Creating my everyday

My top 10

2012-01-02T22:49:00.004-05:00

Happy new year, friends! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! We celebrated new years at a party at a good friends house - there were 10 adults and 13 kids, and most of us slept over (although I got no sleep, thanks to a baby who doesn't sleep out well ;-)... it was a great time, and a great way to kick off 2012. In keeping with tradition, I wanted to dedicate a post to my favorite projects of 2011. Here we go....

Here's wishing you all a happy and healthy 2012!

Happy holidays!

2011-12-26T20:14:00.008-05:00

Whew - can I rest yet?? Between Chloe's birthday, Hanukkah and Christmas, our December is always crazy!! It's been a wonderful week, though, full of Hanukkah presents and Christmas trees. Our Christmas Eve tradition is to go to my brother and SIL's to spend with the fam, and then we hung out at home all day Christmas day and relaxed (and the kids played with lots of new toys!). We ended the day with a lovely Jewish tradition of Chinese food on Christmas (hey - I have to bring some of my childhood traditions to our home, right? ;-)

Oh! And did I mention that Tony totally spoiled me?? He got me a new DSLR! I can't tell you how excited I am about this! My Canon Rebel XT just turned 6 years old, and it was definitely dying a slow death after years of abuse. So my honey surprised me with the Canon Rebel T2i - it is amazing!! It has way more features and capabilities than my old one did, and some of my favorites are the 18 megapixels and 6400 ISO (my old one went to 1600!). I'm having SO much fun playing with it, but I still have lots to learn! So, without further ado, here are some of the very first pics taken with my new camera, depicting our holiday week:

My Chloe bear, on Xmas Eve (wearing fake earrings that I made out of faux pearls and glue dots LOL!):

Me and my mama:
Weeeee!:
My beautiful niece with Chloe:
Me and my man:
Love this shot of Tony and Chloe:
And me and my girl:
Me and my bro lighting the menorah with our kids:
Having fun messing around with the new cam on Xmas day ;-)

And, just because it's cold and I feel like remembering the warmth lol, here is a LO I made awhile back that I forgot to post about the annual outdoor concert that my girlfriends and I go to every summer:
Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, no matter what you celebrate!! :-)

A letter to my girl...

2011-12-18T20:41:00.003-05:00

Today this sweet girl turned five (picture of Chloe and daddy taken at dinner out tonight). Five! I remember when Noah turned five, and it hit me hard. Five seems, well, so old. Yes, I know that may sound a bit dramatic, as I am well aware that five really isn't old (now 36 like me, that's another story ;-), but it's definitely "big girl" status. In celebration of my Chloe's birthday, I wanted to write her a letter, which I hope you don't mind that I share here.

My dearest Chloe,
It's so very hard to believe that you are five years old now. It seemed that for so long, we were stuck in the phase of you being my little shadow, attached to my hip, never wanting me to leave you for one second. Though that phase lasted for several years, it now seems a faded memory. You are now so independent. Sure, you get a little wary in new situations, but for the most part, you jump right in. You work hard to keep up with your older brother (I have a feeling the motivation for you to get your training wheels off several months ago was to be like Noah!), and you definitely work hard to take care of your little brother. You are SO kind hearted. You are constantly making gifts for people, always wanting to share a little piece of yourself. You are a helper, always wanting to do things around the house for me. You are artistic. You love to paint, draw and create. You have made some of the most creative, unique things all on your own - I love to see how your brain works. You love to bake. I try to have regular baking projects with you because it makes you so happy, and I enjoy that time spent together, too. You have a thirst for learning. You are such a good girl at pre-school (your teachers rave about you!), and you ask a lot of questions, regularly trying to figure out how the world works. Now, because i'm keeping this real (here it comes! ;-), I have to mention that you can also be, um, how should I say this.... difficult at times. You are very strong willed and stubborn. These are qualities that I have no doubt will serve you well later in life. You will not be the child who lets herself get pushed around by others. However, at home, that can also lead to a lot of butting heads and frustration. We are working on it, and it's a learning process for both of us. No matter what, though, I love every single bit of you, strong willed-ness and all! As you and I always say, we are the only girls in this house full of boys, so we have to stick together! I love you with all of my heart, Chlo-Chlo, and you will ALWAYS be my girl Happy fifth birthday to my "big" girl.

Love,
Mommy

Teresa Collins Guest Designer and major catch up!!

2011-11-29T13:59:00.004-05:00

Ok, so it's been a *little* while since i've updated here (hanging head in shame ;-) The truth of the matter is that life has just gotten really busy, and, unfortunately, I just haven't had the time to keep up with scrapping and blogging like I used to. I'm trying hard to manage my time so that I can get back to scrapping regularly like I used to - I really miss that creative outlet! I did manage to get some layouts done recently for my guest design gig for Teresa Collins. She sent me the GORGEOUS Christmas home collection, and I made these 3 layouts:

You can see the blog post here.

A super big THANK YOU to Teresa Collins for having me as a guest designer - what an honor! :-)

Now, onto some photo catch up! During my blogging hiatus, I missed Halloween:

And I missed a trip to the airport park with the kids. Lucas LOVED seeing the planes fly by! My mother-in-law was also here for a visit then, which was a great treat for all of us. Unfortunately she had to cut her trip short, as Tony's grandmother is sick, but we loved having my MIL visit while she was here!

And then, most recently, I missed blogging about Thanksgiving. We hosted, as we always do, and it was great to have some of the family together. Love this pic of us ladies - my mom, me, my SIL, my niece, and my Chloe :-)

The 5 cousins:
And this year's family photo (yes, this will be gracing this year's holiday card soon LOL)!
So, in recent months, Noah finally lost his first tooth, Lucas started walking (he is all over the place!), Chloe learned how to ride her bike without training wheels, Tony completed the Tough Mudder (a 10 mile obstacle run), and I signed up for the Iron Girl triathlon (.6 mile swim, 17 mile bike ride and 3.4 mile run). What was I thinking? Good question!! Thank goodness I have until August to train. I've started with the running, and although I still hate it lol, at least I feel like i'm going to die a little less each time - I guess that's a good sign hehea.

Yes, life is definitely busy here. But very very good. And we truly have so much to be thankful for. Happy belated Thanksgiving, friends!

Thank you GCD Studios!

2011-09-25T19:55:00.002-04:00

Ok, ok, I know I've been on a teeny tiny bit of a hiatus here recently ;-) Super busy month and not a whole lot of scrapping. Still working on that whole balance thing! I did have the honor, though, of Guest Designing for GCD this month, as you can see here. Here are the first two projects I did (the other two haven't been posted yet) with their awesome September kit. I had a blast working with it - thanks GCD :-)

I also got a gorgeous box of Teresa Collins goodies the other day to work with for a Guest Designer spot - super excited about that, as well! Can't wait to play :-)

Things have been good here - the kids are loving school so far, and work is going well for me. Noah turns 7 next Sunday, so we are having a birthday party for him which he can't wait for. I got away last weekend for a girls weekend for the first time since Lucas was born - I love those weekends to refresh and recharge! Thanks for bearing with me during my absenteeism ;-) Happy fall, my friends!

First birthday and First grade... oh my!

2011-09-01T20:19:00.003-04:00

Lucas turned ONE last week! I still can't believe it - this year went sooo fast (too fast!). I've always had a hard time with my babies turning one, but knowing he is my last made this one that much harder. But, alas, we had a wonderful birthday party celebration for him, and that helped his sad mama embrace the exciting times that lay ahead ;-) He got two ride-on trucks for his birthday that he LOVES. I just had to get these photos scrapped right away, of course :-)
Some of my favorite pics from the party (we had a Sock Monkey theme :-):

Not only did we have a first birthday, but we now have a first grader! Week one has been going well... no complaints. Let's hope it stays that way!

No firsts for this girl lol, but she is excited to be starting her second (and last) year of pre-school in two weeks.

In addition to the big birthday and the start of school, we had quite an eventful week last week! Last Tuesday, Lucas' actual birthday, we had an earthquake that measured 5.8 on the Richter scale. Not only do we normally not get earthquakes out this way, but the one we did have before was very slight. There was no denying this one! Things were falling off shelves in our house left and right - I even had a vase break! The two younger kids were freaked! Then, only 4 days later, Hurricane Irene made her way up the east coast and brought crazy storms over this way. Luckily, we did not lose power (LOTS of people out here did, and some people I know first got their power back today - 5 days later!) and there was no damage, but others were not so lucky. I feel very lucky! We did have to postpone Lucas' party from Saturday to Sunday, but it all worked out ;-) I sure hope all my friends out there who were also visited by Irene also fared as well as we did!

Let's hope next week is not nearly as exciting! ;-)

Family frame

2011-08-15T11:23:00.002-04:00

One of my favorite things to alter is plain wood frames as I love finding unique ways to display photos around the house. This is a recent frame I had lots of fun with :-)

I'm working on a printer's tray right now for an assignment...love those things!

Speaking of assignments, I got my goodies from GCD for my guest spot - love the gorgeous stuff I got! Will share when I can :-)

Going to take Lucas for his very first haircut today... the boy's hair has exploded! Can't believe he is going to be one in 8 days, ack!!

Happy Monday, friends!

I'll blame it on mommy brain...

2011-08-08T21:17:00.002-04:00

Yeah, these would be two more projects from when I was the guest blogger on the Jenni Bowlin blog a couple of months ago. I had previously shared the two layouts I had done, but I also made this little mini-album:

and this butterfly mobile (which is hanging in the doorway of Chloe's room):

I used the JBS butterfly stamp on transparencies with watermark ink, and then I heat embossed the images with different embossing powders. I then attached them to the little tart tins from JBS - Chloe loves it :-)

Tomorrow the kids and I get to celebrate the birthday of one of our favorite people... Daddy! Well, their daddy, anyway ;-)

Loved this day...

2011-08-02T20:34:00.002-04:00

These photos were taken on Mother's Day. The kids and I were just hanging outside, and the big kids were blowing bubbles for Lucas (sorry, Chloe, you didn't make it into the layout lol). Lucas thought it was the funniest thing ever! Love those little moments :-)
We've done a lot of hanging around this week. We went to see The Smurfs Sunday night, and the baby came down sick later that evening, so we've been stuck in the house. We made fingerpaints, silly putty, baked cookies, went on the slip and slide, and we've played 6, 399, 293 games (at least that is what it seemed like lol) - mostly UNO. I'm definitely not complaining, though - I love games myself, especially UNO :-) I'm sure the kids are feeling a little cabin fever at this point, but we've gotten a lot of quality summer-time in. Good times :-)

My other love...

2011-07-29T20:18:00.003-04:00

It's no secret that I love to scrapbook, but some of you may not know that I also love to crochet :-) I've been doing it since I was a little girl (I think I was 7 or 8 when my mom's friend taught me how), and i'm hooked (hehe). Having kids has given me an excuse to get back into it, and some of you may remember the sock monkey hat that I made for Lucas this past winter. I've always loved this photo of him, and I finally got around to scrapping it!

I can't believe we're already almost into August - ack! This summer is going TOO fast! The kids have dabbled in camp this summer, but from here on out, there are no more camps and vacations left, so it's up to moi to keep them busy. Today it was homemade finger paints I had found a recipe for on Pinterest. Wonder what next week will bring? ;-) Would love to hear any ideas you all have found for great summer activities!

All I ever needed to know I learned in Kindergarten...

2011-07-25T18:49:00.003-04:00

I always thought that classic poem was true... I wonder if Noah will? :-) He had such a great Kindergarten year, and he loved his teacher. She is young and energetic and had good control of the class - she worked out really well for my little guy! (Btw, ignore the crazy coloring of the photo, my printer was being wonky, and I plan to swap that photo out!)

We can't wait to see what first grade brings - I hope Noah's love for school will continue!

Back to life, back to reality...

2011-07-19T19:48:00.010-04:00

So, the reason I've been away from my blog (even longer than usual ;-) is because we just got back from a family cruise to the Bahamas. What a blast! The kids and Tony and I went with my parents, and we had so much fun :-) We left from Baltimore, so we didn't have to fly, and i'm really glad we did that, as I think flying with three young kids would have added a whole new level of stress lol. On our days at sea, the kids chose to go to the camp, and they had a blast! On our first port day, we hung at the beach while Tony took surfing lessons, and on our second port day, we went to Atlantis in Nassau - it was gorgeous! We didn't get off the ship in Freeport but decided to enjoy another day on the ship. Some of my favorite highlights of our week:

- Dinners in the dining room. The food was reaaaally good, and Carnival makes meals so much fun! Most of the nights, the waitstaff did interactive dances, songs, etc, that got us up and moving. There was even a magician that visited our table and did magic for us.
- Dates with my hubby. Thanks to my parents, we got to have some adult time to ourselves. One afternoon, we got to enjoy some time at the adults only pool and even snagged a relaxing hammock. One of the nights, we went back to the adults only pool and hot tub (see a theme here?) , and on another night, we hit the bars on the ship and went to the comedy club.
- A date with my dad. We went to the piano bar and also saw a comedy show - the guy was a riot!
- The excursions. I had so much fun playing in the ocean with the kiddos, and it was neat to see Lucas experience the beach for the first time. Atlantis was amazing! Totally gorgeous and the best beach ever! The aquarium was pretty awesome, too.
- The drinks. It was vacation, afterall! ;-)
- And, of course, the family time. The kids had a blast, and it was so great to make so many new memories with them. And, I feel blessed that we were able to go with my parents. Not only did they get quality time with the kids, too, but we got lots of hangage, too.

Now for some of my favorite pics from the week (in order that we experienced them) - it was hard to choose!

I could definitely get used to the cruising lifestyle!! Something to aim for in retirement... ;-)

Woah... two posts in one week!

