Well, my elbow is still really slowing me down! Bummer. I did find a way to scrapbook of course. I did not however figure out a way to do the dishes. Darn it! I know, I know we need a dishwasher! Tell that to my hubby! This week has been a busy one for me. I scrapbooked, went to The Lion King, worked at the store and dealt with a teething baby. So here are some of the scrappy projects I did at the weekend crop and this week.This card was a make-n-take from the crop by Morgan. I just added a little Jessica twist with the glitter and doodling. Isn't it just so cute. Good job Morgan!
OK, everyone teases me about my Mickey kitchen, but I adore it! In the journaling it says "....and if your asking yes, my husband likes it too!" It is fun and totally brightens my day...at least when its clean.LOL
This is the binder I made for our vacation we are taking to Hershey this summer. It is a surprise for Gracie and we are giving her clues along the way. This was the first clue. I think Eric and I are having more fun with this then she is.
And finally the highlight of my week! We went to The Lion King. It was so awesome. Thanks to my Mom and Dad who treated us to this awesome experience. Gracie sat though the whole thing and couldn't stop talking about it on the way home even though it was 11pm. Eric, who hates musicals, loved it! He couldn't stop talking about it either. I think this is such a great thing to do with your family and makes you a more well rounded person. Here is a man who hates musicals and tries something new and ta-da he finds he likes it. I was so inspired by all the creativity in costuming and made me want to go home and scrapbook. So before I bore you with all my rambling just go see it, you will love it!

Scrapbook Weekend!

This weekend we had our overnight scrapbook weekend though the store that I work at. It was a blast but man am I tired. I got there at noon on Saturday, stayed up until 3am and then got back up at 5:30am to work my shift form 6am-11am. You want know how much I got done? Yeah not very much-2 layouts, 2 cards and started a binder for our surprise vacation for our daughter. But I got in a ton of fun, lots of laughs and nice time away from the everyday. My elbow sure is hurting after all that so I will have to post pictures of my work later. I hope that everyone else there had as much fun as I did!

I broke my elbow!



Oh my goodness I can not believe I broke my elbow. I fell in my driveway on Monday night. It was so cold and slippery from all the ice-rain mix we had over the weekend that it was just perfect conditions for me to fall. I was holding Q. The doctor said had I not been holding him I probably wouldn't have broken it. He is fine and was not hurt. I am now in a splint (its sorta like a cast but removable) and go back to see the doctor in 2 weeks but will need 6-8 weeks to recover. So right now I am just trying to get used to having one arm stuck in one position. Later today I am going to try to scrapbook like this. Wish me luck!

HE'S ONE!!!!!!

I can't believe it. My little boy is one year old. It has gone by so darn fast. Her totally destroyed that birthday cake. He seemed so tired after it all. I think you can tell by the picture below. He started off eating the cake as if it could be taken away at any moment. Then as the minutes went on he got slower and slower. It was so cute! So as a tribute to my little man here are some things I love about him.

His smile-the cheesy heres my teeth smile is the best. Makes your heart melt.

When he dances-he just bounces up and down with a very content face. His favorite song is Georga by John Mayer.

His feet- I could kiss his baby feet all day. Maybe that's why it dosen't bother me all that much when he takes his little socks off.

His determination- I love to watch him try and try again. You go Q!

His kisses- Yes slobber and all

When he yells Ma-mom to get my attention. Such a cute facial expression he has when he says it. Gotta capture that on film

How he loves water- he loves it so much he gets mad when you take him out of the tub.

When he falls asleep in your arms- its rare so I savor it every chance I get.

When he tries to share things-thank you sweetie!

His little noises- he frequently sounds like a snake...Ssss-Ssss-Ssss

When he holds is hand in the air- we don't know why he does it but it's really funny.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE MAN!

People are always asking to see more of my scrapbooking. So here is what I have been up to.

"These O's Are Mine" Gotta love the look on his face. This was the first time we gave him Cheerio's. He wasent really sure what to do with them but by-golly they belonged to him!

"Self Made MEss" The ME is highlighted here because the journaling talks about how this layout and photograph really says more about how facinated I am with my childrens growth process then about Q making a mess.
"So Happy" Gracie and I had a blast in the photo booth at Disney! The jounaling talks about how we had fun int he booth pretending to be "Posh Spice" and pretending to win a million dollers. Disney dollers of course and you can bet that Gracie siad she would spend it on more vacations to Disney. This was also the first layout I did with hand stiching. It was very fun! I plan to use this technique more often.
Below is a mini book I made and will be doing as a make and take for the upcoming weekend crop at the store I work at. It is made up of A7 (5x7) envelopes.
The inside cover is stamped.

Eric's envelope. Inside each envelope is 2 cards telling each person why I love them.

The back cover. The small writing reads "....but I could be biased"

These are a sample of our pictures from vacation!

