Dudley!

I got to meet Dudley today!! He is so precious! I will now share tons of pictures...









He comes home on Wednesday! Yay!

Rob's New Toy

Rob got a new toy this week. It's a Wacom Digital Art Tablet. It uses programs on the computer and special pens to create hand drawn or "painted" art on your computer.

When he first mentioned it, I was like, "What? What are you going to do with that?" Well, ultimately he would like to sell his work on a website for a little extra money. So I said okay. Besides he was using his reward from Reuter's for being the top tech support team member in the country (I know! I'm so proud of him!).

Well, his new toy came, and I've lost him to it for the past few days. Today, however, he revealed his first piece of art. It's not finished yet, but, um... WOW!!! I'm so impressed.

Check it out, this is "Valley of the Sun" By Rob Lutostanski

Small disclaimer: This image is copyrighted. Please do not copy it or use it with out my or Rob's consent. If you are interested in purchasing a copy of it, let me know. And we'll discuss what we can do.

It's official...

I, Stephanie, am addicted to digital scrapbooking.

Check out the new page I made tonight! It doesn't take very long at all! No glue, no scissors! Just me and my mouse hanging out on Photoshop for an hour or two and, "VOILA!" A scrapbook page! And best of all, if I mess up the undo button is always waiting there for me!

Check it out!

My first page:

In my boredom today waiting for classes to start, I made my first digital scrapbook page. I'm hoping to dedicate this book to Oliver and new little Dudley when he comes home. I'm so happy and so excited about how well it turned out!!


I'm still pretty new at this and have been trying to stick to free papers and digital scrapbooking kits. This one came from Shabby Princess. I may break down and buy a dog one though!

What do you think?

Update:

Dad is home and doing fine. They ran a bunch of tests and couldn't find anything wrong. We are thinking it may be a new medication he started taking a little while ago. He's going to the doctor tomorrow though to get more information.

Everyone say a prayer please.

Mom called and said they had to take my dad to the emergency room this morning. Mom said she came into the computer room and Dad had his head on the desk and was unresponsive. She called an ambulance and they came. They said all his vitals were fine, blood sugar, blood pressure, all fine. Please pray that this isn't anything serious and he gets home soon!

I'm Finished!

It's 12:48 AM and I just finished all of my homework for school. Well, not all of it, but the rest is nothing. I'm going to take a shower and go to bed.

Peace.

My New Found Talent

I've always loved scrapbooking, the way it looks, the idea of keeping your memories in a way that tells a story. I tried scrapbooking and, quite frankly, was bad at it. I was so afraid of making a mistake and the money I was losing if I did, that it wasn't worth it. Until...

I discovered my blog and decorating it. I've taken the ideas from Julia, Suzanne, and the Shabby Princess and discovered my new talent. Using the papers form the Shabby Princess, I made the title picture of my blog. This was my first real attempt at Photoshop and my first real attempt at "virtual scrapbooking." But it makes total sense! I'm great with computers! I'm marrying a computer geek! I love scrapbooking! Why not scrapbook on the computer? Eureka!!!

So, I made my second piece of scrapbooking art - the next title picture for my blog to celebrate the new year and am quite proud of it. I was going to wait until it was time to put it on my blog for the big reveal, but I'm impatient and pretty proud of it, so I'm showing it early. Now don't get your hopes too high, it's not that great, but I'm happy with it!


Here it is!



I really like it! Now I really can't wait until I have more time on my hands to try it out with some of my pictures. After tomorrow!!! I'll surely be posting some of my creations!

Now, I'm off to do homework. I'm really gonna do it. I have to resist the internet. Must do it. It's my last one!!! Okay, I'm going. Have a great evening everyone!

I'm Worried...

So, I'm very excited about getting Dudley. I can't wait to meet him and I know I'm going to love him to death. But now that I know we're getting him, I'm really starting to worry about Oliver...

He's my baby! My first born, if you will and I am so afraid that he won't get along with Dudley or he'll get all mad at me when I first bring him home. Obviously, Dudley will get a lot of attention,

1. Because he's a puppy and will need to be housebroken, trained, etc.

2. Because he's new

My biggest reason for getting a second dog is for Oliver to have a friend and now I'm worried that Oliver won't like Dudley. I've never had more than one dog before and so I don't know really how to handle it. I'll be sure to give Oliver plenty of attention, but I am so sensitive about it! I get all upset everyday about the fact that Oliver always wants to go to sleep in my mom and dad's bed at night instead of mine.

Mom says it's because he likes me to come and get him and that he sleeps in my bed all day long, but still!! He's MY baby!!

Someone ease my mind a bit please!


On a lighter note, today is my last day of Art Methods. I turn in a project for that class tonight, a project for math tomorrow, have my last Reading class and my last Math class tomorrow and hopefully will get my Social Studies project done in time for tomorrow. Then a History of Film class next Thursday, and I'm DONE!!!! WOO-HOO!!!

Also, Jocelyn comes home two weeks! Yay! We miss you!

We've been approved!!!

They have approved us to get Dudley!!! Woo-hoo!!! I'm sooooo excited! He should come home the week before Christmas, I believe and then comes the fun! Here's a couple more pictures from the website:




And, of course, I can't neglect my first baby...

