Catching Up

Sometime last week sweet Cheryl nominated me on her blog for a blog award. I was then supposed to pick 5 great blogs and post about them. Thanks so much for the shout out Cheryl! So now it's my turn. First let me say that I read a LOT of blogs. I looked in my favorites to get a ballpark figure and it's over 50! I couldn't believe it was that many. So choosing 5 was not an easy task. So here goes.

1. My best friend Telah and I started blogging about the same time. She has a wonderful family with some super cute kids. I talk to her just about every day without fail, so it's not as if I don't know what's going on in her life but I just love reading her blog. She's the one that got me into scrapbooking and her pages always give me inspiration.

2. About the time we started blogging, Telah found a scrapbook room that someone had posted on their blog. She immediately shared the link and we both have been hooked to Amy M's blog ever since. This woman is the master organizer. She is so creative. She finds the coolest stuff and is nice enough to share it with her readers. If you need some organizational motivation, pay her a visit. Pay her a visit anyway because she's a great scrapper too and has so much neat stuff on her blog.

3. Joleen has an awesome scrapbook room also. She has just recently moved and it amazes me how organized and together her new house already is. She has a small store of a scrap space and it just makes me wish I was close enough to "shop" there. LOL She has 5 boys, one serving our country in Afghanistan. It has been such a joy to get to "know" her family and their crazy/busy everyday life.

4. This avenue of blogging has allowed me to connect to people all over the U.S. AND even Canada. Which brings me to Jessi. She is just a fun gal. Love her sense of humor. She too has some very cute kids and is always an inspiration because she can put together some really great layouts.

(are you sensing a pattern here? Almost all the blogs I read are scrappin gals!)

5. My 5th blogging girl is a woman that's going places. She is quickly becoming a scrapbooking celebrity. Mrs. Karla Dudley was recently featured on Scrapjacked, and her work is becoming very widely known in this arena. She is a wonderful artist. And her kids seem to always be getting into some kind of mischief, which she always seems to capture on film. Life with a little boy and twin girls has got to be crazy.

So there they are.. just 5 of the MANY blogs I read.

I'll leave you with this cute picture and a couple of layouts. On Friday we went out to eat and while John was trying to eat and hold Natalie at the same time, she decided she wanted a drink of his water. She has a pretty good grip too!


Last Friday night was our monthly scrap night with the gals. I'm currently mainly working on my Christmas pictures. I completed about 5 pages but this one was one of my faves. The pictures look so much better in person. And then the second layout is one I did tonight. I had to try out my new stamps from Michael's. I just recently discovered that they have mini packs of acrylic stamps for $1. The flower is from one of those packs.

My girl, and why I blog

One of the main things I love about being a SAHM is getting to see all of Natalie's "firsts". While I'm pretty sure I caught a giggle several weeks ago.. today there was no doubt. She laughed several times today when we were playing. It's amazing how exciting it is to watch her reach milestones and discover the things around her. She turned 4 months on Tuesday, and as I've said so many times before, the time just flies by.

She has really starting babbling so much lately, but it seems whenever we go out with family, she's too mesmerized by everything around her that we can't get her to talk. So I've tried to catch some video of her talking..



Jolene is having a RAK in celebration of her 1 yr blogging anniversary. So after answering her question about why we blog, I thought I would post something about it here. A year ago if you would have told me that I would be a blogger and make time to read other blogs daily I would have said, "yeah right". Especially knowing that I would have a new baby in the house. I always wondered where people found the time. But one thing about having a new baby is that you spend a lot of time sitting down. Whether it's to feed her, hold her while she sleeps, or just simply letting her play on the couch or floor while you keep an eye on her. So it's very easy to find the time with a laptop and multitask :). So why do I blog?

I'm so glad I started blogging for several reasons.

• It allows me to share pictures of our family easily, for friends and family that we don't get to see that often. It's nice to know so many people take the time to come by and read.
  
• It helps me remember the little things that go on in our everyday life and is helpful in preserving memories. One thing I do need to do is back up everything I've written. If blogger were to crash I would be so upset that I lost everything I wrote. So there's a freebie tip.. back up what you've written.
  
• I have "met" so MANY people. I have come to know people all across the country (and even not in this country) through the blog world.
  
• So much of my personal scrapbooking style is what it is because I am constantly inspired and motivated by so many bloggers and fellow scrappers.

So thank you to each every one of you that come by to see what's new. I love reading my comments, so if you've been just a reader up to this point, branch out and let me know you were here!