it's Monday again

I hope that y'all had a good weekend and that you got to celebrate a little. There were so many things going on- National Scrapbook Day, Star Wars Day, the derby, and gymnastics for us. The kids did their Spring Showcase and it was so fun to watch them do the things they've been working so hard to learn.

I have a new project up on the Lily Bee blog today; we are celebrating Moms this week. Here is the page I created and you can see some close-ups at the Lily Bee blog. 

Have a great day ♥

p.s. Thank you to everyone who visited my blog this weekend and left comments. It is fun to come back and see that I had so many visitors!

4 in the morning is way too early

Yes, I was up around 4 again this morning and it's a trend I hope doesn't continue.

I remember doing this when I was pregnant and know that I am for sure not that right now.

At least today no one is awake throwing up- that was my morning yesterday- sitting close by while my 8 year old was up sick at 4 in the morning. It made for a long day and not a lot accomplished because I was dragging from being so tired.

I really need to share something creative so I will share some sneaks of projects that I will share here soon but first here are a few pictures of the kids from this summer:

Aimee with some hydrangeas in Portland

Hailey at Multnomah Falls

the girls minus Lily at the zoo in Portland

hanging out with cousins at a park in Aberdeen, WA

Lily trying on hats at her cousins' house in Aurora, CO just days before the shooting at a movie theater there. 

cutie girl Lily 

Sarah answering the call of the wild at the zoo in Portland- of course it would be Sarah.

Silly little girl. She makes me laugh so much.

Sarah and a couple of her teammates at their practice meet last weekend

Sarah and Lily on our trip

And now, a few sneaks of some DT projects for Bella Blvd and American Crafts: 

Have a nice day!

happy birthday sweet Lily

It's hard to believe that it's been a year ago already since sweet baby Lily was born.

I spent the two weeks before her birth at the hospital on bedrest because of pre-eclampsia. Those weren't the most fun weeks of my life but as I look back at it now I should have appreciated the quiet, peaceful time more than I did!

Lily was born 6 weeks early, at 34 weeks exactly. I didn't know when I went into the hospital on April 13, 2011 that her being born so early would mean that I would have to leave the hospital without her or how difficult that would be for me. I am still grateful for kind friends and family who helped us through that time with prayers, sweet words and kind service.

I was told that I might have to have a c-section with her, something that I wasn't looking forward to since I'd already been through it when Aimee was born. I think that Lily must have known how I felt about that because the night before I hit my 34- week mark I started having more regular contractions and I once the doctors deemed it was time for Lily to be born it took only a couple of pushes and she was here!

What a sweet little thing she was, born at 5 pounds and 15 ounces (HUGE for a preemie born 6 weeks early, and we were SO grateful because that would help her fight through the next couple of weeks spent in the NICU at the hospital). 

She was adored by her sisters instantly; they got the chance to visit her in the NICU and give her a little stuffed animal. I don't think they understood why she couldn't come home to stay with us but couldn't get enough of her once we brought her home and that hasn't changed- they love their baby sister!

Lily does everything on her own timing; because she was born so early we knew that there might be some developmental delays and while she has always been good-sized she has learned how to do things a little slower than we'd imagined. She is just now starting to get up onto her hands and knees and loves to rock back and forth. One of these days she'll take off crawling, and then running! For now we just get to enjoy this baby stage a little bit longer and we are okay with that. She does scoot all over the place- backwards and in a circle- she hasn't quite figured out how to go forward but if she sees something that she wants she can usually find a way to get it and has already started pulling things off of the lower bookshelves. 

We love our sweet girl and I can't get enough of her! I am sure she's grown weary of having a camera in her face so often but I just can't resist her cute little face! I think that her daddy is pretty smitten, too. 

Like I said, she's had lots of pictures taken of her; you can be sure that her life will be very well-documented. I love to just sit and watch her, to see her facial expressions change, to watch as she intently tries to figure out a toy or some little piece of paper or string she might have found on the floor as she's gone exploring. 

We love our sweet Lily girl; I remember when we thought that we wouldn't be able to have any more kids. We'd already given away a lot of clothing to others who could use it and then I went to the doctor because I just hadn't been feeling well. They ran a bunch of different labs and I found out that I had a UTI and they used that to explain the nausea and dizziness I'd been feeling. I was waiting for my husband in the lobby of the clinic- he'd dropped me off because I was too dizzy to drive myself- and the doctor came out to find me to tell me that they'd gotten the results of some of the other labs and that I was pregnant, too. He seemed concerned and asked if I was okay with that news. Was I? Here I'd thought that we wouldn't be having any more kids and we'd gotten used to the idea that Aimee would be our youngest and now we were going to have a baby. We were more than thrilled and LOVE this sweet little girl. 

Last night she gave me the first real hug that I've ever gotten from her. I had been with Sarah at her gymnastics practice and Lily was home with daddy and two of her sisters. I got her up out of bed because she'd been fussy, gave her a bottle and was getting ready to put her back to bed, gave her a big hug and her little arms squeezed me back and it was the sweetest thing!

We love her so much and wish her a very happy birthday. 

some things that we've been up to, Jillibean Soup and Scor Pal **lots of pictures

Good morning!

Guess what?

