of this photo as soon as I saw this sketch on the Scrapshotz blog. It's a new feature called Shotz Sketches.

All Basic Grey and a bit of Imaginesce iRock gems. Had lots of fun doing this one!

Yummy

Our entire family loves the creampuffs I buy at Costco and I documented it in the following layout.

I bought cream puffs for Petyon's birthday and we called them birthday cream puffs.

Aaaah, My Stress Reliever...

We're into tax season along with Little League evaluations and I was feeling sooooo stressed out today. In the past, I've been on top of my business paperwork but not this year. I can't find our corporate notice of assessment which is something I KNOW the accountant needs and this made my my head pound!!!

So it was on to a SHORT workout (ds#3 had pooped his underwear so I had to cut it short) and looking through my completed layouts to put them away in albums and I felt so much better!

I haven't even created a layout today but looking at what I did make on the weekend and getting some new ideas on the 'net have recharged me and I'm looking forward to tomorrow!

Here are a couple of cards I made for a card challenge at Scrapshotz.

I don't make 6x6 cards normally, so I'm ambivalent about whether I like this size or not, I'm leaning towards not. That being said, I liked how these turned out! Thanks for looking!

Echo Park Fun

I'm the proud owner of a few Echo Park lines and I've been drawn to them the last little while. Here's a layout I made for a challenge at Scrapshotz.com using Echo Park:

The challenge was to incorporate hidden journaling and my journaling is tucked behind the photo on a Jillibean journaling spot. I also used my newly purchased Tattered Angels glimmer mist in Dark Denim.

I'm so please with how this turned out!

I WAS PUBLISHED!!!

I keep forgetting to post this layout I had submitted to a Canadian Scrapbooker page call. I was thrilled to receive an email requesting this layout for the Spring edition of the magazine! I'm so grateful to Canadian Scrapbooker for giving me this opportunity!
This layout features photos of a baby and momma moose in my backyard in June 2008. What you don't see in the photo are the city police who were called when someone reported a "cow" in our yard, it wasn't us, we figured they'd leave eventually. We chuckled when one of the officers went to the backyard with his shotgun in case he had to prevent "property damage". We remarked after that it's our property and we were okay if something was damaged but I suppose there are certain protocols they must follow.

I used supplies from a Scrapshotz monthly kit, predominantly Jenni Bowlin along with some Making Memories!

Our Spring Break

We really enjoyed our family trip to Montana last week. Came home relaxed and refreshed. Here are some photos from our trip.

Yup, there's an indoor waterfall at the Holiday Inn. Kids liked hanging out by it while they waited for Ray and I come down from our room.

The pool and waterfall was a great option. The kids enjoyed daily trips to the pool!

It took quite awhile for this little guy to get to sleep the first night. In fact I slept with him literally draped over me all.night.long. It was a short night for me but the rest of the sleeps were much better for Cole.

We visited the Lewis and Clark Trail Interpretive Centre and learned alot about their journey to the Pacific. Very interesting amd amazing!

All in all it was a great trip. So thankful to be able to be together!