CMK Blog Hop!

Yep, here we are again... CMK blog hop time! This July kit is seriously goooorgeous - it's packed full of yummy October Afternoon goodies, as well as some Lilly Bee papers as well. You can check the kit out in greater detail here. And don't forget to check out the layouts from the other girls on the DT (links on the left)!


I've been wanting to do this layout for such a long time now. I wanted to document where Tony and I met, and how our story began. However, I didn't have a photo of the place we worked together (where we met). We went to the National Zoo in D.C. last week, though, and the zoo is only a few minutes away from the place. So, I was able to swing by and get my photo. It was fun taking a walk down memory lane... :-)

Hope everyone had a great weekend and is ready to face a new week! We had a great time at an engagement party for one of my good friends, and Tony and I also got to enjoy a spa day courtesy of my parents for a belated anniversary present. It was soooo nice, and my parents are the best!! Happy Monday, everyone!

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

I realized I never shared this layout. It was in the April issue of Scrapbook Trends, and I made it almost a year ago (last July). When I reread the journaling just now, it struck me how I still feel the same way not only about my littlest growing up, but about both my kids getting older. Although I love every stage of their childhood, it's always hard for me to accept that they are growing up way quicker then I would like them to.

Journaling reads: When I first saw this photo of you, I did a double take. I searched and searched this photo looking for my baby, but she was not there. Instead, there was a little girl looking back at me. Knowing that you are most likely my last baby, I am trying to hold on tightly to your baby days, and I am trying to ignore the fact that you are turning into a toddler at an alarmingly fast rate. Instead, I focus on your cuddles, your dependence on me, and all the adorable firsts that you experience. Although I know there will soon be a time when I can no longer call you a baby, I refuse to believe that the time has come just yet.

And then I look at this photo that I took of Chloe today when we went to the pool, and it is clear that that is a little girl's face now. I found some baby pics of Noah today, and I can't even remember when he was that little. I guess that's the part that I don't like. I don't like that my memory seems to fail me, that it's hard to remember any time other then now (with clarity, anyway). And then I remind myself that this is exactly why I scrapbook. Why this hobby means so much to me. So that I can remember when they were that little and all the adorable things they said and did. Speaking of saying adorable things, yesterday the kids were home with Tony, and he called me at work to tell me something funny that had occured. The three of them were driving in the car, and Chloe was trying to tell Tony something. Noah kept interrupting her and talking over her. Apparantly, she had had enough, and she screamed out, "Noah! I am TRYING to talk!!" Heheha. Noah continued to talk, so she then screamed (even louder), "Noah!!! I am STILL talking!" Ahhh, the life of a little sister. She's a pistol, that one. She does have to follow in her brother's footsteps, after all. ;-)

I just learned that Michael Jackson died :-( Wow! He was such an icon, such a symbol of my childhood. Despite his sketchy recent past, I will always have fond memories of my crushes on him in childhood, lol, and all that he brought to the music industry. Such a shock!

Oh boy, this was a heavy post huh, lol? Hope everyone is having a fabulous week!!

Happy Father's Day!!

I want to wish a very happy father's day to the two most important fathers in my life... the father of my children who also happens to be my wonderful husband ;-) and my own father. I actually got to have a date with my pops yesterday, which was awesome. We went to our favorite movie theatre (it has some current stuff and a lot of indie films, too) and saw "Away we go." Great movie, and i'm now hooked on the music of Alexi Murdoch who had a lot of music in the film. Today, Tony and I took the kids to the park right near the airport, where the planes fly right over us - it's really cool. Tonight, we went to dinner with the whole family so that we could celebrate Tony, my brother and my dad. Despite some major fussies from the kids at points during the day, it was a great one :-) Some of my favorite shots from this morning:

Here is my latest layout using CMK's awesome June kit. This layout was based on Lisa's awesome Friday Formula sketch which can be found here. The coolest thing about this layout is that all these photos were taken by Noah! He's gotten very into taking photos lately, and I love seeing his 4.5 year old perspective on life ;-)

Finally, I had planned to have the kids pick a name from the comments from my last post to choose the RAK winner, but we ran out of time today. So I used the trusty random number generator at Random.org, and the computer picked number 20...

Amy Coose said...
You know how much I love this LO!!! You're stuff just inspires me so. (:
June 20, 2009 11:22 AM

Congrats Amy!! :-) Please e-mail me your addy at stacimtaylor@gmail.com and I'll mail the Stamping special issue out to you!

Hope everyone has had a lovely weekend!

For you, bro... (and a RAK, too!)

