well helooooo!!!!!

This is a double post....same thing over at my CK blog today, but It sure has been awhile since I blogged! I miss it, and am going to make up for it with daily posts on at least one of my blogs for the next bit I think. I have been saving up so much I want to say!

August has been good, really good. And also flown by entirely too fast. Why is it that good always seems to go hand in hand with flying by too fast? I have noticed around here that fall is on it's way; just all of a sudden. The air is cooler and gets downright chilly at night and I can smell that delicious crispness that comes with the fall. I love breathing in the smell of a new season filled with the possibility of new adventures just waiting for me to find them! The birds are beginning to fly south overhead in their pretty formations. And I am here feeling like the month has just begun, like I am still supposed to have half of the summer left, LOL!

We spent the first week of August away camping together as a family and with our super good friends from Saskatchewan; Krista, Braden and little Jake. It was perfect! No computers, no phones, most of the time not even a clock around to remind us what time of day it was. The kids rode bikes and caught frogs, we ate lots of watermelon, built sand castles and just had an amazing time! just a few pics for now...

and Here are some family photos taken by My friend Krista Domres I am so so glad she was willing to do a few for us because it really has been far to long since we had a good photo of the 5 of us all together

We returned home feeling so refreshed and I spent the next week and a half totally immersed in my work for my CKU album track Here is a visual for you of my crazy dining room take over!

I tidied my "creative mess" in between projects so that everything was back in it's buckets but when I got going it was good to just be in a groove and have everything right on hand. This moment is obviously right in the middle of "going!"

I turned off the Internet completely and got really focused, I had to, and it was so very worth it!

You see, I took over Tracy White's Fondest Memories album track for CKU Nashville last week, and decided to make it my own and give it my "C.D. spin". So I did 20 brand new layouts and wrote a new handout to go with them. My wall got plastered with layout after layout until it was covered like wall paper, and I have to say when the last layout was finished and up on the wall that was some pretty rewarding wall paper!

Last week in Nashville and I had the most amazing time teaching. Something I definitely want to do a lot more of ( I will post more photos and stuff from CKU soon)

So now I am peeking up out of my scrap world! And emerging back to real life :) This must be how a bear feels when it comes out of hibernation after the winter. A big stretch and a yawn and a deep breath of fresh air!

I am going to spend this next few weeks having some fun with my playground challenges and topics on the CK blog now that life is back to normal. I am really excited, I feel like the girls must feel when they have been waiting and counting the sleeps till a big play date. I missed you all!!! been counting the sleeps :)

it's good to be back

happy summer

So far, so good!!! We are really enjoying our summer together. although I can't even believe this is that last week of July already! We went out with Kristie and her boys yesterday. First we took the kids to a cool used book exchange called "flipped pages". The kids put so much thought into their books and ended up making great choices; Emy chose the lion the witch and the wardrobe, Tiara chose a new animal ark book (I have been reading a chapter with her every night and these are great!), and Kaiella's is a fun story too with great illustrations; called Trupp. We went with our friends from there to go swimming for the rest of the afternoon. Emilea was a little fish as always, and Kaiella was determined to swim by herself ( life jacket on of course) even though she had the worlds biggest diaper-bum LOL! ( crazy how they expand with water) It took her a little while, but my sweet Tiara was so very proud to have found all of her bravery and decided to join in too! good for her. She even got this mask and a snorkeler out and spent some time with her little head under the water. Such a big big step for her. I spent last week in Chicago for CHA, had TONS of fun! You can see lots of pics from my trip on my CK blog. We are planning a camping trip for the first week in August, good old fashioned tenting and camp fire cooking. Really looking forward to that. I wish summer could last all year, the warm glow in the evening, extra outings with family and friends, the smell of sunscreened little people running around full of chalk and sand. But you know I say that about all of the seasons I guess. I am just happy to be taking it all in and cherishing the day fully. Have a good one.

Emilea

my beautiful girl. I love the way you can just feel her warm peaceful spirit in this photo. She seems to be growing up so fast sometimes I look at her and it takes my breath away. It is so nice having her home with me for the summer she has been reading TONS and enjoying the time with her sisters. I always like watching the way their friendships blossom when they are home all together for the holidays.

I have decided to make myself a flickr gallery of some photos, just learning about how it all works but seems really cool, lots of amazingly talented people out there that are super inspiring. If you want to take a peek a few of my pics are here

OK

we all need a little reminder sometimes!

