O Christmas Tree

Years ago, I made it a tradition to put the Christmas tree up on Thanksgiving weekend. I had planned to do it yesterday, but wasn't feeling too well, so today it went up. This year, because of a curious crawler, I decided not to put up our over 7 foot tall tree that could be pulled down - instead, we bought a 4 & 1/2 foot tall tree and put it on a table, hopefully out of reach. Until Jeff reminded me, she'll probably go under the table... oh well. In any case, it's up. Jenna doesn't quite know what to make of it yet. (excuse the pics, they are SOOC, I haven't processed them yet...)

Then Jordan found the Santa hat...

It's going to be a fun holiday season!

Oh and one more pic... Jenna's first Thanksgiving dinner. (sweet potatoes, turkey, croissant) She loved everything!  :)

You and Me

The Digichick is having a great sale now through Sunday and if you spend $15, you'll get a fabulous free kit: Fashion Plate. I was lucky enough to work with it...

Lovin Leaves

I absolutely love these photos I took of Jenna in September when she discovered leaves for the first time. I have a whole series of really cute shots, it was hard to narrow them down.

3 Years

I love challenges - when it comes to scrapbooking. And one of my favorite sites for challenges is The Digi Dares. Their latest challenge is to use three of this, three of that and well, I took it a step further and decided to highlight the past three years with my husband.

Christmas Wishlist

No, not mine. Though if you really want mine, I could come up with one... :) This is Jordan's list for this year and I knew I just had to scrap it right away. Yes, that's her actual list, scanned in.

Credits:

Layout inspired by Memory Logbook 2009 Weekly Challenge #49 at LogYourMemory.com

Jolly Holiday Collection, Jolly Holiday Mess, Jolly Holiday Presents: Weeds and Wildflowers Design

 

Grateful for Winter?

Hardly. I hate winter. But those are the names of my two latest pages for The Digichick. I love love love working for TDC because I get to use so many new goodies each week from so many fabulous designers! It's a scrapper's heaven, I tell ya! (I am very blessed to work with all of my creative teams!)

This week, I decided to work with the fabulous designs from Gypsy Couture and the amazingly talented (and boss of TDC) Nicole, aka Sugarplum Paperie and special guest designer Krista, aka Sahlin Studio.

New from Gypsy Couture is Ho Ho Retro. I loved the little ornaments in this kit, so cute. I decided to feature a photo I had taken two years ago at my inlaws of their backyard. So beautiful!

Next up is the beautiful kit So Grateful, a collab between Nicole and Krista. This kit is just stunning and the colors are so me.

Faces

Here's a page I did this morning with Crystal's new December Moments Album Templates. I know many people do a daily page for the month of December, that's exactly what these were created for. I'm not that ambitious, but I still love the templates!

After doing this page I realized I really should showcase more of her "faces," so I'll have to do that at some point. She's got some good ones.

Miss October

I am thrilled to announce that I have joined Log Your Memory as a part of their first creative team - the calendar girls! This is a site that I am really excited about. It's different from my other creative teams in that its focus is on reality scrapping - which I'm all about. There is a Memory Logbook that you can purchase that offers a ton of inspiration. It's filled with challenges and prompts for your pages as well as monthly calendars and space for you to record your ideas. To me, this is wonderful. I love the idea of having a place to record all my memories. I also love to be challenged. So, for me, this is perfect. I am really excited about this!

Each week, the calendar girls will be providing inspiration for each of the challenges included in the Logbook. We'll also be involved in lots of other fun things on the site. And the reference to Miss October? That will be my month to highlight lots of good stuff on the site, host some blog posts, polls, etc. Lots of great stuff planned. I hope you'll join us on this refreshing journey!

11 Months

One of the reasons I am doing this blog is to have a place to record the things going on in our lives so that I'll have it later when I go to scrapbook. Today, my baby girl is 11 months. Here's a photo I snapped of Jenna this morning. I'll post the page when I've done one.

Cooking With PW

Have you seen the movie "Julie and Julia"? Jeff and I went to see it. I wasn't expecting much, but ended up loving it. So much so that we went to Barnes and Noble after so I could look at Julia Child's recipe book. I ended up not buying it, but still hope to get it one day. If you haven't seen the movie, Julie decides to cook her way through Julia's entire cookbook - in a year. Over 500 recipes. Wow.

Do you know who the Pioneer Woman is? I'm not even sure how long I've been following her blog, but Ree is awesome. One of the things she does is share her recipes and I've tried a few of them before. She just came out with a new cookbook and, as I started paging through it, I got the idea to do a little "Julie and Julia" only in this case, "Jenn and PW." LOL I won't be setting a strict goal for completion of the book, I am sure I won't even do all the recipes. But, I thought it would be fun to start making them and sharing a little review here on my blog. So, that's my new personal challenge. Cooking my way through the Pioneer Woman's cookbook. (I will not be sharing the recipes, as that would get me in trouble I'm sure. But I know she has a bunch of them on her site, if you don't have the book.)

So, here we go. Because Jordan needed an empty egg carton for Brownies, necessitating me buying another carton of eggs yesterday, I wanted to make something using a bunch of eggs. Enter Migas. What could be better? I love mexican food. I've never had these. They have cilantro in them. And I'd be using up a dozen eggs.

