Loving Life

It had been over a year since I posted  to this blog and I hadn't planned on this post, but I wanted to journal and this seemed the simplest way to do that right now.

There are so many moments from today that I just love!  I was watering our plants and a goldfinch came and landed on our birdbath and for some reason that made me super happy.  Lately we seem to have more birds in our woods than ever, or I am just noticing them even more.  There are so many varieties of songs all at once.

The girls were both at the county fair, so it was just Michael and I for a while.  We spent time doing some gardening together.  The weather was just right as we weeded, watered, planned, etc.  

Michael and I were watching the movie "Parental Guidance" and there is heart-warming scene where the grandparents and grandchildren are playing kick the can in the rain.  Later Olivia came home from the fair and was laughing hard at the deleted scenes and it was a happy moment with her next to me on the couch enjoying the humor. 

Kaylie played her first JV game with Mr. Kelm coaching.  He had her be point guard and I don't know what it is about her playing that position compared to when she plays a guard, but she just kind of seems to be more in her element as point.  She loved the tournament and worked hard.  I was proud of her and love to see her happy.

I took the time to look go through some of the on-line stamping class I am taking and it made me wish to get out my stamps right then and create.  I was excited for the class, and I am thrilled with the inspiring content.

Kaylie came home and told me some about her night at the fair.  I am so thankful for the relationship that we have and do not take it for granted how incredibly fortunate I am that she shares a bunch with me. 

Kaylie

Photo #1 Rolled up in a blanket while playing with Michael and Koah.
Photo #2 Classic: Her pink sweatshirt, big headband, and ipod.
Photo #3 Her and I at Glen Lake on Mother's Day.
Photo #4 It's hard to see, but her face is muddy from rock picking to earn money for camp.
Photo #5 Long jump.

I love you my pet loving, music loving, hard working, athletic girl!

Olivia loved her star party sleepover! Kaylie wanted to make the cake and she did a great job making it star shaped. Cake, ice-cream and punch made quite the after school snack!

There were some glitches like kelly green acrylic paint that splattered on one guest's pale yellow Abercrombie shirt. Long story, but we did have paint shirts! : ) Overall though there was tons of fun. Hiking in the woods, going through the sprinklers, a craft project, roasting marshmallows around a campfire, a movie and popcorn, and the star wands. In the goodie bags for Olivia and her guests were glow in the dark star wands. I loved looking out in our yard that night seeing 6 girls marching in a circle waving their wands up and down and singing a fun little made up chant.

Inspiration Everywhere

There are so many places to get inspiration from, such as blogs, magazines, Pinterest, advertisements, etc. It may even come from your very own scrapping desk! I was picking out some papers to use with my photo and they landed at angles. I noticed that I liked how it looked and decided to design my page with the angles. Inspiration is everywhere. Catalogs, galleries, clothing, and so many more places. Where do you find your inspiration?

My Flower Girl

I have often called my younger daughter Olivia, my flower girl. She loves to pick flowers for me or her Grandma and she also enjoys creating beautiful flower arrangements. Recently she picked these flowers from the woods by our house. Thank you my sweet flower girl!

New Approach to Crops

When attending crops in the past, one of the biggest struggles was deciding what to bring. I have read about many others struggling with the same thing. Recently I went to a friends home to do some scrapbooking and decided to take a new approach. Instead of feeling the need to produce complete pages while at a crop, I decided to just work on certain aspects of pages. It was such a wonderful change!!! I didn't need to try guessing what would be needed, and I had so much less to pack.

The above layouts are a couple examples of what I did. Both pages were created with the Glee Club kit from Studio Calico. Here's what I did at the crop for the top layout: I cropped and double matted the photo, cut and distressed the strips of paper, and added all of the letter stickers to one of the strips. I placed everything back in a Studio Calico crop bag and completed the page a couple days later at home. For the bottom layout, all that I did at my friend's home was to trace and cut the 3 large chevrons. It was a big help to have that part done.

I worked on more pages while there also, but wanted to share these ones and my excitement for how much I loved this new way of looking at things!

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Recording Memories

So often I'll believe my photos will help me recall enough of the details that I'd want in our scrapbooks. I begin to create a page and realize there is so much I do not remember. One of my goals in 2012 is to write down some memories, the very day they were created.

Last week we had a beautiful snowfall and my daughters, my Mom, and our dogs, all went on a walk in the woods. I wrote down the memories that night. I was going to share them here, but the funny thing is I already forgot I had written about a private conversation from the walk. I'm so thankful I wrote it down because it was something special that I don't want to forget. Above are some of the photos from that day.