Happy Monday

Yeah!!! I finally got the second template completed and uploaded! Here it is, Enjoy it! This file no longer available.

Mommy Dollars Save the Day!

Okay, so this week has been a bit better. Still haven't gotten that template posted from last week, sorry about that. Will try to finish it up and get it posted soon.

So we had our "family meeting" on Saturday morning sans SuperNanny, much to my five-year-old's chagrin. And I was so impressed that my kids came up with some house rules and also reasonable consequences and Mom here introduced the incentive/reward system. Dr. Phil always says to find your child's "currency", well for my little one it is the almighty dollar. So I developed "Mommy Dollars". The kids earn mommy dollars by performing services around the house and then get to spend the money in the household for goods. I have a "menu of rewards" using pictures so my little one can understand it clearly. And I feature bonuses of the week for certain jobs completed that will earn extra mommy dollars. My dad is astounded that I can develop an "economy" of sorts within my household, but still struggle to balance my checkbook. Here is a pic of my mommy dollar below:

I have been amazed at how hard my kids are working for these mommy dollars and not willing to spend them frivolously so they can save them for bigger ticket items. I will even allow them to cash in mommy dollars for a real dollar 2x a week.

So, last time I mentioned that my cat was chased up the tree by the neighbors dog. Of course the scrapping sicko that I am, I was out there taking pictures of the cat in the tree, because I just knew there was a scrapbook page in it, so here it is:

view credits here

We went to the park this weekend after church. The boys had a great time. I snapped a few pics, hope to scrap them soon:

Beware the Ides of March

Ok, so that mystic way back when in Julius Ceasar time who told him to "beware the ides of March" knew a thing or two. The past 10 days have been absolutely a whirlwind of confusion here at the smplgrl ranch. In one week my mother, fiance and close friend were downsized. I have been playing Lucy (see cartoon at right) over the past 10 days or so. In my former life I was a job coach so I have been helping my fiance (who needs little help, really) revamp his resume. He has worked as a promotions writer/producer for a local station for many years, so if anyone has job leads...don't hesitate to send them.

kl;k;

To add to the madness of March, my (extremely) adhd child is experiencing a major growth spurt which means his medication becomes virtually ineffective. I think the doctor and I have finally landed on an effective dose of medication. This week has been a good week....no timeouts needed at school.

jfkd

If that wasn't enough my kids have told me that they want to call SupperNanny to get our family fixed!!! What?! After careful investigation I determined that my youngest just wants to show his fanny on national TV and my oldest wants SuperNanny to get the younger one inline. We compromised and agreed to use the SuperNanny method of getting a grip on our familylife. Soooooo, our family meeting is Saturday morning where we will create a new routine and discuss things that need to improve...told you March has been crazy!!! I won't even get into the neighbor's dog chasing our cat 25-30 feet up a tree earlier this week. By the way, firemen don't get cats of trees anymore, LOL!!

jfkdsl

Hopefully the second half of March will be a little lighter than the first half. Needless to say digi-scrapping has been tough. But I was able to complete these layouts earlier in the week before I zoned out:

view credits here

view credits here

I am working on a template for the "sweetness" layout and hope to post it later today or this weekend. Check back.

So we are home sick today. Not too sick, but sick and tired (very tired) none the less. My little guy has a pretty putrid case of the sniffles and a low grade temp. My older fella started new medication yesterday and didn't react so well. I don't like to give him new medicine on a day when I cannot observe him, but he had to start it yesterday. Since he was up from 1:30am until 10:30 pm yesterday and put in a full day at school, I kept him home as well. He definately needs the rest, he still looks tired today and I am pretty exhausted too. I should take advantage of our time home today and clean....yuk, who wants to do that when one can scrap and play in photoshop, besides I am tired all over and scrapping has got to be the cure for that, right? Not cleaning. I am going to pretend that I did not just hear 10,000 legos get dumped in the living room, I'm resting and scrapping today.

The other day I participated in the Quick Fix Challenge by Alma Townsend at Scrapbook Elements. Alma provides a cool template and if you complete it by the end of the day, then you qualify for a cool little prize. Here's my entry:

view credits here

I am hoping to also participate in this week's Alma's Quick Page Challenge as well, if I can find the time. The kit used for it used in layout above, is sooooo cute!

I've kinda been in a scrap slump lately. I've been so obsessed with downloading really cool stuff from all over the web and organizing my files in Digital Scraproom(more about that in the future, I promise), I haven't been creating.

But the other day a friend of mine sent such a cute picture of her girls in matching pink outfits, I was completely inspired and determined to create something pretty cool. Of course I had to tweak the pic in photoshop first...my other addiction...I wanted the colors to pop and the girls to stand out from the background, their hair blended in with the background. Being the mom of boys, I rarely get the opportunity to make a girly page. So I just couldn't help myself but to scrap a cute little girly page with that picture, here it is:

View credits here.

But I didn't stop there, I decided to make a layered template for photoshop users using the basic elements of the page. Its my first attempt at a template for others, so please give me feedback so I can improve anything.

This file no longer available.