Merry Christmas everyone!!!

I HOPE EVERYONE HAS A SAFE AND MERRY CHRISTMAS! ENJOY ALL THE TIME YOU CAN WITH YOUR FAMILY - WE DON'T GET TOGETHER AS MUCH AS WE SHOULD. I HOPE THAT YOU'VE BEEN GOOD THIS YEAR SO THAT SANTA DOESN'T LEAVE COAL IN YOUR STOCKING!! HEHEHE

all things white...

Here is the latest page from my Wreck this Journal. I've been spending lots of time cleaning and preparing for christmas so there hasn't been a whole lot of journal wreckage. I'm very much looking forward to the end of the holiday chaos! I have to also say that these pages are a HUGE advancement for me! When I do things, I am so used to them being linear, clean and organized. When I started glueing things down I had no plan, and didn't care if things were perfect, and the outcome made me SO happy! I love that there are layers and things are not perfect. I think I'm starting to see the light! LOL!

Finally finished!!!

Ok, I know it's been a while since I've updated about the journal. It's not that I haven't been working on it; it's quite the opposite actually. Here is the first page - I've always wanted to carve something into a tree but I always felt as though I would hurt it (I know that I'm sad) so I never did. Here was my chance I guess :)

And THIS is the reason why it took so long for the journal update! The task was to sew the page and I didn't want it to just be a few lines. So I drew out a sketch, drew a grid on the paper, transferred the design, mapped out the colours and then did a cross stitch!! There are roughly 3000 X's on this page!!! I would work on it little by little every day and it took F-O-R-E-V-E-R! But the result is obviously great!

Getting in the Christmas spirit!

Well trying to atleast. In all honesty it's been hard. Usually at this time of year I've got my fingers painted red and green and I'm watching Christmas Story on a nightly basis. But for some reason this year just isn't the same. Papa passed just 9 days before Christmas - so the holidays would have been hard enough without him let alone the fact that it happened so close to Christmas day. So anyway, we put up the tree and decorated the house (and Lincoln as you can tell from the picture hehehe) in order to raise our spirits. I was putting it off and putting it off especially since little Lincoln learned to crawl! When he was stationary he was into everything and now that he can move we knew that we were going to be in trouble. Like we imagined, he's bolting for the tree at every chance he gets so we're on our toes. Laney did a FANTASTIC job decorating the tree all on her own. Crossing my fingers for some Christmas cheer :-)

Oh an please send me some luck - another reason for my current Grinch'y mood is that I've lost my Christmas Story DVD!!! I have the case and the extras disc - but no dvd to be found. So maybe there's a lost dvd elf that can help me out..... anyone??

It's a miracle!!!

I've been so incredibly busy with cleaning, the journal, the kids, and just life in general, that it's been MONTHS since I've scrapped last!!! Last night the plan was to clean up my room. It has unfortunately become a dumping ground so it was time to get it picked up. But when I cleaned off my scrap table I looked at a few of the random papers laying on my desk and decided to see where my mind took me. I did get most of the cleaning up done and this page flew out of me within minutes. Normally I plan out my pages to a T with sketches, then I lay out my pics to match the colours and then I plan out my patterns and embellishments - I know it's pathetic. This is Butterfly Laney from halloween of 2009

What a busy and exciting day!!!!!

Last night I couldn't sleep for the life of me. I was still texting Dave well past 1:30am! Then when Lincoln woke up just before 7am I was positive that today was going to be hell. I was pleasantly surprised that it was anything but!! I fed Lincoln just like normal and put him down on the floor so that I could clean up my mess in the kitchen. Before I even walked out of the living room I noticed that he crawled about 2 feet!! So I got down on the floor and put a toy out of his reach. Low and behold he put one in front of the other and crawled over to get it!!!! I had such a mixed flood of emotions. In one hand, I watched a little tiny human achieve a huge milestone, and on the other hand, I was NOT ready for my tiny human to be such a big boy!! I cried both tears of happiness and sadness. By the end of the day he was crawling with super human speed and getting into everything that he shouldn't be getting into. Nothing is safe! Hehehe

Another exciting event for the day was that I got a tattoo. Or should I say that I started a tattoo. The story behind it: It's a combination of both Chinese and Japanese tradition and folklore. In Japan, there is a family festival where families carry flags with pictures of blue and white koi fish to represent every male in the family. In China there is a story where the koi fish swims upstream until it reaches a waterfall. When the fish reaches the waterfall it jumps and swims to try to get to the top. When it finally reaches the top it transforms into a dragon. In Chinese culture the dragon is a symbol of strength and the Emperor, and is usually the symbol of man. Since my little guy still needs to grow and swim upstream I figured that I would get the koi instead of the dragon. I also got the Chinese symbols that mean "little dragon". The other added part of the tattoo is Laneys name. I know that I already have Laneys name, but this one is special - it's her own signature!! When Lincoln turns 5 he will do the same. I love that it's all her and not perfect - a work in progress hehe

And to finish the day off (as if all of that wasn't enough) I finished another page in the journal. It was just an outline that said STAIN LOG so I decided to make it a makeup stain log of all of the things that I use on a weekly basis.

