Birthday Bash

Birthday's are one of the events I don't always scrapbook right away. In fact I have many of Ty and Blake's birthday photos from years ago that are still waiting to be printed. Spencer, I guess is just lucky as I have always gotten to his relatively quickly--and I have them all done! This layout for Scrapbook.com is about his latest birthday.

The collection is Bazzill Dino-Mite again, and the journaling reads: "For your 5th Birthday Spencer we planned a lot of fun things! We started out with an early celebration with a lunch of your favorite things (hot dogs and french fries) with ice cream and gluten free chocolate cookies for your dessert. You really enjoyed opening your presents (which included a lot of Thomas the Train components) and blowing out your candles! After we finished opening all the presents we packed up and drove to Galveston to spend a night in a hotel there and check out the festival of lights at Moody Gardens. You seemed to really like looking at all the lights and holding your grandparents hands as we walked through the lighted spectacle! Dec. ‘11"

Have a great weekend!

Swimming and Playing in Lake Mud

We had a really great time camping with family at Cleburne State Park over spring break.We hiked, roasted marshmallows (and peeps), cooked meals in the dutch oven, attempted fishing, played at the playground, tossed horseshoes, and swam in the cold and slightly muddy lake.  It was great to be able to visit and spend time together! This layout is from our afternoon at the "beach" down at the lake, and uses one of Echo Park's new lines, "This and That--Charming."

The journaling reads: "One of the best parts of our camping trip was spending time down by the beach at the lake. The water was a little bit on the cold side, but that didn't stop you boys from having a great time swimming and playing in the sand with your cousins. In fact together you all built quite an intricate sandcastle and moat system! What fun! Spring Break, March 2012"

Thanks for visiting today!

All His Favorite Toys

Most of Spencer's favorite toys seem to come from Pixar movies! Lately he has been obsessed with everything to do with "Cars" and "Toy Story." He has a pretty good sized collection of figures from these movies and  I typically see him having a good time in pretend play with them. Last month, I walked into the family room to find himself happily piling each and every one of them on top of his legs. It was a very funny sight, so I, of course, grabbed the camera and took some photos.

I used this cute and new collection called "Dino-Mite" by Bazzil to scrapbook this page for my March Scrapbook.com assignment. I loved the colors and all the dinosaur references in this line! It made me wish it had come out when Ty was about this age and completely obsessed with everything to do with dinosaurs. It would have been great to scrapbook some of his playtime as well.

The banner on this page was made by folding large and small circles over some baker's twine. and then "hanging" the twine across the page.

Thanks for stopping by today!

New Cricut Images

Good morning everyone! Today I just wanted to share a project I did for the Cricut blog using one of their new digital image collections, City Buildings. This is one of four matching City Digital Image Packs and I think each and everyone is darling. I did an additional layout with the City People Image Pack for the Cricut Circle Blog that I'm excited to share with you once my 3 month wait is up, but for today here is "5 Tourists."

This little "Road Trip" cut is actually from the Creative Memories Traveler Cartridge. This cartridge is one of my favorites as it is just packed with so many great vacation images and two really great fonts as well!

The journaling reads: 

"We had a lot of fun on our day in New York City1 We took a Double Decker bus tour which took us past most of the major sites and landmarks. We were able to get off and take a closer look around any time we wanted. It was a delightful way to spend the day and we felt like we got a great sampling of the main tourist stops in New York.. June 2010."

Here is a look at the images in this set:

If you'd like to check out the other great new Cricut Images and projects by the Design Team, just head on over to the Cricut blog.


I also wanted to share a couple of Cricut projects I did for Creative Memories recently. They also use the Creative Memories Traveler Cartridge along with their very fun and boy friendly "Rugged" line.

Thanks again for letting me share! Have a great weekend and thanks for visiting!

He is a Tween Now

One more "A Boy's Life" layout to share today. This one is about my oldest and how much he has grown up. Lately it seems every time I turn around he is taller and more mature. The photos are from his first day of school, just a couple of months before he turned 10.

