FEBRUARY ROUND UP

Decided I better get my February Roundup done before it gets too late into March. It's always fun to go through the month of pictures and realize that a lot more happened than I thought. This idea comes from Katie Nelson's Roundup but at this point I just do my pictures! I'm also hoping to scrap them into my monthly template but that will be next! Right now I'm still working on Melodie's wedding invitations which are going out this week!

So here is our Mathieson February 2012 in pictures:

My food budget has started to sky rocket, I wonder why!!!

Mitchell's creation, ice cream sandwich with home made cookies!

My favourite picture of the month because considering the hundreds of pictures I take of my kids playing sports it's pretty sweet to finally get one that you really love. Mitchell dunking the ball in the first five minutes of one of his first play off games!

Mitchell's Brocklehurst Grade 7 basketball team...hoping that they win cities !

Scott surprising us with a new hair do...thank goodness it only lasted a day!

Nothing like a good wrestle with your Dad! Don better take advantage of this because it's not going to last long!

Having fun watching our Tyler Hansen play hockey, we were able to make it to one of his games.   It was on Valentine's Day and unfortunately Don and I were caught on the videocam kissing, so we heard a lot about that.

Grandma having fun with Everett...discovering that he likes coloured marshmallows!

Big snowfall at our house=Calvin snowman!

Best chocolates in the world from my sweetie on Valentine's Day!

My Melodie who is engaged to her sweetheart, Kevin Smith.

They are getting married on April 21st and it's coming up fast!

I had a lot of fun taking pictures...

Trying to take pictures of my Rebecca skating in Kelowna at a Youth Activity, but I still need to work on the lighting of my inside shots. A big thank you to Jonathan Edis who gave me some camera tips that day...

We are always so grateful to have the missionaries in our home and try to get a picture of them before they go. Here is Elder Latimer off to Vanderhoof and Elder Mathews who is staying. They are some pretty wonderful young men!!

So that's my month in pictures narrowed down....hope you have fun looking! Please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom!

THREE PROMISES

Decided to use one of my favourite engagement pictures for a template challenge that I saw on Designer Digitals. Then as I was designing it, the gift journaling came to me and I was so happy with the idea. I'm hoping Kevin and Melodie like it! I changed the blending modes on the rose, made all the blocks a different opacity and had fun with the title making it reflective. Honestly, I get a lot of my ideas from other pages that I see!! So grateful for all the other scrapbookers out there, it's an industry where it's an honour to be copied (or in digi vernacular, to have your page "lifted"!!) 

Taking more pictures lately has made me aware of how fun props can be. This picture was taken when Kevin and Melodie were warming up in the truck and to pass the time I decided to take some pictures of the ring. When I put the ring in the rose and then on the chair, I was so happy with it. It also worked out amazing because these were all gifts that Kevin gave to Mel, so that just made my page. I better get back to scrapping the rest of my family or they are going to feel left out! 

Journaling reads: 

The Chair: A promise to build and to work and to provide for his bride!

The Rose: A promise to remember and to give and to cherish his bride!

The Ring: A promise to admire and to adore and to love his bride until the end of time!

So feel free to lift this page for any scrapbookers out there, I would love to see your take on it!!

Happy Leap Day....

for the love of TRUCKS

Still happily working on Jana Morton's Creative Composite class when I get a minute and as soon as I saw this lesson, I knew I wanted to work on this truck engagement picture with it. I used lots of blending and I changed the background from paper to using another photo and I loved how it looked.

So fun to use these pictures of my Mel and her Kevin....makes you believe in "happily ever after!!"

Let me know in my comments a favourite engagement picture you've seen, I'm always looking for ideas!

TOO MUCH CALVIN at my house!!

Frankly here in Kamloops we don't always get a lot of snow, especially in February which is why I like it! It comes in December, January and then most years a few flurries after that but last week it snowed a ton overnight. We woke up to a winter wonderland!  So that night our kids went outside and had a blast...sorry, but I was happy to stay inside and stay toasty warm!! So when I did step outside, what to my wondering eyes did appear but....a crazy Calvin snowman, complete with snowboard crash, blood and snow forts....definitely too many Calvin books at my house!!

I SHOT THAT

Having a great time with my I SHOT THAT Iphone photography class! I have downloaded new apps and trying to take more pictures. Definitely need to focus on close ups but still had fun using all the special effects, filters and borders. 

My life at the gym....pretty fun to watch Mitchell!

Emergency Chocolate that never lasts long enough for emergencies! What can I say, they are Lindors!

So grateful that I am NOT a Scout Leader...my hats off  to them!

My die hard walking ladies! They seem to go rain, shine or  icy roads!!

ENGAGEMENT PICTURES

So HAPPY to take engagement pictures today of my sweet Melodie and her fiance Kevin Smith! We went out by the river here in Kamloops taking the airport road and I had a wonderful time! I think the two kiddos got a little cold but they were good sports and humoured me. The hardest part was stopping them from laughing long enough to snap a picture.

