I am getting closer to being done with all the pictures from my daughter’s birthday. Had I put only 1-2 pictures on a page, I could have made an entire album just from this one event! But considering the number of albums I already have and the many more still to come as our daughter grows up, well, I will keep to my multi-photo layouts when it makes sense to do so.

Here is the layout I made. Simple, but it does the job of showing the important stuff – the photos of the people who shared the event with us. Once again, I am sure some of you creative scrappers can figure out a way to embellish it up. Send me your layouts, cause I need some ideas! LOL.

Click on the template preview to be taken my no-wait download page.

On June 13th, my friend Juan and his wife, Jennifer, were traveling through my old hometown. Since they live in Florida, we don’t get to see them as often as we’d like, so it was a great excuse for some of our friends from high school who are still in the area to get together and have a BBQ. I drove up from Denver to meet up with everyone, and I am glad I did. It was great to catch up. I hadn’t seen Amy or Heather since high school. I won’t say how long ago that was…

L-R: Amy, Heather, Molly, Juan, Jennifer, and Amber

Wow, I am overwhelmed by the amazing and supportive comments you have all left me on my last post. Thank you so much for the outpouring of love and encouragement and for sharing with me. Not only are your comments all very appreciated and read over and over, but you bring a smile to my face AND inspire me to want to make more freebies for you all. Thank you all so very much. I love being a part of the digi-scrapping community. You all are so wonderful!

So after several late nights of experimenting with brushes and skimming the net for tutorials, I have finally finished my fourth kit. Once again, my creativity leaves me when it comes to thinking up a name for it, so…say hello to No Reimer Reason’s Kit #4. LOL. It was inspired by a picture of my daughter and her brown teddy bear, cuddled up under a blue blanket, hence the blues and browns, but since it didn’t actually include any teddies I didn’t feel right incorporating those into the title.

This kit is rather large, so I wasn’t able to include all of the embellishments in the preview. It includes:

• 6 patterned papers
• 4 solid papers
• 2 bows
• 2 brads
• 2 buttons
• 1 corner doodle
• 1 frame
• 2 flowers
• 2 hearts
• 1 hinge with screws
• 1 paperclip
• 2 straight grosgrain ribbons
• 2 folded grosgrain ribbons
• 2 folded/stapled grosgrain ribbons
• 3 stars

Yesterday, June 22nd, was the due date for our 2nd child. A flood of emotions has overwhelmed me as I try to imagine what our life would be like right now if I wouldn’t have had a miscarriage, while at the same time I am trying not to think too much about it.

In spite of the sadness that is still there, I am doing okay right now. But I am hugging Adrianna a little closer, a little longer, and a little tighter these days. I am so thankful for the wonderful child I do have and for my supportive husband.

Anyways, after my miscarriage in November I made a scrapbook page using one of our ultrasound pictures. Though it took me two days and I cried the entire time, it was a healing moment for me. I made a WordArt of Isaiah 49:1 for the page that I would like to share. I think this verse is encouraging for both expectant mothers in good, healthy situations or for those grieving the loss of a child.

My Scrapbook Page:

Credits: Paper & Elements from Shabby Princess‘ Urban Kiwi Kit

Click on the Word Art preview to be taken my no-wait download page.

Thank you for letting me share with you.

Adrianna came into the bathroom where I was putting on makeup. She looked into the bathtub and asked, “Mommy, did you take a bath?”

“No,” I said, “But I took a shower.”

Peering back into the bathtub and grabbing a washcloth, she scolded, “I need to clean it now, ’cause you made a mess!”

After getting a good laugh over this, I told her, “Adrianna, you are a funny girl.”

She replied innocently, “Yes, I am. I really am.”

I participated in a template challenge today at ScrapOrchard.com. I don’t often participate in challenges, but I had some extra time while my daughter napped and I liked the template, so it worked out.

The template was only for one photo, and you know me! I rarely have just ONE photo. So I flipped the template 90 degrees and adapted it for two. Other than that, I followed the rules of the challenge, which were that you have to use 1 solid paper, 3 kinds of patterned papers and a three word title.

Credits: Template by Sine; Kit 3 by No Reimer Reason

Karen and Cindy – we need to plan another girls’ day!!