Gracie and Mickey at the Garden Grill

Q gave Mickey a few kisses while at the Garden Grill
This is a chair at the one of the hotels that I have picture of me sitting in when I was a baby, Gracie sitting in when she was a baby and now Q sitting in. The chair has had a few face lifts over the years but its still the same. I think its such a cool tradition and I that someday my nieces and nephews will have their pictures in it as well.
This is what traveling with 2 kids looks like!

Q in a pair of ears. So cute!
Another Mickey moment!
The whole family.
Me and Q waiting inline. Taking pictures of oursleves kept him happy.

What a FUN vacation! It was gracies 5th trip and Q's 1st. We had 9 people total and all stayed in a 5 bedroom 3 bathroom house. Thanks to my Mom and Dad for making this awesome experience happen. Ears to you Nana and Bapa! Tons of new experiences on this trip. Q's first hair cut, my little sis got engaged(keeping the family tradition alive. Yeah Dustin and Kayla (for those of you that don't know Eric and I got engaged there in 2004)) and my other sis made a video for her boyfriend in Iraq. Shout out to Aaron in Iraq!!!! It was fun to help her make it, and its always difforent because there alwsys seems to be another person added to teh bunch. Tjis year it was Q. Hoping that next year Aaron will be home safe and sound and he will be able to jion us making our group 10 people strong. Now on to planning next years trip!

HAVE A MAGICAL DAY!

So my Disney layouts wouldnt work but I have been futzing with my computer to see if these will work. Let's all cross our fingers that Jessica can get it right this time. I started this blog in order to share my love if scrapbooking and my family. So you have all seen my family and how I love them. Now here is a little of my other love.... scrapbooking. Hope you like it! Now to go back and fix the Disney layouts....what a good thing to do when the guys are watching football and the little one is sleeping. Happy Turkey Day. I hope all are feeling blessed!

Ok, So for days now I have nto been able to get into my own blog. I kept telling me that I don't exsist. Finally blogger support got back to me and fixed the problem! Yeah I can be me again. So here are the pictures from my last Disney class I tought at The Scrapbook Store. I know that several of you have been looking for color photos of the layouts that recieved a kit form the store.
Hope you enjoy them!

My kids rock! Look what they have been up to.......

Look what Q did today....time to baby proof!

Gracie and I went to the pumpkin farm with her kidergarten class! She picked out and picked up this pumpkin all by herself!

This little man and I went on a mission to find the "perfect" diaper bag on Friday. Did we find it.....I think so. After 2 hours of searching we finally found it at USA baby. I love it. I will have to post a picture of it when I get around to it.

Q is hitting so many milestones right now. He is currently sitting up and has been for about a week now. He was before that but was a little wobbly. Now you can plop him in one spot and he doesn't teeter-totter at all. This picture was actually taken last weekend on the first time he sat up for more then a min. or two. It was about 10 min. that he sat there. Also on Friday he started to say Hi! People were saying Hi to him when we went to pick up Gracie from school and he kept saying it back. It didn't really hit me that that is what he was saying until my friend Maria said "He is saying Hi!" Then we got in the van and Gracie would say Hi and Q would say it right back. He did it about 10 times in a row! The of course by the time we got to my mom and dads house he was all Hied out. He finally said it for my Dad and my sister but not yet for my Mom. Poor Nana still has not heard him say it and they were there all day yesterday while I was at the scrapbook store. He also is gearing up to crawl. He gets up on all fours and rocks back and fourth but then plops down after a few seconds. So my little 7 month old boy is growing really fast and I can not believe it!

It's the second day of school, 9:45 in the morning and I am all done with what I wanted to get done today! Q is napping and I am here on the computer in the middle of the day. How strange is this! I am not really sure what to do with myslef. Ok, I think I will scrapbook. Maybe if I have time later I will post what I worked on. lord knows as soon as I get all my stuff out Q will wake up. LOL

Today was the first day of school for my Gracie. It was day filled with mixed emotions. I spent last night laying in bed thinking of all the things that could go wrong. I cried and whined to my husband for longer then I am sure he would have liked. Then when the morning hit. I was crabby...way crabby because I had stressed myself out so much the night before. But as every mother knows..today was not about me so I had to nip that crabby attitude in the bud and put on a happy face. Her alarm only went off for only a few seconds( we all know that won't be so later in the year) and she shot out of bed. She was excited, singing and dancing though the house. I began to feed off of her energy and the crabby attitude began to melt away. On the ride over to school she talked about how exciting today was going to be and how glad she was that school was starting. I teared up a little because she was growing up and thriving as the beautiful 5 year old that she is. As I pulled open the sliding door of the van she saw some friends walking in and their moms that I also have become friends with from 4k last year. I remember thinking to myself, Yeah! Another mom that I know feels like I do. I love knowing that there are other emotional Moms out there and more importantly Moms that are emotional at the school we are a part of. So as we walk in she is hand in hand with her friends and just elated! I felt a wake of joy come over me. I was truly happy for her that she is loving this and for myself that I will have time to spend with little Q. What a great thing this will be for him as well. As I left her there in the line she was happy, only needed two kisses , one kissing hand (Yes we love that book for those of you that know what I am talking about) and a good bye wave. I teared up a little but felt so lucky that she was happy. I then went and had coffee with other PTA moms and we discussed the dropping off form the morning and how all that went. I was not sad anymore.

