Hi!

So I decided to be a good blogger and actually post something this week....haha!
Maybe someday I will be a good blogger, but I wouldn't hold your breath! :) Too many other things to do............
at least it seems like there are a lot of other things to do.
Do you ever have those days were you know you don't just sit around doing nothing all day, and yet at the end of the day it seems like you haven't accomplished anything? I've had a string of days like that lately. I love spending time reading books and playing games with the kiddos, but then sometimes at the end of the day when there is nothing obviously finished or improved I get frustrated and feel like I have been lazy. But then on the other hand, I really don't want to spend so much time cleaning, etc. that I miss the time with my kids and I KNOW that I am accomplishing things by spending time with them....in fact I am accomplishing the most important things. But still, sometimes it is hard at the end of the day when you don't see immediate results...and the laundry is still piled high!
My endless dilemma, it seems...probably the same dilemma most moms face! :)

Anyway, here is a layout that I created a while back. The pictures were taken by my father-in-law in 2009 for our Christmas card. I love these pictures!
For this layout I used the "For the Record" collection kit from Echo Park. I also attempted a little misting with the red ink....I think I need to practice that one some more!

I have also been venturing a bit further into the photography world lately....meaning I finally took took the D-90 off the automatic settings and learned to use it in manual mode!!! I know, it only took two years, right?! :) But I am loving the results and I feel like I am really creating good photos now, not just getting them by default because I have a good camera. My poor father-in-law had tried to explain it to me several times, but I wasn't getting how to use my camera to get the results I wanted. Then a couple weeks ago I found this digital book called "Say No To Auto!" by Kristen Duke. I bought it, downloaded it, printed it and within a half hour had the basics figured out - -amazing!

I wanted to learn how to use the manual settings because a girl in my ward, Jackie, had asked me to take some senior pictures for her. She has been very patient and endured nearly five hours total in front of my camera (I took nearly 1,000 pics), but we have got some photos that I am really pleased with....hopefully she is, too! :) She is a beautiful girl, so really, my job was easy!

Here are a few of my favorites:

***this last one is my favorite!!***

Well thanks for stopping by. Hopefully I will be back soon!

cross your fingers... :)

JAG

It's bedtime, but....

...here I am! I figure now is as good a time as any to quickly update the blog, right? Who needs sleep!? I just wanted to share these cute portraits that my father-in-law took while the kids and I were in Utah. I thought they turned out quite cute! I love the one of the kids together. It is usually quite impossible to get a picture of both of them even looking at the camera, so I was very happy with this picture! I think I feel a scrapbook layout coming on! :)

Grace - 4 yrs. old

Joshua - 6 yrs. old

I think this one should be titled

"One Lucky Mom" :)

I just blogged about the trip and a bit more about the photo shoot on our Family Blog, so feel free to check it out if you want!

And I have a layout to share! I made this the other day using Crate Paper's new Emma's Shoppe line. The line is a little bit vintage and a whole lot of girly...a combo that I love! The color is way off in the pic, not sure what happened, but trust me...it's great stuff!

This picture is of Grace at 9 months old....seems like forever ago! Lately I find myself missing the days of little babies, and I usually find myself avoiding scrapbooking pictures like these. It is really hard to realize that my babies aren't babies anymore, and as of now, there are no more babies, which has been really unexpected. But I decided to be brave and scrap this picture anyway, and to my surprise it was quite therapeutic. So don't be surprised if you see more baby pictures in future layouts...I need all the cheap therapy I can get! :)

Have a peaceful night!

JAG

halloween pics

BOO TO YOU! :)

Happy Halloween y'all!

Just had to share some cute pictures of my kiddos in their costumes,

ready for our trunk-or-treat Saturday night.

This year they chose Spiderman and a Fairy Princess.

Grace started out as a ballerina,

then moved to fairy,

but couldn't quite leave out the princess,

so we ended up combing them all!

Joshua wanted to be Spiderman from the very beginning.

I even offered to buy him the little fancier costume with the muscles,

but he wanted this one and nothing else.

Easy Peasy...all I had to do was sew a tutu,

and once the tulle and I fought it out,

it wasn't too bad! :)

I love seeing them all dressed up and excited for the holiday!

And I was glad we got some pictures before Grace biffed it while running across the yard and got dirt from her chin to her knees! :) There is always something!

Too Cute!

Hope you had a fun Halloween!

JAG

Summer Lovin'

What are you lovin' this summer?

We've been lovin' a lot of backyard swimming lately.

Joshua likes to turn the sprinkler on and break out the water balloons, too,

so we practically have water park going on in the backyard. :)

{Amazing the hours of fun you can buy for $25, isn't it?!}

Grace always says she wants to get in, but then she ends up sitting with me on the porch swing, just watching. I don't mind that too much, though. :) She is so cute!

And of course I had to share with you this layout that I made using the American Crafts "I Do" and "Botanique" lines. I love the color combination of I Do - lots of soft colors mixed with the charcoal gray - so pretty!

Supplies:

All patterned papers, embellishments, stickers and letters are from American Crafts.

Grey Cardstock around the outside boarder is from Prism, and the white lace is unknown.

See what I mean about the color combination? I think it is so relaxing.

So relaxing I think I just might go to sleep now. :)

GOOD NIGHT!

JAG

A few new things and family time

Howdy y'all!!

I hope you are having a fabulous week.

