On the Move

December 5th-8th

2011-12-12T10:45:00.003-05:00

I'm only a few days behind with my December Daily album, but many days behind updating the blog (surprise, surprise!). Before I get to Dec 5th, first I want to share the redo from Dec 3rd. I didn't like the way I had originally used a landscape-oriented photo on the right side, so I changed it to a collage instead (inspired by one of Ali Edward's collages that she posted). I left a few spots blank so that I could fill them with embellishments. I like the way it turned out MUCH better than it was originally, so I'm glad I spent the time to redo it:

Now on to some new days. Dec 5th:

Dec 6th is all about little Grayson, how he is SO very active and keeps me on my toes all day long. I really like how these two pages turned out:

December 7th is all about Avery, and how excited she was for her first day eating lunch at Preschool (it's the little things in life, you know?):

And lastly, December 8th. The sunrise was amazing that morning...

Not too many Christmasy events going on for us these days, but I'm totally ok with that. It's a snapshot of our lives right now and I know I'm going to love looking back on this album. We did have a much more Christmas-oriented weekend, and I hope to get those pages completed soon!

December 1st-4th

2011-12-05T10:12:00.006-05:00

December is upon us, yay! Here are the first four days from my December Daily album:

Day 1

This is the first year we are doing the Elf on the Shelf. We watched the show that was on CBS last week, and ever since Avery has been asking when we would be getting an elf. I had always planned for it to arrive on the 1st of December, so she had to wait a few days. She was excited to get the package from Santa. All day long though she kept telling me how the elf couldn't REALLY fly, it wasn't REAL. She said it over and over...I think she was trying to convince herself. I just kept telling her...we'll have to wait and see! She was very surprised the next morning to see that it had moved, and has been excited to go look for it each morning since. I'm not sure if she really believes the elf is magical or not, but it's a fun little tradition nonetheless.

With this page all I had to do was stick the foundation page in the typewriter and type up some quick journaling, then add Avery's photo above it with a strip of washi tape. I also added two more strips of washi tape below with the number sticker, and I stitched the white cardstock onto the page. Done. Very quick and easy....which is the only way I'm going to finish this thing in December.

Day 2:

The 2nd wasn't very exciting...I spent the whole day cleaning and making food for our party the next day. The only picture I could think to include was one of the chocolate covered grapes I was making (probably nicer to look at than a mop and bucket, or toilet bowl cleaner, or laundry pile, don't ya think?).

For this page I already had the background page of stamped/embossed Christmas sentiments done. I added the tag, with typed journaling (and a little bit of stitching), along with some chipboard snowflakes and letters. Again, quick and easy.

Day 3:

I'm not sure about this page yet. It really bothers me that the picture on the right is turned to the side, but that's the only way I could fit it on the page as a 6x8. I don't know...may have to do a collage or something over there instead. Anyway, the journaling was typed on the cardstock and then I added the ornament and number sticker, the joy stamp (which I then embossed), and the ribbon. Another quick page.

Day 4:

Since we didn't actually do much yesterday and I didn't take any photos, I decided to include these pictures from when we went to the zoo lights in November. I like how this page turned out. The four and circle were stamped and embossed, and the "merry & bright" is a sticker from the Echo Park Holly Jolly collection pack. I also added two pieces of washi tape on the smaller photo, and that's about it!

I'm loving how fast the pages are coming together, hopefully things will continue this way. If you made it this far, thanks for looking!

December Daily 2011 Foundation Pages

2011-11-18T09:47:00.007-05:00

Christmas is fast approaching (the most wonderful time of the year!), and I'm excited to once again document our holiday events in a December Daily album. You can see my previous albums here, here and here. This year, I wanted to use some non-traditional colors, and make it a fun, bright album. I used mostly Echo Park's Holly Jolly paper line.

I decided to make my foundation pages 6"x 8", and I made my own album cover (see below), using just some cardboard with the paper glued to it. I'll probably be going back and using Mod Podge on top, but I haven't gotten that far yet. I did a little bit of stitching on the front cover, and the "Merry Christmas," "Life's Little Moments," "2011" and "december" are all stamps from separate manufacturers. The reindeer sticker is from the Holly Jolly line as well:

For my foundation pages, I wanted to use a couple different templates repeated several times throughout the album (but using different patterned paper and embellishments). I'm hoping this will create a uniform look and also make it a little easier on me to complete the album in December (the last album took me until SEPTEMBER of this year to finish, HA! Slacker! But, I had a newborn to attribute to my tardiness ;) I'm hoping to actually finish this one in December. I'll probably regret putting that down in writing, but oh well! The basic setup for my album will be to have a 6x8 page on the left for journaling and adding embellishments etc., and the 6x8 page on the right will be a full page photo from that day.

The first three photos are using the same design template. I used different PP on each, and stamped the numbers above the PP, using red ink for the number I wanted to highlight:

Below are three more pages using a different design (BTW, I haven't numbered most of the pages...leaving it a bit more flexible, so I can decide while I'm completing the pages each day which design to use). I used Washi tape at the top of the PP on these:

And another design, using the same stamps from the front cover (I'll either use the center area to journal in or just to add the number for the day, including the journaling directly onto the photo for that day in Photoshop):

I left these pages pretty simple, just stamping and embossing a background image, leaving more flexibility for the design on these days:

I probably should have photographed the following three separately, because it looks a bit chaotic with them all side by side like this, but for these pages I intead to add a white journaling strip in the largest section of each page. I left this cardstock off the page for now. The journaling on these pages will most likely be typed, and I'll use these pages for the days that I have a longer story to tell:

And finally, the last template (I have a few pages using the same design, just didn't photograph them all). I plan to add a small photo to the top portion of this page and some journaling typed below.

If you made it this far, thanks for looking! Hope you come back to check out my finished pages in December!

Valentine's Day Cards

2011-02-07T14:25:00.002-05:00

I made some cute valentines for Avery to pass out at school, that apparently have already made the rounds on the blogosphere (mostly last year I think?). But I had never seen them, and when Julie posted this link on Facebook, I knew I had to make them for Avery to pass out in class (thanks Julie!). They were so easy to make, and I think they just turned out adorable.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!

December Daily...Dec 14-17

2011-01-12T13:42:00.004-05:00

I'm going to try to get this post done while both kiddos are napping, so I may not be able to give a whole lot of detail about each page. These are the pages that I had already completed in the album but just hadn't had the chance to post yet. First up, December 14th:

The film strip is from Designer Digitals (Katie Pertiet). I changed the photos to black and white because there were just too many colors going on in the pictures. The circle journaling spots are from Jillibean Soup.

On the back of this page I cut out another page from the Holidays with Matthew Mead magazine. It fit the size I needed perfectly. I added a strip of ribbon at the top and bottom to cover up some text from the magazine that I didn't want showing.

The next page (December 15), uses a baseball card holder. The top right is a piece of felt, the bottom right is a bingo card from Jenni Bowlin that I used for the date, just circling the number 15. The bottom left is a felt snowflake sticker that I added to the outside of the sheet.

On the back are three pictures from around my house, and then the bottom right I adhered the same felt snowflake on the outside of the sheet, to mirror the one on the front.

On the right side I added in a 4x6 photo, seen below, of our mantle and stockings. On the photo I added a semi-opaque white strip towards the bottom with the words "The stockings were hung by the chimney with care."

For December 16 I used another page from the Holiday with Matthew Mead magazine, and stamped the circle and number 16 in the white space. I thought this title worked well with the pictures I had for this day, which were of Avery and I making Christmas cookies. This was adhered directly on the back of the 4x6 stocking photo. Pretty simple.

The right side of day 16 was all done in photoshop, and printed on an 8x10 photo sheet (trimmed down to 8x8).

My December 17th page includes quite a few pages. This was the day of Avery's Christmas performance at preschool. Since my photos include so many of her classmates though, I've decided not to add those pages to the blog, since I don't feel like spending the time to blur out their faces. Sorry! I will add the last page, though. This is the back of a file folder that I added patterned paper to (from Jillibean Soup). Then I made a pocket by sewing a piece of black felt to it. On the felt I added a felt snowman and snowflake, and a beaded candy cane that Avery made in preschool.

Inside the pocket I included a photo of the wreath ornament that Avery made as a gift for me and her dad at preschool.

I also included the reindeer hat that she was wearing in her performance, which was made out of her handprints, and two letters that her teachers sent home. One was Avery's letter to Santa, which was basically some scribbles on a piece of paper, which she told her teachers "these are toys." The second letter was Santa's response to her letter. I thought all of these items were pretty cute and worth holding onto.

So that's my album as up to date as it is right now. I'm itching to finish it, but my guess is the only time I'm really going to have to finish it up is when Avery is in school. My evenings tend to get a little hectic with getting the kids to bed (and we're still trying to figure out our evening routine with Grayson), and I've been hitting the sack right after the kids are down to try to get as much sleep as I can. That being the case, it'll probably take a while for me to complete, but I'll be sure to update the blog as I go.

Baby Grayson

2011-01-10T13:50:00.003-05:00

There's been an obvious disruption in my December Daily album posts, but for good reason. We welcomed this little guy into our world on December 28th. He was born at 2:55am, weighing 7 lbs, 14 oz. I've been meaning to get photos up on this blog for the past week, but, well, life took over I guess and I've been spending more time doing laundry and dishes, cleaning up spit-up, and changing dirty diapers than I have on the computer. But, without further ado, here he is:

My water broke around 10:30pm (while I was in bed trying to get some sleep, which is easier said than done when having contractions fairly consistently), we were at the hospital between 11:30 and midnight, and three hours later we had a baby! It was crazy fast, and crazy painful, but I did get the epidural, and once that kicked in things were smooth sailing.

I hate being in the hospital... with all the poking and prodding they do, you can't get any rest. So we were there for all of about a day and a half, and then we went home.

I've been lucky to have my mom and my mother-in-law here since giving birth to help out. So I've been able to get plenty of rest, which has helped tremendously with my recovery (it also helps that Grayson has been sleeping like a champ at night). I'm feeling great this time around, which I definitely couldn't say when I had Avery. Yesterday was my first day being on my own, with no help from the grandmas, and with Abe at work. The day went pretty well. I ventured out for the first time on my own with both of them, to Avery's dance class, without any problems. Yay!

As for Avery, she is definitely the proud big sister. She is adjusting so well to having the baby here.

She thinks everything Grayson does (with the exception of crying) is "so cute," and spends most of her time around him with a big smile on her face.

That's all for now! I'm off to do yet another load of laundry (boys sure are messy).

*I'm hoping to get back to the December Daily album fairly soon. I have a few additional pages finished that I haven't yet posted on the blog, and then I think I need to do about 8 more pages to complete the album. Depending on how the baby cooperates, those eight pages may take me eight months to finish, but I'm really hoping to get it all done much sooner than that!

December Daily...December 12th and 13th

2010-12-15T10:31:00.002-05:00

For the 12th, since we didn't do a whole lot, and since we got our first real snowfall of the season, I thought I'd do a page with a picture of the outside of our house. The picture above is the photo I used on the page, with journaling.

And here's what the page looks like. I used the same paper that I used on the front cover of my album, though you can't tell in this picture that it has the tone-on-tone white polka dots. I rounded the corners of the page as well as the bottom two corners of the picture, then stitched the picture with zig-zag stitching. For the title I used Thickers, and for some of the letters I just traced the thickers and hand-stitched the letter, just to change it up a little bit.

For the 13th, I didn't use a photo. The day for me was all about my doctor's appointment and finding out whether or not we'd be having our baby later this week. I was disappointed to find out that the answer is no, we will not be induced since I'm not dilated enough yet. It's the right decision, not to do the induction and to wait until my body and the baby are ready, but I was sure hoping to get a different answer that day! I had a little pity party for myself on the drive home from my appointment, and then I got over it and am now content to wait it out and see when this little guy is ready to join us on his own :)

The paper I used as my background came from the Holiday with Matthew Mead magazine (some really pretty photos in there, I have a few others in mind to try to include in the album as well). I cut the tag out using my Cricut and stitched it on with red thread, then stamped the number 13 before writing out the journaling. Here's a closeup of that:

And that's it. A simple page, but I didn't feel like it needed too much with all that was going on in the background.

December Daily...December 11th

2010-12-14T15:31:00.004-05:00

December 11th for us was a very busy day, so I have lots of pages in my album for that day. We went to a Breakfast with Santa with some friends, so the first page is Avery's picture with Santa. I couldn't believe she actually sat on his lap...never thought that would happen. For this page I printed a 6x8 photo, and then used a scallop border punch on the edge. I attached the photo to the red polka dot patterned paper with zig zag stitching. On the photo I added my journaling in Photoshop (using the 20% opacity text box that Ali Edwards had a tutorial about on her website). I also added in some of the Christmas Cut-ups from Katie Pertiet (which I got from Designer Digitals last year).

