Merry Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas from the Cain and Williams crew! We hosted my family at our house on Christmas eve and had a blast with the White Elephant gift exchange. Morgan brought over a Santa hat and everybody had to put it on when it was their turn to choose a gift and there was lots of swapping and laughing going on! Rachel brought both her dogs over and combined with ours and Morgans we ended up with 5 dogs in the house, Jim had mixed feelings about it as you can see by the picture. All of the kids stayed the night at our house so we were able to have Christmas morning with our whole family. It was a nice, peaceful Christmas and I enjoyed every minute of it. We went to Jim's Moms house on Monday afternoon and I totally forgot to take a single picture, grrr. It was nice to spend some time with Twyla, Shell and Bob though. I hope all of you had a great Christmas too!

OMG- She's 21!!

Ok, seriously, where has the time gone?? Today is my little tiny baby Rachel's 21st birthday and I can totally still remember the night I gave birth to her. It was a full moon and her Grandpap swore to me that she was going to come that night and sure enough, he was right and she did. I do miss her Grandpap and wish he was here to see what a beautiful girl she has become. Our family, her dad and Sean's family all got together in downtown Olympia to celebrate with dinner and for Rachel- some drinks. Our waitress was a good sport and let me take a picture of Rachel's first time being carded. She managed a double shot and 2 mixed drinks without getting too tipsy, although I suspect later tonight that might not be the case. LOL!! I love you Rachel and enjoyed  your birthday dinner alot. I'm very proud of you and look forward to continuing to watch you grow and mature. Happy Birthday!!

Isnt she lovely.....

My Minds Eye is one of my favorite scrapbook lines and companies. They always come out with unique patterns and embellishments that catch my eye and inspire me to create. I took this picture of Rachel this summer and it's one of my favorites, I think it shows her beauty -inside and out. She has grown into a lovely young woman and I couldn't be more proud of her. Love you Rachel!! I used the Stella and Rose line for the base of this project and some embellishments from Lush to complete it. Hope you like it!

Out of the Loveshack and into the house

It has been a really cold Fall and it's shaping up to be an even colder Winter, so I decided to move my scrapping stuff into the house. I love the Loveshack and it's been a really great space to create, but.. I feel really disconnected from the rest of the house when I'm out there. Now, don't get me wrong, sometimes that's a good thing! But I realized that I really haven't been doing any scrapping lately and the idea of going out there in the cold and hanging out by myself had become less and less appealing. So when Jim suggested we move my stuff into the house I thought about it for a few weeks and then agreed to take over Rachel's room as my new scrap space. It's kind of bitter sweet to use her room, I guess that means she's a "guest" now when she comes to stay since she doesn't have her own room anymore. So sad, but I guess I have to let go sometime. Once I moved everything in I started looking at the walls and wanted to do something to make it more "creative" of a space. I had a bunch of Theresa Collins chipboard covers in red from a project that Tiffany had done a few years back that I had an idea for. The red didn't match the paint on the walls so I used some papers from DCWV to cover them and then added some black and white pictures. A little bit of ribbon and some help from my husband to hang them evenly and I was all done within a day or two. Now that I'm in the house I am finding myself going up there to organize and play around a bit, I guess moving inside was a good idea after all.

Mike's WSU visit

Last Friday Mike and I made the long, 6 hour drive to WSU for a campus visit. Mike has picked UW, WSU and Western for his 3 choices to apply to for college. Of course he hopes to get into UW but he wants to have a couple of back ups just in case. So, off to WSU we went for a tour and lunch. We got into Pullman around 8:80 pm and got a quick bite to eat then headed to the hotel to get some sleep. We spent all day Friday walking around campus and meeting with advisors and students so we could get a feel for the campus. The weather was a little cold and the scenery is definitely different than the "westside" as they call it in Pullman. Mike really liked the campus and he is leaning toward it right now, but we still have Western to visit so we'll see. The best part of the trip for me was just being able to spend some one on one time with Mike, he's so fun to talk to and I just love him to pieces. I'm so not looking forward to him leaving home.

Mikes senior pictures

It's hard for me to believe that Mike is a senior and is less than a year away from going off to college. Today we went to the Olympia Capitol building and took his senior pictures. If you've been watching my blog for any time at all you know this is one of my favorite spots for pictures. It was a little rainy so we spent most of our time on the steps of the capitol under cover but we did manage to dodge the raindrops and get some others too. Mike really doesn't like having his picture taken but he was a good sport and posed for over an hour. These are just a few of the over 300 pictures I took. Check out my grown up boy!