credits:
I added music to my blog. TURN OFF YOUR SPEAKERS IF YOU ARE AT WORK! :) Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. If it gets too annoying, let me know and I'll take it down!
This is one of my favorite pictures of my girls!
My Momma loves me!
The side view of my birthday cake! So pretty! Thanks, Momma!
Hannah dancing to the cha-cha slide with Shelby. "Hands on your knees..." What an annoying song!
Meredith & Hannah... hate this picture of me, but LOVE this one of Hannah!
Ainsley was really fussy, so I handed her off to my dad who put her right to sleep! Yea, Poppa!
I love how Ainsley sleeps!
Hannah's birthday cake! It was supposed to look like the Cooking by the Book cake from Lazy Town but it didn't work so well! I was in a hurry to decorate and forgot that the cake lines were supposed to be angled, so I did them straight across the cake. The kids all loved the lollipops more than the cake! And I forgot that we are now at a High Altitude when baking cakes, so they were a bit burnt. Lovely! The frosting tasted good.
Hannah blowing out her birthday candles! It was so windy that the wind kept blowing out the match before we could even get them lit! Thomas had to hold his hand around the candles and we sang Happy Birthday to her while he was lighting the candles! We didn't think about that while planning an outdoor party!
Hannah swimming with her cousins and loving it!
Hannah jumped off the diving board for the very first time! Aunt Cori held her hand and Daddy caught her! It was so exciting! I wish I had a better picture of it! Now I have to wait until next year!
Ainsley & my niece, Liv. Ainsley is about 6 weeks older than Liv.
The kids with one of the horses on the ranch.
We were trying to get over to the mattress swing area and Thomas stopped and said, "Uh. There's a moose." So, we stopped and watched it. Apparently there was a mother and its calf. We very quickly and quietly left the area. We were charged by a moose about 6 years ago when we were up there. Thankfully we were in the back of a truck then...BAILEY!
This is one of my favorite views at the cabin. It rained Sunday night so I didn't get to go back out and take anymore pictures on Monday morning. I still don't have a picture of the river in front of the cabin. There is always next month!
I'm hot and tired, Mom! Hannah was ready to head back to the cabin! Daddy let her wear his hat to help keep her cool! What a good daddy!
Hannah took a piece of gum out of my purse and started chewing it. "It's spicy, Mom!" Well, Orbit typically is pretty "spicy". Little stinker!
Hannah & Carter dancing while Thomas played his guitar and he & Aunt Chrissy sang!
Hannah & Ainsley
Okay, folks, it appears that I am the queen of offending people without realizing it! Okay, when I posted the I was uncomfortable with people I *knew* looking at my blog, I meant people I kind-of-sort-of know. People I have seen around the digital scrapbooking forums who I have never actually talked to... people who have never actually posted on my blog... and people who are googling my name and my children's names for pete's sake! NOT people I actually know. Does that make sense? I know that this blog is public and that it is open for anyone in the entire world to check. I love blog hopping, and I think it is so much fun to find a cool blog or to find someone I haven't talked to in YEARS. I really don't care who looks at my blog with that purpose. My problem is with the FREAKS who are googling kid p*o*r*n (don't want someone searching for that word and having my blog pop up!) and viewing my children. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, after much thought and much debate, I am going to leave my blog public. I will not be posting anything that might come across as anything questionable. I will be deleting old posts after a week or so. So check frequently. I am going to start backing up and deleting posts this afternoon when the kids go down for naps. Thanks to everyone who wanted to be signed up for my blog. That really means a lot to me!
I have been considering deleting my blog for about a month now. There were some people who I *knew* that I was uncomfortable with them reading my blog, but I knew that they weren't dangerous to me or my family so I left it up. None of them had any malicious intent toward me or my children. However, I just was checking my sitefeed and saw a few IP addresses that I had never seen before. I clicked on them to see if it was new family members or friends. NOPE! One of them was some freak looking for "nekkid pictures teen girls in the bathtub". WHAT??????????? And my blog popped up? Yes. Because I had a picture of Ainsley (from the neck up) in the bathtub.
