September 30th

We had a fun day. It started with a trip to Chaska to visit beautiful baby Leighton. I could seriously hold him forever. We attempted to do a photo shoot with Leighton and the dogs but the dogs couldn't stop kissing him (I can't blame them for that). We had lunch after our visit, school, Ellie to dance & then I went to celebrate Louie & Shannon's engagement downtown....FUN, FUN, FUN! Here are a couple of shots from today.

Hidden Haven

We just returned from another fun weekend at our home away from home...Hidden Haven. We SOOOO love to spend time with Cheryl & Jerry on their BEAUTIFUL farm. Jeff and I had fun at Brady's wedding and the kids LOVED hanging out with Chaniah, Zoe, Cheryl, Jerry, Scooter and Mac. Quinn was thrilled to discover that Chad had just bought a BIG John Deere tractor earlier in the week and even got to go for a little ride...I'm convinced he is going to be a farm boy! One of the other highlights was when Ellie's first tooth fell out and Amelia decided that she wasn't going to sleep until after that "tooth lady" had come. Jeff & I missed the whole tooth episode because we were at the wedding and I'm pretty certain that Cheryl & Jerry are very thankful they are in the "grandparents stage of life". I hope I make it that long!

Park

OK, I think I like this Blog Business...this is kind of fun although there probably isn't anybody interested but that is alright...I seem to be enjoying it. We had a fun outing with our family this morning. Quinn seemed to consume my picture-taking today which probably made the girls happy. Here are a couple of shots from the park.

University of Minnesota

I grew up attending University of Minnesota Athletic Events and then I was fortunate to play golf for them for four years. We are very big fans and have season gopher basketball tickets. Let's just say that when the "U" hired Tubby Smith my 1 year old and 3 year old were the only kids at his press conference. On Saturday, I got to go with my dad to the new TCF bank stadium on campus for the Minnesota - California game. The stadium was AMAZING. Here is a shot of us there as well as a couple of shots of the kids from last year.

Scrapbooking

One of my passions (my family would probably use the word obsession here) in life is taking photographs and recording as much as humanly possible about our lives. I think there are a lot of reasons why I find so much pleasure in scrapbooking. The first being that I just enjoy creating. I love having projects to work on and trying to make them look cool in some sort of manner. I was a "traditional scrapbooker" for about ten years before my husband bought me Photoshop Elements for Christmas one year. I didn't understand what I would possibly do with that. I tried it and was intimidated by it and then let it sit on a shelf for a year before revisiting it. Once I put my mind to something, I usually can't put it down and that is exactly what happened. I started playing with Elements and was hooked. I then purchased Photoshop and have been running full steam ahead ever since. The "traditional scrapbook" method went out the window about a two years ago and what can I say...life in the digi world is AWESOME!


OK, I'm a little off task already but back to my main points. The second reason is that I really, really want to preserve as much about our family and my children's lives as humanly possible. I think one of the reasons why I am so committed to this is that I lost my mom when I was in college and now that I am older, there is so much that I want to ask her about her life and our childhood. At the time of her passing, I wasn't quite interested in all of that "stuff" but now, I am. I want my children to know how very much they are loved, how we spend our days, about their family heritage...just about all kinds of stuff that might not seem like a big deal now but hopefully will be important to them down the road.

The third reason is that my kids LOVE to get their scrapbooks in the mail and they are constantly pulling them out and reliving those special moments. It is so much fun to see them go through their books and I know they (as well as me) remember a lot more details about their lives because of their scrapbooks. I get my books through Shutterfly and I have been thrilled with the results.

I recently started posting layouts at Designer Digitals. I was so scared to do it at first because there are so many truly amazing pages being posted there but I decided "what the heck" and gave it a try. It has been a wonderful and supportive community that I am excited to be a part of. Many people have blogs to share their work and I thought it would be kind of fun to do the same for my friends and family...one of the reasons why I am here I guess.

School 2009

Life has been hopping around here lately especially with the beginning of school. Elliana (she is now choosing to go by her full name) started kindergarten and Amelia recently started preschool. Elliana goes every day in the afternoon and Amelia goes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Both of them can't wait to get to school so I am taking that as a very good sign. The schedule has been working for us because we get to play/do activities in the morning before Elliana heads off to school. Oh...I better not forget about Quinn. He also started school this last week and goes to ECFE on Thursday mornings. He had a blast!

Here are the first day of school pages for the girls. All products are from http://www.designerdigitals.com/