After having a picture taken off my blog last year without permission by Van Print in Vancouver (see my post here Egg Nog Model), I decided I better put my signature on all of my pictures. I will just have to figure out a quick way to do that. In these pictures I used a lot of Pioneer Woman actions and had such fun with them.

HAD to put some TRUCK pictures in....Kevin with his trucks!

The most snow we've had all month came yesterday, just before picture day....

Loved the Valentine roses!

A lot of history in this chair, personally made by Kevin...given to Melodie as a gift!

Melodie's gorgeous ring that she was super happy with!

Another MATHIESON wedding is coming up soon on April 21st, 2012!

JANUARY MONTH IN PHOTOS

Rebecca Cooper in her blog, Simple As That gives away a collage template to do a "month in photos" and I'm going to try it this year! Doing a page a month is doable for me, any more than that right now would be overwhelming I think. I will still scrap other pages but this will be for keeping track of our family pictures for the year. Doing the round up every month will help as well because then I'm already picking out the pictures I want to use.
I also just included text right on the picture, will see how that looks. Might do more writing but for now this will do. Trying to keep things easy with the wedding around the corner!
So here are my January pages for 2012...

iSHOT THAT

I'm pretty excited to start a new class in February called iShotThat! No, in answer to my son-in-law Scott and soon to be son-in-law Kevin, it has nothing to do with any animals or birds, lol but it is a class on taking better pictures with your IPHONE! The teachers are Jim and Molly Newman and they write that one of the most popular cameras out there is the Iphone and this class gives you ideas on how to take advantage of all of it's functions and how to use the apps that are out there to make the best of your pictures. 

I thought I would show you a few pictures I took last summer using my Iphone during one of Mitchell's soccer games.

 The light was stupendous and I loved how they came out. I actually ended up using one for this scrapbook page I made for his team, the Purple Panthers!

This last one I took on the Thompson River while boating with friends...and then I put an Instagram filter on it.

So feel free to join me in using your IPHONE, the camera that is always in your purse or pocket and learn to take better pictures with it! I would love to see some of the pictures that you take...and I'll be sharing some of mine here! Let me know if you are taking this class with me..

Happy shooting...PICTURES that is!!

January ROUND UP

I like "Katie the Scrapbook Lady"'s idea of a monthly round up! She answers all kinds of questions but I think I'm going to start by rounding up my favourite pictures at the end of each month. I'm hoping it will help me to focus on not only taking better pictures but taking them more often. They bring back all kinds of memories and maybe doing this will help me to actually scrap a yearly album! So here are my favourites for JANUARY 2012, and believe me it was hard to stay to 12.....

Visited Kelowna for New Year's and took some pictures at the Edis house...I was not happy with how they turned out but I did get one cute one of Rebecca with one of her best friends Michelle, of them doing the heart sign.

 Have to admit lots of my favourites include this little cutie, my grandson Everett! Now that he and Danielle are staying with us for a little while (Tim is in school in Calgary), we are getting to know him better and I am getting more pictures!!

 The newly engaged couple having fun with the presents that Tim and Danielle brought from Calgary! A little too much kissing going on according to Papa!!

 Happy, happy Melodie who scored a case of INKA KOLA that Tim and Danielle found in Calgary! This is the major beverage in Peru and it's pretty hard to find here in Canada!!

 Couldn't resist this shot of Daddy reading to Everett...scrapped this page last year, might have to do a side by side shot.

 Had fun taking pictures of these flowers Tim bought Danielle for her 25th birthday on January 6th.

 Mitchell and his team the Brocklehurst Broncs won their first tournament! Some pretty happy ball players...

 Had fun scrapping this page, my kids all together for the first time in ages. It was pretty funny to find out that tallest to shortest goes from youngest to oldest...which Mitchell is quite happy about!

I love this picture because it just shows Mitchell's height. He has grown so much in the last year, hard to believe but he now wears a size 11 shoe. Of course, this certainly helps him in basketball!

 Fun picture of Grandpa with Everett! Grandpa reflexes are being tested daily with a little grandson around, from stroller tipping to spitting up...Don is learning to move fast again!!

 We had to laugh when Everett eagerly joined the big kids in dancing to "Just Dance!"

 This month has been busy and fun with lots of family dinners. I never know how many will be sitting down at the table, but I do know that no matter how much food I make if we don't eat it that night...the leftovers will go the next day with all these men around!! Lots of laughing, visiting and discussions around our table again!!

HEIGHT CHANGE

I was so happy to get this picture and then to scrap it! Not often I get all of my kids together anymore and just a few weeks ago we noticed that the height difference had totally changed! The worst part is that I am the shortest...crazy to think that all of your kids can get taller than you. So grateful for each one of them and their love for each other. Don and I think we are pretty lucky!