Here's a closeup of the journaling. You can also see the felt present that I added with the number 11 on it. I also attached a safety pin (from Tim Holtz).

On the back of this page is an 8x8 photo of Avery rock climbing, which the kids started doing after their visit with Santa (the Breakfast with Santa took place at a Fitness Center). Sorry about the glare on the photo.

Here's a better look at the left side page:

And the right side:

On the back I did some hand journaling and added a photo of Avery ice skating that Abe had taken with his I-phone.

Then I had just a few more photos that I wanted to include, so I just attached two 4x6 photos back to back and punched holes for the rings. I added a border on both photos with white pen. Here's a rare photo of the three of us (we never seem to be able to get a good photo of our family, so I'm glad we were able to get this one).

And then here are the two preggos, ready to pop! Holly's due in January, and I have just about a week and a half left until my due date. Every time we've gotten together (and had our cameras available) during our pregnancy we've been sure to take a picture of our growing bellies. I'm pretty sure this is the last photo we'll get to take before I give birth, but maybe not! Who knows how long I'll go and if we might get together again before then...

Phew! That's a lot for just one day. I'm working on days 12 and 13 now. Hope to have them up tomorrow.

December Daily...December 9th and 10th

2010-12-11T10:24:00.005-05:00

Here we are at Day 9. By this point I'm starting to lose a little bit of my mojo. It's definitely difficult to keep this up every day, but I'm determined to do it, and I do like how the album is coming together so far.

On the 9th, I hadn't taken a picture all day, and by the time I was finished making the cinnamon rolls that I decided to bake, it was after dinner and dark outside. So by the time I finally decided to actually take any pictures, it meant that I had no daylight left for a nice photo. Since I absolutely hate the way my pictures look indoors with the flash on, I decided to just use the pics without the flash. They're not great either...they have that yellowy look to them and are slightly blurred. I really need to learn more about how to take photos to avoid these issues {sigh}. Someday.

So anyway, the not-so-great photos are adding to my lack of motivation. But, trudge on I must. I happened to see this post on Ali Edward's blog of a page she recently did for Hero Arts, and I decided that the layout would work perfectly for the photos I had. I went ahead and pretty much copied the layout to a T, so I could hopefully get over the hump.

So, here's my page for December 9th. There's a lot that I like about it, but one major thing I disike - I stitched the border around the outside of the photos way too far in, and I just hate the placement of it. I wish I could take it off, but unfortunately stitching can't be undone, so I'll learn to live with it :). I do, however, like the zig-zag stitching between the photos and the patterned paper. I made a tag out of polka dot felt I had on hand and added a "Countdown to Christmas" sticker to it, where I circled the number 9.

The journaling around the photos reads:

"I've been craving homemade cinnamon rolls lately so I decided to make Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls today. Unfortunately they didn't live up to my expectations because the dough didn't rise like it should have. Guess I'll have to try again!"

Getting that page done did get me over the hump, because I also was able to whip out the page for December 10th last night as well. I just used the back of the page from the 9th, which is patterned paper from Jillibean Soup. This picture was taken at the Widlights at the Zoo (and if I'm being honest, it wasn't taken on the 10th - we went to the zoo back in November when it was a little bit warmer, but I feel like it's part of the holiday celebrations, so it should be included in the album. I didn't have any other photos for the day, so this was a good add-in).

Journaling reads: "Even though this picture of Avery is super blurry, I still thought it was super cute of her with her hot chocolate"

I cut out a portion of the brochure that we had gotten at the zoo that night and added it to the bottom, along with a few felt snowflakes and the Jenni Bowlin bingo card (where I stamped a circle around the number 10). Easy peasy.

December Daily...December 8th

2010-12-09T13:40:00.004-05:00

Today's page took little time at all since I had premade the envelope when I put together the foundation pages for the album. This page is dedicated to Avery's Letter to Santa. I traced "dear Santa" onto the front of the envelope using some chipboard letters from MM. Then I painted with red and green to fill in the letters. After the paint dried I added the faux stitching with white pen around the letters and as a border.

The letter is made up of white cardstock. I added the strip of red cardstock (that I punched with the threading waters border punch), and the green polka dot ribbon at the top, then I stitched across these with red thread. Next I used a few stamps from Art Warehouse, in Cranberry Chalk ink, and then drew lines on the page. Once that was complete Avery and I sat down and she dictated to me what she wanted on her list. My favorite is Girl Toys, "cause I'm a girl" she says.

Then I had her sign her name at the bottom, and took a picture of her doing this and added it to the back of the letter.

And that's it for Day 8!

December Daily... December 5th and 6th

2010-12-08T14:09:00.003-05:00

Here we are at day #5. We had a pretty lazy day here at the house on Sunday, so I didn't have anything specifically for that day that I wanted to document. Instead I decided to take some photos of the nursery and write down some of the diy projects I accomplished in there. Here is the front page for the 5th. The red cardstock is cut to 6x7" and the photo is a 4x6. I drew the white line around the edge for a border on the cardstock and photo. Then I attached the photo onto a piece of 6x8 patterned paper and folded it so that it could be lifted to reveal some additional photos (which you'll see below).

Inside are 5 pictures cut to 2x2", and then I just wrote a little bit of journaling describing each photo (see closeups below).

And then here is the back of Day 5. I repeated the white border on the cardstock and photo. Kept this pretty simple, not sure if I'll embellish this anymore or not.

And Day 6 is all about Avery's dance class. I decided to change the photos to black and white, so they didn't clash with the rest of the album. I added a little bit of journaling in Photoshop right on the larger picture. The page is 8x8 and the large photo is 4x6, with the smaller photos below being 2x2. I stitched a red border around the block of photos and added some baker's twine between the large and small photos. I stamped the circle and number 6 using Ali Edwards' December Daily stamp set from Technique Tuesday, and cut it so that it is just a half circle. Then I rounded the corners to complete the page. This is probably one of my favorites in the album so far...clean and simple.

The back of this page repeats the layout of the front:

Oh, and I ended up finishing the back of day 1, which I did not have completed at the time I originally posted that page. So, I thought I would show you what I added there. It's an 8x8 photo of Avery kissing my big preggo belly, which I think is just a really cute picture, and appropriate to the theme of day 1, where I wrote about how we are anticipating the birth of kiddo #2. I trimmed the photo to match the front of the page, and then drew a border in white just to add a little something to it. Quick and easy, and I really like how it turned out.

December Daily....December 4th

2010-12-07T14:41:00.003-05:00

My December Daily page for the 4th uses a baseball card holder sheet, cut down to only utilize four slots. I rounded the edges of all the pictures and patterned paper in each slot. The pictures are all from the Christmas party that we went to at the Corbin's house. Usually, we have the party at our house, but this year I just wasn't up to all the work it entails, and Annalisa very sweetly offered to have it at her house instead. The unicorn that Avery is sitting on has been passed around in our White Elephant gift exchange for many years now at this party. It's the one present all the adults try to avoid receiving, but the kids love it!

I tried to get a closeup shot of the card with the title on it, only because I wrote on it with white ink too, but it's not showing up well in the pictures. You can see it better in real life.

Here's the back. I didn't do much embellishing with this page. I did stamp "favorite traditions" on the bottom left photo, using the December Daily Ali Edwards stamp set from Technique Tuesday.

And that's all for Day 4! I have day 6 complete, but still need to finish up day 5 before I post. Hopefully I can get to that tonight and will be able to post more tomorrow. Thanks for looking!

December Daily...December 2nd and 3rd

2010-12-05T11:35:00.003-05:00

For December 2nd, I decided to scrap whatever foundation page I had previously put together, and just went with a 5 x 7 photo. We started putting up our tree on the 2nd, and this photo is of Abe sitting behind it for quite some time trying to figure out why a strand of lights wasn't working. I added an Ali Edwards Title and Journal Photo Overlay , changing the foreground color to white, and erasing the title and line towards the bottom of the overlay. Then I added "December 2" directly on the photo in Photoshop, at the bottom.

Here's the back. Just a white piece of cardstock. I typed out the journaling in Photoshop, again using an Ali Edwards Title and Journal Photo Overlay. This time I changed the foreground color to red. I used Stickles (Candy Cane Red) to go over the "Today" title at the bottom, and stamped "December 2nd" in red (from the Ali Edwards December Daily stamp set at Technique Tuesday). Pretty simple.

On the 3rd, I again didn't use the foundation page I had already set up, and instead focused on just the photos. I took a scrap piece of cardstock and adhered two 4x6 photos one on top of the other, so the page is 6x8 overall. In photoshop, I added Katie Pertiet's Christmas Cut-Ups (I couldn't find these on the Designer Digitals website anymore, but she has a new holiday version out this year which is similar) to look like ribbon between the two photos (I just added five of the same "December Memories" cut-up directly next to each other to make one long line). I then rounded the edges of the page and stitched a border in red. The canvas star is from Jillibean Soup and the number 3 is from Creative Imaginations.

On the back I repeated the "December Memories" cut-ups at the bottom of the photo, and then added the patterned paper below to write my journaling (PP is from Basic Grey).

And that's it!

December Daily...December 1st

2010-12-01T14:52:00.002-05:00

And so it begins! Here is my first page in the December Daily album. On the left is the backside of the album cover. I'm feeling like that needs a little something added to it, but we'll see if I end up doing anything there.

I freehanded the outline of this page, and cut it out in black felt. Then I stitched a border around the edge with red thread.

I added some hidden journaling by using a long strip of patterned paper, with white cardstock inside where I typed out and printed my journaling. I added two buttons to the patterned paper before adhering it to the cardstock, so that I could wrap baker's twine around them to hold the top and bottom together.

Inside is a bit of a reflection on how much we have been anticipating this month due to the upcoming birth of our little boy, and my feelings and expectations about it all. I also added one of the ultrasound pictures to the bottom of the journaling page (which I scanned in and added in Photoshop).

So far I haven't added anything to the back of this page, although I have a couple of ideas. More tomorrow...hopefully.

2 Weeks? Aaaaaaah!!!

2010-12-01T07:00:00.002-05:00

For those who have requested a recent picture of the baby bump, this one was taken on Thanksgiving:

I went to the doctor on Monday for my 36 week checkup. He made the comment that we could be having this baby in three weeks, if all goes well, to avoid being in the hospital on Christmas day (which we would like to do). He's talking about possibly inducing on the 16th or 17th. But when I looked at the calendar after he left the room, that's really more like 2 1/2 weeks (and now it's pretty close to just 2 weeks). That piece of information sort of hit me like a ton of bricks. It's not that I haven't been looking at the calendar, because I have. But I guess since we weren't even in the month of December yet, and my due date is the 25th, it felt like I still had a month. Well, not anymore! I still have lots to do, not necessarily to prepare for the baby, because most of that is done, but mostly to prepare for Christmas. If none of it got done, it would be fine, we would just figure it out later, but that doesn't change my new-found sense of urgency to get some things crossed off my list!

At the appointment the doctor checked me and I am only 50% effaced and not dilated at all (but the baby is head down, so that's good). He said my cervix needs to catch up in order to even do the induction when he's talking about doing it. So it's possible the baby's birth date could be a little later than currently anticipated I guess, if my cervix doesn't cooperate. We'll just have to wait and see!

December Daily 2010

2010-11-23T13:12:00.002-05:00

As the end of the year is fast approaching, I've decided to once again participate in Ali Edward's December Daily project . December is probably my favorite month of the year, and this year in particular will be a momentous one for our family, since I am due on the 25th with our second child. I know that I'll want to have all the memories leading up to the birth documented, as well as that first week or so after he's born. While it will be an extremely busy and hectic time, making it hard to complete the album, it will be so worth it if I actually do finish it.

I have started working on the foundation pages for the album, but haven't finished them completely yet. I have about 7 days missing, but I'm not sure if I'll actually add anything in prior to December for those missing pages, since I know I'll probably do a few all digital pages, which will take up those slots. I also haven't put numbers on any of the pages, since I know these will change once I get into completing the book. For that reason, I'm not going to photograph the inner pages right now. They're very basic and not interesting enough to warrant all the time to photograph and add them to the post. They'll be very similar to last year's album ... a mix of transparent sheets, envelopes, patterned paper and baseball card sheets etc.

