some V-day *Love*...

Just wanted to share some fun stuff from today...

We're keeping it pretty low-key today...just hanging out, nothing too exciting. Looking forward to Lost and American Idol tonight.

Hope everyone has an awesome day!

xxoooxoxoXoOOOxooxooXX!


UPDATED: Okay, I feel like I'm being *teased* for my "low-key" valentine's day...let me defend myself!!! My mom is out of town visiting my sister and niece and left these little V-day goodie-bags for my girls...totally not my doing. Hehe! It looks a lot more exciting than it was, trust me! And yes, I made some little bags and valentine's for the ladies I visit-teach...but it was too much fun, I had to share! (wink!) As for Gray and I...like I said, our night really did consist only of watching tv and eating. Very romantic! haha!!

just wanted to share...

...my February layout for my "Year to Remember" class. This was so fun to do, but took a LONG time to finish...look at how many pictures are on this thing!! So fun...all the people I love on one page! You can see more of my page here.

We're not doing too much today...it's cold outside, so I'm keeping the girls in. Maybe we'll have a nap together or something exciting like that! I had a good weekend, but it always goes by too fast...before I know it, it'll be Friday again I'm sure.

Happy Monday everyone!!

guess who's 27...

.....ME!! Hehe!




Yesterday was my 27th birthday, and let me tell you, my husband made it an awesome one. Where do I begin? Gray surprised me with a trip to the spa to get a manicure and pedicure...it was so fun! I've never even had a manicure before (mostly because I'm a nail biter) so this was a treat. It was so nice to go out and get pampered while gray stayed home with the girls...and I think they were more than happy to have daddy home with them! After I was done I went to my LSS and bout some scrap stuff....it was my birthday, of course scrapbooking had to make it in there somewhere! When I got home Gray and payton greeted me at the door with this cake:

....as if this isn't the cutest thing ever. They wanted to decorate my birthday cake "like a scrapbook page"....how sweet is that? I honestly have the cutest family...made me so happy. Payton was so excited, she was jumping up and down saying, "look, mommy! Cake! Cake!" I spent the afternoon reading birthday emails and getting lots of birthday phone calls...honestly, i was kind of overwhelmed with all of the people that thought of me yesterday...it was so sweet. Thank you so much to everyone who called, emailed and left me a message...totally made my day and meant so much. Made me realise how many amazing people I have in my life!


When Gray got home from work he brought me flowers (my favorite--gerbera daisies) and had a made a reservation for us for dinner...I told you, he didn't forget anything yesterday! So before we headed out to drop my kids off at my sisters we took a few WAY LESS THAN PERFECT photos...but at least we got some. I love the one of Payton and Gabby looking at eachother.






Dinner was so awesome....we ate waaaaaay too much and it was so nice to just sit and chat and eat with my hubby. When we were all done the waiter asked if we wanted dessert and Gray was quickly like, "no thanks"....but of course the waiter showed up a few minutes later with this ridiculously huge dessert...just another thing that Gray had planned before hand. Can he be any sweeter???




So like I said, it was an awesome day...but it doesn't end there! This morning Gray sent me BACK to the spa for a coconut scrub, a mud bath AND a massage!! AAAahhh! So I am feeling VERY relaxed, pampered, spoiled, lucky and loved. Thanks, babe for an amazing birthday. Love you!! Now I'm just chillin' with my girlies and then I'm going out with Kim and A tonight....we always do the traditional birthday dinner together. I can't wait. It's been an awesome couple days!!! And you know what? I may be closer to 30 than I am to 20 but OH, WELL...life is good. And I still feel like I'm 21!

i'm feelin' the LOVE...

So I've been in a "valentine-y" mood the last couple days. I don't really have any V-day decorations so I thought I'd make something cute, and I am so excited about my Valentine's Photo Garland. It was really easy to do...I made the shapes using Elsie's font "2PsLovebug" and then just decorated away...so fun. You can see more images of my garland here.




Then I also made these valentine's this week (let's hope I manage to send them out!!) as well. For my Year to Remember class we're focusing on people we love this month so that's why I made these. And yes, to anyone who is taking the class...I totally copied Heidi's valentine's, but I couldn't help myself!! They were just TOO CUTE not to copy them. Hehe!




And here is my February calendar that hangs on my fridge...I didn't get around to buying a calendar this year for the kitchen where we write EVERYTHING down, so I made my own...and it's way more fun than a store bought one! Like I said, I've been in the V-day mood...been playing with lots of pink, red and hearts! I told you...I'm feelin' the love!

my baby ballerina

Okay, so I am a picture takin', photo-editing maniac lately! My sister took Payton out for lunch yesterday and I took the chance I had to get some pictures of Gabby on her *6 month* birthday!! It was so fun...but hard to take pics of this little munchkin! She's pretty squirmy and just kept rolling all over the place, but I managed to get some ones that I love. Oh how I love my little girls!! And Gabby got to celebrate her half-birthday yesterday with some yummy, baby food apples for supper....she was very cute trying to eat them, but totally enjoyed it. I can't believe she's already 6 months old! Crazy.

It's been another busy week since I blogged last...my closet was driving me crazy, so last Thursday I totally cleaned it out and got rid of 4 GARBAGE BAGS of clothes!! It was so liberating and so nice to get rid of so much stuff...I'm all about keepin' it simple lately. I challenge anyone who's reading this to get rid of those clothes that you just don't wear anymore...chances are, if you haven't worn something in the past 6 months, you won't be missin' it when it's gone. And the funny thing is, I still have a closet FULL of clothes...only now it's just full of stuff that I actually wear.

