just tell me to RELAX...and BREATHE

crafty family

I may have misled you all...I am not the only creative being in the household.  James is known for his very precise drawings and for crushing the competition during Pictionary, thusly why he has been called "Mr. Pictionary" for years.  I think the Ripster may be taking after her daddy the Pictionary king...

 

Ripley's rendition of two flowers and a butterfly

 

(from left to right) A bat, the Moon, and the Earth.  All friends.

 

A happy spider

 

This is my personal favorite -- 3 witches, a Frankenstein, and a bat.  Not sure why, but Rip named this one "Witch Bow".  Don't argue with the artist.

 

(from left to right):  a witch, ?, and a smiley daffodil.

I think the girl has talent.

Here is one that she and her daddy worked on the other night at dinner.

 

and here is my rendition of spooky stuff

 

Did I mention we were kinda silly around here?

more digi...can you believe?

Seriously, 2 days in a row?  That's something for me!

This is my project from Week 2 of Jessica Sprague's Now We're Rockin' class (you can see my first version here, which is almost identical to Jessica's lesson), and again I feel like the second time around was a whole new experience.  The best part about taking one of Jessica's classes is that you have unlimited access to the course materials and videos forever -- thusly how I am still working on this class when I technically "finished" this summer.  Ha!

 

I know, the colors are a little crazy, but I was having fun changing the colors of digital papers, etc. and finally using my Ali Edwards fonts.  AND quoting Jon BonJovi.

a little digi today

I am going back to all of my Jessica Sprague Now We're Rockin' with Photoshop lessons, redoing the ones I've already done and doing my best to get to the ones that I never did in the first place!  I can't believe how many little tricks I picked up during the second viewing/practice of Week 1 today...

 

Lots of little hot key tips, etc. + I really enjoyed doing the selective colorization of the leaves!  I don't think I really enjoyed this lesson the first time around, but today I was having a blast because I think I was starting to "get it". 

keep runnin'

 

James ran his first half-marathon this morning and finished in 2 hours and 2 minutes -- Congratulations honey!

He trained for the past 12 weeks along with Mark, and his boss Dave (who runs marathons pretty regularly) ran with him and helped him with pacing. 

 

These guys look amazingly good for having just run 13.1 miles!

the leaves are falling

...so why not enjoy them?

 

We went over to Jeanette's house tonight for dinner (Jeanette is one of my high school friends, and she moved here two years ago when she married her college sweetheart who lives in CO).  Rip LOVED jumping around in the leaves with Jeanette's girls McKenzie, Katelin and Ashley -- they are identical triplets and are so sweet to Ripley.  They even gave us all of their Barbies and a darling Barbie house. 

 

 

...this is their new little dachshund Puck, who happens to be the same color as the leaves.  What a cutie pie she is!

I feel really lucky to have so many close friendships from high school, especially since I went to college out of state and never returned.  I mean, what are the odds that Jeanette would move 8 minutes away from us? 

Count me LUCKY. 

a review of "Mad Men" by Ellery V.

If you haven't been watching "Mad Men" on AMC, you are missing out.  I watched season 1 on DVD and passed it on to my buddy Ellery, who is also a bit of a TV junkie like me.  She wrote this email to me over the weekend and I just HAD to share:

re: Mad Men

...Is so good!!  I honestly didn’t want to watch it which is always the best shows for me since I have no expectations.  That time really was truly amazing.  They all smoke everywhere and this guy just slapped another guy’s kid across the face because he knocked a drink off a table.  Seriously?  And all of the ostracizing of the divorcee and Jewish people?  And the *#$%head dad doesn’t go home with his daughter’s birthday cake?  SERIOUSLY????

another amazing 3 Amigas Weekend

 

i sure miss these girls already...

football, pjs, gossip, magazines, a cocktail?

what else do you need for a lazy Saturday during a girls' weekend?

Oh, yea, you need your FOOTBALL TEAM to play better.  Oh well, I guess you can't have it all.

The Third Annual 3 Amigas Weekend is ON

OH YEAH!  It's one wild and crazy weekend already.  Let's just say that it's 11pm and one of the amigas is already asleep while the remaining amigas are watching a horribly edited version of Night at the Roxbury on TBS.

Woops!  Edit that - one more amiga is asleep.  And it's not me. 

Let the relaxing continue.

Day 7 - a week in the life revisited

Oh man, I wish I was as organized as some of these folks who are posting pictures of their completed days to Ali's site!  They need to KNOCK THAT OFF.  That means you, Rachel.

Day 7, Saturday

          

stretching with Daddy after he returned from his 12 mile run

 

fuel

 

breakfast with daddy

   

driving ralphie to his doggie playdate with bart

 

on the way to Boulder for the game

 

first "cheers" of the day

 

one of many self portraits of us AWITLers (a week in the lifers, if you can't follow along)

 

hook 'em

 

anti-hook 'em

 

the kids (big and little) playing football at the tailgate

 

me laughing hysterically at our cheesy "sorority girl" shots we set up - don't you know the other tailgates were wonder what the @#$%$ was going on at the Veldhuizen tailgate?

 

more crackers with that cheese?

 

my new friend

             

clearly we had no fun at the tailgate

 

Bad Kitty (long story)

 

hanging out at th Harvest House right before kickoff

     

terrible 3rd quarter, best spent at the car drinking and gossiping.

OK, so another week in my life over...but well documented.  Stay tuned for the project.  Not sure when I'll be getting to THAT.