2011-06-30T21:44:00.002-04:00

Might I actually be getting back into the swing of this whole blogging thing? ;-) Well, the first full week of summer is going well. Noah has been at Lego camp in the mornings, and we've been keeping busy and having playdates in the afternoons. We're going to get our 4th of July on this weekend with the neighbors, and we plan to get in lots of pool time.

I have to share a few recent things my kids said that cracked me up...

I had recently asked Chloe to do something, and when Noah observed that she wasn't doing it, he reminded her of what she was supposed to be doing. Chloe's reply? "Noah, you're not the boss of this family!!" Hmm, that sure knocked him speechless... ;-)

The other day, I was rinsing out an outfit of Lucas' in which he'd had a blowout. Noah came over and asked what I was doing, and I told him that I was getting the poop out of Lucas' pants and that one day, when he was a daddy, he'd have to do the same thing. He replied with, "Ewwww! No way! I'm going to have the wife do that! Oh, and I'm not going to change any dirty diapers either!" OMG, I wasn't sure if I should bust out laughing or be pissed that we are raising a little chauvinist lol (although, i'm still hoping he was kidding ;-) The funny thing is that Tony is a very hands on dad, so he's certainly not getting the hand-off type dad modeled for him. Crazy boy. Luckily he has many more years for me to knock some sense into him!

Before I leave you, here are two of the layouts I completed at the crop I was at this weekend:

If i'm not back here before then, have a wonderful 4th of July to my friends who celebrate! :-)

summer summer summertime.....

2011-06-26T20:20:00.004-04:00

Whoo hoo! it's truly finally officially summer... let the fun begin! :-)

This layout:

is of my beautiful girl at her first dance recital a couple of weeks ago.

This boy:

is TEN months old (how on earth did that happen??). He is SUCH a joy! He just got his first tooth on his ten month birthday, and today (a few days later), he got his second tooth. He's not crawling the "proper" way, but he scoots around on his tush and crawls backwards lol. He's waving and clapping and smiles and laughs all day long. Seriously. Our neighbor always jokes that he has never heard the boy cry. I only hope his demeanor stays so upbeat ;-)

This girl:

loved her dance recital! She was in two dances (a ballet dance a tap dance), and did such a great job up on that big stage! She misses preschool and constantly wants to work in school workbooks lol. She has gotten really good at writing her letters and constantly asks her big brother how to spell words. She also really loves crafts, and she has recently taken to "upcycling" pretty much every empty bottle and box in our house. We have a long craft to-do list for the summer.

This boy:

just "graduated" from Kindergarten! Wow, that also went fast! He had such a great year and learned so much! He is reading like a champ, and it never gets old hearing him. He continues to be a lego fanatic, and it truly amazes me how well he build his own designs. He's also gotten really into drawing lately - hopefully he has his daddy's talent. He made some great new friends this year, and he continues to be an awesome big brother.

This mama:

is REALLY excited for the upcoming cruise we are all going on this summer. I'm happy to be in summer-mode both at work and at home, and am hoping to take some time to take things down a notch. I've been eating well and working out regularly, and I feel good (despite feeling sleep deprived since that baby of mine still isn't sleeping through the night ;-) I went to a scrapbook crop yesterday which was so wonderful - hadn't been to one since I was preggers with Lucas! It felt SO good to create. I'm really trying to make time again to make it a regular thing. I've gotten totally addicted to Pinterest lately, and i'm really excited for the season premiere of True Blood (in 30 seconds! gotta wrap this up lol).

This daddy:
is training for his first race event (it's called Tough Mudder, a relay type of thing) in the fall. We can't wait to go watch! He's the best daddy ever, and he's a pretty darn good hubby, too ;-) He's also super excited for our upcoming cruise - we haven't been on one since our honeymoon!

What we've been up to...

2011-06-07T20:34:00.006-04:00

Or more like, what haven't we been up to?? Gosh, things have been busy lately! As the school year comes to a close, I am looking forward to lazy(er) days and spending lots of time with the kids. The kids have some camps they are doing, we are going on a week long cruise to the Bahamas, we've got lots of crafts and pool time planned, and we're even going to have a visit from this super cool lady and her super cool son :-)

In scrappy news, I can sum up what i've been up to very easily - nothing lol. I have taken a break this past month as I hadn't been feeling very creative and needed to refocus. Well, i'm happy to report that the break helped - I actually felt motivated to scrap two nights ago, and it felt GOOD! Actually, it felt great :-) It just reinforced for me how much I love (and need!) having a creative outlet, but sometimes taking a break is definitely needed to get the mojo flowing again. I made this layout just for fun (something I also don't do nearly enough!).

Here is the journaling:

You have always been SO tall for your age and have often acted more mature and wiser than one would expect. Because of this, I sometimes forget that you are ONLY six. I forget that when it’s pajama day in Kindergarten, you will want to wear your superman pajamas with a cape. I forget that when it’s show and tell, you’ll want to bring in a stuffed animal. I forget that when I volunteer in your classroom, you’ll want to run over to me, give me a big hug, and sit on my lap (which I love!!). I forget that sometimes when things aren’t going your way and you’re frustrated, you’ll break down in tears. Time goes way too quickly as is, so I am so thankful for all of these little reminders that inside that mature, wise exterior, there is a little boy who is ONLY six.

So, speaking of scrappy breaks, my term is up at AMM and, after two years designing for Michelle, I have decided not to renew my term. It was a tough decision because I love AMM and I really love Michelle, but it seemed like the right time for me to move on. Life is definitely crazier now, and I think it's good to do something different after awhile to bring out the best of my creative side :-) This is the first time in three years that I have not been on a design team, so it will definitely take some getting used to, i'm sure. And, although I don't have the time in my life to be on multiple teams like I used to, I would certainly still love to be on a team in the near future if it's a good fit. So, my plan is to just keep creating and see what the future holds!

And, of course, I just had to post some recent pics of what we've been up to...

Chloe and Lucas loving each other up on Memorial day: The boys swimming at our good friends' house:
Hanging out with my new friend, the goat, at my nephew's b-day party (at a farm ;-)
I just loved this bench, and Lucas seemed to, as well!

Love this little guy!!
Happy hump day, my friends!

Some Jenni Bowlin projects...

2011-05-27T22:04:00.002-04:00

Ok, these are so overdue to be posted here, it's not even funny ;-) I was a guest blogger on the Jenni Bowlin blog last month, so I made four projects, including these two layouts (with the awesome new Be My Guest line):

I just love that clock paper. I cut out the larger circle and then stitched clock hands with my sewing machine.

I love those large butterfly rub-ons... so pretty! It's hard to see in the pic, but I heat embossed a butterfly (using the JBS butterfly stamp) with glitter embossing powder on a transparency - it's layered between the large pink butterfly on the bottom and the blue punched butterfly on top.

I also made a mini album and a butterfly mobile that is hanging in Chloe's doorway. Will post those next :-)

Life is good here... the school year is winding down, and I am anxiously awaiting our schedules to be a little less hectic. I can't believe it's almost June!!

Happy Memorial Day weekend, friends!

Happy Mothers Day!!

2011-05-08T20:48:00.003-04:00

I love my mother dearly. Over the years, she has gone from the role of mentor to the role of friend. Don't get me wrong - I still go to her for advice all the time, and I still consider her my best role model as a mother, but now that i'm an adult, I definitely also consider her a friend. She has taught me how to love unconditionally, selflessly, and with all that I am. I truly don't know where i'd be or what i'd do without her! My parents are on a cruise right now, so this is one of the only times I haven't spent Mothers Day with my mom (the only other times were when tony and I lived in Tucson). I missed her today, but i'm sure she's having a lot more fun where she is lol.

In honor of Mothers Day, here are some of my reflections on motherhood...

Motherhood is NOT:
glamorous
easy
inexpensive
restful
quiet
free of stress, anxiety and constant worrying

Motherhood IS:
a privilege
a blessing
incredible fun
the most important and rewarding role I have had and will ever have
truly the most incredible, overwhelming, all encompassing love
My wonderful hubby gave me this gorgeous bouquet of flowers. I smile every time I walk into the kitchen :-)
I had such a great day with my family, and actually, the Mother's Day fun started for me on Friday when I went to an event with Noah at his school, and then I had a Mothers Day party with Chloe at her preschool. Today we met my bro, SIL and niece and nephew out for lunch, and the rest of the day we just chilled.

It was gorgeous outside, so we played with bubbles, the kids rode bikes, and Tony and I both got in some napping and I even got to crack my book open :-)

Lucas LOVES bubbles. He would get the biggest smiles whenever he saw the kids blowing them.
He would also, however, make what we termed "the stink face" every time a bubble came near his face and/or popped in front of him. Oh man, he was cracking us up! I laugh every time I see this picture.
Before I go, I wanted to share my last projects from AMM's April kit (sorry my posting is so long overdue!!):

I hope you all had an amazing mothers day today, whether you're a mother yourself or celebrating a special woman in your life!

Let's just pretend....

2011-04-14T21:52:00.004-04:00

that I have been keeping up with my poor neglected blog. Let's pretend that I remembered to post this last layout that I did with last month's AMM kit
and the first layout i've done with this month's AMM kit.
Oh geez. One of these days i'll get my blogging act together ;-) I have a few more layouts to post, but i'll come back with those, as well as several projects I completed for a guest blogging spot on the JBS blog - will come back with a link when that's up :-)

Things here are good, and they continue to be super busy. I really don't think it's that much harder (yet!) adding a third to our family, but the biggest change for me seems to be that someone always needs something, so my "me" time has been greatly reduced. Of course, all his sweet baby snuggles make every lost second of "me" time more than worth it, and I know that one day life will be balanced again ;-) Luke continues to be such a sweet sweet baby, now if only we could get him to sleep! His nighttime sleep is the pits, and his daytime sleep isn't much better. Of course, I blame us for that - since he is the third kid, it's really hard to keep him on any type of schedule since there's always places we need to go for the bigs. I just keep reminding myself that he won't go off to college still waking in the middle of the night. At least I hope not lol.

Noah and Chloe are doing well, too. I can't believe the school year is already winding down - Noah got his 3rd marking period report card today. They're continuing to stay busy, and they've very excited that the weather is changing and bringing us outside every day again.

Well, friends, I hope to be back much sooner next time, and hopefully no pretending will be necessary! ;-)

My loves...

2011-03-29T20:56:00.002-04:00

Yes, they truly do make my heart full, even on the days when they make me want to tear my hair out :-) We got pictures taken at Picture People recently, and this is one of my favs...
This LO was made using the gorgeous March kit from AMM - I just love those doily stamps I used to make the bordered edge!

Speaking of AMM, there is a giveaway at the forums for the new Pagemaps book. You can check it out here.

Soooo, tomorrow I turn the big 3-6. Yikes. Is it terrible that I still feel like i'm in my twenties? :-) Tony and I went out Saturday night to celebrate since my b-day is in the middle of the week. We saw a movie - my choice (The Adjustment Bureau - I loved it!) and then went to dinner at The Melting Pot. YUM!! We had only been one time before, many many years ago, and we had gone with a big group. This was seriously one of my favorite meals in a long time. And since it's a nice leisurely dinner, we had plenty of time to reconnect and talk (and have a few drinks :-) Great night!

Well, friends, i'm off to go exercise... nothing like waiting till the last minute. Good night, all!

Winter and I are fighting...

2011-03-23T19:20:00.002-04:00

Yep, winter is soooo not my friend. Thank goodness it is now Spring that I have to deal with! Winter has brought way too many germs into my house this year, including the Flu for my little guy. We ended up at the ER last week and have been battling high temps, coughing and vomiting since then. Actually, I think we did turn a corner yesterday, as both yesterday and today, Lucas has been fever free - whoo! Let's keep fingers crossed...

AMM's march kit is sooo pretty. Lots of MME's beautiful new line, Stella and Rose. I made this LO of my little guy. Remember when we took him to that open casting call back when he was 8 weeks old? I just had to scrap it, and this is the photo the amazing photographer, Jodie Otte, sent me.

And whoops, I realized i never posted this one from last month's kit. Like everything else these days, i'll just blame it on sleep deprivation ;-)
Funny story of the night: The kids love the song "freeze dance" and asked for it tonight after dinner. So, knowing they would want it over and over and over like they always do, I pushed the 'repeat' button on the stereo. Well, they got it in their heads that they were using "the force" to keep making the song start over. Noah even went and put his star wars costume on for full effect. Heee. Kids are so much fun.

Thank you GCD Studios!

2011-03-15T20:22:00.002-04:00

I was super excited to find out today that I got one of the Guest Designer spots for GCD Studios - I can't wait! I'm really loving their new lines, and I know it will be so much fun to guest design for them :-) You can read the GDT announcement and see who the other lucky ladies are here. They also announced each new DT member one at a time on their blog today - lots of great talent! Here is one of the layouts I submitted for their DT call, using lots of their beautiful products:
And yep.... she really is going to be trouble!! ;-)

Got my gorgeous March kit in the mail from AMM - it's full of lots of the new gorgeous My Minds Eye Stella & Rose line. You can check it out here.

Catching up on some layouts...

2011-03-08T21:26:00.004-05:00

So, although I haven't blogged much in the last month, I have still been scrapping :-) Here are two of my AMM layouts with last month's kit. That sun was made from the awesome tulle-ribbon in the kit, and I have a quick little tutorial on how I made it on the AMM blog here.

Gosh this girl has come far! It's only in the last year or so that her independence has really grown - she was such a little cling-monster to me for the longest time!

These aren't the best photos as they're off my phone, but they're all pretty recent pics of the kiddos. This was taken of my sweet, smiley boy the other day:

And this was taken of Chloe's new haircut today :-) They took about 5 or so inches off, so i'm excited that it will be easier to brush lol.