Sooooo.... that made my decision quite easy. My blog is going to go private for a while and if the garbage continues, I'll take down all the pictures and personal information. In order for me to allow you (my friends and family) to see my blog, you need to email me with your email address. Or you can post it in the comments section here and I will delete it as soon as I add it. But it probably won't be until Monday... so take your chances! :)
This is not an email address that I use. I created it just for this purpose...
thecardalls at gmail dot com
I have two sleeping children! yea! I haven't scrapped a single photo in the last week... I'm off! We are leaving tomorrow afternoon to go to the cabin for a few days. No cell phones. No internet. Just US! Our own little family in our own little world for just a few days. Of course, Saturday is cabin workday so the guys are all going to be building a new shed. But I am determined to have some just-us family time. Depending on Thomas' schedule and work stuff, we may go tomorrow morning. We haven't been up there in YEARS, not since my first miscarriage. We used to go all the time, though, when we were first married. I can't wait! I hope the weather cooperates...or maybe it will be better if it does rain the entire time...
I haven't had much free time lately. I haven't scrapbooked at all since I left Chicago. The piles of boxes are slowly starting to diminish, at least in the family room area. G&L's basement is so cute! They really worked hard to get it ready for us to live here and I am sooooo grateful! Hannah is having a blast with Daddy, of course, and with her Uncle Greg & Aunt Leslie, and her new best friend, Makayla. Those two can play for hours, unless Hannah is cranky. I am hoping to get some scrapping done sometime this week. I have all these cute fun goodies to play with and no time. There's always something else that needs to be done. I am going to spend all day tomorrow unpacking and then Wednesday is Hannah's birthday. So, I am going to be baking her birthday cake and we'll be going to my sister-in-law's house to swim and have birthday cake. I really hope the cake turns out well this year. After last year's Cinderella fiasco, we'll have to see! :) I am really tired and not capable of a coherent thought. So, I am going to go to sleep. And hope and pray that my kids both sleep at least a little while.
that there are too many people in the world who know too much about you? My sister-in-law told me about a code that you can add to your blog and see general information about people looking at your site. I thought, "Well, that's pretty cool!" So, I added it. And now I am totally freaked out! It is fine with me if people that I know, even those I *know* through online forums check my blog. But what freaks me out is how many times my blog has been *hit* by people googling something like a font or the lyrics to zippitydooda. What??? Then I remembered that I used Zoe Pearn's ZippityDooDa kit for a layout. Oh yeah! Still kinda creepy that my blog pops up for that, but the link to her kit does not. Interesting...
I have seriously been considering taking my blog down, or at least not putting up pictures of my kids. There are way too many sicko people out there. But then I realized that I would have to start emailing pictures to too many people, so it's gonna stay up, at least for now. Does that make me a bad mom?
I am heading to Utah in less than 36 hours now!!! I cannot wait to see my Tommy! And the rest of the family, of course, but it's been over TWO MONTHS since I saw my husband! I miss him so much! I get to see my sister this weekend, too! And I am going to lunch with my aunt/best friend & another friend from college next week. AND Hannah's birthday is next week. I am still trying to figure out how to make her birthday cake. She is adamant about wanting a Lazy Town cake. We'll see if we can get it to work!
my last post came off sounding very snotty and that is not at all what I intended. I'll just blame it on it being WAY too late at night to blog! :) When I read the post this morning it sounded like "Okay. People. It's my birthday. Give me presents." When that is exactly the opposite of what I meant for it to be. So.... here is the post that I should have posted last night...
Happy Birthday...
I am way too old to celebrate birthdays! :) I have never been into birthdays, at least not my own. I love to get ready for Hannah's birthday and Thomas' birthday celebration is always a big deal. But to me my birthday is just another day. I am not into birthday gifts. Especially now that I am an adult and a mom. If I want or need something, I just get it. Well, when I have money at least! ;) And I would rather buy things for my kids instead of me. So, I was pleasantly surprised to open my email yesterday and have emails and instant messages from so many friends and family members. And some of you stinkers even sent gifts! You did NOT need to get me anything. Seriously. But, since they are gorgeous scrapbook kits, and they can't be returned, I guess I'll have to graciously accept them! :) I can't wait to play with them! My mom made me a gorgeous birthday cake, chocolate cake with buttercream frosting. YUM! Love it! It was so pretty. I took pictures so I am sure that you'll see them. I wish that my kids would have been a bit more cooperative so that I could have scrapbooked, but oh well! That's life as a mom! :) There's always another day...
