Happy Memories & Time Flies

Things have been very busy around our house since Christmas. We started working on some more home improvement projects on New Year's Day and they are still going. My husband and dad pulled up the carpet in my kitchen and replaced it with new laminate. When we moved into this house 13 1/2 years ago that was one of the first things I said I wanted to replace. I finally got it accomplished. :) We also took down a stubby 1/2 wall that separated our kitchen from the hallway between our family room and bathroom. Just by doing that and extending the flooring into the hallway made such a difference in our kitchen. Though now it needs to be repainted because there is not enough contrast anymore. lol. Just what my husband wanted to hear. Somehow whenever we do a home improvement project it usually leads to at least two or three more projects. The following weekend we (meaning my husband and dad again. lol.) gutted our one and only bathroom down to the studs and put up new drywall. We also put the new toilet in right away too since that seems to be a necessity around here. ;) We so far have the walls painted and new shower doors in, but still needs to do the vanity, linen closet, shower fixtures and lighting. Additional projects out of this one are adding a nice size cupboard to my kitchen (with a removable back to give access to the shower plumbing) and sheetrocking a wall in my laundry room where there was a window between it and the bathroom and painting it (along with the addition of cupboards in my laundry room, which my husband has yet to be informed will be going in. ;) ). The house is a total mess right now with everything out of place, but it's going to be all worth it in the end when it's all done. Next room I have to work on my husband to start on is our family room, but that might be awhile again after this latest round.

Well I have made it through becoming the mom of a teenager unscathed so far. lol. Though it seems some how overnight she grew up even more than she already was. :( She went to bed the night before her birthday being my little girl to waking up the next morning as quite the young lady. Everything she does now seems to be so much more "grown-up" than just a few days ago. I'm not so sure I'm ready for all this.

This week I have a new kit for you. The colors of it are so bright and fun. Just looking at the colors of it I can't help but smile.



Here are some layouts to give your some inspiration from my CT and the SM CT.









If you missed it I also released three pack for the January Mix-A-Kit at ScrapMatters. They would work great for your everyday moments.







Here are a few pages of what my CT and the SM CT did using them.









Until next time...Happy Scrapping.

Hunter's Cake and Template Freebie

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day yesterday. :)

Last weekend we went camping for Hunter's birthday. Man, what a wet weekend it was, too. :P By the time we came home on Sun we no longer had a black & white Shih Tzu. Instead we had a black one. :O Thankfully on Saturday when we had Hunter's birthday party with his friends it was dry until it got dark. We had the pleasure of setting up and taking down in the rain, too. lol. Unfortunately with all that rain that meant no sitting around the campfire at night too. Good thing we had packed games in the campers to play instead. The kids had a great time as usual, though, so it was all good. :)

For Hunter's birthday we decided to go with a Super Mario Bros. theme. I made funfetti cupcakes with red, green and blue frosting for his party with his friends and a funfetti cake for his family party. The decorations on his cake took me quite a while to make, but I have to say I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out. Everything on it was edible except for the Mario figurine on the top.











This week I'm thinking about trying a strawberry lemonade cake and cupcakes. I found a recipe that sounds pretty good and it's a flavor Lisa would like to try for her wedding. So I'm going to give it ago. Will try to remember to take pictures so I can post them here. :)

I'm hosting the Tuesday Template challenge at ScrapMatters today. :) You can snag this free template from me in this thread. Since it's the end of May, you have until the end of June to get a page completed!



Here is the page I created using The Design Girl's Fairytale and Erica Zane's If You Give a Girl a Castle that inspired the template.



It's been a fairly productive month scrapwise for me, too. Here are some of the other pages I managed to scrap. :)


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I've got some fun things I've been working on the last couple weeks, hopefully if all goes well I can show them to you soon. :) Until next time...

Happy Scrapping!

New look

As you can see I've been busy changing up my blog this week. :) I figured it was long overdue. Make sure to keep checking back in the next couple weeks because there will be a lot of exciting things happening around here.

