We were at Burger King yesterday and the girls noticed they had crowns with Twilight New Moon pictures on them.  How exciting!  He he!  Even tho I would NEVER let them watch it in a million years until they are like at least 13 they still know what it is…cause their Mom is obsessed with it! ;D  So here they are in their crowns.  They said Bella was “watching” you! ;D  This photo was also taken with my phone.  Not too shabby for a camera phone. Oh.  Notice Laney has her front two teeth missing.  That is a recent event as well.

Does anyone know what THIS means….

That is CORRECT we found Dunkin’ Donuts in Colorado!  A little bit of a drive as they are all in Colorado Springs.  But better than none at all.  We had an errand to run in the Springs on Saturday so we made a pilgrimage to Dunkin’ Donuts as well.  Grabbed a dozen donuts and some coffee beans.  We were all happy campers.  It’s an east coast thing. ;D

We got snow.  Again.  Not much.  Just enough to annoy me.  We didn’t get our traditional 70° weather in January.  Not even our usual one day.  It has been cold.  It feels too much like Maine for my taste.  Peh.  Here are the girls shoveling the driveway.  Can anyone tell me what is different about this photo???

Today it was warm enough for the girls to venture outside.  Not to mention it was warm enough for me to get out there with them for some photos. ;D

The girls made a fort in Ava’s room today.  (I did not help them.) It turned out really well!  They want to sleep in it tonight. ;D

I love having the girls home on break.  It reminds me of when they are home for the summer.  I love them and miss them when they are at school all day.  Can you tell they have been good and not fighting?  If so I’d want to be shipping them back to school asap!!!! ;D  Wink wink!

The museum was totally awesome! ;D

Here’s my layout for day 3.  I’ve used all my products.

I was happy to learn that my Thanksgiving layout (below) was featured here.

Sharing time!!!!  Here are some December daily pages from my friends using my designs…first up is Jill doing a page about herself…her first one!  Yay!!!

Here’s Wendy’s Day 3 layout.  Visit her blog post here and leave her some love! ;D  She’s doing a marvelous job using my designs and keeping up with the December daily…a brand new thing for her!

I made a layout with my new products.  Having a lot of fun with those.

How was your Thanksgiving?  Ours was very pleasant.  We visited friends and had a great time and great food.  It is fun for the girls to visit with boys.  Ava dressed as Darth Vader and Laney was Princess Leia.  They have been in the Star Wars mode for a long time…playing Star Wars Legos on the xbox.  ;D  As I said it is fun going to a boy’s house…he has Star Wars dress up stuff! ;D

Corey and I saw New Moon.  It rocked!  Then I saw it again last night with my friend Jill.  Even better the second time! ;D

After 35 years I finally did this…

Ava had a “mini play” in her class the other day.  They were focusing on Pilgrims and Columbus and things of that nature.  She was Samoset in her play.

Grandparents day was yesterday at school.  Every class performed something.  Here’s Laney.

Where are you headed for Thanksgiving?
Wherever you end up I’m sure you are thinking what kind of photos am I going to take and what kind of layout am I going to do?  Take lots of photos I always say.  The delete key is your friend! ;D  You can never take too many photos and you can never get back the moments and retake the photos but you can always hit delete if you have take too many…GUILTY! ;D
So what should you take photos of???  EVERYTHING!!!!
The food.
Your plate of food.
The table.
The turkey in the oven.
YOURSELF!!!!!  Get someone to get at least one photo of you!
People cooking.
People lounging around.
Watching tv.
Playing the Wii! ;D
Decorating for Christmas…if you start to do that now.
Family members.
Things that don’t seem so important.  They will later!
People praying or giving thanks.
Candles burning.
Wine bottles.
Get creative!!!
Then when you get done with your projects there are some great ideas for Thanksgiving layouts here.  I know they aren’t digi.  But you can use the ideas to inspire.  I do! ;D

Lastly I’ve been working hard on some Christmas digi stuff.  I want to do a December Daily album but this year I really want to do it digitally.  So I’ve designed a kit for just that.  I cannot wait to share it with you!  It is all done I just have to put it in my shop!  More to come…;D

So Laney put her tooth under her pillow and waited for the Tooth Fairy.  And the Tooth Fairy in this house is a bad Tooth Fairy and sometimes forgets.  Sigh. I woke up this morning and thought of it right away.  I didn’t hear the kids up so I thought I was ok.  I slipped into Laney’s room and she looked like she was still asleep and so I found the tooth and exchanged it for a dollar.  She woke up just after the exchange.  So I thought I was safe.  She told me the Tooth Fairy forgot to give her money and I asked her to double check.  She did and was happy to see the dollar.  I thought I had gotten away with it but when it all came out she revealed to me she had been awake earlier and downstairs.  She had also been “faking it” when I thought she was sleeping and said she felt her pillow moving when I was taking her tooth.  Another sigh.

