My kiddo...

... should interview for the position of Easter Bunny. I'm dead serious. Even though he's clearly NOT a bunny (although he is cute) he could whoop the Easter Bunny's tail. My kiddo is the best stinkin' egg collector I've ever seen.

We had our first ever Easter Egg Hunt this past week with our Mommy & Me group and the kid was so into it. As I stared out into the field dotted with pastel eggs I was worried he wouldn't have a clue what to do when they blew the whistle. Standing in the crowd of other moms and tots I felt like we'd be lucky if he even could get to an egg before all the other kids grabbed them away. But oh, were my worries unfounded. That whistle blew and I bent down to hand Ben his basket, but he was already gone. I turned around to find him and saw him running back to me with an egg in each hand. Being the proud mama and scrapbooker that I am I immediately dropped the basket and fumbled for my camera. Before it turned on Ben had two eggs in his basket and was galloping back to me with two more in his hands... and a third nestled safely under his happy chin. Just like that he had 5 eggs.

And this is where my chest puffs up and I get all chocolate pudding inside. My boy. Such an egg collector. *sniff*

I mean, Ben was like a pro out there. It's like egg-hunting is in his blood, streaming through his veins. Pure instinct: FIND EGG, PICK IT UP, PUT IN BASKET. Repeat until tiny little plastic basket is overflowing, then pretend you're eating the eggs. Cuz brightly colored eggs are yummy, right? Totally!

Busy, Busy Brookie!

I have been quite busy with scrappy things! I printed some more photos and BAM instant inspiration... just having new photos in my hand. I decided to take the time to bring each photo into Photoshop CS2 and get them printed in the sizes I needed them. I created a 8x10 canvas and dragged my photos into it... then I color corrected them and cropped them. When I picked them up from the printer all I needed to do was cut them apart. It was a huge time-saver in the end. I also found it's much cheaper this way, too. Anyways... I have posted my new layouts to the scrapbooking gallery at Two Peas (see link on the right column) but wanted to share a few with everyone here.


This first one (above) was a challenge for me because I had so many photos I wanted to include... but I forced myself to keep it to one page only (I'm not a fan of 2-page spreads because I hate having to do two pages with the same papers, etc... I guess I'm just too ADD-like to focus on two pages). Another challenge was the colors. The yellow swing, blue jeans, brown mulch, green trees, faded red... it's not that there were too many colors it's just that I don't have many papers in these tones. I went deep into my reserves and found this old Basic Grey plaid paper... it was perfect. Then I decided to make blue a focus and the back side of a Fancy Pants "free spirit" paper was the ideal shade. Finally, a scrap of green floral (Autumn Leaves I think) added a spash of "life". I used the wonderfully yummy MM ledger paper for the title plate along with my Martha Stewart letter stamps. I was glad it all came together! Despite all the patterns it doesn't feel overdone. And, oh, isn't my boy so cute at the playground??? *squee* I just love that little guy!

This one (above) is an old baby photo of yours truly. I let myself really play with this page and did some hand-journaling & words. I even did my journaling on the big white space on the photo with a special non-smear pen. The striped paper is Basic Grey and the polka Dot is Sassafras Lass. The buttons... well, yes, I did go crazy with them! But there was this freaky shirtless guy in the photo right behind my little baby head. I never even noticed him in the small original photo, but this 5x7 one made him very noticable. My solution was a halo-like mass of buttons. I quite like it. ;)

Lastly, this page... I went way out of my comfort zone. I really pared it down and let it speak for itself without a gob of embellishments and patterns. My baby photos had so many conflicting tones and didn't really "match" but I wanted to keep them color because I DO want to remember that green dress and yellow jacket. :) I decided to group them in an organized way in the center of plain white textured cardstock (gotta love Bazzill) with a splash of coordinating color on the bottom. The brown felt flower and vintage button were a perfect accent. On the top I added a quote in a very neutral color... then it was time for a title... and I BLANKED. I didn't want to add anything to it! But I felt it needed some sort of direction in time and space... so I went with these great white chipboard Thickers by American Crafts. A simple title indicating the year of my birth seemed to sum it up just dandy. And it was complete!

I love this page... it's really made me re-think my need to fill pages to the brim with STUFF. I definitely have a new fondness for simple scrapping and will be more likely to do it again and not feel the urge to add and add and add. :)

Anyways, baby Ben will be up from his nap pretty soon here. Better go! I will update later with some super cute photos I took at the Easter egg hunt this morning. Until then!

