Back to LA

Tomorrow is the day already. Tomorrow is the day we have been waiting for, since the surgery. Tomorrow we are headed back to Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles so they can take these double casts OFF. He will get them off and just go to a single cast on his left leg, so that ankle can heal longer.
He has adjusted so well to having this cast on. I thought it was going to be a very hard month, but it was very easy. He got around all over the house in his "wheelychair". He just pushed himself wherever he wanted to go. He fit in the back of the carts at Stater Brothers and a bit tighter in the Target carts...and those are the only 2 places that we went in this time.
My big little guy is such a trooper. He just takes the issues that life throws at him and takes it with a smile. He adjusts well, and rarely complains.
We are so proud of him, and so excited to see what tomorrow brings.

Christmas Decorations

So I have been in a non festive mood this holiday season. Putting up the tree and the decorations has helped some.

My favorite part of decorating this year was that since I built a mantle over the fireplace I was able to display all of my Santa collection together and hang the stockings from it.
So here are a few of my favorites around the house.

This is our mini 12 days of Christmas tree. My mom got us these ornaments a few years ago and the tree was an after Christmas clearance tree a few years ago as well. There are 12 ornaments, each one painted to go along with the 12 days of Christmas. They are really beautiful ornaments.


The mantle with my santa collection on top and the stockings all hung.

The bookcase with all the snowmen stuff we have.

And finally the tree all decorated. We got a 9 foot douglas fir this year. I fell in love with the tall tree, and we brought it home.

Today I reorganized all my completed scrapbook layouts, and cleaned and perged my scrapbook desk and closet. So I am enjoying the clean space now.

Now to go create on it.

I will share soon my Christmas cards I created this year. I want to wait until I get them out in the mail.

Quick Thanksgiving Name Cards

Just thought I would share this quick little place setting card that I made. It was really late the night before Thanksgiving and while I was trying to finish up some stuff I got the grand idea to make name cards for the table as well.
I used a new download from quickutz for the silhouette. It calls for one leaf, but I cut the same leaf from brown, yellow and orange paper. I cut the card part from green cardstock. After the leaves were cut out I then glimmer misted them. I used coordinating colors on each leaf (Ill have to check the exact names of the colors). Then I made everyones names on the computer with the circle around it. Once I printed those out on cream cardstock, I used my oval scalloped punch to cut them out. I glued those on after the leaves and there you have it. Had I thought about it sooner, or the day before I could have added some pretty ribbon and jewels to them as well, but it was late and I was ready for bed at this point.
Off to work on the Christmas cards some more. Hopefully I can get them all assembled today. We will see though.

Baby Shower Invitations

So another thing I have been busy working on are these baby shower invitations.

My mom is throwing me a baby shower, but I told her she didn't have a choice I was making the invitations. As soon as I found the crib bedding that I wanted, I could invision the invitations in my head. So this is what was born from that idea. It is hard to tell in the picture, but some of the flowers are from glitter paper. The colors of the pp in the back match perfect to the flowers. They all have the same color theme as the bedding.

The printed You're Invited part was a print and cut design from my silhouette. I just sized it to be a little smaller that the 5x7 card and pop dotted it on the final card.

I of course had to make the envelopes match as well. So I just cut some more flowers and glued them to the envelopes. Quick and easy.

The final part of the invitations was that I tied some thin white string around the bottom of the card, and embellished all of the flowers with a white pearl.

I am excited for my mom to get these out in the mail very soon.

Off to run some errands today, and then hopefully I can get the house cleaned up so I can work on the Christmas cards some more today...heck maybe even finish them up (ha ha ha).

Tomorrow we are going to the annual Christmas parade too. I am excited for that becuase the kids always love going, and seeing Santa at the end. I am SO far behind still on my shopping however and that is starting to stress me out....

Halloween Layouts

Finally I am taking the chance to get on here and post some layouts. We have just been so busy lately I just haven't had a spare few minutes to get on here to post them.
This one is of the kids carving their pumpkins. It uses the Pink Paislee Halloween Paper.
All of the green elements I added to the layout were covered with Green Stickles. Gotta love stickles.

This is a layout from the kids all dressed up for Halloween. This one uses the Basic Grey Halloween paper line. The matching sticker sheet came with a sticker that had a witch silhouette in front of a moon. Well it was so small I decided to make one of my own to fit the space I needed. So I just cut a circle from cream paper. Then I cut the witch on her broom out. I inked up the moon just a bit with some old paper distress ink to make it have a "real" look to it. Then I just glued it all on. I really like the way it turned out. I was thinking this would make some cool Halloween decorations for next year to put in the windows.

Well off to finish up the Christmas cards so I can share those. I do have a Thanksgiving placecard to share and a baby shower invitation to share as well. Will get to that tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. My parents and brother and sister in law
are coming over for lunch today and dessert. My wonderful husband has to work graveyard tonight. :( So after we eat it will be nap time. I stayed up way too late last night making cheesecake, cherry pie, deviled eggs and a make ahead breakfast. I am so ready for a nap already lol.
I will share this amazing cheesecake recipe tomorrow. It looks so yummy I don't know if I am just looking forward to eating so that we can get to the cheesecake. I have some layouts to share too, and am hoping to get to those tomorrow.
Until then Happy Thanksgiving. Remember to be grateful for the good things in our lives, as there are so many people with so much less than all of us.

Christmas Card photo Shoot

I wanted to make sure that before little Jacob went in for his surgery I got their Christmas Card photos done. I had great plans to take them somewhere that was full of trees (ya ok we live in the dessert, but thought I could find a park with trees or something). It ended up being really cold that day, and it was the last day we had to take them, and since we were leaving early the next morning we had a ton of things to do. So we just went out front as usual. They turned out though so I am happy. Off to check on my little guy now.

Headed to LA

Today we are leaving for LA for my little guys surgery..be back soon.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Check this out here . I WON.

I won the new mistletoe collection from Making Memories. I can't wait to get it in the mail.

On other notes I was so sick for about 4 full days. It was HORRIBLE. I am so glad that my wonderful husband was off for of those days so he could take care of me and the kids and do all the cooking and cleaning and house stuff.

Now of course I have managed to get the little ones sick...

Off to the grocerry store now though...back to the "routine".

Want to win this?

I am posting this so I have an extra entry to try and win this. If you would like a chance to win as well go HERE
What an amazing give away. If I won I would totally give most of the stuff to my mom since she has roosters in her kitchen.
I would keep all the other stuff for myself.
Good luck to everyone.