And for the 100th day of school, my big guy made a belt with 100 lego on them (with mommy's help of course ;-)

I can't believe it's already March! My birthday is right around the corner, and then summer vacation will be here before we know it. We're starting to make vacation and camp plans - I can't wait! And, of course, I'm SO excited for the nicer weather to come!

So, I started doing Jazzercise a couple of months ago. When I first went, I had visions of headbands, legwarmers and big 80's hair lol, but it was nothing like that. The classes are a great workout, and they incorporate high impact cardio with strength training. Anyway, i'm really enjoying it, and I signed up for their "Jazz it off" challenge this past weekend. It's basically a 3 month "biggest loser" contest of sorts. I'm excited as I needed something to motivate me to get back in shape... wish me luck :-)

We now resume our regularly scheduled program...

2011-03-03T20:54:00.003-05:00

Hello, friends! I guess you noticed that I decided to take a little blog-cation ;-) I needed a break for a bit so that I could regroup, and the time away did me some good! I'm now back with lots to catch up on! I'll start with a mini I made last month (with AMM's Jan kit). I know you all have heard me talk about next-door Lisa. Well, next-door Lisa is now very-far-away-Lisa :-( as our neighbors and good friends moved many states away. I decided to make lisa a little mini to capture some of our many good memories we had made over the last few years...

Soooo, i'm very excited to tell you guys that the new AMM message board is finally up! you can find us here. I've so missed having a message board!

Anyway, I promise to be back very soon (at least much sooner!) as I have more new projects to share and, of course, new pics of my babes :-) Hope all is well, thanks for sticking with me while I took some time off - I missed you guys!

Just breathe...

2011-02-05T20:23:00.002-05:00

That was my motto this week as I went back to work (thankfully still part-time) while also continuing to try to be the best mom and wife I can be (though this part still needs lots of work, i'm sure my family will tell you lol).

It was definitely hard leaving the littles (especially the baby, as i'd gotten pretty used to leaving the others ;-), but my transition back to work was pretty successful. Although i'm sure other areas of my life will become more neglected while I try to balance it all, hopefully I'll have the hang of juggling both my professional and family life soon!

My MIL got here today and is visiting for the next couple of weeks - the kids were pacing back and forth in front of the window all day today waiting for her arrival lol. Unfortunately, Lucas came down sick today, and it seems to be a stomach bug :-( Hopefully it will pass soon so my MIL can get in lots of snuggles with what is normally a happy baby!

Sorry to be so behind on posting my recent work - here are the last two layouts from the gorgeous Jan. kit from AMM, and i'll be back to post my mini-album I made soon.

I apologize for terribly neglecting all my friends' blogs! I plan to catch up veeeery soon. Happy weekend, everyone! Hope you all have some fun super bowl parties planned :-)

AMM January kit

2011-01-25T20:39:00.002-05:00

I've been working hard with this month's AMM kit - i've gotten 4 layouts and a mini-album completed, whoo! :-) Here are two of the layouts i've done:
We started Lucas on cereal this morning - he was really into it! So cute! I also started a mommy and me Gymboree class with him today - I did one when Noah was a baby and it was so much fun :-)

I saw Black Swan last night - definitely dark like everyone has said! I liked it a lot, but I didn't think it was amazing like some opinions i've heard. Did any of you see it?

Ack, the little guy is back up, so this short post is coming to an end. Will be back soon with more scrappy love and some photos :-)

Sick of my photos yet??

2011-01-18T21:29:00.004-05:00

I feel like i've been in photo overload on this blog lately (perhaps because I have been? lol). We had another little photo shoot this weekend - I crocheted a Sock Monkey hat for the little guy, and I just had to get some pics of him in it! The bigs wanted in too, of course!

Before I get to those, here is a painter's tray I made with Webster's Pages products. I've been hoarding that gorgeous big flower paper for soooo long, and when I saw this painter's tray, I just knew it would be perfect for this! I am really happy with how it turned out - I have it hanging in my entry way :-)
And now, drumroll.... on to the pics ;-)
Chloe decided she had to try on the sock monkey hat, too, and Noah thought it would be a good idea to bite her shoulder. Those two are wacked out, I tell ya lol.

This one cracks me up - can't you just see Lucas thinking, "Mommy!!! Get these two to stop hugging and kissing me already!" Hee.

Today was a snow day here. Pardon me, it was actually an ice day. We had freezing rain last night which made the roads really slick, so no school for Noah. We kept ourselves busy by finally breaking out his science experiment kit, doing crafts, watching a movie, and hitting up target. I think i'm ready for bed now ;-)

So, the kids started asking me a ton of questions yesterday about how Lucas got in my belly. Eek! You'd think I would have been prepared for this, but no, they totally caught me off guard lol. Luckily, they were satisfied with me discussing the whole egg/seed thing, but i'm sure the next questions will dig deeper hehea. I'd love to hear any input on how you all explained this um, delicate subject matter!

Well, friends, time for me to go relax since all three kids are finally asleep. Happy almost-hump day, everyone!

Where the heck have I been??

2011-01-11T19:12:00.004-05:00

Oh yeah... i've been creating:

I've been watching this cutie grow (and grow! he's getting so big, isn't he?? I can't believe he's already 4 1/2 months... sniff, sniff):

I've been watching these three get into some serious trouble together ;-) (I can't get over how old noah looks in this photo! and what a beefcake Lucas looks like lol):
I've been having fun with my fam (that's my parents and my bro):
And seeing lots and lots of my beautiful mama:
And, of course, I was ringing in a new year with these little ones:
It's been busy here, but life is good. Lucas came down sick for the first time a couple of days ago, but he seems to be on the mend, thankfully. I am gearing up to go back to work in a few weeks. Although I really enjoy my job, i'm definitely bumming about having to leave the little guy. I feel blessed to only work part-time, so I know i'll still get to spend a lot of time with him, but I know it will still be a transition period for all of us!

So, I have to share this story (and for those of you who are my Facebook friends, I apologize if you already read it!):

The kids and I were talking about Martin Luther King at dinner the other night. Chloe excitedly announced that she had a book about MLK and left to go get it. Knowing that she has typical 4 year old girly books, I had no clue what she was referring to. She returned a minute later and proudly held up a Cinderella book. Enter our dumbfounded faces lol. Seeing our confusion, she opened it to a particular page and said, "See?! It's Cinderella and the man you were talking about - the king!!"

Oh. My. Goodness. I just love the things that come out of children's mouths :-)

Well, my friends, off to go play with my gorgeous January AMM kit while the babe is sleeping (for now!). xoxo

Looking back...

2011-01-01T22:29:00.008-05:00

In keeping with tradition from last year, I have put together a blog post of my top 10 favorite layouts of 2010. I love seeing these posts from my friends, and I had a lot of fun going back and figuring out my favorites. Unfortunately, I didn't scrap as much in 2010 as I would have liked since I spent many months of it pregnant and very sick, so narrowing down my list wasn't too terribly hard LOL!

This was one of the first layouts I did last year - it was completed for Fancy Pants for CHA Winter, and I got to hand deliver it and see it hanging at the show in person, which was fun. I think this is my favorite FP line ever, and I used it for a bunch of layouts!
This one was made using an AMM kit. This layout was a bit indulgent for me, lol, since I used a whole package of chipboard frames, but I had a lot of fun with it, and I loved the end result.

This was also an AMM layout. I just adore these photos of Chloe and me when she was a baby, and I love the sweet feel to this. I also like the homespun touch of the handstitching.

This was a Fancy Pants layout. I don't make "me" layouts all that often, and I really enjoyed this one. I had fun with layering on this one, too.

I really love everything about this one. This is one of my favorite photos of the two bigs ever, and I used some of my favorite techniques on here (misting, handcutting, layering).

Another Fancy Pants layout (with a lot of the Roadshow line again lol) - I adore these photos, and I love the soft colors and enjoyed adding little details.

My first layout of all my kiddos :-) I loved this Jenni Bowlin line (thanks, Doris!), and this one came together really easily for me.

One of my favorite Lucas photos :-) I used Teresa Collins baby boy line for this one - I had gotten these papers back at CHA Winter, and i'd been saving them in case I had a boy. Once Lucas was born, I couldn't wait to use them!

I just shared this one last week (done with last month's AMM kit), but oh how I love it! Love the gorgeous doilies in the papers, and I am really happy with how the family photo came out (even used it on our holiday cards).

This one is so new that I haven't even had a chance to share it yet :-) While at my LSS two weeks ago, I saw these new Webster's Pages lines, and I knew the one with the cupcakes would be perfect to scrap Chloe's birthday party pics. All these lines are gorgeous, and I had fun combining them and adding in details (fun fact - the pink glittery tulle on the outside edge was leftover from the tutu that I made for chloe that she is wearing in the pics).

So there you have it, my friends. Thanks for looking back with me!

We were away Thursday afternoon until today in the Pocono mountains (in PA) for New Years. It's a tradition that we started with a good friend of mine from college (and her hubby and kids) many years ago, when we were both first engaged to the guys. Our kids are very close in age, and they have a blast together, as do we adults. We don't get to go every year, but we were excited that we got to go two years in a row now. Anyway, it was a great way to ring in the new year, and I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, as well. I'm wishing you all a VERY happy and healthy 2011!!

Happy (almost) New Year!

2010-12-30T16:22:00.002-05:00

Hey friends! I won't have a chance to get on here before New Years, so I just wanted to wish you all a happy and health 2011! It's been quite an exciting year for us in the Taylor household, and I hope 2011 is just as good to us as 2010 has been :-) I'm leaving you with a couple layouts, the first is my 4th layout with the gorgeous AMM Dec. kit:

I'll be back next year (tee hee) with a recap of my favorite layouts from this past year and, of course, some recent pics of the kiddos! :-) Happy New Year!!

busy busy busy busy busy busy

2010-12-22T22:00:00.002-05:00

I'm busy because i've been scrapping....

I'm busy because a certain adorable little girl turned four on Saturday! We had a great day at Chuck E Cheese (I even braved the place by myself with the kids since Tony was working) and a great birthday party at Chloe's dance studio on Sunday. Can't believe she is four!!

I'm busy because of a certain little someone who turns four months old tomorrow. Wow! Time is flying!! He continues to be the sweetest baby ever, and I feel eternally grateful that he is in our lives.
I'm busy because of my big boy who constantly continues to amaze me with all that he is learning and doing at age 6.
Yesterday, he woke me up by telling me that he had made Tony and me a card. This is what it said:
Now if that isn't make-my-day material, I don't know what is!!

I know i'm not the only one who is busy busy busy busy busy busy, and I hope you all are finding some peace and relaxation during this crazy holiday season. If i'm not back on here before then, many happy wishes for a Merry Christmas for those of you who celebrate!

Some exciting AMM news!

2010-12-16T21:59:00.002-05:00

So, it's that time again - AMM is having a design team call! Here is the info:

We are looking for new Design Team Members and will be accepting applications through JANUARY 15, 2011. The design team position is a commitment through June, 2011.

GENERAL INFORMATION: We are looking for friendly, talented, versatile and creative individuals who are team players. Strong photography, digital scrapbooking and class experience is a plus, but not required.

Interested applicants MUST REGISTER AND POST on the message boards at AMM during the DT call. We want to spend time getting to know you and we want you to get to know us. Your design team experience at AMM will require daily activity on our boards and posting praise in the gallery.

We keep our Design Team Members busy with all sorts of activities, i.e., monthly kits, manufacturer kits, 2-3 blog posts per month, message boards, chats, classes, etc., so when considering whether you would like to apply for the DT position, please think about the amount of time that will be required to fulfill the requirements.

FOR LAYOUT ARTISTS: Submit 2 NEW (not previously posted or published) original 12 x 12 layouts. A bonus to your submission can also be an altered project that you may have created in the past (or a new one). "Altered Project" in this respect can include a mini book (but not a card or a page).

FOR ALTERED ARTISTS: Submit 1 NEW (not previously posted or published) original project, with photos of previously created projects.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION:A Million Memories Designers are exclusive to our team. Our designers cannot hold design team positions with any competing kit club or online scrapbooking retailers. Manufacturer design teams, blog challenge boards and teaching at your LSS are acceptable. Your main function as a Design Team Member for AMM is that you ARE A

MARKETING TOOL FOR OUR STORE AND KIT CLUB!!! Whether it be through your designs of the product that we provide for you, word of mouth, etc., We do not want our designers to advertise for competing online businesses.

As an AMM designer, you will promote AMM whenever possible. Example, if you have a blog, there should be a link to AMM with our blinkie. A picture of our latest monthly kit should be on your blog and on your Facebook page (if you have one). The latest happenings at AMM (such as contests), should all be posted on your blogs and on Facebook. We will in turn post your blog on our blog and promote you and your designs.

As previously indicated, CONSISTENT message board participation is required.

DT members are required to post at least 3-4 layouts per kit, the altered item included in the kit (if there is one) and a card (if possible – not required). All pieces of the kit should be utilized in order for kit members to be inspired by your work. We want our members to use your creativity to inspire their own twists on their own projects.

Complete manufacturer sponsorship projects. You will receive product for free and in return we will showcase your work directly to the manufacturer.

Actively participate in challenges, organizing contests and vendor advertising (where appropriate).

WHAT DO OUR DESIGNERS RECEIVE?

A free kit every other month containing the industry's latest and greatest products, plus extra supplemental products as compensation.

Special sponsored manufacturer's kits. These projects are completed and posted on our boards and then we send the projects directly to the manufacturers, who may in turn, use your projects on their site, catalogs, etc. This is direct access to having your work seen by manufacturers.

Product discounts (more detail will be provided to those who are selected for the team) and larger discounts with designer direct manufacturer orders.

