Snow

One of the things I love about Colorado is that you can have 70 degree weather one day and snow the next. We've got a lovely spring storm going here, but so far it doesn't seem to be blizzard-like (knock on wood).

My Silly Bean layout got named as Layout of the Week at SOTB! Very cool.

Yesterday I found a wealth of fun Curious George related activities at the publisher's website. I think we are going to make little monkey masks (and either put hats on the masks or make yellow hats) for the kids at Maura's party. How fun! I'm getting excited about it - I think it will be a fun day.

Well, off to get some work done.

Flora Maura

Not much going on - just trying to get caught up at work and in my review class. But I just realized I never posted this layout I did a while ago with my "Pretty in Purple" photo of the kids. It's using a new set of templates by Amy (Doodleboogs) that she made specifically with me in mind - they are called "Flora Maura."

I decided to e-mail out the BBQ invites today so they actually arrive before everyone gets busy with Holy Week next week. And we're still trying to decide who to invite from Maura's daycare class to her party. We'd like to keep it smaller, but it's hard to only pick out a few kids from the class of 12. They all play nicely together. Part of the problem is that many of them have siblings that are Emmelia's friends, so of course we'd like to include them, too (Maura specifically says she'd like "Emmelia's friends" to be there), but that sure makes the number running around in our house grow quickly! It also makes us wish we had a different decor than "college eclectic." But there's no fixing that right now.

I think we're pretty much ready for Easter at this point - Palm Sunday dresses and shoes are waiting in the closet and Easter basket gifts have been purchased and hidden away. I would kind of like to make each girl a pysanky this year as I have in previous years, but I'm not sure that's actually going to happen. This Saturday is known as "Lazarus Saturday" in the Orthodox Church and every year our priest does a "teaching liturgy" for the kids (the adults learn a lot, too). Everything comes out of the altar (normally it's hidden behind the iconostasis) and we get to see exactly what is happening behind the scenes during a liturgy and discuss the significance of it. It's a fun day. That afternoon I'll help the girls decorate some candles for us to carry in the procession on Palm Sunday and we might bake some cupcakes to take to coffee hour to celebrate Maura's birthday. I can't believe she is going to be 3 in only six days!

Friday

I have no idea what it is about this kit that is so inspiring to me this week. I can't remember ever making 3 layouts in a row with the same kit. This one just really pushed a creative button in me, though - and apparently it's a quirky one. I haven't don't much "quirking" but today I decided to play around with my perspective tool and see what I came up with. It's kind of interesting. I can't wait to put these 3 layouts in the galleries next week and see what sort of comments I get. I really like this song by Paul Simon - it's on the "Surprise" album I got for Christmas.

We don't have a lot planned this weekend. Emmelia is doing another round of the Suzuki teacher continuing ed workshop and, other than church, we'll probably stick around the homestead and clean up a bit. It's supposed to be a bit cooler and rainy tomorrow, so it'll be a good day to get things done inside. Have a great weekend!

Just a quick note

Just posting quickly, mainly to show off the two layouts I made this week with my friend Christine's new March Into Spring kit. It will be in the store at SBE on Sunday, but since I'm on her CT, I get to use it now! It is SO fun! Here's what I've created this week:

































This week I also started looking around the forums more at DigiShop Talk and guess what? I get to sport one of these in my signature now (how cool is that?):
I'm kicking around the idea of starting a blog to do tutorials and build a community of people who use the Gimp for digiscrapping. I think that would be great, even though it would be a pretty small group of people that are interested.

Today Emmelia had her second morning violin lesson. For the past year+, we've had evening lessons after work one night a week. Finally, her teacher decided one thing that is holding her back is how TIRED she is at the end of the day. So we switched to early morning and so far, so good. It's looking like she's going to play her first solo at the May recital! I'm so excited about that.

I had a follow-up with my ortho today and he says my foot is doing really well for 3 months out. I was a little worried since I still limp a little and there is still some swelling and ankle and heel pain. But, apparently that's normal. He did give me a referral to do a little physical therapy, too, so that should help things continue to heal.

Tomorrow I *must* do some Health Physics review.

Well, time to run... have a great night!

