Merry Christmas!!!

Well, here it is Christmas and I have to admit that all the calendars are not done. NOPE...I was sooooo close, but didn't get them out (sorry!). I was missing a picture for "Home for the Holidays" and "You & Me." I'm always behind the camera, so I have so few pictures of me. I wanted to get Erica to take a pix of Jeff and I (and am still hoping to do so), but it hasn't happened yet. I promise the calendars will get done and sent out ASAP.

So here are the full pictures of the months that are done. I'm particularly excited that the "Celebration" month happens to be Erica's birth month...yeah! Again, all the credit goes to Basic Grey on this one. I'll try to put some notes on each month:

Erica's 7th Birthday "party" at Chuck E Cheese's

Our standard family picture on the Tilt-o-whirl...the only ride at the fair Jeff will go on. This year it felt like it went on FOREVER. We aren't quite sure what we did to upset the operator.

Erica ice fishing...she was eventually on her belly looking into the hole. I honestly thought she was "wishing" she could catch a fish.

Erica and Cole tubing on Grandpa's lake

A random picture of Erica...we truly are lucky to have her!!!

Erica, Grandpa Guru, and Grannie Annie at a Yankee's pre-season game in Florida. What a beautiful day!!!

Erica with the top of the world in the background (Denali...aka Mt McKinley). It's rarely seen all the way in Anchorage.

Erica's troop became Junior Rangers by visiting a the Kenai Fjords National Park and completing some great learning activities.

Another picture of Erica on Grandpa's lake...she LOVES to drive the boat!!!

Part of the Girl Scout Law is to make the world a better place. During a camping trip in April, the girls planted trees and flowers at the park for their service project.

Happy Winter Solstice...and calendar peeks

Today is officially the shortest day of the year. Tomorrow we finally get to GAIN some daylight...YEAH! For those on the east coast, today was a milestone that hadn't been seen in the past 370-some odd years. There was a lunar eclipse on the same day as the winter solstice. Officially it occurred yesterday in Alaska, but oh, well.

My scrappy friends (and parents/in-laws) know I make 8x8 scrapbook calendars as Christmas gifts every year. This year is no different...I think I'd be disowned if I didn't make them. In fact, one year I was late getting Jeff's done and his heart dropped on Christmas morning when his mom opened her calendar, but he didn't have one. It was soooo nice to hear him say he really enjoyed having it at the office. Yes, he got one that year, too.

Since it's not Christmas, I don't think I should post the full pictures. Instead, here are a few sneak peeks. Stay tuned for the complete pictures in a week or so (and since we'll be gone, I'm gonna have to "schedule" the post...let's see if I can do it right). Oh, and this is another great kit from Basic Grey!!! Pre-cut papers, stickers, rub-ons, and INSTRUCTIONS!!! All I had to do was add adhesive, pictures, and TIME. Whew, nothing like cutting it close, huh?

More Card kits...

My last post was a showing you a great card kit from Basic Grey (and they have them for all kinds of themes). I also made several cards from Fancy Pants Designs (they also have several themes). This one required a little more measuring for cutting papers, but they still went together very quickly...and with lots of left overs. I made extra cards from this kit, too. And I think I was also able to mix and match papers and embellishments from both kits, which was nice!

Now I need to finish getting them addressed (yes, I know I said I was doing that last weekend) and get them in the mail!!! Remember the busy schedule I mentioned? Ugh...is it ever going to let up?!?!?

Awesome Crafty Card Kit

I love to be crafty...scrapbooking, sewing, home decor, you name it. I have a stash of cards for various holidays (mostly birthdays). If I buy a card, I either forgot to pull one from my stash or I didn't have the right one (boy birthday cards are usually a make it that day thing). So it's no wonder I make cards every year...course, maybe that's why I went a few years without sending Christmas cards (but let's not talk about that).

This year has been crazy with Erica's Girl Scout schedule, soccer twice a week, Jeff shooting, and my new job. So I didn't get creative and make my own from scratch. Instead I found a few great kits and put them together with pre-coordinated supplies and instructions (woo hoo!!!). This is the first set I did from Basic Grey (ooooh, how I love Basic Grey!!!). There was alot of left over supplies. I made a few extra cards from the left overs...but of course I didn't take pix of those. Oh, well. The cards were so easy to complete, and now I have a bunch of new design "go-bys."

The Santa Claus House, North Pole Alaska

I have a log on the bottom of the blog that shows where people come from when they visit my blog. I see the standard friends and family most of the time. But recently I've seen a bunch of hits on my Magical experience in North Pole, Alaska. I thought I put a plug in for the Santa Claus House. If you have young kids and don't know about this place, take a look!!! You can get a letter from Santa delivered and it's actually post marked from the North Pole.

We visited the Santa Claus house 18 months ago and met Santa in the middle of summer. What an experience it was. If you ever make it to Alaska with young kids and have a chance to travel up to Fairbanks, I highly encourage it. It made a big impact on Erica!

And while we're talking about Christmas fun, do you know about the NORAD Santa Tracker site? This is our favorite activity on Christmas Eve. The site is up and counting down the days, minutes, and seconds. There's also a kids countdown link where kids can play games, too. GREAT site!!!

Just for fun, here's the layout I did after our visit to the Santa Claus House in June 2009. Merry Christmas!!!

A fun mini-album...

So here I sit again...WEEKS after my last blog post. I'm trying desperately to strike a balance between Erica's activities (girl scouts and soccer), 10-hour days at work, Jeff's shooting, and our new activities at the gym. Yes, we've joined a gym again. I'm down 4 pounds in a month and Jeff is down 6 pounds. The hardest part about trying to live a healthy life is cooking healthy. It was scary when I looked at the food we ate. So now I'm trying to learn about healthy eating...ugh, and healthy cooking takes a LONG time compared to easy unhealthy stuff.

But I digress. The only crafty stuff I've done since the last post is Christmas cards (Yeah!!! They're going out in the next day or two after I get them addressed) and the standard Christmas calendars for Jeff and the grandparents. So...since Jeff wrote the Christmas letter and published the blog address on it, I figured I should get some stuff posted. I don't have the cards or the calendars digitized yet, so here is are some mini album pages I did for a dear friend of mine a few months ago. She has two active boys. The papers I used are called Monstrosity. Ha! I don't know the boys that well, but what boy doesn't fit in the category of "monstrosity?!?"

These pages were really easy to make with just 5 sheets of double sided paper and some coordinating cardstock, stickers, and felties. All she has to do is add a 4x6 photo and she has an instant album!