Free product for special limited edition kits that you may (on occasion) design yourself from items in our store.

Free product for special class kits that you will design yourself.

Miscellaneous perks - free passes to CHA, opportunity to design with our kits, etc. The opportunity to teach in our store and earn a percentage of the class fees.

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED PLEASE e-mail your projects with the following information to michelle@amillionmemories.com:

-Name
-mailing address
-phone number
-Links to other online galleries that show your work (as well as your screen name)
-Link to your blog, if you have one (there is going to be an AMM link on there, right?)
-Become an AMM fan on Facebook. Send us a friend request if you have an account so we can follow you.
-A bio of yourself

Include the answers to the following questions in your email:

1) Why are you interested in a DT position with AMM?
2) Site commitment and participation. How will you encourage people to become involved in the AMM community?
3) Have you ever designed for another website/company? If so, who?
4) Are you active on any message boards? Which ones? (please provide a few links to your posts and your user name)

**Note: The answers to the above questions will NOT effect your chances of being on the Design Team . . .we are just curious. ; ) If you have any comments or questions, please email us at michelle@amillionmemories.com

I would love to see some of my scrappy friends apply! :-) Speaking of AMM, here are a couple of projects i've completed so far with the gorgeous December kit... more to come soon!

And lastly, I couldn't sign off without sharing some recent pics ;-) I downloaded the hipstamatic app for my iphone a few weeks ago, and I am obsessed with that thing! Now I need to upgrade to the iphone 4 which has the better camera and a flash. Here are some of my favs:

We had our first snow last week and our second snow today - love that white stuff! Saturday is my little girl's fourth birthday - I can't believe it!! We are having her birthday party on Sunday at her dance studio - she can't wait! My little guy is growing so fast!! I love seeing how much they change when they're this little, but I hate how quickly it seems to be going :-( My biggest guy is still loving Kindergarten and is learning so much. It's so neat now that he is starting to read - i'm so proud of him! Anyway, hope you all are doing well - hope to catch up with you all soon!

Some Jillibean soup layouts...

2010-12-02T20:25:00.003-05:00

A big huge thank you to Jillibean Soup for sponsoring the DT at AMM this month - I got to work with their awesome papers! This first layout was based off of an awesome sketch that Jennifer at AMM provided for our November DT challenge.

I had so much fun making the background for this layout with gesso, inks and stamps. You can read my tutorial here.

I had one more Jillibean Soup layout to show you of my little guy, but it just got picked up for publication by Scrapbook Trends (Lucas' first pubbed layout :-). I guess i'll show you next year! ;-)

Hope everyone is having a great week and staying warm - it's cooooooold this way!

Winner winner, chicken dinner

2010-11-30T20:52:00.003-05:00

Sooo, today is November 30th, and I do believe that means it's time to get a winner for Nancy O' Dell's new scrappy book!

I used random.org to generate the winner, and the book goes to...................

True Random Number Generator
Min:1 Max: 18 Result: 4

Jocelyn said...
Love the pics of the family...your children are all so beautiful and you are Blessed!!!
That book looks awesome!!!
Enjoy your creative time!!!

Big huge congrats to you, Jocelyn!! Please give me a shout-out at stacimtaylor at gmail dot com with your address, and I will get your new book out to you :-)

And, because I just couldn't have a post without a new layout, I'm signing off with this:

I think I scrapped those photos that Cheryl took of me the very next day after I got them lol! I've been a scrappy fool lately - more to come soon :-)

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

p.s. It's technique week over at AMM this week - stop by here to see some great projects, with a new one added every day this week. I'm up tomorrow :-)

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-26T08:10:00.004-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving (one day late ;-) from my family to yours....
I am so so grateful. So grateful. My life is so full, and I have so many blessings. I am so thankful, first and foremost, for my family. My three healthy and amazing children, my awesome, hardworking, funny and smart husband who shares those blessings with me, my parents, with whom I am lucky to have such a close relationship with, my brother, my SIL, and my niece and nephew, whom I am also lucky to be so close with, Tony's mother, who we miss and wish lived closer, grandparents who are still alive and healthy, aunts, uncles and cousins. Family is what it is all about. Without them, none of the other stuff matters.

I hope that my friends who celebrate Thanksgiving had a wonderful day. We host it here, so it was a busy day full of lots (and lots!) of yummy food. It's always a bit chaotic having a bunch of people in your home for a big dinner, but I like the chaos :-) One thing I am not grateful for is not being able to go Black Friday shopping this year lol. Yes, I am one of those crazy people who loves it! My MIL is usually here, though, to hang with the kids while I run around, so since she's not here this year, i'm taking a pass. Off to go to some online browsing...

P.S. You still have a few more days to enter my book giveaway two posts below :-)

This may be the first time...

2010-11-20T21:22:00.002-05:00

that i've ever scrapped a holiday/event right after it occurred! ;-) I just couldn't resist these photos of my three cuties!

In other scrappy news, I was super excited to be a Guest Designer for the Cartwheels art blog. You can check my post out here.

Having a great weekend here. Got some QT time in with the hubs last night (we geeked it up with Rockband 3 :-), and tonight I had a movie and popcorn night with the kids (complete with a fire in the fireplace for the first time this season). Hope you all are enjoying your weekend, too!

Book giveaway and picture overload!

2010-11-14T21:39:00.004-05:00

Did you all know that Nancy O' Dell is a scrapbooker?? I didn't either, until I was contacted by someone at Creative Memories. CM published this book by Nancy that is all about scrapbooking, and they sent me a copy for myself and one to giveaway to one of my readers. Thanks CM!

Full of Love Book by Nancy O'Dell

Full of Love explores the power of the family photo album to create confident, secure, happy kids. Drawing upon her own experiences and the advice of renowned child psychologist Dr. Kenneth Condrell, award-winning entertainment journalist and TV host Nancy O’Dell shows how photos and albums reinforce family values and traditions, strengthen family bonds, build self-esteem and show children how much they are loved.

Full of Love also features simple shortcuts to creating great albums, including timesaving tips on how to tell better stories, shoot better photos, and take advantage of clever tools and techniques. Dozens of sample album pages are included to inspire you to get started on albums for your children and for yourself.

If you're interested in winning a copy of this book, please leave me a comment on this post, and I will draw a name on November 30th.

Now..... picture time! I went to Cheryl's place Friday night to scrapbook and hang out, and she gave me some photos that she took of me and my little guy when we went to lunch last month. Here are a couple of the ones that she took - I love them!

Halloween time! Introducing Super Girl!
And Harry Potter!

And our little bear (Lucas had multiple costumes, this was the one from Halloween night lol).
Halloween party time.
Some pics from last weekend when we hung at my parents' house.

And some very recent ones from yesterday - the kids and I went on a long walk around the n'hood. It was gooorgeous weather out (low 60's) and the trees are so beautiful. Our neighborhood is about 35 years old, and I just love this time of year since there are so many gorgeous trees in full autumn color.

Right now I have a quiet house after a very full weekend full of fun family time (including bowling in which I kicked my hubby's butt ;-). I'm off to go enjoy some creative time while the kids are sleeping! I'll be back soon with some scrappies :-)

Lots of fun AMM stuff going on!

2010-11-04T20:33:00.002-04:00

First, I have my layout to share for our monthly DT inspiration over at AMM. I love participating in these, and this month's layout that we were inspired by was so much fun! This is my layout, and you can check out the original and the other DT layouts here.

Next, the November kit is ready, and it is goooorgeous! I'm so excited for this to arrive on my doorstep! You can find out more here.
These last two weeks have been soooo busy! I'm trying to find time to just sit for a few minutes here and there lol. All of our Halloween festivities were a blast, and I promise to come back and share some pics. Hope you all had a great one, as well :-)

It feels good to be back!

2010-10-26T13:57:00.003-04:00

Ok, sure, i'm not scrapping as much as I used to, but i'm definitely getting back into the groove, and it feels great! I had so much fun creating this the other night. I love it when I have time to pull out the mists, the punches and do some handcutting - my favorite things :-)

Lots going on this week as we get ready for Halloween. We have school parades and parties for Noah and Chloe on Friday, Halloween party on Saturday, and trick or treating on Sunday... can't wait! What do you guys have planned?

You can pick your jaw up off the floor...

2010-10-20T21:36:00.002-04:00

since I know you all are shocked that I blogged two times this week so far! LOL! I've actually been a creating fool, and it feels goooood. Here is another JBS layout I did last night - i've been in a Jenni Bowlin groove. I'm hoping to get in more scrap time tomorrow night and break in the goodies the AMM DT gets to play with.

And here is a Fancy Pants layout I did last week. I'm sad to say that after two awesome years, I am no longer Fancy. :-( My design team term just ended, and FP just announced a brand new design team. While i'm going to miss designing for this company that I truly love, i'm excited for my friends who made the team, and I can't wait to see their inspiration.
Lastly, Michelle at AMM is having an amazing sale! Unfortunately, it ends tonight, so you all don't have very long to act on it. You can check it out here.

Ok, this blogging fool ;-) is tiiiiiiiiired from one super adorable baby who keeps me up all.night.long. Fortunately for him, I love him so much that there isn't anything he could do to make me mad at him, hehe.

Happy hump day, friends!

Better late than never...

2010-10-17T20:18:00.005-04:00

So, sweet Doris sent me more awesome JBS goodies about 7 weeks ago (she is way too good to me!). I know exactly when it was because I remember coming home from the hospital to the big box of goodies. :-) So, since i've only made a few layouts since the little man has been born, I hadn't had a chance to dig in yet. Until this weekend. And oh, did I have fun! Sigh. I seriously love me some JBS.

So, I don't want to jinx myself or anything, but I think i'm hopefully getting back into my scrap groove. I do believe i've had enough talks with Lucas that he understands he needs to go down for bed easily at night, and he needs to give me a long first stretch so I can get to creating ;-) Let's see how well baby number 3 listens hehe.

I got another awesome box this weekend, this time from AMM. Both Cosmo Cricket and Jillibean Soup are sponsoring our team this month, and I got some yummy products to play with... can't wait!

Things here are still going well... we've been keeping busy. We went to Dutch Wonderland (basically a family amusement park target toward the under 10 crowd) yesterday and had a blast!! Last week, I got to have lunch with Cheryl which was way overdue and so much fun - love getting in some quality girl time. Anyway, hope you all are doing well, and thanks for bearing with me and still visiting little 'ole me in my very minimalistic blogging pattern these days!

Catching up with some pics...

2010-10-01T21:58:00.004-04:00

So, it's been a couple of weeks since I had a photo session with my little man, so today seemed like the perfect day to squeeze in another one ;-) Here are some of my favs...

He's such a joy. Totally adoring and loving that little guy!

This little girl is such a ham. She wore her dress-up veil to my bro and SIL's recently along with her princess gown. The gown came off, but the veil stayed on all day...
And this little man will be SIX tomorrow!! Ahhhh, I can't believe it. Seems like just yesterday that HE was the little baby I was holding in my arms! We have a fun birthday weekend planned, including his birthday party at the Lego store on Sunday... can't wait to help him celebrate!
Hope you all are doing well! Thanks for bearing with me while I continue to be a blog slacker. I'm slowly but surely getting out of my I-have-a-newborn-haze. I even hung out with the neighbors tonight... whoo! :-)

My first Lucas layout (and some more Fancy Pants :-)

2010-09-14T22:34:00.002-04:00

Ever since Lucas was born 3 short weeks ago, i've been so excited to dive in and scrap my newest addition. Of course I used Fancy Pants' Road Show line since that is one of my all time favorite FP lines, and it seems to be my go-to collection for any occasion! I covered the naked FP chip letters with Tim Holtz crackle paint and some clear glitter. I finally used the gorgeous flocked transparency, too, that i've been saving (hording?) for just the perfect occasion.

Journaling reads: Before you came along, I didn't even realize what I was missing. But the moment I held you for the first time, I knew. You complete our family. You complete me as a mommy. And I am eternally grateful. I love you, our little Lucas Blake!
This one uses a combination of Road Show and some Kraft Kuts papers. I also played around with my new EK Success punch that I love :-)

And lastly, another layout using Road Show and some Kraft Kuts papers - I told you Road Show is my go-to collection lol. I love these photos of Noah and Chloe! Things here are going well. We are adjusting to life as a family of 5 and trying to establish new routines. Noah is getting used to Kindy, and Chloe started pre-school this week. Lucas is working on staying awake more than 30 minutes a day ;-) I am recovering from surgery pretty well and even just started driving short distances - ahhh, it feels good to get some freedom back lol. I'm definitely sleep deprived, but I know it's temporary (sort of, lol). And he is worth it. Completely and totally :-)

Catching up...

2010-09-06T18:45:00.005-04:00

Wow. I go and have a baby, and now I have SO much to catch up on! ;-) I want to catch up with you all, so hopefully visiting friends' blogs will occur soon, I have to catch up on posting layouts (and creating them! can't wait to scrap our newest member :-), I have to catch up on posting photos, and of course, i'm constantly trying to catch up on spending time with everyone in my family while still getting lots of rest and recovering from my c/s.

Let's start with the layouts, shall we ;-) So these are from the August AMM kit. Yikes! I told you I was behind. The September kit is gooorgeous, too, so you can check that out here.

Journaling for Friends with Bellies: It has been such a fun and special experience to go through this pregnancy with two of my closest friends. It will be even more fun to see our babies grow up together!
Journaling for Growing Up: My heart skips a beat when I look at this photo of you and see how old you look. You talk and act like such a big girl these days! There's no doubt about the fact that you are growing up.
This one was a highlight of all the fun stuff we did this summer :-)
When I was your age... stickers were used on paper ;-)
And now... catching up on some recent photos, starting with my big boy's first day of Kindergarten last Monday!!
Some at-home photo shoots of little Lucas:

And with his awesome big bro and sis:

After his first "real" bath tonight:
I can't thank you all enough for the sweet comments congratulating us on Lucas. I truly feel blessed more than words can say for my family, and for the love of my friends - in real life and in blog land ;-) I'm so sorry I have been slacking on blog visiting, but I hope to catch up with you all really soon!!

