Organization!

I am sooo excited about getting my scrap space organized! I finally got Tom to commit to creating me a new space! We have lived in this house for 11 years now and my scrpabook space started off as an office. I used it to work on lesson plans and get things accomplished for school. Since I have started scrapbooking over the past 7years, my space has evolved into a scrap space/office. I don't feel like I get much of anything accomplished in my space any more! I used to be so organized and now my work has drifted into my scrap space and vise versa!

I took the first step last night and worked on throwing things away and cleaning up my space. I made a large dent in it! I am so happy! I just need to get my scrap stuff organized now! I threw a ton of school stuff away and now I have room for organizational things for my scrap space! My problem now is finding affordable organizers and tools to stay organized! With the kids in my space A LOT I need to find things to keep all my goodies safe from little fingers!

I guess the reason I am posting this is to get ANYONE'S ideas for organizational tools, ideas for the space, etc. Any help that anyone who reads this wants to volunteer would be GREATLY appreciated! Also, any tips on where to find affordable organizers and maybe even furniture would be helpful also!!

I am off now to work on my space some more! I am really excited to have a new, fresh place to scrap and make some beautiful memories for my girls!

Happy Holidays!

I hope that everyone had an enjoyable Christmas and got to spend time with family and loved ones.





Our Christmas was fairly quiet here. We had the Given Christmas on the Sunday before Christmas since Stacey had plans with Darin's family. It seemed liked it was so early to have Christmas, I wasn't mentally ready!! It was really nice though, we got to eat lots of food that we haven't eaten since this time last year! The girls both got some great gifts and they had a lot of fun playing with their cousins.





We spent Christmas Eve home waiting for Santa. Kayla and I baked cookies and desserts for Christmas day at the Holwadel Christmas! Would you believe I completely forgot to take pictures of that?! We were caught up in the moment I guess!



We have been very busy over the past few weeks! Audrey turned one on November 24. I cannot believe she is already one!! Time flies! Kayla's birthday was the 13th of December so we had a family celebration and then for some reason I agreed to having 9 girls sleep over!! That was a lot of fun! The girls had a blast and barely got any sleep but isn't that what sleepovers are all about?!

We are looking forward to a quiet New Years Eve. Mom has volunteered to watch the girls so Tom and I are going to go to dinner and then spend a quiet evening at home. I just don't trust people on New Years with the drinking and driving, I would rather be safe at home! I am hoping to get some scraping done some time this week and post some Christmas layouts. I need to give Heather a holler!! I wanted to share some Christmas pictures with everyone. I hope everyone had a great holiday! I will be back soon!!

This was taken Christmas Eve. I heard Kayla in Audrey's room talking to her and when I walked around the corner I saw Kayla standing on the otoman talking to Audrey!


Our family! I think this is the first picture of all of us together!

This was so cute to watch, Kayla was showing Audrey how to go through and pull out everything in her stocking!

It's an MP3 player!

I will be back soon with pics of layouts and more to share!

A Year Already

I am just so amazed that the last year has gone so quickly! It is really a sad thing to see how quickly time flies when you are watching your children grow up! It seems like just yesterday that I was receiving the news that I was going in for an emergency c-section and that my life was basically on the line. I was so worried that I was not going to form that bond with Audrey after she was born since I was not able to spend much time with her in the first week of her little life since I was hooked up to everything in the ICU and having everyone focus on me and not Audrey. I am so blessed that I made it through okay and that this past year has been spent making my heart as good as new!!! It really helps when you have all the support of your family and friends and knowing that I have two beautiful daughters who need me to guide them along their journey.

Audrey has grown so much in the last year and it has been so much fun watching her grow and change. She truly loves life and everyone around her is made so happy from just being around her! She laughs all the time and smiles and you can't help but feel joy when you are with her! Her whole body shows how much she enjoys being with you.

