I was just curious where I was a year ago. What I was doing and reporting on with this blog...

I was cleaning up my craft room.

Guess what my plans are this week? Yup. Craft room.

It's a joke that this keeps recurring.

I blame Christmas and all my well-intentioned, home-made gifts. Oh well...

I attended little Chloe's baby blessing today. She looked so perfect! Her momma was beautiful and calm as a cucumber...until the opening song...after which she had to say the opening prayer. :D It was a beautiful blessing and a wonderful spirit there. I sure helps that I've met so many members of Angie's extended family. Easy to feel comfortable there.

I'm once again looking forward to the annual Get Down with Scrapbooking charity crop, but this year Anisa is sleeping at my house (no, of course we won't be sleeping) and we're going to get caught up (we is me, Anisa, my mom, Angie and 200 of Angie's relatives) on all the scrapbooking we haven't done this past year...which is a lot!

It's been an insane week. I've been making signs for returning missionaries (not mine) and helping with the jungle background for Ella's Kindergarten operetta. I didn't even know what day it was half the time, I was just going from project to appointment to project. CRAZINESS!

And not a picture to show for all of it.

I love to scrapbook and so I'm always looking for ways to communicate what the photos on the layout aren't saying.
For me, personally, I haven't been 'journaling' my journey in life. I'm one day going to reach the destination of who I really am and I'm not going to remember squat about it.

Bryce currently has some fecal fascination and I can't keep the stuff off his hands. He won't tell me when he uses the toilet and how am I supposed to know? We're working through it. He'll look at me with those amazing big eyes and I sense that he's waiting to see if I explode or manage to stay in control and promise him a treat if he'll do better next time. He's crazy full of imagination right now. So alive and not out of control, but full of everything wonderful a toddler should be.

I know that God loves me because I have three wonderful kids that teach me daily that I am important to someone. Mothers definitely get their share-more than their share-of criticism. Half the fiction books out there have some mention of the wrongs the protagonist received at the hands of their mother. One day, my kids will be grown and they might sit around and discuss what a crummy job I did with this choice or that choice I made as a mother, but if their experience is anything like mine, they will also be able to love me just because I am me and they will somehow know that, despite it all, that I loved them with all my heart. That I broke it a thousand times for them. If I'm really blessed, they'll be able to see that they broke it, too, sometimes, so much so I didn't think I could go on with the next five minutes.

There is so much drama in little kid/parenting life.

Ella is so tender, but it sure seems like she's been working the emotional system lately. I cannot even give gentle correction without her eyes pooling with tears. It's frustrating, but it is making me more aware that her needs are different from two boys and that I can accomplish that without coddling.

Hang on- Bryce just earned a treat (see above mention of Bryce).

Dane is an amazing kid. He is very concerned for others, yet at the same time, he uses very selfish tactics. This polarizing way of living seem very appropriate for an eight year old. They do make sense. He can really help around the house like never before and I have seen him be fascinated by the things he sees me and Cam do and then I show him he can do them too and he gets excited. Yesterday I showed him how to use the electric can opener.

Ella's crying because Dane has teased her. I never know if it's a big deal or not. I finally understand why my mom said (when we came to her with over-the-top crying) "You'd better be bleeding!"

She's snuggled against my chest now. I have learned lately that she really just needs time and a hug. I try. She is so lovely. So affectionate and I do love how she looks us right in the eyes, still, and communicates her love to us. She is all that i wanted in a little girl. She is deliciously imperfect perfection.

It's time to have a place to record the little wonders in my life, especially when I get to have a two-way with God. I'm getting myself a journal that doesn't have to plug in.

On the craft blog I have created with my good friends Angie and Anisa, we are doing a give-away to celebrate our 40th post.

The prize is one of three paper-bag albums and all you have to do is leave a comment stating which one you'd want to win should your entry be picked.

So head over to http://twiddle-thumbs.com/ and comment to win! What are you waiting for!?!

By the way, if you think they're cute on the outside, they are 150 times cuter on the inside!

Hershey took Cameron's information and said they'd get back to him in 7-10 days.

I am being initiated into true soccer mom-ness as I begin my stint as Ella's soccer coach today. While I'm talking to 7-14 other parents, Cameron will be in Provo at a BYU football game with his dad, Dane will be keeping my unruly Bryce from getting lost or hurting himself and Ella will hopefully not be in a super-pouty mood. I am petrified. I can't wait for this 'organization' day to be over. I'm looking forward to the games, though.

I stayed up late last night working with my very slow computer to choose, edit and process photos through samsclub.com for the upcoming Scrapbook USA. I've never been, but I'm trying to be well prepared for scrapbooking success. (yes, roll your eyes by all means!) I figure if I am prepared I shall...have fun! Thanks to Angie and Anisa for getting me to go. Oh, and for my husband for taking all of Friday off so that I can, in his words, "go play all day." Thanks, honey!

I've been working on a doll house project a la My Little Pony for Ella's birthday on the 22nd and it's going well. I missed my calling as an architect, I tell you. I've really enjoyed putting on the details. I'll have to post a picture of the finished work here.

My father-in-law was not feeling well this week and mom-in-law asked us to pray for him. We told the kids and it was obvious that Grandpa not feeling well made them nervous. I nearly cry at the memory, but the first words out of Dane's mouth: "Is it...cancer?" Then last night I was trying to encourage Ella to say her prayers and I said "We want to pray for Grandpa to get better don't we?" then she says " 'Cuz if we don't he will get old and die, huh?" Wow.