sooooooooooooo. that is what i should have posted, because that is what i really meant! :)
So, I just very recently had a birthday. As in it was just over a few minutes ago and it still is my birthday if you live in Utah. I did absolutely nothing productive today other than to make dinner. I tried really hard to do some scrapbooking, but Hannah was NOT cooperative! We even went to a crop at church and Hannah ended up fighting with a little boy there. Not cool! She erased his chalkboard picture and he scratched her face, pulled out her ponytail and hit her arm. eek! he's got a big brother! apparently this is the same kid she fights with every sunday in nursery. Funny story... last Sunday on the way home, Hannah was adamant that I check her arm to make sure that her bone wasn't broken out of her arm. I asked her why and she said that a boy in nursery hit her and almost broke her bone out. Well, her arm wasn't even red, so I asked her what she did to make him hit her. She replied that she was trying to hit him first. hmmmm... well, at least she is honest! But back to my birthday! I got a VERY thoughtful and GENEROUS email from my friend/aunt Mary! I may have to beat her up, though! What part of NO GIFTS do you not understand?! But, they did cheer me up! However did she know which digital scrapbooking kits I NEED to survive? :) (Hint: My Kaboodle!). And I got several nice emails from different digital scrapbooking sites with free little element packs and coupons. It was really quite unexpected and very sweet. My parents gave me some cash to buy winter clothes... ugh! i'm gonna need those aren't i?! yuck! And I got some lovely emails and IMs from my family! Thanks everyone! I really appreciate it!
and why aren't you posting comments??? My blog has had 82 hits in the last three days. I haven't gotten 82 comments! :) So, come out of the shadows and post a comment or two.
what a beautiful little girl! she has more rolls on her legs than ainsley!
the proud daddy
and the beautiful new mother and baby! can you believe that angie was pushing for three hours??? she looks perfect!Since I got pregnant with Hannah, my mom has been trying to get one of her grandkids named after her... and Angie finally caved!
Angie & Tom's baby girl was born today at 2:01pm. She weighed 8lbs 9oz.
I don't have a picture yet. From what I understand, the delivery was pretty difficult, but both Mom & Baby Girl are doing well. And Tom is probably okay, too! I'll post a picture as soon as I get one!
This is my favorite handwriting font. I just googled it and most of the pages that came up were my layouts! :) I think I use it too much! So, just to make sure that other people use it too, here's the link:
http://www.abstractfonts.com/font/11085
Well, my sister, Angie, went into the hospital at 3:30 this morning to be induced. I haven't heard anything yet, but I would guess that things are moving along. Although, I did have a site hit from her hospital this morning! :) Are you checking my blog, Ang? :)
Good luck! Our prayers are with you today! I can't wait to see my little niece!
this is hannah's block town that she built for daddy to see... it's just a town, not a city. at least that is what she says. 
Here is Hannah stuck inside her block city! She begged me to build her inside the city! nerd!
ainsley is just so darn cute! that foot is always up near her mouth or in her ear! :)
I have had a lot of questions lately about digital scrapbooking and how I do it and why. So, in a very large nutshell here it goes!
I started digiscrapping in April 2005 because I couldn't stand having Hannah get into my paper scrapbooking stuff. I was terrified that she would hurt herself with a pair of scissors or choke on an eyelet. I was playing on the computer one day and realized that I had Photoshop right there on my PC. I googled digital scrapbooking, found a couple of websites and realized that other people had the same ideas as me. Digital scrapbooking was pretty new at the time and didn't look a lot like paper scrapbooking and the kits and designs were pretty simple. But it appealed to me. Over the last two years, digital scrapbooking has taken off! There is very little in paperscrapping that can't be achieved digitally. In fact, other than physically touching the papers and elements, I can't think of anything. I am a complete perfectionist and there are certain looks that I wanted to achieve with my paperscrapping, but because of my limited artistic abilities, I was never able to get them quite right. But I can do it with my computer. :)
I currently use Photoshop CS2. I create my layouts at 8.5x11 inches at 300ppi. I save my layouts as layered .psd files and also as flattened .jpg files at level 10 quality. These .jpg files are the ones that I have printed (I print pages as I can afford them.). I also use the Save for Web feature in Photoshop, and save my files at about 100kb @ 72 ppi. These are the files I upload to my blog and different online galleries. And then I also take my full-size layouts and shrink them down to fit on a 4x6 size and save them and eventually print out a copy for Ainsley's book and a copy for Hannah's book. So, when my girls leave home, they'll each have several 4x6 albums of scrapbook pages. I also back up all of my pages on CDs and DVDs. My goal is to print out every page I create, but I have about 600 pages waiting to be printed. I used to scrap every single photo I took. But lately I have a different approach. I am scrapbooking a 2 page spread of an event and then going to just print 4x6 prints of the photos I don't use on the layout and put them in my scrapbooks behind the pages. Does that make sense? So, for the family reunion, I will have a 2 page spread of breaking the pinata and then a couple of photo pages of pictures of the pinata. Then a 2 page spread of family photos and then a couple of photo pages of family photos. I think that this will help me feel more "caught up". In the past, I would do 15 scrapbook pages of a single trip to the beach. That's pretty expensive to print! And realistically, who is ever going to want to look at that many scrapbook pages of a single beach trip? Well, besides me? :) Of course there are special occasions or favorite photos that will require more attention, but to me, this just seems to make more sense. At least for right now. I was going to switch to 12x12 pages, but with my new approach to scrapbooking that doesn't seem to make sense. I would have to find photo sheets to fit 12x12 albums and the pages cost more to print anyway! I have been so focused on the artsy side to scrapbooking that I lost track of the real purpose. Well, the main purpose at least... to preserve memories! I love creating pages and the artistic release that I get. But the main purpose is to preserve my family's memories.
