Saturday, December 27, 2008

We Likey the Wii





Give us a little free time without any kids and this is what we do, we take over the Wii and have our own fun. On Christmas day we started playing the Wii at 6pm and didn't stop until 11pm that night. And yes, Dad was here and playing the whole time. I think he really liked the golf and he was pretty good at it. I told him he has now discovered what we are going to get him for Christmas next year. I guess we will have to start having Wii parties and I'm sure Dad will show us how it is done.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

All I Can Say is Wow!!



It happened again, I entered another Hero Arts weekly challenge and I won first place with this scrapbook layout of Riley. I couldn't believe it when I got on their blog and it said I was the first place winner in the scrapbooking category. I am so happy beyond belief and so grateful that they saw something with my layout to give it a first place. And with this first place win I receive a $50 gift certificate and a Hero Arts catalog to go shopping at their store. With money being tight right now this was a wonderful gift from Hero Arts. Thanks again for letting me share this excitement with you. If you want to see the full Hero Arts blog post the link is at the bottom of this post. BTW, I changed my club name for Hero Arts to Pocketful of Paper instead of having it Julie Batta.

http://heroarts.com/blogs/club/2008/12/18/what-a-talented-bunch/

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Happy Birthday, Gavin



3 YEARS OLD (yesterday)!!! It is hard to believe that three years ago I was in Blanc Children's Hospital with you. Six weeks early, but you would never believe it today that Gavin was a premie. He proved to us that he was tough then, just like he is today. If you can't tell by the pictures, Gavin is a huge fan of the movie Cars. Even though the movie came out a while ago, he is so totally into every bit of it. I love his expression when he saw his Lightning McQueen tricycle, that is what kids' birthdays are about. Happy Birthday, Dude!! Rock On !!!!

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Honorable Mention

Hi all. I am a happy girl today. I was given an honorable mention today on the hero arts blog for my card I made. Hero Arts is a card and scrapbook making company specializing in stamps, a very well known company in this industry. On their blog every week they have a challenge to design something and they announce winners of that challenge on Thursdays. Well this week was to make a card in minutes and I thought, why not try it. It was my first time doing one of their challenges and I was so shocked to see that I was an honorable mention. They said that it was their biggest challenge ever for entries. I am still shocked but oh so happy. Here is the link if you want to see my card, just scroll down to the last of the entries under honorable mention and my card will be under my name.
http://heroarts.com/blogs/club/2008/12/11/winners-of-the-make-it-in-minutes-card-challenge/

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

First Winter Swim Results

Sorry I don't have any pictures to post of the boys first winter swim meet. But hopefully in the upcoming meets I will get some taken. It isn't easy to take pictures in an indoor swimming area. I always have to do a lot of fixing on my pictures to make them look good.

The boys did great for their first meet. Winter swim is a whole nother ballgame from summer swim. The competition is greater and the practices are harder. Any given night for practices Zach will swim 1500 to 2000 yards for his age group and Jordan will swim 2500 to 3000 yards for his age group. That is a lot of swimming, especially when the length of the pool is only 25 yards, a lot of back and forth. They sure love it though.

For those who don't know, we go to Fort Dodge to do winter swimming through the YMCA. All of the practices and meets though are at the Fort Dodge High School. They have a wonderful facility there, they also have a great high school swim team. Jordan has been asked by one of the coaches (a high school swimmer) to swim for them when he is in high school. Something to think about I guess. :)

Here are the results of the first meet:

Zach -
100Y individual medley relay - 1st ( shattered his summer conference record by 20sec.)
200Y medley relay - 2nd (he was bumped up to the 11-12 year olds for this one)
200Y free relay - 3rd (had to swim the first and fourth leg because someone was gone)
50Y butterfly - 4th
50Y freestyle - 6th

Jordan -
50Y butterfly - 1st (has qualified for state and for regionals in Minn. if our info is correct)
100Y individual medley relay - 1st (beat old time by 10 seconds)
200Y medley relay - 2nd
200Y freestyle relay - 2nd
50Y freestyle - 4th

Awesome job boys!!

Design Team Tryout

I tried out to be a guest designer for a monthly scrapbooking kit website. I wasn't picked but now I can share my page that I submitted with all of you. I love this page and was hoping so much to be chosen, but it wasn't meant to be at this time. We had to follow a sketch and this is what I came up with. Riley is such a great subject to scrap because I like doing the girly stuff, although, if I change a couple of things on this page, it could easily become a boy page. I hope you all like it.

Just Realized...





...that I didn't post any pictures of Zach's birthday from the month of October. I am so sorry Zachy, I should have my scrapbooking taken away from me for a week. Hope the day was a fun one for you. Love you, Bud!!