My sister's bridal shower Invitation

I'm so happy and excited for my sister, Jenny, because she's getting married Sept. 20th, which also happens to be my oldest daughter's birthday and she'll be 3!!  Holy cow the times goes by too fast.   Jenny asked me to make her Bridal shower invitations that her friends were throwing for her.  So of course I wanted to!  So here's what I came up with and I love it.  Seriously, you can't go wrong with Pink and Black!  Let me know what you think!

I've been very busy making these because there is a lot of assembling.  I had to make 35 of them!  But I'm almost done and will be mailing these out :)

Busy Bee

Things have been on the up and up lately.  I've been busy with planning and hosting that Fun Felt Party for Celeste this past Thursday.  It turned out so cute and we had a great crowd come!!  I know it was a great success!  Pictures from that are below.

Something fun happened too.  I was featured for Kate's first birthday on Thirty Handmade Days, which, to me, is an awesome accomplishment!  Go check out Kate's party along with other fun ideas!!   

Also, I got my taggie blankets back finally!!  It was such a relief to get those back.  I was a bit worried that I'd be screwed over even more and not get them back.  Anyways, so i'll be posting those at the Blog Shop real soon to sell.  

Just had to tell you guys too that coming up this week, you could win some sweet stuff from our Blogshop.  Celeste and I are donating some things from the Shop to Duke's Birthday Bonanza:

 You could win one of these, your choice:

or this cute set of clips from Celeste:

There are also many many more prizes that you could win so go check that out!

So here are some pics the Felt Party.  Celeste is so talented and creative.  She has so may adorable ideas!!  Go check out her SHOP as soon as you can!!

Click on this pic to see all of her fun clips up close!
Aren't those cute?!  And this is her hair clip holder that she's starting to make to sell.  I love pink and black!

YUM

Me, Nanci, one of our giveaway winners, Celeste and Jaqline

Giggly Girls

I finally had a camera near when they were playing together the other day. It's just too funny to watch them. Emma grabs Kate's feet. They both are laughing hysterically. Then I'm laughing hysterically. It's just too cute...

The Real LIfe

So things have calmed down around here and we're just hanging out and trying to have fun and not have anyone cry (me included)

So here are some funny/cute pics i've collected over the past few weeks. Just a warning, there are some pictures that have "feminine products" in them...but I figure probably all viewers of this blog are women and it's pretty funny, I feel it should be fine.

One day, as the kids were playing, I walked in to find Emma was 1/2 way on Kate, huggin and kissing her cheek. Kate was just lying there, laughing, letting Emma smash her. So I grabbed the camera and they were still just being silly. I was dying. Another funny story was Kate catching my eye as she slid down the hall backwards on her belly. I did a double take, wondering how she was doing that. Come to find that Emma had her by the feet, draggin her down the hall and Kate was just laughing...I started cracking up! They are starting to get so funny and silly and I love it!

Here's what I was talking about above. Emma had found my box of tampons and upwrapped like 1/2 the box and put the unused tampons in the garbage..I don't know why or what she was thinking but it was a shocker when I walked into the bathroom to find it.

Here's Kate being her happy, clingy, never want to be from my side, self...

Here's Kate in the car, being her cute self.

We had a big weekend this past weekend. Joe's parents, 2 of his brothers and sister came out to visit us. Camilla stayed with us while the rest of his family stayed at the Stephen's, a friend of the family's. It was a great visit and we did some fun stuff. Camilla and I went downtown and walked around and had lunch and then joined his brothers at Splashtown on Friday. Saturday, JOe, me, Camilla and the girls hit the outlet malls and took advantage of the tax-free weekend they had. Then last night, all the kids (not Emma and Kate) went to the Batmad movie on the IMAX and it was so good. Joe and I hadn't seen it so it was fun. His family left this morning and it was good to see them again. But we all know they came out to see and play with the girls. I can't complain though since we get free babysitting and house cleaning (Thanks Margie!). So it was a great weekend and now onto a normal week ahead.

Happy Birthday Joe!

What can I say? Joe is getting old. :)

We celebrated his 29th birthday on Sunday. It's weird to think that I am now the age that he was when we met way back when. I mean, he's almost 30! (no offense to anyone who is that age) I mean, Aging comes with wisdom, which is totally the case with Joe. He's so stinkin' smart. Anyways, we started the day with homemade waffles then headed off to church. When we got home, I let him do whatever he wanted, which was take a nap. I then made our infamous Green Mountain Pizza, always a favorite around here. Then I made him a Fudge Marble cake with homemade chocolate frosting. It was yums.

Here we are singing..he looks enthused..

Anyways, I just wanted to say that I am so grateful for Joe and our years together. We'll be celebrating our 4th year anniversary tomorrow as well so it just flies by!

I'm grateful for Joe because:

• He loves me:)
• He does what he needs to do in order to provide for us even when it stinks and hard
• He makes his own lunch so I don't have to in the mornings
• He lets me have fun times with friends...probably too much!
• He lets me be me
• He loves to watch movies, just like me!
• He is such a great dad to the girls
• He always makes time for them when he comes home from school, even when I know he's so tired and wants to just crash on the couch!
• He loves me :)
• He takes the garbage out to the dumpster
• He cuts his own hair
• He takes the girls swimming or just outside so I can have a break
• He loves me

ANd I love him too!

Love you Joe!

