WOOHOO!!!

Yesterday I did a page of Eric & I that I really like. The picture is from the Melting Pot where we celebrated our 7th anniversary. Well, before I could ask the waiter to take a picture of us, my battery died, so all I have is the picture that I held out my arm and took of us. Well it's not my favorite pic of all time, but I am very happy with how the layout came out. So anyways, I post it on the 2peas website and Elsie Flannigan comments and tells me how cute it is and what not. Ok, so I know that the majority of you are like--yeah so? But some of
my blog readers know that this is pretty exciting. She is like a scrapbook diva, lol. She is in one of the biggest scrapbook magazines regularly, she has a book about scrapping coming out in July, and she is by far my favorite scrapper ever. So exciting!!! So anyway I just had to share that. I even called Eric at work to tell him. Crazy I know, but I had talked about her before so he knew who I was talking about, and even he was impressed:) So that pretty much made my day, lol.

So today we had 8 palletts of sod (grass) delivered that we will be laying ourselves over the next couple of days. I am dreading all of that work. Of course the end result will be fabulous (we will finally have grass in our back yard), but oh the work ahead of us! I always thought that grass just grew. I mean when I was younger everyone I knew had grass, I just thought it grew on its own. Well not so much. After a year & a half of a back yard with dirt and weeds, it will be so nice to actually have grass to walk on.

Wanted to share another layout with ya. This was a picture taken on our hike
up to Laurel Falls in TN. The picture came out very blurry so I wanted to do something fun with it. I hope you can read it all. It is about my fave TV show.
Umm--I think you can all guess what that is. It is a silly one, but I like how it turned out. It looks much straighter in real life-crazy scan I guess. The little white blocks over the heads may be hard to read.
"Ali leading the way w/ his backpack--Jack",
"Jenny w/ her long, dark hair right behind him--Kate", and
"Eric (minus the drug addiction w/ Payton (Aaron) on his shoulders--Charlie".
Ok so I'd rather him be Sawyer, but let's face it, we wouldn't see Sawyer with a child on his shoulders-lol. Had fun with this one!

Payton's bed will be in tomorrow. (Another good reason for the Woohoo title). So I fully expect to have completed room pics on the blog Monday. I will be laying grass down like a mad woman until then. So everyone have a fabulous holiday weekend!

Vacation Pages

Just popping in to say Happy Tuesday. Wanted to try and share the layouts that blogger would not let me share yesterday. These are the first 2 from vacation. The first one is called "Some Things (are more important than putt-putt). It is Payton taking a break from putt-putt to pick flowers. The second one is called "See His Beauty Around You". It is my mom looking at the waterfall that we hiked up to. Not sure how clear the pictures are. Hope everyone has a fabulous day. Not much going on over here, working on things for Payton's room.

Lots of Painting Going On

This weekend was interesting. Cameron was sick with a sore throat and fever. So the entire weekend was spent indoors (which was fine by me, because let's face it-it's HOT). Although the kids begged us to set up the kiddie pool all weekend. Saturday morning we painted Payton's room. I absolutely love it. We bought her matress and set it up on the floor where her new bed is going to go when it comes in. I put her new bedding on it, hung her new curtains, hung up her shelves, and put her new rug down. She was giddy. She kept on giggling and did not know what to do with herself. I ordered her bed on Friday, hopefully it will not take too long. When it is in, I will post pics. I am still debating on doing a mural on one of the walls. Maybe I will take an opinion poll on the blog once I post the pics of the finished room. It looks so much like a little girls room now, it was still looking like a baby nursery and let's face it, she's not a baby anymore. I almost teared up when Eric carried her toddler bed out, because I realized that if she is indeed our last child, she is already in a big girl bed. The baby phase is about over, now if I could only get her potty trained. I had stopped working with her because of vacation, but I guess I neeed to start up again.

When we went to buy the paint, we picked up a gallon for the master bath. We had painted the office in our last house the same color and loved it. We knew when we bought this house, that we wanted to paint a room in that color. The builder had already chosen the colors and painted this house when we found it. So anyway, we started painting it at 11 o'clock Sunday night. I know, we are a bit strange when it comes to these things. I am in bed watching TV waiting for Eric, and the next thing I know, he comes in with the brush, roller and pan in hand and a big smile on his face. He could not wait to see how it would look. I like it so much better already, we did not quite finish, but it looks really good. Will have to post pics of that also as soon as we are done. Once you start painting or redoing, it is so hard to stop. I absolutely love to redo rooms like that.
I actually did a scrapbook layout this weekend. But blogger says no pics today. Will try again later.