I have just recently started scrapbooking Audrey's first year of life. I am not sure why it has taken me so long to get to this point but I am happy to begin. I think that in the beginning I was still having anxiety and was worried to think too much about the entire process. I am so glad to be able to scrapbook and show Audrey how much she is loved and cared for as I did for Kayla.

I wanted to share a scrapbook page and the invitation to Audrey's birthday party. The theme is "monkeys" because we call Audrey our "Chunky Monkey!"

I made this card with the Cuttlebug "Birthday" folder. I LOVE the Cuddlebug! The stamp is by Stampendous and the card is DCWV.

For this layout I used Heidi Grace patterned paper and Bazzil cardstock. The brads are Doodlebug (I think!)

I absolutely LOVE these photos of Audrey! They totally show how Audrey just laughs with her whole body! The puffy letters are American Crafts and the patterned paper is Making Memories. The cardstock is again, Bazzil.

Thanks so much for stopping by and reading my Blog! I will be back soon to share some of my projects that I have been working on with the girls!!!

"Given Up On You"

I believe those were Heather's words!!! I am still here and as much as I have wanted to blog, life has just gotten in the way! I have been writing in a journal on a weekly basis but I can do that in the comforts of my bed!!! Gosh, what I wouldn't do for a laptop!!! Maybe some day that will be in the budget!!! I reassure you that I have been here and I have even found some time for some scrapbooking here and there!

I have just been a little crazy with Kayla's nutty schedule! I don't have anyone to blame but myself, I thought I could handle it all! Busy, Busy, Busy!!! Dance 1 day a week, cheer at least 3 days and with competition, that means 4 days!!! And then homework and school on top of all that!! I'm INSANE!!!!!!! Thank goodness cheer is finally coming to an end this weekend. I think Kayla had fun doing it but I think that this is the one and only year she wants to do it. Unfortunately she had a coach that was not so good and ruined her experience (makes me so sad). I think Kayla enjoyed the competition aspect of teh cheerleading but I'm not sure she liked the actual cheering at football games. We will see what next year brings when sign ups come around in the spring.

Audrey is as cute as ever!! Thank goodness she is such a good baby!! All these trips to cheer and dance, she just hangs out! You will catch her bopping her head to the music wherever we are, it is so darn cute!! I am just amazed that her birthday is right around the corner!! One year! Where does the time go?!

Well, I wanted to pop in and update everyone on the kids and where I have been! I have included a few pages I have created in the last few months. These are not all of them and I hope to get some more up this week depending on the craziness of the week! These are some of the summer layouts I have created. A few of them I scrap-lifted from Archivers pages but added my own twists here and there to make them my own.

This is of Audrey out at the lake. Love the colors in this paper. It's Archiver's paper, how fun!

This is a close up of the flamingo from the next lay-out. Courtney, I totally thought of you here! Love the boa on the flamingo!!

Here is another close-up of a sticker that I added Stickles to, I love the Stickles!!

Audrey at Stacey's pool. She LOVED the water this year!! Again, Archiver's paper!! Love the colors!!!




This is the first page of a two-page lay-out. This one is the first page that goes along with the above lay-out with Audrey. This was at Stacey's pool again.

I will be back soon to show some more lay-outs that I have been working on. I have been mostly working on lay-outs with Audrey as her birthday is coming up soon and I haven't really scrapped much of her!

Thanks so much for checking in and for sticking with me!! I will blog soon!!!

Happy Father's Day! (Warning VERY Long Post)

This Father's Day was pretty quiet here. We got up a little late and I had to get Kayla ready to go to the movies with Uncle Eric and Rena, they had asked a few weeks ago if they could take Kayla to see Kung Fu Panda, not realizing it was Father's Day. This wasn't a big deal, we were just planning on hanging out and working around the house anyway. We gave Daddy his gifts, a book he had been wanting and a picture frame that we made together with a picture of Daddy, Kayla, and Audrey. Nothing big but homemade and that's what matters. We are just happy that we are together and we get to spend each day as a family.