Here at the homestead we are trying to cope with being by ourselves after having these fun visitors for a few days:

This is my family! They ALL came to visit for four and a half fun filled days...it was a blast! My grandparents and my uncle, aunt, and cousins joined us for a few of the days as well, so we had quite the houseful! We loved it, though, and so far the after-family-let-down hasn't even been too bad! :)

Monday night before my parents and siblings headed out of town we set up the ol' tripod and attempted some family pictures since everyone was together. It is quite the feat to get that many people all looking at the camera and smiling, but we mostly managed to do it

{as long as you don't notice that Grace has her hand stuck in her belly button :)}. KIDS.....

I will be posting more on the FAMILY BLOG in the next couple of days as I get them edited, if you want to check them out.

And here are a few new things that I've worked up recently:

I love this layout of my chubby bald little girl! I used paper and stickers from the Fly a Kite line from October Afternoon (SO STINKIN" CUTE!) and some American Crafts Thickers, love those, of course.

And a couple of cute cards

to end the day:

Until next time....
JAG

A few cards...and some very pink lip gloss :)

Hello!

I hope Sunday is as beautiful where you are at as it is here! The sun is shining and it is so pretty outside! I think we may need to go sit on the swing on the back porch and just enjoy this beautiful day for a little while!

Well I survived my first weekend scrapbooking retreat last weekend. My friend, Lisa, and I walked in and our mouths dropped! I thought I was pretty crazy about scrapbooking, but apparently there are a lot of women out there who are more crazy about scrapbooking (or, at least collecting scrapping supplies!) than I am! HAHAHA!

Anyway, we really had a great time. I have pictures to show, but I haven't downloaded or edited them yet, so that will have to wait until next time.

Today I just had to share this picture of my daughter:

You like? She is totally a girly girl, pink through and through! She came out yesterday with pink lipgloss everywhere! She applies this stuff several times a day lately, and as you can see it is LOVELY! :)

and now I will get to find out if it comes out of blankets and shirts - fun for me!

And now for a few cards!

These first two thank you cards are for PaperCrafts Gallery Idol Competition. See, while I have very few scrapbooking goals besides, of course, to preserve all these fun memories we make each day, the one thing I would love is to see something I made in a magazine. Just one thing, and I would be happy. :) So I am "trying out" for this competition to get on PaperCrafts submission list...we'll see how it goes!

This first card uses the Juliette line by SEI - these papers are so pretty and elegant. I made the flower by drawing a five inch swirl on the back of the grey paper, cutting it out and scrunching it and wrapping it in a tighter swirl, adding glue as I went. Whalaa!

This next card uses papers from the Cherry Hill line by October afternoon - I love the colors in this line!

And this one is not for the competition, but is just a cute little card I made with some Dear Lizzy scraps and Rub-ons. Isn't that bicycle rub-on so CUTE!? Love it!
It just seemed to need to say Hello!

Thanks for stopping in, and check back soon for pictures of all of the crazy scrapbookin' ladies...oh, and a few of the pages I made once I recovered from my shock at all of the paper and cricut machine chaos!!

JAG

Just some cute kids I found :)

I've just been playing with Photoshop the last couple of nights and thought I would share some cute pictures I have found.

We took these first two a couple of weeks ago, the day before Grace turned 3.

Yeah, getting the kids to sit still with heads up straight and smile all at the same time is pretty impossible. Good thing they look so cute anyway!

And then I was editing some of my favorite baby pictures of the two of them. For some reason Grace turning three really made me nostalgic for when my kids were little bitty.

Hard to resist a chubby baby, isn't it? :)

Weren't they adorable!?

Precious!

How lucky am I?

JAG

Back in the swing of things!

Hello Again!!

After two weeks of being out of town on two different vacations,

I am happy to be back to regular, everyday life!

Those vacations were a lot of fun, though -

it is always wonderful to see our extended family and our dear friends!

The other day it actually snowed here! YAY!!!!! And not just any snow, but the big soft pretty flakes that we used to see all the time in Utah. I was so happy! See, usually around here we get the small sleety flakes that just turn into ice on the driveway, so this was a very pleasant surprise!!

It, of course, melted by the next day, but we sure enjoyed seeing it come down!

Here are some pictures of the kids I took while they were out enjoying the snow.

Dear Fall....I love you!

I really have come to LOVE the fall season. I think when I lived in Utah and the summers weren't quite so long and hot, I didn't full appreciate fall. But now that we live in Texas and the summers are definitely long and hot, I really enjoy fall!

I love the cool temperatures.

I love the colors. I am seeing so many colorful trees lately, and they are beautiful!

I love fall activities: apple picking, pumpkin picking, and other harvest activities.

Believe it or not, I have even enjoyed the high school football games!

In honor of this fabulous season, I have been doing a little fall scrapbooking and picture taking!

This is a really simple layout of some of the pictures I took on our trip to the pumpkin patch last year. It was the first time I had taken the kids to a real pumpkin patch, and it was so fun!

Supplies: Patterened Papers (Cosmo Cricket - Early Bird line), Journaling spots (Jillibean Soup),

Chipboard letters (American Crafts), alphabet stickers (Making Memories), button, waxy flax, felt flourish (CTMH).

Last Friday, Bryan and I took the kids to a small town about an hour from here that we were told is the place to go when the leaves change colors. Unfortunately we missed the best of the colors by about a week, we were told, but we still enjoyed some beautiful sights and an awesome walking bridge that was great for pictures!

HAPPY FALL Y'ALL!!!

:0) Janelle

Playing with Photoshop

I finally found some instructions for using the filters on Photoshop, so I've been playing around.

I really like the "artistic" touch it adds to my pictures!

I'm sure there is room for improvement, but it is fun to play around with.

You know, just one more thing to keep me up late at night when I should be sleeping! ;)

My kids are getting too BIG!!

~Thanks for stopping by!~
Janelle