Enchanted

Enchanted

Tonight is actually our date night, but dh had to go to a work function, so I rented movies and watched Enchanted with my boys! They were really sceptical at first at watching a "fairytale" movie, and actually so was I, but I'm happy to report we had an surprisingly enchanting, bonding time! Just yesterday Ryan told me they will live together when they are grown, "we will be bachelors!" he said gleefully, :) , I did not tell him that in three years he'll think very differently(!) (I was worried there for a minute: but what about grandchildren??) Tonight we were all happily transported to happily ever after land, halfway through Jared actually worried about Giselle, "who will she choose?" - well, boys are human and sweet at heart too, after all! :)

The situation with computer games is under control, this week we are working on the "earn" your computer time with "homework well done" basis, and so far so good! I sneak onto the computer every night after they're in bed, and caught up with lots of scrapping, been using some designer templates, it was so easy!

Credits: Frames from Scrapieupe.typepad.com, paper by Corina Nielson

Credits: Swirl by Vanilla Hush, frames by Scrapkitty, background paper by Krista Designs, alpha by DaringSpiritGraphicsCredits: Background paper by Fanny of Scrappinfolics.blogspot.com, labels by LigiaOrsati, stamp by FeiFei, heart by Minna Rajala, alpha by Pri Rocha.

This is now available as a set in the store here

Easter To Me

Easter to me
Happy Easter! On Easter I want to give thanks to our great God for reaching out to us when we are unable to reach Him. This morning at Easter Service in church I was so reminded of how utterly undeserving we are, or I am, of Jesus' work on the cross and His gift of salvation. I am so thankful for that first day more than twenty years ago when I first heard the gospel and believed, and for everyday that He walks with me, despite who I am. Praise be to our Lord!

Brag book for my mom
Made my first brag book for my mom on her birthday. It was a breeze and oh so beautiful because I used Ikea Goddess's quick pages that she offered for a challenge on Weeds & Wildflower a while ago, thanks Angie!! My boys are my mom's only grandchildren so you can imagine how much she loves to "brag" about them. I used some of their younger photos - they were just so cute, and also to see how much they have changed and grew.

Been Offline

Been Offline!!

Due to mini crisis at home related to enforcing computer gaming rules for my boys, we had to take a hard stand last week and removed the cables to the computer indefinitely!! It worked and there was no protest and in fact a peaceful week (it was a one week school holiday) spent playing board games and creating with Lego and Knex, outdoors, at the beach, and at the museum!

Unfortunately for me I share the computer with the boys (the dh has one for himself..because he has work on it, well that's his reason anyway :p ) I was OFFLINE too!

It was quite uncomfortable, but I too did more reading, and finally, I scrapped, the traditionally paper way! Well, I have been wanting to re-scrap the boys' baby photos which were not digital photos, and did not want to bother with scanning them. Guess what, I enjoyed myself so much! The scrapping was tedious and I kept it simple, but going through Ryan's baby photos just felt so... well, precious and warm and fuzzy, and I am now able to journal a lot about those days, well, from my current reflections of 11 years ago! Look at some of these pages!

I asked Ryan what he did to my sweet baby in those photos, and he said " I upgraded him." I can't disagree with that!

Okay, I did log on a few times after they went to bed, downloaded freebies and over the weekend, completed a page:

Credits: Papers by Kschmidt's flight of fancy, wordarts and ribbon by Gina Caberra, title alpha by faith42love , charm by Lori Barnhurst, swirls by Janosch designs, butterfly by Weeds&Wildflower

And here's the template:
This is now available as a set in the store here

Of Music and Children

Of Music and children
Dh and I just just had our date night, and we went to watch the movie, August Rush. What a delightful movie! The soundtrack was unusual and awesome, and the sweet movie really tugged at our hearts. Long ago when I watch movies like this I'd think how wonderful if I had music genius like that, nowadays I think how wonderful if my sons had music genius like that! From the couple of years they have spent having piano lessons I know they are far from that (!) but we let them carry on, (no music exams please though) since they have never requested to stop lessons, and keep on punching those keys. It is good enough for me and dh as long as they are able to enjoy making some music when they want to, that they can appreciate and be blessed by the great genre of music that God has blessed humankind with. As the children grow, I keep trying to watch for something they totally standout in, like sports or music, for a glimpse at what they might lean towards, pursue, become great in. At this point it is not clear yet, though we can tell that Ryan is academically inclined and Jared is creatively inclined. We can't rush children nor second guess God, can we? I just now thought and feel thankful for my boys, the wonder of watching them unfold, the knowledge that God has them in His hands and the blessing of being their mom. Well! That was a lot of rambling, but I'm glad I captured some of that!


I have finally completed my next layout, it was tough! because it had all planes in our photos from the National Air and Space museum at Dulles Airport.
The journaling goes: The boys, especially daddy, was totally floored by the planes and space shuttle we came face to face with at the Udvar-Hazy Centre of the National Air & Space Museumat Dulles Airport. Daddy must have taken 20 photos of the Blackbird alone! He told the rest of us many stories, and it was totally awesome to see the Enola Gay and know it dropped that A bomb in Hiroshima that saved our families from the WWII. WoW


Credits: twine by Natalie Bird, Background Paper by April Staker, crumpled brown paper by Krizomel, stars by Sausan designs, tags and alpha by Miss Mint, compass by Island Girl.







And here's the template, hope it works for you! Thank you so much for your great feedback and especially links to your lovely layouts! Jackie had feedback asking me to collapse the layers for each photo, I've done that for the white frame layer and its shadow, and linked that and the photo layer, hope that helps! Also, Jackie, in photoshop you can still move the the photos that hang over the page into the page for your smaller 8x11 pages. Just use your move tool. I just have this thing about photos going over, haha, it kind of makes the scrap page look like it is a photo of a physical scrap page! Do feel free to move them around to suit your page. This is now available as a set in the store here