Quick scraps

My friend Christine made a beautiful quickpage with her equally beautiful "A Bit of Hope" kit and gave it out as a freebie in this month's newsletter from Scrapbook-Elements. I knew immediately it was perfect for that photo of Maura at NCAR. Isn't the page pretty? I love the stitched flowers. I've actually had this kit downloaded for a while, but it's so pretty that I feel completely intimidated by it. It was nice to "get my feet wet" with it a little using the quickpage. Full credits can be seen HERE.
And, I listened to my Mom (!) and made the photo of Maura a little bigger on her invitation like she suggested. Thanks, Mom - I like how it looks. Now to get over the fear of having 15-20 two and three year olds (okay, a few are older siblings) in my HOUSE for 2 hours! I need to find some good activities to keep them busy. But I still have a few weeks for that. We had Emmelia's 3rd birthday at McDonald's for this very reason. But, we're trying to model healthier living, and so McDonald's is out. Besides, Maura wanted to have the party at her house. I guess I don't necessarily have to invite her entire daycare class, but they are all friends so it's hard to choose just a few. AUUUUUGGGGHHHH! Okay, I feel better now. We can handle it.

The nice thing is, the house *should* be clean from our annual Bright Week (the week after Pascha/Easter) BBQ. Normally we have it on Friday of that week and have a huge bash, but there is a giant fundraiser dinner/dance happening that night for some of the Denver-area parishes and we don't want to compete too much. So this year we moved it to Wednesday and decided to keep it a lot smaller than in the past. We'll probably just invite a few other clergy couples and keep it casual. Here's the invite I designed for that:


It gave me an excuse to use the "Dinner Party" kit from Shabby Princess. I need to get all these invites printed out and delivered! The dates will sneak up on us at the rate this year is flying by...

A belated Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We had a busy weekend. On Friday I took the day off and joined a friend and her son to take the girls to the Children's Museum in Denver. It was a fun day for all of us. Here's a photo I took of the girls in the Fire Department exhibit at the museum:

Then on Saturday Emmelia was a sort of "example student" for a continuing ed class for local Suzuki violin instructors. It was a lot of fun - she joined about 4 other kids her age/level and we learned a few new tricks. We might get to do it again next Saturday, too. After that, we drove to NCAR in Boulder to meet some folks the Deac knows who are visiting from Pennsylvania. We hiked a little ways up the trail (I couldn't go too far on my sore tendons) to show them the beautiful panoramic views. The girls were really into hiking, so hopefully we'll get out some more this summer. I managed to get a great photo of Maura sitting on a rock at NCAR.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous this weekend. Perfect for spending a day walking around and sight-seeing.

After that, we all went down to the Pearl Street Mall and had lunch. Since it was St. Patrick's Day, the Mall was packed with revelers and street performers. When we got there, Emmelia asked if we were at the circus. Hee. Well, sort of, I guess.... I made a scrapbook page about it today using some new templates my friend Amy created. Full credits are HERE.
I haven't gotten a chance to play around some more with Maura's invitation, but I should get on that and get the invitations out soon!

Pretty in Purple

Okay, I admit it. I secretly do get a kick out of dressing my kids in matching outfits. I sometimes roll my eyes at other people who do it. But, you know, it's actually kind of fun to do now, before they get old enough to rebel against it. And, hey - the'll need *something* to talk about in therapy, right? Here's a great photo I took of the girls this morning in some new shirts I picked up at Target yesterday. I actually think it's the best photo I've ever taken of them together:
I have been working on putting together an invitation to Maura's birthday party. I am thinking of having a Curious George theme for her. She loves Curious George and is just very Curious-George-like herself. I mean, I don't think a "Danger Mouse" theme would go over very well. This year, Maura's birthday falls on Monday of Holy Week. Let me tell you, Holy Week is a BUSY time for Orthodox Christians. So, we will be delaying her party until the Saturday after Pascha this year. I doubt she'll mind all that much since 3 year olds (can you believe she's going to be THREE?) don't have a great sense of time. Anyway, I'm trying to combine the Curious George thing with Maura's favorite color (purple) on the invites. It's a bit challenging, but I'm sure it will all come together.

Here's what I have so far - obviously the party information will go in the purple box. What do you think?

Ah, Spring

Ah, spring. With it's warm, sunny weather and flowers promising to come up out of the ground and bloom soon. The bacteria and viruses floating around.... ugh. I actually love spring. But right now, with me on antibiotics for a finger infection and Maura starting her 2nd script of antibiotics in as many months yesterday for a bad ear infection... that is the part of spring I don't like. I'm still keeping my (healthy) fingers crossed that this ear infection will be the worst we get from the RSV and pneumonia bugs around the daycare.