Yo.

Sitting Pretty.

Just Keep Typing, Just Keep Typing

This is what keeps going through my head at the present time. I'm finishing up my projects for the end of the semester and I keep picturing Dory from Finding Nemo



Saying "Just keep typing, just keep typing" instead of, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming."

I'm almost there... I'm so ready.

Our newest adventure...

Rob and I have set out on another adventure. We are on a quest to find a friend for our beloved Oliver.


When we move into our new house Oliver will be coming with us. We are very excited about this and worried, all at the same time. Oliver is so used to always having people around and never being alone. When we move, he's going to find himself alone a lot more than he is used to. I'm very afraid he will get lonely and depressed. So, I'm looking into getting a friend for him. I found an adorable Dachshund puppy named Dudley, that I hope will make a great friend for him! We'll see how our search goes and hopefully ease my mind a bit about taking Oliver out of his current environment.

Here's a picture of Dudley:

Isn't he absolutely adorable? And I love his name!!! I'm not sure how much I'm looking forward to puppy hood again, but I'm sure it will be fine!

Rock Out!!!

Is it sad at all that me, Rob, Andy, and Ashley spent our entire Friday evening playing Rock Band on the XBOX 360?

No, it's great fun, actually. You should try it someday....

Leaving you with thoughts of someday making it big:




And our Mini-Rocker:

This Made Me Laugh...

It's a work in progress

Bear with me... I'm working on it!

We are experiencing techinical difficulties...

Please bear with me as I take some fantastic ideas I got from Julia and Suzanne to make my blog look creatively fantastic. Don't be alarmed...

We Have a Foundation!!

They poured our foundation yesterday!!! Now it's really starting to become real! I have a visual of how our house sits on the lot. This is very exciting!!! I have a ton of pictures. I know they aren't much to look at, but I'm trying to take a lot to really document the process. All of the directions (i.e. right/left) are from the stance of the front of the house. So if I say this is the right side, that means it's the right side as if you were facing the front of the house.

The back right corner (aka kitchen and breakfast room)

Our Backyard (the street you see is the court behind us) I'm standing in the VERY large part of the back yard

The back from the court

The right side

Back right corner (again)

Front right corner (aka garage)

Front right corner - our garage (I'm facing the front of the house now)

The front - right side of pic is garage, middle is front porch, left is 3rd bedroom/office

Front again - garage

Full front - garage right, porch middle, office/bedroom left

I hear it goes really fast from here, so be expecting lots of updates!

Small Disclaimer

I added the link to a new blog I came across while browsing a friend's blog and added to my "Blogs I Currently Stalk" list. It's called "Baby Rabies."

Disclaimer: I am not pregnant. I don't plan on getting pregnant for a very long time. Please don't start rumors and please don't ask.

Thanks!

By the way, that blog is absolutely HILARIOUS!

Christmas!

Real quick, I wanted to post a couple of pictures of our Christmas tree! I LOVE our Christmas tree. It is SOOOOO beautiful. These pictures do not do it justice.

With the Flash...

Without the flash...
(yes, it really is that bright!)

Merry Christmas everyone!

:::Sigh::: It's over...

Well, my weekend of heaven is over. Technically, it was over yesterday, but I had a good day yesterday, so I won't count it. I'm currently sitting in the library at Lindenwood fuming over the fact that they are raising tuition and room and board again and thinking about how the heck I'm gonna pay the extra money out of pocket.

See, there are few things that I take pride in. However, one of them is the fact that I scored a 30 on my ACT allowing me to attend Lindenwood University on a full ride academic scholarship. The stipulations of this scholarship are that I have to pay a $300 "student family contribution" (a.k.a. we call it that to get free money out of you) and $120 in activity fees. This is what I pay to go to school, and I can handle it. I work enough to pay it off every semester (on top of books and bills). Well, this past semester they upped that $300 to $500. OUCH. I'm afraid of what it's gonna be next semester. I really don't want to have to take out a loan. Pray for me.

On a lighter note, I had a great Thanksgiving weekend filled with family and fun. The food was wonderful on Thanksgiving day and it was so nice to spend the weekend with my family and not have to worry about what "I have to do tomorrow." We stayed up all night on Thursday rocking out on Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band and went shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, getting our traditional Starbuck's Hot Chocolate at 4:00 in the morning and heading to the mall. I got all of my Christmas shopping done! Woo-hoo!

I also splurged a bit and bought myself a new MP3 player, which I absolutely love:


On Friday we went and saw our hole for the house (see below)! Very exciting! Then we had a really fun evening with some friends and went to see "August Rush" which is quickly becoming one of my favorite movies.

This movie has an absolutely amazing soundtrack which I am currently listening to on my brand new MP3 player. The movie is just beautiful - dialogue, cinematography, music, acting. I loved it!

Afterwards we went to Ariake Japanese Steakhouse which is always a good meal! Sunday I stayed at home and relaxed all day. It was such a great weekend....

Back to reality! But, on the bright side, it's officially the Christmas season!!! I love Christmas! I'll have pictures of our gorgeous tree up soon.