Baby Boys Are Angels Too

Tell me if this isn't the sweetest newborn you've ever seen. He is just way too adorable. And he's grown much handsomer as he's gotten older. Awww!!! Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE

The Bear Tree Lives On

This post is to reassure Ashley that her treasured Bear Tree is alive and well. Instead of sitting in a box gathering dust, as it would have been back at home, it is set up in our family room where Katie and Paul can pull the ornaments and bears off of it to their hearts' content. Of course, they weren't interested in the bears before we put them on the tree. Perhaps it's a mysterious Christmas magic that gave them such irresistible appeal once we put them on the tree. The following layout is a picture taken before the tree was fully decorated. I love how this photo turned out. I wanted to put this on the Christmas card paired with a darling photo of Katie and Aaron looking at the tree together. But Aaron refused to send out a Christmas card saying, "Love from the Jorgensens" when I was conspicuously absent. So I had to redesign the card and choose another picture. I do love how this page turned out, though. Full Credits HERE

New Pages

It's been a while since I've posted, so here are some new pages that I've completed lately. Most of these are Christmas layouts since those are the kits that the designers that I create for have been coming out with (complicated sentence, I know). It's been fun to pull out some old Christmas photos and finally scrap them. This one is for a challenge a site had about trying to get the perfect photo. Isn't Paul the sweetest duck you've ever seen? Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE

Some Adorable Videos

Katie's recently discovered singing, and that's what we do for most of the day. She's definitely not tuneful, but hopefully that will come with time! Katie loved watching herself on the computer. During one take of "I am a Child of God" she was distracted by something Paul was doing, so she kept pausing between lines. As she was watching it, Katie got impatient with her pausing and kept prompting herself. She didn't seem to realize what exactly was going on with the video. This first one is about the sweetest thing I've ever seen. Aaron and I couldn't stop laughing after we watched this one. We would just start cracking up at the most improper times thinking of this video.

Messy Oatmeal

I read a study somewhere that said that kids don't really learn how to use a spoon until they are about 15 months old, no matter how early they start. Since eating with a spoon is extremely messy, I decided that 14 months old would be a good time to start. Not too soon, but not too late. I have to say, Paul's first attempt was WAY better than Katie's. But he decided to get down to business after a while...

We're ambitious...

I think that Aaron and I are some of the best people I know at starting projects. Really. We're amazing. Whether we're so good at finishing them is another question. I can currently think of at least 4 projects that we've started, but have yet to finish. In some instances, it's a lack of time. After putting in our grass over the summer, we have found that our backyard has become the local hangout for rabbits. At first it was one tiny, cute, little bunny. But then it multiplied! Our entire lawn is now 1/2 inch deep in rabbit poo. Not exaggerating. I can't even let the kids play outside anymore, since it's so gross. So last weekend we ripped out the wrought-iron fences that they were just slipping through so that we could put in a rabbit-proof (we hope) cedar fence and gate. We figured, hey, we've got both Friday and Saturday to do this. Piece 'o cake! We'll the old fence is out (which was no easy task), the posts are in, and the materials have been bought. That's it. Hopefully we'll get a bit more done this weekend. Things just always take so much longer than your expect them to when you have kids. I know that this is no amazing revelation to most of you, but it never ceases to amaze me how much I underestimate the length of various activities. Hopefully we'll have the fence up before spring! I have an awesome recipe for pumpkin bread to share for those who are getting into the holiday season (Aaron rolls his eyes at me since I've already begun singing Christmas songs). It's obviously not mine, but I tried it and it was dang good. So rich and moist and yummy...and Connie, you could just leave out the nuts so that Kerry could have some. Although, if it were me, I'd just split the batch and do half with nuts and half without, since it makes 2 loaves anyways. Just give the extras to your neighbors! And now for your viewing pleasure: Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE

No Halloween Pictures--Yet

So this is the third or fourth time we've had issues with our 2 gb memory card. It doesn't show that there are any photos on it, even though we know there are and that they haven't been erased. Usually we just run a image recovery program while they're in the memory card reader...but that's broken too. Arghhh!!!! So when we get a new card reader, hopefully we'll be able to post some pictures of the kids at Halloween. As Katie would tell you, "Katie be Nemo and Paul be's a duck." They were pretty dang cute, if I do say so myself! Here are some of my latest scrapbook pages: Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE

Wall Art

I was quite pleased with myself. I saw this photo arrangement on the Pottery Barn website, and I thought it would be perfect on the empty red wall. I converted the photos to black and white and had them printed out in 8x10 at Costco. I have to say, they turned out really nice. And here's a peek of what our downstairs looks like now that I've painted! The wall turned out pretty orange in the close photo. It has a lot more red in it, but there definitely is a touch of orange.

New Photos on Shutterfly

We've had some requests to update our Shutterfly album (I can't imagine why--it's only 4 months out of date!), so we spent this evening doing just that. There are tons and tons of new pictures up, so go check them out. The page is at aaronandchelsey.shutterfly.com. It's password-protected, so if you don't remember or haven't received the password, email me and I'll send it to you. The pictures from Lake Mead are up; it's worth checking out if only to catch a glimpse of my stunningly white legs. Mom, I think I give you a run for your money! For those of you who are stateside, you can also choose to order prints and have the photos printed at Target or you can have Shutterfly ship them to you. Just a friendly PSA!

Quick Post

I know it's been a while since I've posted, but we're trying to get our lives back to a semblance of normalcy after our Lake Mead trip (which was a blast, for those I haven't talked to personally). Please leave comments; I like to know when people have looked at them and what they think. I've enabled it so that you can post anonymous comments. I had Aaron try one, so I know it works! Here's what I've been up to lately: Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE

Ring Around the Rosies

I love Katie's temper tantrum at the end of this!

