Scrappin' it Up!

Look at me scrappin' it up! I am so sick of doing crappy scrapbook pages by hand. It takes me forever - about an hour each page - and they still look like a 13 year-old did it.
I bought a CD of scrapbook files from the craft store but then discovered CUTER, free stuff on the Internet (http://www.shabbyprincess.com/) It took me a while to figure out how to do it - what program to use, how to download (and unzip) the files, what format to save it in, etc. But now one page takes me about 15 minutes and they are slightly cuter than my handmade versions.
Hooray! I'm so glad to be saved from the tortures of real scrapbooking (I was never a REAL scrapbooker, so real scrapbookers: please do not be offended. I honor your creative expression just as I honor mimes or jazz dancers/flag twirlers (in parades) for their creative expression)
Does anyone need a tutorial? I would love to show you how it's done. And I'll take anyone's advice, tips, tricks, etc. on how to do it better. (Except from Tia, because her version of scrapbooking always includes sandpaper, which seems very wrong, and because it's has to be 2nd-gen stamping, when I never even mastered 1st-gen stamping! "Close to ma Heart!")

So, here's the first page what I done. We went on a trip to Vernal this fall because Joel had to oversee a dam. We stayed in the NASTIEST motel (the Sage Inn) on the only street in Vernal that anyone could classify as the bad part of town, but our kids kept saying, "Wow! This is the nicest hotel ever!" ...we don't get out much. We took the town by storm! - Visited the dam site for a few hours, went to Pizza Hut for dinner (DINE-IN!!!! _and_ we ordered sodas)

we went to D.I. (my favorite part of the trip, and I kept thinking the whole time how proud Dan would be to know that we went there) visited the dinosaur museum (pictured below), a city park and we spent considerable time at a wildlife refuge. It was such a fun trip, although I had to have lots of rests on account a my compromised condition (prego).


Here's our Halloween page (cute paper, for sure!) Lincoln was a pirate, Asher was a vampire, and Clara was Dorothy from the wizard of Oz. Joel and I were what we are every year, it seems, disco people/skaters/dates, or something. At our ward Halloween party we scored the prize for the cutest date (or something like that). I'm pretty sure that while they gave awards to anyone who dressed up, we came home with top honors. Also of note, I wore my rollerskates because they are lime green and white and so are my white polyester pants with green stars down the leg. I was skatin' it up like ya'll know I know how to do and someone asked me if I had ever been in a skate club, like at a roller rink. I took the question as a observant compliment to my abilities.

And here's Christmas. Lincoln and Asher both got what they asked Santa for. Lincoln got pirate dress-ups and Asher got a flashlight. But the Geo Trax which also came Christmas morning took up the bulk of our attention through the holidays.

After we opened presents Joel got out his motorcycle and pulled the kids on tubes on the fresh snow. He said it made his Christmas. It was fun family activity. Whenever I was on the tube with Clara she'd be totally silent the whole time unless I said 'woo hoo' and then she'd echo the sentiment. I kept asking her if she was having fun, and in her lowest, most bored voice she'd say, "uh-huh."

P.S. We had our ultrasound and found out we're having a girl. We're excited and happy that the baby is looking much cuter than most fetuses.