Charly and Those Other People

New BK Commercial?!

2009-04-21T10:39:00.003-04:00

So I was listening to Air1 this morning and the dj's were talking about the new Burger King commercial aimed at kids with the purpose of selling kids' meals. They were talking about how improper it is, especially for children so of course I had to go and watch it. And then I was a little outraged and thought about posting it here, and blogging a little steam off, so thanks for reading. BK is just out of hand, with people waking up with the creepy King in their beds, and now this "kids" commmercial. I mean, come ON! I know that talking about it is just giving them more press, but still. This is a reason Charly doesn't watch TV that has commercials on it. I'm not going to post the video on here, but I will link you so you can choose to watch it yourself. If you wanted to email BK, I'm sure that would not be inappropriate. I think it's important that they hear from parents whose kids may see this. Here's the video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pjo8uEngP8s

And family, don't worry, I'll post a family update soon. Just know that all is well, Charly had a fun and busy Spring Break last week, and we're all gearing up for May!

-Shannon

Happy Fifth Birthday!

2009-03-09T11:28:00.003-04:00

Charly's birthday party was on the 28th and it went really well. 3 boys came, 2 from church and one from school. One of the church kids and the one from school didn't get along well at times, but kept away from each other for the most part. At one point the school kid punched the church kid because he took Charly's toy. Starting fights already, I know! Other than that, it was a nice party. The cake was good, the company was good, and the party was about 2 hours. I made a slideshow so you can see most of the pics. I let the kids run around with Charly's camera, and they took some photos, but Nate has the card for that camera with him and he's not here at the moment. So I will get those pics up soon. :) Here's the slideshow:

I've entered a design contest at Inspiration Lane. The winner gets to sell in their store, which is a pretty popular store. We will have to complete 4 challenges, and along the way we'll be given tips and tricks to help us grow in our craft. I thought my challenge one entry was really good, but of course there were things for me to work on, namely staying within the assigned color palette. To my eye I did that, so now I have to figure out why what the contest judge saw doesn't match what I'm seeing. In case you're curious, here's my kit: Springtime, Kiddo!

I made a Photoshop brush that makes it look like I've sponge painted on the paper. So I let Charly make her own ladybug :)

She chose the colors and colored it in herself, though I did select the image and make sure she couldn't color too far outside the lines.

The challenge was due by 11:59 pm this past Saturday, and I wasn't able to really start working on it until Friday. Then no matter what I was doing my computer would freeze. I couldn't do anything in Photoshop, I couldn't do anything online, I couldn't even edit an Excel spreadsheet. Praise the Lord we still had our tax money in our account so that I could go to Best Buy and pick up a new computer. We're so blessed! You can find it HERE if you're interested. So then I got PS loaded onto it and was able to make the kit Saturday. Even though I was trying to learn a new operating system, and set up, and keyboard and all that, lol. This is my first Vista computer, and I hate to admit it, but so far I don't mind Vista. It's not so bad. :) And so far the computer has been able to handle all that I've thrown at it, which is awesome!! But we'll see how long that lasts. *-)

So that's about it for now. I'll update more later. After this post, I will be updating the Project 365 blog with pics from the 2nd half of Feb and the beginning of March. Yay!

-S

A Letter From My Pastor

2009-02-12T10:07:00.002-05:00

Today Pastor Sean, our pastor sent out this email. I wanted to post it here because he makes a few really good points. And for more reading on this subject, check out the book Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel. Here's the email:

My friends,
If you have wondered if you are really living in a post-modern, anti-god world just open Google today and click on their little picture above the search box. What you will see is the celebration or commemoration of Charles Darwin's 200th birthday-February 12, 1809
One of the largest Internet associated corporations is promoting the acknowledgment of someone's birthday, Charles Darwin a man who denied the biblical account of creation and suggested an untenable alternative-man came from monkeys.
Pause for just a moment and consider the number of people in hell because of the influence of this man who convinced them that there wasn't a God. Darwin's unbelief and alternative philosophy is not compatible with the Word of God-to suggest otherwise is to deny the faith.
Christians are called upon to contend for the faith, and this begins with the presupposition that there is a God who has revealed Himself to mankind in special way through a trustworthy book-the Bible. Anything other than that is a lie from the pit of hell designed to confuse and destroy.
Christians are often intimidated by intellectuals who present themselves as having all the answers. Be aware. These intellectuals do not have all the answers; they live in darkness, seeking to know the truth. The god of this world has blinded them from the truth, and their only hope is the mercy of God that can shine a light into the depths of a dark heart and reveal the truth.
One canNOT serve two masters, and a Christian cannot have a partial biblical worldview-evolution is completely incompatible with the Word of God-do not be deceived into believing that parts of the Bible can be true.
God created Adam as an adult male instantaneously, or the entire Bible is untrustworthy and Christianity is one large hoax-there isn't an alternative or a lukewarm middle ground. Do not be deceived into thinking that one can play both sides of a court. You can no more be a Duke fan and a Carolina fan than you can subscribe to Darwinism and the Word of God.
Serve God, believe the Bible, trust in Christ and you will never regret those decisions.
See you at church.
Your pastor,

And yeah, I did go to google.com and did click on the picture above the search box. And it was all about Darwin. Do you think at Christmastime they posted a picture that would link you to information about Christ?

