Till Death Do Us Part

Charles and Christine Roberts November 27, 2011

I knew Charles was the man for me not long after we met...on the internet.  

For the couple of long years that we endured a long distance relationship, my heart would ache.  It was a feeling that I became used to.  The constant feeling of emptiness directly over my heart made it feel as if my heart was ripped from my chest.  The only time I ever felt like I could breathe was when I was with Charles.  

I can't tell you how ecstatic I am to call this man, my best friend, a man who knows every ugly thing about me and loves me anyways, my husband.  After 4 years, many plane rides, a 1,000 mile move across the county and the arrival of Draven Charles Roberts, we are, at last, man and wife.  On Sunday, November 27, 2011, when the planets were aligned just so, we said "I do" and committed our lives to one another.  It was short, simple and to the point with very few people in attendance.  

I count my blessings everyday and feel so much gratitude towards those who are a part of my life.  Life is good.  

You can see pictures from our special day here, taken by my fabulous friend, Shanthi.  Now I can't wait to scrapbook the pictures! 

<3 Christine Roberts

Little Star

Since I've made a commitment to cooking healthier meals, working out and taking care of myself and my family, I've found that my time in the studio has become...slim.  Unfortunately.  Until I've got my poop in a  group, studio time will have to take a back seat.  It IS for a good cause, however, so I'm okay with it.  Kind of.

The "Little Star" featured in this layout is my darling son, Draven.  He just turned one a couple of weeks ago!  Time flies!

This layout I used some resist paper to cut the star out of with my cricut and inked the edges with various color of blue distress ink. The stars are grunge board, edges inked black to help them pop, the star border is ribbon, and I used a Martha Stewart punch.  I've been trying to remember to use my punches more.  I've been trying to remember to use ALL my stuff more on every layout.  With that in mind while I worked this layout, I also used some of my die cuts from my stash for the word "star" and some glitter puffy letters for the word "little".  Yay for using my stash!  Also used some of my Tim Holtz tissue tape.  I have a TON of the stuff and have barely used any-so yay for using tissue tape!  The flourish on the bottom is Prima from my stash.  Thanks for stopping by!

Remember

It seems one of these blog things are necessary to adequately promote myself and any kit clubs or blog challenges I wish to participate in, so I really need to focus on posting not only at my scrapbook.com gallery and family share site, but also on my blog.  

This layout was my submission for the September Round Robin challenge over at Scraps of Darkness.  So fun!  

The photo is of my darling mother and darling daughter back in the fall of 2002.  I used the August Envy kit from Scraps of Darkness and various bits and pieces from my stash.  The bird was misted with spanish moss glimmer mist by Tattered Angels to alter the color to match my layout. The vines were cut using my Big Shot and a Quickutz die.  I promise close up photos of my upcoming projects since that is what I would do normally, but this photo was taken in the wee hours of the night and closeups weren't going to happen.  I do appreciate you taking the time to stop by though.  Do me a favor and let me know you were here!

October 31st

I'm feeling a little autumnish lately for some reason. It IS my favorite time of year, but summers are too short in North Dakota and winters too long, so I try hard to not look too far ahead of the present moment.

To me, Halloween, or All Hallows Eve is about ghosts and goblins, witches and vampires. I love that my kids are similar to me in that they love all things scary. They will watch a scary movie with me and love to dress up as scary creatures of the night for the fabulous dark holiday. The photo is Megan and Tristen, Halloween 2009. I used My Minds Eye Haunted collection and my cricut to cut those fabulous die cuts (haunted house, tree, fence and grave stones) using the October 31 cartridge. LOVE that cartridge. At first I was just going to go with the kraft color and black, but then decided the page needed a little pop of color. I love how this turned out-no matter how simple. Thanks for stopping by! 

Latest and Greatest

Holy moly!  It's been a good minute since I've posted anything.  After all the places I post this stuff, I begin to wonder the point of a blog, too.  Post here, post there, upload, description, blah, blah, blah.  I'm thankful for copy and past, that's for sure.

Since everyone whose anyone and is in the business of sharing their work is doing a blog, I figure I better get with the program.  I've been doing a lot of this over at my family website on Shutterfly, which can be found here, but it gets lost in the shuffle amongst all the great photos of my family and videos I'm posting, plus, it's not as easily accessed as a blog, so here I am again.  Now I'm scrambling to comment here, there, on this site and that site.  How do YOU all keep up?  I'd like to know.

