Just A Little Bit....

Here is just a little bit of what we have been up to. Gracie and I made this box filled with 40 cards for her teacher.

This is what the last day of school looks like at our house. Gracie was so sad! She did not want to leave the building. I finally got her to leave and when we got in the van she lost it. She was crying so hard. I wanted to get a picture of us being all sad and she wouldn't even let me take a picture of her. So this is what I got. She cried all the way home and then some! I think it was about 30 min. before she stopped. Poor little lady. I was crying too because I felt so bad for her. I never imagined it would have been this hard for her. We went though almost the whole year with her not liking school and not wanting to go. Then finally the last month or two she really grew to love it. Maybe this is a sign that next year will be a little easier.
If anyone ever says Gracie is not like me....look at this! A scrapbooker in training. Go Gracie!
Us at the Zoo. This was the best we could get. We are all in our Giraffe gear. Gracie is sticking her tongue out just like the Giraffes do. Q well he was just not having it....
I Love these little feet. Aren't these shoes so stinkin' cute?
First Popsicle of the season. He was so excited he kept closing his eyes and squealing with delight.
Gracie and her Popsicle. She was not interested in a photo session that day. Enough MOM she kept saying.

LAST DAY!!!!!!

Today is my dear Gracie's last day of Kindergarten. Remember way back in September when I was saying wow what do I do with all of this time that I now have? I am shocked that I even said that! I don't have time now. I have Q here who keeps me super busy and a ton of this and that to do with my scrapbooking sandwiched in between. My poor house is covered in scrapbook stuff right now....well any flat surface above the height of my little man. So that includes the kitchen table, and the counter space next to it. I so badly wanted to get it all spic and span before little miss muffet comes home from school for the summer. But.....life got in the way and I started making teacher gifts, doing Tupperware parties, hanging with my Q outside, and scrapbooking like a mad woman.

Then....

THEN.......

Yeah whats my life without a crazy story.......

Q ate a pistachio.

He is Allergic! We of course did not know that until he ate it and preceded to cough, get red, throw up, and get really really swollen. I decided that it was time to go to the ER. I swiftly buckled him in his car seat and off I went. As soon as I hopped on the express way. He started to drift off to sleep. As a women with a peanut allergy herself I KNEW this is NOT good! So I start to go......oh you know 95 miles an hour. I am singing really loud, making noises, and doing anything I can to keep him awake. I whip my minivan into the ER parking space all funky. I jump out of my seat and grab Q running into the ER. I see that they are slammed with patients! There was not an empty seat in the room. I was overwhelmed and I yelled. He's Allergic! Yeah I know I just could not form any other words then that at the time. So their nurse rushes over and checks him out. Within seconds we are in a room surrounded by 2 doctors and 3 nurses. He was hooked up to a pulse-ox machine, a heart monitor, and oxygen all while a nurse is administering an epi-pen. At this time I can see the pulse ox says he is at 89 (not good-that means he is only at 89% of the oxygen that he needs) and his heart rate is at 200! Yeah total freak out going on in my brain., But on the surface I remained calm. Within a few minutes he seemed to get a little better and then slowly things started to go down to normal. But....yeah there is a but, when they administer an epi-pen you have to stay there for 6 hours! That's right....6! So we were there parked in the ER until 3am. Yippee. I instantly said oh that's cool..lead me to the coffee. So my Mom had just arrived to help me out and sat with the little man while I went and got a large cup of coffee. Soon after my mom left I was able to get Q down to sleep. It was about 11pm. Nothing was on TV except Access Hollywood. I just sat there with him on my lap and dozed off around midnight in a super awful hard chair. FUN!!!!! Let me tell you that was a crazy night. I didn't even really hit me until the next morning when I was standing in the bathroom....Did that really just happen??????No? Oh yeah now I see the bags under my eyes. Here I come Starbucks get out the double shot for me today.

I GOT A DISHWASHER!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, I know I am a super dork but I am so excited as I have lived for the last 2 years without a dishwasher. Word to the wise living without a dishwasher with 2 kids is not a wise choice. Now I think I can stop using paper plates all the time. I have these beautiful back and white dishes that I think we have used all of 10 times. Poor Gracie is always asking if we can use the "fancy dishes" So now I can finally say Yes! We have used our Tupperware plates a lot but it will be nice to actually use the fancy ones.

I have even contemplated making layout about how excited I am about this new modern day marvel......but the jury is still out on this. Anyone know of any paper with dishwashers on it....Ha ha ha!

Here is some of my newest work that I have created.


A card for Gracie to give to her at her dance recital that is in 2 weeks. On the inside it says reach for the stars
I looooove my little mans feet. They are so stinkin' cute!

Clear Disney Album:

Page #1-the cover pictured below
Page #2-The vellum sheet
Page #3- The small journaling circle
Page #4-pictured below
Page #5-Magic transparency pictured below
Page #6-pictured below
Page #7-medium jounaling circle
Page #8- pictured below
Page #9- pictured below
Page #10-pictured below


Hope everyone enjoyed the class as much as I liked teaching it. I look forward to seeing you all again in the next Disney class! If you have any questions please feel free to email me or leave a comment here on the blog!

I Love My Kids!

Just thought I would share one of my favorite pics from this spring. I just sent a bunch to be printed at my local camera shop so I am gonna get my scrap on soon with some of my very favorites from way back when to as soon as yesterday!

"Bring On The Bling!"

