Happy National Buttercrunch Day

It is so nice that it has warmed up here. We had a new baby calf the other day (early), so we are keeping busy. I will try to get a pic of the new baby posted.

BTW - yes, I know it is the 20th and Barak Obama will take his oath of office. If you read my blog, you know I did not vote for him. That said, it is difficult for some of my kids to understand why we pray for him and his Presidency. Plain and simple - it is God's command.

"Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." 1 Timothy 2:1-4

As our new president, I will continue to pray for his leadership and wisdom and that his decisions will be fair and well thought out, just as I have prayed for past leaders. He has a very large job to do and it seems as if the expectations upon him are greater than what has been placed on other presidents in over 20 years. So, yes, I will pray. I will watch the swearing in - it is neat that he is going to be using Abraham Lincoln's Bible (I didn't realize they kept track of personal Bibles like that - I find that wonderful).

Faithbooking Challenge
On to scrapbooking - for my faithbooking - for this 2 week period, the letter is B. I am leaning towards either the Baptism, Beatitudes, Believe or Beautiful, but I don't quite know yet. I will post more as time goes forwad.

Regular Challenge
On the regular challenge that Scrapper Lady and I have - it was her turn to choose (I still have layouts to post, but with illness and weather, cars not starting and such, we haven't had our regular time together). Anyway - her challenge items for this time are:
1 or 2 - 12 x 12 cs or pp background (or other size you use for your albums if you are joining in the fun)
6 strips of pp from scraps - each to be at least 1 inch wide! (no cutting new sheets of paper for this one - as we have both seen a lot of each others work, we sometimes remember the layout the scrap has come from!)
Chipboard - this can be any sort, just include some in the layout (letters, embellies, etc.)
Photo Turns or photo corners or some kind (if you don't own photo turns, or photo corners, remember the photo corners are easy to make - basic ones are made from cutting a square of paper diagonally to have two triangles - viola! you just made two photo corners)

Have a great day!

Exciting News

Well, maybe everyone won't find it exciting, but we sure did. Ds's ewe had a lamb yesterday. She did wait until it warmed from -30 up to about 6 degrees and then had her baby (I know they often have twins, but this one didn't - yes, I checked). The little guy is very cute. No name yet, but he is doing well. His mama's name is Jumbo.

My picture taking is not so hot, but I am working on it - Mama Jumbo didn't stand well for pictures - she was more interested in trying to eat the strings on my sweatshirt, so kept moving. Unlike my kids, she really didn't get stay put :)

Faithbooking, Scrapbooking, and Gas?

Above is my layout for my first letter on my faithbooking journey. I realize I had planned to start with A for Always Present, however, the layout A for Ask is what came into being.

The layout is based on Matthew 7:7 "Ask and it will be given to you; Seek and you will find; Knock and the door will be opened to you". So why this verse? It sounded greedy to me at first, but then I started thinking about what we have been given in our lives. First - I don't always remember, but I have led a very blessed life. My husband and I, when looking for houses, made a list of what we wanted most: a house with at least three bedrooms, a basement, a fireplace, decent size kitchen, some acreage, barn with watering and electrical systems in place and central air. To some, that is a lot, to others it may seem minimal, but that is what we really wanted in our first house. We thought about more bedrooms, different configurations, etc., but decided that it would be tough to find exactly what we wanted if we set up our standards higher (this was back when the housing market was very tight and our house had only been listed for less than a month).

God blessed us - our house that we selected had everything listed, plus was much closer to my husband's work than one we liked and much larger than the other one we considered. The picture is one morning when doing chores. Yes, we need to repair fences; yes, we re-did the electric to the barn; yes, we have had a fair bit of plumbing done, but overall - we received exactly what we had hoped for. There is more hidden journalling under the tag - but this picture (and others) remind me of exactly how wonderful a gift our house has been.



The pictures above are from the Challenges Scrapper Lady and I are completing.

12 x 12 background - done
1, 2x12 piece - done, but not quite right, will not alter the paper like this next time (I cut it in 1/2)
1, 2 x 8 piece of paper - done
1 piece from my scraps - the floral felted piece
5 brads or buttons - done - I used heart brads
There is more journaling to be added, but this worked for now.

Whoops - also just noticed one of my corners is missing - guess I need to adhere it better - off to find it!

***Remember - if you want to participate, you are welcome to join in the fun!

Temperature note today started at 26 below zero - it is getting warmer.

One last thing - why are gas prices starting to rise, while oil prices are going down?

Brrr - it is -27 this morning

Ok - yes, it is cold - but everyone is keeping warm. It is amazing how much warmer it is in the barns than outside. Just keeping the wind (no idea what the wind chill is, but 40 to 50 below is probably the area) cut helps tremendously.

The public schools in the area have called off for the day - kids were kind of bummed that mom didn't. Oh well - I did relent somewhat and let them know that it would be an educational game day. Current plans include choices like
Science: Element-o, Into the Forest, maybe some kitchen chemistry - Robert Krampf's site had a fun one with carmelizing sugar like they do for soda pop
Geography: Take-Off, See the USA, Global Pursuit
Religion: Bible Trivia and 10 Commandments
Spelling and Vocabulary: Scrabble and Up-words
Math: cooking - probably take recipes for cookies and make them 1 2/3 times the original and maybe change another recipe to 4/5 the original size.
History: One who is studying WWII is trying to get Axis and Allies, World with the paratrooper expansion for an assignment (would, but this game takes a lot of time). The game is fun, so maybe.
Art: Pictionary or Cranium (ok - these may be a stretch, but still fun)
Phy. Ed.: Just taking dogs out and doing chores is enough, but I foresee a Dance Dance Revolution dance mat competion again today. (If you ever to the DDR - best thing for us has been a 2" thick mat designed for Dairy cows to lay on. Was for our old dog so he wouldn't get sore, but now for an old mom so she can participate in the kids games without hurting her joints.)

