Tricks and Treats

Trick or Treat, Blogland!
From my little magician and his bunny rabbit.

I took the kids to Fall Family Fun at Calhoun Square here in Minneapolis on Sunday. It was fun. Pumpkin decorating, singing and dancing, trick or treating... all the makings for FUN! And it was all FREE, which never hurts the fun factor for Mommy!
So, now the real trick or treating goes on tonight. You know the tonight I mean. The low of 32° tonight. Ugh. Nice trick, Mother Nature. So I don't know what we'll do. Tyler is so looking forward to trick or treating with his baby sister on her first Halloween. I am thinking maybe we'll hit the Mall of America for indoor trick or treating. I don't know. I'll let ya know what we decide.

Until then though I have a treat for you!!

Welcome to my second Fall Y'all Bloggy Giveaway! This time around I have a grab bag of 40 coupons! Who can use some coupons?? I bet you can. And you. And you. And YOU! So all you need to do to be entered in my drawing is leave me a comment right here on this post. Make sure you leave a way for me to contact you, blog or email or something. I will choose a winner randomly on the morning of Saturday the 3rd.
And don't forget to sign up for my other drawing HERE.
You guys, there are 525 drawing to sign up for as of right now!! You better go get started!

AND

REMINDER! Today is the last day of the $2 or less sale at Digital Scrap Garden!! Don't miss out! Everything in the store is $2 or less! Wow!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!
The winner has been announced HERE.

Make me merry Monday!!

Its that time of week again. A time to think about what makes us happy. Its time for....

Play along! Blog about what makes you merry... it could be a place, a food, a thing, an event, anything! Then leave your link in my Mr. Linky here so we can all visit you and see what makes you merry! Oh, the code to add my badge to your site can be found here.

So, what makes me merry? Lets see...
One of my favorite parts of the day happens around 10pm. The kids are in bed. Its peaceful. I can watch what I want to watch on TV... I can do things on the computer without interruption... when I go to bed I can lay there and relax or play games on my phone. Its quiet. Yes, I love the "me time" I get each night. It makes me merry.

What makes you merry?

The ultimate freebie!

Shannon over at Rocks in my Dryer is doing it again!!! The Fall, Y'all Bloggy Giveaway is under way! Head on over to her Bloggy Giveaway site and play along! Details can be found here. Then GO HERE to sign up for the giveaways and host one of your own! The fun will go on throughout the week, so you can hold more than one giveaway if you want! There are already more than 160 giveaways to sign up for!!!! And its just starting!! This big y'all... BIG.... HUGE even! Run over there! Now!

So, I guess you want to know if I'm doing a giveaway, huh? YES! I am! What is it, you say? Well, I have decided that I will give one lucky random winner a personalized digital scrapbook layout! Fun, huh? You can see some of my work over in my sidebar to the left and in my previous posts. The winner will send me the photos and journaling and I will work my magic! I will send it to you in several formats so that you can print it, post it, or whatever tricks yer trigger. All you need to do to enter the drawing is leave me a comment on this post! Be sure you leave a way for me to contact you if you win, blog or email. I will choose a winner randomly on the morning of Saturday the 3rd. And keep your eyes open, I may have more giveaways up my sleeve. :o)

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!
The winner has been announced HERE.

Happy Saturday!

Not too much going on in our world today. I ran to the Sprint store to have them look at my phone... its been freezing a lot and even shutting itself off now and then. They only had one tech working and I had to leave it there for 2 hours! I was in a strange area, so I had no clue what to do with the kids for 2 hours. I spotted a Toy World and we went in there and walked around a little. I asked the girl working there if there was a park or playground anywhere close. Well! There happened to be a really nice park right out back of the mall! So we strolled around for a little over an hour then headed back over to the mall and had McDonalds. I finally got my phone back and it seems to be working. I told them I'd be back if it wasn't any better!!

I did get a layout done this morning before we left...

Page kit: Blue Bird Bliss by Purple Frog Pizzazz at Digital Scrap Garden
Fonts: Vintage Typewriter

Speaking of Digital Scrap Garden. There is some new stuff in the Garden Shop today!! Those girls are talented, I tell ya! Don't forget to keep an eye on their blogs for freebies too. The links are in my sidebar.

So we are home and settled in for the night. I plan to do some more scrapping tonight so get ready for some creations sometime tomorrow! Hope you all had a happy Saturday!

New hats & a digital scrapbook freebie alert!

The kids got a box in the mail from Grammy & Grampy yesterday. They always find cool little trinkets to send. This time they each got a new hat. :o)

Grampy bought Tyler this cool Marine hat at the Crawford County Fair in PA.

So Grammy had to go on a hunt for a hat for Emily.