-S

Who's This Kid?

2009-01-26T23:00:00.001-05:00

So, Saturday Charly got a big-girl haircut! And talk about adorable! Katie, one of our friends from church, happens to be the best stylist in Fayetteville, no joke, (it said so in the newspaper!) and she came to our house and did Charly's hair. She so rocks! So here are the much anticipated pictures:

I am in LOVE with this last one! Charly so totally rocks! And yeah, she is still 4, she didn't age ten years overnight or anything like that. *-) The cut completely fits her personality, and she LOVES it! Saturday it'll be my turn, I can't wait!

Everything else is going well. I released my latest kit last week, and sold a few. It seems to be well-liked, so that's always good. I spent a lot of time and energy on it. I've been trying to keep up with doing the Bible in a Year. It's been tough some days, as I have mistakenly had my priorities focused on other things. Last Sunday was Pastor Sean's third and final sermon on tithing/giving. This time he spoke from Jesus' teachings on tithing. Up to this point I had felt pretty good about our tithing situation, until Pastor Sean helped me to realize that tithing and giving to God isn't just about money, but about other things too, like our time. And I was cut to the core when it occurred to me that though I've been giving God the firstfruits of our labor, per se, I've been giving Him the leftovers of my time. And the Bible says "Give, and it shall be given unto you..." (Luke 6:38). Basically what this means is that if I only give a little, that is what God will give back. If I use a teaspoon to measure my giving, so will He. And then I thought, do I want God giving me a teaspoon of His time?

Until next time...love you all!

-S

Snow Day!

2009-01-22T12:49:00.002-05:00

Tuesday it actually snowed! When we woke up in the morning there was snow everywhere, and it kept on snowing into the afternoon. Charly had tons of fun playing in it with Daddy, and even Annie was out there with them for awhile. I think she got tired of having snow thrown on her though and she came in way before they did. I of course staying inside, for the most part, and was finally able to get some serious work done. My dislike for snow didn't stop me from taking pictures, and you know Nate took his camera out with him too! So we have some awesome pictures to share with you all. I put them in a slide show for easy viewing:

Today's Thursday and there's still a lot of snow hanging around. With all the bent and broken trees we see, I'm shocked that I haven't heard about any power outages. Talk about blessed! So Nate had a snow day on Tuesday, and Charly was off school for a teacher workday anyway. Then Nate had to go back to work yesterday but schools were still closed, and Charly had a 5-day weekend! I think she was about as glad as I was that today she went to school. :)

Hope everyone's doing well, be in touch!

-S

Awesome Video!

2009-01-09T23:51:00.002-05:00

Check out this YouTube video Nate's mom was so kind to send to us!

You gotta watch it all the way through, but it's so dang cool!!

Just a note to say...

2009-01-08T12:00:00.003-05:00

...hi! I know this blog needs a major REVAMP!..And I'm currently working on that. It's been way too long since I said anything on here, I've been so busy with the Silly Beans stuff. I added blinkies in the sidebar to the left of this post so you can see my shops, and another image so you can see my design blog. There's not much Silly Beans stuff yet, but there will be. :)

We just got back a few days ago from our awesome Christmas vacation! We spent a total of 7 days in the car and 8 days visiting. We got to see nearly everyone, and had a great time. This week I've been playing catch up, with designing, starting the Bible in a Year study, and cleaning. Can't forget cleaning. We also decided to get a dog. Don't know why, but we did, lol. I prayed about it, and then received an email about a dog someone had found that needed a home. I had said I'd like to have a puppy so it would grow up around Charly, but I don't want one because I would need to potty train it. Then this one comes along, and it's a puppy, and it's being potty trained. So there ya go, in the true spirit of my mother's child, I will probably be bringing home a rescued dog. And it's so goofy looking too! If we get it, I'll be sure to post pictures, which I'm sure will be accompanied by rants along the lines of "Why did I ever agree to get a puppy?!"

But anyways, we sure are happy to be home. I worked in the nursery last night and got to play with some awesome toddlers. Nate resumed his games duties at Awana and got to play too. Charly is learning O and P this week in school and painted with pine needles yesterday. Her shirt told me what color the paint had been. I'm looking very forward to being back in church on Sunday. I'm so blessed to be attending a church I love.

I started a Project 365 blog last night, there should also be a link for that in the left sidebar. Basically I'll take a picture a day for a whole year. Should be fun. If you know me, and we see each other in person, then you'll probably wind up in my Project at some point. But hey, gotta use the super fancy camera sometime!

Speaking of pics, I have none for this post, but I will soon.

So that's it in a brief nutshell. Thanks for stopping by!

-S

Update Schmupdate

2008-08-30T13:26:00.006-04:00

Sorry family and friends, I've been a bad blogger yet again. I was tagged by Maria, which I will explain later, and was trying to find 7 blogs to tag back, that hadn't been tagged by Maria also. Suffice to say, I don't know a lot of people. But that's no excuse, now is it?! So I will do the tagging in another post, but don't worry Maria, I haven't forgotten about it!

