I'm done with L.O.A.D. but there are still a few layouts to share here over the next couple of days. Before I get to that, there are some opportunities to share with you as well. Many of you also know Deb at Paper Turtle, but in case you don't you should add her to your list of blogs! Happy, optomistic, a great photographer of the every day, Deb is one of the most creative ladies I know. She recently took up crocheting and has an adorable prize up for grabs here.

And many of us enjoyed Rinda's photographic scavenger hunt over the summer. This morning I got an email from PaperCoterie who has developed one for the month of March. The theme is "Play" and it looks like fun. If you're into iPhone apps, there's a hashtag for Instagram if that's how you'd like to play along, although any kind of camera is fine. There are some great prizes as well. I'm not sure I'll manage every day's prompt, but I'm definitely going to participate. The details are here.

So here are some more scrapbooking pages:

This is a story I've wanted to tell for a long time. In fact, I wrote most of the journaling in 2008 and stuck it in a folder. All the supplies are from Cosmo Cricket–three different lines.

My grandfather raised chickens. There were chicken coops behind the house, and a special coop for incubating eggs. His primary purpose in raising the chickens was to show them at the fair. In my grandparent's dining room the china cabinet had no china–just trophies my grandfather had won for his prize chickens. 

But showing chickens is not what I remember. I remember feeding the chickens and helping collect the eggs. It took me awhile to be comfortable moving a hen off her nest, but I remember picking up the warm eggs and putting them carefully in a basket. The chickens themselves made me nervous. I was not a particularly brave child, and I was amazed to find this photograph of me holding a chicken. I recently told Matt about it, and he got a good laugh just thinking about it. 

I remember Saturday afternoons when Grandpa would choose a chicken for Sunday's dinner. He had a long log that lay on the ground outside a few of the coops and a clothesline that was strung above it. He would hold the chicken by its legs, whack its head on the log to knock it out, and chop off its head with an axe. The whole process took just a few seconds. Then he hung the chicken up by its legs. The chicken flung around for a few seconds and blood dripped on the ground. I don't remember watching him clean the chickens, but I do remember helping pick the feathers out, and singeing the pin feathers off with a match. My grandmother died when I was in the third grade, but I remember helping her in the kitchen on Sunday to cook the chicken dinner which was always served with mashed potatoes and gravy. My guess is that was the best chicken I ever ate, although it was so long ago, the tastes have disappeared. 

I found this photo of Caleb on Face Book last week, and it cracked me up. It's just like my SIL, Adam, to take his iPad and prop Caleb up next to it. My favorite photo of the bunch, though, is this one.

He's getting so big. He goes for his two month check-up tomorrow and I'll be interested to see how much he's grown. Only nine more weeks until we head out to Oregon again. Whenever we do Face Time, I just want to reach through the screen and grab ahold of him!

I'll be back soon with the last three layouts for L.O.A.D. Today I'm hoping to get some serious cardmaking done!