I figured while I'm at it I would share a few of my recent layouts with you. This first one has to have one of the longest credits list I have had recently. ScrapMatters started a new thing this month called Mix A Kit. All the designers worked with the same color swatch and came out with all these awesome products. This month's color palette was so pretty! It was so hard to choose just a few to work with so I decided to go ahead and see how many I could possibly fit on my layout. lol. ;) I think I managed to use 12 different items. Can't wait to see what they come up with next month.


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Until next time...
Happy Scrapping!

Scrap Matters is experiencing some technical difficulty due to the recent server move and is currently down. I'm going through withdrawal! I never realized how much time I spend there until it is down. Hopefully it is up and running again very soon.

Tonight Paul and I are headed to his 15th class reunion. It should be interesting. So far the last I heard most of the people I talk to that he graduated with aren't going to be there. It will be nice to have a night without the kids though. We'll actually get to sleep in if we need to on Sunday. lol.

The kids are finally getting a chance to ride with Paul in the truck this summer. On Monday night, Paul made it through town so we met him up at the shop so Michaella could go with him. Hunter was counting down the days until he came home and he gets to go with him. I think that this is one of their highlights of summertime-spending alone time with their daddy. They talk about it the entire year.

On Monday Kailee had her 18 month checkup. Her Dr. confirmed that she is probably allergic to peanuts and prescribed an epi-pen for her. He also said we should have have Benadryl with us all the time, too. Her reaction to them got worse than it ever has this past weekend. Her eyes started swelling shut. Normally she would just get a rash. We have had a feeling that she was allergic since Jan, so we have been really trying to make sure we avoid them around her as much as possible. Now we just have to make sure that everyone else she is around her knows can't have them.

So while it's down I'll show you some of the other layouts I made this month during my guest spot. lol.

First up is a page using Andilynn's newest kit, Festiva.


Check out this fun new kit by Trixie Scraps & Bella Gypsy called Saffron Blues.


So these pictures are about a year after the pictures in the previous page. Can you believe how much she has changed? I know I sure can't. When I seen I Scream, You Scream by The Design Girl, I just knew I had to use it to scrap these pictures.


This page is actually scrapped with pictures that I took during our weekend in the Twin Cities. I just love Haynay's Love My Doll and Love My Baby kits. They were just perfect to scrap this special moment. She is already wanting to be like her big sister. lol.



On Saturday that weekend we went to the Como Zoo. I'm the first to admit that I'm a shutterbug. lol. I took over 60(!) picture of this little guy! He was just being too cute. Someone had dropped a plastic cup in their enclosure and this baby orangutan was so interested in it. I used Boys in my Backyard by Stolen Moments & Stacy's Backdoor Scraps.



Also went through the conservatory there. These pictures are from the Japanese Garden. It was about ready to start raining while I was checking it out. This page uses Spring Whisper by LDrag Designs.



Sunday it was time for Valleyfair! Thoroughly Amused by Haynay Designs & Plum Dumpling Designs was the perfect kit to scrap these pictures of Paul & Michaella going on the Corkscrew for the 3rd time in a row!



These cute little guys are in the courtyard in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle. I used Forest Friends by Erica Zane. Love those cute little critters in that kit.



Yep, finally getting a couple more pages scrapped of our vacation to California in 2007. lol. I guess I'm trying to draw it out until we make it back to Disney again. These pictures are from Sea World. I used Bella Gypsy's At the Dropoff Value Bundle.



Love scrapping my Disney pictures & sometimes some of them just call to be scrapped more than once. I already have this picture scrapped and in my FINISHED Disney World album, but Sahlin Studio's Innovation kit was just calling for me to re-scrap it digitally.



One last one for today. :) This one uses Celebrate (bold) by Chelle's Creations. It has such fun birthday elements.



Can't wait for Scrap Matters to be up and running again so you can all see the awesome new releases that the great designers have coming out this week.

