Sweet little four-month old baby feet

Sigh. It feels like just yesterday when she was this little! I did this LO for Create My Keepsake's "Last Scrapper Standing" contest in which we had to lift a LO from one of the current DT members. I lifted Leslie Ashe's "Always" LO which can be found here: http://www.createmykeepsake.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=34666&cat=858&limit=recent
I love how she cropped the main photo to use as repeating photos, so that is the main element I lifted. I had so much fun with this!Next on my scrap agenda is to get started on my DT layouts for Luxe. Can't wait to start playing with my new goodies!

We're off to a playdate at the inflatable place. It rained a ton last night and everything is still wet and muddy, so we decided to keep our playdate inside this morning. It will be interesting to see how long my children last today, though. My mother-in-law and aunt-in-law (is that a word, lol?) slept here last night since they were leaving from BWI airport this morning. So, since we haven't seen them in awhile, we let the kids stay up late, which meant that Noah went to bed at almost 11 (he normally goes to bed by 8:30!) and Chloe went to sleep around 8:30 (she normally is asleep by 7). I am predicting some cranky kids today, lol!

I am a lucky girl!

So, first, I came home from my Girl's Weekend away (which was awesome, by the way!) to find a 10 pound box of Luxe goodies, and boy, is this stuff awesome! A ton of paper, stamps, rub-ons, epoxies, labels, jotters, transparencies and Maya Road goodness, too! I am seriously in Scrapper's Paradise right now! We received our first assignments, so I'm hoping to get started on them soon.

Then, today, I got an e-mail requesting one of my recent layouts for the October issue of Scrapbook Trends. ST is one of my very favorite magazines, and I'm super excited to finally get a layout published by them.

So, the weekend was great - I missed Tony and the kids, of course, but it really felt good to get away. I think i'm a much better mommy (and wife!) when I'm able to take some "me" time to rejuvenate. Oh, and the SITC movie was awesome. I recommend seeing it with a group of girlfriends, as that definitely added to the fun. I don't recommend, however, seeing it moments after getting caught in a torrential downpour so that you are sitting in a theater for two hours in sopping wet, freezing clothes. That part... not so fun :-)

Today we had a playdate at the local petting farm with Lisa and the girls next store... Noah really missed his girlfriend when he was away at his aunt and uncle's on Saturday, lol. I'll leave you with a few of my favorite pictures from today.

And finally, I'm also posting a recent layout I did which encompassed two firsts for me - my very first 8.5x11 layout (can you believe that??) and my first ever transparent layout. It was a lot of fun to do!

So very Sex In The City!

Ok, so who else is a fan and is totally excited that the show has been made into a movie? I know I am! And, apparantly Luxe is to. To celebrate the opening, they are having giveaways galore! On the Luxe blog (http://blog.luxedesigns.com/livingtheluxelife/), they are giving away "the Manhattan" featuring the Classic Black line. On Emily's blog (http://www.emilyhadams.blogspot.com/), she's giving away the "the Miranda" which features the Capris line. On Pam's blog (http://www.justlookandlisten.blogspot.com/), she's giving away "the Carrie" which features the Cocktail Dress line. On Brandy's blog (http://brandyosu.typepad.com/blogblogblog/), she's giving away "the Charlotte" which features the Trinket line. On Jen's blog (http://www.jenidallas.typepad.com/), she's giving away "the Samantha" which features the Stiletto line. Last but not least, on both the Luxe myspace page (http://profile.myspace.com/luxeurious) and the Luxe facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Luxe-Designs/25790032160), they are giving away one of their "If Carrie & Charlotte got together to crop" shirts. Check out all the fun stuff you can win, and good luck to everyone who enters!

So, speaking of Sex In The City, guess who is going to see it this weekend? Yep, not only is yours truly getting to see it, but I am seeing it away at the beach with 6 of my close girlfriends, while we are away for a "Girl's Weekend." I'm still not quite sure I'll know what to do with myself with no husband and kids, but I have a feeling I'll figure it out very quickly, lol.

Well, I'm heading out for my getaway shortly, so i'll leave you with my latest layout, "Baby Steps".

A little shout out...

