Tuesday Thoughts

I was going through some old photos this afternoon and this one just really struck me. You can tell John is most likely saying "shhhh" to Abigail as she screams her newborn lungs out.
I love my husband.
He is an amazing father.

And look at her now.. 13 months later.


Happy Tuesday!

My Space

So I've totally blown the "post every day this month" goal that I had for myself. We either just don't live exciting enough lives or I'm just not creative enough to come up with topics and posts. I think it's actually a little of both. I had one question about my scrap space, so I'll share that with you today.

For a while I had no designated space. I had a card table that I drug out every time I wanted to scrap. That was back when all my supplies fit into one rolling tote. I really wanted my own craft room and not very long after Natalie was born I came very close to turning our spare bedroom into one. Then we decided we wanted another kid so it made no sense to do that.

So.. this is what I have in the corner of our living room.


This armoire works really well. I can close it up and hide everything when I'm not scrapping. For the most part anyway... The problem now is that I have more stuff than this will hold. I have crates, bags and boxes stacked up on both sides of the unit. I have given some thought to having the girls share a room and turning the other bedroom into a play room ~ scrap room. I'd rather Abigail be a little older before I do that, so that may be a project for next spring.
Anyway.. that's where I scrap. It's small but it works!

Deal of the Week!

Do you see all this stuff in my floor? Are you a fan of Pink Paislee? They are having a warehouse sale for only two more days, so if you want in on the deal you better get over there fast.

That heap of stuff has a retail value of about $160. You can get it for $45!! There's so much stuff here that it's all piled up on top of each other. This picture doesn't do it justice. I'll say it again! $160 worth of stuff for $45! Just wanted to share this great deal!

Here's a layout I did yesterday:

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

A Couple of Pages

For the past few months I just haven't been in the mood for much scrapbooking. I've gotten my Scrapbook Sussie layouts done but that's about it. Well I finally have come out of that slump! I've gotten a couple of pages done over the last few days.

This one if for a contest over at Scrap-Friendzy. We were supposed to do a vintage/shabby layout.



And then this one is from a sketch over at Dixie Pieces. They are giving away a Guest DT spot for September to one lucky person who completes the July challenges. For every challenge you do you get your name in the drawing. Think you'd like to be a guest designer? Then head over and try out some of the challenges!
I've been doing some major clean out of my scrap space and will be having a scrappy giveaway on here soon, so stay tuned!

I also am still trying to blog every day this month (yes I know I missed yesterday), so if anybody out there reading has any questions or any suggestions for what you'd like to see leave me a comment!!

July 4th Recap

We had a busy 4th with lots of fun with family and lots of good food. For lunch we went to my Aunt and Uncle's, where my Uncle had smoked chickens in his homemade pit in the backyard. You know you're from Alabama when you have your own BBQ pit! Then we headed over to PaPa and MeMe's house where we had BBQ and enjoyed some time outside. We watched the neighborhood fireworks. Abigail was mesmerized by them. Natalie liked them too but also talked so much she kept missing them. :)



I took lots more photos. If you're interested in seeing them you can go HERE. Hope your 4th was as fun as ours!

Happy 4th!

Just a quick post to say Happy 4th of July everyone!

Here is a layout I did a couple years ago of Natalie on July 4th 2007. This is kind of wild for me, I'm usually more of a traditional scrapper. I think I did this for a challenge of some kind which accounts for all the paint. I thought it was fun to look back and see how much Natalie has changed!
We've made it to the pool a couple of times over the last week. Abigail was not a big fan of the water at first. She had to warm up to it.


We've got a busy day ahead of us. Smoked chicken and more pool time for lunch with my side of the family and then BBQ and maybe some fireworks with John's side. Hope everyone has a great 4th!!

Mini Photographer

My kids are used to having a camera in their face. This is the way it will be for most of their life. So it's no surprise that Natalie wants to take pictures too. We got her a little Tykes camera for Christmas which she drags around the house a lot. Currently the batteries are dead so it's nothing but a prop. A few days ago I actually let her hold my Canon and take some pictures. I know, maybe not the best idea, but I was sitting right there with her. Luckily she did fairly well with it. Here are two of the shots she took.


Not too bad for a 2 year old!

Jesus Loves Me

I probably shouldn't say this since it's only July 2nd, but I am going to attempt to blog every day this month. Lately it's been once a week, if that, so this will be a challenge for me. Especially when some days all we do is hang out at home.

This video is from this past March. There's not much to see because when I put the camera on Natalie she clams up. But there's nothing sweeter than the singing of a 2 year old!

John was in the book store and we were out in the car trying to keep entertained!

Scrapbook Sussies July Reveal

This month's kit features Prima and Crate Paper. Lots of fun stuff. In fact I have several packs of embellishments that I didn't even open up in completing my layouts. Lots of goodies in this kit.
Here are the pages I created.




For this card I used the Crate papers plus a sheet of white cardstock from my stash. I wish I could claim this idea as my own, but I saw a similar card done by Alison Cope over on the Scrapbook and Cards today blog. I loved it and knew right away I wanted to make one of these. I used a border punch and made 2 12x12 strips of each color. (red and white). I then cut the strips in half, making eight 6" strips. If you count, you'll notice I only used 7 of them, so you'll have one leftover. I then cut a 2" square out of the blue paper. The "happy 4th" sentiment are rubons from the Sussies May kit.
Like what you see? Head over to Scrapbook Sussies and check out the full kit.

