Where, oh where, is Spring?

Winter has seemed very harsh so far. We have had lots of snow, ice, and very cold temps. Every time I look outside, it's snowing . . . AGAIN!

Brrrrrrr . . . .
it's cold.

Even our dog, Kita, doesn't seem to like

it outside anymore.

If you look closely, you can see her running for the door.

When that groundhog comes out this week, he better not see his shadow, or you may hear the whole Fritchman family screaming!

Beauty all around me!

Speaking of Swirlydoos kits, I just got my February kit and had to scrap with it right away. I used a photo from our recent vacation in California. We were driving down the California coast on Highway 1 and stopped to look at the remarkable scenery. I got out of the car and was exclaiming how beautiful everything was, when Katie took my picture. I am usually very shy about having my picture taken - I am typically the photographer!!

Here it is:

My newest layout

I absolutely love belonging to the Swirlydoos monthly kit club. Each kit is loaded with all kinds of goodies including beautiful patterened paper with coordinated embellies. Their website has a design team, a message board, a blog, and is full of inspiration and creativity. Check them out at http://www.swirlydoos.com/! I made my newest layout using the January kit entitled "Retro Tapestry" with the enclosed sketch, and a 12 x 12 piece of Kraft paper.

Each kit contains a sketch by a wonderful artist, Beggahuna. You can see more of her work at www.scrapbook.is/beggahuna/

I used the photos taken at my mom's 80th birthday party for this layout, entitled "Jeanne turns 80!"

My mom turns 80!

My mom's 80th birthday party was yesterday and boy did we surprise her! It was so nice to see a lot of her teacher buddies and so many family members attend the party.

(the party planners: Karen, Sharon, & Patty)

We actually needed to get the grandchildren to hlep her blow out 80 candles.

Happy 80th birthday, Jeanne!

Woohoo!!!!!

Steampunk Scrapbooking

I love to scrapbook. I find it very relaxing and fun. It is my therapy during stressful and hard times, and it helps me to celebrate the things that I love. One of my favorite scrapbooking sites is the scrapbook.com website! It is full of wonderful, talented, and creative people who share their work and support others, too. I feel very grateful for all of the new friends that I have met there.

The monthly challenges at sb.com have helped me to meet new people, learn new techniques, and to totally get out of my comfort zone. One new form that I learned about, and have grown to LOVE, is Steampunk. This funky, creative, and eclectic style really intrigues and fascinates me. I feel drawn to it, and have absolutely enjoyed getting into it more through the monthly challenges started by Celina, aka forevervampress.


This month's Steampunk challenge topic is about NY's resolutions/goals. My goal in 2011 is to get my blog up and running.


In Decmeber, we were challenged to make a page about the travel. So in my mind, I thought, who travels more than Santa?

I made this page for the October, 2010, Steampunk challenge

and I had so much fun creating this layout for the September, 2010, challenge, regarding school.

If you love scrapbooking, you should give Steampunk a try!I think you might like it as much as I do.

Happy 8th Birthday Anne!

We celebrated Anne's 8th birthday on her actual birthday this year! It was such a wonderful celebration with our family. I still can't believe that it was 8 years ago that she was placed in our arms in Hunan, China.

Layouts created in 2011!

A scrapbook layout that I created for Katie after our California trip. Doesn't she look joyful?














Another page created using photos from our trip to California. This page was made for this week's song, "Stand By Me" at Scrapping the Music Challenge. My hope is that Katie and Anne will always stand by each other as they grow up and get older!
















I used my Cosmo Cricket papers for this layout and entered it into the January Cosmo Cricket Challenge at scrapbook.com. The photo is of my sister, Cathy, when she was 5 years old. It was taken before any of us younger sisters were born.

Our family vacation in California

The last week of the year we did something that was very long overdue. We took a family vacation! Our last family trip was to Disney World in 2007. We were actually planning to go back to Disney World, but found that it was just way too expensive to stay there at holiday time. So, we decided to take Kate and Anne back to a place where their parents lived 20 years earlier - right after they got married! John surprised us with a trip that he planned - to California.

We saw Salinas, CA, where we lived in our first apartment as newlywed's. The vast farm-lands



there are mind-boggling.



Monterey and Big Sur are just as beautiful now as we remembered them in the year 2000. The Highway 1 road trip was beautiful, and scary at the same time.












For Katie, we visited the campus at Stanford University,




which was absolutely beautiful.






What high school student wouldn't want to go there?







(Driving over the awesome Golden Gate Bridge.)










Our trip ended in San Francisco - a wonderful exclamation point at the end of a fabulous trip. When we got home, I felt melancholy and a little sad because I knew that this would be one of the last times we would all have together before Katie goes off to college.














Happy New Year to all!
Thank you for visiting my blog.

My New Year's resolution is to get my blog up and running! We'll see what happens - stay tuned!!