I am trying to start a Scrapbook 4 Hire business. I am working on gathering information and pricing to build my website. So I will have less time to work on my own books. I am hoping that it will force me to simplify my scrapbooking (not the layouts themselves) and really focus on the things that are important to me and my family.
Most of my blog readers are scrapbookers or at least memory-preservers in some form (or married to them...rlh, you know who you are!). What is your scrapbooking/ photo organization approach? How do you keep it from getting overwhelming? Or do you get overwhelmed? Am I the only scrapbook crazed person here? :)
And totally off the topic, but not really... I went to a crop here with some girls from church a few weeks ago and got a great idea for how to scrapbook all those random pictures you get from family members and wedding announcements, etc. You know those big photo albums from Target that have three horizontal photos and two vertical photos on each page? You make each photo slot a mini-scrapbook page. it's much easier than it sounds. The entire page is one theme, like all wedding announcement pictures. You make one slot the title area with a a decorative title and then you put all the photos on a coordinating paper and decorate each with coordinating embellishments. You can even use a slot for journaling. It was really cute. I have an album like that somewhere in Utah. I'll have to find it and work on it when I get into my own home and have all my random photos with me. It also works great as a grandparents album. Anyway... if anyone has cute ideas, let me know. I'm always on the lookout!
these are from march of this year...
credits:to fly to Utah...AGAIN! This time the credit card was actually charged, so hopefully the flight was really booked! We have a confirmation number this time, too! Sooooooo, Saturday, August 18th, we'll be in Utah! YEA! We aren't telling Hannah until the night before because she is already crying to see Daddy all the time. And it will make the separation from Grandma even harder. I can't win! She is either going to be crying for Daddy or for Grandma. Lovely!
how to format my blog so that if you click a link off my blog it opens a new window. I know I had it set to that before and it was something I had to do, but I can't remember what. any ideas???
thanks!
Okay, I played around for a bit and I *think* I am going to stick with this design for a while. Let me know if you have any visibility or readability (is that a word?) issues. Are the colors okay or too hard to read? I got the links all moved around. If I missed one or it doesn't work, let me know and I will fix it! :)
Check out this post made by Jenna Nelson, a digital designer I work with... HOT!!
http://littlebirddesigndigitals.blogspot.com/2007/08/favorite-song-4-every-day-i-write-book.html
I may have been trying to update some links and accidentally messed up the entire formatting of my blog. oops! :) I am trying to reorganize links so if you can't find something where it used to be, I probably just moved it. I did delete some links, but just the outdated ones. I renamed some, too. This site will probably change a bit over the next few days. I hope I can get the formatting back! :) Wish me luck!
It's 2:30pm, Ainsley has been asleep for 2 hours. I tried to go to sleep as soon as we got home from church, but HANNAH decided that I didn't really need a nap. She was screaming and yelling and throwing tantrums. Lovely. She wanted to watch a movie and lay down on her sleeping bag, but Shelby wanted to watch one of her shows on tv instead. Hannah only wanted to sleep downstairs in the family room, not up in her room where she could have watched a movie on her dvd player. I swear it's like having two two-year-olds. I am so tired of those two fighting. Oh well. I guess it is just practice for when the girls are older. I am anxiously awaiting pictures on Chrissy's blog of my niece's blessing. Okay... it was only 2 hours ago, but I am really bored! :) And I really wish I were sleeping.