We have snow!!

We got a light dusting yesterday and the girls had so much fun playing after school. Since chances to play in the snow are rare in these parts, of course I had to take some pictures, some of which will surely make it onto future scrapbook pages.

Bella and birdie tracks on the patio

Yes, I guess it's time to get the pumpkins off of the porch. They worked well for Fall but now that we have snow...gotta do something with them. 

silly Aimee- 4 years old

I don't think they were too excited to pause their fun for a picture. 

Hailey- 7 years old. Not too long after this picture Aimee threw a snowball at her face!

She was excited to have her cute green coat back- we thought we'd lost it but after searching at the church, at the girls' gym and all over the house I found it wadded up in a corner on the floor by where the kids hang their coats. She has a thing for green lately and the thought that her coat was gone for good caused quite a disturbance yesterday morning before school.

Sarah- almost 6 years old- trying to catch snowflakes. She was amazed at how different they were as she watched them fall onto her coat. She has Lily's hat on in this picture ☺

We also had a lively snowball fight- those girls of mine were ruthless and had fun pounding their dear old mom with snowballs. It was so much fun!

This last weekend the girls had their Christmas Spectacular at the gym they go to. Each of the kids got to show off what they've been learning so far this year at gymnastics, karate or dance. We spent most of the day there on Saturday but the kids had lots of fun and even got to take pictures with Santa Claus.

Aimee with her teacher on the balance beam. She was so great on Saturday and excitedly hopped from one thing to another doing everything that she was supposed to do.

Hailey on the balance beam with her coach

and with Santa Claus during the award ceremony

 

Sarah during warm-ups

and on the balance beam. She says that the handstand dismount is "easy". 

Yeah, right. Maybe for a five year old. 

And Sarah with her coach and Santa

Hailey also got to show off her newly-acquired karate skills that have earned her an orange belt with a white stripe, up from a white belt. She really does enjoy it and one of these days she's going to break out of her shell and surprise her teachers with some aggressiveness. She's just so reserved. Just like her mama.

Here's Hailey with some of the kids in her class. She is to the left with the blue leotard under her karate uniform.

Another thing we've been up to is decking our halls. We pulled everything down out of the attic last week to look for nativities to take for our church Nativity exhibit and yesterday the girls got to decorate their own tree;  it's now chock-full of ornaments of the unbreakable variety. They took pride in placing each bulb and I had to laugh as I looked at some of the branches that had half a dozen ornaments. I would guess that my little 4-year-old helper could only reach just so high so many of her ornaments went on the same branches.

(don't you love the forced smiles?)

Baby Lily sat by just watching in amazement; it was so cute! Her first Christmas!

And now for something scrappy: 

We at Jillibean Soup had the fun opportunity this last month to do a cross-promotion for Scor-Pal.

Before this I'd never used a scoring board before but really like the plethora of things that you can do with it. I don't think mine will be gathering dust anytime too soon.

Here are some pictures of the "Merry" banner that I created using the Scor-Pal, Jillibean Soup's Christmas Eve Chowder collection, some tulle, twine and corrugated alphas.

I used the Scor-Pal to make the stars and the little accordion flowers:

I cut out the stars using my Cricut (thanks, Ginger) and then scored from the points to the center between points and folded on the scoring lines. 

The accordion flowers are pretty basic; I added corrugated flowers and alphas and used some ivory twine that I've had in my stash for quite some time along with some tulle from American Crafts. 

It was kind of tricky to photograph the whole thing since it's about 6 feet long but hopefully you get the idea: 

We are looking forward to more snow today and the kids don't have to be to school until 10 am so that the roads can thaw out a bit since it's only 13 degrees outside. Yep, there's an inch of snow on the ground and there is a 2-hour delay. You've gotta love snow in Texas! 

So, you see, we have been pretty busy. I really do need to be a better blogger, though. 

I have some other projects and a couple of fun guest designer things coming up this month that I can't wait to share with you!

Have a wonderful day!

sharing your kids' art on a page

I don't know if anyone else has this problem but my girls are so into drawing and coloring that their art is taking over my kitchen. It is spilling out of the big cupboard where we store their art supplies and is piled up on the counter by the sink. I have been trying to find a solution other than just taking all of it and chucking it into the garbage can.

Often times I'll pull a few favorites out of the pile to save and the girls obviously have their favorites as well (every single paper they've ever touched with a crayon, marker or paint).

One friend suggest that we take pictures of the girls holding their favorites and then throw the papers away. You could then make a collage with these images and put them on a layout or in a binder or something.

I like that idea.

One day Aimee was coloring up a storm as she is apt to do these days so I asked her if she'd make me a couple of small drawings as I had a scrapbook page in mind:

Aren't those the sweetest? She's just recently REALLY taken a liking to drawing and coloring. So much, in fact, that it's what she wants to do all day, every day and we very often have to clean up the piles of paper and crayons strewn about on the kitchen floor, the carpet in our den and the floor by the front door. 

Papers, etc. from a recent Studio Calico kit (March?) that I loved. Papers from Sassafras, Crate Paper, (the small butterflies were punched from one of the little ad inserts you always get with your kit), alphas from American Crafts and Sassafras and twine from the Twinery. 

Have a great day!