Better Day

So Brailee went to the Dr. first thing this morning - sure enough, her right ear was infected. He also mentioned that in her left ear he could see a lot of moisture, but it wasn't the problem. Her infected ear was actually on the mend - who knows how long the poor thing was in pain :-(

So then we headed to Brianna's Farm Day for school - Brailee was good and had fun seeing all the animals. Here are some fun pics from the farm...

Then the kids went to the park for lunch and when we got home, Brailee fell asleep and slept for 4 hours! It was a much needed nap - for her sake and mine ;-) She woke up a totally new kiddo - so happy again! When she woke up I noticed her left ear had drained, so I don't know if that relieved some pressure, or what. Anyway, she's had a great night and is finally starting to act like herself again - hopefully she'll sleep through the night as I'm needing a decent night's sleep again!

This afternoon, the girls and I were jumping on the tramp - I hold Brailee while I bounce Kaylee and Brianna - let me tell you, it's quite a workout, especially when I'm laughing, too! So I paused for a minute to catch my breath, and Brianna says to me, "Mommy, are you running out of shape?" Oh, the things she says, she cracks me up, but she's so right ;-) We had a fun afternoon together. I even finished the latest novel I've been reading, so now I can finally start on the second book in the Twilight series!

Here are some other fun pics from this week - for Family Night, we started making a bird feeder (notice that I said started - it's taking a little longer than planned) and here is Kaylee with her tools...

And here is Brailee - the dandelions started growing this week and she has just discovered them...

My Inspiration Layout...

Now here is my layout for my Inspiration Challenge - Week #10

I didn't really stray from the original design - I just loved it how it was! It reminded me of splashes so I knew it would be perfect with this picture. I also used Marjorie's Color Challenge #17, as it was similar to the original design, except I changed the Holiday Red to Dutch Blue. I had fully intended on using the red as Kaylee's swimsuit is red, but you can't really see it in this pic, and I added the blue to go with Brianna's floaties - isn't that just like me to always change the color challenge combos ;-)


I free-handed the first splash and from there just used the same template to make them bigger or smaller. I used a plate to create the circle element. It was really pretty simple once I cut out the splashes! I plan on doing a companion page, or possibly a couple more, as I have a lot of pics from that day - but here is the first one for now - thanks for looking!




Products Used - all CTMH: Bubblegum textured CS, Dutch Blue textured CS, Sunflower textured CS, Orange CS, White Brads (Bigger, Regular, and Bitty), Hodgepodge Alphabet stamp set, Calendar stamp set

My Day Yesterday...

So I didn't quite get around to finishing my layout yesterday as I had planned. Brailee had a rough day - I tried to get her into the doctor as I fear an ear infection, but they were double booked so I can't get her in until this morning. She's had a fever on and off since last Friday - the fever didn't bother me, but yesterday she screamed and cried for over an hour and I just couldn't calm her down, which is just not like her - she is in obvious pain. The hardest thing about when they are this small is they can't tell you what's wrong or what hurts. I really wish we had some sort of Instacare clinic around here - or at least more than one Pediatrician!

Then to top it off, we had our first Fishy Funeral :-( Brianna's fish - the one we've had for over 4 months now, died yesterday - it looked fine all day so I never expected it like I did with the tetras, I could tell they weren't doing so good. So the hard part was breaking the news to Brianna. She cried and cried, and so did Kaylee - they didn't do this with the tetras, I think because we only had them less than a week and they didn't get a chance to 'bond' with them. Anyway, it was so sweet, though, as the girls were crying and hugging, Kaylee told Brianna "You can have my fish" - I just thought that was so sweet of her. So Brianna didn't want to flush her fish, so we ended up burrying it in the garden, and she made a little marker for the grave.

So the next time we go to the Pet Stop (which will probably be this weekend to get a new one for Bri), I'm taking a sample of our tank water - the last time we were in there, the 'Pet Guy' told us that our pH might be too high and that's why the tetras died so soon - and then he told me he was surprised the Blue Gourami (which was Bri's fish) had lasted so long if it is high. So he told me to bring some water in and he'd test it so I guess we'll see if that was the case.

Here are some pics in memory of 'Diamond Jewel' - here Brianna is on the day we got our first fish...

Here she is at our Fishy Funeral...

I did finally finish my layout last night after the kiddos were in bed, so as soon as I can get a good pic, I'll post it.

Inspiration Challenge - Week #10

Here is this week's Inspiration Challenge - all those who participate and post a link to their creation in the comments section will be entered into my first blog contest! I will send the winner a fun package of goodies :-) Entries must be received before next Wednesday (the 14th) to be entered - I will do a random drawing for the winner.