Journal, Journal, Journal

It's been quite a while since my last update on the journal, so here are the most recent pages:

There are instructions later on in the book that say to doodle on the title page - Laney dictated to me what I had to do.

The two above pages are for grocery lists. Instead of just writing a boring list I decided to illustrate it then paint with water colour paints. Dave thought that I was insane and walked a few steps ahead of me when I brought this to the grocery store - Laney told me that I need to do this more often.

Drawing with glue I had a few options but in the end I decided to cut out designs from transparencies and then go over the designs with Stickles Glitter Glue. It looks so much better in person but I couldn't get it to turn out in the picture.

You won't believe what we ate this weekend!!

Or should I say what Laney thinks we ate this weekend?! I had just gotten these beautiful plum coloured dishes from Ikea this week, so I set up the table for dinner and made everything look pretty. Laney ate the rice and the peas, but she refused to eat the ribs. No biggie, she normally doesn't eat meat at all. But the strange thing is that she just kept staring at them for no reason. Then out of nowhere she asks "Are you eating dinosaur?? Because those look like ribs and dinosaurs have ribs". OMG!! It was hilarious!

Slightly disappointed with my latest journal challenge :(

The journal activity of the day was to climb somewhere really high and drop the book. So I went to see my dad at the firehall, climbed the 80 stairs up to the tower that they hang the fire hoses to dry, and threw the book down...

down

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down

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down

AND NOTHING HAPPENED TO IT WHEN IT LANDED!!! This was the one task that I was so excited to do. As soon as I saw the prompt I knew where I would go to throw it. I mean look at the view from the top of the tower!! I was expecting atleast a little bend, torn page, SOMETHING! 80 steps and nothing. Ugh Oh well. On a more positive note, me and my husband found quite an amusing thing to do........ (you're gross, get your head out of the gutter!) If you send a text message to a land line, there is a computer operated robotic woman's voice that will literally say anything you type. It's hilarious!!! Ok, well, maybe it's not that funny, but we have no lives and small things amuse us. I do, however, suggest that you try it sometime.

We have a tooth continued and other family craziness!

Hehehehe well..... literally within hours of posting about Lincoln's first tooth, Mr Man put on his cranky pants. So I decided to check his mouth to see how toothy #2 was doing and I was pleasantly surprised to find that tooth #2 had made its debut!! Its just barely broken the skin, but it's there.

This is an example of Lincoln and his craziness. He was left alone on the floor for less than one minute and he had managed to roll off of his floor mat and pull it on top of him like a blankie! He laid like this for quite a while, and looked so comfy cozy that I left him that way! He was quite content the whole time too :)

This is big sister Laney doing what she does best; helping out her brother. I had to get a cloth mid Lincoln-Feeding-Frenzy and Laney decided that she would feed her brother. Her reasoning behind it was that she didn't want him to stare at his food and get sad because he couldn't reach it. Awwwwwwww I know! So sweet and thoughtful of her. She did do a pretty good job, however, the cloth was definitely needed afterward!

We have a tooth!!!

So I forgot to put this up the other day but Lincoln got his first tooth!! He's been having such a hard time with these teeth, poor thing. They kept coming up, going down, coming up, going down. And I think that the second front bottom one should be poking through by the end of the weekend. I'm hoping for a break for the poor kid before the next ones give him trouble but I don't think that's going to happen. Also this week he started to sit up for extended periods of time and has even crawled forward a few times!! He's mastered the art of crawling backwards and spinning in circles as of last week, so there was really no need to go forward.

An oldie but a goodie...

Since the birth of my son, I rarely ever get the chance to scrap. By the time he's in bed, I have so much stuff to get done before I can go do bed and then when I do get the chance to scrap, I'm too tired! It also doesn't help that my stash is stocked with mostly PINK! Maybe by christmas I'll get the chance to get some blue and boy themed things. Here are my last two layouts that I finished many weeks ago but never got the chance to update...

Oh what a weekend!

This weekend was SOOO much fun!! Friday night I went to the movies with my best friend to see Paranormal activity 2 - it was fun going with her, but the movie sucked! LOL The first one was great and scared the crap out of me, but there was so much build up in this one it was kind of boring. Then after we left the movies we went to the casino, played some slots and we both won!! So basically, the entire night was free! BONUS!

On Saturday we spent the day at Dave's parents for his brothers birthday. We don't get to see him a whole lot because he lives in Toronto. Lincoln downright refused to sleep while we were there and was kind of grumpy - that is until I gave him a little taste of chocolate icing! He loved it, of course, and perked up just long enough for us to get him home to bed. Later that night I went over to a good friends house for some drinks and had some laughs with a few people that I don't get the chance to see very often.

