Big Dreams

Caleb's preschool graduation was this morning. I just about fell out of my chair when I heard what he wants to be when he grows up. You just never know what's going to come out of that child's mouth.

Where We Live

I was inspired to do this layout last week after hosting a play date at our house for some of Caleb's friends. Caleb's friends love all of his riding toys and it just kind of struck me that I love where we live and love that Caleb can have the kind of childhood that I had when I was growing up. The house I grew up in had a big yard and we had an empty lot next to us that we would ride our 4 wheeler on. Our neighbors had a dirt bike, so that lot got lots of use. Now I have a big yard and I am lucky to have a 75 acre "lot" next to our house. I'm glad my boy has lots of room to play. Here is the layout:



All papers and elements by Echo Park- Life is Good collection with the exception of the blue tag which is from Crystal Wilkerson's Sweet Vintage Charm Collection. I used Pioneer Woman's seventies action on all of the photos to give them that vintage feel.

The journaling reads:
Yesterday we had a play date at our house and it really made me think about how much I love where we live. We started searching for a new house when I was pregnant with Caleb. We wanted a big yard, a nice neighborhood, and a house that was kid friendly. When John and I first saw this house, I had a strong feeling that this was the one. That was despite the fact that in the kitchen the linoleum floors were an off white with a blue and green pattern, the counters had blue countertops, and the cabinets were a honeyed oak color and were too short for the high ceilings. We did get the house and immediately started remodeling it. I was eight months pregnant when we moved in and before we had Caleb we painted almost every room in the house, enclosed the formals, added on a porch, and gutted and remodeled the kitchen. My goal was to have everything finished by the time I had Caleb. We missed it by about two weeks. Our next door neighbor, Felix, laid the tile floor and backsplash while I was in the hospital and the countertops were finished a week or so later. But, what I love most about living here is the space that we have for Caleb to play. We have a little over half an acre, so there is plenty of room for him to play. We have a trampoline, a fort, two sandboxes, and more riding toys than one child should have. We live on a street that has a total of four houses and dead ends into a 75 acre field. We have virtually no traffic so Caleb can ride down the driveway and into the street without much concern. We ride our bikes through the neighborhood, and know a lot of our neighbors. Caleb rides his four wheeler, go cart, and now his motorcycle in our yard and in the field next to us. When I was talking to our friends yesterday I realized how grateful I am that we have a home that allows us to indulge in all of these outdoor activities whenever we want. I really love where we live.

Just keep running, Just keep running....

Last year I ran two 5Ks. For 2011, I decided that one of my goals for the year was to run a half marathon. I actually made this decision back in December and set my sights on the Rock N Roll half marathon on March 27th. I've been following two different training plans I found online and kind of merged them together. The speed workouts are no problem for me. I think it's because they are over fairly quickly. The longest speed workout is in increments of a mile. It's fairly easy to keep your concentration for a mile, and then repeat. The workouts that get to me are the tempo runs and the long runs. Tempo runs are generally 3 miles or longer and you are supposed to do this at a faster pace than your comfortable pace. Tempo runs just kill me. I don't know why they are so mentally hard for me. I know I could do it, but in the middle I always need a walk break. Long runs are also hard for me. They are at a slow pace, so I think they are almost easier than tempo runs, but not much. Last Sunday in preparation for my half marathon I ran 13.45 miles. I needed to do a run at least as long as the half so that I could prove to myself that I could do it. My pace was a lot slower than I would have liked, but I did it. Today I ran 12 miles. I was hoping to pick up the pace and run at a faster rate than last week but it didn't happen. Today I felt like I was running in pea soup. It was a very muggy day today, and windy. It wasn't an enjoyable day to run for me. Mentally I just wasn't into it, but with my race 2 weeks away I know I need to perform all of my scheduled workouts as well as possible. I didn't set any speed records again today, but I did complete the workout. When I start feeling defeated in a run and want to quit I channel Dory from Finding Nemo and instead of thinking, "just keep swimming", I think "just keep running". I've come to the conclusion that I will never be a marathoner. It just isn't in me. But for now I'm going to keep running until I get to that half marathon finish. We'll see what happens after that.

