Everything but the kitchen sink...

This post has the potential to be very long. I'm just warning you now, so you can either go grab a snack or prepare to read it in installments. There's been a lot going on over the past weekend, a whole lot of stuff to share. So we'll just start at the beginning of the weekend.

On Friday Telah and I attended the SSSC. We had a really good time, and enjoyed the classes we took. It was the first time for both of us to take classes and we felt a little out of sorts at first. It kinda felt like we were back in school and you had to make sure you followed the directions to a T. But that wasn't the case. This is a craft, there are no hard fast instructions when it comes to design. Our projects didn't have to come out looking just like the instructor's. We both knew that, but had kind of a "well duh" moment and got a good laugh over it. We made a cute little accordion album in Angela Wigginton's class. Angela got us both hooked on 7 gypsies circle stamps. I ordered us some from 2peas and I'm anxiously awaiting their arrival! In our other class taught by Michelle Cochran-Wells, we made a transparency album. We learned some really cool techniques for transparencies in Michelle's class. The time alloted for class wasn't quite long enough to get the mini-albums completed, but once I do, I'll be sure to share. They're both really cute! That's Angela with us in the first pic, and Michelle in the second.

Once we finished up at the convention, I had to make a mad dash home to get started on Natalie's birthday cake. I got it baked and cooling before I left for our monthly girls craft night. We'll come back to the cake in just a minute. Once I got that done, I packed up some scrap supplies and headed out. Since this was our October get together. Amy had come up with the idea for us all to wear silly hats. You can see our group picture over at Telah's blog. Amy and I both have new Canon Rebels, and we got a little carried away taking self portraits. <-----This one is so blurry, but I love it. It really captures the silliness of the moment. We laughed so hard taking these pictures we were almost crying. And speaking of silly, this is the one and only layout I got done the whole night. I was having too much fun I just didn't get much done. This layout was for the UnPubbed challenge. My blog buddy Cheryl was the featured guest this go around.
So now back to the cake. Saturday morning, I prepared myself for decorating Natalie's cake. I had no idea how it was going to turn out, because I had never done this before. I have to say I was really proud of myself. Here is the finished product. I spent most of the day preparing for her party. Straightening up the house, a last minute run to the store, getting balloons, and preparing food. This is the part where I stop typing so much and just share a ton of pictures. The little girl didn't know what to think. She really was overwhelmed with all the toys, the cake, and the attention!









We took over 200 pictures, and that was just with my camera. Throw in all the grandparents pics and there is no telling how many pictures we have of this occasion! I just can't believe she's one!! I'm still experimenting and playing with the modes of my camera. I don't like using the flash but when I don't the result is usually extreme blurriness. Hopefully I'll get it figured out.

And one last thing... I have something to share.. but I can't until Friday. So stay tuned and make sure you come back to visit on the 12th! (No, I'm not pregnant, it's scrappy related!)

Happy Birthday Natalie!

My sweet baby girl is ONE! We had a big time yesterday celebrating Natalie's Birthday. Can you believe this little bundle:
Is now this cutie!
Having trouble getting my pics on the computer, but have lots of them to share once I get it resolved. I've been super busy, so I've got tons of blog reading and commenting to do. I hope to catch up with everyone tomorrow!

Busy Week

Some weeks there is just so much going on that they go by in a blink of an eye. This week has been one of those weeks. So here's how things have gone:

• Monday- Natalie and I spent the day with my mom. We decided to venture over to kid's market (local bi-annual consignment sale). It was the first day it was open to the public, so it was crazy. But we still found some good deals. Afterwards we had a nice lunch at Longhorn and then went and hung out at my mom's house until time for John to get off work.

• Tuesday and Wednesday- The company I work for allowed me to stay on part time on an as needed basis. I've probably been averaging 5 hours or less a week since Natalie was born. We have gotten a handful of new customers so there's plenty of work to be done. I am so thankful for this job because basically I can work whenever I want to and they are extremely flexible with my schedule. A lot of the time I can work some from home. But I'm discovering that it's a lot easier to just go into the office for a few hours than to try to concentrate on work and watch a 1 year old at the same time. So I worked these 2 days in the office.

• Thursday - I have a list of "to-do's" a mile long that I tackled today. Tomorrow Telah and I are going to the Southern Scrapbook convention. We signed up for 2 classes. Then tomorrow night we have our monthly craft night. Somewhere in between all that I need to bake Natalie's birthday cake to have it ready to be iced on Saturday morning. So I spent most of the day doing a lot of prep for the busy weekend ahead.

So that leads us up to tonight. I've been uploading pictures to Wal-Mart to pick up tomorrow. And going over my calendar hoping I'm not forgetting anything. Natalie's first birthday is Saturday and we're having family over to celebrate. I just can not believe my little girl is a couple of days away from being ONE! Here she is today. I went outside and took these through our glass door. Was trying to also get a reflection of me in the door..it worked somewhat.

The weekend.