I'm paying for my fun now though. This time change has completely messed up Lincoln's sleep. He used to sleep until about 8am every morning. Sunday he was up at 5:30 and then this morning he was up at 6:45. I guess that today was a vast improvement from sunday morning, so let's just hope he continues the trend until he gets back to normal!!

This weekend also gave way to some more journal wreckage:

Canvas

With a little inspiration from the ever so wonderful Alana, I have done my favourite page yet!!! If some of you don't know the type of person that I am, I am a perfectionist! Like OCD perfectionist. In my normal world, everything is in order, no overlapping, neat and tidy, so for me to doodle over top of something was really hard. But ever since I've finished this page I've realized that it's not all as hard as I thought it was going to be! In fact it was a ton of fun and I now plan to do more of it!!! Messy is beautiful is my new motto!

The page now says:

This is merely a canvas.

It was not boring.

Maybe I make one more mark in place of defacing the world.

Possession of yourself, experimenting with your future, slowly smelling the inside of your nose.

Be famous

More wreckage ;-)

Seriously, this book is just too much fun!!! Today's challenge: Tear and poke and wash. I coloured the first page and then tore it into strips...

Then the next page I had to poke holes inside the dotted lines and then I decided to thread some ribbon in between the holes to connect them all - it's pink, so my daughter was impressed!!

The next thing that I did today was tear a page out, put it in my pockets and put them through the wash, then stick the page back in the book. I kind of love that the book no longer lays flat anymore and is slowly gaining height!!

WRECK THIS JOURNAL!!

I ordered a copy of the book Wreck This Journal last week and it just came in today!!! I was so excited!! The whole point is to follow the instructions on each page to create a journal and destroy the book in the process. I am such a perfectionist and I love to plan things out, so this will be a great way for me to accept my creativity for what

it is and be more spontaneous. At dinner I walked up to the stove with the book and just flung gravy at a page and then shut it! Dave looked at me like I had recently developed a mental condition then laughed at me. If anyone is interested in learning more, go to http://www.kerismith.com/

So this is day one of "wrecking my journal". Doesn't it look all shiny, pretty and new?! A thing of real beauty really. I am itching to fix the current state of this book!!!

Page one, but not in the technical order and here's the reason why: Throughout this book I am asked to spill things on it, make a 'stain log', drag it through the dirt, and other possibly disgusting things. SO, I made it a point to do all pages that require my mouth to touch the book first! One of the instructions does ask me to take it into the shower with my but I'm not 100% confident that it would be clean enough for me to lick. I tried to make a flower in the circle - Meh it's still pretty! LOL

The last page that I finished today was the "trace your hand" page. So here is me AND the little pieces of me.

These kids keep me on my toes!

Today was a prime example of the interesting daily events at my house. This afternoon I was cleaning up the kitchen and re-organizing things. When I had moved a magazine on my little island I found a heart that Laney had drawn on the wood in black ink!! I knew that wasn't there yesterday!! I couldn't let her get away with drawing on my furniture so I sent her to her room. But when I went in to talk to her about it, there was no way I could stay angry at her about it. I asked her "why did you draw on mommy's furniture?". Her reply was "Because I love you so much I wanted to draw a heart for you so that every time you saw it you would know that I love you!". Seriously, how can you stay mad at that? Then later on she came into the bathroom (Privacy? Ya right!) and said "Mommy, you're a chicken - WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!". I hadn't realized that our recent obsession with the show Diners, Drive in's and Dives had leaked to our daughter! I think Guy would be proud. Then there's the little guy Lincoln, who is now crawling backwards and rolling to get where he needs to go. He's pretty quick too! He can make it from one side of the room to the other in just a few seconds. When he really gets going, i'm in trouble!!

My first painting since I don't know when!

Out of the blue I just had this urge to paint! I didn't know what I was going to do, but I was bound and bent that I was going to finish a painting that night. So Dave went off to work, I put the kids to bed, and I let my mind fall victim to my creativity. I stole one of Laney's canvas's and sat on the couch until the wee hours of the morning until I had a finished product. I was so involved in the painting that I had absolutely no time it was! I wasn't even tired! I ended up doing this tree. I absolutely love the colours of fall - it's like the colours have their final burst of energy before going to bed for the winter. Not only are the leaves vibrant but the sky and air changes too just giving this wonderful cozy, warm feeling.

Time for change!

I've been a bad blogger! Yes ladies and gentlemen, I admit it. I've slapped myself on my hand and stuck myself in the corner as punishment and I've since vowed to treat my blog with more love and respect! So I've decided to start fresh and include not only my scrapbooking, but my family life as well as my other daily creations. Since I've had my kids (Laney 5, Lincoln 6 months) I've kind of lost myself. I know that some (ok, well most) of my posts will still be about my kids, I hope that this blog will be a way to find ME again. So here goes nothin'.....