I noticed that this will be my 901st post. Wow! Yeah, me!! And that doesn’t even include the posts Greg and I made prior to July 2004 when I started this WordPress blog. We started blogging back in April 2000, back before I had even heard the term ‘blog’. Does that make us blogging pioneers? Hmmm…Still pretty cool.

To commemorate, here is our very first post, written by Greg on April 4, 2000.

Amber is thinking of taking business classes for the summer. Greg is going to paint for the summer and then look for a new job in the fall. Bye-bye painting job! Maybe we will move to Denver. Who knows? Amber is also thinking of getting a different job soon.

A rabbit was rustling around in our window well the other day so I set Petey near the window and he became alert. The rabbit got spooked and ran so Petey took off in pursuit but forgot about the window between them. BONK!!!

~Greg

Template 15 is another basic, simple template with room for many photos (up to SEVEN!). I am sure you can think of some creative ways to embellish it up.

Click on the template preview to be taken my no-wait download page.

Here is the layout I used to create the template. Still trying to scrap all those birthday photos! *sigh* But good news for you is that I have some more multi-photo templates on the way.

We have a large chip on our windshield that has 3 small cracks on either side of it, so that it looks like an insect in shape. Adrianna often points to it from her car seat and tells me there is a bug on our window.

Yesterday, we once again had a conversation about the “bug”. When I told her it was just a chip on our windshield, she asked, “Can we eat it?”

Hey, I have some more wonderful layouts by other scrappers to share with you.

The first one was created by Jonni using Template 5. I love how she wrapped a ribbon around the bottom of the layout block. Her journaling is written to her daughter, which I think gives it a personal touch.

Additional Credits: Paper by Babs from the May 2008 NSD Collab Kit, Butterflies by Jersey from the May 2008 NSD Collab Kit

The next layout was sent to me by Deb (aka Cra-Z-cat). She did an amazing job with Template 9. The background paper with the swirlies looks great and I really like how she made her title curve around the layout. Wonderful!

Additional Credits: Nora Nora kit by Sugar Shack Scraps (Ruthie Singer)

Last, but certainly not least, I have another layout from my little sis, Karen, with whom I had the joy of scrapping with this past weekend. She used Template 10 on this one. I am so proud of all she is learning and so quickly. I knew she would be a natural.

Time for another freebie! Once again, this can accommodate many photos. This particular template type can be pretty flexible and some of the photo layers could also be swapped for papers or embellishments of your choice.

Click on the template preview to be taken my no-wait download page.

Thanks again to everyone who leaves me such great and encouraging comments. You guys make my day.

Adrianna is playing with two castles and various little people characters. One of the men has been deemed a “bad guy.” When I asked her why he was the bad guy, she told me, “Because he’s got a bad guy hat.”

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When I switched web providers back in March, we had to recreate my WordPress database and then upload all my posts into the new database. Everything uploaded smoothly except for the categories from my previous instance of WordPress; they had disappeared. It wasn’t a huge deal, so I didn’t stress too much over it and just started creating and assigning new categories to the posts I made going forward.

Last night, I upgraded my version of WordPress to the most recent version since it had some security fixes that I felt were important. And lo and behold, when I went to check out my site and make sure everything was back up and running, my OLD categories from my previous WordPress were reinstated. How does that happen? All the new categories I had created since March were gone, with the exception of a few that matched word-for-word a category from the old WordPress. *sigh*

Well, I guess if I ever want to recategorize old posts that are now uncategorized, at least I now only have about 3 months to do instead of 3.5 years.

As of yesterday, Corporate Express announced that it has accepted Staples’s $2.7B bid. The merger is supposed to be complete sometime in July, with most of the system integrations being completed within two years. It is still too early to know how this will affect my job. Since neither company is in trouble financially, it isn’t like some radical changes need to be made in a quick fashion, so that is positive. I have heard lots of good things about Staples and how they treat their employees, so that is encouraging as well. And as some others having been joking, at least when I am at a party and tell people where I work, I won’t get blank stares of nonrecognition since everyone has at least heard of Staples.

Strangely, I find myself excited for the change. I enjoy my job immensely (thus why I continue making this awful commute) so of course I am hopeful that it will be around for the long haul, but who knows what kind of opportunities could arise in the future. I guess we’ll see.