Project 365

Monday - I took Senior pictures for Madison Wray, our neighbor. We also had spider-hot dogs, bones & eyeballs (mac and cheese w/ peas) for lunch.

Tuesday - Pictures for Mindy's dental office. This stressed me out more than almost anything ever has. I was already worried about it but a few seconds before we took the pictures I asked what the picture's size needed to be. I knew it was going to be in a phone book. She said, "It's the back cover". THE BACK COVER OF THE PHONEBOOK!!?!?! Anyway, they didn't turn out great (because I am NOT a professional photographer, and we were going to originally take them outside, but it was pouring rain and we had to do them indoors @ their office). Anyway - after taking some mediocre pictures I came home and fell apart because I felt bad they hadn't turned out. Sorry Mindy...I tried...

Wednesday - We went to dinner with the boys @ Rusty's. Gabe wanted shrimp and boy oh boy - he got shrimp. We joked that they were as big as his head. He so kindly held them up to my head (or in my hair....) to show me how big they were. Silly kid. Yummy food.

Thursday - While I was on the phone with my childhood best friend (Jana) Hunter couldn't keep himself entertained without making a mess of cereal all over the kitchen floor. I guess catching up with a great friend was worth a few minutes with the dust-buster. (We found out earlier that a mutual friend of ours from high school - Ben Hill - had died in a plane crash on Wednesday.)

Friday - We had Gabe's friend Jase come play for a good part of the day. Gabe & Jase were friends from preschool last year and Gabe asks about him all the time. I aws glad they could catch up and play together. We made "donut hole eyeballs" as a treat while they played.

Saturday - Gotta love the annual "Livestock Festival" parade. The highlight - after the parade of farm equipment and tractors is the massive flock of sheep being herded down main street. It was kind of a boring parade this year, but we still had fun together. (note to self - sit on the other side of the street for the next parade - the blaring sunlight was a bit much for my head).

Sunday - while we were reading bedtime stories Gabe insisted that he was "SO HUNGRY". I would have felt sorry for him if he'd eaten better for dinner (we're struggling with meal times - any suggestions?), but since he was already ready for bed I told him if he was really hungry he could have a cup of carrots. He tried proving his point that he was really hungry and took me up on my offer. But not until he had already used the carrot sticks for "vampire teeth".

So there you have it - another fairly uneventful week @ the Ellis home.

Great Quote!

"If I had my child to raise over all again:
I'd build self-esteem first, and the house later.
I'd finger paint more and point the finger less.
I'd do less correcting and more connecting.
I'd take my eyes off my watch and watch with my eyes.
I'd take more hikes and fly more kites.
I'd stop playing serious and seriously play.
I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars.
I'd do more hugging and less tugging".

~Diane Loomans

Scrapbook layouts

Several of these kits are coming out on Monday @ Elemental Scraps, but I thought I'd post the layouts today to give a little "Sneak Peak".

Madi - These are pictures I took of my neighbor Madison Wray. She is such a beautiful girl, so smart and on-the-ball. She also comes from a wonderful family. She was a Beehive when we moved here and it's hard for me to believe that she'll be graduating this year!

Kit: Bella Gypsy - "Better Left Unsaid" @ Elemental Scraps (Available 10-26)
Template: ChrissyW - Coming soon in the Elemental Scraps November Mega



Kit: Bella Gypsy - "Silence I Can't Ignore" - @ Elemental Scraps (available 10/26)
Template: Bella Gypsy - "Sketchology: Passive Agressive" - @ Elemental Scraps (Available 10/26)





Kit: By Bella Gypsy "Falling For Him" @ Elemental Scraps
Template: Freebie from ChrissyW (if you are a newsletter subscriber and will be available to purchase @ Elemental Scraps 10/26)



Kit: by Libby Weifenbach - "Can You See Me Now?" @ Sweet Shoppe
Template: An older one (no longer for sale) by Janet Phillips






Kit: by Bella Gypsy & Connie Prince - "Say Cheese" @ Elemental Scraps
Template: by ChrissyW "Sample Pack #11" @ Elemental Scraps

Bella Gypsy new layouts

Mommy's Little Monster:

Word Art: http://www.elementalscraps.com/shoppe/product.php?productid=23113&cat=363&page=2
Kit: http://www.elementalscraps.com/shoppe/product.php?productid=23111&cat=363&page=2

Mommy's Monkey:

Freebie Template by ChrissyW for the current challenge @ Elemental Scraps: http://www.elementalscraps.com/shoppe/product.php?productid=23126&cat=363&page=1
Kit - Mr Monkey Cuddle: http://www.elementalscraps.com/shoppe/product.php?productid=23105&cat=363&page=2 by Meredith Cardall & Bella Gypsy

Project 365

Look at this - 3 weeks in a row :) Being accountable and posting my Project 365 pictures on here helps keep me working on it. Now if I can just ge them scrapped....

Monday - Gabe and his best buddy Noah playing Noah. They played for hours with the Legos and Noah even ended up staying and playing by himself when Gabe headed to gymnastics for the evening. Love how creative the kids can be with Legos!

Tuesday - My first check from Exfuze. Cory's gotten them, but it was my first check.