I did take a picture of the front cover though:
I'm using two sheets of an acrylic album as my front and back cover. Under this is an 8x8 piece of Bazzill glazed cardstock , which has tone on tone white polka dots (you can see these a little better in the picture below). I stamped "december" and "20ten" with versamark ink and then heat embossed them in red (stamps are from Technique Tuesday, Ali Edward's December Daily set ). Then I added the "2" and "5" chipboard numbers, which I painted in red first, then added Glossy Accents and Martha Stewart clear microbeads on top of that. The canvas star is from Jillibean Soup, and I think the "days" stickers are from Making Memories.

This is a little closeup of the "25" so you can see the clear microbeads. They add some fun texture to the numbers, and I like the way they turned out.

So anyway, that's my front cover. I'm hoping to keep up with the album as much as possible during the month and post the completed pages, just like I did last year. I guess it all depends on when this baby decides to join us, and how chaotic life turns out to be once he's here!

Cupcake Pops

2010-11-09T13:25:00.002-05:00

Abe turned 35 over the weekend. I wanted to make him a cake to celebrate, but he doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, so I knew if I made an entire cake it would go mostly uneaten (or alternatively, I would end up eating the majority of it). So, I decided these little cupcake pops would be the perfect solution. I only used 1/4 of a 13x9 cake, and froze the rest so I can make more cake pops for another occasion. It was just the right amount for a birthday treat, without having tons left over.

I got the idea and recipe for these from the Bakerella website, and just recently bought her new cookbook , which has tons of cute ideas for other types of cake pops that you can make. There's definitely a learning curve when making these. This was my first attempt, and the candy melts I used for the coating were a little thick. I tried thinning it with vegetable oil, as she suggests, but it didn't seem to help much. I'll have to try one of the other recommendations next time. I couldn't seem to get the top and bottom colors to meet in the middle very well, so on most of these there is some cake showing, which you're not really supposed to have.

But, even with their imperfections I thought they were still pretty cute, and best of all they tasted really good. Avery mostly liked the candy coating and left the cake part for us to finish off.

And here's just a goofy shot of Abe and Avery showing how much they enjoy their cake pops:

Some pretty cloths for my baby to vomit on :)

2010-11-02T21:10:00.006-04:00

Lots of kids grow attached to their blankies, and Avery is no different. Although, well, maybe a little different, in that she didn't get attached to a blankie but is instead attached to her burp cloths. She calls them her blankies, though. These are the burp cloths that we have been using since she was born, which are just the basic white cloth diapers that are found at any baby store. It has actually been a blessing that this is what she became attached to, because they aren't one of a kind, and can easily be replaced if we should ever lose them all.

The other day, when we were discussing the upcoming arrival of the newest member of our family, Avery said to me in a very sad voice, "the baby is going to take my blankies." So...I knew I would have to come up with an alternative burp cloth for child #2, so as not to have a constant battle with Avery over which were her blankies vs. her brother's burp cloths.

As luck would have it, I happened to come across this easy tutorial for sewing burp cloths on the Jones Design Company blog. And I thought, well heck, why not just make my own? It seemed easy enough.

So I started sewing.
I used some fabric that I had on hand (the blue floral from the baby's room, and the red plaid that I've had forever), and then I bought a couple 1/2 yards of fabric at Jo Ann's.
This one is made of linen on one side...

and a very soft jersey knit on the other (all of the burp cloths have the jersey knit on one side). The tutorial called for using a terry cloth or a chenille for the soft side, but the terry cloth I found at the store just wasn't all that soft, and I was afraid the chenille would be difficult to sew. This fabric was super soft and I figured would be easy to sew (which turned out to be true). I replicated the double-stitched border that was shown on the tutorial. I thought it made them just a little more interesting.These were super easy to make, and I was able to get 9 finished before running out of fabric. I'll probably make a few more after making another run to Jo Ann's. If I remember correctly, you can never have too many burp cloths.

I think they turned out pretty cute, and best of all, Avery's happy that her blankies are now safe and sound.

Halloween + Nursery Progress

2010-11-01T13:11:00.007-04:00

Hope everyone had a great Halloween. Ours was good, although after dressing Avery up five different times, I can definitely say I'm over it at this point! Thank goodness it was an easy costume (she was Tinkerbell) that didn't take much effort to put on, with no makeup or special hair-do's required. Here are a few pics from our Halloween events:

Avery with her cousins at my sister's house (plus some of her cousin's cousins). It was a great day for a party - nice and warm, and the kids had fun playing the games that my sister planned for them and of course loved all the Halloween treats. I forgot Avery's wings that day:
Avery at school with Abe. We were invited to the school for a Halloween parade and party afterwards. I didn't get many good pictures here. This is just a shot of her during snack time (her favorite part of the school day):
Trick-or-treating with friends on Thursday in Dublin. We added lots more layers under the costume, along with gloves, since it was pretty chilly that night. Avery really got into running door to door and getting candy.

More trick-or-treating. Our neighborhood held "beggar's night" last night, on Halloween. Again, it was pretty cold out, so we just made a loop around the neighborhood and Avery told us she was cold so we went back in after about an hour. When we made it back to the house, I checked the huge bowl of candy that we left on the porch for the trick-or-treaters, and it was all gone! After an hour! I think some kids must have been taking handfuls. I don't blame them...it was good candy :) I was hoping to have some left over for my pregnancy cravings, but no such luck. Guess I'll be raiding Avery's pumpkin.

Speaking of Avery's candy, she asks for candy now about thirty times a day. What do you want for breakfast? Her response, "Umm......CANDY?" What do you want for lunch? "Umm.....CANDY?" What do you want for dinner? You get the idea.

And on to other topics...we're moving along slowly on the nursery. The curtains are done, with exception to being hemmed (have to hang them first and will pin the hem once they're hung, so I can get the right length). Right now we're in the middle of painting. First coat is done, just need to get a second coat on the walls and hopefully that's enough. Then we can start moving things into place and I can post some pictures. I also worked on sewing something else for the baby that I'll post about later this week probably, so stay tuned!

A Peek at My Fall Mantel

2010-10-12T13:27:00.003-04:00

Last week I made just a few changes around the house to make things feel a little more like fall. I changed out a few wall photos that were in desparate need of updating (they had photos in them from when Avery was less than a year old...talk about becoming house blind!) with photos from our recent trip to Leed's Farm. I also changed a few things on our mantel. Nothing drastic (forgot to take a before photo)...I used the same picture frames that were already on the wall (from Ikea), I just changed out the pictures with some pumpkin photos (which, again, were taken while at Leed's Farm).
I also added two lanterns that we typically use outside on our patio, but I thought they'd look kind of cute up here (got these probably five years or so ago from Crate and Barrel, I think), along with a few scattered pumpkins and gourds.

Pretty simple. I didn't want anything too fussy, and didn't want to have to go out and buy a bunch of new things (other than the gourds). I like the change. It makes the family room feel a little more cozy.

It's Pumpkin Time!

2010-10-03T16:45:00.003-04:00

This weekend we went to Leeds Farm to get our pumpkins for Halloween. Our friends Holly and Nate introduced us to this place last year (thanks Holly!) and I'm so glad they did because it's so much fun for kids. Last year, Avery was in a foul mood during our visit and didn't want to participate in any of the activities (other than the tractor-pulled barrel ride). This year was a whole different ballgame. She was in a great mood and had so much fun on all the rides.

Here she is jumping on the giant orange pillow:

And riding the bicycle go-karts with her dad:

Riding the zip line (she did this about 25 times). Luckily we got there pretty early and there were little to no lines:

Oh, and there were pumpkins at the farm too:

Not only did they have regular pumpkins, but also "fairytale" pumpkins, pie pumpkins, and lots of gourds.

We had such a fun time. I didn't make it into any of the photos, but I promise, I was there :) I just played photographer all day.

I love this photo I got of Avery with the pumpkins (she's finally starting to smile for pictures again). It definitely beats any photo I was able to get of her last year at the farm:

If you don't believe me, allow me to remind you of our day with her at the farm last year. This picture pretty much sums it up:

What a difference a year makes! I'm hoping to do a little decorating with our purchases (and with the photos we took) to make the house feel a little more like fall (mainly just changing up our fireplace mantle, which I rarely do, other than at Christmas time). I'll be sure to post photos when/if I get that accomplished.

Crib is Finished!

2010-09-22T10:06:00.002-04:00

Slowly but surely we're making some progress in the nursery. I finished the crib skirt last week, and finally got around to taking a few photos (thank goodness for preschool, and a little alone time for mommy!).

I just did a very simple skirt - no pleats (since I didn't think you'd even notice them once on the bed, with the way the rails are) and no ruffles (it's a boy, and I'm already using a floral fabric...figured I shouldn't girly-it-up any more than it already is). This made it a very easy project to sew - I was able to complete it in the time Avery was at school one morning, so in about 2 hours or so).

Here's a little closeup of the fabric again.

I need to start on those curtains now, but I tell ya, I'm having a hard time gathering up the motivation to start. The fact that I have to do blackout lining on the curtains is really daunting to me for some reason. I'm sure once I start I'll find out that it's not as hard as I made it out to be in my head. That seems to always be the way it goes. Anyway, I need to pick up a few more things at Joann's before I can start that project...hopefully this weekend I'll make some headway there. I'll post more pics of the nursery as soon as more progress is made!

I love Fall

2010-09-19T20:55:00.004-04:00

This is absolutely my favorite time of the year. I love so much about the fall - from college football, to Halloween, to picking pumpkins, to the cooler weather, to this fun activity we did over the weekend:

In case you can't tell from the picture, Avery's holding an apple in her hand, and we're standing in an apple orchard. We went to Bob Lynd's Fruit Farm this Saturday, which we've been doing since before Avery was born, to pick apples.

This year we picked Golden Delicious and Jonathon apples, which are both good for pies and applesauce (both of which I planned on making). My favorite is Honeycrisp, but apparently those are picked pretty early, and we missed them already.

I don't know why I like going apple picking so much, but there's just something about being outside, on a farm, without the distractions of the computer, TV, movies or any other electronics, that is just fun.

Once we filled our bag with apples, we bought a few tickets for Avery to ride this barrel train ride...which she loved.

And I of course had to get her picture next to this adorable sign (this is the first time I've seen it here, but I can see this becoming a yearly tradition. It'll be fun to see how she grows from year to year):

So much fun. If I didn't have enough apples to last us another two months, I would go again this fall!

I made the apple pie on Saturday when we got back and it is delish! Maybe tomorrow I'll tackle the applesauce. Mmmm :)

Crib Bumpers are Finished!

2010-09-15T10:59:00.003-04:00

Well, here they are! I completed the crib bumpers last week, and we just put together the crib this weekend so I could see how they looked inside. I'm really happy with how they turned out, especially given my lack of sewing skills.
Here's a closer look at the fabric on the inside of the bumpers. I found all the fabric at Joann's - this stripe (and the diamond pattern on the outside of the bumpers) is from Nautica. I like the subtle change in blue color with every other stripe.

Here's a closer look at the piping. I had never done piping before, but found it not to be too difficult. My only struggle was trying to get the stitching as close to the cord as possible. I never got it as close as I'd prefer (I think they have special piping feet that can be used on the sewing maching for this purpose - I was just using a zipper foot), but I'm still happy with the result. This floral fabric is by Better Homes and Gardens. I'm going to be using it for the curtains in the room as well as in the crib skirt (which I kind of forgot I would have to make, and now need to go and get more fabric...oops!).

And here's a closeup of the ties. I think I had to make 32 of these total. The most time consuming part was turning them inside out after they were sewn. And getting them sewn into the bumper was more difficult as well, because it got pretty bulky when there were two ties, piping, plus the front and back fabric. I had to hand sew those parts, but it didn't really take me all that long to do.

I'm thrilled with how these turned out, and can't wait to get the crib skirt completed and curtains done as well (not sure when that will happen!), so the room will feel more complete. Then...it's on to painting the walls!

First day of Preschool

2010-09-08T12:45:00.003-04:00

I can't believe my little girl is off to school already. It's just crazy how fast the time goes. She's only going for two days a week, 2 1/2 hours in the morning. Not much time in the grand scheme, but it's still a big step for her, especially since she spends so little time away from me.

We've been talking about school with Avery for a long time now. She hasn't been excited about it at all. Whenever we bring it up she says "not me!" Like, "I'm not going!" Her biggest concern was, of course, that she would be at school without us, and that made her uncomfortable. I realized that this was a whole new world for her, and she had no real understanding of what school meant, so I was hoping that once she got there and met her teachers and the other kids, and realized they were all very nice, that she would be ok with it all.

