Where has the time gone?

I just have to stay off of Facebook... I can't believe how long it's been since I've updated this blog!  I have been a busy grandmother since Maria has come to live with us in June of 2011 - but she has brought so much joy to us that all the problems and mothering is not a problem except for when we have to go in to the city and she has school... then it's either one of us at a time or looking for someone to pick her up from school till we are home.... ah, the joys of parenting again!

For the sake of sanity and because I just can't sit and do nothing when the tv is on, I have been scrapbooking a lot.   I have been enjoying making a journal using prompts from where I hang out, at The Sisterhood Of Scrap.  Every Thursday someone posts the prompt and I find myself anxiously awaiting Thursday just like a kid waiting for Santa...!  Here are a few pages I've done:

That's probably enough for now!

Vacation 2012

Gosh we had a great trip to the Calgary Zoo!   That was our main destination but we also went to the heritage park there and also had a great trip to Drumheller to the dinosaur museum.  Maria was great to travel with which surprised me completely as she usually is bored and wondering when we are going to get somewhere within an hour of leaving home!  These were taken the first day, here is Suzann doing a 'sun dance' when it started to pour and we got completely soaked!

this is Dan with a baby rooster 

and here is Drumheller, this was the most outstanding part of our trip

Just a few of hundreds of photos of our trip!

A New Baby!

Gosh, it's been a long time since I've added a post here.  So much has happened - oldest granddaughter, Desiree graduated, my nephew Mat and his lovely lady had twin boys and we had a new grandchild added to our family!  Her name is Megan, and she is 2 days old in this photo.

She's such a good baby - all she did was smile and sleep and yawn and pass a little gas... then she ate and went to sleep again!  Now I will be making another baby book as soon as I get the photos off of our cameras!

They're logging!!

Just above our property is a beautiful forest full of trees and deer and other wildlife that I don't really love... like bears and a cougar or two!  Or there was a beautiful forest there... today I woke up to the sound of chainsaws and trees crashing down  :(   how sad that is.   Progress... or rather a better economy has made it a good thing for a developer to finally get busy on a huge subdivision called Crumpit Woods... so hopefully they will actually leave some trees.  There have been hiking and biking trails through there for years and now there are signs closing them off - hopefully once the trees have come down and some of the work has been done to clean up, they will open again at least for awhile... or maybe forever!   I have been taking photos so will post some here soon.

And, I've actually been getting some scrapbooking done... I have some album projects that really need to get finished and posted off!  Kate's album of her last trip to Italy will be done just in time for her to go again if I don't hurry up!

The grandkids are here!!

Two of them anyway and along with Maria, we are a busy household!!  I have been trying to work on Kate's Italy album since Christmas and it's not coming along too fast... I started out making it 8-1/2 x 8-1/2 and found that I couldn't get an album I really liked so now it is becoming 8-1/2 x 11!!   All 70 some odd pages are being reworked!  Here are a couple:

Thought I'd better...

get something onto this blog!!!   I have been working on Kate's Italy album... boy it's hard working on 8-1/2 x 8-1/2 pages after so many years of 12 x 12 ones!  I now have about 60 pages and I'm still not done!  I did find an album but think I am going to have to make one for all of this.   I love making albums for other people and with Kate I feel like I've actually been to Italy and Egypt and now am travelling back to Italy again!  I'll post a few pages when I get to the good part... embellishing!  I have just been sticking the photos onto the pages and choosing the papers just to get that part done before I drop them and lose the way they are supposed to go into the album.

I am waiting now for some baby photos coming in the mail from the aunt of Desiree and Jacob... she has just had a baby girl - I am very excited to do this for her and shopped for some special paper yesterday.  Chris gave me a $100 gift card to Michaels for my birthday so it was a great day of shopping.  Then there is my nephew Mat's twins coming - I am hoping for a head's up on what the sexes of those babies are going to be so I can get a head start on an album for him and Kristi... hint, hint Mat, if you read this!!

A Valentine

It's hard to believe that January is almost gone and Valentine's Day is just around the corner.  I have been working on some challenges at The Sisterhood of Scrap so made a couple of Valentine cards.  I thought I would get a little head start!

This one had to be 5 or more layers.

This one had to have stitching on it so I sewed the beads onto the cardstock.