Living The Dream

Beach Weekend in Pictures...

We had an amazing time at the beach over the holiday weekend. My family has been staying out at the beach together for as long as I can remember and it's neat to see the next generation of the family enjoy this tradition now too. The boys were in total heaven...they were both happy and content the whole time and Tom and I kept saying to each other "Why don't we do this more often?!" There was a small problem with the sleeping situation, so we ended up making the hour trek home each night so that everyone could get a good night's sleep. There was a large and LOUD family also staying there that thought it was fun to stay up till 2am and hang out in the pool area of the hotel. :P Anyhow, we had a great time otherwise....here are some pics...

Brady thought it was HILARIOUS being buried in the sand with his big bro...

We're convinced Jackson is going to be a surfer when he gets big...he could live at the beach...

 

Brady enjoying the sand in his toes...and trying to figure it all out! lol.

 

There were LOTS of fish in the water...J got a kick out of that!

Brady in his very own beach chair...

oooooh, whirlygigs....

and finally, Jackson's new favorite sport...Paddleball...I remember playing with this exact set of paddles when I was a kid. :) 

So, there you have it...hope everyone had a great holiday weekend! Back to reality now that it's 13 minutes until it's Monday. :P

One more thing, I managed to scrap tonight while l took a break from editing pics....lots of Fiskars goodness here...Lil' Davis felt flowers, Heidi Grace papers, rubons and stickers...also added some yummy AC ribbon and my favorite Thickers font, Poolside.

Cuties...

I got to photograph 2 cute little guys the other day....their Mom is part of the Mom's group I belong to and asked to me take some photos of her boys. Aren't they just adorable?

Our HOF challenge this month over at CK was Little Yellow Bicycle...they have such pretty products!! It was fun to scrap girly for once! ;)

It's been a really busy couple of weeks! And this week, we've been painting my scraproom (yes, I FINALLY decided on a color. lol.) and trying to plan out all the little finishing touches I'm hoping to add.  Tomorrow we're heading to the beach for the holiday weekend...3 nights and 4 days w/no plans other than getting a suntan and building sandcastles. I can't wait! :)

Day at the Zoo...

It's been a busy week...Jackson had his last two swimming lessons this week. Today was the last day...he enjoyed it, but when I told him it was the last day he said "oh great Mom, because it's boring". lol. I guess the new-ness of it all wore off pretty quickly. He did learn a lot though...he was the star of his little group. He can dive down to the bottom of the shallow end to get a dive ring and is swimming about 5 or so feet unassisted. Now we just have to keep him in the pool this summer so he can keep practicing what he learned. Shouldn't be a problem with this summer heat! :P

Tuesday, we invited Linda and Robby to the zoo. We stayed for almost 6 hours and the boys had so much fun! It was great catching up with Linda too! Robby was great at spotting these cool grasshoppers in the bushes:

Brady had the best time...pointing and practically jumping up and down at every animal he saw. It was pretty cute. He especially loved all the birds we saw.

And my favorite part...feeding the giraffe!

And the boys totally didn't want their picture taken, but we somehow managed to get them to pose for this one shot. (Excuse Jackson's red mouth...he had just had a strawberry snowcone!)

 

Okay, it's way too late and we have another big day tomorrow...Happy Thursday! :)

A Washout...

I'm pretty sure it has rained more in the past two days than it has in the last 6-months total. There were drops at our house from morning till night both yesterday and today.Good thing we had something to keep us distracted...yes, we finally got a Wii. We'd been going back and forth about whether or not to get one and actually saw a few at Best Buy a few weeks ago, but passed. Then, of course, once we decided that we really wanted one there weren't any to be found. :P The guy at Target tipped us off though that they would have some today...Tom waited in line at 7am and walked in and surprised Jackson around 8:15. He couldn't be more excited and we didn't feel quite so bad for letting him play it a ton today, since it was a nasty day outside anyhow. I'd love to hear what your favorite Wii games are...we got Mario Party 8, Wii Play, Game Party and M&M's Racing (to hold us over till we can find Mario Kart!)...J is really loving the sports games too and he's gotten pretty good already at bowling and tennis.

And these are for Hayley...the SOOC pics from Friday's post along with the ones I used Mindy's actions on.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Hope you all have a good start to the week! :)

Actions...

Lisa is my enabler. She's always sending me links to fun and cool things that I just have to have. She knows how much I appreciate it. ;) Anyhow, yesterday she sent me this link to Mindy Bush's photo actions. I've never used actions before to edit my photos, so I've been really hesitant up until now to buy any. I love Mindy's photos and B&W conversions was something I've been struggling with lately, so I bit the bullet and ordered Mindy's actions. I am so so happy that I did. Here are a few photos I played with real quick last night...

I used her Creamy BW action here:

Here's Colorful Kick:

And Give Me Color:

Those are the ones I've fiddled with so far and I'm so happy with them. If you're in the market for some actions, definitely check those out!

And I scrapped! More yummy Fiksars stuff here...this time cool paper, buttons and felt ribbon from Lil' Davis.

And have you heard about BHG's Ultimate Summer Challenge? It's a 10-week challenge where each week you create a layout based on a different challenge. There are prizes for each week's winner and the grand prize is $2500! Here is my layout for the "Raid Your Sticker Stash" challenge. You can vote for your favorite here. ;)

Happy Thursday!!

