I finally get to share a LO that, while it's not my favorite, is of one of my favorite photos. I created this LO as a part of a game called "layout tag" that is hosted over on the Noel Mignon MB. Basically it's like the game Telephone, but with layouts instead of secrets. There's an inspiration layout from which the first person finds uses to create her layout. Then she passes her creation on to the next person, who creates based off of that one. Then she passes it on, and so on and so on...Well it went through 14 people and 3 whole months before we finally got to see the final progression. You can see it here.

Here's the LO I did.
I got to "lift" Virginia! ;)

Autumn Girl




Now looking at it, I think I'm going to add some crystal swirls and accents, because it needs more schtuff. But I've been waiting so long to share that I just couldn't hold it in any longer.

Now I need to get offa here and go make some brownies for tonight!

Happy Tuesday!

4 yrs. ago today...

...my baby girl was born! Caroline has brought so much joy, energy, and girliness to our lives, not to mention a fridge full of artwork! She's kept us on our toes with her curious and adventurous spirit, she's always up for trying something new, and she STILL has no fear (which worries me a lot)! But life would be too quite without her giggling, too dull without her nagging us to play hide-and-seek all the time, and too calm without her begging us to chase her around the house. She also keeps us chuckling with her almost-always-made-up knock knock jokes! She definitely adds the spice to our lives, and we love her for it!

And to celebrate, we had a Princess Tea Party birthday party for her yesterday. It was our first step into the birthday party world, so we kept it REALLY simple (as I still don't have a ton of energy) with only 2 little friends, but we all had a really good time! (Now ALL the girls want a tea party for their birthday party!)

A while back my good friend Virginia showed me this post about a princess party emphasizing what it is to be a REAL princess, God's little princess, and I loved it. In fact, it was the basis of our tea party yesterday!

So we dressed up:


painted toesies and fingers too:


made wands and necklaces:



and had a fabulous tea party!




Part of our tea party was talking about what it is and means to be a REAL princess. We talked about God being our Heavenly Father, how He is Lord and King of All, which as His daughters makes us His princesses. We read parts of Prov. 31 about being dressed in fine linens and being worth more than rubies. They liked that part. And of course we feasted on fun finger foods and birthday cake. It was a really great day!

To top it all off I got to scrap it right away! (Nothing like a deadline looming to get me moving! hehe!) Nikki Sivil's U R My Favorite line
and crown chipboard album couldn't have been more perfect for the occasion! I actually used the 6x6 paddie so that I could save my 12x12 papers for the Valentines Day goodies I've got planned! ;)

Here's a sneak peek at my mini. You can see the inside pages over on my post today on Nikki's blog.

Princess Tea Party




For the front cover, I did a little paper piecing action. First I trace the crown onto computer paper, and free handed the shapes I wanted to fill it. Then I cut those shapes so that they'd be patterns for the paddie paper. And voila! A paper-pieced crown out of patterned paper!

Well, that's about it for today. Off to eat birthday cake! :D Hope you've had a good weekend!

Shimmerz, a wonderful scrapping and embellishment company, is giving away some of their products every hour today!!! So I'm throwing my hat in the ring! :D

Featured!

I'm so excited that my week to be featured as a Bella Blvd. Artista is finally here! I got the chance to play with their "December Details" and "Honey I'm Home!" lines and LOVED them! You can check out my projects on their blog which you can find here.

Sightseeing dolphins!

As a part of their Christmas the girls got tickets for a dolphin sight-seeing tour. So on day #2 we set sail to see some dolphins even though it was extremely cold (especially on the water)!



ready and waiting


so so very cold. thankfully this pullover fit over her life jacket.



searching...She LOVED those "BEE-noculars".



finally, some are spotted. but they didn't hang around for long. :(



So we had snack time instead. And kept on waiting...

Then finally, FINALLY they appeared! hooray!






And this little one missed most of it since she fell asleep. :(

The rest of our week at the beach she kept asking to go on another boat ride.
Poor thing. I think she did end up catching a few glimpses at the end though.

Jumping on the bandwagon

by sharing my top 10 layouts of 2009.

So in no particular order...

Tell Me


Lil Leaf Thrower


Baby Blues


Self-timed shots


Happy 4th


Spicy Side


Hug


Peek A Boo You


Lucky


Gift of Family


Themes I spotted:
-Apparently, I like red. A LOT. usually paired with blue
-there are scallops on almost every single one
-Same goes for journaling spots
-there's sparkle on most of them too (or pearls)
-I guess I also met my goal of scrapping Sarah Kate more too

Home. Finally.

It's been our family tradition for at least the last 20 yrs. to spend the week after Christmas at the beach. I remember turning 11 down there, and this year I turned 31. Yikes! But it was such a nice getaway for several reasons. I really needed a break after this year's Christmas. This pregnancy I've been more tired than I remember being before, and I've felt so yucky that I really needed the break. In fact, I only touched the sand once, but I think I napped an avg. of 2 times a day. at least. And that was vacation enough for me! :D

The girls enjoyed the indoor pool of course. And Caroline hit a big milestone, she learned to swim!!! Woohoo!



Of course she could only keep her little face barely out of the water, but she did it well! She ended up swimming about 20 ft. away and then turned around and swam back! We're so proud of her, and excited for this summer!

SK also liked the pool and its innertubes.



She's a silly one!

Overall, a good trip. We also celebrated Noon Year's Eve, and went on a dolphin sightseeing trip. More on those later. Right now I've got to get back to the laundry. And I'm going to try to scrap some too! It's been toooooo long!