Trying to get back to Normal

Ok. Seriously, life has yet to begin again for the kids and I. We literally left the house this week only to go and pick up our vacation pics. Housework has been calling, and I have been completely ignoring it. New vacation photos have been calling to be scrapped, and I don't have an ounce of creative energy right now to scrap them. My mom got a new sewing machine, so she is bringing me her old one to play around with. I'm excited to try a few things on it. Who knows, maybe one day I will sew as good as her (ha-I highly doubt it!) Life got back to normal quick for Eric. He had to work late a few times this week to catch up, and we have had people at the house needing repairs a few times this week.

We did get to meet the new neighbors, and she scraps! But she does digital scrapbooking, which to me, is a whole different world. They have a little boy that is Payton's age and there is another family moving in this weekend with a 3 year old girl. So we will finally have a few more kids around. When we were moving into this subdivision, I would have thought that there would have been a lot more kids. I just assumed that people with kids were the ones that bought 4 bedroom houses, but it has been quite the opposite. Almost no one around us has kids. It is just the married couple, some old and some young, but no kids. We have filled our house up, but I cannot imagine living in a house this big with just Eric and I. Ok Amber, stop the rambling! I will leave you with yet a few more pics of vacation.

More Vacation Photos

Well here goes installment number 2 of vacation photos.

These first two are at the Ripley's Aquarium. What an awesome place that is! Payton absolutely loved it! She loved standing on the ledge and watching the fish swim by. This was the 4th Aquarium that we have been to and I think that this is our favorite so far.







This one was taken at Cam & Payton's favorite restaurant of all time. McDonald's! We took them there on the last day of vacation. After that, we took them out to the track and they rode every ride possible. These kids definitely take after their Daddy. Cameron can get on just about any ride in the park that they let him on and he is fine. I, on the other hand, get sick just watching them ride. They rode a ride that resembles the tea cups in Disney, and the cups don't spin themselves, so the guy running the ride kept on spinning them. After a while, Payton looked like she was getting sick, so I had to ask the guy to stop spinning them. Can you imagine my 2 year old getting sick and throwing up all over her brother(that can not stand to have even a drop of water spilled on him)? That would have made for an interesting afternoon. Besides that, they had a blast. One day we went to Dollywood and Cameron could not get enough of the rides. He rode the ferris wheel, a kiddie coaster, this one ride that toook you way up into the air and kept on spinning, and many others. Just amazes me!

This next one was from the entrance to the log cabin development that we stayed in. This was right after the kids got out of the pool.
They had fish in the water that you could buy food and feed. Those of you that know Payton Alyse will recognize the signature pout on her face. So dramatic 24/7. I told her that we would start redecorating her room once we got home from vacation. Well that night she goes into her room and starts crying for her poodle room. Apparently she thought that we would get back from vacation and her room would be magically transformed. She has asked me about it 10 times a day since we are home. We are planning to paint this weekend, so that's a start. We have yet to order her new bed though, so that may take a while.

Well friends, that is all I have for today. Blogger has again cut me off. You can expect to hear more about vacation and see more picutres if nothing exciting here happens soon. LOL. It has been non-eventful since we have gotten home.

Awesome Vacation!

Well friends, I have returned. It was such a wonderful week, but alas, life must return to its routine. We stayed in a cabin in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. This was the majority of our groups first visit there. My BIL and one of my sisters had been before. We all had a great time. Eric and I usually do the beach or Disney, so it was a nice change. Even though Eric insists we will still take a long weekend to the beach before Cameron starts school.
This picture was taken right in front of our cabin. We had the most gorgeous view. We could see the mountains from the living room.

Our cabin had 3 bedrooms, each with a king sized bed and tv with dvd player, a living room with a 52" flat screen tv, a game room with a pool table, PS2, tv & dvd player & a mini fridge. This place was sooo nice. And of course who can forget the hot tub on the deck? It was very nicely furnished and decorated. If we ever all make that trip again we will definitely stay there. All of the cabins in this development are only 3 years old, so they are very new and clean.

We did so many things. The first day, we went to Ripley's Aquarium. Seriously the best aquarium we have ever been too. They had so much to see and do, it was great!
One day, we drove to a hiking trail and hiked up the 1.3 miles to the top where there was a beautiful water fall. Now I know that 1.3 miles does not seem like much and this trail was rated "E" for easy. But let me tell you, 1.3 miles up hill with a child on your hip or back part of the way does not make for an easy hike. The view at the top made it all worth it, but it was not easy going up, coming down was easy though.

One day, everyone went white water rafting execpt for Payton, my mom & I. We went shopping at the fabulous outlet mall in Sevierville and since we were right there, I of course had to visit the Scrapbook Superstore. What a great store. First of all, it is huge. Secondly there is an awesome play area for the kids and men's lounge for the hubbies. Bought some scrap goodies. Hopefully will get back to scrapping soon.