I have always looked up to and admired my brother. Ok, well, maybe not *always* ;-) I mean, afterall, there were many years during our childhood when we fought and couldn't really stand each other, lol. But, my big bro is 5 1/2 years older then me, so when he moved out of the house for college, I was only 12. And at that point, once he was no longer my partner in crime against the parental units, I realized how much I missed having him around. And we continued to get closer as we got older. Finally, when I was in college, I reached true "cool enough" status when he started letting me come to his parties and crash his tailgate parties at his alma mater (which was my college, too!). My brother is a kind-hearted, funny, sports-addicted, awesome guy, and i'm so proud of the person he is and all his successes and accomplishments in life! I truly hope that my children will nurture the sibling bond like my brother and I have! And I'm also thankful that he gave me one darned cool sister-in-law and the cutest and coolest niece and nephew ever!

(Don't forget you can click on the photos to see them larger)

I made this layout using all Fancy Pants products, and I used one of the pages from the On A Whimsy notebook to frame my photos. I stitched a paper ruffle along the outside of the notebook page, and I used a page from the Delight notebook (I loooooove those FP notebooks!), cut in half, underneath my photo mat. Oh, and to make those circles on the background pp, I stamped paint on an empty toilet paper roll - it was so much fun :-)

Journaling reads: I pulled your hair when I was little, and you still stuck by me all these years! You've always been my protector, my support, and most importantly, my friend. Despite the "fighting years" when "all I did was talk on the phone" (your words, not mine!), I have the fondest memories of growing up with you. I knew then, and I still know now, that if I needed anything, you'd be there. I hope you know how much that has always meant to me, and I really hope you know that i'm always here for you, as well. Thanks for being an amazing big brother... thanks for always being there!

Finally, if you have read this far, lol, you get rewarded by a chance to win this new Stamping issue by Scrapbook Trends which is on newstands now. There is lots of great inspiration inside! Just leave me a comment on this thread, and i'll pick a name on Sunday.

Hope everyone is having a great week!

So very thankful for Zout...

Oh yes, I sure needed that stain remover today! Just look at my daughter's face - her clothes did not fare any better ;-) We went to a nearby produce farm today to pick some berries, and we came home with very yummy rasberries and strawberries. We got to see lots of cherry trees, too, but unfortunately they were not quite ready yet. We'll definitely be going back soon, though!

I am finally remembering to drop off the layouts I did for Doris Sander's class last month. The first one was showing how specialty paper can be used in unique ways. I placed cardstock behind a KI Sheer and then cut away pieces of the cardstock to reveal some sheer windows. I love that Sass frame paper! It's hard to believe my baby girl was ever that tiny...

This next layout was to show how stickers can be used in unique ways. For this one, I covered a Heidi Swapp transparent frame with small Making Memories letter stickers. I used an opposite color to spell out my title, within the rest of the black letters. This is my little man showing off a new trick he learned at preschool this year - writing his name :-)

I am loving "summer" (hard to believe that we technically have a few days left until it is official!) so far... how about you all? We hit up our splash park this weekend, have gotten lots of play time outside, and the n'hood late night backyard soirees seem to be occuring regularly now. I'm looking forward to the next couple of months :-) Hope you guys are all having a great week!

If you can't beat them, join them

That's what I felt like last night. Except the "them" was really "it", and I was referring to the rain. Three of my close girlfriends and I went to an outdoor concert venue last night to see the Indigo Girls. We packed a picnic and brought some wine. The only glitch in our plan was Mother Nature, who decided to grace us with yet another thunderstorm (we've been having a lot of rain here lately!). At 9pm, right around the time that the opening act ended and the Indigo Girls were coming on, it started to rain. And rain. And rain some more. Pretty much through the entire show, lol. Some people took cover under the very small cover near the restrooms, some people actually took cover inside the restrooms, some stayed on the lawn and watched under their umbrellas, and some people actually left the concert altogether. We chose a different option and decided to just go with it, and we stayed right where we were and danced in the rain. The situation turned from one where I was slightly annoyed at first over being soaking wet to having the time of my life. I mean, really, when was the last time I danced in the rain? Granted, my memory isn't the sharpest (one of the reasons I scrapbook, lol), but I don't know that i've actually ever danced in the rain before (now running in it is a different story, hehea). Last night reminded me that sometimes I have to stop thinking so much and just do. At this stage in my life, i'm so wrapped up in being a mommy to two of the most wonderful little people in the world. My responsibilities tend to drive my day to day life. But sometimes it feels really good to let my hair down and just focus on me. Last night was one of those nights, and I think we all need moments like that! It was a very wet hour-long drive home, but that warm shower at 1am last night felt darn good ;-)

I have a new Fancy Pants layout to share, and I had fun playing around with some of my stamps from the Delight line. I love stamps and tend to be quite the collector of them, lol, but I don't use them nearly as much as I could. I'm trying to break them out more often as they're so versatile!
I used watermark ink on the wing stamps, stamped two wings and covered them with UTEE. I then added some glitter to shine them up a bit.
To grunge up my chip arrow, I first added two different colors of ink and then used the dotted border stamp on top of it... love how the arrows turned out.