( photo from toon town in Disneyland...I loved all the fun to be had there!)

gift

I am giving away a free gift with my new column in Creating Keepsakes this month, to help make a simple story book or just use on a page as you like. check it out here :)

life update

I haven't been posting here much lately, I miss this place. Just feeling a little blog identity crisis trying to keep two blogs going and knowing what to post where. I am working on solving that. A great solution is in the works and I am excited to get it figured out once and for all :)

But for now, I thought I would pop in to say hello and happy summer. Ah! just saying that makes me breathe a little deeper, I love summer; the fresh dewy air in the morning, the flowers and birds and grubby hot little kids, and the carefree happy warm days that go with it all! I welcome summer with the openest of arms.

here are a few of my favorite photos from the past little while

need a moustache? Tiara decided that this was the perfect craft-of-the-day and made one for everyone in our family LOL! SO funny.

oh yes, I wore mine proudly to greet Cam as he came home from work, I think he nearly fell off the step. new change to note; this is the new green we painted in our main hall and one dining room wall. SO much happier than the grey that was still lurking there from when we moved in. the other three walls of the dining room are a nice robin's egg blue...so fresh!

soccer season was a blast! Tiara really got the hang of it with the comfort of coach daddy. makes me so happy because she was super nervous about it when they first began

these two pretty butterflies were happy to help celebrate a special birthday for my beautiful MOM in June. We spoiled her as much as possible with dinner, a trip this mineral spa just out of town and a day of pampering

this little attitude really cracks me up! she is not even 3 yet and already is giving looks like this. oh boy. I should add in a big thank-you for all of the prayers and well wishes we have received for Kaiella after she was burned. As you can see here, her arm has healed up really nicely.

Cam's parents got a hot tub put in this spring and everyone has been enjoying some good soaks in there. Especially Emilea, I think. She is a real little fish! It is so nice for the girls to be out in the fresh country air. Spending lots of time outside with their grandparents is a real gift to all of them

our proud preschool graduate

spending lots of time at the park. We love our outdoor time together as a family, so the warmer weather has us outside as much as possible!

went to watch a bit of Emy's field day at the end of June. I love this event every year! the kids do too. this here is the sponge race, a fun drippy wet game. I can't believe Emy is finished grade 2 and heading for grade three, WOW! that feels so big. Her first week of summer holidays has been great she has read at least 20 chapter books already! I LOVE watching her joy in reading unfolding. I think we will have to get her down to the library at this pace though. She will have read every book we have in no time!

everyone was learning to ride bikes this year! Tiara would barely even peddle her own tricycle last year so getting Emy's "big" girl bike and deciding it was OK to go for it was a really big step! she worked with cam for awhile but decided to go with training wheels for this year. whatever feels good! Kaiella is doing her best on the tricycle and Emilea is working as hard as she can to master her two wheeler on her own! I can't wait to get out as a family. That's my little update for now. Have a great sunshiny day!

color pigs

" I love your work no mater what Mama. and you know, I have a lot of craft ideas too...like, I draw Pigs and color them!"
"pigs?"
"oh yes, I do mama... PIGS"

said while I was talking through an album idea with Cam and she was beading a new necklace for herself. HA! this little girl of mine makes me laugh so many times every day, what a gift! And I adore her total love and acceptance of me, makes me feel like we have done a good job of telling her that we love her always no matter what. Saturday mornings are so great just all being here together, happy weekend wishes to you!

btw: this is the kind of shots I got of Tiara at Emilea's Spring concert, LOL! we were trying for pretty spring photos, the girls picked the spot and I loved the contrast between the texture in the brick and old wooden steps with the smoothness of the girls young little skin and pretty flowery skirts. Emilea did take care of the pretty shots and Tiara as usual could be relied on for comic relief. funny girl!

check it out!

I have been super busy lately with the girls, as well as working on some really fun projects. One of them was doing this layout and documenting the whole process for the CK online column "start-to-finish". you can check out the article here !

treasure in the every day

I have been stopping to notice how much I love the beauty in the every day, even more than usual these days. I love "life", the little real life moments that make each day precious , that make this life mine, and make it so beautiful.

Like this moment from the other night. My sweet girl sitting on the steps, she is so into a good book that she couldn't keep walking up to her room where she had been headed, so she sat down right there on the steps in the light of the setting sun, beside the pink fluffy slippers. So absorbed in her story that she didn't even see me there smiling at this. This is one of the things about her that I love to watch unfolding; her love of books. I have always thoroughly enjoyed reading. I would walk through the house with my face in a book, or stay up reading way past bedtime with a flashlight under the covers. A good book rich with imagination, can transport you anywhere. And Emilea has been this way too since she was so little, we would find her in a mound of books, in her toddler bed, flipping through and making up little 2 year old stories from the pictures. When we walked by later she would have fallen asleep with a book on her face. Now that she can read the words her love for them only grows. Delightful!!!

take a look around your day, then slow down and look a little bit harder for the small moments that are pure treasures. This view truly is a gift :)

last call!

I am drawing tonight for 5 of these packs and

A CK goodie bag of our favorite products worth ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!

check out the details on my CK blog, you have until 8pm est today to enter!

