I am back!!!!

Wow! It is hard to believe that it has been over 10 months since my last post.  A lot has been going on here at the Smith/Collins household.  Robbie & Dani got married on August 10.  Jimmy has finally got a running vehicle. Tony & Dillon have completed another year of high school.  I now have a Senior & Sophomore.  We survived football, wrestling & track season.  I got a new job working as a Cashier at Walmart, & survived working during the Christmas season.

Wrestling season of course is my favorite & Tony ended his season with a record of 19-16, he placed in all but 1 tournament he participated in.  Getting 3rd in the PAC Tournament, 5th at the Coshocton Classic, 6th at the Tuslaw Invitational even with having to forfeit 2 matches due to a concussion, and 5th in the Claymont D2 sectional tournament making him a district alternate.  Dillon finished 4-9 on the JV squad not bad for a kid who only wrestles so he can know how to counter his brothers moves.

Dillon decided to throw shot & discus during Track instead of playing baseball.  By the end of the season each throw was better than the last with his Personal record in discus being 74'9" & his Personal Record in Shot being 27'11".  Jimmy moved from crew member at Wendy's to shift supervisor.  He also was accepted into the Nursing program at Kent State Tusc this fall.  Robbie & Dani are both working at the local John Deere shop.  Dani is the parts girl & Robbie the mechanic. I am proud of all my boys & my daughter in love.

Now that I have caught you up on our lives, I invite you to join me on a little adventure in organization/cleaning.

II have Fibromyalgia, a condition that main symptoms are constant pain, depression & low energy.  I have been learning to deal with this life long condition since I was diagnosed in 2000.  I had been doing fairly well managing the condition up until 2009 when my stress level increased due to marital & financial problems.  This lead to me being depressed and with next to no energy to make it through a day.  It was at that time when the condition of my house started to decline.  It got bad as I was just surviving & pain was constantly preventing me from getting housework done.  It finally got to the point where it was so bad I didn't even know where to start on getting it back to looking like a livable home again.  Divorce, financial issues, severely stressful job situations and being unemployed didn't help my stress/pain levels at all.

Then in November I was hired on at Walmart and believe it or not since then my stress level has significantly lowered.  I still deal with constant pain, some days are better than others and still have days where getting out of bed is a big challenge.  The difference now is I am finally not feeling depressed and hopeless and I am trying to do something about getting my home back in order.  I know my house didn't get to be a disaster overnight, so it won't get cleaned & Organized overnight.  So I will be taking it slow, working on a room or 2 at a time until they are complete.  Doing more than on room allows me to focus on getting done chores that fit my pain & energy level for the day.

The organization and cleaning that needs done, does at times overwhelm me, but I when I am unable to physically able to clean I am now searching Pinterest for inspiration and ideas that work on an extremely small budget.   I have decided to start blogging my progress to help keep me motivated, share ideas & pins with others & to show my progress so on bad days I can see how far I have progressed.

Those of you who have checked out my blog for crafty inspiration don't worry I will still post my artwork & pictures of my scrapbook room also.

Thanks for reading Jenn.

Christmas is Coming

It is hard to believe that summer is over, and the new School Year/Football Season has started.   Which means that Christmas is getting closer, and now is the time to start creating your Christmas cards, so you aren't still making them on Dec 24th. This week at Inspired Stamps the Design Team is creating Christmas themed artwork.  I used Vintage Christmas to create the card above.  The sentiment is Stamped and embossed on vellum, and then glued onto the B&T to create a vintage feel.  

Materials Used:  Inspired Stamps Vintage Christmas,
CTMH: Mistletoe B&T, Colonial White Cardstock, Mistletoe Assortment Embelishment pack, Cocoa and Desert Sand Ink, clear Detail Embossing Powder
Gold Paper and Ricrac ribbon from Jo-Ann's

Today while you are viewing this post I will be at the Cleveland Processing center watching Jimmy Swear In.  Today is the day he has been waiting for and I have been dreading.  My Baby is leaving the nest and embarking on the next aspect of his life. While I am sad at the thought of losing my baby ond only having 2 kids in my house, I am very PROUD of Jimmy and support his decision to join the Army.  (Though I might add that his younger brothers, Tony and Dillon, have already started to divide up Jimmy's clothes and furniture.  If they didn't already have their own rooms, I am sure they would be fighting over who got the room also.  BOYS!!)


