My new phase...

I've been scrapbooking a lot lately. A LOT. At least, a lot for me. It's been spurred on by a couple of things: time off of work for Christmas and Spring breaks, girls scrapbook weekend and more success in getting layouts chosen for publication. I've completed 54 pages I've done already this year, which is nearly as many as I did the entire year of 2010. Here's some of my recent faves: And while I love that I'm scrapbooking more (and therefore using more of those fabulous supplies that I have), I do find myself in a bit of a rut... or a "phase" as I like to call it.

Now, I've had phases before. There was my white phase, when lots of my layouts had white backgrounds. There was my transparent phase, where I made see-through pages (you see one above and one below in theis posting). And I seem to be perpetually stuck in a patterned paper phase (I *love* patterned paper... I hardly use cardstock anymore. LOL).

My new phase is one that I would never have seen myself using... banners. I've seen them and resisted the urge to try them. Then I tried them, just once. Then again, then again... and now I can't stop! I just love banners!

So, in a hope to embarass myself out of using banners all the time, and to share some of my recent work with my family and friends, I'm going to post some of my recent banner layouts. Oh, and in case you think that it really isn't that many layouts, let me tell you that I have at least two banner layouts that were recently requested for publication (thus I can't share them online) and another layout on my desk nearly finished with some pretty banners too. :)

Thanks for looking!

SMS Basketball

Chase decided he wanted to play basketball this year. Though he hasn't played the last year or two, he was interested in trying out a middle school sport and he really enjoyed it. He got to travel to Astoria, Seaside, Tillamook, Banks and St. Helens for games and got to miss school to do it. :) He had a team of pretty great kids and though they didn't end up on the winning end of the season, they did learn a lot and had lots of fun together.

Wacky Wednesday!

My job is a little crazy at times and this day it was crazier then ever. In honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday we held "Wacky Wednesday", a day when we come to school dressed crazy and do crazy stuff. We painted on the walls (covered in paper) with crazy things (blocks and trucks and such), then we read the book and eat crazy snack. It's usually a fun day. This year we actually took pictures of all of us dressed up for Wacky Wednesday.

And here's one of Adrien and I (she assists in my 4's class) decked out for the day.

The only downside here was that almost our entire class forgot it was Wacky Wednesday! Adrien and I were nearly the only ones dressed wacky. But it was a fun day anyways. :)

OBOB

This is our Scappoose Middle School Oregon Battle of the Books team. Originally called "The Funner Team", they went by "The Tribe" at regional competition this year. These four kids worked so hard! They read book after book after book, even when they really weren't interested in them. They beat out the 2 other teams at the school to become our representatives at the OBOB Region 1 competition, then they read even more. They had a hard loss in their first battle but came back with a sweeping victory in the second battle. When they went to announce the top 8 of the 24 teams competing in the middle school division, the entire team was on the edge of their seats. When they announced "Scappoose Middle School" as a finalist team, the entire group jumped up and yelled... squeals and cheers of joy that gave me goosebumps. And while they didn't win their semi-final round, they did leave the competition in 6th place, a very respectable showing for their first year. We're all so excited for next year, when they will be in the high school age bracket. This was our first year as an OBOB team and I've been so thankful to share the journey with these 4 bright and wonderful students.

For Linda and Melinda

I was playing around with a trial of a newer version of Photoshop Elements (mine is 3.0... which is ANCIENT) and I loved how you could use actions on it. I've never used actions before but people who use Photoshop sure love their actions so I was excited to try them. I loved it! I told both Melinda and Linda that I'd post side-by-side photos for them to see. The first one shows the photo after I edited it to the best of my ability. The second photo shows what the photo looks like after the MCP Mini Fusion action. It really just brings the photos more to life... better colors, better depth. Yup, I love it! And I'm sure I'd find other actions I love even more. Now I really need to buy a new version of PSE. :)

It's a new term at school and my school-loving teenager just came home. The first thing he emphatically tells me when he walks in the door is "I love being back in math! We have homework already." What a kid!

Snow Day!!!

I LOVE snow and I recently was lamenting about our lack of snow this winter. Usually we don't get much, but we pull out a few snow days every year. This winter we haven't had a snow day yet. Well last week it finally happened. SNOW DAY!

The kids were pretty excited and we got up bright and early to go outside and play.I took this one of Carissa down at the park. She also loved making snow angels in the scant inch of snow we had. Tristan tried and tried to make snowballs. It wasn't good snowball snow, but he gave it his all anyways.

Chase was a bit everywhere and getting photos of him was hard! I was able to grab these two though. The second one looks like he's got a giant, perfectly formed snowball but really it was just a white volleyball someone had left at the park. LOL

The neighbor kids came to the park when we did and they all decided to split up for a capture the flag snowball fight. The boys had the "high ground" up on the play structure...

... while the girls had the low ground in the field. The boys had the flag (i.e. the volleyball) and the girls battled to capture it. They finally did, just as the snow started furiously melting. Within an hour the snow was gone! Bummer... but we still got a snow day out of it. :)

Day Trip!

About this time each year we all start going a little stir crazy. We're ready for spring, ready to get outside and do things together as a family. Well, this year it's compounded by the fact that Brian is now on the water and no longer has weekends off with us. So when he got a surprise day off with the familky we took full advantage and headed on a day trip to the beach. We went to Long Beach, Washington, home of huge double-scoop waffle cones and Jake the Alligator Man. We walked the shops for a while, hoping and waiting for the rain to end. Alas, it didn't and the wind picked up too. In the end we never even made it down on the sand, instead watching the ocean from the van for a while before heading back towards home.

On the way home we decided to take a quick detour to Fort Columbia, something we've passed many times but have never stopped at. Thankfully the rain had passed on and the skies had cleared up some. The fort was beautiful! The history there and the old buildings were really neat. Even though we could only walk the outsides, we had a good time. This building was the most beautiful of them all.



And we got to walk around the batteries and see where guns were mounted to help protect the mouth of the Columbia River. It was pretty neat. At the battery nearest the ocean we took some pictures together...
... before heading back home. It was a quick day trip but fun and refreshing.