I took her shoppping for a new outfit yesterday, in an effort to get her excited about getting to wear some new clothes and going to school. I made sure to include tights in the new outfit, since she loves to wear tights. This seemed to work somewhat, and she was happy to get dressed this morning. When I told her I wanted to go out on the porch and take a picture of her with her new backpack, however, her mood shifted. She was starting to realize that we were going to be leaving soon and she wasn't happy about that.
She didn't want anything to do with her backpack, but did seem interested in taking her Tinkerbell lunchbox to school (which she doesn't need at all at school since they don't eat lunch there, but who cares!). So I said great, let's take a picture with your lunchbox, and she stood very somber on the front porch.
We were able to get a little smile to peek through though.

And were soon able to make her laugh.

Abe then pretended he was going to wear her backpack, and that motivated her to put it on herself.

And she finally gave me a pose with her backpack on.

As we drove to school she asked me several times where we were going, and was getting more nervous the closer we got. Little tears were welling up in her eyes, and she said "not now, mommy." It broke my heart. I tried my best to ease her fears and explain all the fun things she was going to get to do.

When we arrived, she didn't want to get out of the car, but somehow gathered up the courage anyway and got out without a tantrum (thank goodness! I was preparing for a meltdown). I brought her to her classroom and started showing her around.

Her mood lightened when she saw all of the fun things in the classroom.

She was especially excited to see that they had stuffed animals. The girl loves stuffed animal dogs. She didn't let go of that black dog the whole time she was there!

Then she found the puzzles on the desks and started playing with those. I stayed for about fifteen minutes and then the parents were supposed to go and hang out in the cafeteria for a little while until it was time to pick them up (the first day was only going to last an hour). I told Avery it was time for me to leave and that I would be back soon to pick her up. She had a little panicky moment and ran after me, grabbing on to my leg. Her teacher came over and explained that it was time for me to go, and to give one last big hug. She did, and then her tears started to flow. Her teacher had to pick her up (because she was trying to leave the room with me) and as I left she was crying and holding her hands out to me. So sad :( I knew that's exactly how it would be when I dropped her off, but it's hard to watch nonetheless. While we were sitting in the cafeteria, the school director came around to let us know that she had checked in to the room and all the kids were doing fine...no crying. So that made me feel much better.

When I went back to pick her up, she had a smile on her face and I could tell that she hadn't been crying in a while. Her teacher said she only cried for a little bit and then found a puzzle that she liked and was able to calm down.

Avery mentioned several times to me "you came back to pick me up!" as if she was surprised that I did. I think she was really worried that I wouldn't come back for her, poor thing.

On the way home she told me "that was fun at school," so I think overall it was a good experience for her and she enjoyed it once she gave it a chance. I hope that she continues to give it a chance and that we can quickly get to a point where we're tear free when I drop her off. We'll see! Friday is her first full day (which is really just a couple hours), so we'll see how that goes.

What? I have a blog?

2010-08-31T14:17:00.004-04:00

My last post on this good ole' blog was February 12th. More than 6 months ago. How pathetic am I? A lot has changed in those six months, the biggest change being that I am now pregnant (about five months along) with our second, and it's a little boy! My due date is Christmas Day. We're very excited.

The fact that I am pregnant is the very reason that I stopped blogging. I swear to you I had morning sickness from the moment I conceived, and for the first 12 weeks I was extremely nauseous and very tired, leaving me little motivation or desire to write any posts. So the first three months go by without writing anything here ...and then I sort of forgot about my little blog.
I want to get back into posting though, so I'm going to do my best to write on here a few times a week (ok, at least once a week). It's an exciting time in our lives right now and I want to be able to look back on it and remember all the little things.

I've been busy lately planning the decor of the nursery. Instead of buying new bumpers for the crib, I've decided to make my own. I'm hoping I don't regret this decision. With all of the design blogs I read on a daily basis, they've really inspired me to think out of the box a little bit with the nursery design. There are so many awesome nurseries I've seen posted lately, and I wanted to try my hand at mimicking them. What I've noticed about these rooms that makes a huge impact is that they all seem to use fabrics that aren't too cutesy or babyish, and they typically don't use bumpers that can be found at Baby's R Us and the like, they use regular fabric and make their own bumpers, pillows, curtains etc. So that is what I've decided to do. And I don't sew. I'm totally flying by the seat of my pants and trying to learn from as many tutorials as I can find on the internet.

Here's the fabric I picked out for the room:

The stripe will be one side of the bumper, and the diamond pattern on the back side. Then I am doing some piping on the top in the floral fabric, and the floral will also be the ties that attach the bumper to the crib. I am also using the floral fabric for drapes in the room (another thing I've never sewn before, ha!).

Right now I'm still in-process on this little (or for me, big) project, but I'll be sure to post photos once it's complete. I'm pretty excited about the possibilities here, but I just hope my lack of sewing skills doesn't completely ruin the idea I have in my head of how the room will turn out.

Anyway, sorry for my very long hiatus, and hopefully I'll be back soon with either the completed crib bumpers, or maybe some other projects I've completed in the last six months. Oh and maybe I'll decide to change out the picture in my header (or I could just wait a few months and it will be completely appropriate again :)

Happy Valentine's Day

2010-02-12T22:30:00.003-05:00

I made these for Abe today, for Valentine's Day. We're enjoying them a little bit early, because really, who can let chocolate covered strawberries sit around?

DIY Pillows

2010-02-08T19:58:00.003-05:00

Browsing through the Pottery Barn catalog the other day I came across some new pillows they have that caught my attention.

These two are made of linen and hemp, and I just really like the rough and casual look of them. I also like the print on the pillows below (they have a few more on their site with numbers on them that are really cute too).

I've been reading a lot of design blogs lately and came across this video from Young House Love. With all these images in my head, I felt inspired this morning while at the fabric store (for a completely unrelated project), and bought a yard of burlap (which is really cheap by the way) and a pillow form. Then I went home and started on my project.

What I decided to do was to make a burlap pillow with the letter D (for our last name) stenciled on the front. I made my stencil with my Cricut (the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge, set to 6"). I put some temporary adhesive on the back of the cardstock, close to the edges of the letter, and adhered it to the center of the burlap. Then I started adding some ink (just the same ink I use on my scrapbooking pages, since I didn't want to buy a whole lot of different materials to do this and wanted the cost to remain low).

Here's what it looked like after I took off the cardstock stencil:

Then started sewing (my sewing skills are reeeeaaaalllly bad...I wouldn't even call them skills. I just barely get by on the sewing machine).

And here's the finished product! Simple, but kind of cute, and it cost me all of $10 :) I was pretty proud of myself when I was finished. Mostly because I actually followed through with a DIY home project that I had in my head, instead of just thinking about doing it. I have so many things I want to do to decorate my house, but I rarely follow through. I hope to change that this year.

Spring Cleaning, in Winter

2010-01-21T13:01:00.004-05:00

Perhaps because it is so cold and dreary and gray outside. Or, perhaps because I read entirely too many blogs and many of them have been focusing on spring cleaning, I have recently been very motivated (and my husband can tell you that this is very odd for me) to do some reorganizing in the house, as well as some deep down cleaning. I guess I'm feeling like it's just so yucky outside, that I at least want the inside of my house to feel clean and fresh. Maybe if I do some spring cleaning around here, I can will spring to get here a little faster. Yeah, I know that aint gonna happen.

Our spice cabinet has been a long-standing source of amusement for my husband. He feels that we have entirely too many spices, and really, more to the point, there are a few in there that we have duplicates of. WHY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH ARE THERE DUPLICATE SPICES IN OUR SPICE CABINET????? It is something he apparently finds maddening, and the minute he sees that I've bought a new spice from the grocery store he immediately goes to the spice cabinet to try to prove that we already have said spice in our inventory. Yes, these are the kinds of things that my husband worries about. It keeps him up at night, I think. I just chuckle.

But...to try to alleviate this potential "duplicate spice" problem, I decided to pull out all the spices from our cabinet and make a list of everything we have. While all the spices were out, I did a thorough cleaning of the inside of the cabinet - lots of salt particles in there - probably could have filled up another shaker with all that salt (but then we'd have two, and we're back to our original problem :). Anyway, I typed up the list and have now posted that on the inside of the cabinet door. This way, if I have a recipe that calls for a spice I don't use often, I can easily go to the list and check to see if I already have it, or if I need to make a trip to the grocery store. Needless to say, this made Abe very happy.

Next, I moved on to the master bathroom. I was reading a blog the other day (can't remember which one) that talked about spring cleaning, and organizing your bathroom under-sink cabinets. She basically said, get a bin (or two), and put everything you need in that bin. If it doesn't fit, it gets tossed. If there's something you want to put in the bin, but the bin is full, you have to toss something that's already in there before adding the new item. I thought this was a good rule of thumb, and went out and bought two bins at Target. I took everything out of my bathroom cabinet and cleaned the inside. I tossed a bunch of stuff that I never use, or that were just old and gross, and I moved a bunch of seasonal stuff (mainly suntan lotion), bulk items, and medicine to the linen closet. I forgot to take a before picture, but here's what it looks like now. I'm loving how organized and clean it is:

Then I moved on to the linen closet. Here's a before shot (it really wasn't too messy before):

And here's the after:

I've put all the medicines and other potentially harmful items to children up on a shelf that Avery can't reach, and put all of our bulk supplies (ie. extra toothpaste, razors etc), and the 500 suntan lotion bottles that we seem to have collected, up on the top shelf.

The biggest thing that I've been doing over the last few days (and will continue doing) is washing our baseboards. I've managed to get the kitchen, laundry room and back hallway, powder room and master bathroom done. Getting all the dust, smudges and general grime off of the woodwork really does make a big difference in how clean the house feels, even though most people probably wouldn't notice that it had been done. Makes me feel better though!

So, I'm going to continue on my cleaning/organizing frenzy (for as long as my motivation keeps up), and hopefully when I'm finally done, Spring will be here and I can go outside and play with Avery instead of being stuck inside doing my spring cleaning!

December 25

2010-01-11T14:12:00.004-05:00

So, here it is! My final page in my December Daily album. I wish I had more exciting photos to use on this day (which you would expect, for Christmas Day), but unfortunately since Avery was sick, our day was really pretty low key. In fact, the photo I used is the ONLY photo I took on Christmas Day. Kinda sad.

Anyway, since Avery's fever finally was gone after her nap that day, we decided we had to get out of the house. The problem...there's NOTHING open on Christmas Day. Except...the movie theater. This would be Avery's first time at the theater. We saw Alvin and the Chipmunks. I've heard other people say it was a cute movie, but Abe and I both thought it wasn't very good. In fact, an hour in when Avery wanted to go home, we gladly said "OK!"

I stapled the movie tickets onto the page, and printed out a small copy of one of the movie posters that I found on the internet. Then I added the photo and stitched across the top and bottom.
On the back is the journaling (pretty much the same thing I wrote above in this post). The "Merry Christmas" is a stamp that I heat embossed. I rounded the corners of the cardstock then did a little bit of faux stitching around the edge. PP on both sides is Basic Grey Wassail from last year.

Here's the original page (I cut off a couple inches since I didn't have a whole lot to fill the page with):

For anyone that made it through to the end with me, thanks for looking, and thanks for the nice comments I've received :) I've really enjoyed doing this album...it was much less stressful than I was thinking it might be, and I think we'll really enjoy looking back through it in Christmases to come.

December 22 and 24

2010-01-10T14:35:00.002-05:00

Getting close to the end now! I went back and finished day 22. Here's the envelope I had to work with (originally slated for Dec 21...I just removed the sticker and replaced it with a 22):
Inside I used a piece of Kraft cardstock to write down our Christmas wishes. The "Holiday Wish List" cardstock sticker is from Little Yellow Bicycle. I trimmed around this on the kraft paper to make it like a little tab at the top. Then I rounded the corners of all sides and drew a white line as a border. Letter stickers are from MM.

For December 24th, I used this acetate sheet, which was originally supposed to be for the 23rd:

I used the back of a Jillibean Soup journaling sprout to adhere the number 24, and inked around the edges. Then I punched a 1/8" hole at the top and in the middle of the acetate sheet, and threaded baker's twine through the holes, tying the journaling spot on with a little bow. It moves around a little when you turn the page, but that's ok with me.

I used an Ali Edwards overlay for the journaling, changing the color to red, and switching out the wording that was originally there to now say Christmas Eve. Our Christmas Eve did not go at all as planned, with Avery getting sick in the morning, which canceled our traveling plans :(

On the back of the acetate sheet (very hard to see the page on the picture below), I adhered another journaling spot (using the same Ali Edwards overlay, just flipping it upside down), where I added the recipe for the french toast that I was making in the picture for the day.

