A quick update

My brother, Elder Gillespie, is safe & dry right now. Okay well I at least know he's safe. If he's helping out the members & investigators like I think he is, he might not be so dry. Either way, we're happy he was protected from the storm. It was only a category 1 typhoon, but after seeing video footage of the neck-high water & damage....well lets just say I'm glad he was on higher ground (both physically & spiritually).

Thanks for your prayers.

Love,
Shannon

Special Prayer Request

My brother Grant is serving his mission in the Philippines & the island he's on was hit by a typhoon yesterday. Please keep him & his companion in your prayers today. I'll update when I know more.

An update & another great Freebie!

Tyler is home from camp a day early. It should have been three days early, had I listened to my mama instinct. He's safe & so is everyone he was with, which is most important. I'm glad to have him home. I was able to finally get an appointment with a highly recommended counselor in town, which is incredible news since it's something I've been trying to do with no success for the past month. I'm thrilled, to say the least. It's an answered prayer.

Now on to the fun stuff....

I came across a digital scrapbook freebie of immense proportions!! Okay, so that's a little overstating it, but I was excited to come across it so I thought I'd share. You can find it by clicking on the preview. You do need to join their forum to access it, if you haven't already.

I found this cute freebie today, too. Not as big of a kit, but adorable addition to my rapidly growing collection. :) Click on the image to go to the site you can download it from.

I did a few more layouts yesterday. The first is one of my Dad. It's a quick page freebie found here.

This next one is of my little brother, Grant. He is currently in the Philippines, serving a mission for our church. The kids & I were fortunate enough to be able to go to Kansas for a visit right around the time he was leaving. Sans the misfire incident, it was a great visit!

This quick page download can be found here.

Lastly, I did another page of Hayleah in the tub. What can I say....I love tub-time pics! She has her mischievous grin on in this one. :)

This quick page can be found here.

I saw the light

& it wasn't so pretty. Shortly after my last entry, I got a call from the Bishop letting me know the Scout leaders are ready to send Tyler, along with one of his friends, on a bus back home. Ugh. I guess they have decided they're going to do whatever they want & ignore what the leaders have asked them not to do.

Truth be told, I'd love to be able for him to straighten up & stay, but I'm feeling like if he does I'd be bailing him out. I know he needs more serious consequences to get through to him than most kids do. I just hate that he can't seem to keep it together long enough to accomplish something I know is important to him.

A lot of this has to do with his friend who has always been a bad influence on him. I know this boys mother thinks it's the other way around, but I've spent enough time around the two of them together to see who goads whom into doing things.

Ugh. This teen parenting stuff is no fun today. :( I have to decide if the best thing for everyone is for Tyler to come home.

Sweet Days

There are times each day when I feel like I couldn't be more in love with my children. They have brought so much love & light & laughter into our home...I just don't know what I would do without them.

Tyler is away at Scout camp this week. He can be such a frustrating child, but it's times like these (when he's gone) I'm reminded of how much he means to me. He's such a big hearted kid who loves to do things for other people. Sure, he has his faults & trials, but we all do. Overall he's an amazing kid who has the ability to do great things in this world.

My sweetest part of today has been the quiet moments with Hayleah. She's such a little mama. Just after having a nice, noisy bubble bath with her older brother, she came up to me to ask for some "nannies", as she calls them. She still nurses like a newborn some days, which can be hard, but today she's been a little more independant of me. As I held her & gave her those precious nannies & she said "mmmm" letting me know she was pleased, she fell asleep in my arms. The peaceful bliss it must be to fall asleep in your mother's arms....

Here's a layout I did earlier of her. It's a quick page that can be found here, if you want to download it & do one yourself. Scroll down a little further than half the page & you'll find it. There's also a great Father's Day quick page she has for free, just before this one.

More Scrapbook Pages

As I do more pages I'll post them, but for now I wanted to put up the ones I've done so far. Some are better than others. The more I do it, the better they are looking, I think. :)

Saving $10 will not be an option next time

I decided to trim up Hayleah's bangs the other day. They needed it & I wasn't interested in paying someone else $10 to snip a few hairs. Well, I'm a goof & will no longer be cheap when it comes to her hair. We're making the trip to see Miss Holly from now on.



It wasn't quite straight at first so I kept taking a little more off, then a little more....until we wound up with Jim Carey's daughter (from Dumb & Dumber). Take a look. *sigh*

Splishin' & a Splashin'

I just finished this layout in record time for a challenge on CafeMom. This is SO much fun! :D

I could spend all day doing this, though in reality that's not feasible.

Here's a link to the blog I got the kit off of for FREE:

http://frostedillusions.blogspot.com/search/label/Freebie%20Kits

"I love women"

Logan, my baby who turns 3 in September, proudly tells my husband, Dave, yesterday that he loves women. While the initial response is a chuckle & a thought of "well that's good to know", it took a moment to understand what he really meant.

I took the kids to the Desert Breeze swimming park yesterday. What he was actually saying is he loves SWIMMING. LOL

We haven't been to a water park since last summer & he hated it that time. This time, he was so excited when he saw all the water & had a blast the entire time we were there. He only slipped under water twice, but it didn't freak him out enough to want to get out like I thought it would.

He even started jumping off the edge into the water there towards the end! At first he wouldn't do it without holding my hands, but after about 5 or 6 times of that, would jump to me without holding on to me. I could tell he got a big thrill out of it & today my arms are a bit sore from all the catching & lifting I did yesterday.

Hayleah even got in on the "jumping". Though her way of doing it consisted of her standing on the edge while holding on to my hands, bending her knees & straightening them quickly without actually catching any air, & saying the word "jump" as I pulled her down in to the water.

All the kids had a great time & I'm pretty sure they would all agree that we love women. ;o)

Digital Scrapbooking....I'm a born again scrapbooker!!

Put down that paper. Give away the clutter! I'm in hog heaven with digital scrapbooking. I bought the Photoshop Elements program & am figuring out how to use it scrapping my pics. It's SO much fun!

Here are a few layouts I've done in the past few days. Go easy on me....I'm new afterall. :)

Houston: We have a POOPY!!

Yes, you read that right. :)

Logan has decided he wants to use the potty now & today went poopy in his little potty!!! It's completely self-directed & I couldn't be more thrilled! He'll be 3 in September & will be potty trained, provided things continue going this well, long before his other brothers.

I'm hoping the excitement surrounding this will encourage Hayleah to have some interest in learning how to use the potty as well. She's not quite 18 mo. yet, so I'm not holding out much hope, but so far she's been very advanced at everything else, so you never know!