Please make sure you check out the rest of the team's artwork.

Until next week

Happy Scrappin

Jenn

Character & Scripture

This week over at Inspired Stamps we were to create artwork using a Character and Scripture (this was to be posted with the Tuesday group, but I forgot the schedule change).  Above is what I came up with.  As most of you know my son Jimmy is leaving for boot camp here soon.  Actually 3 days from now and it is really hitting home with this Momma. Most days have tears involved with them sometime during the day and my son and I are in the process of cleaning up his room (deep cleaning), so I have been scatter brained more than normal.

This is a card I am planning on sending him, sometime in the near future.  Usually when I stamp the HLO: Soldier with Flag, I paper piece him to give him his color and dimension.  With today's image I wanted to create the feeling of something missing, the soldier.  So I embossed the HLO using clear embossing powder on white glossy paper then inked my browns and greens over it to create a camo paper.  I then paired it with the scripture from the Psalm 91 Protection  stamp set, to create my card front. 

 

On the inside I inked my edges with dessert sand and then stamped the HLO:Soldier with Flag again in opposite corners in Desert Sand and the "Missing you and thanking God that He is there with you!" Sentiment from the Psalm 91 Protection Set in Black.

 

 

Materials Used: Inspired Stamps HLO:Soldier with Flag, and Psalm 91 Protection

CTMH: Desert Sand, Olive, New England Ivy, Cocoa, Black Ink, Colonial White, Barn Red, and Desert Sand Cardstock, B&T, Clear Detail Embossing Powder, Versa Mark ink

Glossy Paper from Hallo's 

 

 

Please make sure you check out the rest of the team's fabulous artwork for this week, by following the links in my sidebar.

 

 

Until next week

 

Happy Scrappin

 

 

Jenn

 

Easel Card With a Twist

Hi All

I have not fallen off the face of the planet.  I have been just so busy I totally forgot to post last week.  Sorry.

This week over at Inspired Stamps we were asked to do a easel card with a scripture focus.  I took this as a challenge and decided to find a variation of the easel card that would WOW everyone, (sort of an atonement for forgetting to post last week.)  In my search I came across the Card Making Magic site that had several variations of easel cards.  I used this site as inspiration for my card this week. to create a triple easel card with a twist, Card Making Magic site directions can be found here.  I tweaked my design to use a 8-1/2 x 6 sheet of cardstock, folded to create a 3"x8-1/2" card. 

Here is my card with the easel's set up.  I used Inspired Stampers Favorites Collection #2, and More Perfect Sentiments.  The center easel is a 3x3 with the 2 outside twisted easel's being 2-3/4x3.

Here is the card folded down so it can fit into an envelope.

Materials Used: Inspired Stamper's Favorites Collection #2, More Perfect Sentiments
CTMH materials used: Magnifique B&T, White Daisy, Ocean cardstock, Ocean, Pacifica, Black ink, Art Philosophy cricut Cart, Rhinestones, Prisma Glitter
Silver cardstock from Pizzaz.

Now as an added bonus I will show you the projects I had for last week's designer's choice artwork.  These were completed in plenty of time, they just never made it from the camera to the Internet until today. 

First I have a companion page for the Army scrapbook page I created a couple of week's ago.

This page features the adorable HLO-Soldier with Flag.  The page shows my son and 3 of his classmates who had joined the Army before they graduated.  Their recruiter had got each of the boys an Army tassel to wear during graduation and I had orders from him that I was to get a picture of the 4 of them wearing the tassels after the graduation ceremony. 