Here is the picture for the day - I traced the acetate sheet onto the back of this page and trimmed it to match. Then I stitched a little border onto the photo, just to add a little something to it.

On the back is some patterned paper and a few pictures of the french toast (the apple mixture is what bakes underneath the french toast...so good). The words "sweet" "tradition" and "celebrate" are cardstock stickers from Little Yellow Bicycle. The arrow is one I had in my stash (don't know who made it) that was plain chipboard. I painted it red and then added stickles on top.

TFL...just one more day to go!

December 23

2010-01-08T11:46:00.003-05:00

You may have noticed I've skipped over the 22nd. That page is an envelope, and I'm going to stick our Christmas wishes in there...just haven't gotten to that yet (hoping to finish up at a crop this weekend, but we'll see). But... I finished day 23 and wanted to post it since I haven't posted one in a while.

This page I originally had slated for the 24th. But given the number of pictures I had for this day versus the next, I decided it was better suited for the 23rd. Glad I left myself some flexibility with numbering the pages so that I could switch things around if I wanted to!

These pictures are from Avery opening her gifts from Santa (Santa came early to our house since we were supposed to go to Cincinnati for Christmas). The photos are all 2.5" x 3.5", to fit into this baseball card protector sheet. I took some inspiration from Ali and used a border punch on the top of the journaling card. Then I put a Santa rub-on (Art Warehouse) in the bottom right corner. The number 23 is on a chipboard snowman (I think from MM) that I had painted white and covered with Glossy Accents. I then adhered this to the felt red and white polka dot piece. I also rounded all the corners of the photos (with my NEW Corner Chomper!).

Journaling reads: "We made a special request to have Santa come to our house early this year, since we will be traveling to Cincinnati to celebrate with my family tomorrow. While Avery was taking her nap, Santa made a special delivery. How nice of him to accomodate our schedule!"

The back page has more photos of Avery opening presents, but the journaling is about her being sick :(. Journaling reads: "Unfortunately today Avery has come down with a fever and a very runny nose. I think you can see in these photos (especially the one to the left) that she isn't feeling well - her eyes just have that sick look, and you can see the raw skin under her nose from wiping it so much. We're just hoping she's feeling much better in the morning so we can still go to Cincinnati."

In the journaling spot at the bottom center, I wrote down the presents that she got from Santa, and tied some baker's twine around the bottom. The cardstock sticker at the top of this (and in the top left slot) are from Little Yellow Bicycle.

Here's the original page:

December 20 (part 2) and December 21

2010-01-05T13:31:00.004-05:00

Here is the back page of December 20th. We had friends from Florida stay overnight and we just bummed around the house in the morning.

This was a canvas page...I painted a little bit with white MM paint on the left and right side, then added the title on top of the paint on the left. The pictures were 4x6's that I cut down to fit into a 7x7 square. There was a small open square then in the center that I covered with the "all I want" embellishment" (can't remember who that's from). I adhered the pictures onto cardstock and then adhered this to the canvas page with Glossy Accents. Then I drew a white line around the border of the pictures.

For December 21 I printed an 8x8 photo of the gingerbread house I decorated, and cut the picture to match the shape of the acetate sheet above it (the number 21 is on the acetate sheet).

This is the back of the page...the red cardstock feels like it needs something to me, so I may add a little something later (if I can figure out what). The pictures are 2x2, and the PP on the left is from Jillibean Soup (Cold Raspberry). The gumdrop "Flair" is from American Crafts.

A closeup of the journaling.

This was the original page. TFL!

December 19 (part 2) and December 20 (part 1)

2009-12-30T14:15:00.006-05:00

My second page for December 19th is all about our Christmas party that we have here at our house with our friends. I took a lot of pictures, and wanted to include most of them, so I decided to do a grid pattern (the design of this page was inspired by a December Daily page that was uploaded into the Flickr group on Ali Edwards' website).

This page is all digital...done in Photoshop Elements. All the photos are 1" x 1". The journaling font is Futura Lt, and the title font is Ma Sexy.

Just a closeup of the journaling.

On the backside I wanted to include a list of the food that we had for the party (this is mainly because I want it as a reference for next year. I couldn't really remember what we had at last year's party, and it probably would have made preparations easier if I could have remembered). I love this glittery polka dot paper from Making Memories. I printed the menu on Kraft paper, then drew a black line around the border. Title letters are from American Crafts, as well as the "Flair" reindeer button at the bottom. The rub-on under the title is from Art Warehouse.

My page for December 20th is one of the canvas pages. I adhered everything onto the page using Glossy Accents. I inked around the journaling strips before glueing them down, and painted a small edging of white paint around the photo. The photo corners were cut using the Cricut Jasmine cartridge (Jillibean Soup paper). The number 20 and "Make Time For Memories" stickers are from Little Yellow Bicycle.

Here's the original page:

December 18 and 19 (part 1)

2009-12-29T12:53:00.003-05:00

I was hoping to do a better job of keeping up with this album, so that I wouldn't be more than a day or two behind, but unfortunately I haven't managed to stay on track. Even so, I'm going to keep chugging along, and hopefully it won't be too long before it will be complete.

So, we're back on day 18. I started the 18th on the back of the magazing cover page I used for the 17th, which was on a file folder.

I printed this photo as an 8"x 6.5" (on 8x10 paper...used the remainder of the paper for the photo on the next page). In photoshop, I added the title "Mommy's Little Helper" (Ali Edwards Handwriting font), and then the text below it (Futura Lt font). Then I just cut the photo around the file folder, wrote "december 18" on the side with a Sharpie pen, and punched the holes. Super easy page!

Here's a closeup of the journaling.

This is part 2 of December 18. I wanted to include another page so I could jot down the things we were doing that day since we were very busy, getting ready for a holiday party we were having at our house on the 19th. I don't love this page, because I didn't plan it out very well. I wish I had included something between the photo and the journaling (like a strip of ribbon or some type of holiday text), but I didn't think about it until after I wrote the journaling, and when I tried to add something, it didn't seem to fit. This page was not originally in the book. I just took some white cardstock and punched the edge with the threading waters border punch. The photo size is 8" x 3.5."

This is the backside. My part 1 for December 19 (I'll have a lot more photos to add in here from our party, so I'll be adding another page). This is a 4x6 photo. I added my journaling right on the photo in Photoshop (I find that so much easier than journaling after the fact on strips of paper or somewhere else, and I like the look of it too). Font is again Futura Lt. I rounded two of the corners before adhering it to the PP.

Here's a closeup of the journaling. Thanks for looking...I hope to do some more tonight to be posted tomorrow!

December 16 and 17

2009-12-21T14:16:00.003-05:00

We've had a very busy long weekend around here, so I haven't been able to post any new December Daily pages for a while. We had a party here on Saturday, and I had to move all of my scrapbooking stuff out of the basement to make way for lots of toys and kids to run around. But, today I've got it all put back together, so I'm back in business!

December 16 is a picture of a box of cookies that I made, as part of a "Mom's Night Out" event. The picture is 4x6, and then I also printed out the 12 different kinds of cookie dough that we made on half of a 4x6, and then cut it to fit to the width of the page. Ric rac and pattened paper are Jillibean Soup, and the number 16 is Little Yellow Bicycle.

A little bit closer look at the journaling.

This is the original page (I just flipped the paper around, since I thought the green Happy Holidays paper went better with the photo on this page, as well as the page for December 15, which faces this page).

December 17 is on the backside of December 16. Journaling reads "This was my first ever attempt at making sugar cookies. It was all going well until I had to ice them. My icing was too runny, which made it very difficult. So, in the end, they aren't very pretty...but they taste good, so who cares!" The letters at the bottom are from Creative Imaginations, and the embellishment in the center is a piece of "Flair" from American Crafts. Patterned Paper is Jillibean Soup.

This is the second page for December 17. This is where I added the number 17. The base of the page is a file folder. I adhered the cover of a Southern Living magazine to the file folder and cut off the excess. Then I added a Jillibean Soup journaling sprout to the left side (the green circle with white dots was already on the magazing cover, with text inside it. I just covered the text with the journaling sprout). I wrote my journaling there and added the number 17 sticker (from Little Yellow Bicycle).

Here's a closeup of the journaling.

This is the original page.

December 15

2009-12-16T14:02:00.004-05:00

At this point in my December Daily album, the order of my original pages is really screwed up. Since sometimes I'm only using a single side for a day, and other days I'm using two sides or more, and I'm moving around pages to suit the events of the day, I don't know what page is for what day anymore. But it doesn't really matter (it just makes it a bit confusing when I'm trying to add the "original page" here on my blog). So anyway, this was the "next" page in my album that would have been used for day 15:

But...I hadn't done anything with the backside of December 14th yet, so I just decided to use it for day 15, since I only had one photo, and not much to journal about. Again, just trying to keep things simple. I'll probably take the above page out of the album altogether.

So this is a photo of my Christmas cards in my mailbox (felt reeeealllly stupid taking a picture of this outside...hoping no neighbors were watching. If they were, they probably think I'm a real loon). I did a small bit of journaling right on the picture, in Photoshop, which reads "The Christmas cards are addressed, stamped, and in the mail!" The number 15 with circle is "undressed" chipboard from Basic Grey, which I painted with MM paint and then added Glossy Accents on top (did this when I was putting the album together back in November, so it was very easy to add now). I attached the ribbon with Glossy Accents also. The PP at the bottom is Basic Grey Wassail.

*Just a note...I blurred out our address on the mailbox in Photoshop just for the blog....it isn't that way in the actual album.

December 14

2009-12-15T13:58:00.003-05:00

This page came together really easily, and is probably one of my favorites in the album so far.

I started out with this acetate sheet (seen above), which I had originally cut into a semi-circular shape.

I used the acetate sheet on top of my page, and used it as a guide for the shape ( I did end up cutting the semi-circle to be a little bit smaller than the original, so that I could use a 5x7 photo, instead of a larger photo). So...I adhered the bottom PP (Making Memories Mistletoe) to the bottom edge of the photo, and then cut the page to the same shape as the top acetate sheet. Then I added the ribbon (Jillibean Soup) between the photo and paper.

Here's a look at the acetate sheet again...I added the number 14 (Little Yellow Bicycle) to the top of the acetate.
A little closeup of the text ("Another Typewriter" font) on the photo - this was added in Photoshop before I printed it. TFL!

December 10, 12 and 13

2009-12-14T14:13:00.006-05:00

I took some liberties with my pages this weekend and moved a few things around, to try to work with the pictures I had for each day. I've also skipped over day 11 for now, and will add that in later (I simply don't know what to put in here for that day yet, as we didn't do a whole lot. I may just add in a picture from around the house or something).

This is December 10th. I started the 10th on the back of day 9. The bottom of the picture reads "2009 Christmas Card Outtakes." Avery and I had spent a little bit of time that day in a photo shoot for our Christmas Card. We took LOTS of not-so-great photos, and these were some of the ones that were rejected from our card. That is basically what the journaling says that I wrote in white gel pen around the picture.

I added in our finalized Christmas card after this page. It's not laying flat because it is not attached to anything, so it's sort of popping up. I'll eventually attach day 11 stuff to the back of this card.

This is the original page for December 10. I ended up removing this from the book.

This file folder that I used for day 12 was actually originally intended for day 11 (but I'll be putting 11 on the backside of the Christmas card). I decided to keep it in the album. I printed a 4x6 photo of our visit with Santa. As you can see, Avery was not at all happy that we tried to get her to sit on Santa's lap (or even that we got her anywhere near him). To the bottom of the file folder I adhered some PP (can't remember the name of it right now, but will add it in later), and then cut out some strips of paper to write the journaling on. I drew a white line around the edge of the whole sheet, with a white gel pen, and added in a strip of paper that I printed "You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout I'm telling you why, Santa Claus is coming to town" on, between the photo and the PP. The number 12 is a cardstock sticker from Little Yellow Bicycle.

I covered the back of the file folder page with a photo from Saturday night, when we went to Abe's company Christmas party (Avery wanted to jump in the photo). I just added a little bit of text in Photoshop, and then trimmed the photo around the file folder.

This was the original page.

For December 13 I combined 4 photos in Photoshop (I cropped each to 3.25" x 2"), and cut them out as one strip and just adhered them to the page. Then I printed "december 13" over and over in one long strip, and added that to the edge of the photo, and called it done (trying to keep things simple here, so I can stay on top of this album!). The photos are of Avery, my mother-in-law and I making Coquito, which is a traditional Puerto Rican drink that is similar to spiked egg-nog.

On the back I included the recipe for Coquito. I used one of Ali Edwards' title overlays. I deleted the original title and replaced it with "Coquito, the recipe," and then typed in the recipe below. I added a piece of Christmas Flair from American Crafts, and was done.

