Bags Of Hope

Over the summer I made some journals for the Bags of Hope Ministry, I met a lady named Ellen online who is really involved with them. So I made up a few journals and sent them out to her. Recently they started a web site and to my surprise they put photos of mine and a few other journals on the web site. It made me feel like a celebrity for a minute. LOL I plan to make more in the next few months and ship them out to her. They are based in Texas but I just start filling a flat rate box and ship when it gets full. They have needs for other things as well, shampoo, handmade bags, toothpaste & brush etc.If you want to help, email me H2bigblueeyes@yahoo.com and I can give you Ellen's address ( after she says OK) LOL. Here is a link to the web site: http://www.bagsofhopeministry.com/
FYI: mine are the 2 almost solid pink one(one says laugh and the other has a huge flower on it), the purple, and the green one that says remember.

The children that these go to are from abusive families and go to a high security building. If you do decide to make a journal please no wire, ribbon, brads, or anything that they could hurt themselves with. Journals should be made from composition books. Thanks

Things Are Changing

Today to church our Pastor resigned. We all knew it was coming, he has told us it was coming. It was still a shock. We will miss him greatly but he is staying in the area and I'm sure he will be by to visit from time to time.
Today we had the elections for the ladies offices. For the past few years we have had the same officers, and they did a great job. But they decided that they were ready to hand it over and so new officers were voted in. My mom, Kaye, was voted in as President, Go Mom!!!! and Sis. Milissa was voted in as the Sec/Treasurer and your truly was voted in as the Vice President. I am so excited. I have a million ideas, our church has been in limbo for a while and we think it is time to wake up and get moving again.
So keep the church in your thoughts and prayers, that we have a smooth transition with our new pastor and that the ladies group is successful.
Finally, today was my oldest son Nicholas' birthday. He turned 10 years old today. I can't believe how time has flown by. He is all grown up now with his quirky thoughts and ideas. We took him out to Red Lobster for his birthday, cause it's his favorite. My Mom and Stepdad were there along with some friends. They came out and sang with the cake and everything. We all had a great time and I think he did to. I love that boy.

This is a photo of him holding hos money he got from my friend Kristine and Milissa. I think he like that more then anything. LOL
This is him with his goofy smile. He has the same cheesy grin in every photo.
This is him with his Grandpa at the table. Grandpa told him he needed to slow down because he was making him older.
So look for scrapbook pages coming your way using these photos.

My Crazy Kid

He is always making weird faces at the camera, LOL. He is such a silly kid with a happy go lucky attitude. We were at church and I popped into his Sunday school class and took a couple photos and before you know it he throws this at me. What he doesn't know is that he is so photogenic that it doesn't matter, he looks great in all his photos. I tell him all the time that if he gets any prettier he is going to turn into a girl. He just smirks at me and says, MOM. Of all my boys he is the most helpful, and truly kind person. Most of the time he is always considerate of other peoples feelings and tries to think of ways to help them out. I couldn't imagine life without a Lucas in it. LOVE YOU!!

New Kit Club

I have been in such a funk lately. I haven't had the motivation to get up and scrap much less do the mundane things like clean the house. Well I decided enough was enough and I joined a kit club called A Million Memories. A friend of mine recently joined their design team and told me to check it out. I love there stuff and I know I will enjoy creating with it. They have fun and funky stuff, as well as vintage one of a kinds and cool project kits. While surfing around there board I came across a month long sketch challenge. So I decided to join in the fun and this is what I create using #17 sketch. I can feel the mojo coming back and the creative juices starting to flow again. With the kids in school (except #3) I have plenty of time to scrap and create cool stuff. Check back often because it won't be long and I will me shooting them out again.

I did this one of Alex sipping his juice at the McDonalds Play Place.

BTW- We made it through the storm alright, about 2:30pm we braved the storm and made a trip to Dunkin Donuts. LOL It was just some rain and wind, nothing major. I don't know why everyone gets in such a tizzy about these storms. They come, you prepare, they pass, you repair. Only this one was such a nothing storm, there will be no repairs.

Here comes the Storm

We have a tropical storm coming, Fay. We are all pretty calm at my house, we have been through this so many times we all know that drill. Stock up on the basics, put up the shutters and hunker down and wait. We sat at my friends through Charlie and the way the winds were hitting we were able to go out on her lanai and watch it a little and it was really cool. I know people were hurt and a lot of people lost everything and that was so terrible but watching the storm and seeing the winds whip and seeing how little we can actually control was magnificent. Anyhow we are waiting to see what it does and preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. They have already canceled school for tomorrow (the 2nd day LOL), so we will charge the games boys and fill the tubs with bath water (to flush the toilet with). Say a prayer for SW FL tonight. Here is a link for the latest, as of 2:00pm, http://www.weather.com/maps/geography/southeastus/southeastuscurrentweather_large.html

Working Woman

I'm a working woman now. I started my new job today and it was so much fun. I am working at Trader Tots, it is a children's consignment store. Sarah, my boss, is such a super nice lady. She taught me the system she uses and we got on so well. We took our pictures together, as a fellow scrapbooker she totally understood my need for a photo on my first day of work. It doesn't even feel like work, we just talk and chat about everything. It feels like I've known her for years. I am looking forward to going back tomorrow.
Me & Sarah