I wanted to give a shout out to my next door neighbor Lisa now that I know that she sometimes visits my blog :-) Us Taylor clan seriously hit the jackpot when Lisa and family moved in last year. Not only does Lisa have kids around the same ages as mine (and boy are they chummy!) but her and her hubby Chip are awesome! Case in point - Lisa brought over a vodka/watermelon spritzer for me the other night while I was putting Chloe to bed. When I came downstairs, I had a lovely treat. Neighbors don't get much better then that, lol. The kids adore each other, especially Noah and Savannah who we joke are the lovebirds. Lisa told me that last night Noah was showing off on his scooter for Savannah, calling to her to look at his tricks. She then turned to Lisa and said, "I love him." How cute is that?! I never thought Noah would have his first girlfriend at only 3 1/2 (and with an older, more mature woman who is almost 5, at that!), hehea. So, not only do we spend a lot of time outside playing in the afternoons, but we sometimes go on playdates during the day, too. Here are some pics from our trip to the Airport Park the other day - the playground is right across the street from the airport, so planes are constantly flying right in front of you... very cool! The girls are totally the big sisters that Chloe never had - always helping her and leading her around... so sweet! Oh, and did I mention that Lisa scraps, too? She helps feeds my obsession by taking trips to our LSS with me :-)

And, finally, I have a layout to share that I did last night - finally got to scrap the photos of Noah and Chloe meeting for the first time:

Excuse the wonky 'O' in the photo - I didn't realize it was hanging weird like that until after I snapped the photo :-) Journaling reads: Just like Tony and I did with each of them, Noah and Chloe seemed to fall instantly in love with each other. Suprisingly, Noah had very little adjustment period when Chloe was born, and he's seemed intrigued and excited by her from day one. She, too, has always adored her big brother - no one can make her laugh like he can. Now, 17 months later, they have become each other's favorite playmate. It thrills me to see that they have learned at a very young age how ver special a sibling bond is. I can't wait to see their bond grown even stronger.

PP is MM, SEI and Prima. Letters are KI & Queen and Co. Chipboard is Love Elsie. Thanks for stopping by!

Long weekends are the best!

Of course, working part-time, I often have long weekends, but this one is extra long :-) We had a great kick-off into the weekend over the last couple of days. We didn't end up going to the zoo on Thursday due to the prediction of rain (which never came, of course), so instead, my girlfriend and I had a playdate at an unexpected place... Ikea! My friend and I wanted to meet somewhere halfway (she's about an hour from me), and there's not a whole lot of kid-friendly activities out that way. I remembered that Noah had a blast in the play places throughout the store last time we went, and sure enough, the playdate was a huge success for all the kids! Who would have thought!?

Yesterday we met up with some friends for another playdate at a Butterfly exhibit. It is in a greenhouse, and there are butterflies all over the place. If you're lucky, they'll even land on you (I wasn't so lucky). We had lots of fun there and then hit up a nearby park, complete with a carousel and train ride.

Today we spent the morning looking for deck furniture for our brand spanking new deck. Tony reminded me that our grill caught on fire last year, so he had his eye on a new grill as well (do all men have a thing for large grills??). The guys still need to come back and do one more inspection, so we're going to go buy the stuff we picked out on Tuesday and then Tony will set it up... can't wait! Hope everyone is having a fabulous Memorial Day weekend!

Rain rain go away!

So, we're supposed to go to the zoo today, but I have a feeling our trip may get rained out. I'm so done with the rain already! The deck guys are outside working away at our deck, as it was supposed to be finished a week ago but the rain got in the way. It will be so nice to have a place in our backyard to relax!

My layout, "So many pacis, so little time" was chosen as Layout of the Week over at A Million Memories (http://amillionmemoriesblog.blogspot.com/):

Thanks so much to Pearl for teaching me how to do a screen capture! It's not easy being computer illiterate, lol...

How did I ever get so lucky?

Dropping off a new LO that I just finished. It didn't take me long to scrap these recent photos of my cuties! They get along so well now - it is the coolest thing to watch! This was LO #4 for my guest DT layouts at Create My Keepsake using the awesome Inque Boutique stamps. I used one of their journaling stamps and then stickled the swirls. Filmstrip was downloaded (for free!) from http://www.flyingsamplephoto.com/.

Off to bed now... tomorrow is my looong work day! Have a happy hump day tomorrow, everyone!