Materials Used: HLO-Soldier with Flag
CTMH Used: Black Ink, White Daisy, black and Olive, Vanilla Cream, Chocolate, Bamboo, Desert Sand Cardstock, Chocolate & Dark Green Markers, Red & Blue Colored Pencils
Army Paper From Reminisce,
Doodletype cricut cartridge

The other story behind this page is that our high school was honoring all the students who had earned "scholarships", when the boys went up during practice to let the school officials know about their scholarships, they were told that the school would not recognize the military boys just those going on to College.  Needless to say the boys were disappointed.  Well 2 mom's complained to the school.  That night during the ceremony after they had recognized the college kids, (who got a decent applause for their achievement's), they announced the 5 boys who had committed to the Military.  I was proud when the called my son's name, but I lost it when the boys got a standing ovation not only from the crowd but from their classmates also.   

Here are the two pages together

Then my other project for last week was the table favors/balloon anchors for Jimmy's graduation party.

These boxes were stamped using the Military Stamp set, along with the star from New Blessed Little Christmas.  The boxes have a baby picture on one side and a Sr. Picture on the other.

Materials Used: Military & New Blessed Little Christmas Stamp Sets
CTMH Black Ink, Natural Hemp
Gold & Black Paper the Paper Company
Doodletype Cricut Cartridge

Now Please go check out the rest of the teams easel cards their links are in the left side bar.

Thanks for looking

Until next time
Happy Scrappin'

Jenn

2 Prom Layouts

As the Mom of four boys I don't often get to use glitter, flowers, bling  or pink in my scrapbooks.  Though all the boys have been informed that they will have at least 1 double page layout done in pink in their books. So when Jimmy decided he was going to go to Prom this year, I was in heaven. 

This year Jimmy kept telling us he wasn't going to go to Prom because it was a "waste of Money".  So imagine my surprise when he comes home and tells me a week before the Prom that he is going to the Career Center he attends Prom the next weekend, with his friend Kaleigh.  Of course as soon as I am told this I start picking out items to scrap the pictures with. 

When I saw Kaleigh's dress I, immediately knew I was using the Lucy paper pack for the pictures, along with the CTMH Sparkle Flourishes. (not to mention that this would be his one pink page in his scrapbook). I used (retired) Bubblegum cardstock and Ink instead of Cotton Candy because it was closer to the color of Kaleigh's dress. All Materials used where CTMH with the exception of the silver cardstock. The title was created using Jasmine Cricut Font Cartridge with CTMH Black Cardstock and Silver cardstock from Pizzaz.

The Left Side

The Right Side

Close up of the Flowers and Flourishes, I want to thank the CTMH consultant that demonstrated these flowers on the CTMH Bulletin Boards, but I forgot her name. The flowers were created using the Flower #8 from the Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge, I cut these at  1-1/2" and 1" and inked the edges and assembled.

Materials Used: All CTMH unless otherwise noted: Lucy Paperpack, Sparkle Flourishes, Bubblegum, White Daisy and Black Cardstock, Bubblegum ink, Silver Cardstock from Pizzaz

One Prom was good, but on the Saturday of the Career Center Prom Jimmy informs me that he is going to another Prom with another girl, Holly, the next weekend!!!  What we don't even have a Tux and I'm sure they won't appreciate us ordering a tux this late!  Luckily we were able to find him a tux on the next Tuesday, with a vest and tie that matched Holly's dress.  This page was a little more of a challenge as Holly's dress was very uniquely colored and beautiful.  The dress was a different color blue in just about every picture I took, so I had a real hard time trying to figure out what paper to use.

This is what I came up with:

 Once again I used the handmade flowers as embellishments, these are inked in Pacifica and Ocean (retired) to match the dress.  This time I had found the turquoise rhinestone flourishes at Jo-Ann's and they matched Holly's dress perfectly (they were actually the only item I didn't have a hard time picking out).  I gave up trying to find paper to match her dress, so instead I decided to find something with similar shades and go with it. The B&T paper is Magnifique, paired with the (retired) Ocean Cardstock.  You can't tell from the picture but the colors of the tickets matched my paper exactly and tied in great with her dress.  The right side has their Professional picture and one of my favorite pictures I took of them together.  This side is based on the Wings WOTG layout left side.

