Another April Monday!!

Hi All! It's another warm April Monday here! Hope today finds everyone doing well and being happy.

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How was your weekend? Ours was great! On Friday I drove down to Tucson - ALL BY MYSELF - and picked Kodi up to bring her back home. She was sick and feeling like she wanted to be back home again. We had a fun trip back. Came close to running out of gas. Seems like that last quarter of a tank just disappears before your eyes! With a prayer in our hearts we finally got to a gas station. Heavenly Father was taking good care of us. We stopped at a couple places on our way home and ended up buying some books at one of the big bookstores. That was fun!

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Chris and his kids came over yesterday and had dinner with us. Melany was sick so she wasn't able to come. We enjoyed having him come and had such a nice relaxed afternoon.

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I've made a tough decision to drop out of being a CT member for SAS. I have several reasons for this decision but the main one is that I'm just feeling like I need to get back into family history again and it's hard to devote the time necessary to that when I'm doing the CT work. Maybe I can be a CT again somewhere down the line. And I'll still be doing my digital scrapbooking for my own scrapbooks. I just won't have the obligation to meet deadlines and such. So, here are my final four layouts for SAS.

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These first two layouts are done using the kit "Touch of Summer" by Scrapbrat who is a new designer at SAS.

These next two layouts are done using the kit "Blooming Elegance" by Monika Designs. I LOVE this photo! I can't believe how great my little camera caught the sunbeams coming through the trees! That's Nikki in the photo. I was walking her to the bus stop and taking pics as we went.

And that's it. This week I'm going to be busy doing visiting teaching cards and notes and writing letters. Have another birthday pillowcase to get ready to send off with the three that I still haven't sent out yet. Friday is payday again so hopefully I'll be able to do it then. Sunday is my turn to do the lesson in our Family History class. I've already given it once so I just need to brush up on it and make a handout. Get my visual aids boxed up to take. The lesson is on creating family histories. Such as in books about families or a specific family member, making scrapbooks, family newsletters, etc. There are so many ways you can do a family history. It's a fun lesson.

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Hope you all take the time to enjoy the simple pleasures today. Keep well and be happy!!

Monday In Arizona!!

Hi All and Happy Monday! It's going to be HOT here today. We are already 89 degrees before noon and it is supposed to hit 98 before today is over. Tomorrow is supposed to hit our first 100 degrees for this year. YUK!!

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It has been a busy weekend. We took Kodi down to Tucson on Saturday afternoon. Her friend Shealynn is having a surgical procedure today and wanted Kodi to come down and be with her. So we ran her down there. She plans on being there for a week. So we'll go get her next weekend. It was a nice drive down and back. But we saw three accidents - one with a fatality - on the way home. Traffic was backed up for several miles on the southbound side of the freeway. So we were grateful we were headed home and going north! All the accidents were in about a one mile stretch of road. Weird.

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Someone shot a photo radar worker on the Loop 101 last night and the guy died from his wounds. Soooooo sad. No one likes the photo radar. But it takes a pretty sick person to kill a person who is just doing their job to make ends meet for their family. There are so many shootings anymore. Kind of scary.

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Church was good yesterday. Loved the talks we had. And the Family History class went so great. I teach my class in there in two weeks. It's the one about writing/creating family histories. I gave it in our "practice" classes a few weeks ago. We as family history consultants each chose the lessons we wanted to be in charge of and then gave them to each other before we opened the class up to ward members. We've had our ward members coming now for two Sundays and have had a great turnout for it. It's exciting.

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Stephen's work is still on four day work weeks. We keep praying that things will pick up. We are hanging in there and so far so good. We are being blessed.

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We had a lovely Easter weekend. On Bunny Day (Saturday) we went to see The Hannah Montana Movie. I thought it would be all teeny bopper stuff. But it wasn't. It was a very good, uplifting movie. Great story line, a little romance, great country music, beautiful country scenes....We loved it. It wasn't anything like the TV show at all. If you get a chance to see it, do! We went to The Crackerbarrel for dinner afterwards and I tried one of their new skillet dinners. It was to die for!! Soooooo good!! And Easter Sunday Shane came over and made us his famous tacos. They are to die for too!! Stephen R. and Karma and the kids, and Chris and Melany and the kids all came to eat and visit with us. They played games and we all had a nice visit. It was a great weekend.