I made a layout yesterday! When I was looking for elements for my "unique" layout below, I came across this quickpage I'd downloaded last fall. I decided it was perfect to scrap the Natalie MacMaster concert that Emmelia and I went to last fall. I've been struggling with how to put that together. So I dressed up the page a bit with some photos downloaded from the internet and went crazy with my blending modes. It was fun and I like how the layout came out. Full credits can be seen in my gallery at Digitals.

A little scrappin'

Slowly, but surely I'm getting back into the mood to scrap. I am trying out some new techniques and trying to use more items from my "stash" of freebies and kits I've downloaded. I don't want to just collect cool digital files and store them. The point is to use them, right? Usually, though, I have one layout going at a time and finish it before I start another. Right now, I've got about 5 started and don't like how any of them are turning out so I don't know if I'll try to fix them or just start over with something new.

One of the best purchases I've ever made is a handy portable external harddrive to store all my digiscrap files on. It is a 60 GB drive, so it should hold quite a few photos, layouts, and kits. I am good about backing up the digital photographs and scrap layouts, but I should do better with saving the freebies and kits. Anyway, I really like how this layout came out. Full credits are here.

One good thing about Lent is it gets me thinking about spiritual things a bit more. Lately I've been thinking about the woman who visited Jesus just before he was crucified and annointed his feet with oil. We read about her many times over in the prayers before Holy Communion. She was a prostitute and, when she learned where Jesus was staying, she went out and purchased oil (very expensive, so this would've been a sacrifice for her) and came to where he was staying and annointed his feet with the oil and her tears. She is an image of repentance for us. What has especially struck me lately is her boldness. I mean, if I were her, my tendency would've been to realize my sinfulness, fall into despair, and go away. She was bold enough to go to our Lord and ask His forgiveness even knowing her sinfulness. There are other stories of people whose salvation and healing were gained by their boldness - like the woman with an issue of blood who reached out and touched the hem of Christ's garments as he was walking through a crowd. It's a good lesson to think about because my natural tendency is meekness rather than boldness in these sorts of situations. I need to flesh out my thoughts on this a little more clearly. Luckily, there are still 4 weeks or so left in Lent...

Tuesday

Emmelia had her 3rd violin recital this past weekend. The recitals are nice because they are very low-key. It's basically all the students taught by the same person (plus an occasional extra few). The recitals are not so much to show the parents what the kids know because in Suzuki, the parents are an integral part of the music education. We go to every lesson and take notes and teach the child during each practice. So the recitals are mainly a way to give the kids practice playing in front of other people. They occasionally play solos and the whole group plays every piece they know at each recital. Emmelia was a little nervous before the recital and didn't want to go, but afterwards she told me that she didn't feel at all nervous when she was up in front of everyone playing. What's nice is she's getting used to this at age 5, so that it will never seem like it should be different to her.

We got Emmelia a new violin a couple of weeks ago. We've been renting one, but Southwest Strings had some decent ones on sale for the cost of about 10 months of rentals. Since Em will be in this size violin for another year and then Maura will use it, it made sense to just buy the thing. Southwest Strings has a trade-in program where we can use this violin as a down-payment towards a bigger size if we'd like. Or we could sell it when the time comes. Although I'm sure it will hold a little sentimental value for me.

Here's Emmelia playing "Twinkle Variation A" at the recital. It's not the greatest photo because I was too far away for the flash to work. That's her over on the right in the front row with her fellow pre-Twinklers. This recital is much more casual than the other ones - it's got a western theme, so the kids are encouraged to wear denim and they play more fiddle tunes than classical pieces (the pre-Twinklers played a part on "Pop Goes the Weasel") and then afterwards we all have a chili pot-luck dinner.

It's that time of year where spring allergies are starting to hit, making me tired, and we're hoping to avoid the RSV and pneumonia making the rounds at the daycare. Hopefully we can all stay healthy. I haven't been scrapping much, but am hoping to do more. I just haven't felt all that inspired lately. I did make a layout late last week with some photos from last December:


Other than that, I'm staying caught up at work and trying to catch up in my Health Physics review class. I am walking without a boot now and so far, so good. I still don't have a normal gait, but that seems to be more related to my ankle having been kept still for so long as opposed to my tendons. I'm sure it'll loosen up in a week or so. It's very exciting to be able to walk on my heel for the first time in my life!