The birthday girl!

Here are a few of my favorite birthday pictures of our lovely little daughter. I can't believe she is going to be two years old in just a week - although, she has had some recent temper tantrums which make me realize that the twos have hit already!! :-)

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

I hope that all of you out in the blog world are having a good weekend! We spent most of yesterday out at the family cabin getting it ready for everyone to enjoy this summer. I can't wait to stretch out with a good book on the beach while the kids swim and play!

Today we have been just hanging out around the house getting odd jobs done and cleaning. While all of you who know me know that cleaning is not my "thing", it does feel like an accomplishment to get things picked up and cleaned around here. After my DH gets done mowing the yard, we're going to head out to a baseball tournament that our oldest is playing in. I don't know how we're going to spend Memorial Day tomorrow. We may take the kids out to the cabin or we might just hang out at home and do nothing (or maybe, just maybe doing some crafting!!)

The card today is easy enough. The stamps sets used are Embrace Life and Sincere Salutations both by SU! The papers are Ginger Blossom Designer Series Paper, Ruby Red, Whisper White and Groovy Guava. I used Ruby Red ink to stamp the flower and sentiment and used a Blender Pen with the Groovy Guava stamp pad to color them in. The ribbon is True Thyme and I dazzled it up using diamond Stickles on the flowers. There you go - a birthday card whipped out in about ten minutes!

We're going to be getting ready for birthday parties this coming weekend - so wish us luck as we celebrate one and two year old's birthdays on Saturday!! As soon as I have time to get on the laptop, I will post a couple pictures of our DD's 2 year old pictures. They turned out great!!

Have a wonderful week!

Whew! Another week down....

Well, we've survived another week around here and head into another busy week!! This past week we had baseball games every night of the week - which wouldn't have been so bad, by my DH was out of town on a work-related trip. The boys were supposed to have camped with their Boy Scout Troop this weekend, but everyone is just toooooo busy and they didn't have enough adults to go and only a few boys signed up. I guess another time. Friday the 23rd is the boys' last day of school, so they are very excited about that. I can't say that I'm THAT excited - but I'll manage!

This morning DH and our oldest son went out to the family cabin to get some much needed work done so that we will be able to enjoy going to the lake this summer. So, instead of sleeping in and being lazy (which is what I really wanted to do) the other two kids and I walked up to Village Inn for breakfast and then we took our darling little girl to get her pictures taken for her upcoming 2nd birthday. We went to Portrait Innovations because I love how they are able to take candid pictures and then have them printed and ready to take home about 20 minutes after the "shoot" is over. But, today their printer was broken so I have to wait until tomorrow to run back to the mall and get them. However, that's okay because I saw a cute outfit in the window of Christopher and Banks that I might have to go look at when I pick up the pictures! :-) The pictures were so cute that I may have to make time for an extra posting this week and put a couple of them up on here!

I did get some card making done this week and really cleaned up the craft room in the process. I think that is a never ending task because I just can't seem to get things organized just how I'd like them. But oh well. This card is for a swap on SCS that I'm signed up for. I'd give you all the details, but I'm in a hurry to get sleeping beauty up from her little nap so we can run middle son to his baseball game. I'm going to drop him off and run back to our neighborhood Starbucks so that I can try out their new Mint Chocolate Chip Frap. Thanks for the gift card, Mom!!!!

Have a great week and happy stamping to you!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there!! I've had a very enjoyable Mother's Day so far. I got to sleep in (and that's worth a ton!!), got a camcorder from the kids, and we went to the Omaha Zoo for a couple of hours this morning. This afternoon we will go to oldest son's baseball game and then to my mother in law's for dinner. All in all, a pretty good day! The only thing that would make it better would be more time to stamp!! (Maybe after we get home tonight and the kids are in bed!)

Here is the Mother's Day card we will be giving my MIL this afternoon. Can you tell I like making very simple cards? This one is not elaborate because I just don't have the time to doll up the cards like other people do - and it's just really not my style. The "M" comes from SU!'s Headline Alphabet set and the flower for the "O" is the big flower from Looks Like Spring. The center has a circle punched out of Chocolate Chip cardstock and a Bashful Blue brad. We got my MIL a digital picture frame for Mother's Day - so that will be fun to get set up at her house. I can't show you the fun little item that I have altered to give my mom because I know she will be looking at my blog shortly. So, everyone will have to wait until she comes to town for our daughter's birthday party to get her present - then I will post a picture of it!

Everyone have a great rest of the day and I will see you next weekend with something new that I have stamped!!

Happy May!

It's hard to believe that May is already here! Did you do anything fun for May Day? I was thinking back about when I was younger how we always took May baskets to school - but nobody does this any more, do they?

We've had a super busy weekend with baseball games galore. However, fear not - I've made some time to post a couple of cards this weekend.

This first card is a 6 x 6 square card using a base of Real Red. The floral stamp set is Mixed Bouquet and the wording is also a SU! set called Simple Sayings II. The strip across the middle is vellum. I like making square cards, but they require extra postage, so I hardly ever send them to anyone. It's a very simple card, but I like the way it turned out. Simple. Clean. Pretty.

We will be gearing up around here as we prepare to host birthday parties at the end of the month for our young girly-girl who is going to be two and her cousin from MN who will be one year old very soon. It's going to be a great time to have all kinds of family and friends over to celebrate two very fun kids!

The second card is our daughter's birthday invitation. Again, very simple - but I like how it turned out. I used Bashful Blue cardstock and punched out a square so that I could mount her picture behind the cutout in the inside of the card. Her picture is mounted on a square of Real Red c/s which is layered on a piece of Summer Picnic designer series paper. The "cigar" band around the card is a strip of Real Red with the scalloped circle punch in Old Olive with a circle of Real Red on top with the strawberry from the Tart & Tangy set. (How many times have I posted using this set??? I love it, can you tell?) The inside just has the details of the party, inviting everyone to come have a "berry" good time with us! She has a sundress that has strawberries on it and matches this color combo perfectly, so why not coordinate her invites with the dress she'll wear at her party. And, those of you who know me...of course her cake will have to coordinate too!! I'll have to post pictures of that when the party happens!

Well, that's all for this week. My DH is running boys around to ball games right now so that our little girl can catch a quick nap before the rest of the day turns into baseball watching time. She was born during baseball season two years ago, so she's spent a lot of time at the ball diamond! She actually sits in her stroller great watching the games, as long as we keep her supply of M & Ms coming.

Have a great week! Hope you come back next weekend to see what's been going on around here!!