This was the original page. TFL!

December 9

2009-12-10T13:54:00.002-05:00

I kept things pretty simple, again, today, with a large photo and very little embellishing. The first page of December 9 is actually the backside of December 8. I printed a photo at about 8 1/4" x 8", and adhered this to the back of day 8's cardstock. On this photo, in Photoshop, I had already added my journaling about this photo (the title font is "Wrexham Script", and the main text is "Another Typewriter"). After adhering the photo, I drew a white line around the edge, with "december 9" in the bottom right corner, in white gel pen.

Here's a closeup of the journaling.

On the next page, which was the original page for Dec. 9, I added a journaling block from Ali Edwards. This journaling block originally said "Celebrate" on it, and I deleted this and replaced it with "december 9." I also recolored the journaling block to make it red. I then wrote a little bit about the weather we've been having lately - crazy winds and low temps. Luckily no snow though. While I like snow, I don't think it would be all that enjoyable to go out in it with this much wind. At the top of the journaling block I added two brads that were part of the Basic Grey Wassail collection.

Here's the original December 9 page:

December 6, 7 & 8

2009-12-09T13:03:00.005-05:00

Taking a lot of inspiration from Ali Edward's December Daily album (from this year and last)...decided to include a letter to Avery in this album (as she does to her kids each year). I thought it would be nice to write down some of the things about Avery right now that I don't want to forget (like how she loves to dance to Beyonce's "Single Ladies" and to the Black Eyed Peas' flash mob dance on Oprah, and how when she's calling me and Abe at the same time, she just shortens it to Mada, instead of mamma and dadda). I know these are things I'll forget about so I definitely want to get them down on paper. I made a card to go inside Day 6's envelope, and stamped "Letter to Avery" on the front. I've yet to write the actual letter, but hope to get to that soon. PP used are Jillibean Soup "Talk Soup" and "Grandma's Christmas Soup" and Basic Grey's Wassail .

This is the envelope for Dec. 6. I didn't change anything on the outside.

Dec. 7 is a picture of Avery in front of the tree in her new Christmas PJ's. The picture is 5"x8." I used a border scallop punch on the picture and the paper beneath it. The "Christmas Jammies" wording is a cardstock sticker from Little Yellow Bicycle, and the other two are digital brushes from Katie Pertiet, found here . I actually printed them separately and not on the photo, because I wasn't sure if I would want to use them, but I ended up liking them on the photo, so I cut them out and adhered them with tape runner. The brown and white polka dot ribbon is Jillibean Soup, and the heart is the back of the red and white polka dot felt from Creative Imaginations. Trinket Pin is from Tim Holtz.

A closeup of day 7. The number 7 is a cardstock sticker from Little Yellow Bicycle.

This is the original page.

December 8's page is about the art class Avery is in. I used Photobooth Frames from Katie Pertiet, and the journaling block is from Jillibean Soup. On the left is a rub-on from Creative Imaginations.

This is the original page. TFL!

December 5

2009-12-07T20:41:00.003-05:00

Just a little page or two about the weather, how it's getting really cold around here, and how I bought these great boots that keep me warm through it all :)

This is the back side of Dec. 4 (the shopping page). I took a piece of kraft paper and glued down (with temporary adhesive) letters I cut with the Cricut (Plantin Schoolbook font), to be used as a mask. Then I sprayed Candy Apple Red Glimmer Mist on top of it, and peeled off the letters. I outlined the letters with white gel pen, and outlined COLD with "Candy Cane" Stickles. On the left side of this page, where I had stitched a pocket, I inserted a piece of brown cardstock that I first embossed with the Cuttlebug. On top of the protector sheet I added the chipboard snowflakes and tree (glued down with Glossy Accents).

This is one of the canvas pages. The first thing I did was paint the background with some white MM paint. Then I adhered the photo (again, with Glossy Accents). I had already added text on the photo in Photoshop. Then I stuck the number 5 on top, and called it done. Pretty simple page.

On the back of the Dec 5 page I stitched this piece of felt to make a pocket. I'm not exactly sure what I'll add to it yet...we'll see what I come across during the month that I might want to save.

Here's the original page:

December 4

2009-12-06T12:27:00.002-05:00

For today's page I used a plastic protector sheet that came with the album. I had stitched a pocket on the right side of the sheet where I had inserted a strip of Jillibean Soup paper. I decided this paper didn't go with the clean lined/modern-ish look that was happening with the page, so I switched it out with some red cardstock.

The main part of this page is made up of the bags from my shopping trip. The large white background "paper" is actually a Banana Republic bag that I cut to size. The red/pink stripe is from a Victoria's Secret bag, and the black/white stripe is from Sephora. I took a picture while I was in the dressing room at Banana Republic (felt like a total weirdo doing that, by the way, but knew that I'd need something for this page, so I went ahead with it :).

Before I adhered the photo I stamped a journaling block onto the background with black ink, and then stamped another circle in red around that (from the Art Warehouse Christmas stamp set).

On the red cardstock I used that same stamp, and stamped the image several times using Versa Mark ink, then put clear embossing powder on top and heat embossed it.

Here's what the original page looked like:

December 3rd

2009-12-04T14:45:00.003-05:00

Here is day 3 of my December Daily:

This day was a very average day, but I took a lot of photos, and knew that I had the baseball card sheet to fill up, so I used three sides for this day.

On this page the base was a sheet of Jillibean Soup PP. I then printed an Ali Edwards overlay onto white cardstock (with text added in photoshop) for my journaling block. I cut the cardstock to the same height as the JBS paper, and added a strip at the top and bottom of Basic Grey Wassail PP. I also included ric rac at the edge of the PP, and then stitched the sides. I then glued the whole thing to the base paper (couldn't stitch it once it was glued down because I had already decorated the other side of this page).

This is the baseball card sheet. I printed six photos in 2.5" x 3.5," using photoshop so that I could get them on a 4x6 photo and 5x7 photo sheet. I glued the photos back to back, then added the snowflake, and the rubon embellishments in the two bottom slots (so far I haven't actually attached the "everday life" embellishment. I'm not exactly sure how I want to do that - all I can think of so far is a staple, but I'm just not sure if I want to do it that way - unless I buy a stapler that uses smaller staples - mine's pretty big).

You can't see it in this picture but I used Stickles to outline the back of this snowflake, and here's a tip about Stickles that I just learned. Did you know that you can dry Stickles with an embossing heat gun?!?! I read this on Tim Holtz' blog this week and was so excited to learn this! It takes forever for Stickles to dry on their own. I dried the Stickles on this snowflake in about 30 seconds. Sweet :)

And here's the original page:

I'm not sure when my next post will be, with the weekend and all. Maybe not until Sunday. I'm hoping to stay caught up, so I'm crossing my fingers that I'll get some scrapping time in this weekend.

December 2nd

2009-12-03T13:51:00.004-05:00

I struggled with this page a bit (which makes me nervous about the rest of the month...I hope they don't all take me this long to create!). I decided to cut down the page a little...it was just too much surface to work with, given that I only had one picture. So I cut close to 2" off the width. I mounted the photo onto some white cardstock, and used a Jillibean Soup number sprout for the journaling. I added an American Crafts "Flair" embellishment at the bottom, and wrote the "Deck the Halls" lyrics around the photo in white gel pen. Pretty simple design, which could have taken a very short amount of time, if I hadn't had to "think" about it so much.

Here's the original page:

December 1st

2009-12-01T19:54:00.004-05:00

So, here it is! The first page of my December Daily album (sorry for the poor lighting in the picture...I didn't have any natural light tonight to take the photo in).

I printed a 4x5 photo of a box of Christmas decorations, which filled the width of my page (original page is shown below). I then tied a white ribbon (not sure where it's from) around the whole page, and printed and cut out my journaling on white cardstock. I drew a white line around the border of the whole page, and switched out the Jillibean Soup number sprout with a Little Yellow Bicycle cardstock number (the size better suited the page).

The page I started with:
And that's it! Right now the back of the page is just a sheet of Jillibean Soup Christmas paper. I'll probably add a picture of our decorated mantle later (just haven't taken a photo of it yet).

December Daily

2009-11-30T12:23:00.009-05:00

Warning...Picture Heavy Post

The 25 Days of Christmas starts tomorrow, and to celebrate the season this year I've decided to document our December activities (at least the first 25 days) in a mini album (inspired by Ali Edward's December Daily album). The idea behind this album is to construct the actual album and the interior pages before the month actually begins. Then each day, take a picture(s), or save some sort of memorabilia from the day and print that out and add it to page you've already designed, along with some journaling for the day. By designing the pages in advance, you're taking away a lot of the work load of completing the pages each day, so hopefully it won't be too time consuming and you'll actually keep up with it. That's what I'm hoping for anyway...we'll see how it goes. I thought I would show what I've come up with for the album so far, and then during December I'll post my completed pages as I finish them.

This is my album. I decided to use the same album that Ali Edwards used, which is here , but I'm sort of regretting that decision. It's a canvas album with 5 canvas pages and 5 plastic protector pages. I've had a very hard time figuring out how to use the interior canvas pages, and also had a hard time with the cover. I like the way the cover turned out for the most part, but I do think a hard surface cover would have been easier.

I painted the cover with MM Spotlight white paint, and then used glimmer mist on the edges. I'm not really happy with the edges...they aren't quite as red as I would like, so I may go over this with some MM Fire Engine Red paint. I traced a snowflake onto this red/white polka dot felt from Creative Imaginations and cut it out, then stitched it onto the canvas (I love how that turned out). I also added a metal bracelet connector (which I found in the jewelry section of Michaels), with some white cardstock underneath that says "December 2009."
Here's a closeup of the snowflake and metal piece. It says "Celebrate Life."

This is page 1. Some Jillibean Soup "Talk Soup" paper and a Jillibean number sprout.

Page 2: Jillibean Soup "Grandma's Christmas Soup" Paper, with the Fiskar's "Threading Water" border punch on the side. I haven't added numbers to all of the pages yet, since I figured I'd want to place them after I've added the photos and journaling. Any numbers that have already been added were placed with temporary adhesive.

Page 3: a baseball card protector sheet from Staples, cut to fit the album. I added some Jillibean red polka dot ribbon to the circle piece (don't know what that's called). The number is a chipboard number from Basic Grey that I painted with MM Cranberry paint and then topped with Glossy Accents.

Page 4: this is one of the plastic page protectors that came with the album. I added a strip of Jillibean Christmas paper on the side and stitched it in. For the number, I used a Cuttlebug postage stamp die on white cardstock.

Page 5: this number is just thrown on the page, but it is another Basic Grey chipboard number that I painted and used Glossy Accents on. The page is one of the canvas pages that came with the album, and I stitched some Jillibean Soup ribbon to the side.

Page 6: A kraft envelope from Staples that I stamped, using Art Warehouse Christmas stamps that I bought last year. The number is a cardstock sticker from Little Yellow Bicycle.

Page 7: Jillibean Soup Christmas paper

Page 8: another plastic page protector. The tree was cut out of the Jillibean Soup Christmas paper and adhered to the front of the plastic, and the number 8 is a foam sticker from Creative Imaginations.

Page 9: Jillibean Soup "Talk Soup" paper

Page 10: a canvas page, which I sprayed glimmer mist on and then stitched part of a baseball card page protector sheet to. I'm not too sure about this page yet. I may end up switching this out for something else when the day comes to use it. I'm just not sure I like it.

Page 11: a plain old manilla folder cut to fit the album.

Page 12: Jillibean Soup "Talk Soup" paper. Threading Water border punch.

Page 14: plastic page protector with Jillibean Soup Christmas paper tucked inside.

Page 13 (oops, out of order): a plain acetate sheet that I cut in a rounded shape (hard to see in the picture...it will show up better when I complete the page).

Page 15: another manilla folder.

Page 16: a plastic protector sheet, with some Basic Grey Wassail paper tucked in at the side and stitched in.

Page 17: a canvas page. I painted part of it with MM Spotlight paint. Then made a Christmas tree from buttons and Jillibean Soup ribbon. I stitched some pom pom ribbon on the side.

Page 18: an acetate sheet that I traced a die cut paper on and cut out by hand. Then used some paint around the edges.

Page 19: another baseball card sheet.

Page 20: a plastic protector sheet (hard to see in this photo)

Page 21: a kraft envelope with rub-ons from Art Warehouse (both the santa and the wording below him..."making a list...and checking it twice"). The number 21 is a sticker from Little Yellow Bicycle.

Page 22: Jillibean Soup "Talk Soup" paper

Page 23: misssing a photo - another acetate sheet that I cut into a scallop circle shape.

