Do you love Lucy? December 20, 2009

We do!! Lucy is our new dog! I still can’t believe that we got a dog. 2 weeks ago, we went up to Deltona and visited Gisele, who is The Dog Liberator. We were really just going to see the different dogs that she had with no intention of actually adopting one that day. But Lucy had other ideas. When she first came out to see us, she was a bit nuts and crazy. Our first thoughts were that there was no way we could adopt her because she’d be too crazy for Amelia (who is pretty much petrified of dogs). But about 20 minutes later after investigating every inch of the house, she came right over to Daniel and me, sat right down and waited to be petted. So we changed our minds then and wound up going home with a 2 year old Border Collie in tow!

The kids weren’t too sure about her at first, but by the next day, Amelia was letting Lucy lick her. It was crazy. Kind of like Amelia just knew that Lucy wasn’t going to hurt her.

Here’s a picture of the pretty girl herself:

And here are some pics of Amelia and Lucy:

Lucy was rescued in Alabama by a trucker and then made her way down here shortly after that. So we really don’t know much about her past, but she is a pretty smart little girl. So far, she has learned to sit, shake and has almost mastered laying down. She’s also going to doggy school at Petsmart with me. The kids love her and so do we.

CoffeeShop PSE Actions December 11, 2009

Have you been to the CoffeeShop blog lately to check out their awesome and free Photoshop Elements actions? They make photo editing a breeze! Check them out and see what kind of fun you can have with your pics.

Heaven’s going to be sooo much fun for Amelia October 16, 2009

Today we were doing our Bible story in school and it was about Heaven. There is a line in the Bible story that says, “And best of all, God lives in Heaven. We’ll talk with Him and live with Him forever.” After I read that, Amelia’s eyes got really wide and she said, “We get to talk forever in Heaven?” Oh yes, baby girl, all of your dreams will come true since you’ll be able to talk all you want in Heaven!

That’s what Amelia’s do October 14, 2009

If you know Amelia at all, you’ll know that the girl talks nonstop! I am convince that every thought that goes through her mind, comes out of her mouth!

Here is a snippet of a conversation that she and I were having in the car today. My first statement was made after she had asked her 5th or 6th question about something I said:

Me: Ok, Amelia that’s enough questions, just hush.

Amelia: I can’t hush. That’s what Amelia’s do… we don’t hush.

Ain’t that the truth, sister!

Overheard October 1, 2009

I thought this was a cute enough story to deserve its own blog post! Every so often we mention to Amelia that my mom (her Mawmaw Thomas) is up in heaven, but that if she were still here with us she would totally bring moonpies and other snacks to Amelia every time she saw her. So the other day, Jack was playing in the family room and I was in the kitchen. Amelia had been in another room and she ran into the family room and said this to Jack, “Jack, when we get to heaven, Mawmaw is going to give us moonpies!” Too funny.

New transmission anyone? August 26, 2009

Oh me, me! Pick me!

So last Thursday, as we were driving home after our first day of Classical Conversations, my car started acting all wonky! When I would push the gas pedal to accelerate, it would barely move and then all of a sudden it would “catch” and race forward. Then whenever it was changing gears, it felt like the bottom was going to fall out of the car! So Friday morning, I called Ford and made an appointment to bring it in. But first I had to go to my follow up eye appointment. And before that, I had to drop the kids off at Miriam’s. Well, that was an adventure in itself. Rick & Miriam’s driveway is a rather steep hill and I actually thought about parking at the top because I wasn’t sure if my car would shift well enough in reverse to get back up the hill. I should have gone with my intuition, because when I tried to back out of the driveway, that car wasn’t going anywhere! Luckily my brother was there and did about a 4 point turn with the car to get it up the hill. I made it to the doctor’s office and finally made it to the Ford place. I really wasn’t sure if I’d make it there or not.

So everything gets situated and the rental car people come to pick me up and take me back to their office to get a rental car. The guy takes my driver’s license and is filling stuff out in his computer, when he says, “Did you know that your driver’s license is expired?” What??! No I didn’t know that. And now I can’t rent a car. So he drives me to the nearest DMV office. Of course it’s packed with a 2 hour wait. I can’t do that, so I called my brother and he was going to pick me up. The rental car dude drives me to a gas station half way between Clermont and my brother’s house. When we stopped at the gas station, he called his boss back at the office to tell him what was going on. Well the boss says they’ll rent me a car anyway and give me a “new” expiration date on my license. So 2 hours after dropping off my car, I finally got the rental!

And I finally got a call from Ford yesterday saying that the transmission was completely broken and they were going to be repairing it. AND it’s all covered under the extended warranty that we got when we first purchased it only 3 1/2 years ago! Woohoo!

Picking Pineapples August 20, 2009

Ok, I have yet another renewed commitment to blogging. Who knows, maybe I’ll stick with this one.

 

Did I ever mention here that I’m homeschooling Amelia? We made that decision a few months ago and began doing the A Beka curriculum with her. It’s been amazing to see what she’s already learned. About that same time we also decided to enrol her in the Classical Conversations homeschool program. Today was our first day doing that program. It was interesting and we have a lot to learn before next week, so wish me luck… oh and wish Amelia luck too.

 

The first thing they did in class was to have each child come up in front of the class and introduce themselves and tell a little bit about them. So it was Amelia’s turn and she gave her full name. Then the tutor (that’s what they call them instead of a teacher) asked her what was her favorite thing ever. Since she’s been talking nonstop lately about her Cinderella party that she’s going to have on her November birthday (she’s apparently been planning this for a while because I had no idea about it), I figured she’d say her favorite thing is princesses or something like that. Oh no, not my Amelia. She stood there for a couple of seconds and finally said, “Picking pineapples.” I just burst out laughing as did the rest of the kids and moms. I think she has officially established herself as an odd duck!

 

One nice thing about the program is that it is currently meeting at our church. I had been planning to go to the one in Clermont and so I’m glad I only have a 7 minute drive now instead of 30 minutes! After classes, we all go outside and eat lunch at the picnic tables and the kids have a chance to play on the playground. I let my kids go over there without me since there were plenty of kids running around. At one point, I took a look over and there was 2 year old Jack climbing up the metal ladder thing all by himself. By the time I looked over, he was almost at the top (probably about 6 feet in the air), so I bit my lip and held my breath and just let him keep climbing. I wonder how long it will be before we’ll be calling 911 for him.

Exciting news and a freebie June 8, 2009

So on a whim last week, I decided to apply to be on Sarah Bennett’s CT (creative team for her digital designs, for my non digital scrapping friends). And lo and behold, she replied back to me and asked me to be on her team!!! I’m so excited.

She just started selling at Funky Playground Designs. You can check out her stuff here.

Below is her newest kit called Forever Beautiful and a LO I did with it and with a template of hers.

 

And in honor of my being chosen to be on her team, I’m participating in a mini blog train and offering up a template for you guys. You can head over to Sarah’s blog to see the other train participants and to get a freebie add-on kit to Forever Beautiful.

Here’s my template. Enjoy! (click to download)

Just some more pages May 6, 2009

I don’t have anything really exciting to say here, so I’ll just post some more scrapbook pages. We did just get a new video camera, so maybe I’ll be posting some fun videos soon!

More pages and some templates April 17, 2009

I haven’t shared pages in a while and I have quite a few to share.

 

Since I love using templates to make my pages so much (um, all of the ones above are from templates and most of the ones below), I decided to figure out how to make my own. So that’s just what I did today. And if anyone reads this blog and wants to download these freebie templates, have at it! (images are linked)