We had a great time in Oklahoma and didn't want to leave! Charly caught her very first fish, swam on her own for the first time (with a life jacket of course), and rode her first horse. So lots of firsts for her there! I will post the pics to Snapfish as soon as I can, there are so many awesome ones!

Charly started school last week--full-time preschool. This officially marks the beginning of her school "career." And also marks the first time I've had hours to myself every day since before I was pregnant! So I've been slowly catching up on projects, including house cleaning. Ick. But I've also been dabbling with designing a little, and have decided to create a blog just for my "scraplife," lol. My design name is Silly Beans Scraps, after what we call Charly. Cute ain't it? And as far as scrapping goes, I'm now making ads for three designers, making previews for one, and doing regular duties for another. So, altogether I'm on 5 CT's. Woohoo! And Maria is almost done working on a super-secret project that I'll be able to talk about any day now, as soon as it's officially announced. It may mean some awesome stuff for me!

In other catchup news: I'm trying to get the 2008 pictures finished up so I can post them to our Snapfish group. For those of you who haven't been invited, let me know and I'll get you the info. It's a private group for Charly's family, and is where all the pictures will be going from now on. It's way cheaper than MyFamily.com (ie: free). I also plan on working out at least three times a week, but I want to get the house in order and get caught up on projects a little first. And no, I'm not procrastinating, just busy. I knew schooltime was coming and I let things get a little piled up. God bless my wonderful husband for putting up with it! I'm planning on having my first yard sale ever on Sept 20th. Yay! So I have a couple weeks left to go through everything (and I do mean everything) to sort out stuff for the sale. I think I'm going to lose my mind preparing for it, but I keep trying to tell myself I won't, lol. I just hope people actually buy our stuff.

I start a Beth Moore women's study on Friday. I was supposed to go yesterday, but Nate had the day off and Charly still had school, so I got to hang with hubby. That was pretty cool, spending time together when it's not 11 o'clock at night. So the women's study should be really fun, I know a lot of the women already, but it'll be a nice way to hopefully bond with more people, so Heidi doesn't have to be the only person I hang out with socially, *wink. Here's the book we'll be studying, To Live Is Christ:

On August 9th Charly actually pedaled her bike all by herself for the first time. It's a pretty big thing cuz for some reason it's just completely hard for her to do it. And it's hard for us to try and figure out a way to teach her to do it. But isn't she just too cute!?

And here's the video of her doing it, the quality is a little lacking, but hey, it's my first Youtube video!

And no, the pic and vid aren't two different days. She has two bikes, lol. Spoiled, I know.

This year's Awana also started last week and Charly is in her 2nd year of Cubbies. For those of you who may not know, Awana is a once-a-week program for kids to help strengthen their faith in and knowledge of Jesus Christ, and is another way to strengthen their Christian beliefs on the whole. It's a lot of fun, and Nate is a worker this year, helping with the games. I'm volunteering in the nursery. I'm still contemplating joining the church choir, they really need people, but I'm still so shy about that! I just keep hoping I can lead or help with a little kids' choir that I've been asking the music pastor to start for some time. The only kids' choir we have starts at 1st grade. I offered to do it, so we'll see what happens. He may not even remember that I offered.

So yeah, we've been super busy! And for the most part, I like it that way. :) As I always promise at the end of one of these long update posts, I'm going to try to keep this thing updated more regularly. We'll see!

I miss everyone!
-S

We Leave Tomorrow!

2008-07-19T23:19:00.003-04:00

Nate's two-week leave kicked off today. Yay! We'll be leaving for Oklahoma tomorrow, please pray that we travel there and back safely. We're going to drive straight through, hopefully our bottoms can handle it! I want to send a huge CONGRATULATIONS to my mom, she finally got a job. Although it's not here in NC, she's still going to be a "real" teacher for the first time since getting her masters and actually being licensed as a "real" teacher. I think it's next week that she has to report for duty. I'm so excited for her!

I'm also currently working for two designers now, and I'm the advertising "director" for both. Basically that means that I make their ads, and go all over digi-scrap land and talk about their wonderful products. For example:

Here is the new kit by Tanyia's Pretty Pixels. It's called Feelin' Fresh and it's so soft and pretty. I love working with this kit, it has so many different kinds of things in it.

Here's my layout Valentine Lilies, made with this kit. It's not the best representation of the kit, but it's alright ;)

And next week, on Friday, Tanyia is releasing a boys' kit that is totally awesome, I can't wait to show everyone!

Maria has blasted into the world of Facebook and taken it by storm! She created these little templates called Chic Flings so anyone can scrap their own piece of flair! (Flair is something we use on Facebook to express ourselves, it's basically a bulletin board full of buttons.)

And here's the flair I made with her template, and her kit called Royal Treatment (except the black paper which is from Tanyia's Wild Child kit).

So I've been busy! I'm also hosting my Oh No You Didn't challenge at Digital Candy right now. No one's played along yet though, I'm starting to feel sad! This round I've asked people to make a layout of their "Scrappy Place." Here's mine:

I tried to make the layout as messy as I make my craft space! Click here to go to the challenge thread.