The journaling reads: "Ty, at age 10 you are certainly growing up! You are becoming less a kid and more of a young man. Currently some of your favorite things are playing Lego computer games and building with Legos, anything to do with Star Wars or Harry Potter, singing in the school choir, playing outside—especially sports like soccer, basketball, and football. Riding your bike, playing games with the family, going to the beach, camping, cub scouts, and theme parks are some other favorites. You are also very excited to have another new sibling and to be able to help take care of it. February 2012"

Thanks for visiting!

Bunny Ears

A little something from last Easter to share today! I fell in love with this super cute Easter line from Bella Blvd a while back and knew it would be great with these photos of the boys with their "Bunny Ears" and baskets on Easter morning.

The journaling reads: "You boys made rather cute bunnies with the ears the Easter Bunny left you this year! As always you enjoyed searching the house to find all the treats left during the night. You also had a great time feasting on all that sugar throughout the morning! Easter 2011"

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Big Brothers Again

Another quick share of a Scrapbook.com layout today. I mentioned that I had a lot of fun with the new Echo Park's "A Boy's Life" line and it is very true! This layout shows some photos I snapped of my two oldest "seeing" their new sibling for the first time. It was fun to document their excitement!

The journaling reads: "I love seeing you boys so excited to be big brothers again! I didn't expect that the two of you would be so interested and thrilled to have a baby joining our family. It is fun to hear you talk about and ask questions about the baby. In these photos you were getting your first look at your new sibling and jokingly telling me about how it looks like an alien and how you don’t really care if it is a girl or a boy—you are just both excited for a baby! 01/20/12"

Thanks again for visiting!

The Final Derby

Good morning and happy spring break everyone! I have a quick post today to share a new layout for Scrapbook.com. I had lots of fun playing with the new Echo Park "A Boy's Life" line and used it for several of my layouts this month. Today I want to share a layout I made about Ty's final Pinewood Derby (at least as a Cub Scout). He is in Webelos now so by this time next year he will have moved up to Boy Scouts. This is far from our last Pinewood Derby as a family though as Blake moves into Cub Scouts this fall. 

The journaling reads: "As a Webelo Ty this was your last Pinewood Derby, but it was still at lot of fun. You and Dad worked together on the design and paint job, with you deciding to make it into a tank with a few Legos added on top. You were a little sad when you lost your first race as you thought you were done racing, however, you went on to win your next three races and finished somewhere in the top ten cars. You didn't win a trophy, but you were still excited to win the award for the “Most Dangerous” car! Jan 2012"

Thanks for visiting!

I'm wearing pink today!!!

I'm not the type of person that is often good at waiting for a long period of time. That is what has made this past week soooooooo hard!!! We had an ultrasound last week and had a good look at this new baby. Thankfully, the baby looks very healthy and some concerns from earlier seem to have resolved themselves. We decided to wait a bit on finding out the gender until we could find out together with our boys and some family and friends. And even though it killed me having an envelope with the news in my purse (and not looking at it) for six whole days, I'm so glad we did it this way! 

I kept myself from peeking by staying busy getting ready for our little party. I made invitations and decorations, bought candy and balloons, and planed our menu. Here are a few photos of some of the details.

Everything for the evening (from decor, to plates, cups, and utensils) was done in colors of pink, blue, and brown. Lots of candy in pink, blue, and brown too--it was really fun to try and find the proper colors. Pink was fairly easy to find, blue however, was a bit more elusive. My favorites were the Root Beer Barrels and the Hershey Kisses with the "It's a girl/boy!" papers inside. The kids seemed to really like the Rock Candy.

Since we live in Texas it seemed to make sense to go with a western theme. We had lot of yummy BBQ to eat and some fun rodeo inspired family games to play for our "family night" activities. 

Oh, and here is a peek at the invitation. It was up on the Cricut Circle blog over the weekend so I'll have to wait a while to show the whole thing, but here is a peek.

Some paper flowers for decor.

We took a little poll about what people thought the baby would be. You can see it was a pretty even split with "girl" up by one among those willing to take a guess.