It was quite the exhausting vacation. There is so much to do there. We literally went all day everyday, and were exhausted at night, but still managed to get in a few hours of pool in the evenings;)

The swimming pool was just a 2 minute drive from our cabin. The kids loved swimming in the evenings. As with every vacation, when asked "What was your favorite part of vacation", Cameron's answer is swimming. This is even with Disneyworld. So Eric and I are thinking, why spend all this money on these fun vacations. Why not just put in a pool instead? Nah! I rather enjoy our vacations.

There will be more pictures to follow. Blogger says that four is enough for one day. Thank you blogger, for being so generous. lol.

Papa's Got A New Pair of Shoes

For those of you who may not know my dad, he tends to not like shopping so much and when he finds something that he likes, he sticks with it. So when he bought a pair of tennis shoes 15 years ago on a vacation to Florida, he wore them forever. Well almost forever, for 15 years. They had no grips left whatsoever and were not as white as they once had been. Well about 2 weeks ago, he actually went out and bought a brand new pair of shoes. they are the exact same make and model as the other ones, but they are new ones nonetheless! I mean this news is so big, that I had to blog about it. Jenny and Ali I thought that you might need a little advanced notice so that when you see him on vacation, you will have been warned. LOl, love you Dad!!!!

Ah vacation, coming up in just 2 days. So excited! We are in the process of preparing and packing and all that fun stuff. We will be gone for 7 nights, which is going to be a long one for us, but so much fun. We are going to Tennessee, we have a cabin in the mountains.

Yesterday was fun, I drove out to my grandmother's house about 2 hours away with my mom, dad, 2 of my sister and of course Cameron & Payton. Eric had to work, he could not get off with vacation next week. My aunt from California and her son were there, had not seen them in quite a while. I had not seen my grandmother since Christmas, so it was time to drive out for a visit. This was my first time going there that she could only sit in the chair and not help out with the cooking or anything. That is kind of hard to see, beacause you realize how old and frail she is really getting. I definitely need to make more of an effort to get out there more often for visits. My 2 aunts cooked lunch and it was soooo good. They cooked shrimp stew, stuffed crabs, stuffed artichoke, fried trout and a salad with everything grown in my aunts garden. They even made their own cocktail sauce, tarter sauce & salad dressing. Such a delicious meal!

Well blog friends of mine, I guess that this is the last post until we return from vacation! Hope everyone has a great week! I tried to leave you with a layout that I did last week, but blogger won't let me. I have been slacking in the scrapping department. The creativity level has been set to low! Hopefully the mountains will turn it back up a little!!

7 Years!!

Well today marks the day of Eric and I's 7th anniversary. On this day in 1999, at 2:00 in the afternoon, we were getting married. So I decided to dedicate this entry to my wonderful hubby even though he is hardly ever on the computer and I am certain never reads this thing, LoL.
We celebrated on Friday. We went to Baton Rouge and ate at the Melting Pot. What a neat place that is! The whole experience is just so cool.

My favorites were the appetizer, salad & of course the dessert. What's not to love about cheesecake smothered in chocolate, caramel & pecans. Ok, I'm getting hungry just typing about it. I know that some of you that read this thing have eaten there, thanks for the recommendation. We really enjoyed every minute of it. I must admit boiling steak was very interesting, but it was such a neat process. And Brandy, you were right, we did get the Fiesta cheese appetizer. I had to break Eric in gently, I mean he is a rice and gravy kind of guy. Eating at the Melting Pot was way out of the norm for him, but he says he liked it nonetheless. He mainly ate the chips and cheese for the first course. My fave was the bread dipped in the cheese-Yummy!!!

After all that food, we didn't want to have to drive home, so we just stayed the night. Saturday we went out to the outlet mall and did a little shopping. It was such a great time. We enjoyed our weekend so much. Hope to have a few pics to share soon, didn't get to take many as my batteries, that I thought were fully charged, were indeed almost dead. Don't you love it when that happens?

This man is such a loving husband and father. He works so hard to make sure that I can stay home and raise the kiddies. Love you, Baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh and by the way, will you still need me, will you still feed me when I'm sixty-four ;)?? LOL.

Nothing, Nada

Ok, so for once in all of my 29 years, I don't have anything to say.

Shocking, I know. Nothing exciting has taken place in the last few days. Tomorrow night, we are celebrating our anniversary and we still do not know what we are going to do. We are very last minute when it comes to these things. Thinking about driving to Baton Rouge, but we are not sure yet. Have a great day!!!!