And here is my most recent layout. I did it for an ad challenge at Digital Candy. Basically I had to base my layout on an ad someone chose for the challenge. I made the glitter swirlies myself, and will hopefully be giving them out soon. :)

So, I hope everyone is having a good weekend. I'll talk at ya soon!

-S

Almost a month, already?!

2008-07-12T11:37:00.005-04:00

Surely I made a post since then and it's just lost in cyberspace somewhere! Oh well. Here's my extra-long post, so pull up a chair and a cup of tea.

Here are a couple Charly-isms to get us started:

"Mommy! Don't peel off my baby's skin! You can do it tomorrow." She was pretending a banana was her baby. And I was going to eat it.

She decided she wanted to have a restaurant, and at first said she would call it "Charly's Mist Restaurant" then she changed Mist to Miss.

Yesterday she was going number two and as always was taking forever. So I asked her a couple times "Are you done yet?" because she was singing and humming, and after saying No a couple times she said this, very seriously: "Okay. Let's talk about this." (Dramatic pause.) "I have to go poop. And I have to wait for the poop to come out. So I'm singing while I'm waiting. And so, I'm not done yet." It was so very hard for me to not even smile! I stayed serious and told her to tell me when she was done. Then I ran quickly to give Nate the verbatim. How funny she is!!

Ok, on to the news. VBS went really well, Charly had a blast. The guy who made the DVD and the slideshows maybe used only one of my pictures. And I got some great shots! Poo on him, lol. Since I last posted we went to Virginia Beach. We were supposed to go to Busch Gardens, but that morning Charly threw up, so we decided not to go. We went to the beach instead and I got these great pictures:

Some jellyfish were coming in with the tide! Needless to say we didn't swim anymore that day.

SPLASH!!

Charly and Daddy and their footprints. :)

The next day after we got back from the beach, Nate's best friend Micah came to visit us from California. We all went down to Charleston, SC for a Fourth of July celebration at Patriot's Point. We toured the USS Yorktown and saw fireworks on Friday, then Saturday we toured an old plantation home called Drayton Hall. Then we had some great seafood at a small local joint and came home in time for the guys to make it to the UFC fight.

Here's Charly and Micah playing Airplane.

This is the USS Yorktown. I took this in preparation for the fireworks.

This is the Ravenel Bridge. Since our fireworks weren't set to start until 10 (unbeknownst to us!) we got to see lots of other fireworks first.

And here's a must-have fireworks picture.

This is Drayton Hall.

This is the view from Drayton Hall.

And this was a froggy we found on the River Walk at Drayton Hall.

And then in about a week we'll be leaving for Oklahoma. Pretty soon after we get back from there Charly will be starting Pre-K and will have had a VERY full summer. We like it that way. :D

In between trips and my computer being upgraded again and fixed again, I've been able to make a few things. I've also joined Tanyia's Pretty Pixels CT, as Amie (Baubles N Scraps) has stepped down from designing. I'm also running the Scraplift Challenge at Digital Candy starting in a couple days, and hopefully will still be given the go-ahead to start my Oh No You Didn't Challenge. Cross your fingers!

Here are some things I've made since my last post:

This is how I feel in the morning too!

Charly as the photographer.

Thanks again Maria for making wheelchair elements!

She made it up the ladder all by herself without whining about it!

I love my silly Nate!

This one was hard. It was for a DC challenge where I had to use a whole lot of stuff. It was fun to make though!

He is my hero.

Someone on DC said she looks like she's full of sass. You better believe it!

This is Maria's new Grab Bag. It rocks! There are some gorgeous papers in there, trust me! Click the image to buy yours before the bag is opened and you have to pay full price for everything!

And here is the new hybrid Flowerbook Template Maria made. I had so much fun with it! The image will also take you to her store.

Here's what I did with it. You can't see detail, but you get the idea.

I printed mine on matte photo paper and added embellishments then fastened the book together with brads. Maria had hers printed professionally and then glued it to craft foam and cut it out. I think Carey attached hers to chipboard and fastened it together with rings. Bottom line, it's so versatile and fun!

One more thing, and then I'll go. :D Maria and Tanyia are hosting Bingo Night at Digital Candy every FIRST MONDAY and THIRD THURSDAY of the month. That means there's one coming up on the 17th! They need players, or they're going to discontinue bingo night and be very sad. So get your game on, head over to DC, and pick up your bingo cards!

Whew! I gotta stop doing these once a month updates. They're super long!! Hope you enjoyed my marathon update. :)

-S

Oh Yeah

2008-06-18T21:46:00.001-04:00

Here's a pic that I took when we were at the beach. I absolutely LOVE this picture!

The Effects of a Homecoming....and some FREEBIES too :)

2008-06-18T18:02:00.004-04:00

(Yes, there's a freebie in this post, two freebies actually, but they're at the end of the post. Feel free to read before you download!)

Well, since the last time I blogged I was "promoted" to ad director on the Duchess Designs CT, Nate came home, we went to the beach, and I took that tentative first step toward being a digi-scrap designer.