Because it was still a week before daylight savings we knew we would need to figure out some way to bring light into the backyard. We strung out Christmas lights around the fence and I made some of these paper lanterns. That brought just enough light and I loved the way the lanterns looked once it got dark. (Made with my Cricut, Cricut Craft Room and the Old West Cartridge)

For the big reveal I sent one of my friends into the house to open the envelope and fill this big box with balloons of the proper color (I had both blue and pink balloons ready to go). After opening the envelop she filled the box and brought it back outside while everyone gathered around to watch our family open it.

 The big moment! It's a girl!!! 

I was in total shock! Somehow after three boys I just didn't quite think it would ever be a girl!

Marc was thrilled as was Ty. Blake was not quite so happy. He apparently wanted another little brother and it took a little bit to warm him up to the idea. He went off to school pretty happy about it this morning though. He was eager to tell his friends and teacher about it. Spencer is still just trying to figure out what is going on. I don't think he will quite get it until the baby is here.

Ty is still very excited about it. He wanted me to take this photo this morning since we finally had daylight again!

I'm still in shock and still very happy. This was a really, really fun way to find out. Worth the wait and made even better by being surrounded by family and friends. I don't think there could have been a better way to find out. A big thank you to all of you who came, helped, and celebrated with us! 

Now I'm going to get ready to do some shopping with my mom (whom this baby will get her middle name from). I hope that I can have a relationship with this new daughter of mine like the relationship I have with my mom. That would be the very best part of having a daughter!

Thanks for letting me share my news! And have a great Tuesday!

Welcome To The Blog Hop!

(If you were having trouble with the link below it has been fixed)

Welcome To The Creative Memories Blog Hop! You should have arrived from the blog of Nicole LeBlanc if you are following the hop. If you are just hearing about the blog hop be sure and visit the start of the hop at the Creative Memories Digital blog so that you can see all the beautiful projects created with the new lines!

For my part of the hop I was able to play with the gorgeous new line "Enchanted". The colors, embossing, and gloss accents of this new line are so pretty!  To top it all off the new die cut paper ribbon (which is self-adhesive) and new epoxy stickers add some wonderful texture and dimension to any project made with this line! I love it and think it's one of Creative Memories best ever lines!

I made this set of cards for my part of the blog hop.

In addition to the Enchanted line, I also used a few tools when making my cards. This card here uses the Corner Maker on the main tag, Foam Squares to pop up the tag, and my Square Maker to clip the ends of the paper for the sentiment.

 On this card I had a little fun with my Cricut and the Stork's Delivery Cartridge. I cut the sentiment and cupcake out with this cartridge.

And on this final card I pulled out my favorite Border Maker Cartridge to add the scallops along the bottom of my card. Again I used my Square Maker to clip the end of my pennant in the upper corner of the card.

And now for the important stuff! If you are collecting letters from each of the blogs for a chance to win a prize then you need to know my letter is.............E

And the next stop on the blog hop is Gretchen McElveen's blog.

For more information about the new lines and new March products you can click here.

For information about finding a consultant in your area visit this link.

Or, if you are interested in becoming a consultant yourself you can learn more about it here.

Thanks for letting me share my projects with you! And good luck to those of you collecting letters for a chance at a prize! You will love playing with this new line!

Blog Hop Time (Win some great prizes too!)

I'm super excited to be participating in a blog hop starting tomorrow! Creative Memories is showcasing it's two beautiful new lines with projects from their design team. I've had a lot of fun playing with my projects and can't wait to share them with you tomorrow! So I hope you come back tomorrow and check out my blog and all the other designers blogs to see some truly gorgeous new lines and some wonderful projects--prizes too! For more information check out the Creative Memories blog.

And because I can't do a post without a project, here is a little bit of Cricut work I did for the Cricut Blog back in December. I believe I showed a thumbnail of them before, but here are the full size images.

These cards use a beautiful Christmas line from Echo Park and the Elegant Edges and Winter Frolic Cricut Cartridges. The Rub-On sentiments are by Melissa Frances and the jewels are by Queen and Co. 

Thanks for visiting! See you tomorrow!