Homeless in Maryland

Just a quick note - we are back home from our trip to Maryland - Phew!! We left Thursday morning at 6:30 a.m. and were scheduled to be home Sunday afternoon so we are only officially one day late getting home. We had major car problems and were homeless in Maryland from Saturday morning until Monday at about 11:30 a.m. (their time, 10:30 a.m. our time). I won't go into the details of our "car problems" but suffice it to say we have quite a story.

Here is a pic I took of Paul and Skyler as we were walking around town with just about everything we owned. Kinda funny now :-) The sad part is we fit right in. . .one of the days when we were walking with our possessions we walked by a person pushing a cart - - that is a mighty good idea when you got an armload, however Paul wasn't goin for that one.

Credit to Megan K

In my last posting layout of Skyler's turkey, I failed to mention that I got the idea to use sheet music on scrapbook pages from Megan K - - Thanks for the idea!!

Turkey Stuff

Since our tags were filled, we went out this morning specifically to get some pics and learn a little more about turkeys. We had a great time - Skyler got her first experience hearing a Tom "spitting & drumming" - - and boy was he close!! I wish I would have had a tag and a bow and arrow - he would have been a shooter. We also got to see a Tom with a double beard and got a good chance to just practice our turkey calling abilities - Skyler is great at the hen purrs!! (I forgot to mention that yesterday we got to see a Tom mating a Hen - - first time any of us got to see that. We also got to see a bearded hen) Here are a few of the pictures we got.

Skyler's First Turkey - Continued

I wanted to upload a few more pics of Skyler's first turkey hunting experience so decided to do a couple of collages instead. I failed to put the important measurements on yesterdays listing as I only had a couple minutes before we went back out to the cabin where we were staying. Skyler's bird stats are as follows:
Weight: 22 pounds
Spur length: 1 1/8 inches
Beard length of 9 1/4 inches

(she actually got jipped on the beard length because her bird had what they call beard rot and a good portion of the beard had rotted off - otherwise I believe her bird's beard would have been quite a bit longer.)
She keeps telling us "yeah - I got beard rot!" hee hee. Skyler now tells us that she is not sure if she can wait until next turkey season to shoot another one since this one was so much fun!! We really had an awesome weekend spending time together as a family and spending time in nature - - there really is nothing like it. Get outside and explore!

Skyler's First Turkey!!

Here are some pics of Skyler with her first turkey! We all went out this morning and had a great time. This is her first time out actually getting to shoot and she got the job done with one shot!

Here is Paul's turkey - what a great shot!

Die Cut Machine Giveaway

Check out this Die Cut Machine Giveaway at the Simply Handmade blog! They are giving away TWO - - yes TWO die cut machines and all you have to do is post a comment about which dies are your favs from their magazine. Good luck!

When I Grow Up

Here is a page that I did about Skyler using the idea from "The Story Matters" blog - - I plan on entering it in their April challenge. It was hard to choose which animal pictures I would use - - but I settled on these. I put in a profession that hadn't been mentioned before (i.e. Dog Walker) and Skyler thought that was a little weird :-) But I needed another word for the layout - - and we want her to know we will be happy for her no matter what profession she chooses,

right?!!? :-)

Yeah Me!!

Hey - Scrapaganza posted my layout for their March challenge using items from their sale wall. . .this may be the most recognition I have ever gotten :-) Yeah me! I didn't win anything though :-( http://scrapaganzaonline.blogspot.com/2009/04/blog-challenge-time.html

New Belt

Skyler has been growing out of her belts. Because she LOVES camouflage and because this was on sale at JoAnn Fabrics yesterday - - and because she BEGGED me to buy it, I decided I could use parts from her old belts and transform this strapping into a new belt for her. About .97 cents later she has a belt. It isn't perfect (nothing I do ever is. . .) but it works and she's glad to have it.

Win a Easter/Spring Contest

What an easy way to win!! Just go to this link and make a comment about your three favorite things about spring and they will be randomly picking 3 winners!! http://reminisce.typepad.com/reminisce/

This placemat purse still needs handles. Since Sky is on Easter break we might have time to go get some. I added some extras on this purse. I had some wool sweaters leftover from when I was making mittens and used that for the blue "stripe" as well as hand sewing my label and buttons on. At least with hand sewing my label didn't get crooked this time :-)

Placemat Purse

Here is a purse I sewed this afternoon since we are having such cold and windy weather. This is made out of a placemat I purchased just for this purpose. I actually came across this idea on the internet - but I cannot remember where - sorry. I used some handles I already had. My little emblem on the front turned out crooked - but I am sure as time goes on I will get better at things like that - I am not the best at sewing. Kinda a fun little project though and I have some other neat placemats which I plan on making a few more purses from soon.

DIY Garden Markers/Labels

Here is a pic of of garden markers/labels that Skyler and I created. (Skyler is the artist.) We also have a pepper label which isn't pictured cuz I need one more chopstick. This year I decided to do something different from our previous years' attempts at making garden labels. I found this plastic placemat at the dollar store and here ya go - - made all of these and have some leftover for more - all for under $1.00. I used Stampin Up punches for the holes and for rounding off the corners and permanent markers for the art. A few already made it through the latest rain - so I think they will last - - maybe even for several years.

I Hope You Dance

Megan Klauer's lo of Chase "Dream big" got me motivated to do this page. I have always wanted to do some sort of page along this line - however, the perfect picture I wanted to use I of course couldn't find. . .but I was almost possessed to get this page done this a.m. so I used this pic instead which I really like too - it shows off Skyler's big blue eyes. If you can't read the words it is just basically the lyrics to I Hope You Dance by LeeAnn Womack.