Well, I'm happy to report that Grandpa is "100% better" and I know the kids will be happy about that. I do wonder where all this worry comes from.

I don't really do digital scrapbooking. I have, in the past, even been a bit of a snob about it, but I'm over that.

I love traditional scrapbooking. I love holding that paper in my hands and playing and cutting and gluing and I simply like being 'unplugged.' I spend a lot of time on this computer and I need some time away from it.

The following images are the only digital scrapbooking I have ever done (unless you count my designing my own blog decor with digi-scrapbook supplies. Want to yourself? Click here You'll need Adobe Photoshop).

These were made for my sister Mandy for this mini-album that was designed to hold business cards. She'd probably like an update. It's been a while...

I have my latest book-on-CD in my scrapbook room and I've been doing some multi-tasking. I have missed scrapbooking...


And now on random, surprisingly related segue, I now present the final song on MTV's Unplugged w/ Nirvana.

My book-on-CD (mentioned above) is called Love is a Mix Tape and in the part I'm in, the author is talking about Kurt Cobain and how he was the only rocker out there writing about being a husband (for good or bad. The author is a young widower). It reminded me of the one Nirvana album, MTV Unplugged in New York, I own. Anyway, this is a powerful Nirvana moment and I love how Kurt looks out at the audience right before the last phrase. Piercing blue eyes. I still remember finding out from my friends Chad and Austin that Cobain had died. Much to all our surprise, I burst into tears. He died 5 months after this performance.

Friday:
Met my aunt Suzanne, my cousin Summer and her son Gabe at Gardner Village. Shopped a bit and fed the ducks, but oddly only took pics of us. I took 13 photos of this pose and this is the best one? Yep. These two are tired of looking at this camera in their cute faces.

Snacked on Oreo cookies ===>

The kids loved the kissing sound the koi made as they ate pieces of bread.


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Friday evening: Summer and I did a fun photo shoot together. (she stayed at my house)

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Saturday: The Adams Family Reunion (oh, you know you're already humming the TV theme and snapping your fingers...) This is my dad's mom's family.

After breakfast, the kids began to build rockets of paper and foam to be launched over and over again.

And i think it's gonna be a long long time till touch down brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think i am at home

Oh no no no i'm a rocket man

Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone

As we were doing the rockets, lunch, the pinata, the waterslide, and tie-dyed shirts, Cameron went with my dad, my uncle, my dad's cousin (younger than me) and two of my great uncles on a foolishly long hike and they about killed themselves and came back completely exhausted...and hungry. We packed it up shortly after that (7:30 PM now) and we all fell into bed before 10 and slept hard!

You've gotta click on these photos for a bigger version. They're pretty cute!

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Sunday: Summer came to church with us, then we went down to my parents house. Attending were: my family of five, Grandma & Grandpa Mortensen (with me, here), my uncle Dennis, Suzanne, Summer and Gabe, my aunt Carrie and her grandson Dillon, my uncle Tad & aunt Grace, Leanne, Kristen, Ciara, my brother's family of four, Mandy, Jonathan, and my grandpa's brother Val and his wife Diane. FULL HOUSE!

Summer and I did a bit of scrapbooking as well as an impromptu concert at Uncle Val's request. I sang I Stand All Amazed then Summer sang You'll Never Walk Alone. We then reprised a song we sang for my grandparents farewell back in 1999, a powerful arrangement of A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief (which Summer amazingly remembered the descant). The spirit was so strong there and beautiful. I haven't started choking up during a song for a long time.

I love when my dad's family gets together. There's always guaranteed to be some kind of interesting gospel discussion going on and I was not disappointed. It's such a blessing to have these folks in my life and in my family. What a blessed weekend! We missed you, Eric!

Just sharing what I've been able to do lately.





Click on any image to see it up close (really close)...

Ok, no more scrapbook magazines before bedtime!

Weird dream last night. I was supposed to go to a scrapbooking weekend sponsored by Creating Keepsakes magazine. They call it CKU. Anyway, when you're there you get to go to classes and such and the big draw is that the classes will be taught by scrapbook magazine personalities. Women (usually) whose work has been published a lot and they are a regular contributor to these types of magazines.

Anyway, the dream...I couldn't go to CKU for some reason so Cameron took my place and he had just come home to show me the scrapbook pages that he'd done. They looked OK, but I was concerned that I'd already covered some of the subjects that I had.

Then there's a knock on the door and a woman named Cathy Zielske wants to come in a scrapbook at my house cuz I guess she didn't get in enough scrapbooking at CKU. Anyway, it's all bizarre. Her husband is with her and she hauls in so much scrapbooking stuff and at first I'm excited because it looks like a lot of fun new stuff. Then it gets weird, for while I'm looking something up on my computer for her (desperately trying to impress her, I guess) she and her husband go take a nap in their cramped car, a Rabbit. Then some how I fall asleep and awake to her husband yelling at her about getting home and wondering why they do this scrapbooking stuff cuz she hasn't been making them any money. It was really bizarre. I'm sure a lot of it is my own fault because I read this woman's blog nearly everyday. I admire her style and her music taste, but honestly, it's a bit annoying to have a lengthy dream about someone you don't know and have never met.

Well, Cathy, I think you're awesome, very talented and I do love your blog, but you and Dan need to stay outta my dreams!

I am so grateful for my friendship with Anisa. There is so much she does for me and I definitely wouldn't be as far along with my scrapbooking if it weren't for our scrap days.

Thankfully, her new house is actually closer to ours than where she used to live.