If you saw me at all this weekend, this is probably what you saw:


I know my child must think it's permanently attached to my face. I can not tell you how much fun I am having. I don't know a lot about photography. I'm just beginning to educate myself about shutter speed, aperture, and other various photo lingo. I have now become addicted to Flickr. It is a photo sharing community and there are some amazing photographs on there. As if I don't have enough sites on my "daily visit" list. One of the cool things about this site is that for most pictures you can view the properties. By that I mean, what kind of camera was used, the settings, whether or not flash was used, etc. So, if you see a picture or a technique that you really like, you can view the properties and know exactly what kind of settings they used. Whether it was on automatic or if they were using manual. And all the particular properties of the picture. Now to most people that stuff means nothing. Just a bunch of random numbers and words to look up in the dictionary. But having a new found interest in photography I am loving it. A lot of it is still way over my head, and I need to go see if I can't find "Photography for Dummies." I'm sure I could find it on ebay for cheap!!

And now that you all are bored to tears, I'll leave you with a few more pics from Saturday. I'll have more up really soon, cause I have a bunch from today that I haven't put onto the computer.

Picture of the Day

Have a great weekend!

It arrived

My new toy is here! I have so much to learn and I can't wait to get tons of picture taking practice. My poor baby is sick with a cold, but after I got the mail and discovered my Memory card had arrived, all she saw was the front of the camera.

Here are some of my faves: You'll just have to pardon the slobber and the possible runny nose shot. My poor girl doesn't feel well.

Tagged

Last week I was tagged by Adriann to list 7 random things about me. So here they are!

My new favorite TV show is Heroes. I watched the first Season online over the summer and tonight's Season premiere seems to be a prelude to a really good Season 2.

I just took the plunge and bought an SLR camera. My Canon Rebel XT should arrive tomorrow!

I'd love to learn how to sew. I had grand plans of learning how this year, but that was before I realized how busy a baby would keep me during her awake hours. :) But I still plan to learn.

I'm a night person. I like to stay up late whether it's to scrap, browse the internet, read, etc.

I've only moved 3 times. At age 13, 23, and 27.

I will be decorating a cake for the first time in just under two weeks for Natalie's 1st Birthday. Not the regular simple icing of a cake. That, I have done. But the decorating by number with the star decorator tip and multiple colors of icing. Wish me luck!

Now the rules of the tag said I was supposed to tag 7 people, but a lot of my blogging friends have done this, so rather than pick, I'll just say that if you need something to blog about, consider yourself tagged!

I've done a few pages over the last week. This one is my favorite. It's for Unpubbed.

So serious.. well almost

Both John and I love to read. Always have since we were little kids. Think we may have another little reader on our hands. Never mind that the books upside down. :)




After waking from her nap yesterday she just wanted to snuggle with Daddy. It usually takes her a few minutes to wake up. Can you tell by her facial expression?

You gotta love this serious look that she sports quite often. I don't know what it is about the hooded towel, but it just multiplies the cuteness factor.
And now for a little fun video. She was barely tall enough to get on this ride. Hahaha.

Photo Fun

This afternoon I decided I was going to take some goofy pictures with Natalie. So let me say I look like a complete dork in most of these, but I guess that was the point. She, as always, is the cutest thing ever.










Happy Monday All!

Picture of the Day and Happy Mail

You can't tell it from this picture but it was actually pouring down rain when they were looking out the door. I am amazed everyday at how much he can love her. It makes me cry happy tears.

Also today, I had this in my mailbox!
I got lucky enough to win a RAK over at rock'nmama's blog. Thank you so much V! I'm looking forward to playing with it!

Hope everyone's having a great week!

Monday

Another week gone since I last posted. Where does the time go? I know I say that a lot, but it just gets away from me so much. Natalie turned 11 months last thursday. This means her 1 year birthday is just right around the corner. I'm having fun planning her party and deciding what we are going to get her.

The pictures in this layout are from last week. The prompt this week at OLW is the word pure. Pure silliness came to mind with these pics. She's so much fun to play with. She loves being silly and so do I!

Friday night was our monthly crop with the girls. Here are the other layouts I got done.



This past week has been tough emotionally for our family because John's grandmother passed away. She was a beautiful woman, both inside and out. This is one of the last pictures I took of her this past June. One thing this made me realize is that I need to take more pictures of the people in Natalie's life. I have tons and tons of pictures of Natalie, but capturing moments of the people that love her is so important. We love MeMaw and will miss her very much.

She's on the Move

My little girl is everywhere. And I mean everywhere. In this first series, John is sitting at the computer and she wants to climb up there with him, until she is distracted by a purple door knob hanger that is on the floor. Foam is apparently fun to chew on. As is everything else within reach. If you look closely you can see her little curl in the bottom left photo. The shadow from the flash makes it show up better on the wall behind her.

Then after tiring of the foam door hanger, she moves on to more interesting territory. I am currently in the process of discovering what I need to change around the house to make it baby safe. And this is the perfect example. She first likes the leaves on the 3wick candle. Then turns to the gold vases, then can't decide which she likes better, so she keeps her hand on both until she spots the shell. And what does she do after examining it? Proceeds to bang it on the glass end table. That was when the no-no's started. And you see the look she gave me..it's the one on the top left. And you gotta love the "I ain't doin' nothin" look in the bottom right.


I love this little girl so much. Even if I do have to chase her around all day!