Average Homeboy

Is there anything funnier than people who aren't trying to be funny?

Go Cougars!

We attended the BYU-UNM football game on Saturday, and we had a blast. We took the kids to the tailgate party before the game. My friend's dad was organizing the tailgate party, and she was in charge of the booths. Apparently everyone canceled on her at the last minute, so I got roped into doing the face-painting booth, which was quite fun and required no artistic skills whatsoever. I just had to know how to spell "BYU" and paint 4 circles to make a paw. Once someone really threw me for a loop and wanted a cougar face. Okay.... BYU won, of course--31-24. The game actually wasn't that well played, but it was still pretty fun to watch. When we were going out to the car to leave for the game, Aaron was wearing his U of U hat and his U Engineering Days t-shirt. I told him to go back and change into something decent (meaning something blue), but he refused. He said he had to wear his U stuff out of loyalty. I guess the U does need all the support they can get. He took a lot of flak from the BYU crowd, but he did actually cheer for the right team. Full Credits HERE I had a picture of Aaron and me that was taken at Brian and Sarah Gardiner's wedding a few years ago. I had figured they were pretty useless, since this is what most of them looked like: I tried to fix them, but they always turned out washed out and grainy. One of the girls on the scrapbooking forum offered to fix them for me using some Photoshop actions (one of the reasons I'm asking for Photoshop Elements for Christmas). She gave me several options to choose from: Coffee Dreamy Half-Sepia Rock Star Standard I really loved the way Rock Star turned out, so here's my page that I created with it: Full Credits HERE I had so much fun scrapping these pictures of Katie from this summer. Connie bought her a little wading pool while she was here, and she practically lived in it all summer. I loved cropping these photos--especially the one of her ruffled tush! Full Credits HERE And since everyone's been coming up with their Halloween-inspired page kits, I've felt motivated to scrap our little stinker from last year: Full Credits HERE

Katie's Pizza Dough

I love how serious Katie is in this! She's really a pretty intense kid. The puppy backpack is actually a harness so I'm not losing her constantly in the store. She LOVES it! She's worn it all day for the past few days. According to Katie, her puppy's name is Dog and she take it on walks using the handle (I like to think of it as the puppy's leash, not Katie's).

Fall Weather and More Pages

I'm feeling quite sorrowful today--it's very gloomy and rainy and looks like fall. It's still quite warm outside, but the reality has hit me that summer is officially over. I'm alerting all that I will be in mourning for the next 5 or 6 months (with a brief interlude for Christmas and all the wonderful shopping that accompanies it). I need to move to Hawaii. I've decided that New Mexico still isn't warm enough--there is a winter here, and that's too cold for me. I could also be happy in Australia. I never wore more than my leather jacket in the middle of "winter." Here are some pages that I've done over the last week or so. I keep forgetting to post when I've finished them, so that's why there are always these massive posts every week or two. I just finished this page this morning. Look at my sweet baby with food all over his face!! Full Credits HERE These pictures were taken in 2003 while we were in Seattle at the Pike Place Market. I just loved the huge expanses of flower sellers. Everytime I see them it reminds me of "My Fair Lady." Makes you want to burst out into song! I think this page in particular would be really pretty printed and framed. I love the colors in it. The quote around the border reads: "Your mind is a garden. Your thoughts are the seeds. The harvest can be either flowers or weeds." Full Credits HERE I've scrapped very few of Paul's newborn pictures, mostly because the photos aren't that good, for some reason. In general they're underexposed, which makes him look even more yellow than he already is. But here are some cute ones that I found. I can't believe how tiny he looks! Full Credits HERE This one isn't really a scrapbook page; it's an invitation that I made for the Young Women's Standards Night, which is coming up next week. Most of the pictures of the temples are from the internet (you'd be surprised how difficult it is to find high-res pictures, even on the church's web site), but I took the top right picture of the Bountiful Temple. Pretty good, if I do say so myself! Full Credits HERE In the spirit of preserving family memories, I also scrapped these photos that we took of the house when we went on our house-hunting trip. It's amazing to see the difference in the house, especially now that I've painted the downstairs (pictures of that to come). Full Credits HERE And finally, I decided to experiment and use some of the blending modes in the GIMP. It's a kinda cool effect; definitely not one I'd use all the time, but worth playing around with. These were pictures we took on a walk. I decided to be a good mom and protect him by making him wear a hat and sunglasses. Poor baby--he was miserable. I think these were shot about 5 minutes into a walk. Oh well. I had good intentions. Full Credits HERE

Bush Vs. Zombies

This is about the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. Someone was very clever!

Miscellany

I'm working on finishing our pictures of Scotland--I've done pretty well so far. Here's the page I've done of Edinburgh Castle--it was so cool! It contains the Crown Jewels of Scotland, which are the oldest regalia in Europe. Full Credits HERE I've also been digging (metaphorically, at least) some old pictures out to scrap them. I've always loved these pictures of my roommates and me at Mimi's Cafe. We had such a fun time posing for them. And I think everyone can safely say that I'm the best poser! Full Credits HERE We took these pictures of Katie last summer at the Botanical Gardens while Connie was is town. Ah, the good old days when she could fall asleep anywhere. I know it's odd, but my favorite part of these photos is her little feet. They're so scrumptious! Full Credits HERE And since I realize that I don't have nearly as many pages done of Paul, here are some of that gorgeous boy to feast your eyes upon. The first pictures were just taken a few days ago (his shirt says "I do all my own stunts"--hilarious!), and the others are the day after he was born. What a difference! And look how little Katie is in those! Full Credits HERE Full Credits HERE