Tyler wanted to try taking a picture... (ignore my wet hair, please)

In other news...
The girls over at Digital Scrap Garden have some awesome freebies on their blogs today!! Run, don't walk, over and grab them!

Ladybug has a beautiful quick page for you made with a new kit she is working on.
Flutterby has a gorgeous page kit called Ultimate Passion just for you.
AND
Purple Frog has a whole pile of paper clips for you!

And they're all spotlighting my layouts today too! *blush*

Meet Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle... or maybe you'd rather not??

So we started reading a book called Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle in school today. It seems there is this woman... she lives in an upside down house. Her clothes are all brown and wrinkled. Alllll of the kids in the neighborhood come to her house after school each day. While they're there they cook, paint, brush Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's hair, iron her clothes, cut firewood, dig for treasure in the back yard... all sorts of "fun" stuff. All the while Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle sits in the corner on a chair with a crown on pretending she's a Queen. It also states that Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle knows all of the kids in the neighborhood and hardly any of the grownups. Does anyone else see anything wrong with this??? I know its just a story, but still...

I did a little more scrapbooking after story hour...

Page kit: A Splash of Color designed by Ladybug Graphix at Digital Scrap Garden
Fonts: C39HrP48DhTt, Little Trouble Girl BV, Scriptina

Page Kit: Spooktackula by Flutterby Designs at Digital Scrap Garden
Font: Boring Showers

Good news!

The girls over at Digital Scrap Garden have informed me that I am their first Garden Gal! I am so excited to be on their team! If you get a chance, stop over and see me at my new creative home!

Wish me luck!

So I took a chance and tried out for the creative team over at the Digital Scrap Garden today. Wish me luck! I think I'd be a great Garden Gal, don't you?? Here are the layouts I created for my application. I got to choose a kit from each of the 3 designers there to work with. You can click on them to see larger views over at Flickr.

Covered Bridge
Page kit: A Splash of Color by Ladybug Graphix
Font: Segoe Print

Beautiful Sweet Emily
Page kit: Blue Bird Bliss by Purple Frog Pizzazz
Butterfly cutting template: Just Some Shapes by Peachy
Font: the Blue Cabin

2 lil Pumpkinheads
Page Kit: Spooktackula by Flutterby Designs
Fonts: Cafa Rojo, Tootlebug, the Blue Cabin

PS
All of these kits are only $2.00 right now!! You can click on the name of the kit under each photo to view the whole kit in their store. They have some really cute stuff over there and its all on SALE!

You might also want to keep an eye on the designers' blogs. They often post digital scrapbooking freebies there!

Purple Frog Pizzazz
Flutterby Designs
Ladybug Graphix

A new blog and new weekly FUN!

I would like to welcome you to my new blog! My Collective Life... this blog, much like my life, will be composed of many topics. Pretty much anything that is happening or comes to my mind! I hope you will enjoy it here. I have lots of fun things planned for us! One of which is....

{drum roll}

And guess what? Today is Monday! I know its a bit late in the day, but work with me, will ya? It took me awhile to come up with the idea. So anyways, each Monday I will start a post here telling you all something that I like. It might be something I like to do, or something I like to eat... or it maybe some place or something we enjoy as a family. You get the picture. Something that Makes me MERRY, hence the name. Then it will be your turn. Go blog about something that makes YOU merry! Oh, and you can put my nifty little badge (see above) in your post using this code...

<a href="http://mycollectivelife.blogspot.com/" title="Make me merry Monday"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2079/1696849312_a051cb8dfb_m.jpg" alt="Make me merry Monday badge" height="200" width="150" /></a>

Then head on back here and leave your link in my Mr. Linky so we can all come visit and see what makes you merry... spreading merriment through all of blogdom!! Everyone can play, if you don't have a blog just leave your merriment in the comments!
See? Sounds fun huh? So lets get started, shall we?

I love to take the kids to the park. We have a local park that we call "our park". Its a nice small park. There are always nice people there... and respectful kids. Alot of stay-at-home moms and dads frequent the park. I have met fellow homeschoolers there as well. We recently joined a homeschool group that is going to be meeting at another local park every Monday, so we may change "our park" as we get to know the people in this group, but for now it is this park that we call our own.
One thing that amazes me about the park is how Tyler always makes a "friend" while we're there. Always. It makes me think about how nice this world would be if everyone made friends so easily, ya know? But anyways...
I love to watch Tyler play and pretend with the other kids at the park. I love to put Emily in the baby swing and watch her giggle as she swings toward me and away from me. I love to watch her face light up as the kids run past her. I love to bounce on the springy-teeter totter-thing with Emily and Tyler on the other end.

Playing at the park with my kids Makes me merry.
How about you?