Woah, wait, Shannon. Slow down. Nate came home? YOU BET HE DID!! It's great to have my dishwas--uh I mean HUSBAND home, heehee. Seriously though, it's been nice, and Charly's been stoked. We were able to get in a little family time before he had to go back to work. We went down to Wilmington and had a pretty good coupla days at the beach. Nate had Charly out in the water, and this big wave came up and smashed right into them. Here are the before, during, and after pictures of that wave:

Here comes the wave.

There they are right in it!

And Nate's going, "WOOOOOO!!"

We got new desks and so these last couple of days have been spent putting everything away that was on the old desks. I'm the kind of person that clutters things up, especially my home workspace, for some reason. And now I have a HUGE desk to clutter up even more! But hopefully not.

Next week is VBS, and I am for sure doing some photography for it. It'll be so fun! I'll just have to remind myself that I'm taking pics of everyone, not JUST Charly.

This is the latest kit by Duchess Designs. It's been out a little over a week, and I love love love working with it!! Click the preview to pick up yours! Maria's working on some rockin new stuff right now, and everytime she shows me something new, I get totally excited. I'll let you know as soon as it's out!

Also, Tracey just released her Dinosaur papers, doodles, elements, and alphas in one big kit, click the image to pick it up, and check back here to see the layout I'm working on with it!

Here are some layouts I've done since the last time I posted (click images for credits):

The Hero Shot

Quiet Time with Dad

My Little Photographer

First Time Drumming

And now for the freebies. I have recently discovered that I'm pretty good at making templates. I also created the name Silly Bean Scraps to go along with them. (It sounds cooler than putting Shannon H on them!) Silly Beans is one of our most frequently used nicknames for Charly. So here are my first two free, personal use templates, just click the template images to download them and enjoy! And as you'll read in the TOU, I'd love to see what you make with them!

Here's my first template: Bulletin Board. It was made for a partner challenge at DC, which you'll see below this image.

Here's the layout I made with Amanda.

And this is my second template: Here Comes the Sun

Priceless

WHEW!! That's all for now...I hope! We're having such a good time over at Digital Candy with the month-long birthday celebration, you should come check it out if you haven't. There's lots of challenges, prizes, random goodies, and awesome sales. See you there!

-S

Such a lame blogger I am!

2008-06-02T21:32:00.002-04:00

Man, it has been entirely too long, and so that's probably what this post will be...long. But then if I say everything, the posts after this one should be more frequent, and thus shorter :) I am now working with three designers. Maria, who recently changed her name from Ferg Designs to Duchess Designs, was the first, and way ROCKS. Then Tracey Gilbert Monette brought me onboard, and she has some incredible things for us to play with. And in the past few days Amie, who is Baubles and Scraps at Digital Candy, accepted me on her team too. So yay! See the side panel for all applicable blinkies and links :) Also, I've become more active over at DC and will be hosting my very own challenge starting July! I asked around to see if anyone had thought to do a "I Can't Believe You Scrapped That!" kind of challenge, and the admin suggested I do it :) Yay me! I don't really have to do much, just come up with stuff for people to scrap, and then keep track of the people that enter, and comment on all their layouts. So I'm going to call it "Oh No You Didn't!" and I've already got a pretty good idea what the first couple challenges will be. Basically I wanted to inspire people to scrap the every day moments that get us from one happy time to the next. The temper tantrums, the messes, the embarrassing pictures, even the blurry or throw-away photos that a person wouldn't normally consider using.

So here's what's going on at Digital Candy right now:

Yeah, there's a lot going on over there for the birthday celebration. And they even made me an avatar to wear that says Shannon, Challenge Host :-D And an avatar is that little picture that goes by every post I make on the forum, just fyi. This is why Charly made the cupcake:

So yeah, it's neat to be part of a community, even if these aren't people that I meet in person and actually have face to face conversations with. I'm doing that at church! Charly has Vacation Bible School this month and I volunteered to take pictures. We'll see if they need me. Plus I've been working a little in the nursery and meeting women whose husbands are also in the Services. Pastor Sean had a phenomenal sermon yesterday about finding joy in God. I had tears in my eyes more often than not, he is SO PASSIONATE! So I'm going to buy the DVD and send copies to everyone. And if you get a copy, you have to watch it, I'm making you! It's only an hour. He basically presented the gospel message, and it was the clearest presentation I have heard yet. If souls weren't stirred, then they were truly hardened.

For a Biblical gospel presentation, here is 1John 1:1 - 2:2:

1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
1:2 (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)
1:3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.
1:4 And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.
1:5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
1:6 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
2:1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

Anyway :) It's June! And those of you close to us know what that means!! I'm so excited...we're all so excited. I'm going YIPEE on the inside, just knowing it's June. AND to celebrate, we're going to Busch Gardens at the end of the month, I made inn reservations, so it HAS to happen, lol. Yes, I know, I can't get ALL my hopes yet, but almost all of them are up. And things seem right on course :-D So I have to clean my house up, and try to have a garage sale. There's a few large items I'd like to get rid of. But man, I dunno, garage sales seem like such an undertaking, I'm still indecisive about it.

