Cards

           Sometimes I browse when I'm so exhausted I should just go to bed, but am waiting for my husband to shut down his computer. The problem is we both enjoy computers, creativity and technology too much. Which leads to us being up for another hour browsing Adobe's site for their new products for web and design, and drooling over the new Master Collection which combines both of our loves for software - me the illustrator and photoshop, him the video, flash, web, and sound part of it. I really need to just learn to turn it off and go to bed, and he'd follow. We get sucked in way too easily.

More of the Boy

           My kids have been sick all week, and so nothing has gotten done. It's been rather frustrating really. Stressful as well since we're still in the process of crunch time on this thesis. I can't wait till it's over. We all need a break, we need real family time, and me and hubby are going to leave the kids with grandma while we celebrate our anniversary doing whatever we feel like for a few days. (It'll be 3 months early, but we thought we would enjoy no kids, rather than a newborn tagging along!)

           So since nothing has gotten done, I thought I'd just post a few more layouts from my new love of 4x6 layouts! :) Hope your week is going better.

Tiny Part of Our Story

           Today I was featured in the ScrapGirls Newsletter, and thought it might be fun to share it with those of you that don't get it. It's a little bit of our story.

A Designer's Life: Shalae Tippetts

Worth the Wait

           When I graduated from high school, I knew I would go to college. But in my mind, it was not necessarily to get a college degree so that I could get my dream job. Nope. What I wanted to be most in life was a mom and to do that, I needed a husband. I decided I would pursue art in the meantime, hoping to find the man of my dreams.

Life does not always happen the way you want it to. I graduated five years later. I found a job, but soon realized that there was no one to date, let alone that perfect someone. So I went and stayed with my parents for the summer between jobs.

At the end of the summer, I was working a food booth at our county fair and saw a young man. He had been a good friend of my younger sister and was there taking tickets at the concert. My thoughts were, “He’s really good looking, too bad he’s younger than me and I’m heading to Vegas.” That was it. I packed up and moved to Vegas.

I was in Vegas for about a year. It was the most incredible year of my life for my own personal growth. By the end of the year, despite the hundreds of singles that were around, I realized Mr. Wonderful wasn’t there either. I knew exactly what I wanted and he wasn’t there. But, for once in my life, I was okay with that. I was okay with whatever the Lord had in store for me. I was very happy and at peace with where I was in life and life was very good.

           One evening, there was a Singles' activity at church. I was really fed up with the whole dating game and had decided that there was no way I was going to go. Forget it. The Lord didn’t think so... I kept feeling this strong urge that I needed to go. I kept fighting it in my head. “No! I don’t want to go!”

           “You need to go.”

           “No! They’re just playing this stupid matching game.”

           “Go!”

           So, with tears in my eyes, frustrated and in a terrible mood, I went.

           I walked in and sat down, oblivious to anyone around me. Suddenly, someone behind me called out my name. Turning, I found myself looking at the same young man I had seen a year ago at the county fair. What? What in the world was he doing in Vegas, let alone sitting here at the same Single Adult activity? This city is huge. Then came my next impression... he is really good looking and wow, look at those forearms. (He had his arm stretched out across the back of some chairs and they definitely showed that he grew up in a small town moving pipe and had learned to work.)

           We spent the next couple of hours talking. Nothing ever felt so good in my life. I knew from that first night that he was the one that had everything I wanted. From there, it was history. We hung out every second, just talking and having fun. Finally, one night two weeks later, he found out that another guy was chasing me. Hmmm... he realized he had to act and asked if he could date me seriously. Finally!

           Two days later, I found him asking me the question, “Have you ever wondered how things are going to work at the end of the summer when I head back to Utah and you stay here?”

           Had I thought about it? Of course, I had. I had since I first saw him, but I wasn’t going to be the first to mention marriage here. I threw the question back at him.

           “Well, we could do it long distance.”

           “Nope.”

           “I could move here.”

           “Nope.” He was supposed to be at BYU.

           “We could get married?” It sounded like that was the only answer to me.

           That was it. That was the right and only answer and our lives have never been the same since.

           He was everything that I had wanted and, at the same time, everything I thought I didn’t want. The Lord likes to throw those in sometimes. You see, I didn’t want to marry anyone younger than me. (He’s three years younger.) I didn’t want to marry someone that was from my home town. (He lived ten minutes from where I grew up and he was my sister’s good friend.) I didn’t want to marry someone that was going through school. (I had already gone through five years myself and had been working for two years. We have now gone through six more years together and still have two more to go.) I never wanted to live in Utah. (Six years later, we are still here.) But, despite my list of things that I didn’t want (they really were unimportant), I got everything I wanted and more. He was well worth the wait and I have never been happier.

- Shalae
           This is my husband's favorite collection that I've created.

Thank Heavens!

