Sunday, July 27, 2008

Weekend Update

It's been a good weekend... how was yours? On Friday (that's kind of the weekend, right? :-) we had a playdate at the park. Chloe and Super Noah had a great time. Here are some photos:
Yes, it was a "I want to wear my cape and mask" day for Noah. We have those fairly regularly around here, lol.

Tony worked yesterday, but my mom came over and we took the kids to the splash park/pool. After several hours in the sun, we all took a good nap after that!

Today we took the kids to see a movie - "Kung Fu Panda." We've been wanting to take Noah for some time now, but we weren't sure how Chloe would do. We decided to just go for it and take her, so she saw her first movie at 19 months! She actually did really well until about the last 20 minutes (thanks to popcorn!), and then she got a little restless. Nothing a short walk with mommy couldn't fix :-) Anyway, it was a cute movie and a nice family day. Oh, and can you believe that the theater we went to has a built-in daycare/playland where you can leave your kids so you can go see a movie?? Wow, now i've heard of everything!

In scrappy news, I'm still chugging along on my MMM entry. I had completed layout #4 (of 5), but then I decided that I didn't like layout #3, lol. So, I went on to the "I believe" layout, and I am almost done with that. So, now I just need to do one more layout, and i'm done. I'm certainly realistic in my expectations and know my chances are slim, but I'm happy with what i've done so far. So, at least I now have a few more layouts that I love. Well, except for the "I believe" layout which I don't get back, that is a hard one for me to swallow. So, wish me luck that MM publishes it at some point so I can get it back ;-)
I also got a request from Scrapbook Trends the other day for my Hannukah layout for the December issue. So i'm excited about that!

Anyway, Noah is requesting the computer (gotta love having to give up computer time to an almost 4-year old), so i'm outta here. Hope everyone is having a great weekend!



Thursday, July 24, 2008

101 Random Things

Ok, I got this idea from the fabulous Leslie Ashe to write up a list of 101 random things about myself. I had a lot of fun reading Leslie's, and it was a lot of fun to write mine! And hey, since i'm still holding out for the prospect of entering MMM and can't share layouts, I have to keep you all entertained somehow, right?? :-)

Here goes!

101 random things about me:
1. I had a dog named Keefer growing up.
2. and a cat named peaches.
3. and a hamster named Brittney.
4. she died while we were away on vacation and friends were watching her :-(
5. speaking of animals, I wanted to be a vet when I was growing up.
6. but then I decided it would be too much schooling.
7. so I decided to go into psychology instead (yeah – b/c that doesn’t require a lot of schooling, lol!)
8. I am ABD – all but dissertation
9. my real degree is an Ed.S (Educational Specialist) – it’s in between a master’s and a doctorate
10. I never really wanted to be in the doctorate program but my professor talked me into in.
11. I guess that’s why I never finished ;-)
12. I can still do private practice work without the doctorate, so it all worked out.
13. I still took the doctoral comps, though.
14. the written comp was 8 hours long.
15. the oral was 4 hours long in front of my whole committee of 6 professors.
16. that oral comp was seriously the most stressful experience of my life.
17. my GPA was much better in grad school then undergrad.
18. I think because I partied a lot more in undergrad:-)
19. that’s probably why I liked undergrad a lot better then grad school!
20. grad school was in Tucson.
21. I liked it there but really missed the east coast.
22. I surprised myself – I didn’t think I’d miss the east coast as much as I did!
23. tony and I weren’t even dating a year when we moved out to AZ together.
24. we drove each other crazy when we first started living together.
25. it was good experience for getting married and still driving each other crazy, lol.
26. planning our wedding was fun – lots of bonding time with my mom.
27. I’m very close with my mom.
28. and my dad.
29. and my brother and SIL.
30. I wish that we saw my MIL more.
31. I guess you can sum it up that family is really important to me in general!
32. My friends are incredibly important to me, too.
33. I used to have my belly button pierced.
34. and my nose.
35. and had lots and lots of holes in my ears.
36. and had one other mystery location pierced :-)
37. my mom hated all of it.
38. got one of my piercings on a trip with my friend lisa.
39. we flew into AZ and spent 3 weeks driving through Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico.
40. I was reminded the other day that we rode on horses through mountains in AZ and crossed a small river.
41. we met a guy from Australia who we hung out with for a few days.
42. I miss Australia.
43. I studied abroad there my junior year of college.
44. definitely was a life changing experience for me.
45. I had an Australian boyfriend when I was there.
46. he visited me in the US the following year.
47. but I had another boyfriend then.
48. Lauren and I visited New Zealand on our spring break when we were in Australia.
49. it was the coolest thing to drive on windy roads looking at waterfall after waterfall.
50. we got stuck in a sheep crossing once and had to sit there for about 30 minutes until they all went across the street.
51. we stayed with my brother’s friend greg for a few days.
52. my brother and I fought a lot growing up.
53. we got really close, though, when he moved out of the house (good timing, huh?) when I was around 12 (he’s almost 6 years older then me).
54. I remember being really mad at him one time b/c he was supposed to help put my very first bike together and he changed his mind and wanted to sleep in.
55. I used to take my dog for walks while riding my bike.
56. that wasn’t very smart – I fell one time and hurt myself really badly.
57. there weren’t many kids my age in my n’hood – only one, actually.
58. I love that the n’hood we live in now has so many kids noah and chloe’s ages.
59. I played softball when I was younger and my dad was my coach.
60. to this day, my dad and brother make fun of my lack of athletic ability.
61. tony makes fun of my softball playing skills, too, and I don’t think he has any right to since it is all hearsay that he is going by :-)
62. my childhood best friend Marci played softball with me too.
63. we lost touch for awhile and then got close again in college.
64. we don’t talk anymore and that makes me sad
65. I also played basketball briefly when I was younger.
66. I think I am pretty good at making baskets (but that is about the extent of my athletic ability, lol).
67. I also was on a cheerleading squad (but only as a little kid).
68. and a baton twirling team (is that the right word? Are they called teams?)
69. and I was on a bowling league.
70. but I quit because I had to miss watching the smurfs on Saturday mornings.
71. but then I was pissed that I didn’t get a trophy like the other kids.
72. I also danced for about 8 years – mostly jazz.
73. I was in recitals every year.
74. tony and I took swing dancing lessons twice in the days before we got married.
75. we had a 15 piece swing band at our wedding – they were awesome!!
76. we’ve been married for 6 years now
77. I always wanted to have a boy and a girl, in that order.
78. that is what I had :-)
79. however, I also was convinced ever since I was little that I would have twins.
80. we didn’t find out the sex of either of our babies when I was pregnant with them.
81. I thought that would be super hard for me since I’m such a planner, but it was the coolest thing ever.
82. tony was completely convinced that chloe would be another boy, and he had me convinced, too.
83. If noah had been a girl, his name would have been Maya Brooke.
84. If chloe had been a boy, her name would have been Lucas Ray.
85. noah is named after my grandfather.
86. he died on September 11th, 2001.
87. yep… *the* September 11th. Horrible day for me for many reasons!
88. The Ray part of Lucas Ray would have been after Tony’s father who died back in 1998.
89. I wish the kids would have gotten a chance to meet their grandfather.
90. I have a horrible attention span.
91. and I diagnose children with ADHD all the time.
92. I can scrap for hours upon hours, though.
93. it helps keep me focused ;-)
94. I learned to crochet when I was really little from my mom’s friend.
95. I also used to dabble in cross stitch.
96. and knitting (but I was much better at crocheting).
97. I played the guitar in college.
98. my parents bought it for me for my birthday.
99. a lot of my friends played, so I learned from them (and I also took a class in college).
100. I really miss it and always say I want to get back into it – yet my poor guitar sits unplayed in a closet.
101. I thought it would be hard to come up with 101 random things about me, but I could actually keep going!!

Hope I didn't bore you to death, lol!

Speaking of MMM, I just want to thank you all for your support and encouragement. It amazes me that I didn't really enter the "online" world of scrapping until a few months ago (at least actively), and boy, was I missing out! In just a few months, I feel like I have made so many wonderful, supportive friends, and it has been so cool getting to know a lot of you through blogging, message boards, design teams, etc. And if any of you are lurking around, I'd love for you to leave me a comment some time so I can try to get to know you, too! :-)

Hope everyone is having a fantastic week!

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Do you live in Maryland (or nearby)?

If you do, you'll be very excited to read about this: Scrap Happy KT's Big Sale. Katie, of the online store, Scrap Happy KT, is having her first ever Warehouse Sale to make room for new stuff. The sale will be on Saturday August 2nd from 10am-8pm in Eldersburg, MD. Everything will be up to 50% off and maybe even more! Check out the above link, and maybe I'll see you there :-)

Not much else to report here... I have been scrapping away, but i'm still unsure as to whether or not I'm going to enter the Memory Makers Masters contest. I have never entered before, and I think it would be really cool to give it a try (although I'm not holding out for anything - I know the competition is steep!!), so at this point it's a matter of whether or not I have the time to finish. The deadline is July 31st, and I have (almost) 3 layouts that I could enter that are never before seen, which leaves 2 more to do. So.... we'll see!