Kaiella update

my little trooper, smiling and playing with her cars by the window Sunday morning as if nothing happened! It is so good to see her feeling so much better already, I just want to say thank-you so much for all of the nice comments. Having all of those extra thoughts and prayers is just what we needed! We went for her dressing change yesterday and I am truly amazed at how much healing has already happened under there, really it looks like a different little arm than it did on Friday. There is only one pretty big blister near her wrist that we will need to keep a close watch on, but the rest looks like it is healing perfectly already ( phew!) So we will go back for another dressing change on Tuesday again. She really does great with the whole thing, she asks them " you are giving me a new arm sock? and some cream too?" and she even says thank-you when they are done. I am amazed over and over again at how resilient kids really are. Thank God for that! Have a great week :)

please say a prayer

hi there, I just wanted to pop in here and ask all you praying folks out there to offer one up for our little Kaiella.

I ran downstairs Friday to get the phone, and she decided to be a "big girl" and get her bag of goldfish crackers from the back of the counter all by herself, I had just poured myself a hot cup of tea and placed it back there where I thought it was safe from little hands. She ended up with hot tea dumped all over her little arm and chest. Luckily it didn't have time to soak through the chest part of her sweater before I got it off of her but her little arm wasn't as fortunate and she has some 2nd degree burns between her wrist and shoulder. The doctors at children's hospital say she should heal well and we just have to go back every second day to get the dressings changed this week. But she is pretty "ouchie" and Tylenol seems to just barely take the edge off. My heart is so sad for her, all I an do is give lots of extra love and lots of my time. and it is one of those times that I can't even beat myself up about, because I am not sure what I could have done any different... other than putting my cup inside the cupboard! no, seriously though, We are reeally careful, we don't let anyone sit with the kids or hold them while drinking coffee or tea, we keep them out of the kitchen when we are cooking and always boil on the back burners. Please please please take extra caution around your babies when it comes to hot stuff, you just can't be too careful.

Thanks for listening and thanks for your prayers, I will hopefully get back to work and returning my emails after this weekend. For now my attentions are all here at home. take care all :)

hello neglected blog

I asked the readers at my CK blog awhile ago if they wanted to come along to CHA? not everyone gets to go to these big exciting trade shows and I thought I'd share some of the fun. So when I got a lot of yes's, we set it all up! The thing is, I have been so busy posting a tour of CHA complete with videos, my hybrid make-and-take download, an upcoming draw...etc. that I have not put in much time over here! please come and read about what has been up in our life ( a little get away, my childhood 80's shorts, a new sport for Tiara...) and join in the fun. everyone who participates in the make'n'take gets entered in the draw! I will come and post some new pics and life chatter here soon. sending out some happy hugs :)

Tiara's smile

I Love to see Tiara soooo happy. she was having such a tough time for awhile, I was really missing her big laughs and her joyful spirit. But look at his girl of mine right now! So much happier these days, we have really been working to find ways to deal with all of her sensory issues. She still has tough days and there are things that will always be a challenge for her but the improvement is pretty great. I am really thankful for that.

good weekend

How was your weekend? We enjoyed lots of good fresh outdoor time together! The girls were on a ladybug hunt gathering them from the leaf piles that daddy raked up and trying to give them a safer place to live...so we made ladybug houses together, it was so nice to be outdoors with the kids doing something creative. you can just see their little minds working as they are choosing the right ribbons and buttons and throwing in their little suggestions of how we should put things all together. I Love it! I posted the steps to make them with pictures here.

We had a nice breakfast with Cam's parents too which is always such a treat ( both the good eats and the good company!) Our little family is so on-the-go all week that I am finding weekends just make me breathe a little deeper. They refresh me to go for it all over again

oh and today is the last day to check this out:

Deann and Shanah are a blast they are so funny and they spotlighted my blog challenges on their "dishin the digi coast 2 coast" radio show ( near the end). New ones air every Tuesday. I got a kick out of listening to them and was totally thankful for some of the cool products that they pointed out as well. It is worth a listen for sure!

I am looking forward to seeing what this week will hold, have a happy Monday!

creaeeeeemy!

My crazy baby is at it again! this girl is gonna be quite the crafter I tell you. she is loving to get her hands dirty these days. And she is so fast!!! I have no hope of catching her before she finds herself a new medium to create with LOL! Today she was "painting" her little stool with toothpaste, her hands were coated and she was delighted with her creation. This past weekend she went up to Emy's room with her and while Emy was looking away to set up a little checker game Bella thought she could use some of Emilea's cream! ( see photos!) not just a dab though, she dug in and felt extremely beautiful becoming "creaeeemy" I LOVE this kid. We all get such a laugh from her little antics. What fun it must be to dig in and discover all of these textures for the first time. I would just love to be 2 for a day!!!