I drove past Maurices the other day and saw this fun sale ad - instead of being the crazy scrapbook lady and driving by to take a picture, I found this on their website, so sorry for the poor pic quality - but you get the idea! I am headed to take kids to preschool and pick up the pics I had printed for this layout, so I will post my creation later. I can't wait to see what you create!

Just to remind you, here's how it works - every Wednesday I post a picture of something and you use it to inspire you to create anything! You can use the colors, theme, layout, whatever you pull from the picture to inspire you! Does that make sense? Please leave me a link to your creations so I can post them here so we can all see how you were inspired.

First Birthday Layouts - using photo pages

Here are some fun pages that I finished up yesterday - they are of Brailee's First Birthday. Now why exactly did I take SO many pictures of her eating the cake? Who knows ;-) and so to fit all of these pictures on 4 pages, I used the photo pages - I cut them up and used some as a flip book, and I cut one in half and used it between the cake pages. Can you believe that I got 27 pictures on just 4 pages! Wow, that's a lot of pictures now that I think about it ;-)

Anyway, here are the pages of her opening presents. The left page was done by Tiffany Cheney in the Themed Party Swap she hosted that I participated in last summer. I created the right page to match. I haven't attempted to cut apart my It's A Party stamp set like she did to get the multicolored rings, so I just left that stamp out of my random stamped paper.

Here is the page Tiffany created - I just added my pictures and wrote in the journaling jot.

I cut a photo page down to 6 individual protectors and created a little flip book - I then attached it ON TOP of my page protector using brads, so you can flip through the little book while the page is still in the protector. Does that make sense? Here is a pic of the flip book - here it is pictured outside of the protector just to reduce glare. The journaled piece is on the actual page and acts as a mat for the pics in the flip book.

And here she is with the cake - LOTS of pics on this one ;-)

My SIL, Sandy came over to scrap with me yesterday and she had an AWESOME layout where she had done little wrinkled strips under the pic and then faux stitched around it - it looked so cool and she inspired me on this layout - although mine didn't turn out as cool as hers, and I didn't stitch.

Here is a pocket page cut in half - to add 6 extra pictures...

And here it is in the album, in between the two cake pages...

Products Used - all CTMH: Good Times paper pack, Clear Buttons, Chocolate Waxy Flax, White Bitty Brads, Font CD, Spunky Alphabet (retired), Coluzzle Hula Alphabet (retired), Six Pocket Photo Storage Pages, Foundry Frame, It's A Party stamp set, Chocolate Bigger Brads, Boutique Numbers.

Colors Used - all CTMH: Crystal Blue, Twilight, Sweet Leaf, White Daisy, Chocolate, Buttercup

Thanks for looking!

Some new layouts...

Here are the layouts that I did yesterday - two of the pages were really simple as they were already done, I just had to add my pics and journaling ;-) But I still feel like I got a lot done yesterday! I'm at least attempting to make a dent in my millions of pictures! I have completed 82 layouts just this year so far - which I think is more than I did all of last year, so that's good for me! My goal that I set at the beginning of the year was to get at least 104 (two pages per week) and now that I'm on such a roll, I'm hoping to at least double that! Another goal is to use up a lot of my pre-done pages that I have done for club projects, workshops, and received in swaps - I have over 50 of those and I've used 3 so far ;-)

Anyway, here are my latest projects...

Celebrate Beauty

This left layout was done by Kelleigh Magle for Tiffany Cheney's Themed Party Swap that I participated in last summer. I created the right page to match. Also, I didn't notice until I was almost done, but the left page says Happy Birthday in the upper left corner, but it still works since David's birthday is in July - so I added the word 'celebrate' but now I wish I hadn't as it's hard to see.

Products Used - all CTMH: Floral Tapestry paper pack, White Just Blooms paper flowers, pewter brads, Card Commentary stamp set, Rustic Alphabet stamp set, and the CTMH font CD for the journaling pieces.

Happy Easter

I created this page for a club gathering project a couple months ago - it's nice to finally get some of those used up! I was going to create a right page to go with this one since I had some more pics of the girls in these cute bunny ears, but I really liked this one just by itself. Maybe I'll change my mind but for now this is just a 1-pager.

Products Used - all CTMH: Sweet Pea paper pack, Blush dot ribbon, Happy Easter stamp set, and the CTMH font CD for the Easter Poem on the tag.

Thanks for looking!

I love my girls ;-)

So I just realized that I've posted a lot about Brailee, but not too much about Kaylee and Brianna, so it's time to make up for that ;-)

I am so incredibly proud of my girls - they get along (for the most part) and they are so fun to watch. They have such fun personalities and great imaginations - they just crack me up the way they play sometimes. They are all growing up too fast - I am always amazed by the things they learn each day. Kaylee is signed up for Softball and Brianna is signed up for T-Ball since she's not 5 yet, so that will be fun to watch this month! They both have their dance recital coming up at the end of May, and this year Kaylee has two dances, and Brianna has one. They are both really excited and look so cute in their costumes.