The following 4 layouts were from the class that I had at my local scrapbook store last night. I used all kinds of bling, from metallic paper, to gems to glitter.....lots of glitter! The titles are a bit funky for a class so I tried something new and have left the place for a title blank so that they are able to choose their own. I always like to have funky titles on my pages so why wouldn't my students. Right?



I would recommend the title go in the upper left hand corner of both of these untitled layouts.....hey by the way while you are looking, what should I title the one with Gracie at the pumpkin patch? I just can't decide because the layout really isn't very "pumpkinish" if you know what I mean.
So if you took my class last night...Happy Scrapping and if you are just here for a visit enjoy :)

Gracie's Birthday


This past weekend was Gracie's 6th Birthday party with 8 of her friends. It was a princess tea party with crafts and a fashion show. It was the cutest thing! My mom was showing them how to drink their "tea" (also known as apple juice) with their pinkie up. For the fashion show we even had a curtain for them to come out of and we played Hannah Montana music for that portion. The rest of the party we listened to the Enchanted Soundtrack because Gracie was Giselle from the movie. Here she is below in her dress. Here is everyone after the fashion show.
This was the best part of the party. I gave Gracie an American Girl doll and as soon as she ripped some of the paper off and the party guests got a glimpse of the box they started screaming. Then when the cover was off of the doll they became silent in awe of the doll. It was pretty neat! i will never forget that moment.
As for scrapbooking. I have been doing some but I think I will submit them somewhere and the other projects are for classes at my local scrapbook store. So I will be giving you a sneak peak of those later. My class that is at the store next week is almost sold out. It is called "Bring On The Bling" using all bling elements. It is going to be a blast. I love using that stuff and having a full class is so much fun as well. I will post those layouts from the class on that day. If your coming I look forward to seeing you there.....and hey don't be afraid to post a comment. So many people tell me they look at my blog but I don't get to many comments. Feel free to say HI!!!!!!

My Kids and a new layout
My kids have delighted me with some cute photos over the past few days. Gracie had her parent observation at Dance class on Monday. Can I just say she is so stinkin' cute when she dances!!!!
Poor little Q has been sick with a viral infection that turned into a double ear infection. So this is what I see of him most of the time. He is getting better but still in need of the nuk, blankie and cuddles with Mom.
Here is my most recent page. I just love this picture of Q at 6 months. The jounaling reads You...are my breath of fresh air, are my sunshine, don't sleep though the night, put everything in your mouth, are so cute, are loving baby food, like to be in the bathtub, are a sweet pea, give kisses, adore your big sister, are not a big fan of green beans, have the sweetest little feet, are six months old. It was a pretty quick layout to do.
As for me. I have been sick myself. I think we all seem to pass it around at this house. It usually starts with Gracie then Q and then to me and maybe back to one of the kids again and then back to me. It gets so frustrating sometimes. But I guess I just have to keep my chin up and scrapbook all the stress away. I will show all my pages when they are done. Although I am thinking about trying out for Memory Makers Masters this year and you can not post those layouts online at all. So I may not post a lot for a while put will still try to get some projects in that I can share.

Before I get into my Disney obsession here are some pics of Gracie at My Little Pony LIVE . It was such a fun time watching her get all excited about Rainbow Dash and Sweet Berry. All you moms out there totally know what I'm talkin' about. She of course had to get all dressed up and curled hair to see the ponies and suckered my mom into buying her the program, a stuffed Pony and a Pinkie Pie Wand! The giant Tea Cup is because it was the Wolds biggest tea party, so stinkin' cute.




Ok, I am so ready to do this right now. I want to pack up and go to visit Uncle Walt.....also known as Walt Disney World. I totally miss it. My next trip isn't untill next January when my little sister Melissa will be starting her internship there. I am so glad that she is doing that. Not only because it gives me an excuse to go visit her, but what an awesome experience for her! To meet so many new people and get real world experience that will be great for when she is all done with college.Thats her at Epcot with Q when we went in Jan 08. I think my baby sister Kayla might also do an internship there when she is at that point in her college career as well. So wish I would have been able to do that. That's ok I can live through them right?
Yep, this is a page about Q at Disney. It was a good theripy session to scrap something happy in all this craziness of my life right now. I kept saying I don't have time to scrap but after I did I totally loved it and relized how much I needed it!

This is for the 12 ladies that took my class tonight! Here's to hoping that you all are able to finish it soon so that you can share your work with all your friends and family.

I'm BAAAAAAAAAAAACK!
So I know I have been missing for a while now due to a crazy illness that landed me in the hospital for a week, crazy kids that keep getting sick themselves along with a crazy school events schedule and a crazy husband that just is. So in the most loving way possible the one word that best describes my life right now is CRAZY!!!!!!!!

So I bet you are wondering who this beautiful baby is? It's little Amaya Rae Strutz! I got to be there when she was born. I was blessed to be there taking her very first photos. My dear friend Heidi asked me to be there. What an awesome experience it was to see the miracle of birth without it being me. It was a new experience for me that I will never forget. I remember coming home and saying a little prayer for miracle I had witnessed that day. I know I am babbling and repeating myself but it was just so indescribably beautiful. The jounaling reads " Amaya, Life is like a gift they say wrapped up for you everyday, Live your best life!" This layout came so easily for me due to the inspiration of her birth.

So I guess I am back in more ways then one, Back to scrapping, Back to blogging, Back to selling Tupperware with my Mom and Back to being the me I want to be!