Well - time to get back to things - have a great day and stay warm.

Happy Dress up Your Pet day!!!!

Ok - gotta love this one. Above is one of ds's cats - all dressed up as a Pirate and not very happy, though he has adjusted to being dressed up and doesn't mind so much any more.


Working on Layouts for these pics - they will be fun!

Have a great day!

Challenge stuff

here is just a hint at my last challenge - kind of did double duty work because I liked the 52 weeks sketch, so used that as a basis for my challenge with Scrapper Lady. My 12 x 12 background is the kind of burnt yellow paper, I used brads, cut my 2 x 12 in 1/2 (did this before we discussed how much altering can be done to the pieces of paper - won't be allowing in the future), 2 x 8 is behind the flowers, and the flocked, flourish yellow stuff behind pic is from my stash (1/4 of the sheet went for some birthday cards). I kind of like texture right now, so the strip beside the pic is actually suede - it feels so fun to touch (though it will be in page protector, so not quite sure why I wanted so much texture, but the creating has been fun). Tough to tell, but my 2 x 12 piece is a pp - monochromatic, darker brown flecks on the brown - colored the chipboard accent with a zig marker - love the lines that can be seen. The naked Chipboard fits with the journaling that will appear on the second page of this lo. Whole thing will be posted next week :)

Anyway - if you want to join in, create a layout with a 12 x 12 background (or two pages - your choice) - or, if you do a different size, that works as well, but the other items to include are
a 2 x 12 (or whatever longest dimension of your page is) strip of pp
a 2 x 8 (or 3/4 of longest dimension) strip of another pp
a piece of paper from your stash (all those scraps we keep :))
5 buttons or brads

that is it - lets see what we come up with - deadline of Wednesday, January 14, 2009.

I will be posting my faithbooking A pages later this week (probably around the 14th as well)

The Journey Begins

I mentioned in a previous post that a goal of mine is to work on Faithbooking. If you do a google search, there are a lot of resources out there to help you start on your journey. Mine is Christian, though I realize there are others out there. I plan to start an ABC album. I don't know that I will do a page a day or week, but to start, I am choosing

A - Always Present. God has always been present in my life - at times I may be walking away from Him, but He never walks away from me. This is the topic for my first layout. I will post results once they are created, but so far, all I have is the A portion. Off to create :)

PS - remember - when down, not that this gets rid of the bad stuff but helps, try hard to count your blessings. It is amazing how even a minor adjustment in your thinking - a little blip of happiness/smile can help to pull you back up.

Happy January 7th!

Today started out interesting - I didn't get my quiet time in - took forever to get coffee going - had a nice breakfast with dh - picked up car from shop - ds went out and one of his ewes died overnight (not sure why) - take care of that - school time - not a smooth day - heard about some new possible laws that will be/are being debated - oh boy - guess I need to get more active - lunch time (leftovers, again????) - at least there were plenty and fridge is getting cleaned out - meeting for tonight cancelled (whoo hoo) - article in magazine requires a letter to the editor - still not ready - hockey practice - try to chip more snow/ice from drive - time on-line - Charolette (cow at top of page) was having trouble getting up - help with that - remind kids of indoor chores - make dinner - everyone else at church and I have a few hours on my own - no idea what to do (so blogging). Maybe quiet time - late, but in - not sure yet.

Well - so much for having an interesting post - hope you all have a great day tomorrow!

Happy New Year!!!

Above are some pictures from recent hockey games. DS is having a blast.

I have been busy working on some Birthday cards for Buster's Swap. I have completed the first group and really like them. At first, I wasn't sure about the color, but really wanted to use a fuzzy type paper I have, so it started out tough. But now that they are done, I really like them! The colors are kind of Southwestern, and they turned out great (if I do say so myself). Definitely ones I would be proud to send out (actually I will be making another 1/2 dozen or so to have on hand).

I think I have finished the design for the birthday cards to send to males as well. I had a few different ideas, but the guys in this household voted for a particular card, so that is what I will go with. The only thing is trying to figure out one more embellishment to add. They have a shaker box like thing going for them, but need to have something else to qualify, so will see what turns up!


The challenges between myself and Scrapper Lady have started again - whoo hoo. I have missed them terribly. They always pushed to envelope of my creativity and I loved learning new techniques! Hopefully, we will be back to getting the equivalent of one layout per week (minimum) completed!

We are adding a little twist (if you want to join in, let me know). For this year, we are trying two challenge topics. First - one of us chooses items for a layout. I went first and selected 2 pieces of 12 x 12 for background (cs or pp), 1, 2 x 12" piece of coordinating pp/cs (depends on what your background is), 1 2x8" piece of coordinating pp/cs, 5 buttons or brads, and one piece from our scrap stash. Basic and simple, but we will see what happens!

Part two is going to be diving into Faithbooking. We are still discussing the strategy for how this will happen (right now considering an abc album, but not necessarily in the A is for apple sense) - since this is going to be based on our individual walks with God, they will not be the same. After reading many different faithbooking websites, I personally like the ABC type album to get going. This is going to be both easy and difficult for me as I do not always say everything I think or feel (both good and bad). So - let the journey begin.