 I had a hard time deciding how to layout the right side and finally decided on this pinwheel design. 

Here is a close up of the letters, I cut them out using the Doodletype cricut cartridge using the silver cardstock from Pizzaz, and Ocean Cartsock. Once I had the letters put on their shadow, I ran them through my Xyron with the front side against the glue, and then sprinkled them with Prisma Glitter to give it that sparkle, and make the letters jump off the page.

Materials Used: all CTMH unless otherwise noted
Magnifique B&T, Ocean, White Daisy Cardstock, Ocean, & Pacifica Ink, Prisma Glitter, Silver Cardstock from Pizzaz, Turquoise Flourishes and rhinestones from K & Co at JoAnn's, Art Philosophy and Doodletype cricut cartridges.

Hope you enjoyed the two Prom layouts, come back tomorrow to see a card inspired by the Jimmy & Holly layout using Inspired Stamps.

Thanks

Jenn

Anything But a Card

This week at Inspired Stamps we were challenged to create Anything But a Card using Inspired Stamps.  So since I have been frantically working on my son Jimmy's Sr. Scrapbook, I decided to create a scrapbook page.    This One page layout showcases the picture his recruiter took at Jimmy's swearing in.  I used my favorite scripture stamp His Plans For You and Military to create this layout.

Here is a close up of the Journal side of the layout, so you can see where I used my Inspired Stamps.. 

Materials Used:
Inspired Stamps: His Plans For You & Military
CTMH Used: Black Ink, Black Chalk Distressing Ink, White Daisy, black and Honey Cardstock
Army Paper From Reminisce
Army Foil Sticker K&Co.

Please make sure you check out the wonderful projects that the rest of the Team has created this week by following the links in the left side of my blog.


Until Next Week
Happy Scrappin'
Jenn

Happy 18th Birthday Jimmy!!!!!

18 years ago today, my Jimmy Dean came into this world. 

 This little 8lb 6 oz bundle of joy has grown into a 6'1" young man who takes the world head on.  As his graduation nears he is more anxious to get out in the world.  Me I just want to keep my Baby around for awhile longer.  

He has already joined the Army and is leaving on August 28th, so I plan on spending as much time with him this summer as possible.  He sure has grown up fast, and I want him to know that I am very proud of the young man he has become and all he has accomplished.

Happy 18th Birthday Jimmy Dean, I love you!!!!!!

Mom Time!!!!!

Whew, what a month.  When Springtime arrives around here it seems like the boys have way to much energy and are constantly getting into trouble.  Which explains why I spent alot of time at the hospital and Dr's office this last month (5 visits in a one week period)..  We only have one badly sprained pinky finger, one broken thumb, (on the same kid, 2 different ER trips and hands), and one hip injury.  After a month like that I have been quite happy to escape to my craft room for some MOM TIME and Sanity Check. 


With Jimmy's graduation fast approching I have been concentrating on getting his scrapbook done, I am slowly reducing the piles of pictures I have that need scrapped.  Right now I am concenrtrating on his sports pictures, and I am kinda cheating I am taking Robbie's sports layouts that I did last year, you can see them here and creating the same layout for Jimmy sometimes mixing up the papers.  With this method I am whipping through them quite quickly.  I am also working on just putting the pictures on the pages and will do the titles, journaling and embellishments later.  If they don't get done before his party on June 16, I can still display the pages with the pictures on them.  Since these layouts aren't quite finished I figured I could show you some of the layouts I have managed to get done this winter.  Along with several of the layouts I created for the Warren Township Community Center Scrapbooking classes.  Just about all these layouts have come from our How To Books, but I can't remember which ones and I don't have my books with me right now to tell you which layout designs I used.

