I'm Still Here...(and more projects!)

So apparently I took an unintentional (or maybe it was intentional) hiatus from blogging. The challenging thing for me about blogging is all of the pictures get uploaded onto our main computer. I rarely use this computer because during the day, I am a little preoccupied.;o) And if I even think about attempting to use it, Lily will quickly find me and proclaim, "Mommy check da email...no!" So my options are to do it during the very valuable nap time when there are many other things that need to get done, or in the evening. Fat chance there due to my husband being on it most of the time! So I am usually on my laptop, which has no pictures. I suppose another alternative would be for me to learn how to upload the pictures onto my laptop myself, I just have no interest in learning that. I suppose I should know, but I am a pretty simple person who really couldn't care less about these things, especially when I have Robert around to do it for me!;o) The fact that I have even managed to keep up a blog is pretty mind-boggling to me.

So over the past few weeks in my absence from the bloggoshpere, we have been getting back into our regular routine since summer has ended. Lily is back in her music and gymnastics classes. She is doing so well and is getting much more involved and participating a lot more on her own rather than with my prompting. I'm going to put on my proud mommy hat for a second: Lily's music teacher told me today that she wants to put her in the next age group level as she is more mature than the other kids in her class and she doesn't want Lily to get behind. Wow. Now I can't really take much credit for that as I think a lot of it is just her personality. However I do take credit for the fact that I do discipline her and correct her when she is not doing what she is supposed to be doing. A lot of other parents let their kids run around and make no attempt to keep them on task. Anyway, enough ranting about that. We've also been keeping up with the political season and are very excited about the turn of events with John McCain choosing Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate. I like her, and not just because she is from my home state!

In other news, we are in the process of switching churches. We love, love, love our current church and are very sad to leave. But the distance is getting to be a bit much for us...40 minutes is a long way to go for church, especially when I am there 3 days a week for various things. We are one of the last families from our town to finally leave due to the distance. Our new church is only 5 minutes away and we already know several families there. We went to the service there this last Sunday. We were warmly greeted by many people as we walked in the door...refreshing. The nursery director saw me walking in with Lily. She came over to introduce herself and show me where to go and got us all settled in. We loved the pastor who preached that day...they are currently studying the book of Ephesians, which is one of my favorites and has one of my all-time favorite verses: "For by grace you have been saved through faith. It is a gift of God, not as a result of works, that no man should boast." Eph 2: 8-9. What an amazing gift God has given us. Yes....salvation is free! There is absolutely nothing we can do to earn our way in to Heaven...we will never be good enough, and we don't have to be! God sent His Son to pay the price for our sins. All we have to do is completely turn our lives over to Him and give Him control...therein lies the hard part. But once you do, you will know no freedom like the freedom in Christ. Praise the Lord!

As promised, here are some more pictures of projects I've done over the summer. I hope you enjoy. I promise I'll get back to more Lily stories and pictures next time!

This is the birthday invitation and banner I made for Lily's party.
I just love the panda stamp I found.

The following projects I made at the Stampin' Up convention in Utah.
An adorable little box for cards.

A cute little scrapbook page. I added the picture of Lily after we got home. The original sample had the word "you" instead of Lily, but since they gave us a whole set of chipboard letters, I put her name instead.

I am not an "orange" person. I normally don't care much for the color except at sunset, but this bag we made is beautiful. It made me like the color a little more.

The following are bookmarks. The one on the right is the one we made at convention.
The other two I made after I got home.

I am really loving altering items. (See the info on the box I used for my sister-in-laws birthday gift in my previous post!). This was just a plain white tin. I would still like to add a little something to the top, but I'm not sure what yet...some sort of saying or scripture maybe.

This little box is perfect for 3x3 sized gift cards. I am loving this new Bella Rose designer paper.

This is another altered tin...a band-aid tin! I decorated it and filled it with little gift tags.

A birthday card we did at a class at my house several weeks ago. Cute and very simple.

A pocket card...another of my favorites. I may use this style for our Christmas cards this year. I'm still working on some ideas. It's never to early to start planning!

I love this new stamp set as well. It's called Eastern Blooms and was one of the sets
we got for "free" at convention.

I love the popped up butterfly on this card. This card uses 3 new stamp sets from the new catalog. The butterfly and the flowers in the grass are from the Flight of the Butterfly set. The grass is from the Inspired by Nature set and the saying is from the Upsy Daisy set.

This is the Inspired by Nature set. I didn't like it at first, but now that I have used it and have
seen several other ideas, I love it!

See...I can't stop using it! On this one, I embossed the flower in white on designer paper. So pretty.

Another popped up butterfly, I wasn't crazy about the way this card came out, but it's still cute.

This card I actually made a long time ago with a set that is now retired called By Ones and by Twos. I was trying to get myself out of the box of my usual color combos. I don't love this combo, but I don't hate it either, although I do love the actual design of it. This would be a good gender-neutral card I think. I actually got this stamp set as a gift from my friend Jenny before I signed up as a demonstrator. She bought it for me because it has a stamp that says, " adoption is when a child grows in its mommy's heart instead of her tummy". How sweet is that?! It's a great set for someone having twins as well.

That's it for now. I am working on a little scrapbook gift for Lily's friend (though I won't mention who as she may read about it here!). I will post pictures of it when I'm done. I saw the idea and thought it would be a great gift for said friend.;o)