Shower Gifts

I made these this past week for baby shower gifts. They are super cute and super easy to make and that's why I love to make them. There was a "boy" shower and "girl" shower. So cute :)

Because I am in Texas...

I miss all the fun wedding planning with my BFF sister, Jenny :(

(She picked the one closest to her hand :) )

These pictures tell it all.  Here they are ring shopping.  And when I say "they", I mean Jenny, Katie and the soon-to-be Ashley Terry (my brother's fiance).  But it doesn't stop there.  They gone dress shopping, planning showers, having fun "bonding with new in-laws" get-togethers..it's so sad that i'm not there to help and be apart of my family!  But I am excited to see them for 2 weeks in September.  Only scary thing will be flying alone with 2 kids..yikes!

So here's my question, How do you travel alone with 2 kids?  Can any of you give me advice, tips, tricks to have a smooth flight?!  I would love to hear anything?!

Is this acceptable to you?

So to conclude with the other post about the taggie blanket order, I finally got them posted. But it doesn't have a happy ending. Ok so I got them made, shipped them out and then yesterday morning, got an email from the lady saying "I got your taggie blankets. They are not acceptable and I can't sell them in my store. I want a refund."

Good morning to you too...

She went ahead and made a dispute through Paypal and so what could I do? I hadn't set any clear rules at the beginning regarding returns and such so I had to comply. But she stated in her dispute that the material used was not what she expected. They are pretty but not worth $200. So she's sending them back today and i'll have a huge storage of taggie blankets on hand, I guess. I'll just sell them on my blog shop, but STILL!, a week's worth of effort down the drain because it wasn't what she expected. What did she expect?! The pictures I had posted of the taggie blankets look just like the ones I sent. So I think from this, I am not sure if I even want to deal with wholesale! Drama Drama Drama!!

Anyways, let me know what you think, if they are acceptable or not...

WHHAA!! I'm such a baby

Argh!  I just have to say that I hate being sick.  Two days ago, I started getting the tickly throat and congestion, which later that night, turned into all the full blown symptoms of a cold: sinus pressure, achy muscles...all that fun stuff.  It also get frustrating too when you finally get into a daily routine and then something like this throws it off!  I recently joined Gold's Gym and have been going pretty consistantly, which is great.  They watch the kids while I do a class, SO NICe...why didn't I do this before?!  Anyways, so ya, it's great until you get sick and then it all flies out the window!!  And this week has been busy with my calling, baby showers and just keeping my house in order!  Emma is sick too so it's hard accomodating when your sick, plus the kids too so that is draining.  I just need a nice long vacation..which in Sept, I will :)  My sister Jenny, is getting married Sept 20th so i'll be flying out there with the girls for 2 weeks.  I am totally excited and totally much needed.

Another bummer is this

So it's been a crazy week.  And to top it off, I have been trying to read Breaking Dawn, along with everyone else but it is so much harder to do that with a 3 yr old and 1 yr old, compared to last year, when I read all 3 books with a 1 month old and a 2 year old!

invitation and cards

Me and some friends threw a shower for another friend. I made these adorable shower invitations for her. Her nursery colors were pink and orange.

I have so many friends having babies so there are always showers! Here's a card for another friend's shower

And this last one I made for a good friend's birthday!

Kate's 1st year Scrapbook

I am finally done with Kate's First year Scrapbook. I am blogging this for many reasons. Mostly for myself, and then for my friends who wanted to see a finished product of my scrapbook template. So here you go!

I should say that this template is very flexible in how you want to do it. You can use any colors and can alter it any way you like.

I did mine a 12x12 album because it gave me more room for pictures. I bought an American Craft album that you can decorate the cover yourself, kind of gives it a personal feel to it.

Here's the title page. You choose your favorite picture then stats and a fun quote or something of great significance.
Here's the delivery story and memorabilia from the hospital page

This is the other page for hospital pictures and memorabilia

This is the "First HOme" page. I forgot to take a picture of Kate in her car seat, coming home for the first time so I improvised. Emma's album, though, has it on this page. You can put your home address and commentary about her first home.

Some more pics of "First home" experiences. You can also take pictures of the new baby in their "1st outfit" or pictures of their nursery or whatever you like.
Here's the "mother" page. YOu take 2 pics from your own birth and then one of the child, kind of see similarities and differences.
Then the "father's" side, same thing

THen here's the "whole family" page. You can describe the family's anticipation over the newcomer Some more family support pics. My sister came out for a week to help out so I have some of her with my kids.
Here's the "date' page. This page acts as an envelope to hold the birth certificate (which is not in there because I needed it!) You explain all the happenings on their birth date, like what was going on around the world
Significant events and things that was happening around that time, like gas prices/president/or other things going on with your family.
Here's the "adorable pictures throughout the year" pages

Here starts the monthly pages, 1 page per month and you highlight the best pics for each month. You also write down milestones or things abbout how they are growing throughout that particular month. Here is the 1st two months and last two months of Kate's 1st year.




Here are the milestones page, with dates and things she accomplished, like rolling over, eating solids, crawling, smiling, walking (if it's applicable...and in this case...nope!)

Pictures giving examples of those milestones


THese next two hold their 1st birthday pictures. Not up to that point yet though, I need to get them developed but you get the idea!

This is the last page of the album. On their first birthday, mother and father write love letters to the baby! A really great idea. Sadly, we keep forgetting but I hope to get that done!!
This is a really easy scrapbook template and can be altered to fit anyone's creativity :) Let me know if you have any questions!