Uncle Eric and Rena came and picked up Kayla around noon to go to Red Robin for lunch and then to the movie. Kayla was very excited. Kayla hanging out with Uncle Eric and Rena gave Tom and I time to hang out together with Audrey.

As many of you know, I have been making an album for Eric to honor Avery, his daughter. I had been planning on giving it to him when I next saw him. It just turned out that the next time I saw him happened to be Father's Day. It kind of worked out well that this was how everything happened. Those of you who are close to me know the story of Eric and Avery. For those of you who don't here is the story in a nutshell. My brother, Eric, was married right after high school. Eric was overjoyed when his wife announced that she was pregnant. Everyone was very excited for him and we were all excited to have the first grandbaby in the family. Well, like we all would assume, Avery was Eric's child. Come on, they were married and that's how it works right?! We were all there for Avery's birth and then every step of the way after. We were all saddened when Eric announced that him and Krissy would be divorcing, we were more upset for Avery as it would be hard on a child. After trying to gain more custody of Avery because Eric wanted nothing more than to spend more time with his daughter and love his life, he was dealt a HUGE blow. He was presented with papers from a lawyer stating that it was 99.9% positive that he was not the father of Avery! What the heck?!! He was presented these papers in his home from some stranger, not his ex-wife herself, but some stranger. She had been messing around while she was married to Eric and had us all fooled. Krissy did not want Eric and the family to see Avery anymore than we already were. We were all SHOCKED and Eric was absolutely devastated. As you would expect, Eric got a lawyer and fought for Avery. Unfortunately, the court said that legally Eric had no rights to Avery once the "real" father came forward. The "real" father could adopt her because Eric was the father on her birth certificate and then Eric would have no legal rights. Eric had to make the most difficult decision anyone in life could ever have to make. He had to decide to give up all his rights to his daughter that we all believed was his daughter for 4 years. We all loved her so much and it was like having a child die right before your eyes. We were all there with him in court and it was the most difficult thing in the world to watch someone to go through, especially a loved one. Needless to say, Eric has struggled with this for he past 5 years. I know it is something that he thinks about every day and I know that he wants nothing more than to be a part of Avery's life. Unfortunately there are really cruel and evil people in this world who care about nothing more than themselves. Eric wanted to be Avery's father despite what he had found out. Avery was Eric's daughter regardless of what a DNA test showed. In Avery's eyes, Eric was her daddy and she would always love him. As far as I know, Avery still thinks about Eric and has asked about her "Daddy Eric". She misses him very much. Thank goodness we have a source who will pass along bits of information now and then (just bits and pieces but still a little piece of her). It would be so nice to see pictures of her now and then or just hear some REAL things that are going on in her life. Eric misses her so much and so does the rest of the family. I know that Krissy wanted to hurt Eric with all of this but she hurt an entire family as well as innocent children who never got a chance to meet their cousin Avery. It is the hope of all our family that one day Avery will come looking for her "Daddy Eric" and realize the horrible things that her mom did in her past.

As a result of all of this, I thought that it would be nice to honor Avery by making an album of her life with her "Daddy Eric". Eric was not left with much of Avery other than the memories. He had a few pictures of his own and a "Boo" doll from Avery's favorite movie "Monsters Inc" but other than that, he just has memories. I wanted to give him something tangible of his daughter, something that he can show her one day when she finds him again.

I made this album while we were in Indy at Cornerstone. It was a difficult weekend and I hope I didn't make too many of my friends mad at me while I was there. (Sory guys if I did! I TRULY didn't mean to!!! :) It was a difficult few days as I had to process again the events and look at the sweet face in these pictures. Memories and emotins were stirred up that I thought I would be okay with but after working for two days straight on the album, it all began to take its toll! I am very happy with the outcome of the album and am glad I was able to create some memories for my brother.





