Adjusting

School is in full swing and life has been busy.  Meg had some tears last week over her class schedule but we were able to rectify it by moving her up into Advanced Science and Advanced Civics.  Of course that means more homework and with her getting home at 4:30 with cheer practice every M-T-Th from 6:00-8:00 PM and games every Saturday it's definitely proving a challenge for us both. (Her - staying organized and focused.  Me-maintaining my temper when she doesn't.)

I just returned from dropping her off at the field.  She'll come home, shower, eat and then hopefully finish her homework before 9:30.  This is what my table looks like right now....

Tomorrow is Open House at her school where I'll get to meet her teachers. Friday night we're hosting a crafty get together to assemble decorations for a friend's baby shower.   (If I can get my act together and get stuff die cut and ready to go, that is.)  Saturday is her first football game...an hour and a half away!!!  (Nobody told me I would have to leave my neighborhood!  Ack!)

There is a reason I raised only had one child at a time.  :-)

First Day of School

Yesterday marked Meg's first day of 7th Grade.  She had an air of nervous excitement about her as she chatted and chatted while getting ready.  I knew she was looking forward to the day when she asked for her obligatory photo. As her back to school outfit she chose the gray denim jeans and gray sweater that we purchased at the mall on Sunday.

A better photo of my "baby girl."

And off she goes!

Summer Winding Down

With school starting here tomorrow, life is about to get a whole lot busier. Knowing this, I decided to take a few days to myself last week to visit with my parents.  It was nice to get some one-on-one time with them without the hectic pace of our usual extended family get togethers.

Earlier today Meg and I did a wee bit of last minute school shopping.  Clothes shopping with her is about as fun as nightly homework but fortunately we lucked out at our first store.  There she got two pairs of jeans, a pair of denim bermuda shorts, two sweaters and two pairs of flip flops (not for school).....all for $115. Not too bad.  But the best part?  We were done.   :-)

I'd hoped to have all of our vacation photos edited and ready to share by now but unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your view) that's not the case. Here are some of what I do have...



We LOVE caves.  Why?  Because they are a always at a constant (and very comfortable) temperature, in this case 58 degrees.   I want to live there.

 

Meg couldn't wait to ride the sky lift to view Gatlinburg from above.  She rode in the bench with me...

...with Randy in a bench just in front of us.

The view from above did not disappoint.  You get a good idea of just how nestled Gatlinburg is in the mountains.

With any luck I'll have some time to work on my photo file later this week.  I'm hoping for some card and scrap time too.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend....and summer!

Vacation Photos

Northerners flock to beaches of Florida.  Floridians flock to the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee.  It's just a known fact.

We recently returned from a trip to the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee.  We were so excited with the scenery that we stopped several times to take in the views and snap a few photos along the way.  It is just so gorgeous and even after many, many summers up here, it just never gets old.

It's obvious as to how the Smokey Mountains received their name.  It was fairly breezy with temps in the high 60s.  TOTALLY AWESOME!!

Here's Meg doing her best "Barker's Beauties" impression.

We rented a small cabin located midway between Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. It turned out to be an ideal location.

The front porch was my favorite part of the cabin.  I spent most mornings and evenings out there as did Randy.

This was our view! Simply beautiful.

I'll be posting more photos of our trip soon.  Thanks for stopping by!

Yay, Rah....

Sis, Boom, Bah!  Of course when I said this in front of Meg and one of her friends they both looked at me like I had two heads.  Oh well....

Meg has joined our local Pop Warner cheer squad, something she's wanted to do for two years, but because of her CRMO I thought it best to keep her out of team activities.  She's been symptom free for almost two years now (everybody "knock wood") so we consented.  They are in the middle of a two week conditioning program (think two hour boot camp 5X a week) so she's pretty sore but wakes up with a smile and really seems to love it.  (We'll see how much she loves it after a few weeks of 3 nights of practice and games every Saturday.) She looked so cute in her team colors last night that I insisted on a photo.

Thankfully they practice at a field behind her old elementary school so it's only a quick two minutes down the street.  I usually drop her off and head home for the first 45 minutes or so and then go back (when it's a bit cooler) to walk the track while they're practicing.  It brings back so many memories....

My head tells me I should be running but my bod definitely screams "No!!!!"   (Stubborn competitive idiot that I am, I did try, but my peg leg zombie run isn't pretty nor is it worth the risk of requiring a second hip replacement.)  So I'll continue to walk, watch the girls, and reminisce about the good 'ole days when I was my daughter's age.



 

Project Life

We just returned from a wonderful nine day vacation in the Smokey Mountains. It was just the three of us this year so I was really afraid that Meg would be bored, bored, bored but she had a fabulous time and didn't want to leave.  Who would?  The mountain air is fabulous!  While I'm working on weeding through hundreds of vacation photos I have some pages from another album that I'd like to share.

In addition to playing catch up with 2009, I'm also working on Project Life for 2013.  I've done really, really well staying caught up but have decided to make a slight switch to my approach.  During the first six months of the year I've created a single pocket page each week.  (On busy weeks I have added in additional pages but for the most part, in order to allow all of 2013 to fit into a single album, I've created one page per week.)  Starting in July I've decided to modify my approach.  I plan to separate my pages by months, rather than weeks which eliminates the need to have to fill one page per week.  I know it doesn't sound like much but it makes a world of difference in my planning/creating process.

Enough blah, blah, blah.  Here are two examples of recent pages....


The last week of June.

The start of my monthly process for July...

Project Life fulfills my desire to document the little things in one nice/neat package thereby allowing me to be more selective on the subject matter/photographs I choose for my full size traditional albums. LOVE THAT!

Recent Layouts from 2009 Photos

As promised, I have more layouts to share.  I'm still trying to catch up on 2009 photos so the Scrapbook Generations page kits make it so easy.

SOTM = Student of the Month...  

Beach Fun...

St. Patrick's Day...

I can't get over just how much she has grown these past four years.  Here she's still my little girl. Today she's a blossoming pre-teen. Amazing.   (But she still LOVES her Bucket O Green.  LOL!)

Some Layouts to Share

It's been awhile since I've shared anything from JulieWorld.

I'm still bouncing back and forth between current photos and those taken in 2009, aka, "the year of no scrapping"  but today's pages (created with Scrapbook Generations kits) are both created using 2013 photos.

This set of photos came about when Meg refused to let me take her picture one morning before school. (I thought she looked really cute in her white jean capris.  Photo opp, right?) To show her "who's boss" I went inside and grabbed my zoom lens and preceeded to photograph her from my doorstep which is across the street (and then some) from her bus stop.  I'm not sure how well the photos are showing up but it didn't take long for her to spy me and try to run. Ha...there is no outrunning Mama's zoom.  (Next time she'll just pose in the drive, right?)

This second layout is of Meggie and one of her BFFs who was spending the night at our house.  They made some yummy pizza for dinner and then had a craft night.  The crayon art idea is one Meg found on Pinterest.  (She now has her own account and is constantly finding projects she wants to tackle.)

I have more recent pages to share but need to get them photographed.  Look for them over the next several days.