Parker's 8th Birthday

Parker celebrated his 8th birthday with his family and friends. He had an amazing birthday dinner with his Grandma and Grandpa Healey. We served chicken roll-ups (his favorite), scalloped potatoes, rolls and Sprite :) We finished the evening off with a nice slice of cake! The next day, Parker hosted a sledding party for some of his friends and cousins. The kids all had a blast sliding down the snowy hills near our house. They were all happy to come into the house and warm up with hot chocolate :) Parker was thrilled with his snowboarder birthday cake and loved opening all his gifts. He's one spoiled 8 year old!

Christmas 2008

Christmas 2008 was wonderful for the Wiscombe family. We enjoyed spending time together and getting spoiled by Santa :) At the end of what's been a challenging year for us, we are grateful for the many blessings in our lives. Above all, we are thankful for the love we share as a family...for our health....for our family and friends...and for the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives. We're hoping 2009 will bring continued blessings and happiness to us.

Micalyn's Fairies

Last night, Micalyn won an "Excellence" award at her school's Reflections Contest Award Ceremony. She had submitted a painting of a fairy which she titled "With Outstretched Wings" (the theme for Reflections this year was "WOW"). After receiving a request from a friend, I have posted the fairy paintings that Micalyn has made over the past year. One day, she just sat down and painted one and I was so surprised! She has never had an art class in her life. Once she saw how much I liked the first one, she made a few more. She loves painting them, mixing the colors, giving a sense of movement to them. These are all free-hand with no pencil sketching first. I know I sound like a typical "bragging mom" --- but in this case, I just can't help it. I hope these fairies bring a smile to the face of anyone who takes the time to look at them.

Halloween 2008

Halloween 2008 was a TREAT as always! Parker continued his true-blue devotion to the U.S. military by dressing as an official U.S. Army enlistee. Micalyn thought she'd give the military a try, too. Her "Major Flirt" costume is probably as close to the real military as she'll ever get.
In true Jocelyn form, she wanted to be a princess again this year. She proudly wore the tiara of the "Diamond Castle Princess".

Witches' Night Out 2008

My friend Almond and I participated in our yearly ritual of dressing up and attending Witches' Night Out at Gardner Village on Friday the 24th. When we arrived, we got witch make-overs complete with green make-up and colored gem warts. After we were thus witchy-ized, we enjoyed an ever-so-delicious dinner at Archilbald's restaurant. YUM-O!!

After gorging ourselves silly at dinner, we browsed through all the nifty shops and mingled with all of the other witches. We topped the night off by singing and dancing to the spooky Halloween tunes and sharing a delicious caramel apple. It was a fabulous night!

Cornbelly's

Our family had a fantastic Fall time when we visited Cornbelly's on Saturday. As evidenced by the photos on this blog post, the kids enjoyed a variety of harvest-time festivities! My favorite picture here is of "Princess Scarecrow Jocelyn". There was a booth called "Dress a Scarecrow Princess" and it had lots of princess dresses and crowns and, yes, even full wigs! Off to the side were some wooden scarecrows with burlap sack heads and faces painted on them. I believe the objective was to dress up THOSE scarecrows. Alas, in the passion of the moment, most of the little girls were dressing themselves up....not the scarecrows. It was quite a sight to see since the wigs were all full of straw which gave all the little girls a distinctively "farm-ish" look. Jocelyn was not satisfied to just dress up and have her picture taken, though. After her photo shoot with mom, she entered the nearby playhouse castle and climbed to the top turret. Once there, she stuck her head out the window and waved as proudly as any Rapunzel-esque scarecrow princess I've ever seen. She knew she was beautiful! --- straw and all :)
Not pictured here are the panicked and frantic looks on our faces when Jocelyn got lost in the throngs of Cornbelly revelers! So scary! We took our eyes off of her for a second and "Poof!" she was gone. We were running to and fro shouting her name and becoming more and more alarmed and frightened as each minute ticked by. Then, like a voice from heaven, someone announced over the loudspeaker that a lost little girl named Jocelyn was at the information booth. We all breathed a sigh of relief and ran as fast as we could to where she was. Thank heavens for the alert mother who noticed a small girl crying and alone. She reassurred her and took her to the information booth. I could have KISSED that woman!
Also not pictured here are the pig races, the Halloween Egg Hunt in the kiddie corn maze, the Horrible Haunted Beast (Parker and Jocelyn were screaming and crying like it was flu-shot day), the Cornbelly's slides and the amazing JUMPING PILLOW!!
It really got us all in the Fall/Harvest/Halloween spirit.

A List of Eights

Tagged

I was tagged by Camille. A list of eights.

8 TV Shows I Love to Watch (if I have time)
1. The Office --- oh, the funniness!
2. Criminal Minds (don't act surprised....you should all know by now that I LOVE the creepy, scary, catch-the-psycho shows)
3. Ghost Hunters....I even have a TAPS t-shirt (The Atlantic Paranormal Society)
4.The Amazing Race
5. Survivor
6. Supernatural (uh-huh...it's a creepy one --- but super funny, too!)
7. Cold Case (catching the bad guys again --- but from OLD cases gone cold...Nice!)
8. Ramsay's Kitchen nightmares...I'm addicted!

