OC County Fair

We had the chance last week to go to the OC County Fair with Mandy Steward and her fun family. We had a great time watching the rides, eating carnival food, chatting, looking at art and photography, and just being out with our family together.

I've never been anywhere besides the rodeo, so this was all a little new for me. I can't wait until Eli is old enough to ride the rides. Mandy's girls had such a fun time, it was so adorable to watch.

Dad and Eli hanging out, drinking some lemonade at the fair. Nathan's dressed up because he had to come straight from work, NOT because he wanted to impress the carnies.



This is a picture of Zoe, who was so proud of the stamp on her hand, because it meant that she was a "big girl" and could ride some of the rides!


This is Nehemiah, Mandy's littlest one. He's just a bit younger than Eli and he makes the greatest faces ever! :)


Here's Eli trying to feed Dad his binkie. It's a fun game until Eli tries to stick it down his throat! Heehee, what a good dadda.


Mmmmmm....funnel cake.......



Eli was so pooped after the fair, that he fell asleep as we were still walking around. He was a good sport, though, for not being able to do any of the fun stuff, like go behind the rides where all the machinery and gears were, eat leftover carnival food from the ground, and run out into the middle of a crowded walkway. Yeah, poor kid, we never let him do any of the fun stuff! :)

I'll miss my hubby

It's official -- Nathan is going to Australia for three weeks.

For work.

Without me.

I'm jealous.

I mean, he's already been there before, and I never have been! That's reason enough to let me go with him, right? Heehee.

Actually, we found out so suddenly and it's only a couple of weeks away, so there was no way to swing so that I could go this time. And besides, after the stress of taking Eli on a 5 hour flight to Hawaii, I don't think he'd appreciate being on a plane for 15 hours straight.

But luckily, if Nathan is on the same job this time next year, I'll most definitely be able to go. We'll see what we do with Eli at that point, whether it's take him with us or have my parents watch him for us.

Three weeks is a long time, though, and I don't know if I could be without Eli that long. Nathan, I'll have to just deal with, but without Eli would be tough, lol. :)

I'm actually pretty excited because I get to have my sisters Ali and Angela come out to stay with me for a good amount of the time. That will be really nice, so I won't be by myself for the whole time.

Here are some random pictures that I like, just because I don't like only writing on blog posts, I always wish there were pictures. :)

Eli at the park, wearing his cute new ScrapGirls T-shirt. On the front it says, "I'm Cute! Digiscrap Me!" and on the back it says "www.scrapgirls.com". I just love it and think it's the cutest thing. I also have a shirt for me that says "Bwahahaha...Welcome to the dark side -- Digital Scrapbooking". It's hilarious, especially if you've been on the boards over at SG. You can find the products here: http://www.cafepress.com/scrapgirls



Eli and daddy being crazy. We're sure going to miss him while he's gone!




This is the Na Pali coast in Kauai. I wouldn't mind spending some more time out there!

I'm a Digital Gal

Okay, so I have to share this experience because it made me laugh on the inside. I recently went to a card-making party for a lady in my ward whose mom is a StampIt consultant. We got to make 3 cards and have a lot of fun. I've never really made cards before or done the whole stamp thing really, so this was a new thing for me, that I thought I'd try and get a chance to talk with adults for a while. :)

So anyways, I go to the party, and get set up to start my first card. I quickly find out that the ink is permanent when I get bumped and accidentally drop the big stamp onto the inside of my cute card.

Dang.

There's no Undo button. There's no erase. I can't just scrap it and start over because I'm paying for this specific bit of cardstock.

Dang.

So I decide to just call it an artistic decision and move forward.

On to the second card. I'm using a layered stamp that has multiple parts to it that have to line up to make sense. So I spend literally minutes of time trying to line these stamps up perfectly, only to find out I have no hand-eye coordination and I messed up.

Dang.

I can't nudge this layer a little bit to line up correctly. It's there and it's stuck and there's no moving it.

Dang.

By this time, I'm really missing my beloved Photoshop. On to the third card.

This one, surprisingly, turns out just fine. I follow the directions and come out with a nice card. But the colors of the elements are not my favorite and I can't just go in and change the Hue/Saturation.

Dang.

All in all, I had a fun time socializing and creating with my hands, but I don't think that I'll start up a card-making hobby anytime soon.

Don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for everyone who does this sort of thing and can get their hands to be steady and create perfectly aligned, tangible cards and scrapbook layouts.

It's just not for me.

Here's a scan of my card along with one that I re-created digitally in about 10 minutes. Yeah, you could say that I'm hooked! :)

The Little Nephew

Okay, I had to share this cute layout that I made of Nate. Emily took this picture of him while we were all in San Antonio in June, and I just had to do something with it. It's so cute! So here's Nate, and he is one tough dude!

ATV tour!

We got to do a cool ATV tour, and one of the tour guides took pictures the whole time. It was way too fun! The people in the mud buggies got a lot dirtier than us on the ATVs, so I think I'll try that one next time. It was really cool, though.

In case you're wondering, the flipped ATV is courtesy of Janae. Luckily she wasn't badly hurt and was able to continue on!