He's here!!!!!

2010-08-30T20:50:00.007-04:00

Well, my blogging friends, i'm so sorry to have been MIA for so long, but hopefully you'll see that I had a good reason why ;-) Last Monday, our new little guy came into this world three weeks early and two weeks before my scheduled c-section date. While I was cooking dinner around 6pm last Monday, my water broke! Lucas Blake was born at 11:57 pm, keeping a birthday of August 23rd by just three minutes. He weighed in at 6 lbs, 15 oz and was 19.5 inches long, which is still shocking to us, as historically, we have made huge babies! Even three weeks early, we expected him to be about a pound bigger. He is a dream baby so far, and we are all totally in love with this little guy. Thankfully, Noah and Chloe are doing great, wanting to hug and kiss on him all day long lol. I'm still wondering if we'll see some negative effects with my little "mama's girl", but so far, so good! And the boys of the house have already formed an alliance since they outnumber us girls. They like to chant, "boys rule, girls drool" (thanks to daddy! lol). I have been teaching Chloe to tell them that two girls are more powerful than three girls ;-) Anyway, sorry to be redundant for those who are friends with me on FB, but here are some photos of our new family of 5 :-)

I hope you all are doing well, and I hope to catch up with you guys soon!!

Photoshoot.

2010-08-19T20:30:00.002-04:00

So, I had a very fun second date (tee hee) with Cheryl the other day. We walked around historical Ellicott City which is full of fun shops and cafes (although we learned the hard way that a lot of the stores are closed on Tuesdays!). Cheryl was awesome enough to take some very cool shots with my camera (the ones of me and the kids)... please ignore my complete and utter heftiness. Unfortunately, even the best photographer can't make me less huge right now ;-)

Then I got a few of the kids walking over the bridge. I especially love this back-view one.

And no outing would be complete without a couple of goofballs trying to get a shot together...
Definitely a fun day with a very fun ending in a yummy candy shop.

Last night I had another great date with a bunch of girlfriends from the 'hood. We went to see Eat Pray Love and then ended the evening with dessert at the Cheesecake Factory. I enjoyed the movie and cried through half of it lol (pg hormones or just my innate sappiness? who knows...). And my 30th anniversary Chocolate Cheesecake was soooo fabulous. Of course, getting on the scale at my ob's appt this morning was not so fabulous.

Only a few more hours until Friday... happy almost weekend, everyone!

This is them....

2010-08-15T20:11:00.004-04:00

This is totally not a good quality photo, however, I LOVE it. It cracks me up every time I look at it. Yes, they can be all drama and moody and whiny, but the majority of the time, they are complete and utter goofballs. And they totally feed off of each other. They love to make funny faces and dance around and act weird and crazy. And Tony and I love it. I wonder if #3 is going to be as much of a goof??
In between DT work, I've actually been trying to use up my stash (I know, using up my stash is probably breaking some crazy scrapbook law ;-), and I finally dug into Lily Bee's Hello Sunshine line...
Of course, now I've got my hands on the goooorgeous AMM August kit, so i'm having fun digging in. You can get one here if you're interested :-)

So, we're now at 3 weeks, 2 days of the countdown till baby arrives (hence the even slackier blog posting than normal ;-) I have two more weeks of work and then i'm starting my maternity leave. Since I work part-time and am home several days during the week, too, our schedule is getting pretty packed with stuff to do and people to see before baby comes, and before my little man starts kindergarten (ack!!). Let's home I can stay organized in the next few weeks... :-)

My surfer dude....

2010-08-08T20:00:00.002-04:00

Is this little guy cute or what? :-)

Ahhh, what a weekend! The kids slept out at my bro and SIL's. I've been away from them before, and Tony has been away from them before, but we've never both been away from them before at the same time (can you believe it?!)! They had such a great time with their aunt and uncle and their cousins. Tony and I got to have a date AND sleep in this morning (bliss!). I did miss those sweet little faces though.... ;-)

Every month at AMM, we have a fun challenge in which you can win a cool prize. Check out this month's challenge here, and you can win a $10 gift certificate to the AMM store plus some cool vintage trims that will be shipped with your order :-)

Catching up on my "boy" layouts...

2010-08-03T14:07:00.002-04:00

I try to do an even amount of Noah and Chloe layouts, but I have to admit that it is usually easier for me to do "girly" layouts since I tend to like handcutting flowery, frilly things lol. But, I do enjoy my "boy" pages, too, especially when I have great papers to work with.

This first Fancy Pants layout is mostly Rough and Tough and Kraft Kuts That Boy papers. This photo of Noah is from when he was 2 1/2, and he climbed into our spare fridge in the garage lol.
This layout uses papers from the Rough and Tough line, as well as the Like Father, Like Son line. These are also older photos from when Noah was 2, and boy do these pictures crack me up. Does he look serious about his football or what?!
Lastly, I have a recent (two day old) photo of me at 34 weeks. Not much longer to go!

Having movie time with the kids right now, so "The Incredibles" are calling me :-)

Baby and me...

2010-07-30T23:30:00.002-04:00

I decided to scrap those awesome 4D u/s shots we got recently by showing what both me and baby looked like at 31 weeks. I'd say baby is faring a lot better than me LOL! This is a Fancy Pants layout, and the patterned paper and transparency are both from the Road Show line. Those alpha rubs are some of my favorite FP rub-ons ever! And that flower near the photo of me is actually from a set of FP rub-ons from way back when, and I thought it worked perfectly with the color scheme - was trying to incorporate blues and pinks ;-)

Thanks for all the supportive comments about us not finding out baby's sex. You'd be amazed how many people make it clear that they think we're crazy lol. To each his own, right? Oh, and Jessica asked about names. So far we have Lucas and Emma in first place, but knowing Tony and me, we could change our minds at the last minute... we did with Chloe! We didn't know her sex either and had decided she would be Maya if she were a girl. Well, at the last minute, we changed to Chloe, and poor Noah was so confused. For the first few weeks of Chloe's life, he was calling her baby Maya!!

Happy Friday, everyone! Had a great day here visiting with old friends with high school that I haven't seen in years. So much fun! Hope you all have a fantastic weekend :-)

Getting ready for baby...

2010-07-27T14:49:00.002-04:00

I LOVE not finding out the sex of my babies. It truly is an amazing experience for us, each and every time. I know being surprised isn't for everyone, but I wouldn't do it any other way for us. However, one of the challenges is not being able to really set up the nursery before the baby gets here. I am not a gender-neutral kind of gal, so I usually wait until I know my baby's sex to buy the bedding and decorations. Since our babies always stay in our room for awhile, anyway, it's not such a big deal, but I do get eager to get things going ;-) This time around I decided to make this sign for baby's door. I thought the blues would work if it were a boy, and I thought the flowers and beads would make it work if it is a girl. Of course, Tony things it's way too feminine, lol, so I think if it's a boy, I may have to take the beaded hanger off ;-).
Papers and letters are American Crafts, stickpins are Jenni Bowlin, and I got the wooden plaque and beads at Michaels.

So, it's CHA time! I'm so jealous of my friends who are there, as I had a blast at the winter show! Maybe next year! I'm loving lots of the peeks i'm seeing, though, so I can't wait to get my hands on some of the new stuff coming out :-)

Hope everyone's week is starting off well!

One more...

2010-07-25T19:23:00.002-04:00

Whoopsie. I totally forgot that I had one more JBS Playdate layout to post. Let's chalk that one up to pregnancy brain (yes, I use that excuse for everything ;-) I took these pics at a playdate we were on a few weeks ago at the tire park that we love.
This is a short and sweet post, but I couldn't leave without posting some of my fav pics from the splash park last week.
My mom joined us :-)

I absolutely love this one.
And now i'm off. It's just too freakin' hot here for me to concentrate on any one task for very long lol. It was 105 yesterday! I think mother nature has confused Maryland for Arizona. I sure hope SHE gets rid of her pregnancy brain soon ;-)

Some Jenni Bowlin loveliness!

2010-07-22T21:00:00.003-04:00

When is working with JBS products ever not lovely?? I seriously adore Jenni's products - there has never been a release that I did not love! This Playdate line was no exception. Not only was I lucky enough to have a sweet friend send me some (thanks again, Doris!), but JBS sponsored some of us on the AMM DT this month. So... I got to have fun playing :-)

I love this photo of Noah. We had one of those butterfly release kits this spring, and when we released the butterflies, this one did not want to say goodbye. He decided he'd much rather hang out on Noah's finger :-) To make the butterfly masks, I (carefully) handcut the red rub-on away from its packaging. I then used the negative images of the packaging for masks.

I also love these photos of the kids. These were taken by Cheryl Ametewee (thanks, Cheryl!) on our recent outing to Baltimore.

I can't believe this week is almost over - it has totally flown by! We've had fun keeping busy this week with swim lessons, a birthday party and movie outings (we saw Despicable Me today - very cute!). Oh, and thank you to everyone for the sweet comments about Baby Taylor's newest photo - I think he/she is pretty cute, myself ;-)

One more with the July AMM kit...

2010-07-18T21:05:00.003-04:00

Hi friends! Happy Sunday :-) Before I forget, I had several people ask me who makes the cloud pp that was on my layout from my last post - I guess there are other cloud paper freaks out there besides me ;-) Anyway, it's from My Mind's Eye, for those of you who liked it.

This is the last layout I made with the gorgeous AMM July kit. I used some older pics of my kiddos on this one - I like to mix it up sometimes lol. I find I tend to scrap current stuff most of the time, but there are still sooo many pics from years past that have never been scrapped, so I do try to go back to those sometimes, too.

So, my appt went well the other day. Baby is measuring big (no surprise there!), but not overly so, so they are not concerned. And since i'm having a scheduled c/s and don't have to push this baby out, it doesn't bother me any lol. They did switch the machine over to 4D towards the end, and I got some amazing views of my baby! I never had a 3 or 4D u/s with my other two, so that was SO cool for me! It's incredible how much you can actually see! Anyway, those of you who are friends with me on Facebook may have already seen this, but here is my favorite shot of my little one...

Hope you all are having a great weekend and staying cool!

More nostalgia...

2010-07-14T20:36:00.002-04:00

I think, until recently, I had only ever scrapped one photo of myself as a baby, and that was comparing my baby photo with Chloe's. But I recently found the photo I scrapped the other day, along with this one, and I was inspired to scrap some baby me layouts. This photo has actually always been my favorite baby photo of myself - there's just something about it that I love. And my uncle took it, which I think is cool :-) Anyway, I used the awesome July AMM kit for this one, too.
I cut out a bunch of the clouds and then popped them up for some dimension.

Oh, and the journaling says, "oblivious to the world, my hand in a box of food. Yep... still me!" Tee hee.

Busy week here with Noah's swim lessons every day and he's now taking a boys hip-hop class one night a week too. We've been doing lots of playdates lately, too, to keep ourselves busy. Tomorrow I have an ultrasound in the morning, my ob appt, and then lunch with my hubby. :-) Did I mention that at my last ob appt two weeks ago, I was measuring 4 weeks ahead?! I've always measured ahead with my other babies (usually by about two weeks), but never by this much! My ob thinks this is going to be another biiiiig baby. I'm still not quite sure how Tony and I, two very average sized people, make such big babies!! Anyway, tomorrow is another u/s to just make sure it's a big baby and that there's not excess fluid or something like that. I'll keep you all posted ;-)

Happy hump day, friends!

Do you use sketches?

2010-07-11T22:11:00.002-04:00

I will admit, it took me a long time to warm up to using sketches. I think my problem was that I like to come up with my own designs, and I almost felt like it was cheating to design something based on what someone else created. Although I still don't use them a lot, I have come to really enjoy using them because I now realize that I can still make a layout totally my own, even with a sketch. I usually find an aspect of the sketch that inspires me, and I use that as a starting point to go out on my own.

This month's sketch at AMM is by Tonya Dirk, and you can see the elements that I ran with.

I loved the verticle design on the left, but instead of using a bunch of small photos, I chose to use my journaling cards as embellishments in those spots, and I used just one photo in the spot where the title was designed to go. Instead of using three circles, I enlarged one and used it as my title block.

It's become a challenge for me to figure out how to take elements of a sketch and turn them into my own creation :-)

Btw, that photo is from last summer - I don't think Noah looks that different, but Chloe looks like such a baby to me!!

Anyway, i'm having a blast with the kit, and I knocked on another two layouts today (well, aaaaalmost two lol). At this rate, i'll have lots of blogging material (but I still don't think I can keep up with Doris).

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

AMM July kit!

2010-07-09T19:33:00.003-04:00

Oooh, this month's kit is so fun and summery - I love it! I found this photo of me as a baby chilling on the beach, and this kit was perfect to scrap it :-)
I added some handstitching to the fun sun sticker, placed a BG jelly in the middle and then popped it up for some dimension.I can't get the July AMM kit photo to upload straight for some reason (it keeps turning 90 degrees - weird!), but you can check it out and buy it here.

Hope everyone is having a good week! It's still sweltering here - been around 100 most of the week (today we got a break - it was only in the low 90's lol), and i'm just trying to stay as cool as possible! Happy Friday, friends!

