Made by *B*

Halloween was as fun as ever. Phoebe was Sophie our dalamatian, just as Camden was his 1st Halloween with us!  Phoebe was of course clueless about Halloween-but did enjoy her 1st lollipop and hershey bar. We visited just a few houses with Phoebe and then Dave took the boys around the mile. Camden got so much candy he was overjoyed! 

Camden was a clone trooper-he loved his costume and was happy to wear it around here. But upon return from the actual trick or treating this year Dave declared TOTing a “no accessory” time. No lightsabers, masks, headpieces, or other miscellaneous things he will end up carrying around the block.  I had it pretty easy. I took pics at the 1st few houses and then myself and three other neighbors sat outside my house and passed out candy together while our little guys (10 months, 1 year, and 2 2 year olds) played in the front yard. I love our neighborhood!

 You can see Phoebe holding onto the bucket very tightly as Ms. Marge up the street gave her her 1st piece of Halloween candy.   My girl loves chocolate like her mommy! 

I hope you and yours had a happy and FUN Halloween!

These little pumpkin “candy catchers” were one of the make and takes at my workshops.  I had seen the wonderful larger ones that many folks had for garlands or table decorations, and decided to shrink them down a bit. They are easy to do and were a big hit!

I started with 1×4″ strips in Groovy Guava, Pumpkin Pie, and the Apple Cider designer paper available in the Holiday mini catalog. You can make them any size-just all the strips need to be the same. I used 8 strips to make them and they fit a few Hershey Kisses or mini Reeses cups inside-one of my customers was even able to pop in some mini Play-doh containers for her daughter’s preschool class.

And here are my favorite pumpkins-Camden and Phoebe. We went to a farm this weekend and milked a cow, rode a tractor, cheered at pig races, and pet llamas, goats, pigs, sheep, and baby ducks and geese. A good time was had by all. The pumpkins were pretty small (we will need to get nice big ones for carving) but Phoebe had a good time just trying tp pick them all up. Camden tried to give her advice on what to look for, but she really was just interested in crawling around.

New baby trick:

dancing to the theme song to America’s Next Top Model (quite funny).  She was with me when I was watching a re-run and started shaking her head back and forth when they were singing the “Na-Na-Na-Na-Nana…” theme song. Now I sing the “nanana” part and she dances and shakes-too cute!

*I have been sick as a dog with bronchitis/pneumonia and finally getting better- now I can actually stamp and not just catch a quick nap when it is Phoebe’s naptime!*

So the 1st part is my cutie patootie Phoebe. When she smiles she scrunches up her whole face when she is *really* happy. It is often when she is being told not to do something or knows she is getting away with something.

She is currently on a food strike. She has 2 categories of “Phoebe approved” food.

1. cheese

2. bread products

The high chair pic is her messy face after me trying to feed her organic Sweet Potato Cinnamon Bisque. Heck-it sounded good to me! But she would open her mouth and then at the last minute shake her head-which is why it is all over her face. You may also recognize an orange tinge from diced steamed carrots that she decimated. She looks pretty proud of herself, doesn’t she?

Next pic is a souped up version of a card we did for my last stamp club. I *love* cards using jumbo wheels. So quick and easy! For this card the Spooky Skyline wheel was rolled in basic black on a 2 1/2″ vanilla strip, and then the “moon” (from Big Circles) was stamped in Saffron craft ink.

I gently touched the edges of the moon with grey pastel chalk with a cotton ball and gently brushed it along the outside edge. Then I sprinkled Hologram Highlights embossing powder over it-it sticks where the chalk is NOT so once it is embossed it leaves a subtle silvery sparkle (say that 10 times fast!) in the center of the moon. The background color is done by just picking up chalk from the pastels with a cottonball and blending it along the vanilla. So easy!!!

The black piece started out as a 2 3/4″ strip, and the gray underneath started out as a 3″ strip-then they were ripped to layer them.  Look closely at the “Happy Halloween”-can you notice the spider web look going horizontally? I used the perforator tool from my SU! tool kit on a keychain and ran it along my gray pad and then then along the River Rock paper for a subtle spooky look. I added black eyelets in a row to add some weight along the bottom.