I made a blinkie for this blog, and I'm really excited to show it off, so lookie lookie over under my picture!!

So, I think that's some pretty good catching up, and I'll leave you with these new layouts (click the images for the full credits):

This was done with the Quirky Farm kit by Tracey Monette

This was done with the Lucky Charm kit by Duchess Designs

And this one was done using the Quirky Acetates by Tracey Monette that were released yesterday.

Everyone have a blessed day, and remember:
"the joy of the LORD is your strength." Nehemiah 9:10, KJV

-S

Creepy-ness

2008-05-22T23:23:00.002-04:00

A quick story. Well, I wish it was a story. Today we went to Blockbuster and we were standing in line behind this man. We were also in line beside a huge framed pic of Indiana Jones. So Charly was asking me all about him (Indiana Jones): who is he, what does he do, can I watch that someday. Things like that. So the man turned around and asked her if she thought that movie looked good. Of course she says yes. And let me tell you, Charly will talk to ANYONE. So she starts asking him questions, about the movie. Like "What's that by the man's side?"

"Oh that's a bullwhip."

"What's a bullwhip?"

So I jump in and tell her it's like a rope, before he can answer. "What's it for?" She then asks.
And again before he can answer I tell her that Indiana Jones uses it to reach things that are far away. See, I'd rather not give the man the opportunity to add anything violent to the conversation. Plus, Charly wasn't asking ME these questions, she was asking HIM, and he was a little too attentive to her, in my opinion. So I wanted to keep myself in the conversation, for her, and for him. To remind them both that I'm there.

So we get up to the counter. He's being helped at one register and I'm being helped at the one right next to his. So of course Charly keeps talking to him. The woman behind the counter starts asking me questions like, "Do you still have an out of state driver's license?" Why did she ask me that? And then she had me tell her my WHOLE address and my WHOLE telephone number. Meanwhile, Charly and the man have discussed the bags of pretzels covered in white chocolate that they have sitting on the counter. Like a typical kid, Charly must have said that they look tasty. So apparently while I was talking to the clerk and inspecting a very scratched kids movie, the man said he would buy the pretzels for Charly. I missed that part of their conversation. So I tell the woman I want to go pick out a movie that isn't very scratched, and tell Charly to come with me. The man, who is about to be finished with his business is like, "Hey, don't forget these pretzels!"

And I was like, "Oh no thank you."

And he said "I told her I would buy them for her, and" he looks at Charly "a promise is a promise. Right?"

So I just walked away from the counter with Charly, who of course protested. The man was trying to get our attention. I picked Charly up and carried her to the kids section, while telling her in her ear all about how we DO NOT let strangers give us food or candy. And we DO NOT let them buy stuff for us. I think he got the hint from my body language and just left, because he didn't try to follow us or talk to us anymore. Thank goodness! He did leave the pretzels at the counter for us, and the clerk confirmed that the man DID pay for them.

Okay, so now after that LONG synopsis, here's what gets me. The man paid enough attention to Charly that I was a little creeped out. Enough to have a VERY long talk with her about saying "no thank you" when people do stuff like that, and to say "My mommy said no" if they persist. (She was worried she'd make them sad by saying "no thank you," so I told her to blame it on me.) And I also made sure she understood that he made a bad choice and should have known better than to buy treats for a kid he didn't know. But that man, if he was paying attention, could have our address and phone number because for the first time EVER the stupid (and I know that's not a good word, sorry!) woman made me say the whole thing OUT LOUD. So please pray with me that he was just some guy who was trying to be nice because Charly is such a cute kid; that he was being completely innocent. And if he was actually a creep, I'm hoping that maybe he'd be too intimidated to try to find our house on the military base. And I really hope I didn't overreact by being a little freaked out about the whole address thing. But I guess you never can be too careful, especially nowadays.

So that's my story that I wish was a story. G'night, and God bless.

-S

So, let's see...

2008-05-22T16:35:00.005-04:00

I think Charly and I are finally getting back in the flow of things. We seem to have established regular bed and wake-up times, as well as eating times. Basically we've re-established our routine. We went to the Fort Bragg fair last Sunday after church with Heidi and her 2 kids. Charly and Gabriel had a great time, and we were there for easily four hours. And I got a ton of pictures, hopefully some actually came out, I haven't looked yet. We got a new recliner! That's probably the big news of the week :) I'm happy to have gotten rid of Nate's old one. It was a little on the yucky side.

I've been busy busy with scrapping this week. I'm a member at Digital Candy (which you already know), scrapartist.com, scrapgirls.com, scrapmatters.com, digital-scrapbooking.org, and digishoptalk.com. I'm trying to expand my little networking circle, and maybe even make some friends. It sounds like a lot of sites to keep up with, but each has their own things that I really like. They've all got great advice and inspirational stuff to really keep me going, and growing :) I've applied to a few more creative teams on a few of the sites, we'll see how it goes. I'm beginning to think I was really lucky that Maria chose me to be on the Ferg Designs team :)

We got a pen tablet this week too. It's a Wacom Intuos. I originally bought a Wacom Bamboo because it's cheap, and my friend Heidi (yes the same, and only one I talk about really) said she had an Intuos she was trying to sell, and that she'd sell it to me. So it's better, and bigger, than what I got. I'm so stoked! Here are some things Charly and I made yesterday:

Then she decided she wanted to make art with the mouse instead:

Charly's Picture for Daddy

Picking Apples in the Fog

So yeah, we had fun with that. I love that she can use the brushes in Photoshop to compose pictures of things like forests. She can make scenes, and it's really neat to watch her choose where things should go. She's got a pretty good eye!