We finally got a chance to go camping this past weekend. It's been since last Memorial Day weekend that we went last. It was a lot of fun, but I have to say that the mosquitos were out in full force. Apparently they thought I made a great meal, too, because my legs and feet are completely covered with bites. Ugh, they itch so bad and everything I have tried hasn't made it much better. Paul, the kids and I headed over on Thursday afternoon. We went to the Mall of America on Friday. Kailee got her first American Girl doll. She had so much fun playing with the display birthday party set up that her daddy decided to get her one of her own. She was so excited to get the doll. The lady at the checkout took it out of the box for her right away and she held tightly on to it for most of day. That is until we went to the Disney Store and she spotted a beanie Minnie Mouse. Michaella got another one of the little dogs with the carrier and Hunter had fun checking out the Lego store. All three kids thought the figures made out of the Legos were very neat. Hunter got to pick out another set to add to his growing Lego collection. He and Michaella have been working on putting it together since last night. Of course we had to cap the day off with a visit to the Rainforest Cafe. Kailee was quite enthralled with all the decorations. Friday night my parents, sister, her boyfriend and our Bolivian "sister" joined us at the campground. We headed to the Como Zoo on Saturday. That night my brother and his girlfriend came up to join us for our day at Valleyfair. My kids went on all the big coasters that they could, along with the water rides. They had a great time there.

Hunter has his last T-ball game this week. He really has done a great job this year. They stopped using the tee a couple weeks ago. They get 3 pitchs to try to hit it and then his coach lets them uses the tee again. He has been able to hit if off the pitch several times. Here is a page I did for this years season using Home Run Derby by Haynay Designs.



I took the kids to the zoo a couple weeks ago for their Animal Enrichment day. The zoo gives all the animal different objects for them to eat & play with. The kids had a great time watching the animal try out all the new items they were given. We even got lucky enough to see the zoo's three baby tigers. They were not supposed to be out on exhibit yet, but they decided they didn't want to go inside in the morning, so the zookeepers let them remain outside. Oh my were they so cute! I took so many pictures of them. lol. The baby tigers weren't the only babies we seen at the zoo that day. Check out this page using Lawteeda's A Day at the Zoo kit of all the little ones we see that day.



Kailee has absolutely loved being outside this summer. Everytime she goes outside she has to find a rock. Even when we are on pavement she has to try and look for a rock to pick up. She likes to just carry them around in her hands. When it's time to go back inside, she knows she has to put them back down. I used Trixie Scraps Nature Girl kit to scrap this page about Kailee and her rocks.



As I said in my last posting this is my guest month on the Scrap Matters' CT and I'm having a great time so far. I'm getting alot of scrapping done. Here are some of the pages I have completed so far.

These are the flamingos at Sea World in San Diego. When I seen the new Daily Download at Scrap Matters I knew exactly what pictures I was going to use to scrap with it. I just love the colors of this kit. If you missed this great kit during the Daily Download, never fear because at the end of the month Coastal Getaway will be available for sale in the shop.



Paul's dad's side rents the group cabin site at one of our local state parks every year for the weekend. The kids have a blast playing with their cousins. Of course what weekend wouldn't be complete without some water sports. WM Squared and Stolen Moments released Lakeside at Scrap Matters this past week & it's the perfect kit to scrap all the pictures from there. Here is Hunter & one of the other boys having a great time riding the water slide. They were having such a great time. The kids look forward to going every year. Unfortunately this year we weren't able to make it though, since we were camping by the cities last weekend.



I can't believe my baby sister graduated from high school this year. I used Graham Like the Cracker's Purple is my Signature Color kit to scrap these pictures of her receiving her diploma.



These page scrapped with Designs by Tater's Yankee Doodle Doo is from when we went to the Wisconsin Dells over the Fourth of July to celebrate my grandparents' 50th Anniversary.



One last page for this week. I used Inspirations from Day's new Summer Woods to scrap these pictures of the deer we seen when we were at the Royal Gorge in 2006.