Page 24: a baseball card protector sheet. The number is a snowman chipboard shape from MM (picked up last year) painted with MM Spotlight paint and Glossy Accents. the number 24 is foam sticker from Creative Imaginations.

Page 25: Basic Grey Wassail paper, with Threading Waters border punch on the side. The number is a stamp (Art Warehouse) that I heat embossed in white.

If you made it this far, thanks for sticking with it! I'm not sure if I'll be able to complete these pages daily, since I don't have a photo printer at home, but I'll try to keep up with the album as much as possible during December, and post photos of the completed pages frequently.

First Haircut

2009-11-09T11:20:00.003-05:00

I've been putting off getting Avery's first haircut for a little while now, because I felt pretty confident that she would never sit still in the chair and have some stranger mess with her hair. But we've passed by the kid's hair salon several times recently and Avery's been very interested in going inside (for the sole purpose of playing on the slide they have inside, but interested nonetheless). So we've been talking to her about how they only let little kids who get their hair cut play on the slide etc etc, to try to prepare her. She kept saying "ok" when we'd explain things to her, and given her recent love of suckers and her infatuation with videos (both of which I knew would be part of the gig), I thought it might be the right time to take the plunge.

We had a twenty minute wait or so when we got there, so Avery got plenty of play time on the big slide (and plenty of time to catch the swine flu, as one after another hacking child ran past her to also go down the slide ;)). Finally, it was our turn.

We picked an airplane seat for Avery, even though she wanted to sit on the dog, since this was an actual seat with seatbelt, unlike the dog which she could easily fall off of if not behaving. After some initial kicking and screaming, Avery sat down in the plane once she had her sucker in hand and video on.

From then on she did REALLY well. I couldn't believe how nicely she was sitting there.

I expected a whole lot of drama, and got very little, thank goodness.

A little primping at the end. Doesn't she look so happy? HA! The cut's just a little shorter than we were anticipating, but it looks pretty cute , and is much more manageable, so momma's happy.

Halloween

2009-11-04T06:45:00.003-05:00

Here are just a few pictures from Halloween. Avery dressed as Dorothy, and carried around a little basket (one of my old Longaberger baskets worked perfectly) with one of her stuffed animal dogs in it as Toto.

The first two pictures were taken a few days before Halloween, when the weather was really nice. It was quite a bit colder on Halloween day.

Here's a picture on Halloween, with Avery enjoying two suckers...she thought she had died and gone to heaven!

Oh, the Pumpkin Fun Just Never Ends

2009-10-25T20:16:00.004-04:00

Today I thought it would be a nice family activity and fun project for Avery to carve our Halloween pumpkins. I thought she'd get a kick out of seeing the gooey insides, and find the carving etc. interesting to watch.

Before we started carving, I made this Pumpkin Pie Milkshake to get us in the pumpkin spirit.

If you like pumpkin pie, you'll like this milkshake. The graham cracker crumbles on top really made the shake. Kinda like a blizzard from DQ. So good!

As you can see from this picture, my "family fun activity" is seriously lacking a "family." I started the project out by myself (which, actually, I found to be just fine...kind of relaxing to be honest), while Abe was setting up some shelves downstairs and Avery was running around down there with him.

I had to pull my hair back once the project started getting down and dirty :)

Then Abe came upstairs and decided to join in on the fun. As you can see Avery is missing from all photos. She stood about ten feet away from the table at all times, no matter how many times I tried to get her to dig out some of the pumpkin guts. She just kept giving me this disgusted look, like "lady, there aint no way I'm coming anywhere near that pile of slime." She's not one to like being messy, so I guess I'm not surprised that she wasn't into pumpkin carving.

Abe eventually got bored with the carving and decided he would rather be finishing his shelving project than cut out the rest of the little holes in the design he picked (which was the Blues Clues dog...since Avery loves dogs so much). So I ended up finishing his pumpkin, along with mine. And of course he left me with the mess :( which actually wasn't all that bad, since I didn't have a two year old helping me with the carving.

Here's our (ahem, MY) finished pumpkins. While the family fun activity was kind of a bust, I think the pumpkins turned out pretty cute.

Pumpkin Patch

2009-10-13T12:32:00.005-04:00

On Sunday, we went to Leed's Farm. Leed's grows lots of pumpkins, and rather than have you wander through their 20 acres of fields to find the perfect pumpkin, they pick them for you and lay them out on pallets where you can easily find the perfect one (or three) for your front stoop.

In addition to pumpkins, Leed's has lots and lots of fun rides and farm-type enjoyment for the kiddos (and some for adults too). They have two barns...one with lots of hay to jump in and slides that go into the hay, and the other with barn animals and a corn sandbox. They have zip lines, tractor rides, a pumpkin jumpy thing, and a little train-like ride pulled by a tractor, called the Banana Boat.

Avery was in quite a mood on Sunday (and by quite a mood, I mean she was in a really crabby, sassy kind of mood. In her defense, we discovered last night that she has an ear infection, so maybe this was starting on Sunday and we just didn't know it. Yeah, we'll go with that). From the get-go, she was very clingy, wanting to be carried the entire time, and didn't want to participate in any of the activities (particularly in the barn). The place was absolutely mobbed with people, so it may have been that she was just overwhelmed by the crowds. The one thing she did want to ride was the banana boat. Here she is at the front of the train, right behind the tractor.

When the ride stopped, I tried to get her to smile so I could take her picture. She sat in that car for a good two minutes looking as far away from me as she could, so I couldn't take her picture, until her dad got her out. Stubborn, I tell ya.

As the time passed, and after about six more banana boat rides, Avery's mood seemed to lift a little bit. We went up to the pumpkin jump with Nate and Holly and their kids. Avery appeared to be interested in jumping too, so Abe went on with her. As you can see from the picture, this was a no-go, and they got off right away. Those are Nate and Holly's kids in the background jumping and having fun.

Then I tried to get a nice picture with Abe, Avery and a pumpkin. Avery was not interested.

As we made our way to the car to leave, Avery spotted the painted animals where you can take photos as a cow, horse, etc. The crowds were starting to disappear, so she seemed a bit more comfortable with the place at this point. She ran over with Grace, who always seems to be able to cheer her up. And I finally got a decent picture. Wait....hold on a minute.....is that a...smile?

Another Layout

2009-09-22T12:49:00.004-04:00

Here's the second layout I started at the crop, and just finished today. It's based on this sketch:

This photo is of me and my sister Tricia, at Easter this past year. PP is all Jillibean Soup Lentil Soup line. I painted a Bazzill paper flower, which was a bright pink color, with MM paint (Cranberry, I think). The alphas are the new Jillibean Soup corrugated letters (LOVE these!), and painted them with the same MM paint. Ribbon is Jillibean Soup as well.

What? A Layout?

2009-09-21T13:19:00.002-04:00

It has been FOREVER since I have done a scrapbook layout...maybe five months or so, I'm not even sure. When we put our house on the market I wasn't scrapping because I didn't want to mess up the room - had to be "show ready"! Then between the time we were in contract and the actual closing I just lost my mojo. After the move there was a lot to do to get this house in order, and I still hadn't got my mojo back.

Well, I'm not sure that I have it back quite yet, but it was definitely good to go to a crop the other night with some friends. We of course talked the majority of the time, so I got very little done. In fact, only one layout is complete so far. Others are still in process.

This layout was a lift from Kelly Goree. I used all Basic Grey on this one, but I can't seem to remember the line off the top of my head. The pictures are from our visit to Kings Island this summer with my family:

It's Apple Picking Time!

2009-09-16T12:40:00.003-04:00

I love Fall! There are just so many things about it - the changing leaves, and cooler temperatures (of course we're not there yet...still 80 degrees outside), college football, pumpkins, Halloween, bonfires, and of course...apple picking! We go every year to Lynd's Fruit Farm to pick our own bag of apples. It's a bit more of a drive for us now from our new house, but well worth the memories!

Last year was the first year we brought Avery, and she seemed to enjoy herself, but didn't really "get" what we were doing (she had just turned 1 then). This year, she had a lot of fun, and thought it was pretty cool to pick the apples off the tree. She took her job very seriously.

She enjoyed eating the apples even more, plopping herself down on the ground and taking a break from all the hard labor we were forcing her to do :)

Isn't she just a cute little thing walking down the orchard path?

Love this picture of her...

And the real reason we go apple picking every year? It's an excuse to make this...

Mmmmmm! What else we gonna do with all them apples?

Avery's 2nd Birthday Party

2009-08-31T12:59:00.003-04:00

I'm a bit late in posting this, but better late than never, I guess. We had Avery's 2nd Birthday party last Sunday, and I just wanted to post a few pictures from the day.

I made giant cupcake as her main cake, with a doctored up Devils Food cake mix recipe called "Too Much Chocolate Cake." It was good, but very very rich.

Then I made those yellow cupcakes that I posted about a few weeks back.

Here's a picture of Avery opening her presents. This was the first gift she opened, and we quickly learned that we should have saved it for last. It was a Fur Real Pup, that she just absolutely adored. She unfortunately didn't have much interest in the rest of her presents after that. But she got a lot of great stuff and has been playing with ALL of it since :)

A picture of her blowing out the candles. Next year I'll be sure to put her on a chair on her own while we sing to her and have her blow out the candles so I can get some better pictures :)

And finally, a pic of her swinging with her friend Grace.

We had a great day, and got lucky with some great weather. Thanks to all of our family who drove a few hours to come to the party. We really appreciate it!!!

I Made the Marinated Flank Steak

2009-08-20T20:59:00.003-04:00

And it was good! I thought I had soy sauce in my cabinet, but it turns out...not so much. I did have three packets of soy sauce from our last Chinese takeout night though, so I used those. But that left me more than 1/4 cup short. So, I substituted with Worchestershire sauce. Is that an adequate substitution? I don't know, but it was in my cabinet, and it's the same color, and I know it's often paired with soy sauce in other recipes. So I went for it. And it actually turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself :)

I grilled the steak, for about four minutes or so on each side. It turned out a little more pink inside than Abe and I prefer, so next time I make it I'll be sure to cook it for just a bit longer. Oh, and I did boil the marinade in a pot while the steak was cooking on the grill, as Ree suggested doing, and I really think this is a must. Really, really good.

Avery likes to dip her food, any kind of food really, so this was a hit with her. She would dip, and then say "Mmmmm."

Pioneer Woman Recipes

2009-08-19T12:38:00.010-04:00

Lately I've been getting a little more into cooking. It's not always something I want to do (OK, sometimes I just flat out DREAD it), but if I'm gonna do it, I like to do it from scratch. I can't remember who first pointed me to the Pioneer Woman blog , but they mentioned it as a great site for photography tips. This is true, but what I've found that I really love about her site is the Cooking section.

My favorite part about the recipes that Ree Drummond (the Pioneer Woman) puts on her blog, is that she lays out the whole thing step by step, with pictures! I LOVE that. I like to see what each step is supposed to look like so I know if I'm doing things right. Her pictures are beautiful too, which makes you want to eat the stuff even more (don't you hate cookbooks that don't have pictures? What's the point?). She also uses really good ingredients, like heavy cream and butter...right up my alley.

So I've been on quite the kick lately making a bunch of her dishes. I may just try to make it through all of her recipes. Like that movie "Julie and Julia"...instead it's "Jamie and Ree." Hmmm...doesn't have the same ring to it, huh?

This is her Ranch Style Chicken recipe, along with Fresh Green Beans, One Way . The green beans have the best flavor of any green bean side dish I've ever had, and the chicken is really juicy and I really like the marinade on this one (I left out the bacon this time because I forgot to buy it at the grocery store...oops). Also, this picture was taken before I got the great tip on her website to never use the flash when photographing food. I've found that this is so true...a flash really makes the food look unnatural, or something.

This is her Fettuccine Alfredo recipe. TO DIE FOR!!!! This was so good, I couldn't stop eating it. Very simple recipe too, the way fettuccine alfredo is supposed to be. Not good for the waistline though...probably shouldn't make this one too often.

These Yellow Cupcakes with Chocolate Icing are what I'm making for Avery's birthday party this weekend. I had to practice before the big day to make sure they were up to par, of course :) Let me tell you, I'm not really a fan of icing...I usually take it off and just eat the cake...but this icing is GOOOOD.

Last night I was feeling like a casserole for dinner, so I decided to make this one , and it did not dissapoint. It was creamy and had just a touch of spiciness. I think next time I might add a few more veggies...maybe some peas or some carrots. I used one of those whole roasted chickens you can get at the grocery store, which made it really easy to put this together. I think this recipe's a keeper!