So anyway, I'll leave you with this: these are the layouts I've done for Ferg Designs. Her new kit Secret Garden is fabulous, and even her older ones are great too! I'm so lucky to be working with such a neat designer, and person :) Please click the images for their credits.

Self Portrait

Made in the Shades

And here's my new one, that I'm ABSOLUTELY in love with :)

Bright Eyes

So I'm going to go now, I'm sure more things will happen that I can talk about later :)

-S

Catch Up Time

2008-05-16T23:48:00.004-04:00

Where to start. It's been a couple days, so sorry! Today Charly said "Sweet!" for the first time. And no, not just the "This cake tastes sweet, mom." It was "Sweet! This shirt is soooooooo pretty!" Lol. On the inside I went "Yes!" She's such a cool kid. Today she had a friend over for awhile so his mommy could have "me time. " Charly was being her usual bossy self and trying to tell him what and how to play. Good kid, he wasn't having any of it! So she got upset and whined to me, "Mommy, he's not doing what I tell him." When I told her that no one is going to want to play with her if she keeps telling them what to do all the time, she said, "But Mommy, I'm nice to them AFTER I'm bossy!" At least she comes by it honest :) Poor Nate, two bossy women.

Another funny story. Last night I went into the bathroom to potty and there was a roach on the ceiling. Being the shorty that I am I sprayed it with that mild daily shower spray so it would fall down and I could kill it. It fell into Nate's sink, which I have closed so nothing can climb up it. And I had to fumble to get the sink open and turn the water on so the roach could wash down the drain. While I was fumbling it crawled out of the sink, and I was so tired I tried to BLOW IT BACK IN. LOL!! It's so funny that I was tired enough to think I could blow a roach anywhere! So it fell on the floor and I squished it with the stool. True story.

I have Maria's permission to finally announce that I am on the creative team for Ferg Designs (Maria Ferguson). Her new kit SECRET GARDEN was released today (Friday May 16th) and I made a two-page layout (Tea Ladies) to show it off. I'll put it at the end of this post. It's a lot of fun, so far, to be working on a CT, and I think Maria is awesome. I bug her a lot on the Yahoo IM. But hey, I'm a multi-tasker. If I'm online, and she's online, it's hard not to say SOMETHING. On another CT note, I was officially turned down for a position on one of the other CT's I applied for, but I was offered a guest spot instead. So for the month of August I'm slated to create for JenLin Designs. The cool thing about guesting is that I get to play with her kit(s) without having the responsibilities that come with being on a CT. So yeah. Makin friends, makin art, life is good :)

Oh hey, I have a rant. And I have a blog now, so I can be like all the other bloggers and rant! Lately when Charly and I have been out I've been more aware of the way some people talk to their kids. And it's really offensive, at least to me. Like when a mom is yelling at her kid to sit down, sit down! and gets tired of saying it a couple times so she says "Sit your a** down on that chair," it makes me want to go over and tell her that she shouldn't speak like that to her children. Or when I hear a parent ask their child, "What the h*** is wrong with you, get your a** over here?" I want to ask "What's wrong with you, lady?" So what do I do in these situations? When Charly asks me why those people are yelling at their kids, in normal speaking voice I say something like, "Well, those kids must be making bad choices. But that mommy's not speaking very nicely to them, is she?" Yeah that's me, daring. I know. But yeah, it bugs me. And it's not like it's on tv, and I can change the channel. It's right there in Wal Mart or the PX food court.

So anyway, I've been busy busy busy, building up my online profiles, playing silly games in the online forums, making stuff, and socializing in the "real" world. Whew. In the week and a half since we've been back we've had church (Wed and Sun), a church dinner with other military wives, Chuck E Cheese's on Mom's Day, Charly's sleepover, my allergy appointment, the kids were over today (I watched 3 kids today, including a baby!), I joined and did stuff for a CT, tomorrow we've got a baby shower, and Sunday we're going to the Ft Bragg fair. I think I'm going to spend all day Monday on the couch :) Plus I've had to unpack and put 4 suitcases of stuff away and generally clean the house.

Ahh anyway, I think that's about everything. At some point I hope to get caught up on editing the pics from the AZ trip so I can get those out to everyone. And I get to mess around with Charly's MyFamily website. That should be tons o fun. Oh, and it was mentioned to me that I might want to change the name of this blog. I had thought that the name Charly and Those Other people was fitting because I'll probably mostly talk about and post pics of Charly. However, it was pointed out that this is MY blog, not Charly's, and so the name should be about me. It's a good point, but I can't come up with anything catchy. If anyone reading has suggestions, lemme know!

