Easter Eggs!

Well, with the kids trip to Mississippi impending, I thought we should get a head start on our Easter traditions. Even though they should be home in time to celebrate Easter with me, it will probably be late on Saturday before they get here. So....we dyed eggs today after school. I'll be living on egg salad and deviled eggs while they are gone, I suppose. For some reason, I boiled 33 eggs (eek!) And apparently, I also bought the worst possible egg-dying kit on the market, and it was even missing one of the color tablets. So 33 eggs with only 5 different colors to choose from. Grrr. Anyway...they are still beautiful, and we had fun. :)

Another band concert...

With 3 kids now in their respective schools' bands, we have a band concert to go to ALL the time. OK that's a slight exaggeration. But it seems like it anyway. It was Jack's turn, the Cowherd spring concert is a combination of the choir and band performing, so it was extra excruciating, I mean exciting. Jack had a special honor though, since he is learning to play the bass guitar, he was asked to accompany the choir for one of their songs.


Jack has been blessed with a gift for music, he's an extremely talented musician at just 13, I can't wait to see what the future holds for him!

Falling Leaves

I never imagined I would use pink and brown for a fall layout, but here it is! The non-Russell child is our neighbor Gabriella. Jack was there that day too, he's camoflaged in the focal picture behind the girls, he's wearing dark/olive green and other than his arms and orange wristband, I almost didn't see him myself! Here's a close-up for you:

Still catching up...

...with photos from Fall 2007. Here are my 2 latest layouts. I'm in love with all the bling on the Halloween Magic pages. :)

Jungle Gym Jack

For a couple years now, I've been *that* mom...you know the one, she brings her kids to activities and doesn't ever offer her own time to keep the program running. The non-volunteer, if you will. Especially at church. I have my reasons, and though I'm justified to them, I still have that good ol' Cathloic guilt built in to my psyche. So in an effort to better myself, I've decided that I should volunteer some of my time on Wednesday nights when the kids are at Awana. They were looking for a photographer to help capture pictures of the 400-500 children who attend this weekly activity. It really is the perfect way for me to contribute - my interest in photography and all. Of course for the past 3 weeks now, I have not been able to make it 2 of those 3 weeks for some emergency or another. (Hello there, my old friend Guilt!) Anyway, here are a couple of the photos that I was able to take last week of my Jack who is also a volunteer at Awana this year since the program ends at 6th grade. He works with the Cubbies, they are 3-5 years old.


He tells me that he feels like a jungle gym, the little kids love him to death. I saw it first hand and it made me really proud. For this one moment I got to see Jack as not my surly teenager, but as a role model for these little kids, and truth be told, I think he enjoys it as much as the little ones do!

Culver's Night layout

These pictures were on my desk for a while. I remember when I got them printed, I was still working at Allen School, so early 2008. I actually brought my pictures to school and was drawing sketches planning this page. Well...2 years later, here it is! :) It's not exactly how I had sketched it, but I guess that's the nature of a sketch anyway. I love seeing the kids with their old teachers, and they do too, though Gina said - who is that with me? (Sorry Catrina, even though you're the one teacher that I became good friends with and still keep in touch with, I think we need to get together more often!!!) Now I think I'm up to pumkpin patch pictures, then Thanksgiving, and of course a bunch of Christmas and then the second half of 2007 will be done. The first half was a little tumultuous with the freshness of my separation, so I don't think I have very many pictures from that time. I could be wrong, but I have plenty of pictures already printed to scrap before I start to go back and see what might be missing!

Scrapping mojo, is that you?

I think I've just about found my missing mojo. After a busy week or so spent preparing for my stamp camp (which was a success - yay!) I am happy to report that I've gotten back into the swing of things with my scrapbooking. Here are a few more layouts, pictures are all from 2007.