Projects...

I hope everyone had a nice Father's day weekend. Ours was great...nice and low-key, which is so rare for us. We like to be on the go, but it's so great to wind down and stay at home every now and then too. Lisa ended up closing the store for Father's Day, so we got to spend the day together just being lazy and playing with the boys. Tom was relieved...he didn't like the idea of spending his Father's Day watching the boys by himself. :) It rained the whole afternoon on Sunday and Jackson was begging to go outside to play in it...there was no lighting, so we said okay. They got out the hose too and were spraying each other...it was pretty funny to watch!

Today while the boys were napping, I made this cute little frame project for my Aunt who is having a birthday tomorrow. I used this font and my Quickutz Silhouette to cut out the martini glass shape and then just added some bling to the pick and olive. I'm really happy with the way it came out and it only took me like 20 minutes to make!

I also wanted to share this page I made with some Fiskars products. The great folks at Fiskars were nice enough to send me some products to play with. How cute are these Heidi Grace papers and embellies? And now I'm totally addicted to their new Threading Water punch...it made that cute scalloped edge at the bottom!

Okay, the boys are up and ready to play...more Fiskars projects later this week! Happy Tuesday! :)

Friday...

I couldn't come up with an interesting title today, so "Friday" will have to do. Plus I had my whole post almost completely typed up and my computer froze. grrrr! Anyhow, I'm SO glad it's finally the weekend. Even though I have to work tonight and Sunday at RR, I'm looking forward to a little bit of downtime with Tom being here to help out with the boys. We'll be celebrating Father's Day on Saturday since I'm working on Sunday...my Mom is taking us to lunch and Jackson can't wait to give Tom his gifts. He's a horrible secret keeper...this morning he was hinting around to Daddy trying to tell him about his gifts w/out really just coming out and saying it. It was pretty funny!

I did manage to finish a layout last night, but it's not one I can share. I have two cards that I can share, though. I've been really trying to use my stamps more over the past couple of months. I just adore this star stamp from Fontwerks!

And the flower for this card came about while Theresa and I were working on a project for the store one Sunday afternoon. I just used some glossy accents in the center of the flower and sprinkled those teeny tiny Queen and Co. beads in the center. I love the way it turned out!

And of course, I have to share a photo too. Jackson has been SO anti camera lately, so another of Brady for now. See that dimple on his right...he only has one, but boy do I love it so! :)

Have a great weekend! :)

Our Family...

...according to Jackson:

I wish the concrete wasn't wet from Tom just washing the car, but I just love his little drawing and think it's so cute that he and Brady are appropriately sized. :) And if you're wondering, I'm the one with no mouth...that's because he NEVER listens to me anyway. :P

My boys love playing with chalk...we haven't been outside much, because it's insanely hot, but sometimes before bedtime we'll head out for a little while. And yeah, my boys hate wearing pants. lol. As soon as we get home, they both prefer to be in their underwear. :)

Also, a couple of quick things. Did you see that Creating Keepsakes is giving away a Nikon camera? Super easy to enter and what a great prize...check it out here. And American Crafts is having a photo contest...just enter your fabulous photo and you could win a super nice prize pack from AC...those details are here.

I'm hoping to have some scrappies to post tomorrow, but if not, have a great weekend! :)

Busy Busy Busy...

Things have been busy here, as usual. I'm running on just 5 or so hours of sleep a night and I'm hoping I don't lose steam anytime soon, since there is always so much to do. :P

Over the weekend, my Mom and I went shopping in Orlando. We had a blast and it was so nice to have a day with my Mom without the kids. We picked up the few remaining things I needed at IKEA so Tom and I can finish up my scraproom. I bought a couple more cabinets that hang on the wall, but the kitchen lady who helped me failed to mention that I also needed to purchase a bracket in order to hang them up. grrrr! Luckily, my Mom is heading back to Orlando with friends next weekend, so she'll be able to pick up the bracket for me. I also got more storage boxes and a hanging pendant light for over my desk. My Expedit bookcase is so perfectly organized now. I can't wait to share pics when everything is done! :)

I have lots of scrappy assignments and things to get done this week, but I did manage to make a couple of pages for fun in the past few days. Here is the layout I posted last week with a few additions...funny how when something is sitting on your desk for too long,  you find things to add! lol. I found these Fancy Pants felt shapes while I was organizing and thought they'd be perfect:

Here's one I did just for fun w/some recent photos of Brady signing...I had a tough time with this one. :P

And here's one I've been wanting to scrap since Christmas...with some photos from our Ruban Rouge staff Christmas party:

And because a post is no good without a photo, here's a sweet one of Tom and Brady from last night. He's such a Mama's boy, but he loves his Daddy too. :)

Summer Treat...

We had lunch with my Mom and Aunt yesterday like we do every week. And every week, my Aunt brings presents for the boys. Jackson, of course, really looks forward to our lunch dates! lol. He and I were in Target a few weeks ago and spotted a snowcone machine...he was immediately convinced he *needed* one and then told me he was going to tell Aunt Di about it. Well, he's pretty spoiled, so guess who got a new snowcone machine yesterday?

Guess who else loves snowcones? heeeee! :)

What kinds of treats does your family like to have in the summer? I'd love to hear!