Claire's First Smile

Not long ago miss Claire started beaming some super sweet grins at us! This is always one of my most favorite baby milestones. It marks the beginning of having an interactive relationship with each other and feels like a reward for all the long nights, diaper changes, nursing sessions, doctor visits, and months of pregnancy that precede it. Yes, I love how in one brief moment, and in one tiny smile, all of that effort seems well worth it!
With Claire her very first smile came deep in the middle of the night and it was so brief and fleeting that it made me wonder if it were real or not. I spent the next day or two coaxing her to smile again and sure enough, she did--lots of times! I raced for the camera every time, but it still took a couple more days before I finally caught one on (digital) film. Now she grins all the time and I have lots of smiley photos, but this one is still special because, well, it's the first of many, many, more!

I used more My Mind's Eye The Sweetest Thing collection for this layout again with a few scraps from my scrap box for the title and butterflies. The title was done with my Cricut with fonts from the Baby Steps and Birthday Bash Cartridges. The butterflies are also from the Baby Steps cartridge.

The pennants and clouds are punches (some of my favorite punches) by Fiskars (clouds) and Stampin' Up (pennants). I embossed some of them with my Cuttlebug and the Herringbone and Candy Cane Stripes Embossing folders.

The buttons are by Pebbles and American Crafts, and the twine and pearls are by Queen and Company. I also used a bit of a hexagon cut from the Teresa Collins Basics digital cartridge under the patterned papers on this layout for a bit of added texture.

The journaling reads: "As you approached six weeks old Claire, I started doing everything I could to get you to smile at me. It took a few days of me acting like quite a fool, but just before you turned seven weeks old you gave me your first tiny smile in the middle of the night. It instantly melted mine and I have loved every grin and beaming smile since! August 24th 2012"

And on a little side note, those of us on the Creative Memories design team are getting really excited about our blog hop coming up this Friday! I've created a layout I'm really excited about as part of the hop and I hope you will come and visit on Friday and complete the hop to see lots of exciting projects from the team and also have a chance to win some really awesome prizes!

Thanks for visiting today!