These first 3 are using my favorite paper pack Victory, I have bought to packs so far and will definately be buying more. With 4 redneck boys I definately need all the outdoorsy paper I can get, and the camo sheets are being hoarded.  Not to mention that my oldest son is the one in the layout on the back of the Victory My Stickease, and on the Victory Layout on Jeanette's blog here.


This first is the Warren Township Community Center (WTCC)  Scrapbook layout for the month of April.


Materials Used: Victory Bulk Paper Pack, Colonial White, Desert Sand, Bamboo, Olive, Barn Red, Chocolate and Outdoor Denim Cardstock, Desert Sand, Chocolate, Outdoor Denim, New England Ivy, Barn Red Inks, Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge. A Journey and the Stamp Set that comes with the Victory WOTG.


When I first saw this layout in the catalog I immediately had these pictures in Mind.  Yes My son's name is James Dean after his two Gandfathers My Dad Dean and his bio Paternal Gpa James.  These pictures just totally show his casual ornery side.  I did change it up a little and used the A Hope Stamp Set cause the wings matched his shirt. 



Materials Used: Victory WOTG,  Varsity Alphabet, A Hope (had to use the wings since they looked so much like the ones on his shirt) Grey Wool, Outdoor Denim and Barn Red inks, Durables and the April SOTM You Are...

This was the WTCC layout for March.  I ended up doing 2 layouts with the same paper pack cause I ran out of Pemberely and didn't have enough time to order it for the April Class.

Materials Used: Victory Bulk, Colonial White, Barn Red and Olive Cardstock, Olive & Barn Red Inks, Rustic Alphabet. and Pure Adventure Stamp Sets.  Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge

This is May's WTCC class layout, using the Pemberely Paper pack. Having all boys I am constantly trying to figure out how to make the girly papers work for boys, this is what I came up with for Pemberely.



Materials Used: Pemberely Bulk, Colonial White, Outdoor Demin, Desert Sand, Honey and Indian Corn Blue cardstock. Indian Corn Blue and Outdoor Denim Ink.  Stamp Sets: Trinity Alphabet, Take A Picture, and Love Life
Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge



This was the WTCC February Layout, using Roxie.  Once again I took a girly paper and made it into a masculine layout.

Materials Used: Roxie Bulk, Desert Sand, Colonial White and Black Cardstock, Tulip and Black ink. Stamp Sets: Love Life, Giggle Upper and Lower Case Alphabets.

This was the WTCC Class layout for the month of October. 

Materials Used:  Typeset Bulk, Desert Sand, Creme Brulee, Juniper , Cocoa and Colonial White Cardtsock.  Love Life Stampset, Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge, Milepost Shapes Bulk, 4x6 Flip Flaps

I have fallen in love with the flip flaps, they are wonderful when you have too many pictures to use on one page, but not enough or you don't want a second page. This allows you to add the extra pictures, and sometimes hide your journaling (which is my plan for the lower blank spot, eventually)

Above Layout with Flaps Open

This next layout is one I created for my family scrapbook but will be in Jimmy's at his party.  Gee it seems like yesterday they were this little.  Now they are a Freshman in College and engaged, a Senior in High School Leaving for the Army in August, a Freshman in High School and a 7th grader, they grow up way to fast. 

Materials Used: Typeset Bulk, Notebook Level 1, Cocoa, Creme brulee, Sunflower, black, white daisy, colonial white, juniper, tulip, chocolate and grey flannel cardstock. Juniper Ink,  Red Glitz Glitter Gel, Stardust Stickles, Black, Red & Blue Markers White Gel Pen and Cricut Cartridge Locker Talk

Here is another layout incorporating flip flaps.  This layout was the Jan WTCC class layout, using Wonderland paper pack

Materials used: Wonderland paper pack, White Daisy and Crystal Blue Cardstock, Trinity Alphabet, Crystal Blue ink, Prisma Glitter, and the AP cricut cartridge.

The Flap Opened

My Final Layout was the December WTCC layout, and it used Mischief paper pack in a non-halloween way.  I created this layout just after Jimmy's dog Cori Jo had died, she was his Best Friend for 10 years.

