OHHHHH Exciting news!! I thought that I had heard last week that our lss was closing. I was so so sad. I am thrilled to inform you that to who ever I may have given that wrong information out, I have much better news. In fact, they are switching owners and there is going to be a new fabulous store run by some of my good friends whom I love dearly. I just want to celebrate. The excitement is huge! Can you tell?!!!!! I will be updating all the new information as we get closer to the time. I'm sad to see my friend Maggie (previous owner) go but I know she will still be around to visit us!

And just because I can't seem to post a new message without a picture, I'm going to upload one of my favorite cards that I just created. I'm lovin MME!!!

Layout for Mum

This is a LO I did of my Mum! This is her and I at one of my favorite restaurants. It was after a long day at CKC. We were exhausted! It has special memories for me because we don't get a lot of one on one times, since we live in different countries. I love the Cosmo Cricket line used on this LO. The colors are much more rich in real life. Well, Mum... this ones for you! Hope you like it!

Tomorrow we leave on our big family trip. Arte is going to do his cousin Pete's wedding for him and it will be a huge family gathering in Washington! After celebrating and being with that side of the family for about 5 days, we will be heading up to Canada to spend some time with my family. We will be there about a week and gone a total of two. Don't know how much bloggin I'll get done but I know I'll be anxious to upload some photos. I'll be starting a new thread on photography at 2scrappychixdesigns and I'm so excited about it. Now I just need to get that lens that I've always wanted! LOL!

SHOWDOWN at the PLAYGROUND!!! I saw this last year and thought about entering. This year I had a little nudge from a friend there and now I'm glad I did it! This is a contest where you advance to the next round by votes. After a few rounds, the DT does the judging. Here is my fisrt LO I did where we had to use green, 7 buttons and a quote. So, if you have a minute... go ahead and hop on over to the playground to vote for me! Don't forget to register and log in first!

http://www.scrapbookplayground.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=16229

Exciting news!!!!! Yahoo!!! I'm thrilled that I have officially been invited to be a DT member at 2scrappychixdesigns website. This is a fabulous site full of wonderful people, fabulous kits and awesome inspiration. I can hardly wait to see what is in store for the next 6 months. I hope I make them proud!! If you haven't checked out this terrific site yet, check it out here at 2scrappychixdesigns.com You'll be glad you did!

Parade Day

Well, parade day was extremely eventful. What a busy day. Our little town parade is so spirited and fun. It's like everyone knows everyone and it's just one big happy celebration. This year, these clowns came to join the parade from way up North. It really created a whole new atmosphere and the kids loved it. It was Ashley's first time being in a parade. She had a blast riding on their float with all the other T-ball players. Then, just before the float got to our spot (I didn't see it happen,) one of her team mates fell off and the float (trailer) ran over her. It was horrible! They took her off in an ambulance and she turned out fine... with a broken ankle. YIKES! Quite startling for those little guys! And, this was the first year that A.J. wasn't in the parade and he was in heaven collecting gobs of candy. What to do with it? I know it's going to end up in the garbage. It's just too much! I had to take a picture. It was so colorful!

Ashley graduated from Pre-K tonight. I can't even believe it. I wouldn't mind so much except that it means she'll be going to Kindertarten next year... Yikes!! That has me a bit squirmy. She's always looked so grown up. Even when she was 18 months old, she had so much hair that she never looked like a 'little baby' she looked like a cute kid. She already looks so grown up to me and she hasn't even started school yet. Where's the chubby cheeks? Well, this evening was not only a celebration but also a HUGE photo op. for me! How could I resist? The grass is green, the sun was out, my children were happy they were up way past their bed time. So, now I have about 20 more photos that I can't wait to scrap. It really was an eventful evening and I do want them to remember it!!!

The Homeless

I know that all you scrappers out there have a homeless stack!!! A few things happened yesterday and today that brought my attention to the 'homeless' stack sitting in my room. First off, I read on a few boards about people who just have these stacks and stacks of LO's that have never made into albums... I thought to myself...'ya, I'm guilty' and moved on with my day. Then this early this morning when I was still in a dead sleep, Kelsey screams at the top of her lungs, "MUMMY, come here! MUM, come here, hurry!' I thought for sure she had poured milk all over my previous nights project or SOMETHING like that! I JUMPED out of bed, only to find that she was sitting on the couch flipping through her album. She pats the couch and says 'Here sit. Look!' And she had to tell me about every single page. It was precious. Thirdly, I was trying to clean up my room a bit today, looking for my white pen (which I still haven't found!) and I saw THE STACK of Homeless ones. How sad that nobody is getting to enjoy them and that they are missing chipboard pieces because they are not in proper protection. Sooooo, I took the plunge tonight and got at least half of them in a 'new home.' I didn't really worry too much about the order or if I didn't have the second LO done. I just wanted them 'in' and album or a year from now, I will have boxes and boxes like some people I read about. I want to have albums and albums, not boxes and boxes!!

