Last week was a blur. I spent all week trying to get ready to leave on Thursday for the retreat. I still ended up taking almost everything I own. My friend Teresa went too and we roomed together. We had a good time together. We also sat across from one another in the cropping area. I got to spend time with several other wonderful ladies whom I hold dear to my heart. Met some new ones too! Cathy put on an excellent retreat as she always does. I did get some scrapbooking done but not nearly as much as I had hoped. I think I tend to set my expectations way too high.

The weather was pretty all weekend and as I like to do I walked around to take in all the beauty. Two out of the three nights at the retreat it was so overcast that I couldn't get a decent sunset pic. Even Saturday night there were clouds but I managed to get a few shots. It's so peaceful.



















































I decided to work on some of the "All About Me" POTM (Page of the Month) kits I had from Basic Grey. I had not done any since July! I got bogged down when one of the layouts was about friends and needed pics with some of my friends to do the page layouts. I still need to journal. I'll do that here at home. I don't do a good job of journaling when I'm at one of these kinds of events.






I loved doing this layout. Pics of me when I was kid.












My journaling will go in the blank space between the title and the vertical photo.












I had fun doing this page layout. I came up with this one on my own. The ribbon was an idea from my friend Nanci. She is so creative that I don't always feel comfortable showing her my layouts. This one I was brave enough to show her! Being the teacher that she is she was very complimentary and then she had suggested using pink tule and add some other color ribbon too! It was a nice accent to the page. These were the sono pics when we learned that "Peanut" was a girl.



This sono was performed to make sure "Peanut" was growing.

I started several other pages but didn't complete them. I either couldn't decided what to do or didn't have what I needed to finish them.

We are gearing up to have Thanksgiving at our house again this year. My brother and family will be coming. Doyle's family will come on Friday. They want to help with the "Peanut Palace". I know Doyle could sure use the help. He has made great strides and is on target to have it completed by the time Kennedy arrives....provided she doesn't decide to come early! He is putting up sheetrock now and is getting ready to do the plumbing for the bathroom. Vanessa is at 33 weeks! Only 7 more to go! She is really pouching out now!

We are under a freeze warning tonight which will be the first of the season. We were under a warning last night but it only got down to 35. It rebounded nicely and reached 60 today. Forecast is for it to be warmer tomorrow.

Have a good one!

I spent Halloween at the scrapbook store. Cathy held a Halloween crop. Since I will be busy the next two weekends I told her I would work it and stay and crop later. We had a great group of ladies. Some dressed up, some brought wonderful treats. We had a few kids come in the store with Mom and had their picture taken with the Legos!

Nanci (red lego) Cathy (blue) and Me! I thought we were going to kneel but the other two couldn't because of the length of their boxes. Not sure why they were kneeling!

Cathy is the one who graciously made our costumes.  This little girl was so good natured. I was surprised that she let a total stranger hold her without a fuss!












Don't you just love this little girl's costume?! She is the grand daughter of our friend and fellow scrapbooker who has cancer. She brought her into the store just to get pics with the "legos"!










Another little girl smiles for the camera with the "Legos"!









Here are all the ones who dressed up. We didn't wear our boxes all day. Just for a little while to have our pics taken.











 Two weeks ago we had what we called a "Cancer Crop". All the proceeds from that crop went toward our friend Patrice who has ovarian cancer. We raised $1300 that day! We were really excited. We had such fun that day. Unfortuntately Patrice wasn't able to be there because her white count was too low but she came to the store after hours one day to get pics with the "Whamit". Pictured with Patrice is Cathy's husband Ray. If you want to see us ladies be wild and crazy there is a video of us parading through the store taking our punches at the "whamit against cancer" in Patrices honor. Now before you call us a bunch of pansies because we aren't hitting it very hard you have to remember we are inside a store surrounded by paper trays! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVHUOAABqdI

Here's the group! This was taken right in front of the store.

Have a good one!

Lil' Peanut is doing well. Today was Vanessa's doctor appointment and the doctor had ordered a sonogram to make sure Peanut was growing properly. Because Vanessa has such a long torso she's carrying Peanut almost sideways. Vanessa kept saying she was getting broader!  Lil Peanut weighs around 3 to 3 1/2 lbs. Dr. Gardner says she is right on target and everything looks good. It was a little easier to actually see a baby this time but features are still difficult to make out. We did get a glimpse of some hair on her head! We are going Saturday for a 4D sonogram. Dr. Gardner said it is a wonderful experience if we could do it. Vanessa had done some research of places and the one she had picked the Dr. gave approval. It's called Stork Vision. They are not a medical facility but just a place that conducts the sonogram having rooms large enough to accomodate families who would like to see "baby" before arrival. The price includes a dvd and pics (I think). Vanessa is far enough along that after today her appointments will be every two weeks.




















  Ok, looks like we already have a drama queen. This is a side view of her head and she has the back of her hand on her forehead like "oh, dear me"! She had it there through the entire sonogram! It cracked us all up including the technician! Even the doctor had a good laugh!








After the appointment we did some shopping. Vanessa wanted to try to find some more jeans. One of the stores we went to had an adorable little onesie and bib I just HAD to buy!

On the left sleve it says "here a neigh" the right sleeve says "there a neigh" and around the neck "everywhere a neigh neigh".







Here's the back! There is a tail under the neigh! How cute is that! Any grand daughter of mine should be a horse lover! We'll see! I'll give it a good college try!




















Here's the matching bib. The onesie is really small so I don't know how long she will actually get to wear it but the bib should be good for quite a while! If we can keep the onesie in pretty good condition I'll box it up for future grand babies! Aren't I optimistic!






 Vanessa at 7 months. You can probably tell her poor little belly button has turned into an "outy".


Vanessa found this t-shrit today and wore it home from the store she liked it so well. Pretty much says it all don't you think?!














I took the dogs to my friends west of town yesterday. I hadn't been out there in a couple of months. The trees are beginning to change colors although we don't have the brilliant colors you folks north and east of us have. There is still a lot of green with the recent rains we've received and more rain is on the way! Thank You Lord! Of course with the dogs no adventure is complete without a romp in the water and yesterday was not exception!


Kajen and Kaidence playing.









Mercy getting a drink. This is as far in the water as she will get!












While the other three dogs love to get wet all over. Here is Zorro and Kaidence.










 These beautiful brilliant yellow flowers have popped up EVERYWHERE since we have finally gotten some rain. They are gorgeous! These are entertwined with some briers and barbed wire fence.









Also saw some dragonfiles. These are for you Lis!







There were tons of these! 




















Can't get enough of these flowers. Neither can this little bee.









 


This guy was really hard to shoot. His wings would glisten when the sun hit them just right. You can sort of see that in the blue coloring in his wing.










More dragonflies!













 
Walking in the woods we came across a delightful surprise......








yes! Butterflies! Gorgeous butterfiles!







 

I just happen to catch these two as they fluttered by.












One of them did land long enough for me to take his picture.













Isn't the coloring just beautiful?!













No these pumpkins were not where I was. I took these recently as a "photo challenge" on Facebook. Nothing says fall more than a load of pumpkins!

Happy fall ya'll!

Have a good one!