Materials Used: Mischief Paper Pack, Cranberry, White Daisy, and Black Cardstock, Mad About You Stamp Set, Black and Cranberry Inks, AP Cricut Cartridge.

Hope you enjoyed seeing my Masculine Layouts.   Sorry for the glare on some of the pictures I was taking the pictures late at night and couldn't find away to shoot them without getting the glare of the lights.

Thanks for looking,

Feel free to leave some love.

Until Next time Happy Scrappin

Jenn

Recent Layouts for Jimmy's Sr Scrapbook

It has been awhile since I have posted any artwork other than my Inspired Stamps Design Team work.  So I thought I would post several of the layouts I got done for Jimmy's Sr. scrapbook at our November Crop.  He graduates in 6 very short months and I am so far behind on his layouts I doubt I will get them all done in time. I only have 17 years of his life to get done in a very short period of time. Here is the start of his album.

PS - You will notice I am not a chronological scrapbooker.  Instead I scrap whatever pictures I am in the mood for, so you will see Jimmy at various stages in life.

This was the Warren Township Community Center
Scrapbooking class layout for November

This first layout is from last Christmas, we were making cookies when Robbie and Jimmy took over and kicked me out of the kitchen.  So being the great mom I am I grabbed my camera and took pictures of them making the cookies.  The blank red area above the big tree is where I plan on eventually putting my journaling.  (I hate journaling so it is usually the last thing I do on a layout)

Left Side - Roughly based on Title Topper-Heading from the Reflections How to Program
the circles and Christmas Trees were cut using the
CTMH exclusive Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge



Right Side - My own design
Materials used: all CTMH unless otherwise noted
Believe Paper Pack, White Daisy, Sweet Leaf, Holiday Red cardstock
Holiday Red & Sweet Leaf Inks
Token Alpha & Holiday Wishes Stamp Sets
CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge

This layout is of Jimmy in 2009, showing his 4-H market hog in showmanship.  He placed first in his showmanship class, giving him the honor of being the Top Showman for his age group.  The layout design is Role Play from the Imagine How To Program.



Left Side



Right Side
Materials used all CTMH unless otherwise specified

Colonial White, White Daisy, Desert Sand, Cocoa & Bamboo Cardstock
Desert Sand & Pacifica Ink
CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge

This layout is one of my favorites because it is totally Jimmy. We were out taking his Sr. Pictures, he had climbed a tree so I could get several pictures of him in the tree. He is taking Natural Resources at the local Career Center and part of his class work deals with trees. Not to mention he has always been a climber and a clown. After our photo shoot, Jimmy was goofing off and decided to stage a "I'm falling" look to scare his mom. He didn't scare me but I did manage to capture the whole scene on film and thought a story layout was perfect.  This layout isn't quite finished as I plan on adding one of the Art Philosophy Trees to the Below page and of course I plan on eventually adding some journaling. 

Left Side - Very loosely based on
Front & Center-Basic from the Reflections How To Program

Right Side - Very loosely based on
Front & Center-Basic from the Reflections How To Program

Materials used all CTMH
Colonial White, and Desert Sand Cardstock
Back Country B&T
Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge

This layout should probably have been the first one I posted, as it is his first pictures.  I chose not to include his official hospital photo as he looks stoned in it.  This is the only layout I have completely finished as I have even done the journaling.   You can't tell it from the photo but the stars are totally coated in Glitter Glue, and the Marque with his name has glitter glue dots completely around the outside.  Of course this one also has items cut with the Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge.  The Stars, Ticket, and Marque are all from the AP cartridge, the alphabet is from the Doodletype cartridge.  This layout is from the CTMH how to programs

Left side - Front & Center - Accent Band From Reflections
all these pictures are the originals, as Jimmy's hospital pictures
were the only ones not in the house when it burnt down
so I didn't have to scan them in.