8 Things that Happened Yesterday
1. I tried to sleep in since it was the first day of Fall Break, but my throbbing finger had me awake popping Tylenol at 6:43 a.m. Grrrrrrr..... As for an explanation of the "throbbing finger" --- I chopped a chunk off of my finger while cutting green onions for Gyoza on family Japanese food night. Owie.
2. I watched an episode of Cold Case before the family woke up.
3. Lazied around the house for a while...checked people's blogs and facebook.
4. Showered and got dressed at about 2:00. Nice. It took me about an hour, too, because of my crippled index finger :( Got re-bandaged.
5. Fell asleep and took a nice (tylenol-induced) nap --- no more throbbing.
6. Took the kids bowling. Score breakdown = Kevin-1st place, JOCELYN-2nd place, Me-3rd place (yes...I was beat by my 5-year old), Micalyn-4th place, Parker-5th place. I think next time I'll use the bumpers and ball ramp.
7. Ate at "Spanky's Diner" for the first time. Food was good, but service was slow and the prices were high. Don't think we'll be going back there.
8. Came home and watched "Ghost Hunters" as a family --- yes, I am turning my kids into creepiness-lovers, too :)

8 Favorite Places to Eat
1. Magleby's Grill and Oyster Bar. I am HOOKED on their wonderful halibut and yummy cranberry rice pilaf!
2. Outback (when we can afford it)
3. Olive Garden
4. Bajio
5. JCW's
6.sundance Foundry Grill (special occasions). Their chicken pot pie is AMAZING!!
7. Sensuous Sandwich --- no better sandwiches anywhere!! I always get the "Almond Special" named after my very own bff, Almond ;)
8. The Training Table.....MMMmmmmm....the hickory dipping sauce is so good, especially when you have a sore throat...it totally burns away the pain.

8 Things I Look Forward To
1. The end of this economic downswing in the country. Enough already.
2. My birthday. I know that sounds selfish, but I really like my birthday :) Especially when there is cake involved.
3. Christmas...I love the WHOLE season!
4. Weekends and vacations.
5. The next time I get to have some Dr.Pepper --- I am such an addict :( Is there such a thing as "DPA" --- Dr. Pepper Anonymous???!!
7. Hot bubble baths
8. New episodes of my favorite TV shows.

8 Things on my Wish List
1. An INSTANT way to lose 20 pounds. I know it doesn't exist, but it doesn't hurt to wish now does it?
2. For my kids and husband to stay healthy and happy...forever.
3. Financial freedom including the opportunity to easily help those in need (I copied this one from Camille)
4. World Peace and I'm not kidding --- not the "answer to a beauty queen question" kind, but the REAL kind of peace....stop the wars and the killing and the fighting.
5. A maid to clean my house (I stole that one from Camille, too. She has such good wishes).
6. Calorie-free, GOOD-TASTING Dr. Pepper...for reals...'cuz Diet Dr. Pepper doesn't cut it.
7. Upper-body strength so I could be a better climber...I'm so whimpy :(
8. To have all of our "pending" property matters end Happily :) (Heber...Mazatlan...Alpine...Elk Ridge)

8 people I tag
1. Teryn
2. Rebecca
3. Lindsay
4. Carola
5. Jill
6. Mignonne
7. Jani
8. Whoever wants to do it :)

I HAVE THE COOLEST PARENTS EVER!!

Check out my mom and dad gettin' down with their BAD GANGSTA SELVES! My mom was even sportin' a sweet little pout while she dropped a sign --- in front of the Salt Lake temple nontheless! Nobody can tell me my parents aren't with the times :)

How I Made This Page --- a step-by-step tutorial on digital scrapbooking

Some of you have expressed interest in learning how to do digital scrapbooking. Below I have compiled a "Step-By-Step" process for making a simple spread. I hope I explained myself in a way that will be understandable. Some of the terms I use are unique to "Microsoft Digital Image Pro" which is the software I use for my digital scrapbooking. I'm sure that similar terms are also available in other photo editing software (i.e. PhotoShop).

Step 1: I opened up Microsoft Digital Image Pro and clicked to open a new canvas. Using the "resize canvas" option in the "Format" dropdown menu, I resized the canvas to 12"x12".

Step 2: I browsed through my downloaded Digital Scrapbook pages and kits and found one with the right colors that I wanted for this spread. This one happens to be the "Spring Fling" kit from Digital Design Essentials.

Step 3: I chose three different papers to make the body of my page (a pink, a green, and a multi-colored stripe).

Step 4: Using the "Insert" dropdown menu in Digital Image Pro, I choose "Picture" and "From My Computer", then I navigated to my "Spring Fling" kit and double clicked on the Pink paper to add it. It covered my entire canvas. It became the bottom layer of my stack.