I started out with all the ingredients...

And proceeded to chop and prepare the migas as directed. Then, something went horribly wrong. And I hated that it went horribly wrong, because I wanted this to work so bad. I mean, it has cilantro! Anyway, I got to the part where PW says to set the burner to low, pour in the eggs, and cook them slowly. Um... slowly would have taken me hours I am sure. Nothing was happening. So, I turned up the heat. Then turned it up some more. They started to cook, but there was so much liquid (I'm guessing from the tomatoes) they just were not turning out to be the light and fluffy eggs I had hoped for. I cooked them some more and then finished it off with the cheese and sour cream.

The finished product...

And we ate. Not too bad. Jeff said it was a nice change and had two bowls. I enjoyed the mexican flavor, but didn't like the texture too much. Jordan thought it was good, but soon her stomach hurt. Will I make them again? Not sure. Maybe if I have a dozen eggs to use up.

Bottom line. It was a nice change. But, I am a little disappointed. I am SURE it was something I did wrong and not something wrong with the recipe. So I may have to try again some day.

Anyway, going forward I will be sharing more from my cooking ventures with PW. If you have tried the recipes, please share your thoughts. I'd love to read them.

The Dinner

Jordan made dinner tonight, it was part of a Brownies exercise. She was so excited. Now she wants me to design some recipe cards for her. :)

The Menu
-Spinach Salad: spinach, bacon bits, grape tomatoes, cheddar cheese, parmesean croutons, choice of dressing
-Chicken Spinach Wraps: tortilla, two chicken nuggets, spinach, ranch dressing, cheddar cheese
-Drink: An orange smoothie: orange juice, vanilla ice cream, Sprite soda - blended in blender
-Dessert: Strawberry cake and cream cheese frosting

She picked everything and did almost everything. Overall, very good and she did a great job! Sorry, no pics. My camera's battery decided to die right then and there. :(

After

I was all set to tell you, baby, I've got style! Or at least a new hairstyle. Which I do. But now, looking at the photos - I kinda miss my hair. OK, back up. Here is me before I got the cut...

Not too shabby, but it's been this way a long time. (Like pretty much my whole life.) I got the itch for change. And you know what? I liked it. I liked it as she cut it, I liked it while I drove to Target after in the car and ran my fingers through it. It felt lighter, I felt different. I got home, Jordan hugged me and told me she loved it and that I look like my sister. (Sorry Marcia... if I do, it wasn't intentional.) Jeff said he liked it. Jenna was indifferent. I was still liking it. Then I forgot about it, until I looked at the pics to upload here. Now, I'm like, whoa, I am fat. LOL And, I miss my hair. But you know what, I think I'll get used to it. Everyone needs a change once in a while. And, it's time for me. Long overdue. Or as Jordan said, Mom, you should have done this a long time ago. Wisdom from an 8 year old. By the way, I get that most people are like, what's the big deal? It's just a haircut. Just one of those things I guess...

Going to be an interesting day!

Saturday is only just beginning for me (only 6:40 a.m.) but it's going to be a busy one that hopefully won't end with me in tears... I'm getting my hair cut for the first time in a long time. I need a change, but I usually regret it. So, we'll see. Also lots of shopping to do and Jordan (my 8 year-old) needs to make dinner for us tonight as part of her brownies (girl scouts) thing. Full menu. Should be an interesting day!

Here's kind of a before shot of my hair. This was taken on Mother's Day. I guess I'm behind the camera way too much. I don't have any real recent shots. And being it's so early here, everyone else is sleeping, so no one to take a pic of me now. Not that I want you to see me, having just woken up. LOL Anyway, you get the idea. My hair is long, mid back, and pretty straight, with not much style. (Um, not this red, that's part of the editing - although it is auburn.) Yes, this change will be big for me. But I can promise, I am not going short! Unless the stylist really screws up. :)

Here we go...

I've had a blog once or twice, but they never lasted long, for various reasons. But, I've been thinking about it for a while now and decided to start one again. I've got things to say, pages to show off and a new personal challenge to share. So, here we go...

For those that don't know me, my name is Jenn, known online as jenn7. I am now a stay-at-home-mom to two beautiful girls, Jordan (8) and Jenna (1 in December) and wife to Jeff. Prior to having Jenna, I worked in marketing and graphic design for nearly 15 years. It was during that time that I taught myself Photoshop and, while pregnant with Jordan, started scrapbooking - paper scrapbooking. In 2005, I discovered digital scrapbooking and haven't looked back... although, I still have all of my paper supplies. I just haven't touched them.

This blog will encompass my daily musings, sharing of my recent scrapbook pages and CT stuff, photos (as I love taking pictures!) a new personal challenge which I'll share soon (has nothing to do with scrapping!) and anything else I feel like talking about... hence the "confessions."

Please pardon the dust as I get going on this blog... I really don't have too much idea what I'm doing yet. Special thanks to Zoe Pearn. I bought her Blog in a Box (see link below) which came with great instructions on how to get my blog in shape - at least until I learn how to do it myself!

Until next time...

Coming Soon...

Working on my new blog!