Today has been a funny day...I'm embarrassed to admit that I took a 3 hour nap this afternoon while Gabby was sleeping. My mom took Payton to her house to play (all Payton says to me latley is "I want play Nana's house") and when gabby went to sleep I totally crashed. It was heaven...I don't think I've had a nap that long since I was pregnant with Gabby. It was lovely.

I've done some scrapping this week and I worked on my "Year to Remember" calendar. I love escaping down to my room to play...and Gray is so great about giving me the time to do that. Check out some of my new layouts here and my calendar here.

Did I mention how much I love these pictures of Gabby???

beautiful girl...

I took these pictures of Payton on Saturday and once again...I am in love. My beautiful little girl. This was so much fun...she was totally happy and smiling and willing for me to take pictures...don't ask me how that happened! But since then I've been on the computer playing around with editing them...wanting to scrap some of them but scared I can't do them justice...she's just too cute! Hehe! (remember, I'm her mama, I'm allowed to gush!) These pictures were inspired by Rebecca Cooper, an amazing photographer and scrapbooker.

Just wanted to share these before I head off to bed!

baby shower stuff!

I just thought I'd share some pictures from Kim's baby shower last night. I took these just before the shower started and then I totally forgot to take pictures DURING the shower! Aaahh! Can you believe I didn't get one picture of Ryker...so silly. Oh, well. We had fun and lots of people came. It's always nice to connect with people that you don't see on a regular basis...lots of girls that Kim and I grew up with and now we have tons of kids running around! So crazy how things change.

So these pictures aren't the best (I had to use the flash which I hate to do!) but I wanted to share some of the stuff i did...some "Ryker" water bottles (I got this idea from Heidi's blog over a year ago...I've been waiting to use it!!), a centerpiece using Kim's baby announcement, a diaper cake, a little jar of baby advice. We played one little game and I was going to do another one, but I didn't want to get all "Monica" on everyone...if everyone's happy, why bother them with a lame game, right? hehe! (I'm referring to Monica on "Friends"...she always cracks me up!)

Anyways, just a quick post...can you believe it's the weekend already???

believe it or not...

...I still scrapbook!

I just haven't had much time to do anything lately due to Christmas, kids and just LIFE in general. So I just wanted to share the few things that I HAVE been working on. The first is Gabby's baby album. I did the same thing for Payton...a 2page spread for every month of her life and then special occasions and stuff. I love this album...I put it ALL together before Gabby was even born, so all I have to do is add the photos and journalling every month. I just wanted to make it as simple as possible to guarantee that it would actually get done. It's been working so far...I still manage to get a little bit behind, but as long as I stay on top of the journalling, I don't mind if I get a bit behind on adding the photos.




Another little album I just finished is this one of Payton. I included a picture of her for every month in 2006...I can't believe how much she has chnaged in just a year!! This was a fun one to do, and again, really simple. Check out the rest of the album here.









So this is a page that I did for an online class that I'm taking called " A Year to Remember". It's taught by one of my all-time favorite scrapbookers, Heidi Swapp, and I am soooooo excited about this class! It's a year long and we'll be completing a calendar (a layout for every month) but it goes beyond just scrapbooking....every week we get a new assignment and an audio message from Heidi. Our first assignment was to set a goal that we want to achieve this year, and a completion date for that goal. My goal....to dance onstage again. Some people may think that this isn't a very big deal considering dancing was my life up until I got married...but since i've had my kids I haven't danced at all...and I miss it. And the thought of being onstage totally scares me. But it's something I want to do, and just a little piece of me that I want to get back. So now that I've put it out there, I guess I better do it, right? Hehe! So if any of you are interested in taking scrapbooking classes from the comfort of your own home, go an check out Big Picture Scrapbooking...there's some really cool stuff over there.

(Oh, and ps....Kim took these pictures for me last week...it was fun. I thought it would be alot easier to pose and move around...not so much. I soooo have to work on balance, control, flexibility, everything...this definately will not be an easy goal!!)

This has been another busy week...Payton keeps me on my toes. She hasn't been wanting to nap and it's always funny to watch her emerge from her room. Today she came out of the room with her Dora blankie over her head so I "couldn't see her"....seriously, I totally cracked up. She was just standing there totally still...I'm sure she thought she had tricked me. Another funny thing she does that Gray and I have noticed lately is every time she comes out of her room, she HAS to close ALL the doors in the upstairs hallway. I have no idea why, but she does. Again, it totally cracks us up to watch her in action.

I'm having a baby shower for Kim tomorrow, I'll be sure take pictures and share...can't wait!!

Tal:)

new pictures...

...i am GIDDY right now over these pictures.


Gray got me a new camera for Christmas and I hadn't really had a chance to try it out yet, (It's a SONY DSC-H5) so since we're stuck in our house today (it's totally blizzarding outside!), I thought I'd play.

And I am SO HAPPY with the results. It takes pictures totally fast, no annoying delay. And the pictures are so clear...my last camera I was having a lot of problems with pictures always being totally fuzzy...not with this camera. Yay!

I've been wanting to do some pictures of Gabby and I for a while now but since she's been sick I haven't gotten around to it. I'm so glad I caught her on a happy day...she is so sweet. Her cheeks, her eyes, her lips....

I am dying right now. (not literally, but you know what I mean.)






I told you, I am totally giddy right now!!


So I've basically spent all day playing around with photoshop just editing away. Haha! My husband is sitting here right now going, "so...what are we gonna do tonight?" I think he is bored. (I told ya, we've been in this house all day!)


Just wanted to share these pictures with you all.


Happy Snow Day!