Anyways, almost 6 months ago, I joined the most amazing kit club called Scraps of Darkness.  Melinda puts together the most amazing kits, that aren't so frilly and foo fooey as some other kit clubs are.  The kits are versatile and jam packed of fabulous product.  I'm totally in love!  Not only do the kits rock, but the challenges that are hosted over there are amazing.  Each challenge I participate in inspires me to bring my creativity up a notch.  It's also been serving as great therapy.  Specifically, the "Skeletons in the Closet" challenge that Lisa hosts.  It's always some crazy challenge, that makes me want to dig deep and really reveal my skeletons.  Some of my most heartfelt work has come from those challenges.  This particular layout was done for the Stalker Challenge that Renea hosts over at Scraps of Darkness.  I know it's nothing too crazy, but that was one of the points.  It needed to be clean and simple, so I kept it just that.  I really enjoy doing a clean and simple layout once in awhile anyways.

30 Seconds to Mars is currently one of my favorite bands, so I knew I wanted to a do a layout featuring them.  One of the challenge criteria was to use something you had never used before on a layout.  I used the plastic netting.  It came around a bottle of wine, and I saved it for this exact purpose.  Another criteria was that the photo had to inspire the item you had never used before.  The pattern of the wallpaper reminded me of the netting-so it worked out perfectly.  The last item I needed was a hand made embellishment, which are my hand cut stars.  Nothing too crazy.  It goes with the clean and simple requirement though, so I'm fine with that.  I printed the band's logo out from a photo file I found on the internet on some red paper, and then, viola!

Pics of the Month-November

It is so challenging for me to go through the hundreds of pictures Charles and I are taking each month and pick only a few to share with you all.  The month went by with a blink of an eye.  November was filled mostly with just living life with a bit of excessive eating at the end of the month.  We had a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner made by yours truly, Lisa and Shanthi.

Lisa made her world famous pepper spiral ham and I made a turkey.  We also had Mom Roberts' homemade stuffing and sweet potatoes, smashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, cranberries, dinner roles and of course, pumpkin pie.  :-)  

My two handsome sons.  Tristen loves his little brother!

Tristen has a new obsession with wife beater tank tops.  I bought him a pack 

and now he wears one every day under is cloths.

This might be my most favorite picture ever.

Megan is such a wonderful helper and loves to help take

care of Draven.

Current obsession.  

Nonfat Chai Tea Latte with sugar free vanilla and hazelnut.  

Yummo.

So gosh darn cute, just melts my heart. 

All ready for Santa.  He's real, you know.

 <3 love.  

Pics of the Month

I'm going to make an attempt at keeping an online photo journal to share with family and friends who live too far away.  "Pics of the Month" will be a monthly documentation of things we did, places we went, and everyday home life featuring my beautiful family and friends.  Thanks for sharing this beautiful journey with us.  Even if it is only via the world wide web.  

 Kind of hard to see but he's sporting a lil' mohawk 

and of course the cutest little smile ever.  

Draven and Daddy sleeping.  We catch the z's whenever we can in this house,

whether it's laying down or sitting up.  

Quick trip to Minneapolis on Saturday, October 30th.

Charles had a free night at HGI for winning the National Employee of the Year.

Way to go, honey!  So proud of your accomplishment!

View from our room. 

Late night tour of the property.

Hilton Garden Inn Downtown Minneapolis is fabulous.

 Beautiful pool area.

Gorgeous view of downtown.

I love the lights in this photo.  

Me lookin' not so hot and the lil' peanut.

I do love this pic, though.    

The photographer, Charles

 A tender moment of Tristen admiring Draven.

Tristen and Megan hanging in the pool.

 Beautiful day downtown Minneapolis.

Hard Rock Cafe Minneapolis.  We had

a tasty lunch before heading to the 

Mall of America.  

Trick or Treating @ the Mall of America.

There were way too many people

and not enough candy. 

We now have a drum set in the studio.

Our neighbors love us.  

 I scored an iPod at work for makin' a couple of big sales.  SUH-weeeet! 

 My future Rock Star just kickin' it.

 His Daddy Rocks.

Blowin' bubbles.  

 Charles and I had our first date night in 3 months with no kids on
November 11, 2010.

Thank you to Lisa and Shanthi for babysitting!

We went to see Filter play a show at The Hub here in Fargo.

They played an awesome show and were in top form.

Our awesome friend Frank scored us all access passes.

(Thanks, Frank!)

 We hung out with the guys in the dressing room before the show 

and watched the show from just feet away.

Unfortunately, I was sick, so went home right after the show 

instead of hanging out with the guys.  

The guys played old favorites like Jurassitol, Take a Picture and 

Hey Man Nice Shot.  Charles got to catch up with Rich

 and visit with the other guys he hadn't met before

and test out how the new camera lens' worked in a concert setting.  

Not too shabby.