Changing style

This picture is from the Easter Egg Hunt at church March 3, 2005. I am thinking of a change of scenery, maybe upside down also. Ever since I have been scrapbooking, several years now, I have always done 12x12 layouts. I am thinking of starting an 8.5x11 album. I am going to try it anyway just to see how it is. I have several mini-albums right now just waiting to be put to use, but I cannot decide what to do with them. Is that not odd? I have so many ideas, things-to-do lists, etc. running through my mind most of the time, I don't even know where to start. That is, in-between trying to clean house, watching Allyssa and Dakota 3 or more days a week, church, making sure I am spending enough time with hubby, working, and all that "other" stuff, like paying bills, (and trying not to forget to pay the telephone bill like I did this month)....I was going to enter the creating keepsakes hall of fame contest, but I have to have 10 layouts completed and sent in by February 10 and some of the things that I have to do, I don't think I will be able to get them done. I seem to run out of ink in both my Epson picturemate printer and used all the starter ink in my Kodak printer...so I cannot print any pictures right now. Why is that it all seems to run out at the same time. Just replaced the color ink in my lexmark printer. I think I need to go now and try to get some of the things on my to-do list completed, since I like to "check" things off, so the more I complete the more checks I can put on it! I know I am weird!!!!!!!

Silly Dakota!

This is now another one of my favorite photos. It was taken at the mall in Hendersonville, NC, when we were up there before Christmas. Dakota is being her silly self with her tongue out! Asheton is always such a great big help when we have both the girls. Allyssa and I met up with Mom at church tonight. Natasha got off work early and went to pick up Dakota herself since she don't usually get to do that. Sonya, Lynn and I ran to Leopard Forest Coffee Shop for our usual coffee run before Scott (our pastor and Sonya's husband) gets started. He told us we only had 5 minutes to get there and back! Of course, we did not make it in 5 minutes. We had Gracie, one of their daughters' with us, who was not feeling the best in the world, so while we were waiting on our coffees, Sonya was hustling back and forth to the bathroom with Gracie who would not go in the bathroom because she is afraid of the closed doors. So we grabbed a cup for the road (empty just in case Gracie got sick before we got back) and headed back to church as fast as we could get there within reason! Gotta go for now, it is 10:57 p.m. WAY, WAY past my bedtime.....:-(

Guess who this is!

Yep, this is Allyssa at her 1-year-old birthday party 5 years ago. Isn't she the cutiest thing? Look at the tossled hair! They all grow so fast...Natasha, 24, Nick 20, all my gosh, time is flying by. Nick will be 21 in April. 21 years old. I will be 47 in February. Not feeling well tonight so I am going to make this short. Gonna go and take a shower and get ready for bed. Don't feel like doing anything. Maybe I will feel better tomorrow....

Happy Birthday Allyssa

Today was Allyssa's 6th birthday. It has been 6 years since she was born? It don't seem possible sometimes. She received a Baby Alive baby doll from Mema and Papa Bob which she is opening in this picture. Dakota is looking on just waiting on her chance to get to the baby doll. Allyssa was happy with the baby doll, especially since it is suppose to wet her diaper among other things is it is suppose to do. This party was for the family. She is suppose to have a sleep over with a few of her friends in a couple of weeks. We ate dinner at Mom's house for New Year's Day. We had a good time and the food was delicious as always. Well, it is time to get back to the grindstone and a regular schedule now. Holidays are over for another year....2007 here we come!!!!!

Out with the old...

Three hours and 45 minutes and 2006 will be gone, no more. How depressing is that? But we do have a very new year, no blemish, no nothing to start off with. A clean slate. Seems the older I get, the faster everything moves. I will probably be asleep when the new year comes in, not that I don't care, I just really have never gotten into the "celebrating" the new year. Never got involved with new year's eve parties, fireworks and so forth. Why is that, I wonder? Allyssa turns 6 tomorrow. 6 years old...she was just a premmie yesterday...seems like yesterday sometimes anyway. Still haven't done anything with my "resolutions" idea, finished one layout today, "14 months" for Dakota. Been looking at a picture of Allyssa taken back in September, 2005, when we went to the lake and I captured the most beautiful picture of her as she was getting back on the boat from a dip in the water. I just cannot seem to put down into words what I see in the picture...the water droplet falling from her chin, perfect pink lips, tantalizing blue eyes, perfect nose...some of the traits I intend to put on the layout...not finished though. Not feeling very good today anyway.

Dakota loves this Water Globe

This year Dakota was old enough to pick out some things that were associated with Christmas. Not that she knew that these particular items had anything to do with Christmas, but she knew that some things that were "out for Christmas" were not normally sitting out. This water globe was one of them. I had it sitting on the television and one day when we were walking around at a time when I actually had her in my arms (probably because she had been crying or something) she noticed this water globe. I am thinking I received this from Deborah one year but I am not sure. It is a Coca-Cola Santa Claus water globe with a train that moves around it when it is wound up and it plays the Coca-Cola song, It's the Real Thing. (I think, come to think of it, I am not sure that is the name of it!) Anyway, every time she was over here at the house, at least 3-4 times I had to pick her up and show her the globe with the snow. I would have to turn it up-side down to get the "snow" going of course. There was also a smaller water globe I got one year for Christmas from a girl at work, but the snow did not do as well as this snow did. She looked at it for the last time today when I was trying to soothe her before Natasha came to get her, before I finally gave up and took her to my bed and laid there with her on my chest where she was asleep in 3 minutes. After she and Allyssa left, I packed up all the christmas stuff and put it away until next year. Wonder if she is going to remember it then? Of course, I will always remember her little smile and face light up when I would pick her up to see it "snow".

Allyssa was caught up in her new portable DVD player all day. She took it to Stamps and More when me, mom, Dakota and Allyssa went today and she sit and entertained a little lady that was sitting in the "little room" that Eleanor has which has a table and a small couch in it. She was watching Barbie Rapunzel all day. Does not seem like she should be old enough to be so entertained by a tech gadget like the portable DVD but she is. I can hardly believe she will be six years old Monday. Where has the time gone? She usually comes to my scrapbook room when she comes over and today was not different. She asked me for some paper so she could "write" something. After about 5-10 minutes she came to the living room and told Papa she put a note on his door to come and see it. So we went to his computer room and she had wrote, "Papa, I love you". She had done this all by herself, she did not even ask me how to spell any of it. I asked her today what she would miss about being five years old, (I was trying to get her answers so I could do a scrapbook page on it), but she said she did not know. I am not sure whether she understood what I was asking or she just was not in the mood to think about it! I think I will try again later. They grow up way too fast....

Hershey Kiss Baby!

Dakota loves Hershey's chocolate, it don't have to be a kiss, it can be a bar itself. She knows what a miniature hershey bar looks like and she knows what a hershey kiss looks like. I had to snap a picture of these last three kisses before she ate them. The second picture she is walking over to Papa for him to take the paper off and she had to test it before she got there! Aren't those kisses looking good. Something about a hershey's kiss and this is dark chocolate too, yum. The regular kisses were good, but now that they have dark chocolate they are even better. Allyssa was with her former babysister who wanted to baby-sit her for the day before Allyssa went back to school so I did not pick her up at daycare when I picked up Dakota. Sure do miss her. I haven't seen her since Wednesday, seems like a long time!

Gotta get ready to get all the christmas stuff back up in the attic. I hate doing that. Wish I could snap my fingers and it be done at once! Well, I am still trying to get my scrapbooking mind going, still have so much in my brain, but cannot get started....