           I thought about these pictures today when looking at someone else's blog and thought they'd be fun to post here. When Beau and I went on our honeymoon right after we were married, we found this booth that determined what your future children would look like. Being newly weds, we thought this would be great fun to do before we had our children and compare the real thing when it happened. Here's our future son!
           Maybe it's just because I'm the parent, but I think the real thing, little Isaac, turned out WAY cuter than this! But who knows, maybe we'll be looking at this kid when he turns 9 or 10. For his image in Junior High, hopefully not!
           Here is our lovely girl. Now that we've had two, neither compare! Maybe she wouldn't look so bad if she had a smile on her face... especially a smile like Mirians. All I can say is, luckily our genes have turned out better than this!
           Here are the actual ones... so far. Our real future kids. I don't think we did too bad so far.

Spring

           The snow is almost gone here, and last week it was warm enough to be outside without a coat and for my kids that meant shoes as well. It was great. It's probably just taunting me though since it's been a bit nippier this week. Either way, I'm feeling it...
           So I finished up my new "springy" collection yesterday. We'll show it off here in a few days. It felt so good to get a collection done again. I don't do many of them, and I need to do more.
           I'm feeling the spring cleaning bug slowly hit, I'm ready to tackle this apartment and get rid of stuff. If it doesn't have a place it's saying goodbye! I've got to make it easier to keep this place clean with my crazy life, and I need to have a better routine. So we're going to get rid of the stuff that is just taking up space and creating more work for me.
           My little garden is calling my name, wanting to be cleaned and prepped for some seeds. I'm about ready to tell my husband it's time to buy a house, because I'm just itching to have a bigger garden.
           I've had some people ask about Digital Scrapbooking and how to get started. (Don't worry I'm not ignoring your emails, it's just been a hectic couple of days.) I thought I would post about it here for all those other inquiring minds wanting to know. Hopefully I'll get a starting up post today.
           I've started my artistic edge photo class, which I'm so excited about. I already learned something the first day, and am pumped to go out and take some photos and start working wonders on them!
           Today is all about tackling the house, and starting to get rid of stuff, getting caught up on the endless pile of laundry and getting a bit more organized. I've got a lesson and a talk to prepare for church on Sunday... and some time with the kids. It's going to be a good day, or GREAT day as my husband would say.

NOT a happy mom moment

           We had one of those moments. One where you forget momentarily to keep control, not raise your voice and to keep your cool. It's all you can do to not use force to send your kid to timeout, especially when they are laughing and running away from you thinking it's so funny. Mirian was immediately in timeout because mom was definitely not happy. When I came back to the mess and Isaac, he just looks at you so innocently as if he's thinking "Did I do something wrong?" He smiles and hands you your mascara brush that is now bent at a 45 degree angle. It's then that you try to find some humor in the situation and decide to grab your camera to document this moment of trouble, so you can blackmail your children later. Let them know this is not ok, take a deep breath and start cleaning it all up.

           So later I decided to scrap just for fun. For the purpose of actually documenting something in my children's life for them to have later, and to see the moment in a different perspective.

See the truth.

           I love to use picassa, it is a quick easy way for me to flip through pictures, and find things when I need them since I am not an organized person. It's also easy to post to my blog that way. Sometimes when I'm flipping through it the girls will come in and want to sit on a my lap and view all of them (impossible! we have so many pictures) but they love to see their baby pictures, and of things we've done together.
           Lately though, as we've been flipping through them you begin to see yourself in a whole new perspective. You see what your normal day life is like without even realizing it. You begin to see things in yourself and start recognizing things that might not be so noticeable. Have you ever wondered.
           What you wear on most days?
           How often you get showered and do yourself up?
           What the condition of your home is like most of the time?
           How much weight you have put on or how much you have lost?
           How much you interact with the kids?
           If your kids seem genuinely happy?
           What you view as important events in your life that you take photos of?
           How many photos are perfect photos and how many are real life?
           How often you get out of the house.
           The real test is when you find pictures on your camera that your children have somehow put there. What were you doing when they snapped the picture - does it tell a lot about how you spend your time?
           It can be a real eye opener. Go for walk down memory lane, you'll realize how great life really has been for you, and you also might see a glimpse of those things that really are your weaknesses. But most of all if your kids are looking through them with you, you'll give them a sense of self, a sense of importance and one of belonging.

Funny things.

           We went out of town this last weekend and the kids said a few funny things. I've decided to repent of my ways and write them down since I know in a few years from now I won't remember any of them.
           Lately Mirian's big saying happens when we're in the car and she starts getting tired. She screams out in distress like the world has ended and declares "My eyes are falling asleep! I don't want my eyes to fall asleep!" Over and over, she'll repeat it. "My eyes are falling asleep," while she whines, cries and fights it really hard.
           We stayed at my Grandma Fielding's house while we were there and I don't think Savannah ever stayed there over night. She was walking around with my mom and came upon Grandma Fieldings bedroom, and asked my mom whose room it was. "Does she sleep in here all by her little ole lonesome? Well the bathroom is right there so I guess that makes it alright."
           Later we were at my sister and brother-in-law's house. He is a hunter and has a bunch of deer horns hanging up in his office. Savannah was in there with her cousin playing and they were talking about the "elk" horns. My mom clarified for them and said that they were actually deer horns. Savannah took a good long look at them and said "I guess Jeremy must have eaten all of their bodies."
           They are just too much fun sometimes.