I LOVE this quote. It says "It doesn't matter who my father was, it matters who I remember he was." Very fitting for the situation I think.



This was taken out at my parents lake and Avery loved the water. She had said this particular day, "Can I put my tushie in?!" I love that quote from her!!! So cute!!

I used Making Memories "Noteworthy" line from Archivers for all of the pages. I also used products from KI, Doodlebug, Heidi Swapp. The album was PERFECT for this product. It's a Colorbok and it is a bifold and the inside is like a box. I loved it for the amount of space that it had in it.

I think Eric was very moved by the album. He is a difficult person to read sometimes on the outside but I think I touched something in him with this. I know he is glad to have a piece of Avery with him and I am so glad I could give him this. We are not always the best communicators in our family but we know that we are there for each other and we will stand by one another in the most difficult of times.

I just wanted to share this with everyone and hope that you like it as much as I do. I would LOVE to hear any comments that you have about the album or my story. Sometimes it helps to hear other people's thoughts and feelings about such a difficult topic!!

Thanks so much for reading my LONG blog!! I will post again soon with a much lighter topic!!!

Kindergarten Graduation

This Tuesday we had kindergarten graduation! It was so sad to attend this event! I had to admit that my baby is getting older! Kayla has attended the Children's House for two years of preschool and this year for kindergarten. I am amazed at how much she has learned over these past three years. In art she learned about Picasso, Monet, Rembrandt, Greek and Egyptian architecture...She learned to speak Japanese, each student attended Japanese 2 times per week. I am just amazed at her knowledge and the facts that she can give me in science and geography. Riding in the car she can spout off facts to me out of nowhere! What sponges our children are!
The graduation was very difficult for me nonetheless. Each student marched down the aisle and up onto the stage in thier cap and gown. Speeches were given by the owner, principal, and the two kindergarten homeroom teachers. Each child came down from stage to give their parents roses and books that they made. At this point Kayla saw me crying, and being the emotional child that she is, started crying herself! She was sobing up on stage from then on! Thank goodness she was able to pull herself together as they sang the songs they had been practicing for weeks like "High School Musical" ,"First Grade, First Grade" (to the tune of "New York, New York"), and "So Long Farewell". Each child received a diploma and posed for pics. It was a very emotional event but we are so proud of her! I am so glad that we got to share this event in her life with our family. I was a little disappointed because the seating was so limited and not all of our family could attend, we only received 6 tickets total. I took lots of pictures to share with everyone! We have so many fun memories of kindergarten! I just hope that the remaining years of her school career are as exciting as this one!!

You can see Kayla crying in this photo! Such an emotional child!!
This was when she first went up on stage, she hasn't seen me crying yet!
Nervous smiles!!
Diploma in hand and still crying!
Flipping of the tassel!

I really need to get this pictures scrapped while the event is all fresh in my mind!! I need a few more hours in my day! I will post what I create soon!

Cornerstone Here We Come!!!

I am sooooo excited about our weekend trip to Cornerstone in Indy! I have so much planned for this weekend and I hope I get at least half of it completed! It is going to be so nice to relax and scrapbook with some good friends! Pedicures, massages, and no dishes, Woohoo!! I am so excited!! I have so much to do before tomorrow though! Gotta go shopping, make pictures, and pack, WOW!
Looking forward to a relaxing weekend!

And the Winner Is....

Hi Everyone!!

So sorry I am posting this so late. Never enough time! I just want to let everyone know that the winner of the Scrapbook Bakery drawing was....Courtney Amber! Thank you everyone for all of your positive comments and feedback, you have all inspired me to keep being creative! Courtney Amber, if you could please send me your mailing info at kiawah01@fuse.net, Heather will get your goodies out to you!! Please post your pages of Daphne, I would love to see them!!