Wow! All in all that was pretty easy. I kept busy, had a good day and am looking forward to the school year. I have plenty off opportunities to see her at school with all my involvement in PTA and classroom parent. I will get to see my Gracie blossom and grow. This day has totally reminded me of what a wonderful world this truly is.

Oh and by the way when I asked her what she did today it was all bunch of rambling and then she took a deep breath before she said "And I played the flute in music class!" Then when she told my husband over dinner he asked are you good at the flute? her reply was "Well......I sure was loud!"

Tonight was all about my fab. 5 year old. We had her school orientation. It was all very overwhelming for me but a good overwhelming. Gracie seemed to really enjoy it and loved meeting her new teacher Mrs. Stein. Although she still wants to take Miss Lohrey with her from her 4k class. She jumped right in playing with the other children when the meeting portion was over. What a delight it was to see her not being shy and going right along with the others. I guess I don't need to worry about her making friends.

The other day Gracie and I had a conversation about what makes us think of each other. I said things like Disney Princesses and anything pink and here is what she said about me:

Croc's-"whenever I see someone wearing Croc's I always think of you because you always wear them" (She is right I do wear them almost every day. It's almost weird when I don't wear them)

Frozen Coke-"I know you love those Mom" (I think I stop to get one of these at least 4 times a week.)

People Taking Pictures-"You always do that"( I was the only mom in the class to take a picture of her on orientation day...need I say more)

Big Sunglasses-"You look so cute in them Mommy and you always have them on your head" (Confession- I feel naked without them)

So my little 5 year old knows me very well. I think this list almost says more about her then it does about me. She is observant and even complimented me a few times in there. What a little sweetie!

It's been a rough week around the house with stress levels high. I went to work today thinking that it was going to stress me out even more because I would be thinking of all the things I need to get done when I get home from work and in the next few days. WRONG!!!! It was great. Have I ever said how much I love my job? I work at The Scrapbook Store with a group of women that I am proud to say are all my friends as well as some of the customers. My first customer of the day was just such a delight and it seemed to be a whole day of customers that I know as well as new ones that where just such fun to be around! I love having grown up conversation time! It made me forget about all my worries even if they were there waiting for me when I got home. But then when I had to deal with some of my stress I had a fresh pair of eyes to look at it with due to the break from life. The kidlets spent the day with Nana going to Sam's Club to get a jumbo pack of blueberries (seriously-the thing is huge) and Popsicles. Gracie loves Blueberries!! In fact on our 15 min. drive home from my moms I think Gracie made sure we had the blueberries in the van at least 3 times.

OK, I am guilty!

Guilty of not posting in my blog. I found this picture of Q and he just looks guilty so I thought this was a good "you caught me not posting in my blog" look. It's a little after 2am and I was scrapbooking at the store I work at until 1:00 am or so and there was so much fog in my area that my normal 20 min. drive home took me 1 hour! Plus because the air was so dense my asthma that rarely bothers me was really acting up. I knew that if mine was bad that if my little Gracie had been outside at all that she would have trouble too. Hers is bad enough that she has been admitted into the hospital for it a few times to many for my book. So I rush int he house and listen to her breath. Her breathing was fine. Then I got to thinking what a blessing it is to hear her breathing normally. I found myself on the edge of her bed just listening to her for several min. It's just so comforting to know that she is breathing easy tonight. I think now I will sleep well knowing that all is well.

I can't believe I let this blog go for this long. It has been way to long since I wrote. There are so many new things in my life including these feet over here. I vowed that after my life settled down a little that I would jump back on the blog train. Well, I soon realized that life never slows down it just picks up momentum with every life change and addition to the family for that matter. I guess when i was the mother of one I never knew how easy I had it. But I think every mom says that. Its really pretty late and I need my rest fora day at state fair tomorrow.

Yes, life should be scrapbooked. As the mother of a sweet 3 year old and soon to be wife who travels to Disneyworld every year there is a lot to scrapbook. It's not about the stickers or the paper but its the finished prodcut that reflects me as an artist and creats a memory that will last long beyond my mortal body. My scrapbooks are a port into the soal of me.....Jessica.....Mother.....Artist.....Soon to be Wife and the way I feel about all that surrounds me!