New Look

I couldn't wait any longer and decided to unveil the new look tonight!  I'm also going to tell you the details I have planned for November.  I'm really excited about it!

First, just a quick run down of my day!  We went to church this morning and worked in our nursery class.  We had 12 kids today, so it was a little hectic, but fun!  I sure love those kids!

After church, we came home and relaxed for awhile.  Around 5, some friends of ours came over for dinner and we had such a great time hanging out and visiting.  They have 6 kids too, many of whom match up with our kids, and it was a blast!

Now, for my November plan:

Many years ago, when my 2nd son (now 12) was 2 1/2, he was in and out of the hospital every six weeks with pneumonia.  The doctors couldn't find the cause, but did discover that he had a collapsed lung during all of it.  In between his times of being sick, the lung wasn't recovering and they were doing all sorts of invasive testing to discover the cause.  It was a very difficult time.  I had a brand new baby who was under 6 months old and my husband was in his first year of law school.  We had sold our home and were living in a small apartment.  I remember being reminded that I should remember to be grateful for everything.  I was astounded.  How could I be grateful for such a difficult time in my life?  Why, with everything else I was dealing with, should I be expected to feel gratitude?  This troubled me a lot and caused me to do some heavy thinking about what gratitude is and why can it change our lives?  I couldn't see it at the time, but gratitude actually had the power to lift my burdens and make that difficult time much better.

"Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content."  Helen Keller

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others."Cicero

“No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night.”  Elie Wiesel

Perhaps a few who have suffered much more than I did and who lived long before me, figured out this great truth in life.  There really is no way to elevate ourselves from whatever state we may be in without gratitude.

And with November being a month of Thanksgiving, for us here in the States, I figured it would be a great time to focus on gratitude and to complete a project!  Each day, I will be giving out a free template to scrap with.  But I will also be posting a prompt to get you thinking, writing and scrapping.  If you complete each prompt, whether it be writing it in a journal or turning it into a scrapbook album, at the end of the month, you will have a gratitude journal.  I plan to scrap mine and print it!  I will be sharing much of my progress as I go along and hope that many of you will too!  Feel free to email me links or post them in the comments and I will share them in my daily posts.

It has been said,

“You simply will not be the same person from now
after consciously giving thanks each day
for the abundance that exists in your life. And you
will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the
more you have and are grateful for, the more will be
given you.” — Sarah Ban Breathnach

I can't wait to begin this journey with all of you!  Tomorrow I will have the November desktop template as your freebie and starting on Tuesday, I will have a template and a prompt!  Spread the word!  Let's make the November the most thankful one yet!

For tonight's freebie, I have another title.  I thought this would look so cute on many Halloween pages!

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Family Photos

Today we did family photos and I'm so happy with how they turned out!  We had a blast.  All of John's family who lives close met at the waterfall up the canyon and I took bunches of pictures of all of us!  The kids had so much fun together!  The only negative was that the sun went down way too quick!

Here are just a few of our pics of the day!

Today's freebie is another title.  The font is by Darci Baldwin and it is layered so you can completely make it your own!

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Footnotes

Today was another busy day!  The highlight of the day, though was Chipper's choir concert.  He is in Footnotes, the audition choir at his Jr. High.  He did such a great job and looked awesome!  It was nice of them to do two performances tonight so that I could go to the first and John could go to the second.  This way we didn't have to take any children and wrestle them during the perfomance! It was a verynice treat!

Leading up to that was lots of craziness.  I did some more baking while the kids were at school and made some grain free chocolate chip cookies for me. I used Stevia to sweeten it, but it didn't work quite like I planned! I think I'll need to do some more experiments!  They were yummy anyway, so I don't mind that I need to keep tweaking the recipe!  I made gluten free cinnamon pull aparts for the kids, but it turned out more like cinnamon bread. They loved it, so that is the most important thing!

After that it was time to pick up Mitchell from school. I had a few minutes before leaving to go get Abby and Sam and then John and I ran some errands and picked up Chipper from play practice. I knew we were severely limited on time, so we grabbed some In and Out Burgers (protein style) and it was a good thing as we got back home at 5:15 and Mitchell needed to be to Rock Band practice by 5:30.  Chipper and I needed to be at the school by 5:45 and I needed to hem his pants before then!  It is always nice when your teenager informs you of the need for his pants to be mended-the day of!  Fortunately, I had some pins that will hold them together until I can sit down with a needle and thread!

Now, I am quickly blogging before getting the kids ready for bed!  I'm looking forward to some fun t.v. tonight and plan to finish up a few of the costumes while we're watching!

Tonight's freebie is a title.  I wanted to do something super versatile, so I chose the word family!  I'm sure there are lots of layouts where this could come in handy! At least I hope so!  It's saved with each individual letter as a layer, so you can dress it up however you want!!

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If there are certain freebies you especially like or things you wish I would make more of or add to the rotation, please let me know!  I do have some fun themed things planned for November and December, so be prepared for lots of downloading fun!!

Rain

I love rain. I love everything about it.  I love Fall and when the weather starts to get cooler.  It is my favorite time of year!  Today was one of those days!  And by tomorrow, the weather is supposed drop about 20 degrees and I'm so ready!

Olivia had her first field trip today and got to ride the bus for the first time!  She loved it and was so excited!  I love these types of moments for my kids.  She also picked out a pumpkin to bring home and wanted to know if we could use it to make a pumpkin pie!

Sam went back to school today and had a good day.  I love how happy he is when he comes home.

Mitchell had his rock band practice tonight and I'm so glad we found this for him.  The same place where he takes his voice lessons also put together a rock band every quarter.  They organize kids of similar age together into a little band.  Mitchell is the lead singer of his band and I can't wait until their first performance!

Another busy day, but a good one!  I hope you all had a good day, as well!  Here is the freebie for today!

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Check out this cute calendar made by Amy!  I love how she used different papers for the title:

I just love how cute that is!  Have a great evening and we'll chat with you tomorrow!