Here is my take on it! 
These pictures were taken while out camping over Labor Day weekend last year. Like most siblings, mine fight. There are plenty of battles. But they truly do love each other. They hold hands, share snacks, make sure each other get whatever special thing they got. They give each other kisses and hugs. This just melts this Mama's heart and I pray they stay this way! 
You can find it here. And a close up: 
I decided to make this for the girls at Chris's work. They seemed to like it! :-) I also sent one with Peyton for his teacher. Now I need to get going on a fun Christmas idea. 
I finally remembered my camera to get a picture of it. It happens every day. :-) 
Hopefully I will remember it again so I can get a better picture. Notice Maddy's shoes. Yes, those are Peyton's Spiderman sandals. She will wear his shoes and pajamas but WILL NOT wear his jeans!
This is what I came up with.
This was my $3 garage sale find. After a little spray paint and pulling out a poster I have been wanting to frame for 8+ years, this is what I ended up with: 
I used some papers from a 6x6 Basic Grey pad. I never have been interested in the 6x6 pad size. I picked two up at a garage sale for CHEAP and have to admit, they are VERY nice for cards!
This is the birthday card. I pulled scraps from my stash for this one! I also used a SRM sticker. LOVE those stickers!
I also created the 3-d star, figuring a guy probably doesn't really want a flower on his card! 
These pictures were from my Grandpa's birthday. I kick myself now for not getting a picture of Grandpa with all the kids. This was taken at an assisted living center where most of the patience had memory issues. 
We keep random papers, mail, bills to be paid, stuff to be filed, receipts, etc. in it, all nice and organized! It has sat on our kitchen counter just like that for MONTHS! I finally had a chance to alter it recently. 
This is the end result. This is the front. I actually had made the yellow piece before Christmas for my bazaar. It was a magnet board. It didn't sell and I liked it so I kept it, even though I had no place to hang it. It worked perfect! 
I added another little magnet board to the side that shows. 
I opted for super simple magnets as the papers make the file box busy enough. 
I used the May kit from Birds of a Feather. LOVE the May kit full of Jillibean Soup yumminess!
I did a bit of stitching and layering.
Can you read that? haha! Okay if your interested, here is the journaling. Just a warning though, its long. I had to cut a few things out in order to fit in on these two pages and also shrunk the type quite a bit. The Ranch, to me, is my Grandpa Read's (Herschel Read's) house that was built in the 18 's. *Interesting side note: The house was built by a one legged man.* The house was built on approximately 2000 acres which included part of Haystack Butte.
Perry Read (My Great Great Grandpa), in his early 20s, spent much of his first winter in the region with Barney Prine, who was determined to start the first town in the central part of this newly established state. Soon Perry Read met Hattie Montgomery (my Great Great Grandma) and married her. Perry Read and Hattie Montgomery were among the first of the white settlers in the Grizzly Mountain area, the first area of what would eventually become Jefferson County. Perry Read took a homestead in the Haystack Butte area, where he established a stage stop business. A small town grew in its shadow, called Perryville, in honor of Perry Read. There were two businesses there that eventually moved north a bit and helped form the town of Madras in the 1900's. Perryville had its own post office, run by Orace Collver out of his general store. This town was located where Haystack Reservoir is now located. When the railroad tracks were going up just a couple miles to the west, the entire town picked up and moved. By then, the community called itself Culver, a misspelled reference to the postmaster. Perry Read lived the life of a western stockman, indoctrinating his only son, James Perry Read, into the life as well.
James Perry Read (who went by Jim Read), as a young buck, raised wild horses. Jim would gather the wild horses up and drive them to a military fort in Brownsville, Oregon where he would sell them. One of my mom's (Jennifer Read Hatfield) fondest stories of her Grandpa was this: Grandpa Jim had a very very nice horse. He took a heard of wild horses over to Brownsville to sell. Someone offered him an outrageous amount of money at that time (my mom thought $100) as well as a cow and calf for his horse. Jim took the deal and it took him 30 days to walk the cow and calf from Brownsville to Culver. Along with raising wild horses, Jim cleared the land around the house and started growing wheat. This was around the time the town moved to where Culver is currently located now. James Perry Read (Jim Read) married Florence Belle Read. They had two sons, James Herschel and Howard Kenneth Read.
Herschel Read was born in 1912 and graduated in 1932. He served in the Navy in World War II, returning to take over the family ranch. Sadly, Howard Kenneth never returned from the war. When Herschel Read returned from the war and took over the farm, he didn't like horses and the farm was basically a dry wheat operation. So Herschel raised a few cattle for himself/the family and slowly added in cows in (this is in the late 1940's). Herschel quit growing wheat in late 60's early70's. There was a government program in the 60s' that subsidized farmers. The government paid farmers not to raise wheat due to a surplus. That is when Herschel could make more money NOT raising wheat than to raise wheat. This is when the Ranch turned from a farm to a ranch. During this time he allowed the cattle to graze in those fields. My mom (Jennifer Read Hatfield) was raised in this house. As a child she didn't always have plumbing. When built, there was no electricity or plumbing. They had an ice houses and an out houses. Over the years, the house was updated and added on too. They took out the stove that was in the middle of the living room and added a heating system, although the upstairs still has no heat. They added on a pantry, laundry room and bathroom on the backside of the house as well as a master bedroom and bathroom on the side.
