Kayci and zootastic...sweet heart and the beach

This is Denise's LO this week. It is such a cute picture of Jaydin. This Picture was taken on his first trip to the zoo. Be on the look out...there will be some more cute LO of zoo. We should call it the zoo series!!

This is my LO for this weeks scrap night. I scrap jacked this from someone else. I wanted to try something new that I have never tried before. I don't love love love it but, I do like it. I do LOVE the pictures of my Kayci.

Here are some LO I done earlier this week.

The first one is from our trip to the beach in August. The top picture is our view down the beach from our spot. The bottom picture is our spot. It was sooo nice. We just pulled onto the beach and pulled out the chairs and umbrellas and cooler!! There were hardly any people there. It was the most peaceful trip to the beach I have ever had.

The second LO is of my sweet heart Kenzi! This picture was taken at the beach too. She was covered in sand. But, she is adorable...

Black and White night

This week on scrap night we decided to go with a Black and White theme with one color.

Of course, Denise is a rebel and had to use two colors...LOL!!! But, I still think they both turned out great!

Some more cool LO's...

These are my LO's. In the first one I used metallic paper. So, it did not photgraph as well as I would have liked. In the second, I was totally inspired by the colors.

This is my attempt at a little less girly LO. I loved the colors with the pictures and what they are wearing. It all seemed to fit good.

These are the LO's that Denise finished. The first LO is her as a baby. This is one of my favorite pics of her as a baby. The second is on cousin Michele. I love the LO on this one. I love the retro-ish paper she used in this one.

Mosaic...

I just wanted to share my latest scrapbook page. I have always loved anything mosaic. So, when I saw this layout on Scrapbook.com, I knew that I had to do one for myself.

The pictures are Andrew when he was nine months old and the other on his 18th birthday. Let me know what you think of the LO. Thanks for looking.

I don't want summer to end!!!

I can't believe that summer is already ending. No more pool. Rene keeps trying to get me to pick a time to close the pool for the season. I just don't want to do it. But, it is coming.

It was 90 degrees this weekend but because of all the rain we got this past week and the night temps dropping...the water is getting cold. We have a handy dandy solar cover. But, we didn't get it over the pool last week. Well, we went swimming anyway. It was hot out so the water wasn't so bad after about the first minute.

We put the cover over the water this weekend...sooo, we hope maybe one more or two weekends of the pool...who knows.

Girly Scrap night...

This week I wanted to do something girly. Well, as you know...I am full of boys and only a couple girls. So, I picked this picture of Abbie. She is the daughter of a very dear friend of mine. Hope you enjoy the LO. I loved making this page. It turned out way better than I ever imagined.

I also wanted to share with you Denise's LO.

She must have been in a girly mood as well.

She did a LO with a picture of Michele, our cousin.

The Beach...

Wow! It has been a long time since I have blogged anything. Last week me and Rene went to the beach. We had a really great time. Tons of pictures, of course. I will put a few here but I recommend going to Flicker to see more. You will have to let me know what you think.

It only rained 1 1/2 days...not too bad. No hurricanes last week. They all waited til this week. Yeah!!! We spent everyday on the beach for 5 and 6 hours straight. One day we stayed 9 hours! Since we took Kenzi and Kayci we had to find a place that we could take them. Well, all I can say is thank goodness we took them...we found the most awesome beach. And if we had not taken the girls we would have never known about this place. It was "the 4-wheel drive beach". You had to have a 4 wheel drive to go onto this beach. And then you just parked on the beach and pulled out your chairs and cooler and sat right there...so cool!!! It was totally not crowded. And you didn't have to drag a bunch of stuff out to the beach because the truck was right there. LOVED IT!!!!

The dogs had a pretty fun time too. They liked the beach...just not the water. We had an umbrella so we had shade when we needed it. But, you know the beach...always a cool breeze. God, I miss the beach. Although, probably not so fun this week. Hannah and Ike...those darn hurricanes.

We also walked around downtown Wilmington. It was nice. I was across the river from where they shoot the court scenes on One Tree Hill. We did not go on any set tours though. We had the dogs. But, I did take pictures of the USS NC. And there are some really neat buildings downtown too.