Playing catch-up

I feel like I've spent the last 5 months playing catch-up. It's been that long since I've posted. Oh, I've thought about catchy little things to post, but then it never materializes. Since our trip to Disney I've just felt behind. Behind on editing and posting pictures, behind on journaling, behind on scrapbooking, behind on housework, etc, etc. So, since the first of the year, I have made a concentrated effort to get back on track. I've finally caught up on pictures, but I'm still working on the journaling, and my scrapbooks will never be "caught up". Of course about the time I was caught up with the other stuff and was ready to get busy and get some scrappin done, my computer crashed. I kept waiting for my husband to take it to his computer guy. I tried my best not to nag, and I didn't, and then he surprised me with a new computer. Great! However, then the task of transferring everything over to the new computer starts. I've never done this with digital scrapbooking files. And oh, let me tell you, it's been such a PAIN. It's not the transferring of the files, per say, but the transferring of the organization that I've done that's supposed to be embedded in the files. I use a program called ACDSee for this and it's really great for viewing your digi files, but it's a bitch to it set up and working from one computer to the next. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that this latest attempt works, because I've spent so much time on organzing and categorizing everything that I don't think that I'd do it all again. Anyhoo, I hope to get back to posting somewhat regularly. Here's to being caught up (yeah right).

A Fall Layout and an update

We are back from Disney World. Our trip was great, but I'm still recovering from it and not quite ready to post about it yet. I do want to post a layout that I did yesterday from last Halloween. Yep, I'm never going to be caught up and that's ok. Yesterday we were supposed to attend my friend Melissa's annual Halloween party, but she had to reschedule due to the horrible weather we had yesterday. So, since I was thinking about her party and Halloween, I decided to do a layout from her party last year. Nobody throws a party like Melissa. She is uber organized, creative, and energetic. I don't know how she does it all, oh wait, yes I do, she doesn't sleep!

Anyway, I got my newsletter from Crystal Wilkerson, a fabulous scrapbook designer, and she had a free template and a contest on her blog. Use her template and her digital kits to enter a contest. I was in the mood, so I did it. I used her template #4 inspired by Susan Weinroth and used Crystal Wilkerson's October Sweet and October Spooky collections to do this layout. Check out Crystal's blog at http://www.creativitybycrystal.blogspot.com/

Four Years Old

My baby turned 4 last month. It's a little hard to believe. Everyone always says that they grow up fast, but until you are a mom I don't think you truly realize how fast the time flies. I took Caleb out at the end of July to do his 4 year portraits. I told him that we were going to go down to the old train tracks to play. We got down there and he kept asking where Thomas was. Oops. I tried to explain that theses train tracks were old and that there weren't any trains around those tracks anymore, but he didn't seem to quite get it. We had a good time poking around and I got some really cute pictures. I finally had time to sit down today and edit them. Photoshop and I don't always get along, but I'm learning.

Obsessed

I have an obsessive personality. I come by it honestly as most of the women in my family have this same trait. What this means is that when we get something on our minds we kind of beat it to death until we've either solved the problem, researched the dilemma or trip or thing we want to do to death, or bought whatever it was we were obsessed about. Currently I am obsessing about our upcoming trip to Disney World. I have bought travel guides, subscribed to the touring plans website, stalked the Disney message boards, bought a new backpack (of course, after obsessively evaluating my options and making a trip to North Dallas to try some on)and even started scrapbooking our 2009 trip (and yes I also found a Disney related message board to support that habit.) I've printed off calendars, made dining reservations and made packing lists. I've evaluated refillable water containers, bought glow sticks (for the parks at night), and searched for and bought a small, travel size "noisemaker" (ie. a white noise machine for those of you not used to my terminology) for the hotel room. I'm obsessing about what Caleb and I are going to wear to the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party that we will be attending one of the nights that we are there. I know it will be warm so the costume can't be too hot. We'll be riding rides so it can't be too constricting, and I'd like it to be Disney themed. I've even started dreaming about all of these obsessions. I dreamt the other night that we got there and I hadn't packed anything that was on the list-Oh the horror!

So, I will share with you a few of the scrapbook pages I've done. My original idea was to do a pretty basic digital album just to get everything documented and the album done. However, after finding the Disney scrapbooking message board all that changed and now I want it to be more elaborate. Why can't I ever be satisfied with easy?