Right Side - Based on Sidebar-Main Frame from the Reflections
Materials Used all CTMH unless otherwise stated
Caboodle B&T, White Daisy, Heavenly Blue, Crystal Blue, Key Lime,
Buttercup and Sunkiss Yellow cardstock
( the 2 yellows are because I accidently grabbed the wrong one for a couple of the mats.)
Glitz Glitter Gel Stardust
Art Philosophy & Doodletype Cricut Cartridges

This layout was a hard one to come up with as the underwater pictures are very blue, and I had a hard time finding paper to go with it.  I had to call in my upline for her opinion as I couldn't find anything I liked.  We ended up going with the "You Rock" papers as the Orange & green added to the playfulness of the layout.  I also used the Ducks from the "Makin Waves" Stamp Set.  It might have been the hardest layout to come up with but it was the funnest to complete.  I have fallen in love with the fun little ducks and have added this stamp set to my ever growing wish list.  This layout also happened to be my only one of the day that didn't have any cuts from the Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge.

 Layout Design: Title Topper - Photos from Reflections How to Program

Materials Used: all CTMH unless otherwise stated

You Rock B&T's, White Daisy Cardstock

Giggle Lowercase & Uppercase alphas, and  Makin Waves Stamp Sets

Sky, Pacifica and Black inks

Colored pencils 

I have entered this page in  the Art Philosophy Linky Party, to show how you can use this cartridge to spice up your scrapbook layouts.  Since I have gotten this cartridge it has not been removed from my Cricut.  It is my goto cartridge for everything, and I totally love everything about it.  Please feel free to explore the rest of my blog as just about every post from October on has something that was created using the Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge.





Feel free to explore the rest of the blogs in this linky blog hop.

September and our Vacation (long Post with lots of pictures)

Boy did September Fly By.  If you have ever been around our household you will know that September is a very chaotic month for us.  It starts out with the start of school, football games, and the winding down of summer, then it runs into what the boys & I call the best seven days of September, the Tuscarawas County Fair.  The boys and I are very active with our Local 4-H and so the first 2 weeks of September are spent getting ready for the Fair, and the last week is spent recovering from it.  The boys once again raised Market Hogs to show and sell at in the Jr. fair livestock competitions, and this year for the first time Robbie & Tony took Market Goats.  I had the 4-H booth to design, and  create, a vendor booth for Close To My Heart (with 2 other consultants) so I needed  items ready to sell, and on top of it all I decided to enter several items into the Fine Arts competition for stamping and photography  (what was I thinking :-)  Of course I had to get all this done around work and chasing kids. 

Dillon is #75

Tony #82

Tony & Dillon are both playing football which means at least 3 games a week, and practice every other day.  Of course with Tony being in a Freshman and Dillon only in 7th grade they both play on 2 different teams so of course their games are at different times and I have to coordinate schedules. 





Jimmy is working at Wendy's and has his own car so I don't have to worry about getting him from A to B anymore, and I am loving the fact that I can use him for pick up and delivery of his brothers when he isn't working. 

Because the boys have animals at the fair and I had the CTMH booth, we all took the week off work/school and had a camper set up at the fair, and we enjoyed a weeks vacation of action packed events.  It wall started off with decorating the hog barns Friday night (I skipped the varsity football game, to do this), then on Saturday we had Hog Weigh-In's, the camper was set up, my Fine Arts Entries were turned in and I started decorating the 4-H booth.  This year we lucked out and all 4 hogs were in the prime weigh classes, with Dillon's hog Two-Face weighing 260 lbs, Tony's hog Baby weighing 268 lbs, Jimmy's hog Ida Kno weighing 270 lbs, and finally Robbie's hog Lola weighing 275 lbs.  Surprisingly with all 4 hogs weights being so close none of the boys were in the same weight class. 




Dillon at weigh-ins with his an Jimmy's hogs.




