Choo Choo! The train has entered the station

If you are here for the blog train, scroll down. :)

Well I'm having a great time doing layouts for the Queen of Scrap contest over at Scrap Matters. I've already done 30 pages, since the beginning of the month. I can't believe I've gotten that many done already.

On Saturday was the annual Children's Miracle Network fundraiser. This year they did "Dancing with the Stars." We found out on Tuesday that Michaella's dance team was one of the two that the teacher picked to dance at it. I went with her while Paul stayed with the 2 little ones. The theater was packed. They sold out of tickets over half an hour before it started and there were some people that had to stand because the seats were all filled. I was up in the balcony helping the dance teacher with the girl. They did a great job again. I'm so proud of Michaella and how far she has come this year with her dancing. We were just about ready to pull her out because she didn't seem to like it, but now she is doing an awesome job. :)

Kailee got her first two teeth of Friday. :O I'm so glad they are finally through. It has been a month long battle for her. :( I hope the rest of them come in easier for her because it has not been fun.

Anyway now on to the fun stuff. ;)

A few of us that didn't get to the last round of the Design Star Contest over at Scrap Matters decided we had so much fun designing that we came up with a blog train for all of you. As you can see from the preview there's a lot of great stuff in the kit. :)


Here is my part of the blog train.

*Links expired*

Next stop is Amanda.

Here is the full list of stops.
1. Carol - carolzeitz - http://carolzeitz.blogspot.com/

2. Jill - Jillyfish - http://chocolatekidsmommy.blogspot.com/

You are here-3. Amanda - dznyscrapper - http://mhkscraps.blogspot.com/

4. Amanda - apatchetear - http://greenboxcreations.blogspot.com/

5. Hillary - http://designsbyhillary.blogspot.com/

6. GeniaBenia - http://geniabeanascraps.blogspot.com/

7. Lovemy4kids - http://digitaldesignsbylisa.blogspot.com/

8. Dallasrobyn - http://digirobyn.blogspot.com/

9. merchi - http://merchimakesit.blogspot.com/

10. Jude - judet - http://judet95.blogspot.com/

11. Jen - http://wolfffpack6.blogspot.com/

Post NSD

I hope everyone had a fun and productive National Scrapbook Day on Saturday. :) I know I did. I managed to start or finish 14 paper pages at the scrapbook stores' crop and then came home and did the Speed Scrap at ScrapMatters. I also did both of them on Friday. I'll try and get them posted later on.
Not only did I have a productive day of scrapping. I also had a lot of fun shopping! :) I made good use off a bunch of the great sales this weekend. I'm going to be busy downloading for days, though. :O But I can't wait to play with all the fun stuff I got. Woohoo! :) That will definitely help me with the new contest going on at ScrapMatters-Queen of Scrap. It might be just the kick I need to get my grandparents' anniversary album started and finished.
Not only am I working on trying to get a bunch of layouts done this month, I'm working on making some goodies for all of you. :) Hopefully I can have some more freebies up for your soon.
Well it's just about time for another Speed Scrap, so I'm going to sign off for now.

Dance Results

What a weekend we had last week. :) On Friday night the in-laws came to help Paul put up the kids' new swingset. It was a bit more involved than Paul had first anticipated, so it's not quite done yet. They got the main frame work mostly put together, but that's about as far as it got. So right now it's sitting there in the middle of nowhere waiting to be finished. ;) The kids are chomping at the bit for it to be done, so they can play on it. Hopefully it won't be too much more of a wait for them.

Saturday we headed out around noon for Michaella's dance competition. Paul figured it would take about 4 hours to get there. Instead of taking interstate, he decided to take the "cut crosscountry" way. Well he missed the corner where our road turned and didn't realize it until about 30 miles later. :O Needless to say that the hour cushion that we had started with was completely eaten up and we got there right on time. Michaella was supposed to have all her bangs back and her hair curly for her routine. When we left the house, I had her hair done right and there was a fair amount of curls. By the time we got there, her bangs had come out of the ponytail holder and were standing straight up! :O It looked quite funny. Unfortunately she lost all the curls in her hair, too. No matter what I try on her hair it refuses to hold a curl for longer than about an hour. I tried to curl it a little bit when we got there but it wouldn't hold a curl anymore no matter how much hairspray I put in it. ;) The girls did a great job. Michaella said she wasn't nervous about all the people watching because the stage lights were so bright, she couldn't see anyone. ;) They ended up getting High Gold! They can go on to Nationals if they want to. I'm not sure if we will be able to go or not yet. We stayed and watched a couple of other groups dance, grabbed some supper and headed back home. We didn't get home until 12:45 am. :O It definitely made for a long day. The kids did great, but I wasn't too worried about them since they are used to much longer drives. ;) It was more Kailee that I was worried about on the drive. This was her first long distance ride in a vehicle. She did pretty good. There were a couple times we had to pull over to get her out, but other than that she was pretty content.

Here's a picture of the dance team in their end pose. There was one girl that didn't make it. Michaella definitely looks different without her bangs. (She told me the other day that is how she wants her hair now, too. So I guess we are going to work on growing out her bangs.) I was so proud of how well she did that night.


I decided to play around with my sister's prom pictures a little bit today. I had picked up a couple of tropical kits the other day and wanted to use them. I figured her prom pictures would be perfect for them. ;)

Credits

This layout I did for a Roadmap to Scrap challenge over at ScrapMatters. I love how it turned out. I've been trying for so long to get a picture of her smiling. I get get her going and as soon as I take out the camera it disappears. I did manage to get it a little bit in these pictures, though, that is before she turned her head on me. ;)

Credits

I participated in the Speed Scrap at ScrapMatters on Tuesday. I'm loving how the layout I did for it turned out. :) The kids are playing in the water area at A Bug's Land in California Adventure. By the time they were done they were quite wet, but they had a great time. :)

Credits

This weekend it National Scrapbook Day! I'm so excited I finally get to work on some paper layouts again. I hope I didn't forget how. ;) I plan on trying to get in some digi scrapping, too. ScrapMatters is doing a ton! of Speed Scraps this weekend through Wednesday. They are also starting the Queen of Scrap contest. I decided to give it a whirl. ;) I'm sure I won't get near as many layouts done as last years winner did, but it should be fun.

Well this post got a bit longer than I had planned. :) I guess I should try and update more than once a week. Time for me to head to bed, so I have lots of energy for this weekend, so I can scrap, scrap, scrap. ;)