New Skin

What do you think of my new skin? Anita helped me pick it out and set it up. I am clueless about this stuff. I kept getting error signs, so we were chatting on Yahoo and I asked her if she knew anything about it. I gave her my login and password, so if you see anything outrageous, just know Anita has been playing around. LOL Anyhow she whipped right through it and had it up in less then a minute.
Isn't she awesome? I will have to post the LO that she did of me, it is so cute. She also edits my photos, I gave her one to edit something out of and you can't even tell. It looked so good. Another one was super dark and she lightened it up and made it look vintage. Anita Rocks.
I hope you enjoy the new skin, I am sure it will change often, I get bored with stuff easily.LOL

Lisa and I went to an anniversary crop at one of our local scrapbook stores. We had such a good time. They gave away so much free stuff and the atmosphere was relaxed and friendly. The owner had it catered by Olive Garden and who doesn't love Olive Garden?
As a bonus they flew in a couple of the girls from Prima, Sharon and her daughter Brittany. When they said that they had people coming from Prima I thought for sure they would be snobbish. That just goes to show that you shouldn't judge people before you meet them. They were so fun and very down to earth. Super nice and super sweet, both of them. Take a look at the photos of us, Sharon has 7 kids, no I didn't have a typo, she really has 7 kids. Brittany is 18 and she isn't even the oldest. Sharon doesn't even look old enough to have an 18 year old.
I would have loved to go back on Saturday and Sunday to take more classes from them but life got in the way with preplanned activities and I was only able to go on Friday. I got 2 layouts done, I haven't photographed them, as soon as I do, I will post them.
Sharon, Me (April) and Brittany
Sharon, Lisa and Brittany

Perfect Sunday

Yesterday was one of those days that you look back on and think about how perfect it was. The kids were behaved, the guests were relaxed, and everything went so smooth.

We invited Rachel over for a bar-b-que, she had said she wanted to go to a bar-b-que before she left to go back home. Luci grilled up some chicken, shrimp, sausage and hot dogs. I made some scalloped potatoes, sauteed onions, and baked some pies.

I have never baked pies before and they turned out really good. Now don't go thinking I am Betty Crocker because I am not, I used store bought pie crust and for the cherry pie I used the canned pie filling. I guess the only thing homemade about them was that I made the blueberry pie filling from scratch. I did do the lattice work on top and popped them into the oven. You could just say they were semi homemade. LOL

While Luci was grilling Rachel and I scrapped away in the scrap room. I got 3 LOs done and she got 4 done. We were on a roll yesterday.

Kristine stopped by to say hello and meet Rachel. They got on really well and she ended up staying for about an hour and a half.

Then after dinner we all got together and played Uno. I won once and then took one for the team on the second game so Josh couldn't win. LOL I had 1/2 the deck in my hand. Then we played Yahtzee, I love that game but it's probably not a good idea to play with a lot of people. Very slow going unless you get 2 sets of dice and split up.

It was just a fun and relaxing time. I finally took Rachel home about 11:30 and then came home and crashed.

I didn't even bother with the dishes until the next morning, why ruin a perfectly good day by cleaning. It can always wait until later. Right?

GOT A JOB

Yes, after being spoiled for almost 10 years, OK if we are being honest, my whole life, I have finally got a job. Can you believe it? I am super excited, it is only part time for 15-20 hours a week but it's money. I won't have to pay for daycare and it won't interfere with our evenings. I will be working at a consignment shop for kids.

I want to go on a trip to England next year to visit Rachel, but in order to go I have to save money. How do you save money when there is very little left over after the bills? You don't you get your butt out there and find a job. So that is what I did, I dropped the kids at my mom' and hit the streets. Not really, I got in my truck and drove around looking for HELP WANTED signs. There were none. Don't know how it is in the rest of the world but here in Cape Coral, FL we have a recession going on, I don't care what they say on the news, it's a recession. Plus it is out of season so not even Walmart is hiring. So I went in a store, bought a paper and we to meet the girls for lunch, only I was about an hour early. I thought I would get us a table and sit and read the paper and look at the classifieds. On the way to the restaurant I was praying hard, I asked God to send me something that would be perfect for me and that wouldn't interfere with the kids to much. SO I get to the restaurant and it is standing room only, they were having a Chamber of Commerce meeting, go figure. So I was standing there waiting for a table to come open and right as one did a lady walked up and asked if we could share the table. I said sure, I had plenty of time before the girls would be there and why not? Meet someone new. Her name was Sara. I am sitting there looking at the paper and we got to talking and I told her that I was looking for a job but there was none to be had. I mean, there was a 6x6 section of classifieds in a paper that used to have 8 to 10 pages. She told me that she owed her own store and was looking for someone to close it in the evenings from 3-6pm. I said ME ME ME. She must have thought I was mental but she smiled and said " Let's exchange numbers." Just as we were exchanging numbers Lisa walked in and sat next to me and started chatting with the woman and I asked her if she knew her and she said yeah, they worked in the same plaza. Go, figure. What a small world.

So I went in about a week later to talk to her to see if she was going to hire me, I was totally up front with her about why I wanted the job and where the money would go. I didn't want to take a job from someone who really needed to work and support there kids. She showed me around the store and asked, Do you want the job, do you think it will work for you? I thought all the time she was interviewing me, but it seems like we were interviewing each other. SHE WANTS TO HIRE ME, was all that was running through my mind. I told her absolutely I wanted the job. So I start Monday, August 11Th at 3pm. Wish me luck! It was totally Gods hand that was in this one.

Alright I can't post with out putting in a picture. Here are a few layouts I have done:

This is Alex eating his REALLY big ice cream cone.

This is Lucas hanging out on the front porch.

I love having my very own spot to kiss him, it's like God gave him dimples so I knew the exact spot everytime.