Anyway, go to flicker and check out my pics. http://www.flickr.com/photos/christismith/

Scrapbooking night

Thursday was scrap booking night for me and Denise. We have been trying to get together one night a week to scrapbook.

These are Denise's pages. The first one is pictures of Jaydin with silly faces when he was about 3 months old. The 2nd page is 2 of the children she takes care of during the week, Mason and Jake. They are sitting on the step blowing bubbles. I love both of these pages.

This is my page. This is a picture of my niece Micayla when she was 14 months old. Isn't she a cutie...

Fishing...

It is Friday evening about 6pm. We decide to go to the lake and fish for a couple of hours. Now keep in mind I am not that into fishing and neither is Rene. I have not been fishing in at least 8-10 years. And I think that may have been the ONLY time Rene has been fishing. I have went with the boys while they fished and I just took pictures.

My nephew, Alex, likes to fish and we have not taken him at all on this trip. So, off we go to fish. This is a very last minute, unplanned trip. But, we go anyway.

Unfortunately, when we got there the bait shop had closed already. No fishing for us. But, we managed to have fun anyways. It was a beautiful evening. We had Kenzi and Kayci with us and I had my camera, of course. Did you doubt it...

andrew and marissah

andrew and marissah
Originally uploaded by christismith8

Andrew and Marissah...Aren't they such a cute couple. I took this picture in June 2008 under the tree in our back yard.

The boys...

Bubbles again...just wanted to share some pics of the boys that I take care of during the week.

I gotta say, it is amazing how such a simple thing as bubbles can fascinate and occupy children for so long. When the bubbles come out...no one thinks about anything else. It is all about the bubbles!

After blowing bubbles, everyone was hot!!!

So, what do you get when you are hot...

That's right...Popsicles! I think it is safe to say that everyone had a good time.
Including me...I got pictures!

I can't leave out my littlest boy. He isn't old enough for bubbles yet.

Scrapbooking today

I just wanted to share my scrapbook page that I completed today.

This was a lot of fun using all the different colors. I also used chalk for the first time...the blue dots around the pictures. I know, not much chalk this time. But, I wanted to start small. Now I am ready to try something a little bigger. I will share more when I get something done!

The love of my life...

I met the love of my life...19 years ago today in the hospital! It was a long, hot, exhausting, sick and painful day. Yet, it was the best day of my life! It was a very special day in my life that I will never forget.

On this day, 19 years ago William Andrew Lavinder was born. He weighed 9lbs 5 oz and was 21 inches long. He was born at 9:18pm. I had to have a C-Section after 27 long hours of labor. My mom was the person that went into the room with me. So, that day holds many special memories. I will forever be grateful that it was my mom who went into the delivery room with me. I will always be grateful that I had the pleasure of sharing the biggest and best event of my life with my mom.

When Andrew was born he came out crying "mommmmmyyy"! No one believes me but, it is true. He was three weeks late and did not want to come out. I still tease him and tell him that if they didn't induce my labor and do a c-section that he would STILL be in my belly. Even though he is a good 7 inches taller than I am today! He just shakes his head and thinks that I am crazy.

It has been 19 years of adventure with Andrew. And that is putting it mildly. He has the ability to invoke ALL the emotions that a person could have...all at the same time! But, no matter what I will always know that he is the best thing that has ever happened in my life. Even with all the ups and downs, I will always love him with all of my heart. I hope that he always knows that.

Happy Birthday Andrew! This is your last year as a teenager!!!

Me and Andrew -8/1989

Andrew with my mom. He was about 1 week old in this picture.

Bubble Time

I have been in such a mood to take pictures lately. Unfortunately, my subjects have not been very cooperative lately. So, I got the great idea to get some bubbles and go visit Jaydin. So, we loaded up and went to Denise's house...me, Andrew, Alex, and Marissah. Denise takes care of 3 little boys during the day. Wow! How perfect is that. 4 little boys and bubbles...this could be nothing but fun. And don't forget my helpers - Andrew, Alex, and Marissah. They had fun too.

Jake
Mason
Alex
Andrew







Marissah and Jaydin