“Mom.  Are you the Tooth Fairy?”

“Yes.”

“You ARE!!??”

“I’m sorry Laney.  But yes I am.  Are you okay?”

“Yes.  But what about all my other teeth?  And Ava’s teeth?  What happened to those?”

“I took them.”

“Where did you put them?”

“It doesn’t matter.  In a special place.”

Ava emerged and we told her.  I asked her if she was okay.  “Yes, I’m fine.  And I don’t believe in Santa either.  Because he’s Lauren’s grandpa!”  Apparently a friend of hers at school has a grandpa that looks just like Santa.

“Well.  Since we are talking about this do you want to know the truth about Santa?”

“Santa’s not real either???”  Laney exclaimed.

“No.  Not in the way you think.  There was a person who existed called St. Nicholas who passed out gifts to children.  But there is no Santa.”

This conversation continued on for awhile.  I could tell Ava was totally fine.  I knew she would be.  I could tell Laney was completely devastated.  I knew this was going to happen as well.  Insert another sigh here.  So.  In order to help out the situation, because at this point Laney was pouting…something she is very good at…I reminded her the REAL reason we celebrate Christmas (and Easter).  She immediately said, “JESUS!”  I told her she was right.  I told her that even tho things like Santa are fun and we could still pretend and have fun, that Santa was actually a distraction from the real reason of Christmas.  After I explained it, she was okay.  Needless to say I had no intention of this happening this morning.  In a way I was very sad and also glad.  What do you do in your family with Santa and the Tooth Fairy?  Do your kids still believe?

Last night it started snowing.  I was looking at the snow and loving it but I really needed to go to bed.  Corey suggested I go out and take some photos.  It was midnight.  And cold.  I didn’t want to go out.  But I did.  I was freezing.  And LOVING IT!  Do you ever feel that way about something?

On to the next thing…there is a new digi kit at DDE.  It’s called Crisp Fall Day.

Here are a couple of layouts I did with this kit.

And last but not least…if you have stuck with reading this entire post…I made it on to the next round of the My Scrapbook Art Ultimate Artist contest with this layout.  Total surprise…and looking forward to the next challenge which is being revealed tomorrow!

In the bug department they have a tarantula that people can hold.  Ava said she definitely wanted to hold it this trip.  And she did!  You wouldn’t catch me doing it in a million years! ;D

There were tons of creepy bugs.  All behind glass where they belonged!  The best ones, we thought, were the leaf bugs and the stick bugs…“I’m the only stick with EYEBALLS!” to quote a famous bug movie. ;D

In the ocean area we have Dory…”Just keep swimming…”

And Laney doing a lot of investigating with a magnifying glass.

Last but not least the butterflies.

Corey was commenting to me how happy I looked.  I was having fun with my camera.  It reminded us of the last time we went.  All I had was a point and shoot and I wanted to get better shots of the butterflies but I couldn’t and I was frustrated.  Not so this day!  The girls were older and could go ahead.  They found all kinds of discoveries and couldn’t wait for me to “catch up” to where they were.  “Hurry up MOM!”  Just before we left there was a butterfly release of some newly hatched butterflies.  That was a lot of fun.  The butterflies weren’t very good at flying and so they were not flying very far from the guy releasing them.  They were landing on all of us.  It was cool.  A great way to “catch” butterflies since you aren’t allowed to touch them while in there…not technically anyway! ;D  Several landed on Corey.  They liked him.  Ava caught one and I had to keep getting them off Corey. ;D

I put together a layout of some of the photos I took of Laney out in the snow yesterday.

grunge frames, wings, grunge alpha, acrylic flower, buttons, circle stamps JMDesigns
flower, acrylic brad Embrace Fei Fei’s Stuff + Paislee Press Designs
circle stamp Circle It No.2 Anna Aspnes
journal circle stamp Journaling Brushes-n-Stamps Katie Pertiet