New LO for Pagemaps Contest

This lo is for a challenge on contest on the pagemaps blog. You had to make a layout using this sketch: Here's the link: http://www.pagemaps.com/blog.php

I'm going to go ahead and say it...I like Vista. So there.

I'm starting to think that the main reason that most people don't like both is more about people's resistance to change rather than these applications being actually bad.
I think that Mac's very, VERY clever marketing strategy of the past few years has probably also put a damper on things.
I just bought a computer and did a fair bit of research first. I asked countless opinions from Mac users and then computer geeks and then did hardware comparisons and finally spoke to the retailers.
I am not going to dispute the fact that Macs are beautiful, sleek and well built and if I had much much more money I probably would have purchased one just to be able to join the glamorous ranks of those who can profess that they have a Mac. The thing is that with Mac, their entry level computer comes with insufficient memory and harddrive for what I need so I would have to spend at least another $300 minimum on top of the already inflated price of $1200 to meet my minimum requirements. Anyway, I love Vista's interface and I really like and find useful many of the changes. It will take me a little while I'm sure to be as comfortable with Vista as I was with XP and previous similar versions of Windows but I pretty much already feel quite comfortable a week after getting it.
I'm pretty excited because we hooked up the old computer via network so that I can use our old computer still for downloads and I guess extra harddrive. We also upgraded our internet services and so that is very nice.

Here are some recent photos:

These ones are taken down at the boat launch by our house. They are rebuilding it which is pretty exciting. It'll be a good quick place to go fishing in the summer. The old one was too dangerous to go on.

Both the kids have boogery noses on account of the endless sickness:

Looking out at the water:

Owen prepping to heave a rock, his favorite shore activity:

Climbing the gravel piles:

A big high ho that it doing the work at the boat launch:

Nana came over for a visit last weekend, the kids were really interested in her camera on her cell phone.

Finally in some spring gear, YAY!!!

Last weekend we went to Maureen and Murray's for Caitlin and Nancy's combined birthday parties.

Brian tickling Ella; Ella pretending not to like it:

Lauren:

Babay Mallory and Mommy, sorry Andrea about your eyes, but Mallory looked so cute in this pic!)

Grandpa and Ellie:

Dinnertime:

Some serious conversing:

I liked the lighting in this pic:

Caitin=GORGEOUS!!!:

David finding himself very amusing, he's working on his easiest and nicest audience-his mom.

Lauren had just gotten her face painted at the sugar bush that day:

Ellie Belly:

Owen looking VERY sick, this was the beginning of a very sick week for Owen, Ella and Daddy.

I thought this one of Mike and Andrea was cute:

Auntie Sharon and Mallory:

Auntie Andrea and Ella:

Oh yeah, and I started working two days a week doing the bookkeeping job. I'm doing it my bosses house and I started bringing the kids to a babysitter. I was finding that it was too hard to get the time at home to focus enough on getting my job done. Last week was my first week and I absolutely loved it. The kids also seemed to like their new babysitter so so far so good. I personally really loved getting some time to myself where I was able to dedicate focused time to doing my job. It was very relaxing. So that is something that I am super pumped about right now.

Oh and here are two new digital layouts I did recently:

Awesome finds at Dollarama today!

I had to drive to Carleton Place today to pick up a table saw that David had bought on Kijiji for like $50 today, so I stopped in at their Dollarama and the local scrapbook store. I found some seriously cute candle holders for $1.00 each:

I also found these "room decor" chipboard packs, a farm one, flowers and bugs and a zoo one. They are nice and big. They were $2.00 each. I'm pretty excited to use them. I also got that ribbon for $1.00. I haven't been to Dollarama in forever, so it was pretty exciting to find these new products.

This is my loot from the scrapbook store:

Here's my most recent digital layout of Ella:

The next three layouts are ones that I made for Mallory:

This is a paper lo that I did of our new bathroom:

Last weekend we had a big fire to burn construction materials and apparently we melted some metal! It looked so cool, I wanted to touch it!

The best thing about winter (not that I drink that crapola):

Ellie eating snack in her new Nihau Cailan shirt, she loves that show. This is the first "commercial" type outfit that I have ever bought. The show is so cute, Cailan always says "that makes my heart feel super happy" I LOVE it!!!

Checking everything out:

She has got her Daddy wrapped around her little finger. Quelle suprise!

AAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWW! This makes my heart melt, like seriously, it's in a pile on the floor.

The following two pictures are dedicated to Steven and Don, due to their lack of faith in a tile drill bit. I believe that their words were somewhere along the lines of "they suck, they don't work, they are a waste of money" I mean, the hole could be cleaner I guess, I guess it could have slipped through like water rather than butter, so maybe they were right. Yah, right, check out these sexy holes: We can just call David the drill dr. from now on.

SOme recent pictures of Mallory: