CMK blog hop!!

Yep... it's that time again! (How can that be?? Wow, time is flying!). Before I show my May kit reveal layout, I just want to pay a quick homage to good friends. I hosted a ladies' night tonight - mostly neighbors. These girls are seriously the best. Such a fun, down to earth group. And how lucky am I that two of my neighbor friends are scrappers too? :-) Lisa, next door, is such an awesome friend. I mean, the girl got my kids into their jammies when they came back home tonight (they were hanging with the other neighbor kids), exhausted and grumpy (the kids, not lisa, hee). I'm SO spoiled to have such a good friend right next door - I don't know what i'd do without her! And Heather - she's such a sweetheart, and so fun, too! Have I told you all the story of how Heather and I became friends? She's probably sick of me telling this story, but I think it is so cool that i'm just going to continue to tell it (sorry Heather ;-). Last summer, Heather saw my layout about my n'hood in Memory Makers (my very first pub!). Well, my n'hood happens to be her n'hood, too! So, she looked me up on 2 Peas and introduced herself, telling me that she lives in my hood, and that she scraps, too. She made sure to emphasize that she wasn't a stalker, lol. Anyway, we met up last summer, and recently have been lucky enough to start hanging out more. And, I learned tonight that she makes some darn good Cosmopolitans!

Ok, ok, i'll stop rambling and get down to business... I seriously LOVE the May CMK kit. Yes, I know, I love lisa's kits every month, but I seriously always feel like she outdoes herself every time! This month, I was especially drawn to the yummy ribbons, the small Heidi Swapp letters, and the adorable leaf stick pins! I decided to sew the ribbons together to make a background for this photo of Chloe that I just adore (from last May). The cardstock is embossed with a leaf print, so I rubbed some of my metallic rub-ons over the embossing to emphasize the leaf pattern. Can't wait to play with this kit more! Don't forget to check out the other CMK DT girls blogs to see their layouts, too (links to the left)!

Have a GREAT weekend, everyone!!

The things we do for our kids....

So, I was just taking the trash into the garage when the kids and I heard a voice coming from the trash bag. Not just any voice, mind you, but the voice of Dora's cousin Diego saying something about saving the wild animals! Ahh, yes, one of my children somehow managed to throw away a Diego talking radio toy that we have. So guess who got to dig through the trash to find the toy? We sure do wear many hats as moms, don't we?!

I wanted to share my last layout using the April CMK kit. This kit seriously blew me away, and i'm loving May's just as much! I never did get to play last night as I ended up wasting too much time going through my photos, but tonight is the night ;-)

Don't forget that you can click on the photos if you want to see them larger (or read the journaling, lol).

Happy hump day, everyone!

NEW Luxe!

Whoo! After a several month hiatus, we just got word that the newest lines of Luxe (Lovey and Ecology) shipped to us DT members today. Our DT term is about to come to an end, so we get to go out with a bang by designing with these new lines. ECOLOGY is my very favorite Luxe line yet! Here are some of my favorite papers in the line:

If you want to see the full line, click here.

I'm off to go put the kiddos to bed after a long afternoon of playing outside. My plan for the rest of the evening is to SCRAP! :-) I'm hoping to finally dig into my new box of Fancy Pants goodies, as well as my May CMK kit that just arrived on my doorstep yesterday... whoo!

Happy Tuesday, friends!

It's finally here!

Spring, that is! Ok, ok, I know that technically Spring has been here for several weeks, but it sure hasn't felt like it in my neck of the woods! These last two days, however, have been GORGEOUS!! We celebrated the beautiful change in temperature yesterday afternoon/evening with one of our famous n'hood block parties. We all gathered outside around 5:00 and stayed out until around 10ish. Us adults get to relax and join each other's company, and the kids get to run around chasing each other all night, lol. Yet another time that living on a cul-de-sac comes in very handy! We all gather in "the circle", and we can keep an eye on the kids as they ride their bikes/run/plan round and round and round...

Tony had to work today, so the kids and I went on a 2 mile bike ride, and Noah did great! He had to get off to walk his bike up the bigger hills a couple of times, but he rode most of it - I was very impressed. Chloe had the best ride of all - she got to sit back and relax on the back of my bike. After lunch, we again enjoyed the nice weather with one of our favorite springtime activities:

The kids are now napping, and I'm going to relax myself. Tonight i'm heading out to a girlfriend's house for our annual Girl's Weekend. Unfortunately, Girl's Weekend has turned into Girl's Overnight for most of us this year, but i'm excited to at least get one night/morning with some of my closest girlfriends. Afterall, you're never too old for sleepovers...

I'll leave you with my most recent layout made with CMK's gorgeous April kit. You guys will recognize the story, lol. For those who missed my last post and don't feel like strolling down, here is the journaling for you:

Although these photos are of you, this story is actually about your brother and how your friend Mr. Doggie came to be. There is a toy machine at Safeway that Noah always asks to play - the kind with the crane where you hit the button to lower it to try to win a stuffed animal. Well, the stuffed animals are the big prizes, but when you don't win the big prize, a second, smaller crane closes down on some candy on the other side of the machine. On this particular day, I gave your brother the dollar to play. So he moves the crane, hits the button and down it goes...picking up a stuffed dog! You and I were so excited for Noah, congratulating him for winning the dog. Your brother, however, was anything but happy - he started crying hysterically, screaming "but I wanted the candy!!!" Needless to say, you ended up with sweet Mr. Doggie and your brother - well, he's lucky that his mama is a sucker, as I gave him another dollar to purposefully lose that time!

A big thanks to my girl Doris for letting me plagiarize her by stealing her "good things come to those who lose" line ;-)

Also wanted to mention that my sweet and very funny friend Lisa is doing a RAK on her blog to celebrate her birthday (see... I told you she was sweet!). You can check it out here.

Happy weekend, everyone! Hope you are having a great weather weekend yourselves (and finding time to play!)!

Can I go back to sleep?

I always considered myself both a morning and a night person... you know - the kind of person who functions fairly well either time of the day (now afternoons are another story ;-). Well, ever since entering the motherhood-constant-state-of-sleep-deprivation phase, it seems that i'm in a fog for the first part of my morning. Take just now for example - it's my turn to post the daily digest layout of the day/questions of the day at CMK, and I just posted layout of the day with a date of 3/16/09 (which I can't find a way to edit - argh!). Hey, at least I got the day and year right...

This month's prompt is up at the Forward Progress blog. I made a layout with 10 goals for the next year. Since I haven't completed any of the 5 goals in 5 months I made last month, I included those in.

That flower was cut from a Vera Bradley box I had saved... love the colors on it!

Journaling:My goals for the next year: By August 2009 - start a garden (started indoors 2/09, to be transferred outdoors when blossoming), lose 10 pounds (working on it), finish Twilight book series (on Book 3), continue to have lots of silly moments with my kids (on-going), do weekly menu planning (haven't started); By April 2010 - organize basement, sew a camera strap, purge magazines, file layouts in albums, blog at least 3x/week, go through old toys and sell what is no longer being used.

It's been a happy mail week for me - whoo! Got my Scrapbook Trends box the other day with some product and the April mag which is chock full of inspo, and yesterday I got my Fancy Pants box! The excitement of getting a box of favorite scrap product never gets old - I seriously just want to roll around in it, lol.

I'm off to go start my day with the little ones. Hope you all have a wonderful day! I think it *might* actually be spring-like weather here today (i'm really hoping I didn't just jinx myself!)!!

It's one of my new goals...

So, on a layout that will be revealed tomorrow on the Forward Progress blog, one of my goals that I journaled about is to start blogging at least 3 times a week. Keep in mind that this is one of my goals for the next year, so I have some time, don't I? ;-) My dilemma with the whole blogging thing is that I usually only post when I have something creative to share, since this is mainly a scrapbook blog. Being that some weeks I am less productive then others, sometimes that makes the blogging more frequently thing hard, lol. So, i'm going to start trying to share more cute stories (as the kids always provide lots of those) and any other random stuff I find interesting in hopes to keep the blog more interesting for you guys who are kind enough to read here :-)

Starting with a funny story - I just have to share this as it cracks me up every time I think about it. There is this toy machine at the local grocery store that Noah always asks to play - the kind with the crane where you hit the button to lower it to try to win a stuffed animal. Well, the stuffed animals are the "big" prizes, but as we learned the first (and only) time he played, every person is a winner. So, when you don't win the big prize, a second, smaller crane, closes down on some candy on the other side of the machine. Anyway, noah really wanted to play the other day, and since he was being helpful in the grocery store, I gave him the dollar to play. So, he moves the crane, hits the button, and down it goes... picking up a stuffed dog! Some random lady who was watching, as well as Chloe and I, were all so excited, congratulating noah for winning the dog. Well, my crazy son starts crying hysterically, screaming "but I wanted the candy!!!" Oh lordie. Gotta love 4 1/2 year olds ;-) So, the sucker that I am searched around the diaper bag for another dollar to let him purposefully lose this time so that he could get the small, not nearly as exciting prize of two pieces of candy :-)

Moving onto scrappy stuff, here is a new Fancy Pants layout:

Speaking of Fancy Pants, we got word today that our FP boxes shipped last Thursday - yay, I can't wait! Let the mailman stalking begin!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week and that whichever holiday you celebrate (Passover/Easter), you had a great one!!

Happy Monday!

Happy Monday everyone! We had a lovely weekend here, filled with lots of outdoor play and even some swimming (indoor) time! This weekend was also the Spring Fling crop at CMK, and boy was it a blast! So many people participated! Each of us DT members posted a challenge, and here was mine - to create a sign for your front door. I made mine a sign to celebrate my favorite season of the year :-)

I used a chipboard and acrylic piece from one of my Fancy Pants mixed media albums. I used lots of paint and glitter on the chipboard, and then I dressed my sign up with patterned paper, an acrylic piece, chipboard and some stitching. This was such a blast to make, and it's now happily perched on my front door.

I also have a layout to share using the gooorgeous April kit from CMK. This was done for my DT challenge this morning to use the negative image from a sticker on a layout. I used the star (leftover from a Sassafrass Lass sticker that I used on a previous layout) to call attention to part of the photo.

Well, friends, my Monday evening TV is starting soon, so I have to go get comfortable - I do have my priorities, you know, heheha!

Happy new week!