Wednesday - We had our friend Ben playing at hour house most of the morning and headed to Artic Circle for lunch after storytime @ the library. Ben ordered mini corn dogs and then asked me very confused why they didn't look like dogs. Later he told his mom he had ordered "dog corn" for lunch. Turns out he'd never had one before :)

Thursday - Hunter and I played bubbles after taking Gabe to school. There aren't many sounds as fun as a 2 year old squealing with excitement over bubbles.

Friday - UGH - Cory started feeling sick this week and has been in bed most of the weekend. Most of the time he'll keep working, keep running around like normal and just complain about it. He's been feeling so crummy this time though that he's pretty much laid around since Friday afternoon. He's doing a bit better today, hoping the rest of the week gets better (and that the rest of the crew doesn't catch it.

Saturday - With Cory being sick I thought he deserved some homemade chicken noodle soup. I haven't made this before, and I went all out with fresh, homemade noodles. Not a big deal to most - but I was pretty proud that they turned out on my first try.

Getting the kids off to bed, a piggy back ride was just what they needed to get into bed.

More layouts

Here are a few more layouts and a Chore Chart I made for Gabe with The Ette's new Chore Chart kit sold @ Scrap Orchard (see last post). The other layouts are with Libby's new "1st & 10" kit with a great football theme. I am in LOVE with the colors in the kit and the rich textures of the papers. And as you can see - I can do a layout with the kit and it doesn't have to be football themed. Check out her kit @ Sweet Shoppe. Have a great weekend everyone!

Scrap Orchard Guest Designer - The Ettes

One of the Creative Teams I get to work with is "The Ettes & Company" and this month they have a fun opprotunity to work with the store "Scrap Orchard" as guest designers. They have 2 great kits for sale at Scrap Orchard right now.



They have been so fun to work with. Here are some of the layouts I created with them. I'll also be posting pictures of another chore chart I made for Gabe with the kit later in the week.

For the Halloween countdown I used both of the kits - the Chore Chart and the Halloween kit and created a countdown to do with the boys. Gabe asks almost every morning "Mom - is TODAY Halloween???" This way he can look at the calendar and know how much longer we have until the big day.

So check out the great kits and support The Ettes while they're over at Scrap Orchard.

Scrapping Layouts

Kit - "Falling For Her" by Bella Gypsy

Kit - "Falling For Him" by Bella Gypsy

Kit - "My Friend Loubert" by Libby Weifenbach

Kit - "Under the Bed" by Bella Gypsy @ Gotta Pixel

Kit - "Barbershop Quartet" by Libby Weifenbach

Bella Gypsy October Color Play items @ Elemental Scraps

Here are a few layouts I've done in the last week or so. Bella Gypsy has released some awesome kits today "Falling for Him" and "Falling For Her". They also have another kit @ Gotta Pixel for their "Gotta Grab It" event - a cute monster kit.

Most of the layouts were using Bella Gypsy templates too.

Photos of the Week

Hunter had a visit with the Early Intervention speech therapist. After that the nurse that was doing a hearing screening suggested that he might have an ear infection so it was off to our pediatrician's office to have them checked out. And even though he hadn't been acting sick he apperently had an ear infection. A few days of antibiotics and he seems to be on the mend!

Sushi @ home - frozen and from Schwans......We didn't love it, but glad we gave it a try.

Ugh, paperwork and filing.

After preschool we picked up our friend Haley and headed to the pumpkin patch. Fun little outing with fun little kids.

Gabe loved the dominos we had a lot of fun building designs with them.

Recently a "new" restaurant opened in St. George - Brick Oven - one of our favorites from Utah County. It was so fun to take the boys somewhere that brought back some wonderful memories from my childhood.

Hunter has been carrying around the one and only baby-doll we have. The boys started fighting over it and I remembered that I had some of my old dolls in a chest in our basement. So I got them out and then the boys started fighting over those ones.

Pumpkin Patch

We headed to a local pumpkin patch this afternoon. We went to the same Pumpkin Patch last fall with Gabe's preschool class, but we went a couple of days before Halloween so there weren't very many to choose from. I decided in order to get a bigger pumpkin this year we'd go a little earlier in the season. So after picking Gabe up from preschool today we headed out to pick up our friend Haley and get some pumpkins.

This was all part of an effort to "find more joy in motherhood". I have been struggling with that a little lately. I mean I'm ok with being a mom, I enjoy parts of it - I even would say that I enjoy most of it. But there are a few areas that I struggle with a bit. And I don't think that often enough I feel JOYFUL about it. I want to be more in the moment. I want to be able to look back on the years of having young kids and feel like I was an active part of it. I want to get down on the floor more often to play trucks and legos, color giant pictures of Lightening McQueen , wrestle and pretend I'm a Power Ranger with a foam sword. My boys will remember I was an active part of their early years. I am going to be there.

So today it meant going to the pumpkin patch with the kids. It meant letting them pick the pumpkins they wanted, instead of the ones that *I* thought would be cooler looking on the porch. It meant not focusing on the dirt they tracked into the car and not getting mad about the requested band aid that Gabe insisted on.

So what will it all mean for tomorrow? I'm excited to see!