Happy 35

Layout: July 2, 2009

Yes! I did this digital layout start to finish in only a couple hours today. Suh-weet! I tried out some new digital tricks that I've discovered recently so that perhaps I can actually remember and use the stuff I've learned.

Most of the elements on this page are from the Happy Go Lucky kit I found for FREE at the Shabby Princess, although I did alter some of the pieces like the background and the 'happy' word tag. Lots of other cool free kits available there, too. Just click on {downloads} at the top left. I really like the Too Soon alpha, Moody Blues kit and Shabby Fall.

Spring & Summer 2007

Layout: May-July 2007

I finished this layout in record time, again!! I'm rollin' now. I was inspired by another torn out magazine page (below) from my archives (read: dusty binder). It was an easy layout and I was able to use the myriad of patterned papers I had to scrap these photos. Sewing right on the page was really fun. "Where's the sewing?" you might ask. Click on the layout and it will enlarge so you can get up-close-and-personal to see all those crazy stitches. I also loved the inspiration layout because the squares were placed in a grid but an imperfect, wonky grid which gave me the freedom to slap my squares on without caring if they were perfectly straight and lined up within 1/3000th of an inch. Very liberating.

From Memory Makers Dec 2005

Jonas' Scrapbook

Click on layouts to enlarge and read journaling.

Layouts above: October17, 2009 {originally blogged about here}
Layout below: August 17, 2007 {originally blogged about here}

These three layouts have been sitting on my desk, neglected and collecting dust for months and months now. I finally finished them up and scanned them this weekend. I'm not too excited about how the color was scanned on the "go, go, Go!" layout below. I think I've complained about this before. My scanner turns a nice rich, chocolate brown color into a weird purple-ish color. Also the orange ended up a little neon after being scanned. I decided not to put in any time fixing it in Photoshop. I figure as long as I declare that my color scheme isn't purposefully weird-purple and neon orange, I will hopefully not get my craft license revoked.

Click on layouts to enlarge and read journaling

Sports Camp

Videos: August 5, 2009

As promised, here is some scooter board action. Hilarious.

Day Off

Layout above: November 12, 2008
Photo and Video below: July 20, 2009

I have Wednesdays off and I usually plan to do something productive like clean the bathrooms but digital scrapbooking is always more fun. It's like knowing you should have a salad for lunch but just make a PB&J instead. {That may or may not have happened today as well.}

I did manage to get Jonas to Sports Camp this morning (more or less on time even). He goes for a couple hours every morning this week. He did a week in July, too. Jonas is liking it for the most part and learning a lot about soccer, basketball, baseball, and volleyball. They even get to do scooter board races. Below are some photos from the July session. Hopefully I can get some other photos and videos from this week to post soon.

Warming up with some passing with dad.

This is one of Jonas' many attempts to shoot the basketball. Even though he does a total granny-shot it is still one of the best simply because he didn't fall down after shooting. Baby steps, right?

Birthday Time

Photos: July 26, 2009

Brace yourselves, this is going to be a long post...there's a lot to tell about birthday number five. Starting with the fact that we actually had a "friends" party this year instead of just a family party. If you click on the invitation above, you will see that I had (what I thought was) a very clever idea to take the focus off of gifts and onto fun and celebrating the day. Once again I was wrong in thinking I was clever as only two families participated. {Way to go Dotys and G&G for taking photos. Thanks!!} We will be getting the photos back soon and can't wait to see what they are like.

Tony did a great job BBQing hamburgers and hotdogs on his birthday present. He did a great job despite wanting to just keel over from heat exhaustion. It was a pretty hot day, to say the least.

Hotdogs and juice boxes seemed to keep all the kids happy.

Jonas really wanted to take pictures so I let him take one with my camera.....

...and it turned out pretty good. Malachi is always ready with a stunning smile.

There were plenty of presents to be had. I didn't get too many good photos of the actual presents, but this one was from Grandma Bonnie and Grandpa Frank. It was a helmet and knee pads to go with the kick scooter they got him. Boy is he going to have fun on that!

This one is from Grandma Rose and Grandpa Jim.

Ooooh, aaawwwe, it's a personalized pillow made by Grandma Rose. Suh-weeeet!!!

AND a quilt made by Grandma Rose, too!!! Jonas also got the book that this quilt fabric is inspired by "The Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. I'm sure most of you are familiar with it. It's an awesome book that Jonas loves and he was soooooo excited about his quilt and pillow.

Next up is something special in this cool camo bag from Auntie and Big Uncle.....Percy from Thomas and Friends, and a promise that Annie and Clarabel (passenger cars) are on their way soon!!!