Life has been keeping us busy-or should I say Phoebe has been keeping us busy?

That sweet baby is a joy-no other word would describe her. We feel completely blessed and cannot believe how well her transition and adjustment have gone. She continues to be happy and sweet-she has a darling smile (see above!)  and the sweetest little laugh that grows into belly chuckles when she watches her big brother jump around and act like a whacko! It seems like she has been here forever rather than less than 3 weeks!

She is so good that we went ahead and took her to the beach for the weekend and she was probably the best baby ever! She enjoyed watching the surf and after a bottle on the beach took a good hour and a half nap under the umbrella. Talk about a good baby!

It was great for Camden to get away as well. He spent most of the day playing with our friends’ 2 sons and throwing buckets of ice cold sea water around and splashing his daddy. I love this pic-it really gives me a glimpse of how he might look when he is older-he has a great little 6 pack going already! Comparing him to Phoebe’s baby belly also shows how much he has changed from being my soft and round little ”angel baby” as I used to call him (and still do when he needs a cuddle!)

Camden is possibly the best big brother ever. If he hears Phoebe cry he pops right into her room and climbs into her crib with her, turns on her little musical aquarium and entertains her until we get there. Sometimes I think she has gone back to sleep and it is only when I realize that her door is open that I know he has gone in there to soothe her. When I check them out she is definitely delighted to have her big bro around!

I have actually been stamping and even held my 2 stamp clubs here the week after she came home. I need to photograph my cards so I can upload them-but as you can imagine the camera has gotten more use lately of taking pics of my 2 sweeties than cardstock-but I am sure i will get back in the habit shortly.

Thank you for all of your well wishes-we are doing great!!!

We just received some exciting news that our baby girl Phoebe will be arriving next Tuesday the 14th. A month earlier than we had thought-so this is a time of a bit of rushing! I will update with pics next week after her arrival!

I was tagged previously by Amylou and responded, but then SCS went down and I lost the post and did not realize it. So I am readding her blog to my list -> and since I was also tagged by a few more folks I am rolling them into one.

 7 Random Facts about me:

1. I think my son will need copious amounts of therapy to un-do the continuous joking around we do with him. The poor kid can never get a straight answer out of my DH or I when he asks the 1st time. Poor kiddo!

2. In a few (hopefully) short months we will become the parents to 2 kids. We are adopting a beautiful baby girl who we have decided to name Phoebe. We can’t wait-although I am a bit nervous about starting over!

3. 3 of my best friends and I all lost a parent before we were 25. We say it is like being part of a secret club-but a club that sucks!

(p.s. don’t smoke-okay?)

4. My earliest memory is of my Dad carrying me while he slid down the fire pole at Engine 22’s firehouse in DC.

5. I had dual citizenship with the U.S. and Mexico before I turned 18-now it is just American. I was fluent in Spanish before English and attended an international preschool before Kindergarten.

6. I think the sexiest place I have ever visited is Budapest, Hungary. My DH and I met up there one weekend when he was in the military and had a weekend free. Did you know that it is actually 2 cities-Buda and Pest that are divided by the Danube?

Ah-young love!

7. I love loading the dishwasher but will avoid UN-loading it at all costs.

(fixed that fact, LOL)

 Here are the folks who tagged me originally: 

Amylou at http://stampitsimply.blogspot.com/ 

Tami at http://www.love-2-stamp.blogspot.com/

Kathleen at http://kathleenh-myhappyplace.blogspot.com/ (doesn’t she have the best smile?)

It seems like most of the folks on my blogroll have been tagged-so rather than re-tag go over to my blogroll and check out some of their work!

I saw a card like this on a blog, but now cannot go back and find it-if it was yours please let me know so I can credit you!

*thank you Otter! The original one I saw was from Cindy Lyles’  (aka Starlit Studio) blog. She said hers was inspired by a card she saw in Borders. Too Cool!

http://starlitstudio.blogspot.com/2007/06/fathers-day.html

This card was for Dave’s b-day today.  I drew the hanger on scrap paper, and then used my wire tool from the SU Crafter’s Tool Kit to bend it around. The ties are scraps of paper from SU patterned paper sheets.