Happy (belated) 4th of July (and a layout :-)

2010-07-05T20:00:00.003-04:00

Before I show you some of my favorite pics from 4th of July yesterday, I wanted to share this layout using (mostly) the "Wishful Thinking" line by Fancy Pants. These pics are from Chloe modeling her new leotard this past fall :-)
Now, onto the 4th. We celebrated our nation's birthday with our friends and neighbors yesterday. The kids had a bike parade, and then we enjoyed a fun party before checking out the fireworks. It was a great day (despite the nearly 100 degree temps!) :-)

Here are just a few of my fav pics that I took:

I hope that the rest of you who celebrate the 4th had a wonderful day full of good food and good company!

AMM Blog Hop!

2010-07-02T10:30:00.002-04:00

Welcome to the Blog Hop! The hop starts today, Friday July 2nd through Sunday July 4th. Each blog will be showcasing a different project inspired by summer and all of its glory! Hop through each blog to check out the instructions for creating each project, then choose a project to recreate. Post your project in the AMM gallery and in this thread. You will have until Friday July 9th at midnight to post your project to be eligible to win an Echo Park Collection pack! More than one project created earns you another chance in the random drawing. Please be sure that projects are created especially for this contest. Good luck!

For my project today, I am going to show you all how to make a pinwheel. I made mine for our annual 4th of July parade that is held in our neighborhood, as I figured my kids would love to hold it (and hopefully it will be a windy day lol).

For the pinwheel, you will need:
a square piece of patterned paper or cardstock (mine is 6x6)
a thin dowel rod
2-3 large beads
thick beading wire
small circle punch
scrap piece of paper

Ok, the first thing you will do is fold your square piece of paper in half. Then fold it in half the other way. Now fold it along both diagonals. You are doing this to make your cut lines easy to follow. You will now cut from each corner edge towards the center, coming about 1/3 of an inch away from the center. It will then look like 4 triangles connected at the center.
I then flipped my patterned paper over. Whichever side you want to see the most of should be facing up. Now, stick a little bit of adhesive in the center (Tip - do not use a glue dot. I tried that first and it made the wire part that we will get to later very difficult. A little bit of a tape runner will do the trick.) Fold one side of each triangle towards the center, sticking it down on the adhesive. It does not matter which side of the triangle you fold in, as long as it is the same side for all four traingles.
Next, punch a small circle and adhere it to the center of your pinwheel to cover the spot where all the folded triangles are joined together.
Now you will need your dowel rod. I cut mine down to about 12 inches (it was thin enough that I could cut it with my scissors). I decided to ink mine up with blue for the red/white/blue effect, but you could leave yours as is, or decorate it with paint, glitter, etc.
Now, take your thick craft wire and wrap it around your dowel rod for a couple of inches. Once you get to the top, string one of your beads onto the wire. Depending on the thickness of the beads, you may need two. These will act as spacers and allow your pinwheel to spin.
Now push your wired dowel rod through the center of the pinwheel (tip: I poked a hole in the center first to make this step easier).
Next, place another bead on top of your punched circle. At this point, I cut my wire down, leaving just a short stem.
Using beading pliers, a scissor or your hands, fold the wire down to secure the bead in place. Voila, your pinwheel is complete!
For your very last step, you will need an adorable little girl to act as your pinwheel model.
She should get very excited when a gust of wind comes along and starts blowing the pinwheel ;-)
I hope you guys have enjoyed this project. It was easy to make, and I think it will make a great addition to our 4th of July parade.

Ok, blog hoppers, go on ahead now to the blog of the fabulously talented Tonya Dirk. Have fun!!

I'm back (and burnt!) :-)

2010-06-28T18:02:00.002-04:00

Got back from the beach, and we had such a great time! My only complaint is that the trip wasn't long enough ;-) Saturday was our only full day there, so the girls and I hit the beach and stayed the entire day. It was THE perfect beach day! The temp was in the 80's, the water was cold at first touch but warmed up, and the company was perfect :-) I wasn't planning to get my pregnant self all the way out past the breaking waves, but I couldn't resist... and i'm so glad I did! That night, the girls and I saw SITC2. I wasn't expecting a quality movie, and it definitely wasn't, but it was entertaining.

Here's a layout I made shortly before I left - just for fun! Haven't done one of those in awhile! The papers are mostly Crate Paper, the letters are Sass, Doodlebug and Heidi Swapp, and the frame is MM. I also had fun with my new Martha Stewart border punch.
Chloe started camp today at her dance school. It's princess camp every morning this week. Noah is going this week, Tues-Fri mornings, so we got to have a mommy/son date this morning, which was long overdue. We went bowling, and I have to say, I think I did better with my 7 month pregnant belly than I normally do lol. We then played some arcade games and hit the store before picking up Chloe.... great morning!

Oh, btw, we're having a blog hop this Friday morning at AMM - it should be lots of fun!

I'm pretty exhausted these days, so i'm going to go relax a bit before we start bedtime for the kids. Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Two days in a row!

2010-06-24T13:38:00.005-04:00

Wow, I can't believe i'm blogging two days in a row! I think that's a record... at least as of the last few months lol. It helps that i'm trying to compete with Doris's blogging momentum - keeps me motivated lol.

I did this layout with Fancy Pants' About a Girl line, and I printed the "Hello my name is" stickers off of the internet. I did this layout for a challenge over at the awesome Cartwheels blog to do a layout introducing yourself. I had SO much fun with this! It had been awhile since i'd done a "me" layout, and i'm really glad I did :-) The pictures were taken by Cheryl during our blinddate last week, so a big thanks to her for her awesome photography!

The (very long) journaling reads:

i am 35 years old. i still feel like i'm about 25. i am 28 weeks pregnant with my third child. i still can't believe i'm going to be a mommy to 3! i've been married for 8 years, and in two years, tony and i plan to renew our vows in vegas with elvis. i have a round dark birthmark on my inside right calf about the size of a large pea. i was in a baton twirling league as a kid, as well as cheerleading. i also played softball for years, basketball for one season, and i danced for 8 years. i'm still horribly un-athletic. i dropped out of a bowling league when i was a kid b/c it interfered with my saturday morning smurfs cartoon. i am horribly disorganized. i wanted to be a vet when i was little. although i loved swimming as a kid and was very good at it, i'm a very timid swimmer now. i always had the feeling that i would have twins. i used to write poetry when i was younger. i love chocolate, belly laughs, spring breezes, family bike rides, nursing my babies, sand in my toes, scrapbooking, playing rockband (especially the beatles version), and reading (to name a few). i worry more than i should. i love spending time with family. i am incredibly thankful that my parents and brother are nearby, and i am so very lucky to have them. being a wife and mother are the most important, difficult, fantastic and fulfilling roles i've ever had. my husband and my children make me blissfully happy.

Last up, I have another Fancy Pants layout using the new Like Father, Like son line. I handstitched the star and then misted around it. I probably will not blog again before I leave for the beach tomorrow, so don't get too used to this daily happening lol. I'll be back early next week, though!

Have a fantastic weekend, my friends!

Father's Day banner

2010-06-23T19:57:00.002-04:00

The kids and I made this banner for Tony for father's day. I covered some of the chipboard stars in plain white paper so that they could decorate them and contribute :-) The full directions can be found here.
Not much else going on these days except for grooooowing. This was my 28 week picture taken last night. I'm definitely feeling humongous these days, and I still have almost 3 months left to grow - yikes!
It's been hot hot hot here, too. 95 degrees today, ugh! Tomorrow we are hitting the pool for a playdate, though... can't wait! And on Friday, i'm heading to the beach for a girls weekend for a few days. I am getting in these girls weekends while I can! I think this is the last of my trips, though - we have to buy a new, bigger car for me this summer, so no vacation for us, but I am hoping Tony and I can get away for a weekend before baby comes!

Anyway, hope you all are having a great week... happy hump day!

Happy Father's Day!

2010-06-20T17:37:00.002-04:00

I want to wish a very happy father's day, not only to my amazing dad, but to the man who is on this parenthood journey with me. I couldn't have asked for a better father in Tony, and the kids and I are super lucky to have him!

We spent the morning at brunch with my parents, bro, SIL and niece and nephew, and then we went back to my parents house so the kids could wreak havoc ;-)
In my pregnancy brain related state lol, I realized I never posted the last layout I made with the fabulous June AMM kit. I just couldn't resist scrapping these photos right away!
Hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend. Be back soon :-)

My blind date...

2010-06-15T19:19:00.005-04:00

So, my dear friend Doris set me up with Cheryl. Doris knew that Cheryl moved somewhere to the DC area within the last year, also "in between DC and Baltimore." Well, as these "small world" things go, it turns out that Cheryl lives in the very same town as me! And only about 5 minutes away lol!

So, after e-mailing for several weeks, Cheryl and I had our first date lol. I knew the second I saw her carrying the very same pink water bottle that I have, that we'd hit it off lol. We went to Hampden, which is a little section of Baltimore city full of antique stores, cafes, novelty shops, etc. and known for it's quirky and kitsch factor. We had a blast! Of course, we were there for almost 5 hours and didn't get very far into Hampden due to a long lunch, browsing at a select number of stores for a long time, and a 1, 3, and 5 year old slowing us down (but mainly the whiney, defiant 3 year old who I get to call mine! ;-)

Cheryl takes awesome photos, and she got way more than me, but here are some of my favs...

Cheryl hanging with one of the locals:
Cheryl's little guy London, who is so stinkin' cute!
The aforementioned whiney 3 year old ;-) with London (sorry about the wonky color, I tried fixing it, but to no avail!):
Ice cream - always the best part!

Cheryl in front of the cool store window at a cool store we stayed at for awhile:
LB wearing Noah's hat :-)
I love this one! The boys got along famously...
So sweet!
We take a lot of these types of photos in our house, and it was cool to catch it from a different persective ;-)
Ok, ok, so the mustache is upside down, but you get the point, lol!
It's been real... see you all later!
Speaking of Cheryl, she and a bunch of other awesome scrappy designers recently started an online art magazine, full of awesome inspiration and articles every single day. I love it, and I highly reccommend you check it out here.

So, a big thank you to Doris for playing matchmaker. And now, speaking of Doris, I have to emphasize the fact that I blogged about mine and Cheryl's date very quickly. Can you believe my dear friend doubted my ability to recap our day in a timely manner?! Such lack of faith, I tell you.... ;-)

How time flies...

2010-06-11T19:33:00.003-04:00

It's hard to believe that it's been 3 years since this photo was taken of me and baby Chloe on our first trip to the beach as a family of four. Even crazier to think that next year if we go to the beach, we'll be a family of five! This is another layout I made with the very gorgeous AMM June kit. It feels so good to finally want to scrap again!! :-)

In other exciting news, Michelle made the DT announcement over at AMM. Carole Janson, Jennifer Longenecker, Kay Rogers and Zoe Nemburt have now joined our team. They all do gorgeous work, and I can't wait to see what they create with Michelle's kits! Congrats, ladies!!

We have a busy weekend ahead... hope you all have a great one!

ETA: Ginny asked me about the punch in my Summer Treat layout. It is a new Martha Stewart border punch that I bought at Michael's - it is called Rain Drop. Hope that helps! :-)

Have silly bandz hit your house yet?

2010-06-08T23:20:00.004-04:00

So, who else is in the middle of the silly bandz craze? It cracks me up that this trend spans all ages, from the older kids all the way down to preschool! They surfaced in Noah's preschool class during his last week of school a couple of weeks ago, and my boy has been obsessed with them since lol. He loves trading them with all his n'hood friends, so, of course, i had to document this newest fad ;-)

I used the gorgeous AMM kit for this layout. I'm having so much fun with this kit - I finished another layout tonight which I will post soon, as well.

Hope everyone is having a great week! The weather has been fabulous here! We went berry picking today, which is always a great activity for the kids and me - who doesn't like getting to eat their reward for hard work? :-)

Summer treats....

2010-06-06T18:33:00.002-04:00

Who doesn't like them? Especially yummy, cold, dripping ice cream.... I had so much fun watching Chloe destroy that ice cream cone last summer lol. The AMM June kit was perfect to help me document it :-) I used my favorite Tattered Angels color (Patina) to spray on the background, and I used one of the triangles from the banner to make a little ice cream cone.
So, how is everyone's weekend going? Lovely one here! Yesterday was busy with my nephew's 4th b-day party and a baby shower for one of my good friends. Today has been laaaazy combined with lots of loads of laundry and lots of giggles from the kids :-) And both Noah and Chloe felt the baby kick for the first time today - very exciting! Enjoy the rest of your weekend, friends!

AMM June kit and a photo update

2010-06-04T20:50:00.003-04:00

Ok, you seriously do not want to miss out on AMM's gorgeous June kit! I loved it from the picture, but when I opened the box of goodies today, I was totally blown away! I love everything about this kit - great mix of manufacturers and goodies! I've already started to dig in :-) If you're interested, you can get one here.

Ok, I know my poor neglected blog is way behind on photos, so here goes...

Preschool graduation day - the kids sang a song to their parents about how much they loved us, and they brought us a rose... so sweet!
This photo cracks me up every.single.time.! This just screams preschool to me - after they got their diplomas, this was the first thing they did with them, LOL!
My handsome little man.
Chloe was showing Noah how proud of him she was ;-)
And, of course, little miss thang had to get in on the action.
Yep, silly bandz have hit the Taylor home!!
So, it's way hot here already, and being that i'm way big (and uncomfortable) already, we bought one of those cheesy inflatable backyard pools the other day. And it's even big enough for me to lay in it heheha. Chloe decided to dive in before we added water ;-) And yes, that is a bathing suit (Tony asked why I got her dressed in her leotard to go swimming...)!
The next day, after the water was added...
Well, friends, I will be back soon with some scrappies to share. Happy Friday!!

Wishful thinking....

