Das Internet ist kaput!

Don't laugh at my terrible German! I didn't even bother to look up if it's der, die, or das! I just wanted to say das today! :)

So somehow the dsl box at my house reset itself the other night and now Rob has to completely set it back up again. Which of course won't happen until next week, because we're going to Reutlingen today, EuropaPark tomorrow, Church on Sunday, and we have company coming over on Monday. ... Maybe I can convince him to do it Monday... So anyway, no email, no blogging, no scrapbooking forum... ... ... how am I going to function!!!! I'm writing this blog at work, btw, which I'm sure is against the law.

SSOOOOO... everyone have a great Labor Day weekend!

A little boy becomes a ... bigger boy!

Ethan informed me last night that he will no longer be sucking his thumb. Unless of course he is crying and then he is allowed a few minutes of thumb sucking. But when he's finished crying he will cease the thumb sucking. When I related the story to Corinnea this morning she turned to him (as he was raising his thumb to his mouth) and said "You're not sucking your thumb anymore?" He immediately dropped his hand and grinned sheepishly! It was so cute! He did really good today. The only time I caught him with thumb in mouth was tonight when I was putting him to bed! :)

Recognition

This scrapbooking page is going to be used as an example of how to do reflections when one of the designers writes up her tutorial! Doesn't really count as being published or anything... but I'm super excited! Just to know that MY page is an example! How cool!!!

First Days of School

Haven had her first day of American school with much success. We were only one minute late because of traffic and we found her room easily. The homeroom teacher is someone I have had in pottery class, and there are two other moms that I already know. There is only one girl in Haven's class who she knows, which means she will be making new friends! And it means her good friends are separated and she can't get into trouble! Hehe!


She talked a lot about the day. Lunch was good. Music was good. Recess was good. The teacher is good. She couldn't stop talking! She was still talking to me about her first day when she got on the bus this morning. Which, by the way, is a van.

It picks her up at the bus stop by our house. You may wonder why she rides the "bus" when we live so close to Patch. Well, yesterday it took us 30 minutes to get from our house to school. I would rather NOT do that every day. Since the bus goes right by our house, it's better (and she'll be more punctual) if they pick her up. So, Haven's response to the first day? "It was awesome!"

It's like something out of a book!

I just heard this story on CNN about a dog in Argentina that rescued an abandoned infant from a field and took it to her puppies and took care of her until the "humans" discovered the baby crying! They said it was cold and the baby would have died if the dog hadn't brought it in with her puppies and kept it warm. Wow! You can read the story here if you want to say "awww!" (or "who abandons newborns in a field!?!")

Mommy, LOOK!

Ethan ran through the stairway calling to all of us. Haven! Emanuel! Mommy! Daddy! LOOK! After the turrential down pour this afternoon, God painted the sky with the most gorgeous rainbow! It was HUGE! It wrapped around the houses next door. I'm sure it was a complete circle, but the bottom was behind the horizon. I tried so hard to take a picture but they came out terrible. It was just so sweet to hear Ethan running around shouting to us to come and see. When he led me outside he said, "God put a BIG rainbow in the sky!" Sweet!

Silly Boy

Ethan's new trick is to burst into tears if I tell him "no" or indicate that he's done something naughty. I'm not amused. Ok, maybe a little...

This was at work the other day. Emily was "helping" too.

Coffee at bedtime...

Coffee at bedtime is never a good idea! It is 3:17am and I am WIDE AWAKE! Ugh. I made SEVEN digital scrapbooking pages tonight, wrote two Haikus in Corinnea's comments, and downloaded a ton of new fonts from the internet. AHHHH! I have to teach a class in a few hours and I MUST SLEEP!!!

Here's a link to my newest scrapbooking pages, my pages for a contest I'm involved in, and the website where I got some fonts (just in case you're a font junkie like me).

Sensapolis

We met the youth group at Sensapolis tonight. This place is totally awesome! It's called the Place of 1000 Adventures and it's really cute. They have three main areas: space, midieval, and forest. In the space area they have a huge "space ship" with aliens and big slides, and a cool science area with things to do. In the midieval area they have a huge castle, activities, dress up clothes, and more. In the forest area you can rock climb, do some small water activities (not the kind where you actually get wet) and they have stuff hanging from the ceiling you can climb on. Oh, and a pirate ship. It's really fun. Highly recommended for anyone with kids who can walk!

(Ethan's not really crying in this photo; he just looks like it. I think he was nervous about the "spinning" room.)

My First Photoshop Action!

Thank you JennyP for emailing me the link to this action. It is so cool!!! (Here's the pic, just in case it's still not working)

Ok, here's my second fun thing for tonight! I learned how to skew, and create reflections, and fade stuff out all in one go! Now I have to do something more creative with it...

Kids on Wheels

Today was Ethan's 4th Birtday Party! What a blast! I know it's a bit late (since his birthday was July 16) but it was hard to pick a date because so much was going on in July. We had lots of friends over, yummy junk food, and cool gifts! The kids all played outside with water guns and outside toys. We brought out all of Ethan's superhero costumes and got the kids to dress up. One kid kept changing his costume because he wanted to be all of them! It was so cute! Ethan also got a new bike for his birthday, but I don't have photos of that yet. Rob took a few with his phone, but I need to take some with the camera.

Oh, those blobs in the page above are chocolate milk, Spiderman sugar cookies, and oreo icecream cupcakes. I made the icecream cupcakes because Ethan wanted icecream and I wanted cupcakes. Compromise = the yummiest icecream cake I think I've ever had! The crust at the bottom was ground up oreo "chips." Big hit!

9 Years and Counting!

Aug 7, 1999

Not much....

I've spent the last two evenings actually cooking a meal and spending time with the family! What a concept! It's been very rewarding. Tonight (post grilling, eating, and cleaning up) I'm coloring my hair. Ethan's b-day party is this Sunday, so we're also anxious to finally have a party! Summer b-days are hard... everyone's on vacation! Here's some pages for a contest I'm entering with an "Olympic" theme:

Cycling: Make a page using circles

Wresting: Make a "masculine" page

A bunch of pages

I decided to join a challenge to create "quick pages" for one of the Digital Scrapbook Memories CDs. Everyone who participates will make a page and then we all get copies of all of them. A quick page is one where the layout is done and you only have to insert your picture. I don't use these, but I enjoy making them. So that's what I did all afternoon today. The last page above is one that I just made for fun. I scraplifted it from someone else on the forum. I REALLY like the layout.

More For Friends

Today I learned an AWESOME worship song called "My Savior, My God." Well, I didn't learn it today, but I practiced with the band for the first time today. We're singing it tomorrow. It's SO pretty! It was written in 1873, but the music was lost through time. So this guy, Aaron Shust wrote new music for it. It's so beautiful.

Then I printed the quilt blocks for Lizy's photo quilt. I hope she likes them! I grunged up the borders of the pictures a little, but not too much. I printed them at home since our big printer at work is out of ink, and she was having trouble with her own printer.

Then I made THIS for Jennifer. She sent me some pics of Halloween costumes and this one inspired me first.

I just wish I had pictures of Haven in a fairy costume. I found ONE. But it wasn't nearly as cool as these. Haven always dressed up as princesses.

Then I realized I had some cute pictures of MY kids to use in the shades layout. That's the great thing about digital scrapbooking... I just deleted Emily and Ava and put in Haven and Ethan! Voila!

BEST ARTS AND CRAFTS... AGAIN!

We just found out today that our program won the Best Arts and Crafts in the Army for large garrisons. This is the second year in a row for us to win and we are totally stoked!!!!