Here's the Tea Lady LO, click it for larger image. The template is by Moriginals and the fonts are Liorah and Lydian. Everything else is Ferg Designs :)

Goodnight all!
-S

YAY!!!

2008-05-14T23:09:00.002-04:00

So, on the fifth night of working on Nate's computer, I finally fixed it. Yay!! So now I can watch something or listen to something while I'm scrapping on my computer. Yup, that's all I wanted. I've been staying up uber-late every night playing computer geek just so I can have music while creating. It's that important :) Of course, the solution (restoring the system to a point before the malfunctions began) occurred a few days ago, but I avoided it while trying to find something that would actually correct the problem. I feel like, by restoring the system I'm not really fixing the problem, just burying it. But that could just be the misconception of a novice.

So yeah. That's my big news. Yay me! I got half of my house cleaned and organized today too, and I may just have enough give-away stuff that I can go halfsies on a garage sale with my friend. Neato :) And I'm not sure I mentioned this, but a few days ago I made my daughter a clubhouse in her closet. She's got a blanket on the floor, with some pillows on top, and a box for a table to put things like her lantern on. It's pretty rad. Anyways, today I took out the table and put in her tv on top of a kitchen chair. Yeah, she's just a tad spoiled. And that, my friends, is how I got to clean and organize half my house. Getting a new Charlie and Lola DVD in the mail today helped too :) But please, don't misunderstand me, she does not usually get to spend 2/3 of her day with the tv on, just so I'm clear. It's usually only 1/3.

Well, I'm off to create, now that I have music again. I'm sure it was just a coincidence that I haven't scrapped anything since his computer "broke." Riiiiiight *-)

-S

I love computers, but only when they behave.

2008-05-13T01:17:00.003-04:00

So I have to vent. And you're here, so you get to read. And by the time someone actually reads this the problem will probably be resolved. My husband's computer is, well, misbehaving. SVCHOST is taking up 98 - 100% of the computer usage. I googled this little problem, and have so far done every suggestion I could find to fix it. And still it persists. It started right after Java updated. Which was right after (if I remember correctly) I watched House online at Fox.com. So since I chose to watch House online, I'm blaming the malfunction on Java updating all by itself. That was something I didn't choose, see how this works? So his computer is crawling slower than my friend's 8 month old. And I'm supposed to run a virus scan of hundreds of thousands of files, at a crawl, which is like, two files a second, maybe. Yeah, so I've put off running the scan while trying to find the source of the problem first. I was hoping some program was trying to auto update and causing the computer to go all wonky. And that's about all I know how to do. My husband is probably reading this blog right now, from some desert not here, and wondering why he left me in charge of such precious cargo. Sorry honey, I didn't install anything, I promise! Aaaack!! Thanks Heidi for watching Charly tonight so I can have this wonderful opportunity to yell at the computer. Yay me!

I get to wake up in about 6 hours and go to Womack to have an allergy test done. I get to sit there for a few hours while they prick my skin with all kinds of yucky stuff and wait to see if something magical happens. Then they can tell me I'm allergic to something common that I can't avoid and I should stay on the same allergy medicine I'm already on. Cynical? Yup. But maybe I'll be able to take a nap while I'm there. Sleep, during the day, what a concept! Which is why I am up at 1:25 in the morning yelling at the computer and blogging about it in turn. I used to use Myspace as my outlet for useless chitter chatter and mundane details about the life I live. Now I can do it here! And I bet you will all check in every day to see what new mundane (is that an oxy-moron?) things I get myself into.

Well, I ended the SVCHOST process using Task Manager, and probably messed up the computer more, but it's allowed me to start the virus scan. At least for a little while the scan can move quickly. Until the SVCHOST comes back online, which it does. It's like some kind of computer zombie. Maybe I'll ask my hacker friend what I should do...

Goodnight all, I'm probably going to go to bed :)

-S

Is Everybody Ready?

2008-05-12T02:29:00.003-04:00

I'm not! But I've decided it's time to have a blog anyway. A couple days ago I was invited to join my first-ever creative team. I can't tell you who yet, but I'll be creating for a designer at Digital Candy. Yay! I'm really excited about this, actually having a purpose for scrapping other than saving memories :) And that's what I'm usually doing this time of night (morning?), scrapping. Alas, I was up tonight creating a header for this blog, and then messing around with it until the size was just right to fit up there. And in a couple years when you notice the header hasn't changed, this is why. It was such a pain!! Gosh, I hope someday I figure out the magic trick to making that work.

Anyways, it was Mommy's Day, and we went to Chuck E Cheese. It was a great way to get the kids tired (Charly and Gabriel) and to talk with a grown-up. That's always fun! And I also got the chance to take a bunch more indoor pics with the new camera. That's been taking some time to figure out too, but I so hope that it's going to be worth it!

I'm starting to get the feeling that I shouldn't be doing this at 2:30 in the a.m., my thoughts are a little disjointed. But I wanted to go ahead and get this first entry out of the way. There's a lot more still to do with this blog, like add a slide of my layouts, but for now this will do. I hope in a couple days I still like my header! (It was created with a heart stitch thingy made by Fei Fei's Stuff, and the papers were made by Summer Driggs - I love her kits!)