2010-05-28T09:43:00.002-04:00

Oh my goodness, I am totally in love with the two new Fancy Pants lines, Wishful Thinking and Like Father, Like Son. This layout uses the Wishful Thinking line:

I had fun handcutting the flower out, as well as the adorable banner paper. There are a lot of soft colors, but yet, also some darker colors, so I think you could get some boy layouts out of this line, too ;-)

So, what is everyone up to this holiday weekend? I am leaving in a couple of hours to head to New York City for a girl's weekend. I'll make sure to take lots of pics :-)

Noah's graduation from preschool was seriously the cutest thing ever! I don't have the pics on this computer, so when I get back from my trip, i'll be sure to post some! Have a GREAT weekend, everyone!

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaack....

2010-05-24T21:20:00.002-04:00

Ok, ok, so I didn't actually go anywhere, but I feel like I should make something up to explain my long blogging absence ;-) Blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda, you all know I don't have a good reason other than being pregnant and feeling unmotivated these days, so i'll leave it at that lol.

Much has happened in the 3 weeks since i've been here. Let's see....
1. We went cold turkey on Chloe's paci (she was using one for bedtime still)
2. I've spent a lot of time feeling completely and utterly exhausted (see #1 to figure out partly why lol - Chloe's bedtime habits have gone in the toilet now that she's lost her comfort)
3. My belly has grown about twice in size ;-)
4. Tony and I had our 8th wedding anniversary
5. I started nesting and totally cleaned out the baby's room (formerly known as our guest room) and GET THIS - my scrap room!! (So excited that I can see the floor again!)
6. We've been getting ready for Noah's preschool graduation in two days - tomorrow is his last day of preschool forever!
7. We ordered Chloe big girl furniture - can't wait for it to come in so I can fix up her "big girl" room and then start on the nursery.
8. Thanks to my awesome friend Doris sending me some gorgeous new Jenni Bowlin and Fancy Pants sending me the fantastic new lines, i've even been motivated to scrap some!

Here is a FP layout using the About a Girl line, including the flocked transparency and the glitter die-cut wings:

This weekend was SO much fun! We had a n'hood party Saturday night and then did backyard camping, ending with a big outdoor breakfast Sunday morning. Tony and I sort of cheated by putting an air mattress in the tent, but the kids roughed it completely by sleeping on the ground. We all had a blast!! The kids were so excited, and they keep asking when we can do it again :-)

Here is me and down-the-street-Heather and next-door Lisa:
Tony and Chloe during tent set-up time:
Roasting the marshmallows to make s'mores. Yuuuuuum.
Chilling in the tent:
Although I was very sore and veeery tired on Sunday, it was well worth it. Such great memories! I ended the weekend by getting a table at my LSS's scrappy yardsale. I ended up earning quite a lot of money in trade for stuff that was just sitting in my room gathering dust, so i'm happy.

I hope you all have had a wonderful few weeks, and i'll be around soon to catch up with you all!

Join us at AMM for NSD!

2010-04-30T20:42:00.002-04:00

There is an awesome crop planned all weekend long at AMM in celebration of National Scrapbook day, and the party has already started. There are fun challenges planned with huge prize packs! You can check out the NSD forum here.

Along with the sneaks shown above, here is a photo of the rolled ribbon flowers I will be showing you how to make in just a few minutes :-)
I hope you will join us!

A few recent projects...

2010-04-27T21:18:00.002-04:00

Hey all! I know I royally suck at the blogging thing these days, but here I am with my once a week post ;-) Unfortunately, I just haven't been in my scraproom much these days :-( I always read about people losing their mojo and having no desire to scrap when they were pregnant, and I always thought to myself, "How could that happen? That would never happen to me!!" Uh yeah. Look who is eating their words now lol. As much as I try, I just can't seem to get the motivation, and my poor lonely (messy!) scraproom is no longer calling out to me like it used to. Sigh. I really really miss having that creative outlet, and I do hope my body falls back into scrappy rhythm soon!

Anyway, here is a little bucket I made recently out of Fancy Pants papers so that Chloe could have a place to collect the flowers she likes to pick. You can find the directions here.
Next, I made this sign for the outside of Chloe's bedroom door. She has a bit of a butterfly theme going in her room, so I went with it :-) All materials are also Fancy Pants, and you can find instructions for this easy project here.
And lastly, I took these photos of Chloe the other day and just couldn't resist sharing. She has become such a big girl in the last few months, I just can't get over it! She is sassy and funny and adorable and cranky, all wrapped up into one small package ;-)
I had Noah's Kindergarten orientation last week. Sigh. I can't believe it's that time. My first baby is going off to school. Chloe will be starting preschool, too, so there will be a lot of changes in the Taylor household come the end of summer! Noah will start school, the baby will probably be born the following week, and then Chloe will start preschool the week after that. Should be a wild ride ;-)

Anyway, I hope all my scrappy friends are feeling much more inspired than I am these days, and I hope you all can send some of your mojo my way!!

AMM April kit and a DT call!

2010-04-18T18:31:00.003-04:00

Ahhh, AMM's April kit was sooo gorgeous, and I had a ton of fun playing! Here's what I came up with this month:

The colors were so springy and pretty - I got to make lots of feminine layouts, but I was also able to use the more masculine colors for a layout of my boy, too :-)

Soooooooooo, did you all hear that AMM is having a DT call?! I think everyone knows how much I love being on this DT - gorgeous kits, friendly people in the forums, and awesome inspiration in the gallery. If you're interested in learning more, check out this thread. I would love to see some of my blog friends try out!

How was everyone's weekend? We had a yardsale today because we're trying to purge a lot of stuff before the baby comes. We got rid of a decent amount, and the rest will get donated to a charity :-) Hope you all had a great one!!

More Fancy Pants...

2010-04-09T20:47:00.002-04:00

Every month, our design team at AMM chooses a member's layout that inspired us in some way. This month, the DT chose an awesome layout by the fabulous Susan Dupre. I took inspiration from the circles she used on her layout, and I incorporated circles on mine. You can see the original layout and some of the ways other members of the DT took inspiration from the layout here.

I used more of the Roadshow line (are you sick of me using that yet?? lol), and that gorgeous pink crocheted trim is also part of the line. I also am in love with the new letter stickers FP released with these new lines!

Journaling reads:
Now that i'm finally past the sick stage of pregnancy, I'm trying to enjoy every last detail, as you will be our last baby. After you make your appearance, our family will be complete.

So, I took the plunge and decided to get Chloe's hair cut yesterday. In her 3 years, she's only had two haircuts - one when she was a baby to get bangs cut (that didn't last long), and once about a year ago to get a small trim. Well, it has gotten so long - it was down to the end of her back - and it's getting more and more difficult to brush every day and keep out of her face. With the heat coming, I figured it would be easier on everyone if we got it cut. She did great, and I think she looks adorable :-)

Before:
After:
I think she got about 6 inches taken off! My big girl!

I got my goooorgeous April AMM kit yesterday, and I can't wait to dig in this weekend! We also have fun plans - we are going to the circus tomorrow, and we have front row seats. Friends of ours had the tickets and ended up going on vacation, so lucky us get to be the recipients - can't wait :-)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Road Show line by Fancy Pants

2010-04-02T08:01:00.002-04:00

Is this line gorgeous or what?? This is my new favorite FP line - I seriously can't get enough of it!

I just love this photo of my little diva - she looks so old here, though! I had fun playing around with more Glimmer Mist on this layout, and I also used a Tattered Angels mask - fun stuff!

This photo was taken last week on a field trip that Noah's preschool class went on. I thought they all looked so cute up against the bus like that :-) I wanted the photo to take up the width of my 12x12 page, and since I don't have a wide format printer, I got creative with my printing and printed one half of the photo (3x6) and then printed the other half the same size. For my masking on this layout, I randomly laid down a bunch of chipboard letters and sprayed Glimmer Mist over them to go along with my school theme.

Thanks so much to everyone for all of the birthday wishes! I had a wonderful day with my mom and then Tony, the kids, and I went out to dinner to celebrate that night. It was a great day!!

Happy April everyone! Did anyone play any good April Fool's Day jokes? I'd love to hear! Those of you who are Facebook friends with me probably already read this, but I had so much fun tricking Tony yesterday. I told him that I received a phone call from the doctor's office yesterday telling us they learned something from my recent bloodwork that hadn't been detected on my ultrasounds yet - that we are having twins! Now, I usually can not pull anything over on Tony, so imagine my surprise when he completely fell for it! Don't get me wrong, we definitely believe babies are blessings, but two more (at the same time) on top of our two already would have definitely put us both over the edge LOL! Once I saw that he believed me, though (and was definitely freaking out), I gave in and told him the truth pretty quickly - i'm no good at being mean hehea!

Hope you all have a great weekend, and I hope the weather near you is as wonderful as it is here!

I finally got my scrap on!

2010-03-29T19:52:00.004-04:00

I have to admit, since I've gotten pregnant, I've had no motivation to scrap. Between not feeling well and being exhausted all the time, my favorite hobby has really suffered. And I miss it! I'm so much happier when i'm able to have some creative time. Well, on Saturday, I went to a 12 hour crop with next-door Lisa and down-the-street Heather, and it was so much fun! It felt sooo good to just get in the zone, and I actually had some mojo going! I got 5 pages completed (well, almost completed, less the finishing touches I added today), so I was happy with that. This is one of the layouts I did of my boy (using the new My Family line by Fancy Pants):

We were lucky enough to team up with Tattered Angels this month, and they sent all of us on the Fancy Pants DT some awesome products. On the above layout, I used some chipboard frames as masks, and I sprayed over them with Slate Glimmer Mist. I then added the chip frames back on the layout for some dimension. You can check out the TA blog here.

I can't post my other layouts just yet, but here are some sneaks in the meantime :-)

On the last sneak, you may recognize the tissue paper flower I showed you on a previous post. You can see my tutorial on how to make them here.

In non-scrappy news, I officially enter my mid-30's tomorrow - yep, the big 3-5. Or Advanced Maternal Age as they like to call me in the pregnancy world (this is me sticking my tongue out lol). I had a wonderful date with my hubby on Friday night celebrating my b-day, and i'm looking forward to having a lunch/pedi date with my mom and Chloe tomorrow :-)

Hope everyone is doing well and having a good start to your week!

Guest blogger for Jenni Bowlin Studios

2010-03-19T12:02:00.004-04:00

I have the honor of being the guest blogger on the JBS Inspiration Blog today. As soon as I saw these gorgeous papers in the new Homespun line, I immediately thought of spring. At that time, my yard was still covered in lots of snow, and I truly was dreaming of spring - voila, a layout was born ;-) I love the awesome banner stickers and the beautiful butterflies and pearl stickpins, as well. I'm happy to report that the layout seemed to do the trick, as our weather this week has been gorgeous - sunny and in the upper 60's. Today, it's even supposed to hit the 70's - perfect!! Spring weather is my absolute favorite, and the kids and I are so happy to be outside every day again!

So, i'm taking the plunge and showing you all what a house i've become lol. I'm only 14 weeks, but I popped early and carried huge with Noah and Chloe too. This time has bee no exception - I was in maternity clothes at 6 weeks and have had a visible baby bump since around that time, too. This was taken on Wednesday - I had to wear green for St. Patty's Day, of course ;-)

My blog schedule at AMM got switched around a bit, so my tissue paper flower tutorial is not up yet. I promise to post it when it is, though.

Hope you all are enjoying beautiful spring-like weather in your neck of the woods, too!

Another weekend bites the dust...

2010-03-14T20:32:00.002-04:00

Sigh. The weekends never seem to come quick enough or stay long enough, huh? I had a good one, although mostly uneventful except for a fun St. Patty's Day party with the neighbors last night. I'm still having lots of sick days, unfortunately, although I am getting a couple days a week reprieve it seems, so that's progress :-) I'm hoping baby will soon tire of torturing his/her mama, and move onto to the fun stuff lol. Last week was a bit rough because Tony was away on a business trip. Normally I don't mind that much when he goes away, but I was a bit nervous about being able to take care of the kids 24/7 when i'm still having lots of rough days/nights. Fortunately, the kids and I survived, and we're all still alive ;-) And we were veeeery happy to see a certain handsome guy walk through the door on Friday hehe.

I have a recent Fancy Pants layout to share. I used one of my favorite FP lines, Vintage Valentine. I used my Martha Stewart heart punch to punch the heart borders, and then I backed the page with pink cardstock. I also used silver glitter to glitter up the FP chipboard heart. Love this pic of Chloe and Tony :-)
I know i'm a few days early, but I made this St. Patty's day card to celebrate the holiday full of green. The patterned paper is Fancy Pants' brand new Rusted Sun line, and the ribbon is FP as well. I made my own stamp out of a potato for the shamrock - if you'd like to see instructions, you can check them out here on the AMM blog.
Check back again in a few days, and i'll show you how I made these tissue paper flowers. I'll have a tutorial up on the AMM blog for these on Tuesday :-)
Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend and that those of you who "sprung forward" last night aren't suffering from the time change too much!!

5 days

2010-03-05T11:17:00.004-05:00

in between posts is better than 2 1/2 weeks lol! I'm slowly starting to feel human again, and i'm starting to (also slowly) get back into the swing of things. I even scrapped a layout just for fun the other day :-)
The pp is Lily Bee, the butteflies are K&Co and the diecut frame is Heidi Swapp. I'm so obsessed with tulle lately, I love the subtle dimension it adds!

Thank you SO much to everyone for all of the congrats in the last post. You guys are the best!!

I have a good reason...

2010-02-28T07:45:00.003-05:00

for being such a blog slacker. Really, I do. At least I think it's a good reason ;-)
Yep, we're having baby #3! Although we're very excited, unfortunately, i've also been very sick (as I was with my pregnancies with Noah and Chloe). Hence, the reason for my blog slackiness. I have basically been a slug for the past two months, and it's been hard to do much of anything that resembles my usual routine. However, I did get meds to help with the sickness the other day, and although the meds don't do miracles, they do take the edge off. Plus, as i'm almost out of the 1st trimester, I do find myself having more "good" days, so I'm feeling optimistic that i'll be back to my normal routines soon.

