Snow Day = Scrap Day

And I'm not complaining. We were anticipating snow since Thursday night and it finally started falling Friday afternoon. I made it home from my doctor appointment before it got too bad...which I was thankful for because I'm still not very comfortable driving in the snow. By Saturday morning we had 6-10"+ throughout the backyard & field. Shawn & I got the kids ready and took them out for some snow play. A couple hours later I was introduced to the tallest snowman I've encountered yet.

The kids were all bundled up & so excited to go play.

 

 The dogs had just as much fun as the kids did. Jackie looked like a bunny hopping through the snow since it was as high or higher than her legs.

  

And here it is, the biggest snowman I've yet to see in person and definitely in my backyard. Daddy outdid himself. Today Lydia wants to make a snowgirl & I told Michael we could attempt a snowdog.

So with all that snow I wasn't going anywhere and my plans of having a couple friends over for scrapping were foiled I decided to scrap alone with my best friend via telephone. After cleaning up around the house I found out she was game and we got to work. I'm still working on Lydia's album and making progress.

Tada!:

 

This one is self explanatory. She was 9 mos old when I finally got a pony in her hair. 3 years later it's still hard to actually keep one in her hair. ;) I used my Stampin Up catalog again for inspiration. The page shown in the catalog only had one book & more scallops but I made adjustments for my pictures.

 

These next two pages aren't finished and may be completely redone. For my son I did an "Everybody Loves Michael" spread (well 2), it just has pictures of  family members holding Michael when they met him. I decided to do the same for Lydia. I was getting tired last night so I left them alone & will revisit when I get a chance to scrap again. Hopefully today, otherwise definitely this week. I recently ordered more prints through a sale at www.snapfish.com and got the rest of the pictures I need to finish Lydia's album and even some pictures for family albums. I'd LOVE to make a lot of progress on that as well before the new baby comes.

To-do:

• Revisit the last two pages
• Scrap pictures that are already sorted
• Finish up incomplete pages {some are missing pictures, title, journaling and/or embellishments}
• Sort new pictures that come in the mail
• Get a second album & lots of page protectors for Lydia's album
• Get two new albums for Michael

To see what other scrappers are up to or join in the fun click the button above. Have a great week!

Sunday Scrappin

So last week this was my to-do list, I updated it with strikeouts.

To-Do:

• Sort photos & order whatever I need to finish Lydia's first year album.
• Plot out pages
• Scrap pages & finish Lydia's first year album.
• Get more page protectors and a second album.
• Get two albums for Michael's first year album (his are falling apart).

 I made a trip to Hobby Lobby for solid card stock and adhesive - if I had remembered my gift card I would have picked up an album for Lydia and some page protectors...so that will wait until next time when I also have ink in my printer for their 40% coupon. PS You can now shop online with Hobby Lobby {squee!} I could get myself in SO much trouble at that store. I haven't finished her album yet and am further from doing so than I thought I was but...I am 8 pages closer to being done! Thursday Shawn had staff duty (24 hour shift) so I cleared the table & chatted it up with my bff while getting scrappy between feeding and caring of the kids.

Ta-da!:

These are spring time photos of Lydia in a swing. For the first page I scraplifted a layout from last years Stampin Up catalog and the other page I just made a layout to coordinate.

These are the last of Lydia's hospital photos I had to scrap. It was fun looking at her pictures when she was sooo tiny. I found a card that I got after having her and the guesses people made about the details of her birth. I still have to journal these. Below are her other hospital photos I already scrapped...I like that they all ended up coordinating.

And lastly -

These are pictures of her first smiles (one photo she's a few months older than the rest but I loved her smile). I used my old go to technique of color blocking because it was getting late and my creativity was running low. But I love how they turned out.

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Catch up in photos

Well hello there blog world. I've been pretty much absent for almost two months minus my scrappy updates. Not for lack of thoughts but lack of time, focus, energy & funny. In fact I'm not quite sure I have the 'funny' yet but I'll give it a go. I am in my second trimester of pregnancy (YAY!!!) and excited, very Very VERY excited to be done with the 'morning' sickness that seemed would never end. So how about we catch up in bullets & photos and then my ocdness will be satisfied and I can try to go back to my regularly scheduled blog program. ;)

Since January is nearly over we'll just start with the happenings after vacation & the end of morning sickness since nothing happened around here that first week or so anyhow. And there's a lot and not much to catch up on with December - we flew, we visited, we conquered, we returned.

So first order of business after getting home was to pick up Jackie & the new pup - Luna - from our friend's house. Luna is already bigger than when we picked her up & we haven't had her a full month yet. They get along like siblings - they snuggle, play, love, argue & fight...and {more than} occasionally poop or pee in the house. They are adorable and snuggly though so we keep them around.

About a week after being home {I was still sick most days} we got a little snow. Not enough to really play in...only an inch and a half or so. But the ice was enough to put us on a 2 hour delay for work/school one day. This Cali girl finally drove on snowy/ice roads and didn't hit anything so I call that a win.

One of Michael's gifts was a shaving set. It's a cute 'razor', foam & foam brush. Daddy helped him shave one night & of course I had to take some pictures.