Musical Brothers

Here's a recent page... it's pictures of my hubby (bottom photo) and his brother playing music together. They're both very musically talented and I didn't really have much to say about the pictures other than that... so I used some stickers to tell the story. The circle where the title is was hand-cut to fit the available space. I used Love, Elsie rub-ons to make the title. The felt shapes are Fancy Pants... I attached them & the buttons by stitching them to the page with DMC floss in a few colors. The chipboard accents are Scenic Route. The patterned papers are Scenic Route and Basic Grey.

I haven't been very busy or inspired lately when it comes to scrapbooking. I think I need to get some new photos printed, maybe that will trigger the creativity? I'm working on a special project for my mother-in-law right now, so it's kind of a nice change of pace. Maybe next week I'll be back to my old scrapping self!

Going to a concert tonight...

Can't wait!!! I'm so excited about the concert I'm headed off to tonight. Casting Crowns! Never heard of 'em? I'll post a little clip here for you to listen:



They're a Christian band. My dad got us tickets that his friend (who has membership seats at the venue) didn't want. So, they're ours... free! 5th row. Niiiice.

Anyways, I'm off to spend some time with my dad, mom and sister-in-law. It'll be nice to have a free night without my guys. ;)

Didn't get much scrapping done today but I have 3 LO's in the works. So maybe tomorrow I'll find more time to finish them.

Have a great weekend!

Magical... or something

May I point out a few things of interest in this photograph (the best photo taken of us out of the two days were were at Disney):

1. We are both wearing camo shorts. This was not an accident or some kind of oops-we're-matching thing. It was actually planned... although I am now regretting it immensely after seeing this photo. Immensely. It looks like we just came from the Bass Pro shop or something! LOL!

2. I need a tan.

3. This is a nice picture of the magnificent Cinderella's Castle, huh? What castle, you say? Well, maybe the castle would have looked nice in the photo. However we are almost complely obstructing it. It's coming out of our heads! And don't even mention the street light. *sigh*

4. Notice the sea gull over to the left? I was dodging those buggers the entire time. I've seen them poop on people's heads and did NOT want that to happen to me. It seems the gulls are a serious issue here... there were tons more of them than the last time I was at Disney (about 3 years ago).

5. The girl in the black pants to my left... is her leg... broken? It's bent at such an odd angle. Totally creeping me out.

6. The fanny pack. Yes, I went there.

Now tell me how I am going to scrap this photo? Talk about a challenge!!! :)

Busy, Simple & In-Between

Well, when it comes to scrapbooking I wouldn't say I have a certain "style" that I tend to stick with. Sometimes I feel like doing a quick page with minimal embellishments and other times I can't stop adding things! These past few days I've done three very different pages. One I feel I went a little overboard, one is plain (too plain?) and the other is just right. Can you guess which is which?


Just to update you about Ben and our upcoming Disney trip... it turns out he has croup. It's contagious and even though he got steroids and a breathing treatment on the nebulizer, he will not be well enough for Disney on Friday. I wouldn't dream of dragging him there in that condition, especially since there was already a 50% chance he would be miserable in perfect health! :) Also, the doctor didn't say this but after some research I found out that the steroids do suppress the immune system a bit. And the last thing I want is for him to pick up something else! Poor baby! The funniest part of this all is that he will most likely have an even more magical time at his grandparents house than Disney could have ever offered! It was honestly for our enjoyment more than his. And now we will get a romantic vacation for ourselves that we would have never arranged on our own if this hadn't happened. Everything seems to have been divinely arranged for us.

It will break my heart to leave Ben feeling sick, but he is in expert hands with my mom and dad. Hopefully he will be much better by Friday. It will still be hard for me to leave him. Does that ever go away, though? It seems like everyone I talk to says it is tough to leave their kids. I think it will be less tough on Saturday morning when, for the first time since his birth, I will sleep in with absolutely no reason to wake up at any particular time. Amen! ;)

Sick... again.

I just can't believe this... Benjamin is sick again! We had 5 days of non-sickness and then BAM! Sick once again. He came down with a fever yesterday and then came the hacking cough deep in his chest. We've got an appointment with the Ped at 9:45 a.m.

Here's the worst part: we're supposed to be going to Disney World on Friday!!!! :( AGH! I hope hope hope he is better by then. If not, we might have to go without him and leave him with Grandma and Grandpa because our Disney hotel reservations are non-refundable. It would be awful to not have him there... but it would be even worse for us to drag a sick baby around the park. Although, a little mini vacation just hubby and me wouldn't be bad. We haven't gone on a vacation just the two of us since 6 months before he was born. Maybe this is a divine intervention? ;)

As for scrapbooking, I've been busy but haven't gotten to photograph the layouts yet. Right now it looks like rain, but maybe this afternoon the sun will shine again and I can go out to take pictures of them. We'll see.