Here is a layout I did last month about her getting into Emy's lipstick ( my blog challenge was to centre the focal point and add a photo story)

sharing

sharing happiness. I love to do it. No matter what is going on in your world, when you take the bit of extra time to care, to smile, to make a difference in someones day it bounces right back to you and fills your heart every time. My mom used to always tell me "what you put out comes back your way". It sure does. Smart lady that mom of mine :) You know, we are all just too busy these days, really. And it is far too easy to just be busy being busy. stopping just long enough to share some happiness blesses me a hundred times more than the person I stopped for every time guaranteed!!! So Lovely.

I was busy myself tonight, I have worked all night on some fun things for CK and Cam will start his work day later tomorrow so I can get some sleep , just one of the ways we are making things work for our family. In the quiet of the wee hours I always get thinking so these these are my 4 am thoughts and some purple flowers from our trip to Niagara Falls! forget scrapping challenges for this post, my challenge to you today is a different one...stop and share some happy with someone in your world.

DVD filming week

As promised here is a little tour of my filming week in Minneapolis

The set!....so pretty

We filmed at a local store called Artsy Tartsy. Julia, The owner stopped by and we got a photo. She was really nice

getting ready for the next segment. organizing projects , reading over my notes etc.

Lovely PAs Robin and Sarah. They have been totally amazing to work with! I even got to join Robin out for soup one night with her huband and baby girl

and these are my camera peoples, Bob and Dave. really nice guys

The whole thing was a lot of fun, I can't wait to see how it comes together! come on over here to see my little behind the scenes video. I know, I am silly, but the kids loved the "tour"

ETA: just for you miss Amanda Dykan; my hair is au natural LOL!!!

gallery updating

I haven't added layouts to my galleries since before Christmas! yikes, guess it's about time hey?! here is a few from some of my past CK blog challenges

this challenge was to scrap "just for fun" , I just had to have fun with this photo of Emilea slipping backwards off of her sled, she was SO surprised! lol! a sneak-peek at a couple of my CK fonts coming soon, there on the photo.

this was a challenge to " dress up your stash" I had these slide mounts sitting here forever and just didn't know what to do with them...a little dressing up and they made the perfect little frames for my photos and jounaling.

side note: wow I can't believe how Tiara had changed since last summer!


and this challenge was to let a special photo speak to you. hidden journaling is here
I can't get enough of these Kraft papers from making memories! Love em

I'll keep adding more pages as I have some time :)

happy Thursday

and...

I almost forgot to share the featured layout by Amy Martin for our last challenge to scrap asymmetrical! I love her example of good off-centred scrapping, her cute cute daughter, the cluster of goodies around the photos and awesome white space on the left! this page just makes me happy!!! way to go Amy :)

like to sew?

we're talking about stitches this week on my CK blog challenge. both digi and real...a bit of a hybrid challenge. I've put up some links to my favorite digi stitches and a new layout. come and play!!!

funny baby

Kaiella is 2 1/2 and I am happy to report she has a well in tact sense of self worth LOL! this little conversation we have been having makes me giggle...takes me by surprise each time

me: "You are such a special girl!"

Bella: "yes I am!" ...."and wonderful!!!!" said in her little sing song toddler voice like there is nothing she could be more sure of in the world

how great for this little girl to feel so very sure that she is totally special and wonderful! Got to just keep building that up and storing it in her little heart for all of the years where it will really make a difference to feel important and loved :)

note: the red bump on her head was fresh from walking into the kitchen wall LOL! self esteem is fine, now we just have to work on coordination!!!

Happy Easter!

Just sharing a few happy little Easter faces!

Sending out our wishes for an Easter weekend filled with blessings and good times with people you care about doing what makes you happy :)

We had a nice dinner with Cam's family on Friday, and supper with my family today. Our girls all enjoyed the hunt for goodies on Sunday morning and even Bear got an extra long walk with the whole family! It was good. Pretty low key this year, we all needed that, and so it was just perfect.

I got back on Thursday night from a week of filming in Minneapolis. It was so nice to have all those little " mommmy!!!!!" voices all greeting me at the airport. I sure love those warm squishy little girl hugs. I'll have to load my photos from the trip and write about that too ( I did have a wee bit of adventure along with the fun, but that is another post)

it's good to be back, good to be loved, good to be feeling thankful for such great friends and family :)

a guiding hand

We have had a nice spring break week. The girls have really enjoyed being all together. This has got to be one of my favorite sister moments though. We went for a really great visit with our little friends Ella and Ben and the kids spent some time getting totally drenched splashing in puddles, I looked up to see, as I often do, Emilea being such a loving and sweet big sister to little Kaiella; guiding her through the puddle after Bella had fallen and gotten soaked. What a good feeling it must be for little Bella to have this wonderful older girl who loves her so dearly right there to be her guide and be her friend. It is these moments as a mom that are so rewarding.