This layout shows my typical chloe with her ever-changing moods ;-) Oh, and those letter stickers are from the brand new Kraft Kuts Girl line - I loooove them!

Hope you are all having a great week!

Check it out...

I'm honored that one of my very favorite challenge sites, TDX (The Design Experiment) asked me to Guest Design this month. The challenge was to scrap a favorite warm weather activity, so mine is all about BBQs! We sure do this a lot during the summer, and I love it! These photos were taken a couple of weeks ago at my neighbors LaTonya's house. She is the one on the left in that bottom photo, and next-door-Lisa is the one on the right. And, I must give another THANK YOU and shout out to my sweet friend Lisa Howard who sent me the RAK last month. I finally got to dig in and use some of the goodies she gave me, including the Cosmo Cricket and Tinkering Ink papers, as well as that pretty trim under the top photo. Thanks again, girl!!

You all can check out the challenge and see what the awesome DT did here.
Love these new glittery stickers by Doodlebug - I got them in several colors :-) Also love that cute little puffy bird from a new K&Co line.

Thanks so much for all the well wishes for my kiddos, everyone - I really appreciate that! Luckily, Noah is doing perfectly fine! He actually woke up yesterday good as new, so it seems as though it was just a 24 hour bug that he caught. I spoke to my pediatrician this morning about the febrile seizure, and he feels pretty confident that he won't get another one due to the late onset of this one (since you typically only get them from infancy to age 5, and Noah will be 5 in October). I hope he's right!!

Hope everyone's week is starting out great!

Thank goodness for a new day...

because yesterday totally sucked, lol!
Both kids are sick with fevers.
Our weekend of one n'hood party and two birthday parties (one of which is my nephew's) has turned into a weekend of sitting on the couch with two miserable children :-(
Yesterday, noah had what was thought to be a febrile seizure, and we spent over 3 hours in the ER.
Observing that was definitely the scariest mommy moment of my life.
I'm SO thankful my little guy is ok!
They think he (so most likely, she as well) has Coxsackievirus/Hand-foot-mouth disease.
Chloe woke at 5am.
Noah's still sleeping.
I'm feeling hopeful that today will be a better day :-)

In good, totally-made-my-day scrappy news, I got not one, but two amazing scrappy packages on Friday.
One was from my sweet friend doris, full of two brand new yummy Jenni Bowlin lines.
The other was from Jodi and Fancy Pants, also full of two brand new yummy lines (the boy and girl Kraft Kuts).
I totally can not wait to dig into both of those!

Hope everyone is having a happy (and healthy!) weekend!

My little helper...

Aaah, yes, they're both at that age where they want to help with everything. Watering the plants, feeding the cats, making pancakes, even putting on my face lotion, heheah. It's awfully sweet when they're trying to be helpful, but it's not so adorable when I end up with face lotion all over my shirt ;-)

I think the funniest part of these photos is Chloe's headband. Did I mention that she cut her own hair a couple of weeks ago? Yes, well, my darling 2 y.o. got into Noah's child scissors and decided to cut some bangs into her hair. So, now she has to wear headbands everyday because it's the only way I can keep her "bangs" back and cover up her um, lovely new hairdo. But, anyway, I digress. Chloe likes to take her headband off and put it back on - HER way. Her way always makes her look like a tennis player who is wearing a sweatband ;-)

Ok, onto some scrappy business. This is my newest layout using CMK's awesome June kit. I did this for a challenge I made to alter your background paper. I altered this paper in two ways - I cut out the swirls (which were originally bird tailfeathers on this My Mind's Eye paper) and backed them with a transparency so you can see behind them. I also used some diecut butterflies as masks and sprayed glimmer mist all over the background. I'm quickly becoming addicted to those mists - they're so much fun! Anyway, I had a blast with this layout, and I'm really loving this month's kit (I know, I know, I say that every month, lol, but they're always such a great combo of supplies!) :-)



I'm off to go work on a layout for a Guest Designer spot I'm doing this month - more details later ;-) Hope you all are having a great week!!