 Looks like a nice little card, but the inside has a little naughty saying in it just for him.

He actually opened it up and said “Woah” and then blushed. Rather than spoil the secret, I will just throw out some tie sayings I thought of using for b-days or other occasions. Since this was such an easy card to make I thought I should come up with some other “tie” sayings:

*hope you really tie one on

*sorry I’ve been tied up…I miss you

*Here are a few things to help you practice… tying the knot (like for an engagement card)

*When you reach the end of your rope,

tie a knot in it and hang on

*Sometimes being tied down isn’t such a bad thing (heehee)

If you have any other sayings, please feel free to add them in the comments section.

QTFM: sometimes you want a saying that SU just does not have. There are times in a card store I will actually jot down some sayings that I think might work for cards I make. Then I print them out on cardstock on the computer to expand my “card inside” selection.  This is especially helpful when looking for quotes for specific occasions, such as a thank you for a teacher.

Wow it has been a long time since i have updated. I know I do not have any regular followers, but for those of you who may have stumbled here on more than one occasion, I apologize!

 I have had a lot of Stampin’ Up! events at the end of the year, but more importantly (and what took up most of my time!) is that we found out about our daughter!!!!

 For those that may not know-we have been waiting a long while for our 2nd adoption to move forward. We found out that our daughter was born in Korea in December and if all goes well she will be here in September/October.

yeah!!!!!!

I am not comfortable sharing a pic of her yet as she is still in Korea-but I assure you she is CUTE and I cannot wait to kiss her chubby baby cheeks!!! Oh-and we have decided to name her Phoebe. Can’t you just picture a little cutey with dark pigtails running down the street???!!!???

So sorry for my absence-but we have been slowly but surely getting things ready for her arrival. We are still a long way away from being ready, but are trying to not go overboard quite yet.

My blog was not updated last week because we were at the beach. Here are a few of my favorite pics. You may notice that I am in zippy of them. Out of 266 pics taken, I am in about 5. And 4 of those are Cam and I jumping in the waves. Rather than have you be shocked at seeing my butt bounce around in the waves, I opted to keep those off the blog, LOL. I will let you use your imagination for those .

The 1st shot was one of my “Okay-you have had this photoshop program for years-use it.”

The original pic was too dark so rather than try and lighten it I went with the dark contrast and hand colorized it all.  So yeah me for this one!

Then of course the obligatory shot of Dave and Cam flying a kite. We bought that kite when Cam was 1 and use it every summer at the beach. Dave loves to fly it-and will sometimes sneak down to the beach at 6am to fly it by himself.

The last shot is such a perfect “WOOHOO Summertime!” shot. I probably took 100 pics of Cam jumping in the waves. I liked that I actually caught him looking up in this one and that when I look at it I think “I am a kid full of JOY!” I hope he stays that way!

I saw a post from Jenn the other day that reminded to take pics of the everyday events that make our lives “ours.”

http://jbalcer.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/2007/05/08/my-life/

So today was one of those days. Nothing fancy planned, laundry being washed, dishes put away, and a bored 5 year old wanting to play. It started off easy-me suggesting we go outside and blow bubbles. Which led to me turning on the sprinkler since it was pretty hot. Which led to this:

Camden and his best friend from next door leaping around with giggles and smiles and full of life. What could be better than two 5 year olds leaping around and getting soaked in their clothes?

Well-how about the big kids joining in as the busses from the middle school and elementary school pull up. We live in the BEST neighborhood. It may not have big houses and the folks may not drive fancy cars-but we have a group of children who really are nice kids. The older kids make the little ones feel special and include them in everything-folks hang out outside and sit on our front steps and laugh as the kids play. Seriously-it rocks.

I took a ton of pics of them just laughing, leaping,and smiling. Kids from almost 2 to 12 years old having fun being kids.

I pulled out my camera to help remind me that these kinds of snapshots are what I need to get to help me remember what my life is truly about. Not only the posed pics waiting for Santa, not just smiling in front of a b-day cake-but the days that I want to keep as happy snapshots of how good life can be if you take time to think about it.