Brianna had her Kindergarten Round-Up on Friday - she got to go meet her teacher (she will have Mrs. Smith, the same teacher Kaylee had in Kindergarten this year) and meet the kids in her class - her good friend Aubrey is in her class, and her two cousins Damon and Conner are in the other 2 Kindergarten classes - there are going to be three DeVries kids in Kindergarten next year - which makes 7 DeVries cousins in the whole school - and it's just a K-3rd grade school - fun! Anyway, I just can't believe that she's going to be in Kindergarten next year! She just loves Preschool this year and she is doing an amazing job reading, and she knows a lot of math addition facts. This week she has her Farm Day Field Trip and next week is her School Play - she is going to be 'Straw, the Horse' and has a line about a toothache ;-) Here is a fun picture I caught of her the other day just gazing out the window - isn't she beautiful?

Kaylee is excited for 1st grade next year. There is a new school being built just down the street from us, and they say they'll be ready to move into it after Christmas Break next year, so that will be fun! Kaylee is reading like crazy - she likes to read anything she can find - signs, notes, cans, anything! She had her school music program a couple weeks ago which was fun to watch. She is such a good girl at school, and the school has a 'Best Bucks' program, where the kids are rewarded bucks for being respectful, responsible, and I don't remember the other 'R' ;-) Anyway, at the end of each month, they have a Best Bucks Assembly, and all the kids who have the most get to sit up in 'chairs' at the assembly, as Kaylee calls it. They get little prizes and then they draw for a grand prize. Well, Kaylee won this scooter at the last assembly, and she was so excited! She kept telling me how it was her 'lucky day' and couldn't wait to ride it when she got home. Here is a picture of her with her new scooter - I took about 6 other shots with her and the scooter because she was making all kinds of faces and poses - she just cracks me up.

Okay, and I know I've posted a lot about Brailee, but I just had to stick another pic in here - she is now 16 months old - still not talking much, but she sure jabbers! I'm amazed by what she comprehends, though. She loves to help the girls empty the dishwasher and she actually knows where things go - which is better than David sometimes ;-) She knows a little bit of sign language - she can do 'eat', 'more', 'please', and 'milk' without any prompting - she likes to throw in 'please' a lot after I've told her no ;-) She can also copy a lot of other signs that I do, but those are the ones she does on her own. Here she was yesterday enjoying a nice day outside, and of course leaving lots of fingerprints on my window - what is that saying about fingerprints and angel footprints? I can't quite remember how it goes, but when I figure it out, that's going to be my page title.

Thanks for letting me brag about my beautiful girls ;-)

Treasures of Yesterday

Shortly after I received my Sarsaparilla papers in early April, I found this picture that I took when I was in High School and knew it was a perfect match - I got the layout all ready but just couldn't put it together as I couldn't find the right title or quote. So today I was inspired to finish it and finally found the perfect quote and title, so I'm pleased with the results. My original plan was to stitch some hemp circles, but I decided instead to stick with the clocks - I did the Cracked Glass technique on the two big ones and put a round Window Charm on the smaller one.

I have submitted this layout for Nona's NSD Challenge - we were supposed to use a large picture, circles, and a favorite quote - (I used "To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven." -Ecclesiastes).

I used a PageMaps sketch for this layout. Products Used: Desert Sand textured CS, Sarsaparilla papers, natural hemp, Make It Count stamp set, Classic Caps stamp set, Precious Alphabet stamp set, DE Ribbon Accents, Clear Embossing Powder, Circle Window Charm, Black, Desert Sand, and Barn Red stamp pad.

Thanks for looking!

Monthly Word Puzzle Swap

I host our Unit Swaps - last month we featured the monthly word puzzles and did 6x6 pages for the new My Creations Display Album. Once the rest of the word puzzle stamps are released (Sept-Dec) then we will finish this swap out and end up with 24 pages - two for each month - to fill up the Display Album. I will post all of the swap pages later, but for now here are the pages that I did...

Here I used the June Word Puzzle, the new Creative Basics Boom-Di-Ada papers, and featured Window Charms, and the corner rounder (to create the scalloped edge)...

Here I used the January Word Puzzle, the new Sarsaparilla papers, and featured the new DE Monograms (I used my S as a stencil), and the new Black Bitty Brads...

Thanks for looking!

Happy May!

Okay, so are we sure that it's May, now, because it is SNOWING here today! It was 80 degrees here earlier this week and I enjoyed breaking out the capris and flip flops, but this morning we were searching for gloves and hats to send Kaylee to school! That's Wyoming weather for ya!

