PreK 2006-2007

Here are the pages to Myka's prek scrapbook. If you are a scrapbooker too, and want to know the products I used, click this link and it will take you to my DigiShopTalk gallery. It may take a few days for all these pictures to be in that gallery but I'll have all the layouts there with a list of the products I used if anyone is interested.

I am *hoping* that once I get several examples done, that I can start creating albums for other people. With these of Myka's, I am going to have them printed at a photo lab, and slip them into a traditional scrapbook. But you can also have them printed into board books, etc so I am really excited to get this going.

Thanks for looking :)

April Fools...

Ok. I make a promise to post on my blog at least once a day.

APRIL FOOLS!

Ha. Ok that was dumb but I always have good intentions to post regularly. There is so much cool stuff I have been doing but I havent been doing any blogging.... other than reading lots of other blogs.

Anyhow, a few things I wanted to mention, first today of course is April 1st - and April is Autism Awareness Month and tomorrow, April 2nd is World Autism Awareness Day This is a cause that is really important to me. While Myka has not been diagnosed with Autism he definitely has some special needs including his social skills, and learning how to deal with his anxiety or frusturation. Just knowing that your child may not fit into that perfectly square box that society has created for them - it is really frusturating. Autism is such a broad spectrum. More and more children are being diagnosed, and there needs to be more research, support, and progress towards helping the children of our future generations.

Now... onto what has kept me so busy the last week or so (besides school, a big GI test last week -scored 94% by the way, work, keeping up with Myka and his homework, etc) I have been working on "digital" scrapbooking. I finally finished Myka's preK album and will post it all here in the next day or so, and then tonight I worked on a layout for my super cool sister Caitlin. I am going to put together an album for her of pics of her and her super cool boyfriend, Thiago.

So.... here is what I did tonight, and I am super happy with myself and am LOVING this new way of scrapbooking!

Product used: Wishes & Dreams kit from Oscraps

Yay me! On top of finishing Myka's album and then doing this one, I actually feel a ...gasp...sense of ACCOMPLISHMENT! Instead of my usual feeling of never getting anything done...

So, there ya have it. And I'll add Mykas album pics up here soon!

I love Photoshop

So those of you know know me (that is, IF anyone even reads this darn thing besides me?)... you know I scrapbook. Well....back it up. I USED to scrapbook, years ago, I started right after Myka was born, loved it, then started an online business with it, and (thank God) the business took off like crazy - dang near overnight it seemed.

So I never seemed to have much time to actually scrapbook then, and that went on for a few years while I continued to hoard super cool supplies and papers and stickers and embellishments along the way. I knew one day I would get to scrapbook again.

Then in 2007 I sold the business, and thought "Yes! Finally, I will be able to scrapbook for myself again!".

And then one day in October of that year I got this wild, crazy, semi-mad idea that I wanted to go back and get my Nusing degree. I say go back, because I had originally started this process those early years after Myka was born, until the business took off and I had no time to go to school. So, in a brief moment of insanity, I registered again for school, and got into the program. So.... since then I havn't picked up one piece of scrapbook paper to do anything with.

Honestly, I haven't even printed pictures for the last few years (thanks to my Nikon D70 and a FreeAgent 750GB hard drive). But I have been secretly admiring the new world of scrapbooking - the digital version where you create your pages in a photo editing program (Photoshop CS2 for me) and then print them out and slip 'em into an album.

Well I FINALLY started this process awhile back and though it's been slow going, I have almost completed my first project: Myka's PreK album. WHOOO HOO!!! Pop the champagne!

So here is a page I did tonight, and I thought I'd make it my photo for the day - and then I'll post all of it when I am done, hopefully next week sometime. Or next year. Who knows.

3.19.09
Credits:
xOxO Kit from Oscraps
Template (I Love My CT3) by Darcy Baldwin from Sweet Shoppe Designs

Week half over...whew!

3.17.09
Myka and MiMi playing Wii - boxing to be specific. This thing is great. We just got one a few weeks ago, and my mom just got one, so we were showing her how to use it, and she was pretty good at the boxing - pulled a TKO on Myka.

3.18.09
Myka watching his Derby car race to the finish line...

A good team - after getting the 2nd place ribbon. Later that night, before bed, Myka said "We made a good team Dad!" (I went and got a tissue to wipe my eyes...snif)

(Greatest) Grandpa, Grandma, Papa, and Grandpa Larry at the Derby

FIRST PLACE! In this race... overall Myka's car finished 2nd in his Tiger Cub Den, and he got to go to the finals, which consisted of the top 3 cars in each Den, so a total of 12 in the finals, and his car finished 5th there. So we were all pretty proud. And it was a great experience for Myka to see how his effort paid off.

Whew - halfway through the week. Amen. Only 6 more weeks of school for me. Watching American Idol - wishing I could sing other than belting it out in the car. Should be going to bed since I was up at 5:30am for clinicals, but I am stubborn.

The super fast Derby car...

3.16.09

Well, still no luck with the lost pictures. I think my CF card for the camera became corrupt. If so, better the CF card than the camera. So I am still working on getting pics...

In the meantime, here is the car with a finished paint job. The thing had enough coating or whatever it was that it probably could have slid down the track just like this, but we did put some wheels on it.....

Well, crap.

I forgot to put up a picture last night, because I was so tired when we got home from dinner at my moms. But here is a picture I TOOK last night so that should count for something...

3.14.09

And today was a HUGE day for us, because it was the Pinewood Derby for Mykas Cub Scout pack. Myka and Josh worked so hard on the car, and Myka did a ton of it himself, which in and of itself is a big acomplishment - he had a great time doing it. And it paid off for him today. But I won't tell you how just yet because I have (had?) some great pictures from today, BUT something really screwy is going on with either my camera or my memory card so I am working on getting some pictures, then I'll make a nice post about our big "Derby Day".

We also had some special visitors here for it as well, Greatest Grandma and Greatest Grandpa from Georgia, and Papa came to watch.

THEN, later tonight about 7:45pm we were going out for celebratory ice cream, and we saw the SPACE SHUTTLE that had just launched. It was very cool! No I didn't have the camera, but I wish I did. But, trust me, it was super cool to be able so see it, even though we're on the other side of the state! It was just a stream of orange smoke, then we saw the flash of the rocket after it broke apart from the boosters.

So, all in all, a great day, but I am having some "Oh, crap" moments here hoping I can get my pictures back. Thank goodness Josh's dad was there taking pics too, so if I lost mine, I can get a copy of his.

Getting it done

3.13.09 - Myka came home the other day after Tae Kwon Do and with the time change, it is still so light out, that everyone was outside in the yard so he hopped up on Josh's truck and started his homework.