Back from Vacation

Well, we survived the 13-hour travel day yesterday and we're finally back home in our snug little beds. What a trip we had! Nathan's parents, sisters, cousin and a nanny for Eli accompanied us to Hawaii, to the island of Kauai. It was beautiful and fun and muggy and relaxing.


We went on an ATV tour, we kayaked on a river and hiked in the jungle, we took a boat ride to the "Forbidden Island" and went snorkeling, not to mention enjoyed a great luau and tons of yummy food, and saw a bunch of cool sites. Man, this was one for the books! Now it's just getting back to all the email, messages, and laundry waiting to be addressed. Here is a page about our trip!




1. Me and Eli hangin' out
2. Sunglasses man
3. Gorgeous Kauai scenery
4. Eli wants to go outside, and tells us by bringing us his shoes
5. Nathan at the lighthouse
6. Cool trees we saw
7. Before going on our ATV tour

Love my Texas!

Luckenbach, where everybody is somebody!

Cool license plates that they've got in Luckenbach all over the outhouse and the stage.


I've been going over some pictures of mine from a trip to San Antonio and wanted to share them! My family is moving next week and I'm sad. I will miss the home where I grew up. At least we've got pictures, right?

10 Things

Recently Ro (our CEO over at ScrapGirls) challenged each of us on the design team to create a list of 10 things we are grateful for. This challenge came at such a perfect time for a lot of us. There are a lot of team members going through some awful things right now, and Ro reminded us how important it is to consciously be grateful for the things that you have. I couldn't agree with her more.

And so I wanted to share my list with all of you!

1. I bought my first Moleskin journal yesterday and I love carrying it around with me. (Thanks for the inspiration, Mandy! )

2. My little Eli loves to make me laugh and I love it when he does. Today he was giggling like crazy when he fed me goldfish crackers and I made loud chomping sounds. It was just too adorable.

3. Automatic windshield cleaner

4. My mom is only a phone call away

5. I just got asked to teach the Primary children (ages 5-11) music every week. Never done that before, and I'm excited for it!

6. I get to drive a stick shift XTerra that I picked out myself and I love to death

7. My husband will do the dishes for me when I ask, and sometimes even when I don't.

8. I get to go to Hawaii in a week! Woohoo! (Thank goodness for in-laws that take us on fun trips)

9. We have GREAT weather in southern California.

10. I work for the best digital scrapbooking website out there and I absolutely LOVE what I do. I've found a way to feel creative and proud of myself through my "art". That's pretty cool.

Thanks for listening! :)

Fill in the Blank!

This is a fun journaling prompt that I found from Sonesta's blog. She had posted something on the ScrapGirls message board, so I checked out her blog and found some neat prompts. Maybe I'll try to add some here. Maybe. I might be a little too lazy, ha!

1. Two names you go by:
Laurel
Laloo
2. Two parts of your heritage:
Norwegian
German
3. Two things you are wearing right now:
Jeans
New bright blue striped shirt
4. Two things you would want in a relationship:
Trust
Respect
5. Two of your favorite hobbies:
Digital scrapbooking
Singing
6. Two things you want really badly at the moment:
More free time
Studio equipment
7. Two pets you have/had:
Pepper - doggy
Skipper - doggy
8. Two people you talked to today:
Heather
Amy
9. Two things you did last night:
Worked on enrichment class
Watched Arrested Development
10. Two people that live in your house:
My hubby
My darling Eli
11. Two things you ate today:
Diet Coke (caffeine-free!)
Chocolate chip cookie (man, I'm so healthy, lol!)
12. Two people you miss:
My mommy
My good friends Matt and Shayne
13. Two things you're doing tomorrow:
Playdate with Tracy
Doctor's appointment
14. Two vacations you've been on:
Italia!
The California coast
15. Two favorite holidays:
Christmas
Valentine's day
16. Two favorite alcoholic beverages:
N/A
17. Two bands you have seen live:
Savage Garden
Cirque de Soleil (does that count?)
18. Two things you will do after this survey:
Work on enrichment class
Clean the house

And here's a fun layout that I did, which was clearly a scraplift of Shalae Tippetts' Places Called Home. She did such a cool job of making that old map that I had to try it!


I also used Shalae's Renew Collection and SS Paper Templates: US Maps, Erica Hite's SS Paper Templates: Stained, and Jan Hicks' SS Paper Templates: Scruffy. Thanks for taking a look!

Reinvention of Me

Recently, I had a life-altering experience that has made me reinvent myself. I now look at myself with more confidence and less fear. I have been blessed with the ability to finally see things as they really are, not how I used to assume they were.

I'm sorry if this is vague, but this experience and realization is very dear and personal to me, and I wanted to share a little bit of it with you. But the rest I want to keep for myself.

With this reinvention, I hope will come more maturity, more understanding, more patience, and more hope. Hope that I can become the person that I have always wanted to be. Hope that I can overcome hardships and rely on myself more and trust my own feelings. And hope that I can someday look back and think to myself, "That was the turning point. That was the time that made a difference."

So here's to reinvention. Anyone want to join me?


This layout uses Keri Schueller's Journey Collection, Thao Cosgrove's SS Embellishment Templates: Luxe Photo Mat, Dinny's SS Embellishment Template: Torn Edges 2, and Brandy Hackman's Blossoms and Blooms Embellishment Biggie - Holiday.