The girls had a fun day yesterday. I had to go to Lander to deliver some packages, so we decided to stop at the Pet Stop. The girls got a fish tank for Christmas and they still have the three fish we picked out shortly after. We got some little Neon and Glow Light Tetras about a month later and they barely lasted a week. Anyway, so we wanted to add some new fish to our tank. Kaylee picked out four fun little orange fish - the darker orange ones have little Mickey Mouse shapes on their tales, so she named them Mickey and the lighter ones are named Minnie. We were told these ones are able to have babies, so we'll see how our fish population does ;-) Brianna was so excited to see snails at the pet store, so that's what she picked out - she named 'her' Princess.

Here is a fun video that I took of Brailee - I've been trying to teach her how to climb up on this slide on her own but she never had any real interest. Then one day just out of the blue, she started doing it and going down head first - No Fear!

Looking for a Mother's Day gift for yourself? ;-)

If you're looking to treat yourself this year, head on over to Stamper Storage - they are having a sale until May 17th - all InkStaks and RibbonStaks are 10% off! I got an InkStak earlier this year and absolutely LOVE it!

This was my ink storage before...

Or if I was lucky, then I had them put away sometimes...

And now this is how it looks all the time - I love how easy it is to access my stamp pads now, and easy to put away exactly where they belong...

Bed Head

Okay, so this is the layout that was inspired by my Scentsy Warmer - I really liked the dots on it and it reminded me of the paper piercing that I've tried once before. My original plan was to pierce the small dots and punch out the big dots on the Vineyard Berry strips, so you could see the Hollyhock through the holes, but luckily I tried it on a scrap first and it looked better with just the stamped background - no holes - which is a good thing because that would have taken FOREVER! But I still kept with the original inspiration of the dots using the stamp set and the fun brads. I used Marjorie's Color Challenge #14 for this layout.

All products used are from CTMH. I used Hollyhock and Vineyard Berry CS, and Topiary and Breeze Textured CS - I used the back of the textured CS for the lighter shades - I just love that feature! I also used the Spot On Background stamp set (my favorite stamp set from the new Summer Idea Book) - I used it to create the pattern on the Vineyard Berry CS, and to 'stamp kiss' the letters for the title. Other products used: White Bigger Brads, White Regular Brads, White Bitty Brads, Rustic Alphabet, and Extreme Caps.

Inspiration Challenge - Week #9

Here's how it works - every Wednesday I post a picture of something and you use it to inspire you to create anything! You can use the colors, theme, layout, whatever you pull from the picture to inspire you! Does that make sense? Please leave me a link to your creations so I can post them here so we can all see how you were inspired.

Here is this week's inspiration piece...my favorite Scentsy Warmer...

I will be back a little later to post my example - I hope you'll join me in this fun challenge!

Brailee's Black Eye

Well it's been one week since Brailee ran into my leg and crashed to the floor - catching herself with her face :-( She's looking much better now but still has quite the shiner!

Here she is about 10 minutes after the crash - it sure swelled up fast...

Here she is that night...

And it just kept getting worse - here it is on Saturday...

Looking better yesterday...

Any scrapbook page or title ideas ;-)

Inspiration Challenge

For the last two months, I have been posting 'Inspiration Challenges' on the CTMH bulletin boards - it's been fun to see everyone's take on the inspiration that I post.

Here's how it works - every Wednesday I post a picture of something and you use it to inspire you to create anything! You can use the colors, theme, layout, whatever you pull from the picture to inspire you! Does that make sense? Please leave me a link to your creations so I can post them here so we can all see how you were inspired.



This was last week's Inspiration Challenge - this is some of my favorite wrapping paper I've had for quite a while - my girls had to wrap a present for a friend's birthday last week (hence the wrinkled paper) and so I was inspired!

And here is what it inspired - I've had this picture sitting on my desk for the last month just waiting for inspiration and this was perfect. I didn't like my page at first, but after I came back to it 2 hours later, it started to grow on me. After not scrapping for so long, I'm going through withdrawals and not quite getting back into the groove. Hopefully that will change!

All products used are CTMH, except I used my girl's Cuttlekids for the title. I used Reflections: Main Frame - Four Square, black bitty brads for the bunny's eyes, a bigger brad for the nose, two paper flower petals for the ears, chalk for color and depth, Clover Meadow, White Daisy, Sunny Yellow, and Hydrangea CS, Dimensional Element letter H, HodgePodge Alphabet, and Extreme Caps for the date. I used my stylus to freehand the wavy lines on the back of my paper and then I sanded the front to bring out the pattern.

New to the blogging world!

I finally jumped on the blogging bandwagon - welcome to my blog - stay tuned for more!