What a busy weekend! We went to see my nieces play softball on Saturday for the first time. That was fun to watch, they are in second grade. Unfortunately I left the camera at home and didin't realize it until we were almost there. Guess we will have to make sure we attend another game, have lots of ideas for scrapbook pages in my head! Fun to watch and to listen to their little cheers coming out of the dugout!!

Today we went to the cemetary as this was Tom's first Mother's Day without his mom. It was pretty tough on him and although he didn't say anything, I could tell that this was a rough day/weekend for him. Kayla was excited to go to the cemetary so that she could go see Grandma. This has been very hard for her as well. With the cleaning out of her home and Kayla seing the gifts that she had made for Grandma for her birthday and Christmas she has had a hard time understanding what we are doing. She saw a mug that we made Grandma with photos of Kayla on them and she looked at me and said, "Mommy, Grandma forgot to take this with her!" It about tore my heart out. I'm trying to think of some way that we can "send" it to Grandma. Think we might package it up and send it to Heaven. Very difficult day.

Enough with the sadness! I am so excited about our weekend trip to Cornerstone Memries in a few weeks!! A whole weekend of scrapbooking and relaxation! What a way to begin the first weekend of summer vacation!! I am sooooooo excited!!

Well, I a off to give baths and get children ready for bed! I need to work on being a better blogger! I think about all these things to write as I lay in bed but by moring, I feel like I don't have two seconds! That is about to change in three weeks though!! Woohoo!!

Reminder

Hi All!!!

I am so excited to see so many positive comments on my page!! I have gotten some good ideas from all of you as well. Thanks for the reminders about Teacher Appreciation Week!! Although I am a teacher, working in the inner city, we never get Teacher Appreciation gifts! So it was nice to have a reminder to check that calendar and make some gifts for Kayla's teachers this week!!

Just a reminder that you have 3 more days to post a comment on my blog to win some fun stuff from Scrapbook Bakery!

Hope everyone is doing well and I hope to get some fun things made this week for Teacher Appreciation!

Scrapbook Bakery

Wow! It's been so long since my last post! It's amazing how quickly time gets away from you!

I just wanted to stop by and post some photos from projects I created from Scrapbook Bakery products! I was so honored to be asked by Heather to be the designer of the month! I was shocked when she first asked me because I do not feel that I belong here with these "famous people"!! It was such an honor to have Heather think that I belonged here! Thanks Heather for believing in me!! : )

I created some projects from the May Green Thumb kit. It was so much fun to play with these bright products! I love the new American Crafts papers, so much fun!! This is the kit that is available at Scrapbook Bakery. The kit includes a clay pot which is not shown here with the image.

I wanted something fun to create for a Mother's Day gift and so I decided to decoupage this pot. I used all of the coordinating papers from American Crafts to create this fun design.

I took pencils and wrapped them in the paper to create flowers. I used Making Memories chipboard for the "blooms". I thought the JellyBelly beans would be a fun treat for Mom. I know how much my mom loves JellyBelly!!!

These are a few of the cards that I created. I thought this might be a fun gift to give Mom along with the cute clay pot. What mom couldn't use some cards?!

I love this layout of Kayla. I tried to make a "Spring-y" page but I just loved this picture of her in the snow so much with this paper that I decided I had to use it!! Fun paper!!!
Finally, this layout is of our new baby Audrey! I plan on using the pocket for journaling of her very scary entry into this world. We have quite a story to tell and I want her to know all about it some day.
Whoops, forgot to include a card with the others for mom!!! (This is my favorite!!)

Well, as I said I was so honored to be choosen by Heather for the Designer of the month on Scrapbook Bakery's website. Even though I am a Designer for the site, I'm not always sure of my talents especially to be included with the likes of all the wonderful ladies who followed before me!!

Since I am so excited to be a part of this I would like to offer those of you who read my blog to post a comment and a name will be choosen on May 8 to win a wonderful gift from Scrapbook Bakery!!! I'm so exicted!! Okay everyone, start commenting! Can't wait to hear from you and to see who will win!!!!!!!! :)