The next one I'm going to try is Marinated Flank Steak - got the steak in the fridge right now ready for me to stick it in the marinade. I'll let you know how it turns out. In the meantime, I beg you to take a look at her site and try out a few recipes for yourself (and then tell me which one you made and if I should put it next on my list!).

Project 365

2009-07-17T12:44:00.010-04:00

When I started this blog I thought it would be a great place to share all of my photos from the Project 365 that I'm doing (which is basically taking a picture every day for a year and journaling about each photo in an album). I also thought, when I started this blog, that I would post to it more than just once a month, but who needs that kind of pressure? Stop pressuring me!

Well, I don't think I've shared any pictures from the project, although I am still taking the pictures (almost every day, but not quite). I thought I'd share my week of photos from last week. As you can imagine, most of the album has become pictures of Avery, and has captured her in her worst of "bad hair days", but....well, that's life I guess :)

And so we begin...

July 6 : This is Avery sitting at Abe's desk watching a Sesame Street video on his computer, while scribbling on a piece of paper. I think she looks like a little executive...so serious.

July 7 : We went out for some ice cream at Jenny's in Dublin. Found a little picnic table a couple doors down and ate while Avery ran around.

July 8 : Avery loves to "help" clean. Here she's helping Abe sweep up some food he spilled on our patio. She's starting to smile for the camera again, which is nice. I got a whole bunch of photos on this day because she was really hamming it up. For a while there she wouldn't even look at the camera when I brought it out.

July 9 : One of those "bad hair days" I was talking about. This was in the morning right when she woke up, so cut me some slack all right? I think we were making pancakes that morning.

July 10 : I'm really loving the town that we moved to. There's so much to do for families, and it's all right around the corner. I no longer have to drive 20-30 minutes to go someplace fun! This was a "Lolli-Pops Concert" that the city of Powell was putting on. It's less than 5 minutes from my house, which is just so nice. We went in the morning with Holly and the kids. Avery danced a little bit, but we quickly got very hot and moved over to the splash pad, which is also in this park, to try to cool down.

July 11 : My tutorial for making paper flowers went up on the Jillibean Soup blog today!

July 12 : We're researching playsets right now...where to buy one and which one to buy. We went to the local Rainbow store which has a bunch of them set up inside along with trampolines, basketball nets, and other toys. I hope when we get one she plays on it all the time, because WOW those things are not cheap!

Father's Day

2009-06-21T20:28:00.008-04:00

Today we spent the afternoon at the Gahanna Creekside Jazz and Blues Festival.

The festival is mostly about eating, and of course listening to jazz music. I had to have my usual festival treat, which is the Schmidt's cream puff (forgot to take a picture of this). It was great, as always.

We spent some time lounging around the fountain area.

And dipping our feet in the water.

Avery saw some other kids start wading in the water and of course tried her best to join them. A security officer quickly came down to get everyone out of the water though and ruined the fun :)

So we found another fountain that Avery could get wet in (it was HOT outside), and she had a good ol' time there and proceeded to get her entire outfit soaking wet. Oh well! A little water never hurt anyone.

We spent the rest of the day like this:

Looking at the back of Avery as we chased her around the festival. Our little track star. That girl loves to run!

Here's the only picture I got of Abe and Avery for father's day. She's not one for posing these days, so it's as good as we could manage :)

Bean Talk

2009-06-02T12:15:00.002-04:00

I am so happy to have been picked as a guest designer for Jillibean Soup products. Today is my day on the blog...pretty cool to see my picture and my work up there with so many designers whose work I admire (I only wish I could pull off some of the stuff they come up with!).

The Jillibean Soup blog is called Bean Talk . If you haven't checked out the site before, there's lots of inspiring projects on there and more than a few giveaways/challenges (in fact, they're running a Sprout contest now and the winner gets $100! Deadline is June 15th).

Back from Paradise!

2009-05-22T21:16:00.008-04:00

Literally :) We went to Paradise Island, in the Bahamas. We were there for a week, and it was such a great vacation (minus the plane ride with Avery, which was an unbelievable nightmare). We had great weather (although very very hot, but it only rained once, overnight, which helped to make things less muggy). Joining us was my sister, brother-in-law, and their son. We had a three bedroom lock-off condo at the Harborside Resort at Atlantis. The living arrangements were absolutely perfect, and allowed Avery to sleep just as well as if she were at home. We were able to go to the grocery store and get lots of food since the condo had a full kitchen, so we saved a whole lot of money on food by doing that.

Here are some photos from the trip:

This is a picture of Harborside, which is set right next to the marina, with some amazing yachts.

Atlantis has a huge aquarium on site:

Seven years ago Abe and I went to the Bahamas and stayed at the Radisson (which is no longer a Radisson). We visited Atlantis for dinner one night, and that was the night Abe proposed! We found the exact spot that he proposed when we went back, and of course had to take a picture :0)

This is one of the kid's pools at Atlantis. It has this huge bucket at the top that fills up with water and pours out every ten minutes or so. It's pretty crazy. There are lots of water slides for the kids too (not Avery's size, but my nephew Ben LOVED the blue slide...said it was his favorite part of vacation):

Avery and Ben playing in the sand at the Lagoon Beach:

And here's a picture that depicts what much of the vacation was all about...Avery running and us chasing after her :)

I have about 300 more pictures from the vacation but I think this is a good enough representation :)

For Sale

2009-05-03T19:38:00.003-04:00

Ok, I know, I know. I am the world's worst blogger. I think it's been three weeks since my last post...and well...that's pathetic. But things have been busy around here, and I just kept putting it off. So what have we been doing, you ask?

Well, we've officially put our house on the market. I know, great timing...couldn't be a better time to sell. The sign went up in the yard on Thursday and we had our first two showings on Friday. It seems that it just wasn't a good fit for the first couple that came through, but the second said it is in their top three and they're "thinking about it." So...we'll see. I'm not getting my hopes up, but it sure would be nice to get a quick offer :) Keeping the house clean is going to kill me, with the little 1 1/2 year old tornado that lives with us. I'm amazed at how I can clean all morning and the house still looks messy, because she's running behind me taking out 3 things for every 1 I put away. This could be a fun ride :)

Easter

2009-04-13T12:47:00.008-04:00

On Sunday we went to Cincinnati to celebrate Easter with my family. We had a beautiful sunny day, so the kids were able to hunt for eggs outside this year. Avery did a whole lot better at this easter egg hunt than last week's... here are just a few pictures:

Easter Egg Hunt

2009-04-06T21:20:00.011-04:00

Yesterday we went to an Easter egg hunt and brunch with Holly and Nathan, and Dave and Amy, and their kids. Here's us at brunch (minus Abe, who was taking the picture):

After brunch we headed upstairs to see the Easter Bunny and try to get some pictures. Avery was happy to wave and say hi to the Easter Bunny as long as she was a safe distance away. But, as soon as Abe inched his way closer, Avery got panicky and started yelling and pointing with urgency away from the bunny. The bunny tried desperately to win her favor by playing peek-a-boo, but to no avail.

Grant and Grace did much better:

And Collin sat on the Easter Bunny's lap for a little bit, but eventually decided Avery had the right idea:

After torturing the bunny with endless photo ops, we headed outside for the Easter egg hunt. Avery got a late start as we were trying to change her into different shoes, so most of the eggs were gone by the time she could fight her way to front of the pack. I'm quite sure she didn't really know why she was hanging out in the mulch, and why we kept pointing at eggs on the ground and in the bushes, but she was happy about it all the same. She only managed to get one egg, but she could have cared less. Who cares about Easter eggs when you can climb up and down on a curb over and over again?

All in all it was a fun day with good friends, and lots of good memories :)

Card Swap

2009-04-02T14:21:00.002-04:00

Just a quickie post...Here's a card I made for a card swap I'm going to tonight. This was a lift from Jennifer on the Scrappin' Mamas message board (couldn't find the post on your blog though, Jennifer, to show the original...sorry). I used the swiss dot Cuttlebug folder to emboss the front of the card, and then scalloped the edge. I used the Alphalicious Cricut cartridge to make the letter b. The pink cardstock is from Archivers and the green PP is Jillibean Soup. The PP on the inside of the card is My Little Shoebox (just a thin strip on the edge that I also scalloped). I bought the little tag at Staples and stamped "baby" on it. The safety pins are MM and the thread is Bazzil. Thanks for the inspiration Jennifer!

Toddler Theater

2009-03-25T12:21:00.006-04:00

Today we went to the Dublin Rec Center for Toddler Theater, which Holly introduced us to a few weeks ago. Last time Avery wasn't feeling great so she didn't seem to enjoy it much. But I thought it was entertaining, so I thought we'd give it another shot and see how she'd like it this time. Toddler Theater is basically a woman with a guitar singing children's songs, and they bring out someone dressed as a character from a children's book (this week was Clifford, the Big Red Dog) to dance along with the kids. It takes place in a theater (hence the name, I guess), which of course has theater seating...and lots of steps. So while there's singing, dancing and lots of commotion down on the stage of the theater, Avery prefers to spend her time going up and down the amazing steps...

Occasionally she would stop and look back at what was going on down on the stage...

And she even ventured down there for a second or two. She was unsure about Clifford, though, and didn't want to get too close...

She suddenly got brave, and wandered into the middle of the crowd! Later she actually stood right in front of the guitar lady and watched her for a while. I of course didn't have my camera out at that point.

Then she decided it was better to be safely watching on the steps near my seat, and she clapped and laughed along with the other kids (and then went back to climbing the steps). I figure the more we go to this, the more comfortable she'll be...and before I know it she'll be in the middle of the floor dancing and singing the entire time.

Pictures from the weekend

2009-03-23T12:07:00.011-04:00

Here are some random photos from this past weekend:

On Saturday we went up to Cleveland and saw our new little niece Alyssa. Here's a pic of Avery and Alyssa sitting side by side on the couch. Avery was pretty intrigued by the tiny baby, but definitely didn't like it when mommy held her!

How's this for a "picture of the day?" HA! Avery loves to dig through my closet and give me these shoes to put on (she always picks this pair). They're shoes I bought for a costume party, in case you're wondering about my taste :-P.

Sunday was a pretty day outside, so Abe decided it was time to put the new grill together:

And then we washed his motorcycle to get it ready to sell:

Anyone in the market for a new bike? I'd be happy to sell you this one!!!!

Jillibean Soup Guest Designer!!

2009-03-20T12:22:00.002-04:00

This was announced last week over at the Jillibean Soup blog Bean Talk but I wanted to make note of it here since my blog wasn't up then. I was asked to be a Guest Designer for Jillibean Soup! I was thrilled to see my name on the list, and even more excited when I saw all of the other super talented ladies that are guest designers (not to mention the amazing scrappers on the Design Team list...wow!). You'll be seeing lots of JBS products from me on this blog...I just love the kraft paper and all the fun colors mixed in. In fact, two of the cards in my previous post use paper from the Minestrone line...it's my favorite!

A Few Cards

2009-03-19T21:23:00.009-04:00

Two weeks ago I went to an all weekend crop with some friends at Scrapbook Art here in Columbus. We had a great time. Here are a few cards that I made while at the crop:

This one was made with Bazzill cardstock (embossed in the Cuttlebug), Jillibean Soup PP and the die cut paper where I stamped Happy Birthday is from My Little Shoebox.

This one is Bazzill cardstock and Jillibean Soup PP (Minestrone collection), and the ribbon is also from JBS. Stamp is Hero Arts.

And the last one...front:

And inside:

This one was made with Basic Grey PP (Urban Prairie), and Hero Arts stamp. I scalloped the bottom edge of the front of the card for a little extra interest.

First Post

2009-03-18T12:30:00.002-04:00

So, ok, I'm officially entering blogland. I'm not exactly sure who will end up reading this...I may just end up talking to myself...but that's what I do most days anyway (or it feels like it anyway, when I'm talking to my 1 1/2 year old). Mostly I'll be posting scrapbooking stuff...layouts, cards etc., and lots of pictures. I've taken on the 365 day project and am using Becky Higgin's kit from CK to document our year in 2009. One picture a day. So far I'm doing pretty well. I've missed a few days here and there but have been able to fill them in with pictures from around the house. At the end of the year I think it will be a pretty neat album to look back on.

Speaking of the 365 project, my picture from yesterday is the picture in my header. Those are the daffodils that are just starting to come up in our front yard. I'm so glad it's spring! Right now I'm sitting on my deck enjoying 70 degree weather. Tomorrow, however, it's going to switch back to winter and be in the low 40's. But I'm not going to think about that right now. I'm just going to sit here and enjoy the sun on my face while I can.