One night I was short on dinner ideas but had a craving for Mexican. I was thinking enchiladas but we were out of tortillas. Then I remembered a meal from a dinner out in Cali & thought it would be fun to try out our own. We made loaded nachos - cooked up chicken & added enchilada sauce, refried beans, bell pepper, onion, olives, tomato & of course added the cheese while toppings were hot. We all dove in and the kids loved it.

Over Christmas Lydia added to her baby doll collection. She was a ballerina mommy this day with two babies...maybe three? She has grown up so much and is loads of fun to play with.

And here she is posing after making herself 'pretty'. She likes to put on jewelry and bows in her hair and do the same to mommy. It's cute.

The dogs really are like having two more kids around the house. When Shawn comes home he has the kids excited to see him and the dogs jumping up to get his attention too.

This week Shawn had a staff duty day {24 hour shift} so I made myself busy. That morning Lydia & I went out a did a little shopping, came home & fixed up their rooms a little. I've been wanting to get canvas bins for her shelf since Shawn made it....some months ago, but like many things on my 'lists' never got around to it. A little birdie told me that K-Mart had good bins for a good price I jumped on it. I was happily surprised to see they were on sale! Only $2.50 a bin and now Lydia's toys are more organized and easier for her & me {when I help} to clean up. She was so excited she emptied one of them and was playing with just the bin - I may go and get her another at that price. I also got the kids new bedding. Lydia finally has twin sized bedding - she chose princess and Michael was stoked to see Transformer sheets. I also found a great steal at Target - twin down comforters for only $15. I'll share more about my thoughts of decorating a kids room in another post but these blankets will make things much easier for me.

That same day we were treated to some interesting Kennessee weather and a rainbow - two actually. There is a very faint one to the right of the brighter one. If I were an old wife I would tell people that seeing two rainbows when you're pregnant means you're having two babies. But I'm not, so I won't. ;)

And that pretty much sums it up. Between housework, the kids and the dogs I try to get in some organizing {because it makes me all kinds of happy} and some scrapping. I have to get more lists going so I can really finally finish the kids' room before the new little one{s?} arrive and/or we move just for me to do it all over again {but know what I'm doing that time around}.

PS - Only 11 days until LOOOOOOOOOOST....have you caught up yet??

Scrap Up

Hi Blog, it's me Rebecca. Wow - no blogging for a month! And not for lack of things to talk about but lack of energy and variety of things to talk about. I could tell you about the day I spent on the couch and running to the toilet after so much as eating a saltine cracker but then that would cover 2 weeks. Fortunately I had two weeks of {mostly} sick free days in California visiting family & friends. The kids saw so many grandparents they were losing track of who was who. And I spent so much time by the food several people are convinced that I must be having twins. I'm not taking it too personally.

Since being home I had another week{ish} of sick before finally cleaning up the house. I've been purging and cleaning and getting settled back in. This weekend I have pictures to sort and pages to plan before a friend comes over to scrap Tuesday and I phonescrap with my bestie on Thursday. So this week I have to share Christmas gifts I made last month but couldn't share because of nosey curious readers. ;)

Ta-Da!:

Here are two pictures of a 9 month paper bag album I made for my sister. She is ALSO pregnant - with her second - and our due dates are just a few weeks apart. I thought this would be a cute place for her to journal & put photos of this pregnancy. Because she doesn't know what she's having yet I kept it neutral with touches of pink, purple, blue & green.

This is one of the Christmas paper bag albums I made...I think this was for my dad & stepmom. I LOVE seven gypsies sticker sheets for paper bag albums. I choose paper & ribbons that coordinate and voila, it's done.

This is one I made for my mother in law. Same concept - paper bag, sticker sheet, paper, ribbon. Oh & for all of these albums I used rings to keep the bags together.

And this is the one I made for my best friend. One could say I wasn't very creative using the same idea for 4 {esp 3} gifts. Or they could say that it was a great solution when I had two days left until getting on a plane and gifts had to be finished.

Last time I shared scrap I shared a sneaky picture of one gift {two} and now I can share the whole thing. I made my sister & best friend a set of blank note cards with different themes - birthday, thank you, congrats, just because...and I can't remember what else. I included envelopes and two pens as well, it came out cute.

Our gift giving list was very simple this year and I think we'll keep it that way. In addition to the homemade gifts above the kids made ornaments for grandparents, I ordered photo books for our parents and two of my grandparents {there was a buy one get one sale and grandparents got a smaller size so that kept cost down} and I made the tote bags for all the kids. And that was it. Simple. We did buy the kids {and dad} a fishing game for the XBox, two movies and two board games for the kids, and I am going to get them each a full bedding set. Shawn & I exchanged small gifts - he got me two shirts {loved them!} and I got him two pajama sets {he was happy}.

To-Do:

• Sort photos & order whatever I need to finish Lydia's first year album.
• Plot out pages
• Scrap pages & finish Lydia's first year album.
• Get more page protectors and a second album.
• Get two albums for Michael's first year album (his are falling apart).

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