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Well, my CT work at The Cottage ended as quickly as it started. Something happened to the website while changing servers and they ended up closing it down. I did get to work for them for a whole week and got some fun kits. But I'm back to just working for SAS now. Which is probably a good thing as I'm trying to not do so much scrapbooking. I need to work on family history and have a hard time doing both.

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Here are some of my latest layouts. This first one was fun. Can you tell who all the eyes belong to?

I got a really nice compliment on this one of Kodi:

And that's about it for this time. I hope you all take the time to notice the simple pleasures around you today!

Happy Thursday!!

Hi All! And Happy Thursday to you! Can you believe Spring is here and it's Easter on Sunday? Hard to believe. Christmas is only 8 months away. 259 Days, 10 Hours, 20 Minutes and 40 Seconds.....no, make that 24...23....22....21...20....... Oh, well, you get the idea here. Time is hurrying on and Christmas will be here before we realize the year is gone!

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Things are really good here in our part of the world. It got up to 90 degrees a couple days ago but has cooled back down again. It has been pretty windy off and on, too.

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Last night I heard police cars going somewhere in our neighborhood. Sirens, the works. About 15 minutes later I heard five very loud gunshots. And then a few minutes after that the police helicopter was buzzing around. Haven't heard what was going on but it makes me a little nervous about this neighborhood. It isn't as safe as it was 10 years ago when we moved here. Sure wish we could get into a normal neighborhood, in a house with a yard for Frankie so he can run, and where we can have a garden. Maybe some day?????

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Stephen is still on 4 day work weeks. He had part of Tuesday off and all day yesterday. But they have work for him today and hopefully tomorrow. We are hoping this doesn't go on for very long. But we are afraid it's a sign of the times with the economy and that it may not go away for a while. I so love having him home with me though.

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Exciting news!!! Chad and Heather just let everyone know that they are expecting another new little one come October!! This will be number 8 for them. They have 6 boys and just got their first girl last July. I'm hoping this will be another little girl for them.

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And Little Ky is getting baptized on Saturday!! Yay, Little Ky! We are so pleased with his decision to be baptized.

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Exciting news - for me - I got an invitation to be on another CT! It blew me away. So now I'm on two teams. I hadn't planned it that way. Everyone thought that SAS was going under and a lot of the designers and CT members left. I stuck around. And when nothing seemed to be going better I went ahead and accepted this new invitation. Minutes later I found out SAS was going to survive. So I'm on two CT teams. My new place is cottagescrapbooks.com. The owner there, Stella, used to be at SAS as a designer. She did a couple of their challenges and I enjoyed participating in them. That's where she saw my work and she liked it. She left SAS to start her own site. Anyway, I've been on her team for about a week now and I'm enjoying it.

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Now! Here are the photos of my Spring Tree!! I made bows out of pink, lavendar, yellow, green and blue ribbon to put on it. And there are stems of purple lilacs, yellow daisies and pink carnations tucked into the branches. It's bright and pretty during the day even though all the ribbons are pastel colors. The flowers are brighter except for the pink ones. But at night when the lights are softer and low, all the colors change to shimmery pastel tones. It's really pretty at night with the softer look. So, here are the pics of the tree.

And this is our Kayta. She is the sweetest, happiest baby. Always smiling at us. I thought this photo of her was so adorable. I made this ATC for a challenge at SAS.


I did this layout for a challenge at SAS also.



This layout was done for my CT work at the Cottage. I used the kit Boyish Stuff by Mitsybell. The photo is of Chris and Ky.

This layout is done using the kit New Life. It's the new mega kit for April at the Cottage. The photo is of me and my Aunt Mary on my first Easter.

I used the kit Bella Mia by Darlene Haughin for this next one. The photo is of my Mom. I love how the colors were just right for this photo.

I hope all of you are safe and well and being happy. We have so many blessings to count even during the hard times that are happening now. Remember to look for the Simple Pleasures that are all around you. And have a GREAT DAY!!!