Here is the LO I did last night that I need my white pen for!! I wanted to journal right on the photo. Now what??? Where is that pen????

Heavy hitter!!

Yesterday Ashley got to play pitcher in her t-ball game. She loved that position and stopped the ball everytime!! It was also the first time she struck out which was a bit sad for her but she handled it well. Since when do they let 4 and 5 yr. olds strike out? Anyway, had to share the photos because I think it so hilarious that they now have to incorporate a bit of 'pink' into the sport!!

Today we've been having fun playing with Thomas the train. She wanted to take a photo of the track we built together so I told her I would post it on Mommy's new 'spot!'

eye candy

Last night I had fun getting crafty with this new line that craftwarhouse sent me for my DT project. I LOVE this new paper from American Crafts. It' SHWEEEET! I can't wait to be working on my LO today. Next will be a calendar which should be lots of fun because there are so many pages to it!

I have a bit of eye candy to share today!!! I just recently got a package from making memories. It was quite a surprise for me! I don't often visit that site but I just happen to be browsing around one day and I noticed that they were asking for people to upload photos of how they store their stuff. Well, I feel like I have the BEST storage solution that there is and so I HAD to upload it. I even thought that I was too late to get in for the RAK but I wanted to share anyway. To my amazement, I got an email in an hour saying that I was one of the winners!! HOW FUN was that! Even more fun to discover the box that came was full of their new travel themed goodies. I LOVE their CLEAR CREATIONS which are transparencies (overlays). So much to play with, not enough time! LOL!

Part 2 - Sunny Day at the beach!

It's a new day and it's sunny, yippee!! I wanted to post the second part of the story about our sunny day on the beach. So, here we are at this gorgeous beach in Seal Rock (5min. from our house) when we climp up the ridge back to our car and notice further on up the beach some people gathering. So, we decide to go explore the situation. Sad, sad, sad. It was very strange, rounding the corner and seeing this HUGE animal laying on the sand. As sad as it was, and even though it was dead, I don't think my kids will ever get that close to a whale again. So, it was a bit of an educational experience.

remembering the sunshine

Today was a pretty relaxed day in our household. The Berry kids were over to play so Kelsey didn't take her nap. I think she is already asleep. What a miracle!! I worked a bit on updating my blog some more. I'm most excited to post the pictures of the beach trip from a few days ago. It's raining now. It was so hot last week. I can't even believe the kids were wanting to go splash around in the water! Of course, I had to take a million photos! Now, that it's back to cold and rainy, maybe I'll get some scrappin' done.

This one is my favorite even though it's a bad photo (so much dead space in the middle!) but she is CLEAR off the ground jumping away from the wave! I love t! I don't want to edit it because you have to see the wave to get the whole story!

I got this mosiac from Ali's blog. The colorful fabric really caught my eye. It reminds me of Scenic Route paper. I was playing around, just seeing if I could add this one picture of the fabric to my blog (needs a little color) but up pops the whole thing! I don't mind, I love it all! Is there such a thang as 'blog photo liftin'?' Cuz I feel a bit like a thief!! LOL!

Time to Release

It's finally happening!!! What an exciting day. First off, my fantastic hubby has taken the time to walk me through how to actually make this blog my own. It's still a work in progress but I'm so thrilled!!! I'm definitely much more motivated now!

Secondly, it was an exciting day for A.J. because he got to watch all six of his butterflies fly away to freedom. At least that's what we think. Last year his very favorite butterfly got brave enough to fly away and then right before our eyes a great big bird swooped down and gobbled him up. A.J. was devistated! This time we released them in the back yard so they could fly off into the forest and then A.J. went to the front of the house and set up a bird trap to catch the crows. It was pretty funny! The kiddos are already talking about the next set of butterflies that they want to get! What an experience!