That fantastic gift earned Big Uncle a running-jump-power-thank-you-hug from Jonas. He gave Auntie a big hug too, I just did get it on film.

There were many other fabulous gifts that I missed getting photos of such as: A Giant-Box-of-Every-Craft-Imaginable from Michelle, Travis, McKenzie and Jace; awesome squirt guns and frisbee/ball from Uncle Pat and Aunt Connie; and a sweet car from the Troutman family. Thanks to everyone from Jonas for your fun gifts. He really does love them all and has been giving equal playtime to everything.


Classic Big Uncle antics.
And finally, ice cream cones!!!! Oh, wait....how are these ice cream cones not melting in the 90+ degree heat? Wha??? Because they are really frosting and cupcakes that just look like ice cream. Wow, tricky. The kids thought they were fabulous. Especially when they got to the surprise in the bottom: candy!!! What a delightful sugar-bomb. {Parents: you are welcome.} The downside to the faux ice cream cones is that you can only get a single candle to stick in there. That was probably for the best since we could hardly keep that one candle lit long enough to sing Happy Birthday.
You can see Jonas inspecting his cone to see if he is down to the "surprise" part yet.
Pretty sure Jace has a man-crush on Jonas...or maybe he's just eyeballing that cone.Everyone loved the faux ice cream cones. It was totally worth all the extra effort.

For those of you who are oh-so impressed by the birthday dessert, here is a close-up of the cones while I was making them. I discovered this idea several months ago on a food blog and researched it for Jonas' party. There are lots of different ways to do it but I found one that seemed the easiest and looked to have the highest "tastiness" potential. After seeing this video, I made the big ice cream and then realized that it was waaaay too big and waaaaay too time consuming to make 20 cones. I improvised and made the little one with just two mini-cupcakes which, while not as realistically ice-cream-shaped, is much more do-able for a crowd. If you're interested in making some yourself, just Google "ice cream cone cupcakes" and you'll find tons of recipes.

Here's a one-page layout that I did in PSE to try out some of my free digital scrapbooking supplies. I love how it came out.

The Great Outdoors 2009 Edition

Photos: June 18-20, 2009

After our successful camping experience last year, we decided to make this an annual thing with the Jonas family. We changed locations, though, and went to Prineville Reservoir this year. Excellent choice. Campsite A18 was good to us this year. We had more room, less dirt and a little more distance between us and the bathrooms this time. All good things. We are all ready to make reservations for A18 again next year.

The beautiful grassy area adjacent to A18. So nice.

2009 was the year for everyone to display their camping talents. Let's check them out.

First up is Jace, a joyful 2 year old who displayed such talents as multi-tasking and safety. The boy can play in the lake and eat his popcorn snack at the same time...well, that is until he dropped his snack in the lake. Eew, soggy.

Jace also excels at following Safety rules. It doesn't matter what activity is going on, he's going to be as safe as possible by wearing his helmet. And as a bonus he looks super fashionable.

Next up is McKenzie, age 3 11/12 years. McKenzie showed off her talents of raising the roof...
...and being super-silly.

Jonas, age 4 11/12 years, showed his talent for enjoying S'mores....


...and entertianing the other kids with a magic trick.

Tah-dah!!! So impressive.

All three kids showed their amazing talent of enduring freezing cold water for the sake of fun...

...and the ability to make a double stroller into a triple stroller through sheer imagination.

Now we have Michelle, who has too many talents to list but the top two are:
Making perfect Jiffy Pop on the campfire....

....and bringing enough kid-friendly food to keep the kids (mostly) happy.

Travis showed us his awesome talent of perfectly roasting marshmallows two at a time!! Sweet.

And both guys were talented in the build-a-great-fire-then-spend-the-rest-of-the-night-keeping-the-kids-away-from-it department. They seemed extremely good at this since no one got burned.
Tony's other talent displayed was cleanliness. He was the only one in the Cook family to take a shower all weekend and he excelled at keeping our tent free of dirt. It was so tidy.

This photo is not so much about talent as about weirdness...it begins with the weird look on Jonas' face and ends with the fact that he looks like he's having Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce and Diet Dr. Pepper for breakfast. Hmmm....

Last, but not least, my talents are recording this event for generations to come through photo and witty comments (obviously.) But even better than that, I am supremely talented at coming up with S'mores 2.0 which I'm sure no one else has ever thought of before. And here it is: two perfectly roasted marshmallows on peanut butter slathered graham crackers. De-lightful. Try it. You won't be sorry. {unless you eat more that 3, then you'll be plenty sorry}