Goodbye 2012...

It's hard to believe it's the last day of 2012.  Where does the time go?  It's been a very busy year.  The older the kids get the more it seems we have going on all the time.  I have been a very bad blogger this year, but I'm hoping to be better next year.  I love going back and reading my early blog posts.  I shared so much about the kids growing up, things I probably wouldn't remember otherwise.  It makes me sad that I haven't been doing much of that lately.

 I've been inspired by one teacher's blog.  She committed to blogging every day for a year.  Her blog is so positive and so inspirational.  She inspires me as a teacher and a person.  I don't know if I'll be able to post every single day, but I'm stealing a couple ideas from her for myself this year.  The first is listing five blessings every Friday.  What a powerful, uplifting way to end the week.  She also does poetry constantly with her classes.  This is inspiring me to do "Poetry Wednesdays" in all my classes.  You can look for my own poems here every Wednesday.  I'm also going to try for a creative Saturday, so I'm posting at least one piece of artwork per week.  Hopefully I'll have more, but we'll see.

I wanted to share a few highlights from this year:

Austin turned 10 with a bowling party with friends at Westy's

Brendan turned 7 with a Star Wars party at Bodies in Motion

In March, we went to California to visit family and celebrate my Grandpa's birthday

And the Star Wars exhibition at the Discovery Science Center (I wanted Disneyland, but was outvoted by my Star Wars nuts)

Then to Vegas for a wedding.  I got to meet Blake Shelton, but was so excited I messed up the photo.

In June, we went on an Alaskan Cruise.  By far the highlight of our year!!

After we got back from our cruise, my grandparents came to visit.  It was so much fun having them here.  

Over the summer, there was fishing,

 swimming (both boys mastered the high dive)

Bike Riding,

 Camel's Back Park,

And Bruneau Sand Dunes

Over Labor Day, we went to Seattle to see the King Tut Exhibit

and the Mariner/Angel game.

We had French dress up day for the School Auction.

We had a scare with our little B, who had pneumonia.

Both boys played basketball this year.  AAU for Austin

 and YBall for Brendan.

In December, Mike and I took an early anniversary trip to Seattle to see the Seahawks play the Cardinals.

We celebrated 14 years on December 26th.

Others I couldn't readily find photos of: my sister came with her kids and the boys got to spend time with their cousins.  .  Andy came to visit over the summer and Sondra is here right now.  On Christmas Eve, my brother, Taylor and his girlfriend, Kaitlin, got engaged!!

I think that about sums up our year.  Here's to 2013 and the many blessings to come!

November Scrap Club and Fall Photos

As usual, I've been a terrible blogger.  Maybe even a little more extreme this time around.  Life just gets  so busy, and if I'm online at all, I'm on my iPad, which isn't the easiest to blog from.  I'd like to say I'll do better, but that usually only lasts a little while.  I do have lots to share, though.  I'm hoping to spend some time on here updating the last couple months of projects.  For now, I'll settle with posting this month's club pages.

Layout One:  We will use Burlap Ribbon to create the banner.

 Layout Two

Layout Three (photo similar)

 On Friday, the boys and I had the day off, so we went to the park to go to the Art Museum and then enjoy the beautiful fall colors.  This time of year is one of my favorite reasons to live in Boise.

How can it be Back to School Already??

We started back to school this week, as you saw in my last post, and after the first three days, I am exhausted!!  Was it really only a three day week?  We did have a great start.  I'm loving both the 7th and 8th grade classes, and I think it's going to be a great year for me.  I can't believe this is my 5th year at the school.

Austin is in 5th grade, and it's kind of a shock.  I was on recess duty and he came over and gave me a hug.  I asked him what in the world he was doing out there and he looked at me funny and said he was at recess.  I didn't even think about him being out there with the middle schoolers this year.  Two more years and he'll be in my class--wow!  He likes his teachers this year.  He actually has 4 teachers this year.  Three of them are male, so I think that will be great for him and his class.  He's excited about all the field trips this year!

My baby is in 2nd grade this year.  It seems like he just started kindergarten.  He's definitely not a baby anymore.  He is loving school so far, although he wasn't happy that he had homework his second day and big brother didn't.  I told him not to worry, fifth graders have plenty of homework.  This year his class is buddy classes with my seventh grade class.  This means we walk to church with them, read with them, and have activities together throughout the year.  That should be fun.  He was so cute.  When I asked him if he had someone he wanted to be his buddy from my class, he pointed at me.  Awww...I'll cherish that knowing that someday that won't be the case.

It's scary how fast these boys are growing up.  Other teachers I work with are sending their kids off to high school and college this year.  Before I know that's going to be me.  I don't know if I'll ever be ready for that.  I love that they are getting so independent, but it still makes this mama sad!

We ended the week by going to the fair with Grandma and Papa.  We had fun, but it was crazy packed.  We ended up getting home at 12:30 am.  The boys went on several rides and there were lots of laughs.

Swings

  Scrambler

Getting a lift from Dad on the way out.  He was soooo tired!

First Day of School Labor of Love

I don't know what I was thinking.  As if I didn't have enough to do to prepare for the first day of school tomorrow.  Today I found a fun starter/ice breaker activity using Skittles.  Now I could have just handed out candy at the beginning of the activity, but I decided that I needed to make something cute to hold the Skittles and brighten their desks for the first day of school.  

I whipped out my Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge and cut these fun little bags.  The half circles were the inside of the handles.  Originally I also cut little tags to go on them with their names, but decided tying all those on would be too time intensive for tonight.  I just wrote their names on the bags.  In addition to these, everyone will get a bookmark and maybe a pencil (I have to see what I have when I get to school tomorrow.  

I'm hoping for a fabulous start to the school year tomorrow!  

At Albertsons on the way home tonight (when I stopped to pick up the Skittles), I saw this in the parking lot.  It made me smile, and of course started the jingle running through my head.  The only bummer was that by the time I picked up the boys and went back, it was gone :(  They did tell me they saw it driving down the road on the way back from the movies with Grandma.  

Cards From Dakota Scraps

Remember last week when I posted these cute little bags I made using the Artiste Cricut cartridge and Dakota papers?  Each little purse used most of a sheet of 12x12 paper, but I had some left around the edges.  I didn't want any of this cute paper to go to waste.  I looked through the new Make It From Your Heart book for a card pattern to utilize the scraps.  This great new book has 16 two page layouts and 12 card patterns.  The best part?  It's only $7.95.

I found one that utilized 1 1/2 inch squares--perfect for my scraps.  I had enough to make  eight cards.  Not bad for leftover scraps.  

All eight cards

 Design one using Whisper card stock and black hemp.  I did have as Thank you cards and half as birthday.

Design Two using Barn Red Cardstock and the star stamp from the Dakota WOTG.

I

August Club Layouts--Dakota

I'm a little behind posting the club layouts for August, since we met last week.  I posted the first layout here.  The next one is the Workshop on the Go layout with very few changes.  The flowers were a little time consuming, but I think it's worth it in the end.  The cuts were made with the CTMH Art Philosphy Cartridge and the alphabet was Plantin Schoolbook.  The photos were from last year's Museum Comes to Life.  The Idaho History Museum fills the park with activities, games, and people in costume to teach about Idaho's history.  It was a lot of fun.  

This last layout is the second WOTG layout, but I changed it up because it seemed too plain to me.  I added more photos, changed the title placement, and added more embellishments.  I used the Stickease, our new Burlap Ribbon, and the stamps that came with the workshop.  I thought these papers were perfect for our trip to Idaho City.

In September, we will be using the Scholastic papers and embellishments.  I'll post those layouts next weekend.