Anyway, I do apologize to all my blogging friends out there - sorry to be such a slacker with my blog and your blogs. Hope to be seeing a lot more of you all soon ;-)

Now, onto scrappy stuff. I have my February projects from the gorgeous AMM kit to show you:
Hope everyone is doing well! I'll be back soon ;-)

It's amazing....

2010-02-10T17:19:00.003-05:00

that with the world wide web being sooo big, sometimes it can feel so very small. I have made so many wonderful friends through this amazing hobby we all share, and I feel so blessed that I got to meet a bunch of them a couple of weeks ago in California.

One of those people totally made my day today. As I opened my garage door this morning (since we are now in the middle of blizzard #2 in less than a week, believe it or not, and I still can't get out through my front door), I saw a Priority Mail box waiting for me on the ground. This box was chock full of brand new JBS goodies! The new Homespun papers, embellished butterflies, gorgeous vintage buttons, mini-papers, bingo cards, labels, stickers, stickpins all staring me in the face!! I had no idea where this box came from, but I soon found out that my so so sweet friend Doris sent it to me.

Thank you SO much, Doris! You really did make my day, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate it! You're the best!! Now get your butt over here to MD so we can hang for real ;-)

Now, onto more scrappy stuff - I realized I never posted the rest of my Fancy Pants projects for CHA. I made this layout with the Rusted Sun line - love these colors! The blue swirls and surfboards are cut from one of the new flocked transparencies, and that sun was cut from one of the journaling cards.
Now onto the My Family line. This line is so pretty! I added a new glitter cut from this line in the bottom corner, and the swirl rub-on is from the line as well:
Made this wall hanging with the papers from the My Family line and I used a Fancy Pants Embellish Me Frame:
Well, my friends, as I mentioned earlier, we're in the middle of our second blizzard in less than a week! While we still have 33 inches on the ground from the weekend, we were expected to get up to another 20 inches today! I'm not sure if it actually stopped snowing yet, so i'll have to venture into reality to find out what is going on out there lol. Hope you all are staying warm in your neck of the woods!!

Snowed in....

2010-02-07T18:10:00.007-05:00

It's been a crazy couple of days! We got our second blizzard this winter, and our grand total of snow from Friday through yesterday afternoon was 32 or 33 inches! Our street has not been plowed yet, so we can't exactly go anywhere. We did take the kids out to run around in the snow today, and they had a blast, of course. Schools are closed tomorrow, and I have a feeling they'll be closed all week or at least close to it. No work for me tomorrow!

Here's Tony shoveling while it was still snowing yesterday. After he was done, we still got probably another half a foot.

Noah sliding down the snow hill in our front yard - that is where our sidewalk normally is lol. We'll only be getting in and out of the house through the garage these days!

I wanted to tell you guys about an awesome Banner Bonanza contest going on at AMM right now! The winner of the contest will win this AWESOME prize package, chock full of newly released CHA goodies:
To find out what you need to do to win this prize package, visit this AMM contest thread. I got my AMM February kit the other day, and it is an amazing kit!
It also happens to have a chipboard banner set in the kit if you want to use that for the contest. You can check out the kit here if you're interested.

I hope to have my Feb. kit projects to share soon. Unfortunately, I haven't been feeling too well lately, which is slowing me down, but look for my projects here soon :-)

Hope you guys are all warm where ever you are!

CHA Day 2...

2010-01-31T19:22:00.003-05:00

I don't have as many pics for day 2, but I will try to remember what we did :-) I do know that the day started with us rushing to the Studio Calico booth, as Jenn wanted to sign up for their wood veneer mini-album make and take (alright, alright, I wanted to do it too... ;-) We ended up signing up for an afternoon slot, and the mini-album was adorable! We got to meet and chat with some of the SC girls (Nicole H. and Davinie) who were both awesome!

We then went by Teresa Collins booth again b/c every day, she was doing a new mini-album make and take with her new lines. Day 1, we got the home line which is super cute. On Day 2, she was giving away the wedding line which Jenn really wanted to get for her sister. Unfortunately, the line was super long that morning, and it didn't seem to get any better, so we did miss that one. We did, however, have the pleasure of chatting with Teresa for awhile, and she was so friendly and sweet (and pretty too!).
Stopped by the JBS booth again, and Doris introduced me to Jenni Bowlin which was a huge treat for me since I think all my blog readers know i'm a huge fan! She was also very warm and genuine. I feel like I keep saying how wonderful everyone was so that it sounds insincere, but really, everyone was so great!! It was so nice to see that even the big names behind the products are "real" people, and both Teresa and Jenni seemed very down to earth.
Loved the new Lily Bee lines!
The Girls Paperie booth was one of my very favorites that I saw. Pure eye candy throughout!

This did not photograph well, but the Making Memories booth had this awesome butterfly mobile hanging from the ceiling, and all the butterflies were cut out from transparencies using the Slice - very cool effect!
Me and Michelle giving each other some love... :-)
Ok, so that recap wasn't so great, lol, but my memory is already fading (I guess that's old age kicking in lol). I should have taken detailed day-by-day notes like Jenn did!

I still have more pics to post from Day 3, so stay tuned...

CHA Day 1...

2010-01-28T21:24:00.004-05:00

I'm baaaack! And wow, did I have a blast! I just knew I would love all the AMM girls (which I did!) since I already felt like I knew them, but it was SO cool to also meet so many other people who i've "met" online. I can honestly say that every single person I met was so warm and friendly - it truly felt like meeting long lost friends who i've known forever!

I took a ton of pics, and my computer is not cooperating tonight, so i'm going to divide them up by days. This first photo was actually taken Saturday night, the night before CHA day 1. I met up with the AMM girls at our condo, and then we headed to the SEI party. Although the huge pack of newly released paper lines was very cool to receive, I think the awesome ice cream bar may have been my favorite part, hehea. I finally got to meet Anabelle, and it cracks me up that we met for the first time in CA when we live about two hours away from each other on the east coast. That's Anabelle and Jenn in the back row and Michelle (AMM owner), me and Tonya in the front row:

The first stop I made on Saturday was to the Fancy Pants booth where I got to meet FP owners Jodi and Jared for the first time. They were both so wonderful!! I also got to meet their new baby who was super adorable :-) In the FP booth, I also got to meet fellow design team member Ronda. Not only is this girl amazingly talented, but she is so super sweet, as well!
I can't even remember which booth I took this photo in now (prima maybe?) but cupcakes were one of the many themes I saw all around the show (along with dress forms and handmade flowers). They were making me hungry! :-)

Stacy and I are constantly dealing with people confusing our name spellings since we're both on the AMM DT. Poor thing had to walk around with her CHA name tag with a spelling of Staci lol. Lucy and I have talked on the phone a bunch of times, so I knew we'd hit it off, and I was right. Both of these girls are awesome, and I kept hoping some of their talent would rub off while I was with them lol! That's Krista on the left, who was a total sweetie, and Karen next to her, another AMM DT girl (who was also awesome and had the cutest baby!). Teresa Collins' booth was gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous!
So, who watches The Bachelor (come on, you know you do... lol)? Well, i'm sure those of you who watch remember "Psycho Michelle" who just got kicked off last week. Well, actually, she told Jake she wanted to leave and he told her to go ahead. Anyway, as we were walking across the street from the convention center to get lunch at the Marriott hotel, who do we see waitressing at the restaurant there but Michelle?! We asked her for her picture, and she was very happy to oblige (she's the pretty brunette dressed in black).
Yay, I got to see Sherry again! Thanks to CHA, Sherry lost the title of being the only scrappy friend I had met in real life, lol. It was so good to see her again, and I may get to see her next month, too, when she comes to my neck of the woods :-)
Anyone recognize this scrapper? Ok, ok, so Kathy Ireland is not a scrapbooker (at least not that I know of), but she was at CHA promoting her new fabric line. And she was super sweet and gracious, shaking all of our hands and introducing herself. And man is she TALL!
Aaaaah, Doris! It was hard for me to believe that I'd never actually met Doris in person before this, because I feel like i've known her forever. I totally wish I could have spent more time with this girl, but i'll take what I can get ;-)
Loved the homespun feel of the Unity Stamp company booth. They had these adorable sewn flowers...
and this super cool tree! Wouldn't this look so cool on a child's bedroom wall?
The Dear Lizzy line by American Crafts was super cute, and I was loving all the awesome shadow boxes they had displayed with the product.
Well, my friends, i'll be back soon for CHA day 2 :-) For now, I must get my jet lagged self to bed!

Yes, I am alive....

2010-01-22T13:56:00.002-05:00

Wow, it's been awhile, huh?? So sorry for being a blog slacker here, but sometimes life just gets in the way!

We had some family tragedy - my first cousin died of cancer last week, which, of course, was a blow to everyone. He was an amazing man, and he died way too soon. He lived in LA, and I had tacked on a day at the end of my CHA trip to visit him, and unfortunately, I never got that chance to "say goodbye."

In happier news, I can't believe I leave tomorrow for California! I'm really excited and also a bit nervous. I've never left the kids for more than a weekend, and I know i'm going to miss them and Tony like mad! I do believe, though, that it's good for all of us mommies to take time for ourselves, and I know i'll have a great time. I can't wait to meet so many of my scrappy friends that i've gotten to know over the last couple of years!

Speaking of scrappy stuff, Fancy Pants has shown their 4 new lines up on their blog. You guys have got to check it out - the new lines are amazing!! Here's a layout I did for the new line About a Girl. The blue damasks are actually a flocked transparency - it's so pretty!

And this layout is from the new line Road Show, which I think is my favorite of the new lines.

Well, everyone, I hope you are all doing well, and I will try not to stay away for so long next time ;-) I can't wait to update you on all the CHA loveliness that I see!

Better late than never...

2010-01-07T20:12:00.002-05:00

Ok, so yeah, Tony and I got married 7 1/2 years ago, and I finally just got around to doing a layout about our amazing wedding party. What can I say, the last 7 years have been busy! ;-) The truth is, I don't do nearly as many event/holiday layouts as I do "everyday" type layouts, so our poor wedding has been very neglected. I'm sure when the kids are in college i'll get it all done!
Journaling reads: Thankful for the amazing friends and family who stood by our side on such an important day. They helped to make our day even more special!

I had fun playing around with lots of stuff in my stash that i'd been hoarding - Creative Imaginations papers, Making Memories frame, acrylic circles and gold leaves, and Heidi Swapp butterfly.

In other scrappy news, i'm eagerly awaiting the new soon-to-be-released-at-CHA Fancy Pants stuff! Can't wait to dig in and create! I also still can't believe that i'm actually going to CHA, and that it will be here in less than 3 weeks, wow! I'm so excited not only to attend the show, but also to meet so many people that i've come to know in the scrappy world over the last few years!!

Anyway, hope you all are having a wonderful week! It's been an eventful one here, and i'm ready for the weekend to relax!

My top 10

2010-01-03T14:17:00.005-05:00

Happy New Year, everyone!! We went on a vacation to the Pocono Mountains for New Years - we usually take this trip every other year and spend several days with good friends of ours. Our kids are similar ages to their kids, so it works out nicely for everyone! The 4 little ones had a blast playing together, and us adults enjoyed several days of hanging out and relaxing :-)

I wanted to post my 10 favorite layouts from 2009. It was so much fun to look back at my work over the last year and see which layouts I was drawn to the most. I am posting these in order from when I created them, and the first one was done last January, with the last layout being completed just last month.
Thanks for taking this walk down memory lane with me!

I hope that all my friends out there in blogland have a wonderful 2010!!

Do you make resolutions?

2009-12-28T21:07:00.007-05:00

I don't normally. But I did two years ago, and it's interesting to me that many of my resolutions for 2008 are things that are still important to me and high on my list as we are about to enter 2010. I'm happy to report, though, that I have been doing many of these... but not all - I need something to reach for, right?? ;-) Although this layout is two years old now, I still love it, and I love the reminder to keep striving to be a better me. (If you'd like to read what my resolutions were, you can click on the layout to see it enlarged.)

As promised, I wanted to share some recent photos of what we've been up to. These are some of the pics that were taken during our blizzard last weekend when we got 23 inches of snow!
And some of Chloe at her b-day party last week:
(Noah was too busy hanging with his friends to join in on the family shot here ;-)
Well, my friends, I will not be around for the next few days, so I want to wish you all a VERY happy New Year! May 2010 be kind to you all!!

Have you ever danced in the rain?

2009-12-23T08:29:00.002-05:00

I have, and it was one of my favorite nights ever. I wrote about it here. It was very hard to photograph this layout because I cut out a section, backed it with a transparency and added raindrops. Transparencies don't like my camera too much ;-)

This layout was done for a member lift over at AMM. We lifted the awesome Sasha Holloway who now happens to be an AMM DT member, lol. The parts of Sasha's original layout that I used for my design were the popped up circles and the journaling strips. Everything here is Fancy Pants, mostly from the Kraft Kuts line.
We've been super busy here the last few days! We ended up getting 23 inches of snow!! We've had a lot of fun playing in it :-) We ended up rescheduling Chloe's b-day party for last night in our home, and she had a lot of fun. I've taken a ton of photos over the last few days, and i'll be back to share some of them another time. For now, i'll leave you with two of my recent favs.

Noah wearing our "build a snowman" accessories:
Chloe showing off the tutu I made for her to wear to her b-day party:
Happy hump day, everyone! I hope all of my friends that celebrate Christmas have a wonderful holiday!