Good Monday Morning!

Hope everyone had a great weekend and a Happy Father's Day with family!
Today is my day to post over on the Sussie Blog and I've issued a challenge. If you scrapbook, be sure to head over to the blog and check it out. Here is my example layout but you'll have to head over there for the details!

Happy Birthday Abigail

On Saturday. we celebrated Abigail's 1st birthday. Little Miss Serious wouldn't give me a smile when we first started the celebrations.But when it was time for cake, she knew something was up.



At one year old she :

• says mama, dada, and baby, although I'm not sure she knows what she's saying other than just repeating after us.
• crawls EVERYWHERE and is into EVERYTHING and has just started pulling up on anything in sight.
• eats anything we'll give her. This girl is not picky at all.
• has two bottom teeth.
• plays with big sister pretty well as long as big sister shares.
• weighs about 18lbs
• usually takes 2 naps a day

We had a great time at her party and I want to say a big THANK YOU to all the family. We're so glad you were able to share the day with us!

June Sussies Reveal

Another Month of Sussie Layouts.
Here's what I did this month:

Happy Memorial Day

From the 3 of us.. and John too.
It always seems John has to work on Monday Holidays, so it's just the 3 of us today. We spent the morning and part of the afternoon running errands with Uncle Jared. Plans are to go have barbque with PaPa and MeMe later on this afternoon. Hope you're having a great Memorial Day!

Still Here

We are all still here, just haven't taken the time to blog lately. I have been in a bit of a blah mood the past couple weeks and I'm still trying to snap out of it. I didn't even take any pictures on Mother's Day! I need to take some of me and the girls to make up for that.

Abigail is 11 months today. It is blowing my mind that she is just one month away from turning one. No matter how cliche it is, I have to say honestly, where does the time go? She has just started crawling around some over the last week or so. She's slowly getting the hang of it and finds her way around on the floor pretty well. She's also started pulling up on tables and stuff so I know we're not far away from cruising! She has two bottom teeth and has just started saying "uh oh".

I have no new pictures to share. I gotta do something about that! Hope everyone is having a good week!
*Edited to add a pic: Here's a layout from my May Scrapbook Sussie Assignments:

The Latest

Just a quick post to share a couple of pictures and give an update. We've had some pretty days, so we've been to the park and the playground a couple of times. We had a busy day yesterday, we went to eat lunch with Obie and G-pa, then went to feed the ducks and fish, and then I had a quick photo session with my cousin's baby. You can see those pics on my photo blog.

Here's wild haired Abby!
My cousin's grandmother was there at the photo shoot with her dog, which Natalie loved!
That's the latest. It's supposed to be rainy the next few days, so it looks like we may be stuck in the house for a while!

Also.. some of the family wanted to see more of the wedding pictures that Natalie was in. You can view those here: My Facebook Album.

The Weekend

This past weekend Natalie was a flower girl for my cousin's wedding. With her being so young, I was a little apprehensive a bout how it would go. She did great! There were two flower girls and the funny thing was that when they started down the ailse, Natalie was picking up all the petals the other little girl was throwing down. I saw that she was lagging behind but didn't know why from where I was sitting. Finally she figured out to throw them down and eventually made it down the aisle. She kept dumping them out and picking them up during the ceremony and we eventually had to grab her to sit with us. But I was so proud of her. She was so beautiful.
Also love this picture I got of both the girls. I'm going to do some editing to remove my dad's hand and maybe blend the afghan out of the background, but then this picture is getting framed!

Also had a session with a family today, so there are some new pics up on the photography blog. Go take a peek!

Easter Pics

I've put up quite a few pics from Easter on my Facebook profile, so if you're over there you may have already seen these. But just a few pics from Easter to share!

Spring Fun

Two posts in one day! Guess I'm making up for not posting in almost 2 weeks! Today was a gorgeous day it seemed such a waste to stay inside, Especially with our house in a state of disarray. So I took the kids to the park.
This slide was up higher than it looks and every time Natalie climbed the stairs to get up there it made me nervous. She had such a good time though and I lost count of how many times she slid down.


Those two pics above crack me up because she was almost doing a little dance before she slid down. She was just having so much fun. And speaking of so much fun..

She LOVED the swing. I almost hated to take her out of it!
The only downside was that about 5 minutes after we got there, about 50 kids came out of nowhere. The park is near a school and apparently they use this public one. The kids were probably 10-11ish and of course had no regard for a 2 year old trying to play. We waited them out though on the small slide and after about 30 minutes their recess was over.
Here's to a fun afternoon!!

April Sussies Reveal

I know, long time no post. Our house has been upside down for the past week because we suffered some minimal flooding. We had some big thunderstorms and water came into the house. It is taking forever to get things taken care of. They are coming tomorrow to re-lay the carpet padding and carpet and hopefully we'll get our furniture moved back to where it goes! Right now everything is all crammed into our foyer and one half side of our living room.

Anyway onto the reveal. Another great kit this month from Scrapbook Sussies.






Hope you're having a great week!

Over the last week, Natalie's taken an interest in feeding Abigail.

Fed the ducks with G-pa.


And wanted to go swimming, although it's not near warm enough for that quite yet, she's sported her swimsuit around the house!


Hope everyone's having a good weekend!