I have so many fond memories of the ranch. One of my favorite memories is the Christmas Eves we spent out there. I don't remember a Christmas Eve as a child anywhere other than at the ranch with all the family. We had clam chowder and my moms cheese bread. I remember trying to sneak past my Uncle Pete to grab an olive when I wasn't supposed to. Uncle Pete turned it into a fun game. I also remember HOURS and HOURS of playing up in the bonus room upstairs with my brother and cousins. They had a stool that spun. We had contests to see who could stay on the longest as others spun us as fast as they could. There was an old secretary’s desk we used to play pretend with and a closet full of toys we liked. On warm summer days my cousin and I would take off exploring. One time the exploration landed us in a pen with a bull and scared the heck out of us. We also liked to walk a ways from the house to where there was an old broken down tractor. We'd pretend we were driving it. So much history, so many memories, The Ranch will forever hold a special place in my heart.
Kudos to you if you made it this far! Thanks so much for stopping by!
I love the fun and bright colors in these papers and on this layout. The sketch had 3 photo spots, but I just couldn't narrow it down to three, so I did 7!
I hand stitched the butterflies paths and also did some machine stitching. I added a few staples around the title just for fun! I barely fit all the journaling from the month in! I doodled around the edge to make it stand out a tad bit more. 
I did a bit of doodling too. 
Just a few close ups...
A super simple layout.
In case you wanted to see each page closer.
The pictures are from our road trip last summer to see my brother in law and sister in law who lived in Core D'Alene Idaho. We were supposed to pull our trailer over there and camp nearby. But, we lost the transmission in our truck. :-( We debated cancelling the whole trip. I am so glad we didn't as we had a lot of fun. We took the kids to Silverwood Theme Park. What a neat neat place! I'd love to take them back some day! I wasn't sure what to expect, so bought a disposable camera. I was quite disappointed in how they came out.
This is what happened when I asked Peyton to smile and show how excited he was.
I was so proud of him. he walked right in, sat where the teacher told him to sat and that was that! :-) No tears, no 'Mommy don't leave me', nothing! Poor Maddy sat down next to him and refused to get up! I had to pack her out. :-(
So I made a tag to slip onto a bottle of lotion I picked up. Since the bottle was orange, I decided to make sure that color was in the tag. I have a few bits and pieces from Scenic Route left in my stash and have been itching to use them. I happened to have almost exactly the right sizes of papers to alter the bag! I just love it when things work out like that and I don't' have to throw away paper! 
Just a quick and simple tag and card!
I started off by opening up my inspiration file and found a card I saw posted a long time ago on the Jillibean Soup blog. 
I was also inspired by some of their embellies that I am to cheap to buy, but think I can make! ;-) So I glued some yarn in a circle pattern to a piece of paper, layered it on top of a piece of felt, on top of a couple scalloped netting circles and topped it off with a button.
I made 4, each one different. 
But these two were some of my favorite photos. I used a sketch from Cardablities for these cards! 
Pardon the clutter behind the photo. I am still in the process of cleaning the garage. I cleaned it up and spray painted it! I'm now waiting for Chris to get back so I can have two extra hands to put my poster in it! The poster had been rolled for at least 8 years, so its hard to handle. Check back soon to see me finished product! 
I bought some plain pearl headed straight pins a while back. I love being able to alter them to fit whatever project I am working on. I simply glued on a orange and black bead to jazz them up a bit! 
The colors seem kinda wonky in the photo, but in real life it looks much better! 
I distressed a lot of edges, including the pictures. I wanted to sew, but was too lazy, sew I drew on lines instead! 
Side note: If your looking for a friendly message board check out Birds of a Feather. Everyone is SUPER sweet and its small enough you don't feel totally overwhelmed when you join! Amy has great challenges each month too! Also, you will want to check out The Paper Variety this week! it is their one year anniversary and they are having a PARTY! Lots of inspiration challenges and prizes! So head on over there and check it out!
We got it home and got the swing arm off and with all my body weight put into, I could even budge the dang thing, so I knew I wouldn't be able to help Chris. So I marched over to the neighbors house and asked for help! :-) I love having great neighbors! 
Ta-da! It is all set up. Although I had to order new swings as the ones they had were broken. 
So I just got this sad pathetic, I will not smile for the camera, shot of him. :-( 
Then once inside the classroom, the teacher tried to talk to him and he all out broke down. Which caused Maddy to get upset, which caused me to feel even worse than I had. So I did not get a picture of Peyton with his teacher as I had planned. 