Sunday started bright and early with the boys getting their pictures with their hogs for the buyers signs, then Robbie and Tony went and got the goats, Jimmy and Dillon moved into the camper, while I worked on getting the 4-H booth finished set up.  The goats both made weight with Robbie's Bubba weighing in at 80lbs and Tony's Leroy weighing 85lbs.  Then finally at 6pm after the 4-H booth was done Karen, Betty and I set up our Close To My Heart booth, and we were all ready for the week to begin. 



this years 4-H booth



Monday was the Opening day of the fair and the boys school actually didn't have classes this day so they hung out with their friends while I ran the CTMH booth. 

On Tuesday it was Show day for the Hogs and I took the day off from watching the CTMH booth. The boys & their hogs did fairly well this year Robbie, Jimmy, and Tony all got 5th place in their weight classes and Dillon got 9th, not bad and we all got done in time for Tony to make football practice and Dillon to make his football game.







Robbie & Lola,
Lola got 5th place in her weight class




Jimmy & Ida Kno
Ida got 5th place in her weight class




Tony & Baby
Baby got 5th place in her weight class



Dillon & Two-Face
Two-Face got 9th in her weight class


Then on Wednesday (It wasn't a good day) I watched the CTMH booth in the morning, then the boys had How showmanship at 4pm.  While I was on my way to the hog arena my Aunt and Granny stopped me, wanting to find my Dad cause my Mom had fallen and was being taken to the hospital by ambulance.  (Panic time) Luckily it didn't take long for us to find him, and while my Aunt, Granny, Dad, and Brother's family went to the hospital to be with Mom I got to watch the boys do showmanship.  It was not a good year for the boys in showmanship, Dillon did a good job showing but didn't make the final cut, Tony was complemented by the judge and you could tell he really wanted Tony in the final cut but Baby had other ideas and would not cooperate.  Jimmy did make the final cut and ended up with 5th place, Robbie automatically got first place as he was the only 18 year old showing.  Wednesday night finished with us in the ER again as Jhett, a good friend of Jimmy's,  was hurt on a ride and taken by ambulance to the hospital, so it made for a long night.

Thursday came and made up for the events of Wednesday.  Our day started bright and early as we had made arrangements the night before to help get Jhett's goat ready for the show, as we weren't sure he would be out of the ER in time to show.  (He made it with 10 minutes to spare).  This was our first year of taking goats so we were a little unsure what the judge would be looking for, though Dani did a wonderful job teaching Robbie how to show a goat cause Robbie got 2nd place in the 1st year showmanship class.  Once we got to the individual weight classes where they judged the goat and not the 4-H we hit jackpot.  Robbie got first place in his weight class!!!  Then Tony got last in his weight class, bummer but he has a couple of years left to show, for Robbie it was his last harrah. 


Robbie and Bubba getting first place in Weight Class 2




Tony walking Leroy in Weight Class 3


the best part of Thursday was when they brought in all the first and second place goats from the 4 weight classes and the judge picked out Bubba as the 2011 Tuscarawas County Fair Grand Champion Market Goat.  I don't know who had the bigger smile, Robbie or Dani. 





Robbie and Dani with the Grand Champion banner
and Bubba in front of the Ag-Land booth
where Dani works and the buyers of Bubba


After the goat show on Thursday, the rest of the week went pretty quickly.  the boys sold their hogs Thursday night and got the best overall price per pound we have gotten since they started taking hogs.  Jimmy got $3.25 a pound, Robbie & Tony got $2.75 a pound and Dillon got $2.50 a pound, we were very please with the results.  Friday was pretty much a wind down day as Tony & Dillon had the varsity football game that night, and the rest of us just hung out at the fair.  Saturday the boys sold the goats with Robbie getting $750 for Bubba and Tony getting $225 for Leroy.   Sunday came and we were in clean up mode, we cleaned out the camper, the animal pens,  tore down our booths, and said goodbye to all our fair friends for another year.  In all the 2011 Tuscarwas County Fair was a good one, and we were all sad/happy to see it come to an end.




This is the make shift sign that this display
made after my Mom fell when she missed the
step.  I of course had to snap a picture of
it for her scrapbook.