Yesterday was a nice relaxed day - we don't have those very often! We hit B&N and just read books and played at the train table for hours. I treated us to a Chocolate Chip Frap (I let the kids split one with me) before we left, and they each got to pick out a book... fun time.

Today is a work day for me, so I guess I should get off the computer now and get moving, lol. Hope everyone is having a great week!

Monday, July 21, 2008

More new Luxe!

I'm having so much fun with my new Luxe goodies! For this layout, I used a new transparency from the Transparently Yours series. I cut a flower out from the transparency, painted it and added microbeads. PP's and transparency are Luxe, paper frill is doodlebug, ribbon is MM and chip letters are Maya Road (made to go with Luxe letter stickers) - I glittered these up. I used a sketch from Triple the Sketch, which is an awesome sketch site... check it out if you haven't already! I scrapped these photos of Chloe from last summer when she was only 7 months old - what a difference a year makes!!
Going out tonight for a girl's night out dinner with my mom, two of my good friends and their moms. We don't get to see each other very often, and all of our moms are friends, so it should be fun. Of course, planning this thing was almost as hard as planning my wedding, lol. It took us weeks to come up with a date, time and location since some of us had to juggle babysitter coverage, traveling, etc. I'm sure it will all be worth it :-) Happy Monday to everyone!

Sunday, July 20, 2008

New LUXE

This layout, "You made me a soccer mom" features the new release of the Luxe line, "Color Me" (being shown at CHA as we speak!). I cut out the black and white soccer balls from the Color Me line and heat embossed them with UTEE. I then popped them up above the black soccer ball felt.

Patterned paper, label and large letters are all Luxe. Small letters are Making Memories, black soccer ball felt is Queen & Co, black bracket brads are Around the Block, chipboard shoe is Basic Grey, transparent arrow is Fancy Pants and chipboard frame is Jenni Bowlin.

We're having a good weekend... how is yours? We went to Savanna's (Noah's girlfriend :-) 5th b-day party yesterday, and then after an afternoon of relaxing, we went outside to play in the afternoon. Today is another HOT day (supposed to be hot and humid in the mid-90's with a heat index up to 100 degrees!), so we're either going to go to the splash park or play out front in the sprinklers. Hope everyone is having a good one!!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

And the winner is......

Well, you girls will not believe how many layouts were in my stack. It seemed as though most of the guesses were in the 30's and 40's, and would you believe there were 91 layouts in that stack??? Which makes the winner the awesome Doris Sander!! So, Doris, please e-mail me with your address, and I'll mail the creepy, scary doll handled Martha Stewart punch right over to you ;-) Doris actually had the very first guess, and her guess of 82 was closest, no one even guessed over. I guess looks can be deceiving! After counting the pile the first time, I went back and counted a second time because I couldn't believe how many had accumulated there. And don't worry everyone, I DO have albums - I'm apparantly just too lazy to put them in there, lol. But I will soon - afterall, I need to clear off my printer so another stack can start piling up, hehea.

We had a fun playdate today with one of Noah's friends. The kids played outside in the sprinkler since it was hot, hot, hot. Later on we got together with Lisa and the kids next door. Noah's girlfriend Savanna is a whopping 5 years old today (he's in love with an older woman, lol), so we got to hang over there for a bit.

Tomorrow is a work day for me and my mom will be here to watch the kids. Can't believe another week is almost over - I feel like this summer is flying!! Hope everyone is having a good one, and for those going to CHA... don't have TOO much fun while i'm stuck here at home ;-) I suggested to Tony that we take a mini-vacation in January to Anaheim. We've always wanted to take the kids to Legoland since Noah is really into legos now. What better time to go then when I can also hit up CHA?? He actually didn't think it was such a bad idea, so we shall see. We're also trying to go on a cruise next summer, so I don't know if our budget will allow us two trips! Fingers crossed though :-)

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

New LUXE and a mini for CMK

Happy Tuesday everyone! We went berry picking today at a local farm with the next door neighbors which was a lot of fun! Did you all do anything fun in your neck of the woods?

I did a Luxe layout yesterday using the new calendar line:

I love this line and can't wait to get more of it! Here's a sneek - it's debuting at CHA:

Speaking of CHA, I'm so jealous of all of you lucky ones who are going! Sigh. Maybe next year (a girl can hope, right?)

I also did another DT project for Create My Keepsake using the Daisy D's. I made a mini-album and had so much fun! It had been so long - the last one I made was a mother's day book for my mom last year! Anyway, I can't wait to do another one! I've got a special project in the works that involves a mini, but I don't think I can let the cat out of the bag just yet, so i'll keep you all posted :-)


Don't forget to take your guess on how many layouts are in my stack (previous post) for a RAK if you haven't already done so!