Step 5: I followed the steps in Step 4 and double clicked on the Multi-Colored Striped paper to add it. It covered up my entire canvas (covering the bottom pink paper), so I had to click and move it so that it was taking up the middle-to-bottom-right quadrant of the paper. The multi-colored striped paper then became the second layer in my stack. Next I used the "Format" drop-down menu in Digital Image Pro, I choose "Crop" and "Selected Image". This allowed me to crop the multi-colored striped paper so that it would not be going outside the boundary of my canvas. This is an extra step that I do because it makes it easier to see what my canvas really looks like. In reality, if I left it uncropped, it would be fine because when I printed it out, only the images within the boundary of my canvas will be printed.

Step 6: Next I repeated all of step 5, but this time choosing the Green paper and moving it to take up the skinny space in the middle-to- bottom left section of the paper. The green paper then became the third layer in my stack. I followed the "cropping selected image" instrcutions from Step 5 so that the green paper wasn't going outside the boundary of my canvas.

Step 7: Now I was ready to add my pictures. Using the "Insert" dropdown menu in Digital Image Pro, I choose "Picture" and "From My Computer", then I navigated to "My Pictures" and double clicked on the picture of my kids and the lemonade stand to add it. It covered my entire canvas, so I resized it just by clicking and dragging the corners of the picture until it was the right size. It became the fourth layer of my stack. I positioned it over the multi-colored-striped paper.

Step 8: To add the soft edges to the photo (which is sometimes what I do when I don't want to add a frame), I used the "Effects" drop-down menu in Digital Image Pro and chose "Edges" and "Soft". I adjusted the edge softness to "10" which seemed perfect.

Step 9: Next, I Used the "Insert" dropdown menu in Digital Image Pro and chose "Picture" and "From My Computer". Then I navigated to my "Spring Fling" kit and opened the "Alpha" folder to add the lettering. Here's a nifty hint: To add multiple papers or letters or embellishments to your canvas at ONE TIME, you single-click on the first one you want to add and then hold down the "CTRL" button while you single-click on the other papers or letters or embellishments. It should highlight all of the things you will be adding. Then you click "OK" and it will add all of them at once -- a real time saver! I added all the letters I needed to spell out "LEMONADE STAND". After resizing them to fit, I placed them on top of the pink paper at the top. The letters then became the next stacks on my canvas.

Step 10: Next, I used the "Insert" dropdown menu in Digital Image Pro and chose "Picture" and "From My Computer". Then I navigated to my "Spring Fling" kit and double clicked on the Blue Ric-Rac to add it. I copied and pasted a second stip of Blue Ric-Rac so that I could position the two to cover the transition spots between the three differing colors of paper.

Step 11: Lastly, I used the "Text" drop-down menu in Digital Image Pro and chose "Insert Text" to insert a text box. I resized the text box using the arrows in the corner to make it long and skinny to fit in the space where the Green paper was. Then I found a font that I liked and centered my journaling for the page.

THEN I WAS DONE!!! Woo-Hoo!!

Another tip is to save your project several times while you're working on it. There's nothing worse than spending 30 or 40 minutes on a page only to have a computer glitch or hiccup and lose everything you've worked on. GRRRRRRR!!! While I'm working on the pages, I save them in "Picture It! PNG" format. This allows all of the images in my stack to remain independent so I can manipulate and work with them. When I know I am 100% finished with the page, I go ahead and save it as a "JPEG" since this is the format the Costco and most photo printing places need in order to print your pages.

So, that's how I made my lemonade stand page :) I hope it made sense to you. You can print off my instructions and have them ready for reference the first time you try to make a page.

Here's a list of my favorite digital scrapbooking sites where I get all of my papers and kits. Remember, once you've bought the papers and kits, you can use and reuse them as many times as you like. It's not like hard-copy scrapbooking where once you use a paper, it's gone and you can never use it again. I constantly re-use papers from my kits for different spreads. I love it!

digitaldesignessentials.com - They are having a GREAT sale right now on their CD kits!! 2 CDs full of TONS of papers and kits and themes and embellishments for only $7.49 when the original price was $69.98!!! I would highly recommend these CDs for the beginning digi-scrapbooker who wants to get a great start on papers/alphas/and embellishments for a really great price!

jenwilsondesigns.com
peppermintcreative.com
scrapgirls.com
shabbyprincess.com
twopeasinabucket.com
designerdigitals.com
letteringdelights.com
kaboodle.com
oscraps.com

Scrapbooking!!

As most of you already know, I am somewhat of a digital scrapbooking geek. With my laptop as a tool, I love creating my 12"x12" spreads! Next to possibly taking a full-body bath in warm Dr. Pepper, I can't think of anything I'd rather do than go on a scrapbooking weekend :) My friend, Kari, and I try to take these trips about every 6 months. We book a local hotel, take our computers, climb into our respective beds, turn on the tv to a chick-flick station and we scrapbook into the wee hours of the morning. We sustain ourselves with ever-so-healthy snacks (almond M&Ms, doughnuts, etc.) and treat ourselves to dinner out each night.

We recently spent a weekend at the Timpanogos Inn in Lehi and were able to complete quite a few pages. Taking a cue from my sweet friend, Lindsay, I have decided to post some of my pages on my blog. Some of these I did on this recent trip and others are from other Kari/Rees scrapbook excursions. So, welcome to my dirty little secret ---- I'm an ADDICT.....a scrapbooking addict!!!