Merry Christmas from all of us!

All FIVE of us that is! :D

North Pole Nights with Nikki Sivils

After many, many personal posts, I finally have some layouts to share! Yesterday was my day to post over on the Nikki Sivils blog, and share my projects for the month. I thought I'd share them here too.

This month I worked with the North Pole Nights collection, which is a whimsical and playful collection featuring mainly non-traditional Christmas colors. Of course for this first layout I decided to make it as traditional as I could get it.

"A Visit with Santa"

Here I used a lot of the cut-ups, as well as a border punch to give the ledger paper a little oomph. And both the candy cane and year on the tag are accented with red liquid pearl to give them a shiny look.

"Xmas hugs"

For my 2nd layout, I decided to go the non-traditional route, and this picture of C and Gracie from last Christmas seem to fit those colors perfectly. To give the tree some "ornaments" and the flowers centers, I used Nikki's corduroy brads, and really love the look! They add such great depth and texture!

With the craziness of the holidays fully upon us I'm not sure how often I'll get to blog over the coming days. So just to be on the safe side, I want to wish all of you a very happy holiday season and very Merry Christmas!

Breakfast with Santa

A few weeks ago we went to a local restaurant to have breakfast with Santa. This is a fundraising event for our local Christian radio station, and so while we're not 100% sure how far we'll push the Santa-bit, we DO like to go to the breakfast to support them. Sooo, even though it was SNOWING outside, we loaded up the girls and went and ate pancakes and bacon with Santa.

Last year, they didn't have a formal picture-taking spot or really a place where kids could even sit on Santa's lap. But this year it was different.


Both girls told him what they wanted.
Sarah Kate was short and sweet. She wants a baby doll.
She ALWAYS wants a baby doll. (I bet we end up with 40.)


Caroline was prepared with her list.
And she kept talking, and talking, and talking....
I thought she'd never stop!
In fact, I was a little embarrassed by all that she wanted.


Then it was a quick hug and we told Santa goodbye.


Or so I thought.
Caroline started walking toward me, stopped mid-way, and exclaimed,
"WAIT! I forgot something!"
I just rolled my eyes. Completely embarrassed this time.
Santa was quite patient. More so than I would've been.






Overall, a nice outing. I was glad we did it and were able to support J103 too. Luckily the snow wasn't completely gone by the time we were finished!

I didn't forget. Promise.

I just didn't quite get around to it. In fact, I kinda just moped around the house all day yesterday dreading this post. And just a warning, this isn't the happiest of posts. You may even want a tissue, if you choose to keep reading. But then I want to remember and be intentional too, so no apologies.

Yesterday was Dec. 14th, the one dark spot on our Christmas calendar every year. You see 3 years ago (has it been that long already?) I had major and critical in-utero (however that's spelled) surgery in an attempt to save both the twins' lives. Sarah Kate was showing signs of congestive heart failure, and Claire had very little amniotic fluid in her sac. Both were the result of Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome.

The surgery went well, the ultrasound 24hrs. later showed that both girls were doing well, but little did we know that that was the last time we would "see" our little Claire. She didn't make it to the 48 hr. ultrasound, which was on Dec. 14th. So each year I mark that day as my day to remember.

To remember what might have been.
To remember to hug my Sarah Kate just a wee bit tighter and longer.
To remember to thank God for His faithfulness, His protection, and His provision.

-His faithfulness, in that He remained true to His promise that "I'll never leave you or forsake you."
-His protection, in that Josh and I drove back and forth to Cincinnati two different times, through rain and snow, and were safe. (We Southerners usually don't drive well in snow and ice.)
-His provision, in that we had a $25,000 surgery and because we'd already met our deductible, only paid a $15 co-pay for it. Of course we had other medical bills, but that one still blows me away.

We were especially blessed during that time. Many people reached out to us, some of whom I still don't even know, and it was one time where I could almost literally feel the hand of God working through His people. And as hard as it is to remember, I don't want to forget.

This is one of the lasting mementos we have of our Baby Claire.
We lost her at 20 weeks, so these footprints are barely an inch long.



I cherish them.
I always will.
And I won't forget.

For so many different reasons, I won't forget.

Snow! We got SNOW!!!

We woke up Saturday morning to a (thin) white blanket of SNOW! We never get snow, so it was such a treat to wake up to its beauty and get bundled up and play! (And I'm not going to apologize for the MANY snow pics. I never get a chance to take snow pictures!) We actually had other plans for Saturday morning, so we had to squeeze in some snow play before we headed off to our breakfast with Santa.

Caroline, of course, absolutely loved it! We had to hold her back from getting soaking wet before breakfast. My favorite quote from her was, "It's snowing! It's Christmas! It's snowing!" (And then later when it melted she sighed, "Awww, it's not Christmas anymore. The snow's melting.") We're working on straightening that thinking out.





Little Bit, however, wasn't as sure about snow as her big sister. It reminded me of the 1st time you put a baby on grass...she just didn't know what to think of it. And she definitely didn't understand what all the squealing was about.


She warmed up to it a little before we left, but not much.


After our breakfast with Santa, we headed over to our friends house to sled down their hill. Of course, by that time the snow was already melting. But hey, we did what we could!








Yes, it was a fun, fun day! And a good nap with a fun TIDE football game later on made it all the better! Oh, and as the snow started to melt, Sarah Kate decided she LIKED the snow.